Last night I enjoyed another great dinner and conversation with my mastermind group. Every three weeks we get together to discuss business. We’re all building businesses online in some manner, and we ended up together to help each other grow and succeed online.
After a year and a half together, it’s amazing how much we’ve all grown. We’ve seen many changes in our business, some successes and some failures. But the great thing is every three weeks we can share our ideas, ask for opinions, and get honest feedback from people that share a common interest. 
I started thinking about why being a part of a mastermind is so important. Obviously there are a ton of reasons. But the one that kept coming to my mind was having a group that in no way is impacted financially by what you do, yet know you well enough to see exactly what you should be doing, and has no reservations on telling you exactly what you should be doing.
Let me give you an example. One of the members has an incredible niche, and has made her full time income from her website for many years now. She’s been adding a few products and changing some of her ideas over the past year and a half. But a few months ago, as she started developing a coaching program, the rest of the mastermind group told her she needed a membership site. It was a perfect fit for what she was doing.
She was skeptical at first, but kept pursuing it. She’s been working on building it during 2008, and last night she reported she’s almost got it all together. Way to go!
It’s so amazing watching things come together for the people around you. And what’s more amazing is that while you are watching their progress, it usually comes together for you too.
We’re not meant to do things by ourselves. Instead we’re meant to build things together. If you’re a solopreneur, get in a mastermind. They are highly worth it – I can’t rant enough about the benefits of a mastermind. You don’t have to meet in person; some very good ones have formed through phone calls.
The important thing is to find people that have something in common, and work to help build the knowledge base of all the members.
Grab me, THEN befriend me. I wish I had a better sense of who was writing this. The article starts off “Last night I…”. I don’t know who you are and newbies like me jump into a blog at any point. A couple ideas would be to include a photo so I know who is trying to start this relationship with me. Another is to not start with such a strong first person approach. Maybe pull out a strong idea from the body and grab me with that. That’s what I tried to do with this unsolicited opinion, by going back and trying to give it a grabby starter. I don’t think I did a much better job.