How Mastermind Groups Drive Success in Property Investment

You can’t be an expert in everything, that’s why finding other people who have the skills, knowledge and experience where you fall short, is a powerful strategy.

In fact, it’s the concept behind the Wealth Dynamics profiling system (and many other personality profiling systems).  Success is about being very strong in your own area of talent, then working with people who have a different and complementary skill set.

It happens naturally in networking and I see people helping others out with a bit of advice, offers of help and discussion of problems to share ideas all the time.  It was the power of people that led me to launch the Ninja Achievers Mastermind.

The Mastermind concept is not new.  Napolean Hill wrote about it in his book, Think & Grow Rich, back in 1937 Although the book was about thinking like successful people, there were many subliminal lessons that were easily missed about the power of the mastermind. 

In fact, Napoleon Hill wrote The Law of Success – in sixteen lessons in 1928, nearly 100 years ago; one of these lessons was The Law of the Mastermind.

What is a Mastermind?

A typical mastermind is where a group of people, who are not necessarily connected by industry, but by objectives meet regularly to discuss their current challenges and brainstorm potential solutions and strategies.

Think of it as a board meeting with your non-executive directors.  The time is spent thrashing out each member’s problem to find a solution.  The other aspect of mastermind groups is accountability.  When the group next meet, the question will be asked ‘how did you get on with …?’ so there is a need to make a commitment and take action.

Some people say ‘Too many cooks spoil the broth’, but I don’t think that is necessarily true, I prefer to see it as ‘Many hands make light work’.

Power of the collective mind

Everyone sees things differently and if it’s just you, you’re only going to see things from your perspective.  In a mastermind group your problem is seen from 360 degrees.

Everyone’s brains work differently – and different brain power creates different ideas.

Of course, there has to be interest from everyone in the group, whether that’s a group of small business owners who come together to help each other grow and progress or a group of speakers who come together to develop their speaking businesses.  In my case, I not only run a property mastermind, but I’m also a member of a high-level mastermind – not for property, but for business.

I believe that every good mentor has their own mentor, at a higher level.  It adds credibility to their own mentees.

I have been in the situation where I’ve been attending a mastermind one day, then running one of my Ninja Aspirers mentoring group meetings the very next day!

I find that a mastermind or mentoring relationship is invaluable.

Even in groups that are not formally a mastermind, I see the exchange of experience, brainstorming, cross-fertilisation of ideas and experience.  This happens at some of our property networking events on a small scale and on an informal basis in the 100K Club. 

Collaboration is often seen as a dirty word in property circles – simply because most people interpret that as Joint Venture.  That equates to one person putting money into someone else’s project – and then friction happens when projects don’t go according to plan, or one party’s expectations differ.

However, working with other property people to simply share expertise and knowledge can work very well indeed.

Find your tribe

The core idea in Think & Grow Rich is that, if you want to be successful, you need to spend time with successful people.  This is based on the idea that you become like the people you spend the most time with.  The message is that you need to elevate your circles of influence.

As, particularly in property, your circles of influence are usually friends, family and work colleagues, that can be a challenge.  Unless they’re in property they will be overwhelmingly negative.  Your closest family, particularly your parents, will be concerned that you’re making a mistake that will set you back years.  They see property as a risky business.  With others in your circle there may be jealousy or resentment – mostly because they just don’t get it and they see you talking a different language to them.  The change in you rocks their perception and they try to get you back where you were, mostly for their ow sense of well-being rather than yours.

When you start making a profit from property, it can be increasingly difficult to hang around with the people you used to.  You want to talk about it and they don’t! When someone starts to make a success out of property there are often relationship casualties.  There’s a gradual process of withdrawal, now you have a different interest they don’t share.  You may feel less inclined to spend time with them as they sap your energy – and that’s often a two-way street, with them also choosing to spend less time with you as “you’re always banging on about property”.

There are so many perceptions about owning property – apart from a main residence.  The keyboard warriors consistently give residential landlords get bad press.  They’re perspective is ‘how dare you make money out of someone’s need to … have somewhere to live.’  And yet they don’t vilify the big supermarkets by saying ‘How dare you make money out of someone’s need to eat!’

That makes it even more important to spend time with people who do ‘get it’.  The people who are radiators rather than drains!

So my question to you is this – who do you spend time with who will support you, share their expertise, help you to find solutions to your latest problems and join in the celebrations when you make your next successful deal?

If you haven’t got that kind of network – maybe it’s time to find a mentoring or mastermind group to fill the gap.