April 14, 2025 • 24 mins
I tend to get weird looks when I say I'm in a Mastermind group, but my writing career wouldn't be where it is today without them. In this week’s episode, we'll talk about what these are, what they do for you as a writer, and how to start and structure your own Mastermind group.
For show notes and a full transcript of this episode, please visit: https://www.sarahwerner.com/
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Happy writing!
— Sarah
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
This is the Write NowPodcast with Sarah Werner,
Episode 166 (00:03):
The Power Of A Mastermind Group.
(00:27):
Welcome to Write Now, the podcastthat helps all writers - aspiring,
professional, and otherwise- to find the time, energy,
and courage you need topursue your passion and write.
I'm your host, Sarah Werner,
and today we're going to betalking about mastermind groups.
I know with that word, immediately,
(00:49):
many of you are imagining mestanding on top of a volcano
underneath, which is my secret evil layer,
and there's a whole bunch of sharks inthe water below with lasers on their
heads just ready to eat any ofmy adversaries that may drop in,
excuse the pun, but like I said,
this is not that kind of mastermind.It is not an evil mastermind.
(01:13):
Hopefully, at least the ones that I'vebeen a part of have not been evil.
So joining a mastermind group doesn'tmean that you are interested in becoming a
super villain. Now,
before I go any further andstart talking about sharks again,
I'll go ahead and define what I meanby a mastermind group. So basically,
in my experience,
this has been a small group of individualswho are interested in mentoring
(01:38):
each other and challengingeach other to grow further,
develop their skills and take risks.
The first mastermind group Ijoined was, gosh, way back in,
it must have been 2015.
It was very close to when I firststarted the Write Now podcast.
And you may have heard me mentionmastermind groups on the show before.
(02:00):
There were four of us all in similarprofessions with similar goals,
although I have also been inmastermind groups where everyone is
in a different field or movingtoward a different goal.
So you can have either of those, andthis will make more sense as we continue.
But the four of us would meetweekly for 45 minutes to an hour,
(02:22):
and we'd spend maybe the first fewminutes chatting and catching up.
But we took this group very seriously,
which is another component ofbeing in a mastermind group.
Everybody was committed to being thereand learning and helping each other.
So after two or threeminutes of small talk,
we would get down to business first.
We would each go aroundand do a quick update,
(02:44):
five minutes on our goalsgoing into this group,
we each had something thatwe wanted to accomplish.
It just so happened that all four of uswere looking to leave our day jobs and
become self-employed.
I was a writer slashpodcaster slash marketer,
and we had a couple of softwaredevelopers and a marketing consultant.
(03:07):
So the first 20 minutes of the meeting,
five minutes times four peoplewould be each of us saying,
here's the goal that I set atthe end of last week's meeting.
So for instance,
I had set a goal to grow mylistenership of the right now
podcast by 5% or 20%,
and I would come back with themetrics and say, okay, I got 7%,
(03:31):
and maybe the next member hada goal of setting up an LLC.
So their update would be eitherthey did or did not create an
LLC that stands forlimited liability company,
and it was this person's next steptoward their goal of becoming a freelance
software developer.
Another person may have had a more salesoriented goal and maybe their goal was
(03:54):
to contact X number of people who mightbe interested in working with them as a
marketing consultant, et cetera.
We would then spend the next chunk ofthe meeting, say the next 10 minutes,
sharing our thoughts on thenext chapter of the book.
We were all reading together a lot ofthe books I've mentioned before in this
podcast, such as The BigLeap by Gay Hendricks.
(04:16):
I initially read in this mastermind group,
and then after we had discussed what wethought about the latest chapter in the
book, we would move on towhat was called the hot seat.
And I've seen different mastermindgroups do this in different ways,
and we'll talk a little bit aboutthat in just a moment. But my group,
we focused on one person inthe hot seat per meeting.
(04:38):
So there were four of us, andessentially we met four times a month.
And so once a month you couldcount on being in the hot seat.
And you may be wondering,what is the hot seat? Well,
for me at least,
this was probably where Ifound the most difficulty,
but also the most reward. Basically,if you're in the hot seat,
(05:00):
you talk about next steps.So if you've been busy,
say writing a shortstory, then you'll say,
my next step is to submit thisshort story to this magazine,
this magazine and this magazine. Or ifyou're looking to do freelance writing,
you might say your nextstep is getting this new
(05:20):
customer or getting five new customersor adding ghost writing to your
repertoire, finishing the nextchapter of your novel, et cetera.
