Steve Matthews discusses how his previous learning method has changed…

I have always been into “shelf” development.

You know what I mean, you hear the stories or read the reviews on the latest book by some guru. Or you attend a seminar and walk on coals or learn to juggle and think it’s amazing.

I attended courses and talks and retreats and boot camps, webinars, etc. etc. and I always used to think I had found mecca! This was it. This was going to turn me into this successful entrepreneur and I would be on the beach in Barbados within 3 years.

I used to start with best intentions and then boom, 3 days, 3 weeks, 3 months in… I was onto the next new thing.

It’s not self-development, it’s shelf development. I have a book case full of these memories. You are welcome to come around and borrow/steal them all.

One of my many go to reads and always has been is Napoleon Hill’s – Think and Grow Rich. I am sure many of you have read or at least heard of his work.

A book written in the 1930’s by a man who spent over 15 years interviewing the world’s greatest individuals and some of the world’s richest people at the time.

He broke the science of their success into 15 key areas that if you are to be successful, you should work at mastering.

Incidentally, one of my mentors and someone who I was lucky enough to meet and hear speak, Paul Martinelli, puts his entre success down to this book. His story of going from a labourer working as a at roofer, to Guardian Angel on the US subways… to setting a cleaning company up with his last $250 and building it into a multi-million-dollar empire. He then subsequently built several multi-million dollar companies, it is truly mind blowing.

Paul was lucky enough that a business man that he worked for spotted something in him and coached and mentored him through the book and they worked on implementing the lessons within it, chapter by chapter.

I digress, but only slightly.
One of Napoleon Hill’s key and most weighted recommendations is to join a Mastermind Group.

I had read that many times and I got the gist.

A group of like-minded business entrepreneurs meeting and discussing business issues and sharing good practice. In my enthusiasm or call it blind panic I joined what I thought was available; BNI, Chamber of Commerce, Breakfast Meetings, Evening Meetings and all were nothing more than a space where someone who is obscenely happy at 0600 in the morning can thrust a business card your way and tell them how wonderful they are.

Thanks, but no thanks.

That is not what Mr Hill spent a vast part of his adult life recommending… this I can assure you.

A true Mastermind is far from what you have experienced anywhere before.

It’s a gathering of minds, a group of people that use proven etiquette and techniques to ensure that everyone is heard and advice is freely given and received.

I had been searching for a genuine Mastermind for a long time and I was lucky enough to join a group in early 2016. What I experienced for those first 3 days will stay with me forever.

Subsequent summits were held every quarter and the amount of personal and business growth I had from these sessions it impossible to quantify… but I will try.

Each of us in the group were in different stages of our evolution and initially my thoughts were, “how can I add value to these people”, “how can they help me and my business”, “how can I possibly afford the commitment”.

Quite frankly, all these fears were allayed in about 5 minutes on the first day.

The obvious one is the financial commitment, a mentor of mine John Maxwell said once, “If you are not investing in yourself and your personal development, you don’t have a money problem, you have a mind-set problem.”

The amount of experience and insight in the room and hearing others speak into issues you have in your business is unbelievable.

A true Mastermind is far from anything you have experienced before

Sometimes just to have a fresh, impartial pair of eyes to see things from a different perspective allows you to take an issue to a different place or an idea for growth to a whole new level.

After all, someone once told me “It’s hard to see the picture when you are in the frame.”

Not only do you get to take away the collective knowledge and experience of the group but here is the genius of it all. You are asked to provide 3 key actions that you will perform by the next meeting and you are held accountable for completing them.

In addition to all the above, another key gain from the process and perhaps unknowingly the biggest gain of them all.

We all know how important our inner circle is and how we become the average of the 5 people we spend the most time with.

I know get to spend my time with 10 of the best, like- minded people that I have ever met. They don’t judge me, they have no agenda and all they are interested in is my success and helping me in achieving all my goals… Fantastic!

I can’t tell you how much it has helped me and my business on both a personal and professional level.