First of all, maybe 20-30 people are invited.

Second, different people show up every week.

Third, it is run by a guru from Stompernet instead of being a peer-based organization.

This means that you are listening to the problems of a bunch of people who you probably are not very interested in and don’t know anything about. For over an hour.

In a real mastermind, you meet with the same people over and over and you develop a feel for one another. My mastermind increased in efficiency every meeting over the first six months as we got more familiar with one another, shared deeper, and lost our fear of being painfully open about things we saw in the other that didn’t work.

So, the value of the mastermind is in the knowledge, experience, wisdom, and connection of the participants. Stompernet would be better off to connect people in small groups, give them the instructions, and leave them alone.

Or, better yet, find/make your own.

Interested in Masterminds? Mail or comment me and I will send you the best resources for them.

I was at the presentation of a guy making from $20-50k per day in internet marketing. He talked about the secrets to his success. The two that jumped out at me were:

1. Have a coach. And be coachable.

If you are trying to do it without information from someone who knows more than you, without any help from “breathers” (as in, not books and videos only), you are, in my humble opinion, certifiably insane. It will take a lot longer, if you succeed at all, which is doubtful.

2. Get a mastermind.

All of the top-drawer internet marketers, Frank Kern, Yanik Silver, Perry Marshall, Dan Kennedy, Ken McCarthy have and use masterminds (and most of them offer access to their mastermind for somewhere around $10-12k a year). But you don’t have to pay 10 g’s a year to get the benefits of a mastermind. If you don’t know what a mastermind, go buy (or download, as it is out of copyright) Napoleon Hill’s “Think and Grow Rich” and read that section. Absolutely key.

Excellent resource for masterminding.

About 70% of the people in London at this event were on his lists.

He says that his success really began once he started in his mastermind, which met only three times a year. I can recommend listening to his story, at least the first 10 minutes.

Perry Marshall on masterminding and alchemy.

He said, “I just assume everyone is trying to cheat me. I don’t trust anyone without proof that it will be right.”

Well, my friend: welcome to life!

We never really know which choice will be the jackpot and which will mean certain death. But we can gauge relative risk/reward of various actions. And, without risks, not many rewards, unfortunately. Many success stories start with, “So, I put the marketing seminar on my credit card, though I was almost bankrupt because I had to find what worked . . .”

Listen: you will make x number of mistakes before success. There is no way around it. So, make them quickly. Then you will be successful faster! If you avoid risk/mistakes/failures, you avoid growth, development, and progress.

Dale Carnegie says it this way: consider the worst thing that can possibly happen. Can you live with that? Good. Then do it.

Anyway, Frank said, “Do you know anybody who can do it alone? I don’t. And the point of having like-minded friends is so you have people to believe in you when you don’t even believe in yourself.”

Imagine having one friend who believes in you no matter what. How would that feel? Now, what would it be like to have a dozen or so such friends? What could you accomplish?