You'd talk about what you wanted andthen what challenges you were maybe
expecting to face along the way andwhy you thought this was the next best
step.
And then it was the rest of thegroup's job to ask you very challenging
(05:44):
questions to challenge you andmake sure you were really on the
right path. So they might say,
last time your goal was tofinish a chapter of your novel and you couldn't make
that happen.
What are you going to do differently thistime to ensure that you actually live
up to your promise and finishthis next chapter of your novel?
(06:04):
And if that sounds a littleaggressive to you, yes,
it actually was fairly aggressive.
I remember one time I wantedto commit to speaking at a
conference and I really wanted to goand all of these really cool industry
people were going to be there, andI love public speaking weirdly.
(06:25):
So I was very gung-ho,
and my goal was to get acceptedto speak at this conference.
And my fellow mastermind memberschallenged me and they said, okay,
how much will this gig pay?And I was like, pay no,
you guys don't understand. This is areally good opportunity. And they said,
Sarah,
your goal is to build up your financialrunway so that you can leave your day
(06:49):
job and support yourself.
You're talking about paying money tofly to whatever state it was in and
stay at a hotel that's expensive,that costs money. And I was like,
well,
maybe I can see if they will comp myroom and my flights if I'm accepted as a
speaker. And they would challenge back.So is this a good use of your time?
(07:10):
Is this in line with what you said youwanted? And sometimes the answer was yes,
and sometimes the answer was no,
but it was their job to veryaggressively challenge me
and really get to the bottom ofwhy I was making certain decisions.
And we all did this for each other.
I remember one of the others wanted toget their social media following on a
(07:33):
certain platform to a certainnumber by the next meeting.
And I remember challengingthem and saying,
what does your social media followernumber have to do with the success
of this business that you want to start?
And we had met for years at this point,
and so brusk questions weren't insulting.
That was just what we knew to expectfrom the meeting. And he said, well,
(07:57):
that's me building my brand.That's me putting myself out there.
And I had to tell him, your socialmedia followers are not customers.
How do you work on buildingyour customers? Social media can be a part of that,
but I don't think that's necessarilythe best goal for you this month.
And then we would discuss whether it wasor wasn't or if something else should
(08:19):
be done, et cetera.
After 30 minutes or maybe 25 minutesof grilling the person in the hot
seat, we would back off and wewould go around and state our goal,
what we were going to accomplishbefore next week's meeting.
Like I said, this was a very aggressive,
very intense kind of mastermind group.
(08:42):
They really pushed me and challenged me.
There was even one point early on wherewe talked about what is the consequence
if you don't meet your goal,
maybe you have to donate money to acharity or maybe you have to donate money
to a political candidate that youhate. I mean, that's a little extreme.
That's a little extreme. I don'tknow if I would do that today,
(09:03):
but this is where we were 10 years ago,
and while we were meeting and wemet for years, we took this very,
very seriously. If we said we weregoing to start precisely at noon,
we started precisely atnoon. We had a timer.
One of the people who was not in the hotseat that week was responsible for the
timer, and we just used asmartphone or a watch or something,
(09:27):
but we made sure that we were allequally committed to pushing each
other to grow and to growing ourselves.
This group was where Ilearned how to start an LLC.
This group was where I learned how tobuild my financial runway so that when I
quit my job,
I wouldn't immediately fall intothe gutter and become bankrupt
(09:51):
forever.
I even learned the ins and outs of openingup a business credit card and having
multiple income streams.
And it was helpful since we all camefrom slightly different backgrounds,
yet we were all sort of unified inwhat we were all reaching toward.
I was in this mastermind groupfor maybe four or five years,
and eventually three out of the four ofus left the workforce and started our
(10:15):
own businesses.
And I honestly don't know ifI would've had not only the
courage,
but the knowledge and the confidenceto quit my day job and work
for myself if it hadn't been forthis group. There were also benefits,
like one of the mastermindmembers would say, oh, hey,
(10:36):
you're looking for marketing clients.
I've got a buddy who works overhere and is looking for a marketing
consultant. I'll connect thetwo of you. And I would say, oh,
you're struggling with thewording on your sales page here.
I'll look it over and giveyou my thoughts. And honestly,
we all just became very good friends.
