First, thanks to everyone who looked over the early articles and gave me valuable feedback on my presentation!
That feedback so far was along the lines of "Where do I start?" and "Wow! There's a lot of material to digest here!"
Well, yes there is. It's not terribly complicated material -- when you take it in bite-sized chunks, you'll see how it all fits together -- but the main reasons that Mastermind groups fail (and most groups do fail, in my experience, usually before they really even get started) is because those who form them usually don't really know what they're doing or how to get started, and just blunder along (like I did, with my first group -- which failed!)
That's what this site is about: giving you the basics of getting a group off the ground with a minimum of hassles and "gotchas" so the group can hit the ground running, ready to help each other toward their success goals.
But if the site looks daunting (and I've not even finished writing about the basics yet), that's a problem. So the question became, "How do I dole it out in bite-sized chunks so you'll see how it all fits together?"
Well, my primary business has been e-mail publishing, so my solution was pretty easy and obvious: take the articles off the web site and send them by e-mail instead, at a measured pace. It's free, and if you simply read and absorb each article as it arrives, rather than try to remember where you were when you finally remember to come back to the site for more, you'll get far more out of the article series.
I use AWeber for such tasks -- it's now my primary e-mail publishing platform -- and setting up a "sequenced" mailing there is really easy: I load up the articles, say how quickly to dole them out, and they're delivered to you. Of course, it's easy to "unsubscribe" with a click should you decide you're not interested for any reason.
Since there's probably too much material to read in one sitting, and it's terribly hard to "bookmark" where you left off on a web site, it's probably the best solution for getting the info in digestible chunks. I hope you'll find it a great solution.
By the way: It's OK with me if you keep the articles so you can refer back to them later. But it's not OK for you to share them with others, post them on any web site, etc. If you want a friend to read them, they should come to the web site and sign up for their own subscription. Thanks.
I couldn't see a way to post this feedback on the "Meet the Mastermind" page, but I think one of the most important things I've read so far on this site is the statement that "It's not a matter of 'luck', either: I believe with the right knowledge and some hard work, anyone can be more successful than they are now."
A lot of people - including me, for a while - get stuck seeing that some people were lucky and did really well. But they weren't ONLY lucky; they did a lot of things right. The way you say it here reminds me not to think of the luck I'd need to be EXTREMELY successful but rather to think of the work it will take to be MORE successful, guaranteed. And who knows, maybe I'll have some luck too.
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The non-blog pages indeed don't have comment areas. I've certainly had some luck -- a lot of it good! And yeah, some of it bad. Chance plays a factor, but knowledge and its intelligent application (also known as "work") plays a much bigger factor. -rc
The thing that separates successful people from the masses, is that those people do, what the losers simply won't. The same goes for wealth. Being top of your field in anything takes time, persistence, and a grand sense of humor. The goal is, after all, a quality of life you won't get if you settle for less. The finances are an extra. This is a great resource for those seeking the process of putting it together. Thanks to Randy, and the people that supported him, so we can now all benefit from their support as well.
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I agree that's the essence of it. The point here isn't "you have to work hard to succeed," but rather "you have to intelligently apply the knowledge you have to succeed." Most are missing both key points of knowledge, and a support group to help apply it. I'm trying to help fill those gaps. -rc
At the risk of banality, there are a couple of quotes that seem to reflect your philosophy:
"The basic difference between the ordinary man and the warrior is that the ordinary man takes everything as a blessing or a curse, while the warrior takes everything as a challenge." ~Carlos Castaneda, Tales of Power
The other is, simply, "Work Smarter, Not Harder."
I've had moderate success, but not great success yet (Independence from any single client being my definition, wealth will come later.) You've mentioned an author that immediately grabbed my attention (Napoleon Hill), and besides, no matter how much I know (not enough obviously), there is SO much more to learn.
I will listen to whatever you have to say. Thank you for offering.
While you intend to publish a great deal of resources yourself, will you be adding links to helpful and related external resources? I know of another mailing list that provides valuable information on 'Winning at Working' that sends out an email every now and again with great advise for being the best you can be. I'd recommend it as a related link.
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I have a gigantic job ahead of me as it is. I'm an expert on making Mastermind groups work, not all the possibilities for making work better. Surely there are other sites with good reviews of such products and ideas. So no, I won't be getting into all the other resources for improving one's professional life. -rc
I LOVE aweber. I use it similarly, to send out regular email tips to help Business Analysts do their job better. It is a wonderful way to do something like this, not just from a delivery perspective, but on the receiving side as well.
I'm like everyone else - too busy to even think many days! So remembering to go to a website is hard. Getting information periodically in email is easy.
Thank you for making this easy to consume!
You FAILED? Oh my. I say failure, both large and small, is expectable. It happens a lot. Failure is not what matters. What matters is what you do about it. Trying again is NOT the first step. The first step is to learn from the attempt. Then gather your resources and try again, smiling at achieving at least one success, learning, from your failure.
Nothing of much consequence is likely to happen if you are not aggressively pursuing learning. Indeed one of the most productive and innovative places on the planet is Silicon Valley. A major "secret" of the successes enjoyed by entrepreneurs and venture capitalists in that location is that when you start a company there and it fails, you are not just a loser. You are now an experienced executive, ready to be funded to start another company, when you have a good idea.
Failure is not the qualifier for the VC crowd; learning from your failure is. Now VCs have their own problems, including group think and following fads, but sometimes they win really big, and that helps everybody. They are not the only ones who can profitably employ that philosophy.
What did I get wrong about that analysis? I still need to learn. After all, I was wrong once, too. For almost an hour, I thought I had made a mistake.
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The article series definitely talks about the "Lessons Learned" from the failure of the first group, and how I applied those lessons to form my successful new group. -rc
Having started reading the articles from #4 back to #1 and now progressing back forward, I don't think there is excessive information, just critical that I understand it.
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Let me know what you think about the level of information at the end! There's plenty more to come. -rc
Thanks, Scott, for the reminder of the importance of humor! It's far too easy to forget it in the pursuit of success.