Re: ERE Mastermind Group
Posted: Sat Sep 04, 2021 12:12 pm
Thanks for the bump WRC, an update is long overdue! Let me recap from the beginning.
We settled with 7 members. We had an initial meet n greet call, and then did a “deep dive” with one person as the focus every two weeks. So the first session lasted 8*2 weeks. Since most members either had travel plans or life transitions to attend to, we felt like taking a “summer break” of a couple months. We maintained the every-two-weeks schedule, but it was “show up if you like, no specific agenda for the meeting” informal chatting and discussion. It was also good to take a break from the schedule and reflect a bit on the Mastermind group as a whole, and have more time to just “chat” and get to know each other better during the informal sessions.
We’re going to start up the “second session” at the end of September.
Structure
My idea at the beginning was that each member would identify ~2 “goals” or focuses to work on. I made a slide deck template for people to use, took notes, we tracked biweekly sub-goals, etc. All very corporate / agile / scrum / whatever. Some examples of goals/focuses people had:
.Start up a side hustle
.Draw a bunch of WL7/WoGs diagrams
.Declutter
.Improve cooking skill / reduce restaurant meals
.Start a garden
.Start an exercise program
.Learn about / implement an investment strategy
.Etc
A couple people never really created well-defined formal “goals”, not for lack of trying, but I think for lack of appropriateness to their circumstance. And a few people (myself included) who started with well-defined goals either heavily modified or completely changed their original goals, or wound up *mostly* abandoning the activity of “pursuing goals” altogether.
How the deep dives went ranged. At the more formal goal-setting end of the spectrum, for example, I presented my “plans” and current status for my two projects, which were “side hustle” and “make a bunch of WL7 diagrams”. I got a lot of feedback, ideas, and questions, which helped sort out some logistical issues, asked some questions I had overlooked, and also pressed me to define my “why” better.
At the less formal end of the spectrum, one member used their deep dive as a collaborative session on how to even approach goal-setting, how to think about structuring one’s life to accomplish desired outcomes, discussed procrastination and motivation, and other issues related to constructing and executing a pretty mature semiERE lifestyle.
And then another member used their deep dive as something that approached collaborative intellectual poetry.
——
So, by the end of the first session, I think we all had a sense that trying to stuff everyone in a “have two goals, do biweekly status reports” structure was simply inappropriate. My understanding of Mastermind Groups comes from business world, which are obviously very specific-outcome driven. ERE is necessarily different. We’ve discussed some broad ideas about how we can approach the Second Session:
Everyone gets a “deep dive” still, aka next Tuesday is going to be “my” call, and the session after that is going to be the next person’s, etc. But I’m going to have a broad range of options for how I want that call to go. I could…
.Present about and ask for feedback on an ongoing goal/project, as per the nominal idea behind Session 1.
.Give a presentation/lead a discussion on a specific topic. This could be something like a knowledge share (e.g. during the informal sessions I did a call on “psychological issues with Doing Something about climate change”, and I’m about to do another on “Fundamentals and Principles for thinking strategically about building design, with an emphasis on natural buildings and tiny homes”).
.I could even ask another member to kick off/lead a discussion about something I know *they* know about and want to know more about. e.g. maybe a member is an expert on investing, or permaculture, or dirtbagging, or fixing motorcycles.
So one way or another, we’re moving to a much more broad approach where we can use the time and space more or less however we like. Put another way, instead of trying to herd all the cats in one direction, we’re just letting the cats go wherever they like and enjoying the ride.
—
The Signal chats continue to be a source of great value and camaraderie. Some participate more than others. Sometimes we just post a pic of a garden harvest or a DIY, or a WL diagram (ha!), or a place we’re traveling. The bulk of the conversations in the channel start with a seed and go deep down a rabbit hole - investing, climate change, buildings, gardening, relationships, etc. Sometimes five days will go by with no new chats, and some days there will be 100 posts because a conversation really got going. (Probably most of us have that channel muted, so it doesn’t blow up our phones while we’re trying to do something else.)
We’ve had no issues, on the calls or in Signal, with drama. Even when we’re disagreeing, everyone does it respectfully. Every once in a while we have a love-fest and tell everyone how much we think everyone else is awesome.