(10:56):
We started out initially knowingwho each other was and trusting
each other and admiring each other intheir work and in their goal setting and
commitment and all of that stuff. Now,
this was not the only mastermindgroup that I was ever part of.
I was fortunate enough to be invitedto join a women's small business
(11:17):
owner mastermind maybe a yearor so after I struck out on my
own to start my own business.
And this was a little bit of a differentexperience because it was different
people and we had a littlebit of a different structure.
We were still all extremely committedto showing up and showing up on time to
starting on time and keeping an eye onthe clock. And instead of a hot seat,
(11:39):
we made it more of acommunal challenging session.
So we would start maybe five minutesand just kind of go around the
table and review what ourgoals were for the week,
and then each person would get 10minutes to talk about a problem they were
facing or a challenge in their businessor something they needed help with,
(12:01):
whatever it was they were strugglingwith that week. Within those 10 minutes,
they would get feedbackfrom the rest of the group.
And I think there werefive of us this time.
I don't know if that math worksout, but I think we each got, yes,
I think we each got 10 minutes,
and then we had a five minute bumperon either side to make an hour meeting.
But yeah,
we would go around and each person wouldessentially be in not necessarily a hot
(12:26):
seat, so much as just in the spotlightgoing through what it was that they were
dealing with a failed businesslaunch, having to fire an employee,
not understanding how to file their taxesfor the quarter, et cetera, et cetera.
For both of these groups,
there were consequences that we all agreedon ahead of time if you couldn't make
(12:46):
it to the meeting. Wetook this very seriously,
and before we joined and beforewe created these groups, we said,
we want to be committed.
And so you're allowed oneabsence and then after that,
if you skip a meeting, if you miss ameeting, then you're out of the group.
Again, very, very aggressive,but it also worked.
(13:07):
It helped us come together ontime when we were supposed to,
and it kept us reallydedicated to each other.
If you start one of these yourself,you do not have to go this hard.
You don't have to haveconsequences and strict timers.
But I did find that that was very useful,
that that structure kept usall moving forward together.
(13:31):
We had accountability andtrust with each other.
I don't know if this makes a difference,
but they were also bothwithin my own community,
so I was physically presentat these meetings. Again,
this was before the pandemic.
I know that today a lot of mastermindmeetings happen on Zoom or whatever other
digital platform you may haveaccess to. Now, eventually,
(13:53):
both of these groups stoppedeach for a different reason.
The first group stopped when the leaderof the group who sort of had the most
defacto business experience and hadinitially formed the group in the first
place.
He announced during one of our meetingsthat he was going to start charging
(14:13):
for membership,
and we all knew that this waspart of his business plan.
He wanted to mentor otherbusiness owners, et cetera.
But it made things feela little bit weird,
mostly because the price tagwas a thousand dollars a month
and I suddenly could not afford tobe a part of this mastermind group
(14:35):
anymore. I remember wepushed back a little bit,
but the justification forthe price tag was, oh,
if you have a reallysolid investment in it,
then you'll really take it seriously.
But we were already taking it seriously,
and also I did not have anextra thousand dollars a month
(14:58):
conveniently laying around.
And so my time in that mastermind groupcame to an end and I ended up taking
away a lot. Again,
I would not probably have left my jobto start my own business without that
group, without their guidanceand mentorship and encouragement.
So I am very grateful todaythat I got to be a part of that.
(15:21):
The second group sortof disbanded over time.
One person stopped coming tomeetings or only came to one a month
when we were meeting weekly,
and then another member startedto not make meetings consistently
and then covid hit.
(15:41):
So I guess that's the mainreason, but I noticed a trend.
I think that when the groupstarts to weather like that,
it's time to either doubledown on committing to the group
or disbanding the group, startinga new mastermind somewhere,
whatever would work bestfor you in that situation.
But I learned a lot from both of thesegroups and I made some excellent close
(16:04):
friends who I still talk to today and whoI still ask for business advice today.
Now, Sarah, you may be saying, Idon't want to start a business.
I don't want an LLC or maybe evenI don't want to quit my day job.
Why would I join a mastermind group?
So let me tell you aboutmy third mastermind group,
(16:25):
and this one I formed with threeother writers I knew who were
sort of on the samewavelength as me in a way.
They wanted sort of the same things,
and they were all very hardworkers, and we got along well,
and we all had somethingdifferent to offer.
