It is often said that you are the average – income & personality wise — of the five people you spend the most time with, including yourself. For some people this is great news, for others they are thinking that they need to start hanging out with a different set of 5 people. Most of us know that if you want what a successful person has start doing what they are doing, or start hanging around them to see how they have become successful in their business.

I do believe that your business can be affected and influenced by the top five people that you spend the most time with and that is why I am such a big fan of creating and participating in mastermind groups. The purpose of a mastermind group is for several like-minded people to come together who are committed to supporting and helping each other get to the next level in their businesses. It is basically an alliance of individuals committing themselves to a common and purposeful goal.

Napoleon Hill, one of the greatest American authors on personal-success and celebrated author of the best-seller Think and Grow Rich, defines a mastermind group as the “coordination of knowledge and effort, in a spirit of harmony, between two or more people, for the attainment of a definite purpose.” Hill also believed a mastermind group actually multiples an individual’s brain power and produces positive emotions as well as success in activity. I totally agree with him.

Over the past 3 years in my own business, I have found that by just being involved in a mastermind group both my success and growth of my business has increased significantly. There are so many amazing things that come out of mastermind mind groups like networking, constant support, the sharing of ideas, best practices, failures, successes and a close knit bond with other entrepreneurs. I highly recommend that you get involved in a mastermind group or create one of your own.

Here are 4 tips for creating and sustaining a successful mastermind group:

1. Find 2-5 people that you would like to start a mastermind with;
2. Decide on meeting logistics, would you like to meet in person or over the phone, meet once a week, every other week or once a month;
3. Select a group leader – responsible for topic selection and meeting facilitation;
4. Pick a format that everyone is comfortable with, see the example below and adjust to meet your group’s specific needs.

Sample Mastermind Group Meeting Agenda

• Each person in the group gets 2 minutes to share their “wins” from the previous week
• Each person in the group gets 5 minutes to share what is going on in their business and what they need help or support on
• Allow 10 minutes for any support or sharing of information that may help others
• Each person in the group gets 2 minutes to state their goals for the upcoming week
• The group leader ends the meeting with an inspirational quote or story

Happy Masterminding, and remember shape your life by choosing who you spend time with and start examining the people that you spend the most time around. If the people that you are spending the most time with are enabling you towards your best self then great, if they are not start meeting new people who will support and enable you to become the best person you can be and it will show in your business!