Happy to answer any questions about the group if anyone has any.
We settled with 7 members. We had an initial meet n greet call, and then did a “deep dive” with one person as the focus every two weeks. So the first session lasted 8*2 weeks. Since most members either had travel plans or life transitions to attend to, we felt like taking a “summer break” of a couple months. We maintained the every-two-weeks schedule, but it was “show up if you like, no specific agenda for the meeting” informal chatting and discussion. It was also good to take a break from the schedule and reflect a bit on the Mastermind group as a whole, and have more time to just “chat” and get to know each other better during the informal sessions.
We’re going to start up the “second session” at the end of September.
Structure
My idea at the beginning was that each member would identify ~2 “goals” or focuses to work on. I made a slide deck template for people to use, took notes, we tracked biweekly sub-goals, etc. All very corporate / agile / scrum / whatever. Some examples of goals/focuses people had:
.Start up a side hustle
.Draw a bunch of WL7/WoGs diagrams
.Declutter
.Improve cooking skill / reduce restaurant meals
.Start a garden
.Start an exercise program
.Learn about / implement an investment strategy
.Etc
A couple people never really created well-defined formal “goals”, not for lack of trying, but I think for lack of appropriateness to their circumstance. And a few people (myself included) who started with well-defined goals either heavily modified or completely changed their original goals, or wound up *mostly* abandoning the activity of “pursuing goals” altogether.
How the deep dives went ranged. At the more formal goal-setting end of the spectrum, for example, I presented my “plans” and current status for my two projects, which were “side hustle” and “make a bunch of WL7 diagrams”. I got a lot of feedback, ideas, and questions, which helped sort out some logistical issues, asked some questions I had overlooked, and also pressed me to define my “why” better.
At the less formal end of the spectrum, one member used their deep dive as a collaborative session on how to even approach goal-setting, how to think about structuring one’s life to accomplish desired outcomes, discussed procrastination and motivation, and other issues related to constructing and executing a pretty mature semiERE lifestyle.
And then another member used their deep dive as something that approached collaborative intellectual poetry.
——
So, by the end of the first session, I think we all had a sense that trying to stuff everyone in a “have two goals, do biweekly status reports” structure was simply inappropriate. My understanding of Mastermind Groups comes from business world, which are obviously very specific-outcome driven. ERE is necessarily different. We’ve discussed some broad ideas about how we can approach the Second Session:
Everyone gets a “deep dive” still, aka next Tuesday is going to be “my” call, and the session after that is going to be the next person’s, etc. But I’m going to have a broad range of options for how I want that call to go. I could…
.Present about and ask for feedback on an ongoing goal/project, as per the nominal idea behind Session 1.
.Give a presentation/lead a discussion on a specific topic. This could be something like a knowledge share (e.g. during the informal sessions I did a call on “psychological issues with Doing Something about climate change”, and I’m about to do another on “Fundamentals and Principles for thinking strategically about building design, with an emphasis on natural buildings and tiny homes”).
.I could even ask another member to kick off/lead a discussion about something I know *they* know about and want to know more about. e.g. maybe a member is an expert on investing, or permaculture, or dirtbagging, or fixing motorcycles.
So one way or another, we’re moving to a much more broad approach where we can use the time and space more or less however we like. Put another way, instead of trying to herd all the cats in one direction, we’re just letting the cats go wherever they like and enjoying the ride.
—
The Signal chats continue to be a source of great value and camaraderie. Some participate more than others. Sometimes we just post a pic of a garden harvest or a DIY, or a WL diagram (ha!), or a place we’re traveling. The bulk of the conversations in the channel start with a seed and go deep down a rabbit hole - investing, climate change, buildings, gardening, relationships, etc. Sometimes five days will go by with no new chats, and some days there will be 100 posts because a conversation really got going. (Probably most of us have that channel muted, so it doesn’t blow up our phones while we’re trying to do something else.)
We’ve had no issues, on the calls or in Signal, with drama. Even when we’re disagreeing, everyone does it respectfully. Every once in a while we have a love-fest and tell everyone how much we think everyone else is awesome.
Happy to answer any questions about the group if anyone has any.