I had over a decade at thatpoint of marketing experience,
(16:48):
one of the members was aneditor for a publishing company,
and the other two members were sixfigure selling romance authors.
We all had something to learn from eachother, and we all had something to give.
This was my first mastermind group thatI did over Zoom and we would meet in the
evenings for two hours. It wasa little bit more laid back.
(17:10):
There weren't penaltiesfor missing it or anything.
It was more just for writers talkingabout what they were dealing with,
what challenges they were struggling with,and then what could be done about it.
Overall, it was extremely helpful,
and also I became better friendswith the other three writers.
So if this is something thatsounds interesting to you,
(17:31):
something you're looking to explore,
I really encourage you to eitherstart your own mastermind group,
maybe talk with some other writersabout possibly starting one or looking
for a mastermind group to join.If you're starting your own,
I would definitely recommend that youkeep the group a little bit smaller and
(17:53):
maybe even hand pick who you'd liketo be in a mastermind group with.
Make sure when you set out that youhave very clear rules and expectations
for either being in thegroup, staying in the group,
or simply existing within the group.
You want to make sure that everyonejoining is at the same level of commitment
and that they're there to give youadvice and to challenge you and not just
(18:17):
take, maybe you want tohave a timer running,
maybe you don't maybe want aweekly or monthly hot seat.
Maybe you don't maybe want todo the book club component.
Maybe you don't maybe even want to adda critique exchange component where you
give each other sections of yourwork to look at, to criticize,
(18:37):
to mark up with a red pen to talk about,
to analyze whatever it is thatwould be most helpful for you.
I think most importantly though, knowwhat you want out of the experience.
I definitely encourage you to go intoan endeavor like this with clarity and
purpose. If you want to start a writer'shangout, that is also equally fine.
(18:59):
Or a writing group,
which I've talked about in a previousepisode of the Write Now podcast,
episode 35, the Power of a Writer's Group.
But I think most importantly,
if someone wants you to pay athousand dollars a month to be in
their mastermind group,say no and walk away.
Unless you're really independentlywealthy and you don't know what to do with
(19:22):
all of your cash, in which case,
please also find a worthy causein your community to donate to.
In addition to joining the thousanddollars a Month Mastermind group.
A lot of my success today as a writer,
as a small business owner is due tothe series of mastermind groups that
I've joined over theyears. So I'm curious,
(19:45):
have you ever been in amastermind group before? If so,
did you have a positive experience?What did you benefit from?
What did you dislike? Whatdid you love about it?
Or if you're thinking aboutstarting your own mastermind group,
what do you want it to look like? Whatkind of people do you want beside you?
(20:05):
How strict do you want it to be?
What is your overall focus and how canyou do the most good for each of your
fellow members?
I would love to hear yourthoughts on mastermind groups.
You can comment on today's episode.
So this is episode 1 66over@sarahwerner.com. That's
(20:27):
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It's underneath thetranscript and everything,
so you might be scrolling for a while,and there you'll see a comment section.
I do read and respond to everysingle comment I get on the website,
and I would love to hear your perspective.
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(20:49):
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(21:11):
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(21:34):
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(21:56):
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(22:17):
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(22:39):
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(22:59):
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(23:20):
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It means the world to me. And with that,
this has been episode 1 66of the Write Now Podcast,
(23:40):
the podcast that helps all writers,aspiring professional, and otherwise,
to find the time, energy,
and courage you need to pursueyour passion. And right,
I'm Sarah Werner, andI'm cheering for you.
This is the Write NowPodcast with Sarah Werner,
Episode 166 (00:03):
The Power Of A Mastermind Group.
(00:27):
Welcome to Write Now, the podcastthat helps all writers - aspiring,
professional, and otherwise- to find the time, energy,
and courage you need topursue your passion and write.
I'm your host, Sarah Werner,
and today we're going to betalking about mastermind groups.
I know with that word, immediately,
(00:49):
many of you are imagining mestanding on top of a volcano
underneath, which is my secret evil layer,
and there's a whole bunch of sharks inthe water below with lasers on their
heads just ready to eat any ofmy adversaries that may drop in,
excuse the pun, but like I said,
this is not that kind of mastermind.It is not an evil mastermind.
(01:13):
Hopefully, at least the ones that I'vebeen a part of have not been evil.
