The lovely Danielle LaPorte and I hung out recently to jam about the transformative power of masterminds for my upcoming course. Or as Danielle says,

“You need people. You can’t, shouldn’t, couldn’t do it alone. Anywhere worth getting to will take a cast of loving, lucid, masterminds behind you. All the way.

“Everything I’ve accomplished has had mastermind group support — high-minded, big strategy, sleeves-rolled up kind of support. No secrets, soul-bared, nuts and bolts hashing it out. Late nights in living rooms, emergency cellphone calls on street corners. Power advice by texts. Three-day retreats with coloured pens, calendars out and red wine. You get the idea.

“What’s more, not only have my masterminds helped my hurtle myself through space with their genius input, but my capacity to be of service to them has kept me sharp and sincere. Reciprocity is the engine of sustained greatness.

“I’m so passionate about the power of inner circles, I wrote did an entire session on it in THE FIRE STARTER SESSIONS: SUPPORTING CHARACTERS . So when Jen Louden told me she was running a new program simply called, How To Start Your Own Mastermind Group, I applauded. Literally. “Jenny Bee! What a GREAT idea!” Here we are shaking our Masterminding poms poms.”

Here’s some of what we shake our pom-poms about in the video:

• Recognizing who you love and who sees life through the same lens – don’t settle for less.
• The power pajama party – with highlighters!
• Vulnerability vulnerability vulnerability or how much money do you actually make?
• Why you want a dark and stormy night.
• Give and receive or the magic can’t flow.
• What makes a sucky group or why it’s not about deals, networking, or start-up funding.

Two LIVE 90 minute classes (recorded of course) with time for Q & A. Everything I’ve learned since convening our Brain Trust 6 + years ago + all that I’ve learned being in various peer groups for the last 25 years (including writer’s groups and women’s groups) like:

• Different styles of groups and how to determine what style you want – you might want more than one!
• Structures — what meeting style and focus works, and what doesn’t; how to handle virtual groups
• Finding the right people and handling when your group doesn’t gel (our initial group did not) + how to step away from groups that aren’t a good fit for you
• How to establish trust and intimacy, and why being vulnerable is the secret to a powerful group
• How to handle competition between members who offer something similar
• How to recover from disagreements, hurt feelings, and different styles of communication
• How to refresh as you go along (our group has reinvented yearly)
• How to bring in new people to an existing group
• What processes to use to go deeper, especially on retreat
• Tech details on how to meet (forums, Facebook group, conference services)

AND

Short spicy interviews with:

• Danielle LaPorte (audio version of the video so you can listen again)
• Andrea Sher
• Tanya Geisler + Rachel Cole + Kate Swoboda + Bridge Pilloud + Julie Daley + Jamie Ridler 
• Fabeku Fatunmise
• Elizabeth Marshall 
• Mark Silver + Michele Christensen + Molly Gordon + Michael Bungay Stanier + Eric Klein (my group)

AND

• Facebook group to connect with like-minded people to form your group.
• A Self-assessment Criteria to fill out for what you want in a group.

May 22nd & May 29th
4 pm Pacific / 7 pm Eastern
calls recorded of course

To win a book (I’ll be giving 5 copies away sent directly from Amazon) or a spot in the class (if you’ve already registered, we will cheerfully refund your money) just

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