So joining a mastermind group doesn'tmean that you are interested in becoming a
super villain. Now,
before I go any further andstart talking about sharks again,
I'll go ahead and define what I meanby a mastermind group. So basically,
in my experience,
this has been a small group of individualswho are interested in mentoring
(01:38):
each other and challengingeach other to grow further,
develop their skills and take risks.
The first mastermind group Ijoined was, gosh, way back in,
it must have been 2015.
It was very close to when I firststarted the Write Now podcast.
And you may have heard me mentionmastermind groups on the show before.
(02:00):
There were four of us all in similarprofessions with similar goals,
although I have also been inmastermind groups where everyone is
in a different field or movingtoward a different goal.
So you can have either of those, andthis will make more sense as we continue.
But the four of us would meetweekly for 45 minutes to an hour,
(02:22):
and we'd spend maybe the first fewminutes chatting and catching up.
But we took this group very seriously,
which is another component ofbeing in a mastermind group.
Everybody was committed to being thereand learning and helping each other.
So after two or threeminutes of small talk,
we would get down to business first.
We would each go aroundand do a quick update,
(02:44):
five minutes on our goalsgoing into this group,
we each had something thatwe wanted to accomplish.
It just so happened that all four of uswere looking to leave our day jobs and
become self-employed.
I was a writer slashpodcaster slash marketer,
and we had a couple of softwaredevelopers and a marketing consultant.
(03:07):
So the first 20 minutes of the meeting,
five minutes times four peoplewould be each of us saying,
here's the goal that I set atthe end of last week's meeting.
So for instance,
I had set a goal to grow mylistenership of the right now
podcast by 5% or 20%,
and I would come back with themetrics and say, okay, I got 7%,
(03:31):
and maybe the next member hada goal of setting up an LLC.
So their update would be eitherthey did or did not create an
LLC that stands forlimited liability company,
and it was this person's next steptoward their goal of becoming a freelance
software developer.
Another person may have had a more salesoriented goal and maybe their goal was
(03:54):
to contact X number of people who mightbe interested in working with them as a
marketing consultant, et cetera.
We would then spend the next chunk ofthe meeting, say the next 10 minutes,
sharing our thoughts on thenext chapter of the book.
We were all reading together a lot ofthe books I've mentioned before in this
podcast, such as The BigLeap by Gay Hendricks.
(04:16):
I initially read in this mastermind group,
and then after we had discussed what wethought about the latest chapter in the
book, we would move on towhat was called the hot seat.
And I've seen different mastermindgroups do this in different ways,
and we'll talk a little bit aboutthat in just a moment. But my group,
we focused on one person inthe hot seat per meeting.
(04:38):
So there were four of us, andessentially we met four times a month.
And so once a month you couldcount on being in the hot seat.
And you may be wondering,what is the hot seat? Well,
for me at least,
this was probably where Ifound the most difficulty,
but also the most reward. Basically,if you're in the hot seat,
(05:00):
you talk about next steps.So if you've been busy,
say writing a shortstory, then you'll say,
my next step is to submit thisshort story to this magazine,
this magazine and this magazine. Or ifyou're looking to do freelance writing,
you might say your nextstep is getting this new
(05:20):
customer or getting five new customersor adding ghost writing to your
repertoire, finishing the nextchapter of your novel, et cetera.
You'd talk about what you wanted andthen what challenges you were maybe
expecting to face along the way andwhy you thought this was the next best
step.
And then it was the rest of thegroup's job to ask you very challenging
(05:44):
questions to challenge you andmake sure you were really on the
right path. So they might say,
last time your goal was tofinish a chapter of your novel and you couldn't make
that happen.
What are you going to do differently thistime to ensure that you actually live
up to your promise and finishthis next chapter of your novel?
(06:04):
And if that sounds a littleaggressive to you, yes,
it actually was fairly aggressive.
I remember one time I wantedto commit to speaking at a
conference and I really wanted to goand all of these really cool industry
people were going to be there, andI love public speaking weirdly.
(06:25):
So I was very gung-ho,
and my goal was to get acceptedto speak at this conference.
And my fellow mastermind memberschallenged me and they said, okay,
how much will this gig pay?And I was like, pay no,
you guys don't understand. This is areally good opportunity. And they said,
Sarah,
your goal is to build up your financialrunway so that you can leave your day
(06:49):
job and support yourself.
You're talking about paying money tofly to whatever state it was in and
stay at a hotel that's expensive,that costs money. And I was like,
well,
maybe I can see if they will comp myroom and my flights if I'm accepted as a
speaker. And they would challenge back.So is this a good use of your time?
(07:10):
Is this in line with what you said youwanted? And sometimes the answer was yes,
and sometimes the answer was no,
but it was their job to veryaggressively challenge me
and really get to the bottom ofwhy I was making certain decisions.
And we all did this for each other.
I remember one of the others wanted toget their social media following on a
(07:33):
certain platform to a certainnumber by the next meeting.
And I remember challengingthem and saying,
what does your social media followernumber have to do with the success
of this business that you want to start?
And we had met for years at this point,
and so brusk questions weren't insulting.
That was just what we knew to expectfrom the meeting. And he said, well,
(07:57):
that's me building my brand.That's me putting myself out there.
And I had to tell him, your socialmedia followers are not customers.
How do you work on buildingyour customers? Social media can be a part of that,
but I don't think that's necessarilythe best goal for you this month.
And then we would discuss whether it wasor wasn't or if something else should
(08:19):
be done, et cetera.
After 30 minutes or maybe 25 minutesof grilling the person in the hot
seat, we would back off and wewould go around and state our goal,
what we were going to accomplishbefore next week's meeting.
Like I said, this was a very aggressive,
very intense kind of mastermind group.
(08:42):
They really pushed me and challenged me.
There was even one point early on wherewe talked about what is the consequence
if you don't meet your goal,
maybe you have to donate money to acharity or maybe you have to donate money
to a political candidate that youhate. I mean, that's a little extreme.
That's a little extreme. I don'tknow if I would do that today,
(09:03):
but this is where we were 10 years ago,
and while we were meeting and wemet for years, we took this very,
very seriously. If we said we weregoing to start precisely at noon,
we started precisely atnoon. We had a timer.
One of the people who was not in the hotseat that week was responsible for the
timer, and we just used asmartphone or a watch or something,
(09:27):
but we made sure that we were allequally committed to pushing each
other to grow and to growing ourselves.
This group was where Ilearned how to start an LLC.
This group was where I learned how tobuild my financial runway so that when I
quit my job,
I wouldn't immediately fall intothe gutter and become bankrupt
(09:51):
forever.
I even learned the ins and outs of openingup a business credit card and having
multiple income streams.
And it was helpful since we all camefrom slightly different backgrounds,
yet we were all sort of unified inwhat we were all reaching toward.
I was in this mastermind groupfor maybe four or five years,
and eventually three out of the four ofus left the workforce and started our
(10:15):
own businesses.
And I honestly don't know ifI would've had not only the
courage,
but the knowledge and the confidenceto quit my day job and work
for myself if it hadn't been forthis group. There were also benefits,
like one of the mastermindmembers would say, oh, hey,
(10:36):
you're looking for marketing clients.
I've got a buddy who works overhere and is looking for a marketing
consultant. I'll connect thetwo of you. And I would say, oh,
you're struggling with thewording on your sales page here.
I'll look it over and giveyou my thoughts. And honestly,
we all just became very good friends.
(10:56):
We started out initially knowingwho each other was and trusting
each other and admiring each other intheir work and in their goal setting and
commitment and all of that stuff. Now,
this was not the only mastermindgroup that I was ever part of.
I was fortunate enough to be invitedto join a women's small business
(11:17):
owner mastermind maybe a yearor so after I struck out on my
own to start my own business.
And this was a little bit of a differentexperience because it was different
people and we had a littlebit of a different structure.
We were still all extremely committedto showing up and showing up on time to
starting on time and keeping an eye onthe clock. And instead of a hot seat,
(11:39):
we made it more of acommunal challenging session.
So we would start maybe five minutesand just kind of go around the
table and review what ourgoals were for the week,
and then each person would get 10minutes to talk about a problem they were
facing or a challenge in their businessor something they needed help with,
(12:01):
whatever it was they were strugglingwith that week. Within those 10 minutes,
they would get feedbackfrom the rest of the group.
And I think there werefive of us this time.
I don't know if that math worksout, but I think we each got, yes,
I think we each got 10 minutes,
and then we had a five minute bumperon either side to make an hour meeting.
But yeah,
we would go around and each person wouldessentially be in not necessarily a hot
(12:26):
seat, so much as just in the spotlightgoing through what it was that they were
dealing with a failed businesslaunch, having to fire an employee,
not understanding how to file their taxesfor the quarter, et cetera, et cetera.
For both of these groups,
there were consequences that we all agreedon ahead of time if you couldn't make
(12:46):
it to the meeting. Wetook this very seriously,
and before we joined and beforewe created these groups, we said,
we want to be committed.
And so you're allowed oneabsence and then after that,
if you skip a meeting, if you miss ameeting, then you're out of the group.
Again, very, very aggressive,but it also worked.
(13:07):
It helped us come together ontime when we were supposed to,
and it kept us reallydedicated to each other.
If you start one of these yourself,you do not have to go this hard.
You don't have to haveconsequences and strict timers.
But I did find that that was very useful,
that that structure kept usall moving forward together.
(13:31):
We had accountability andtrust with each other.
I don't know if this makes a difference,
but they were also bothwithin my own community,
so I was physically presentat these meetings. Again,
this was before the pandemic.
I know that today a lot of mastermindmeetings happen on Zoom or whatever other
digital platform you may haveaccess to. Now, eventually,
(13:53):
both of these groups stoppedeach for a different reason.
The first group stopped when the leaderof the group who sort of had the most
defacto business experience and hadinitially formed the group in the first
place.
He announced during one of our meetingsthat he was going to start charging
(14:13):
for membership,
and we all knew that this waspart of his business plan.
He wanted to mentor otherbusiness owners, et cetera.
But it made things feela little bit weird,
mostly because the price tagwas a thousand dollars a month
and I suddenly could not afford tobe a part of this mastermind group
(14:35):
anymore. I remember wepushed back a little bit,
but the justification forthe price tag was, oh,
if you have a reallysolid investment in it,
then you'll really take it seriously.
But we were already taking it seriously,
and also I did not have anextra thousand dollars a month
(14:58):
conveniently laying around.
And so my time in that mastermind groupcame to an end and I ended up taking
away a lot. Again,
I would not probably have left my jobto start my own business without that
group, without their guidanceand mentorship and encouragement.
So I am very grateful todaythat I got to be a part of that.
(15:21):
The second group sortof disbanded over time.
One person stopped coming tomeetings or only came to one a month
when we were meeting weekly,
and then another member startedto not make meetings consistently
and then covid hit.
(15:41):
So I guess that's the mainreason, but I noticed a trend.
I think that when the groupstarts to weather like that,
it's time to either doubledown on committing to the group
or disbanding the group, startinga new mastermind somewhere,
whatever would work bestfor you in that situation.
But I learned a lot from both of thesegroups and I made some excellent close
(16:04):
friends who I still talk to today and whoI still ask for business advice today.
Now, Sarah, you may be saying, Idon't want to start a business.
I don't want an LLC or maybe evenI don't want to quit my day job.
Why would I join a mastermind group?
So let me tell you aboutmy third mastermind group,
(16:25):
and this one I formed with threeother writers I knew who were
sort of on the samewavelength as me in a way.
They wanted sort of the same things,
and they were all very hardworkers, and we got along well,
and we all had somethingdifferent to offer.
I had over a decade at thatpoint of marketing experience,
(16:48):
one of the members was aneditor for a publishing company,
and the other two members were sixfigure selling romance authors.
We all had something to learn from eachother, and we all had something to give.
This was my first mastermind group thatI did over Zoom and we would meet in the
evenings for two hours. It wasa little bit more laid back.
(17:10):
There weren't penaltiesfor missing it or anything.
It was more just for writers talkingabout what they were dealing with,
what challenges they were struggling with,and then what could be done about it.
Overall, it was extremely helpful,
and also I became better friendswith the other three writers.
So if this is something thatsounds interesting to you,
(17:31):
something you're looking to explore,
I really encourage you to eitherstart your own mastermind group,
maybe talk with some other writersabout possibly starting one or looking
for a mastermind group to join.If you're starting your own,
I would definitely recommend that youkeep the group a little bit smaller and
(17:53):
maybe even hand pick who you'd liketo be in a mastermind group with.
Make sure when you set out that youhave very clear rules and expectations
for either being in thegroup, staying in the group,
or simply existing within the group.
You want to make sure that everyonejoining is at the same level of commitment
and that they're there to give youadvice and to challenge you and not just
(18:17):
take, maybe you want tohave a timer running,
maybe you don't maybe want aweekly or monthly hot seat.
Maybe you don't maybe want todo the book club component.
Maybe you don't maybe even want to adda critique exchange component where you
give each other sections of yourwork to look at, to criticize,
(18:37):
to mark up with a red pen to talk about,
to analyze whatever it is thatwould be most helpful for you.
I think most importantly though, knowwhat you want out of the experience.
I definitely encourage you to go intoan endeavor like this with clarity and
purpose. If you want to start a writer'shangout, that is also equally fine.
(18:59):
Or a writing group,
which I've talked about in a previousepisode of the Write Now podcast,
episode 35, the Power of a Writer's Group.
But I think most importantly,
if someone wants you to pay athousand dollars a month to be in
their mastermind group,say no and walk away.
Unless you're really independentlywealthy and you don't know what to do with
(19:22):
all of your cash, in which case,
please also find a worthy causein your community to donate to.
In addition to joining the thousanddollars a Month Mastermind group.
A lot of my success today as a writer,
as a small business owner is due tothe series of mastermind groups that
I've joined over theyears. So I'm curious,
(19:45):
have you ever been in amastermind group before? If so,
did you have a positive experience?What did you benefit from?
What did you dislike? Whatdid you love about it?
Or if you're thinking aboutstarting your own mastermind group,
what do you want it to look like? Whatkind of people do you want beside you?
(20:05):
How strict do you want it to be?
What is your overall focus and how canyou do the most good for each of your
fellow members?
I would love to hear yourthoughts on mastermind groups.
You can comment on today's episode.
So this is episode 1 66over@sarahwerner.com. That's
(20:27):
S-A-R-A-H-W-E-R-N-E r.com.Scroll to the bottom of the post.
It's underneath thetranscript and everything,
so you might be scrolling for a while,and there you'll see a comment section.
I do read and respond to everysingle comment I get on the website,
and I would love to hear your perspective.
One of the reasons I am able tocreate and produce this show is due to
(20:49):
the generosity of my patronson Patreon and donors on
other platforms like Kofi slash Coffee.
I still do not know after all theseyears how to pronounce it. Now,
Patreon has made a change.
So it used to be if you wantedto support this podcast,
you would do so per episode, soyou would pay a dollar per episode,
(21:11):
$2 per episode, $5 whenan episode came out,
Patreon has shifted andpushed everyone willing or not
onto a new rubric, if you will.
So basically, they're shiftingper creation to per month.
So if you would like to supportthis podcast at a dollar per month,
(21:34):
at $2 per month, et cetera, Iwould encourage you to do so.
You can do that by clickingthe link that says,
support this show on Patreon,or by going out to my Kofi page.
I'll make sure both of these are linkedin the show notes for this episode.
Just another small caveat,
another change was made withPatreon where if you sign up to be
(21:56):
a Patreon usingspecifically the IOS Patreon
app, so the app in the Apple Store,
then 30% of your donations go to Apple.
It's a policy that they've had for yearswith app developers and Patreon was
able to skirt around thatissue for years until now.
(22:17):
So thank you Apple for taking moneyfrom small creators who are otherwise
struggling. Sorry, that sounded reallybitter. I don't mean to sound bitter.
Now, if you are alreadydonating via Patreon,
your payment will shift to permonth instead of per episode.
And even if you are alreadydonating via the Patreon
(22:39):
app on Apple,
I believe you get grandfatheredin so that 30% of your donation
does not go to Apple.
But if you are a new fan and want to
become a donor, then yeah,please join my Patreon.
There are also other ways to support thework that I'm doing here at the Write
(22:59):
Now podcast, including Kofi slash Coffee,
and I also have a PayPal me.
So whatever works best foryou would be deeply and
truly appreciated. Specialthanks. Go out to Laurie,
Regina Calabrese, Amber Fer,Tessie, Charmaine Ferrara,
(23:20):
Kim, Mike Taft, poppy Brown,
summer Tiffany Joiner,and Whitney Magruder.
Thank you all incredibly somuch for your ongoing support.
It means the world to me. And with that,
this has been episode 1 66of the Write Now Podcast,
(23:40):
the podcast that helps all writers,aspiring professional, and otherwise,
to find the time, energy,
and courage you need to pursueyour passion. And right,
I'm Sarah Werner, andI'm cheering for you.
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