728 The Power of Masterminds

ACCELERATE YOUR LEARNING CURVE. Are you taking advantage of the knowledge of the smartest people in your field? If not, you are denying yourself an abundance of information. You need consistent accountability at the highest level. You need inspiration from inspiring peers. And you need to be a part of something that is coaching you to play bigger. Some might call it an accountability group. In the business industry, we call these groups “Masterminds.” It’s a dynamic that you miss out on when you only do one-on-one coaching. On today’s episode of The School of Greatness, I do a special solo episode where I explain how joining a Mastermind group has changed my life and how it can change yours. “You need to constantly clear your mind and be open to new opportunities.” - Lewis Howes I coach my own group called the Greatness Mastermind. If you’re making seven figures, you eligible to join. You don’t want to join a group that will keep you at the same level or where you’re the smartest person in the room. You have to be inspired by the community of people you join. So get ready to learn all about getting access to influential people by joining a Mastermind on Episode 728. In This Episode You Will Learn: The one thing I would do differently if I started over again (2:00) Why you should be looking for a Mastermind (2:40) About the first Mastermind I was a part of (6:00) 6 Keys to finding a mastermind (12:45) About my mastermind (22:00) Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 728, The Power of Masterminds.

• 0:07Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:32Lewis Howes?

  Hey, everybody. Welcome to this episode. I'm super excited about this because it's all me talking. Every single week, I get you guys saying, Lewis, we want to hear more from you. We want to hear more of just your strategies. We love the big celebrities and business icons and world-class athletes that you bring on. We love hearing those stories, but we also want to hear more from you. So we're doing that right now. I'm going to do more of this as well because I got to give you what you want. And this one is all about the power of masterminds. Now, why am I doing it on this? Because it's one of the single most important things that's helped me build my business and my relationships in my life is masterminds. I want to talk about the strategy of it throughout this entire episode. I want to talk about how to find the right mastermind, why it's the thing, if I could

• 1:17Lewis Howes?

  go back to the beginning of my business and only do one thing, why I would join a high level curated mastermind. I want to talk about all this stuff in this episode. And if you're not in a mastermind right now, then you're going to want to look for one. It could be one locally in your, your community, in your city, in your, in your region, or it could be a national or international one. So that's what this episode's all about. And I'm super excited about it. Make sure to share with a friend, lewishowes.com/728. Tag me on your Instagram story. Let people know about it. The Power of Masterminds. All right, guys. Super excited about this. Let's dive into this episode on the power of masterminds.

• 2:01Lewis Howes?

  This episode is a solo round with myself, all about the power of masterminds. And if I look back at the last nine years of myself in business, being an entrepreneur, and growing my business over the years, creating multiple companies, selling company, dissolving companies, having business partners, having affiliates, building my own audience, all these different things that I've done. If I look back over the last nine years when I got started, and I think about what's the one thing that's transformed my business the most? If there was one thing I can think of?

• 2:43Lewis Howes?

  Or if I could go back to the start and start doing one thing over again, what would that be? And without a doubt, the answer is masterminds. And I got fortunate, I feel very lucky that I got fortunate and found out about masterminds early on. I read Think and Grow Rich, someone recommended it to me back in 2008. I was doing like a book, kind of weekly book club, and we were going over the book, and there was this idea about masterminds. And at the time, I was a younger guy, very green, I didn't know much about anything in business, I was just kind of figuring it out as I went. I was on my sister's couch at the time, just trying to make a little bit of cash.

• 3:25Lewis Howes?

  And this idea about proximity, who you spend your time with, the mentors you're surrounded by, the peers in your industry who are experts, who have access to resources, who have access to information, who have access to leverage and connections, and being in proximity of influential people in your space, and those who have already created what you want to create. Having access to that type of group is one of the most powerful things that you could have. And if I could go back and start all over again, what would I do? I would find a mastermind ASAP.

• 4:07Lewis Howes?

  And in this solo episode, I'm going to talk about the six keys to looking for a powerful mastermind, what it needs to have, what you should be looking for, and how to know which one is the right one for you. Now- Why should you even be looking for a mastermind in the first place? Some of you might even think about that. What is it? What is a mastermind and why should I be looking at it for? Is it for me? Is it right for me? Am I ready for one? Um, or is this just a bunch of mumbo jumbo? Here's the thing, when I started out, I was constantly traveling around at different industry conferences. I was going to these events, flying around the country. I was taking Greyhound buses, actually.

• 4:51Lewis Howes?

  My first few events, because I didn't have any money. I was sleeping on hostel, in hostels. One night, the hostel, they gave up my bunk bed, which had puke on it, the, the first time I went, the first night I went to the hostel. Then the second night, they gave up the bed for some other European person that was in, in the town. And so I had to take my bags and I walked around the city. And I found someone at a bar and convinced them to let me crash on their futon in their apartment, a complete stranger. This is kind of like what I did early on when I was, had no money, had no resources, nothing. I was going to industry events and I was meeting influencers. I was meeting experts who had information that I wanted.

• 5:34Lewis Howes?

  I was building affiliate partners and joint ventures through these professionals and peers at these different industries. And that was extremely powerful, having access to the right people, being able to text someone, call someone, reach out to someone for feedback, for advice, to get coaching, to accelerate my learning curve. That's what was powerful. To accelerate sales, to accelerate audience growth, to accelerate anything that was holding me back, that's what I was looking for. And that was great, until I found one influencer who invited me to promote one of his, his kind of online programs. And he asked me to promote his program. This was a bigger influencer.

• 6:20Lewis Howes?

  Big in the online marketing space. And he said, hey, the top 10 people who get the most sales. I'm going to host a private mastermind for those influencers, the ones who generated the most sales for my product. And so I got really excited about this because I saw all the other people who were going to be at this event, this little private mastermind. And I was aware of most of them. They were very influential in our industry and in the online marketing space. They had made, you know, a hundred times more money than I was making at the time. They had thriving businesses. They had large email lists and audiences. And I was like, man, if I could get in that room, I think I could create some magic from that room.

• 7:04Lewis Howes?

  And so luckily enough, I got tenth, right? I got tenth in terms of generating sales for this, this program, for this contest he was doing. And I got invited to my first mastermind. Now, I was kind of like expecting some weird wizardry, wizardry stuff to happen because I was like, I don't know, what is a mastermind? It seemed like so like speakeasy, hush, hush, like you needed a secret password to get in. It was just like, what is this thing? And I was so nervous the first time I went to my first mastermind. And I realized that it's just a room full of people. That's all it was. It was just like a private, small event. But what they discussed was things I had never heard before.

• 7:46Lewis Howes?

  And that's where my, my mind opened up because what I heard in this group was extremely insightful. I mean, there were probably six or seven different things I took away in a two day, nine to five type of experience of this little mini event. It's about 15 people eventually that were there. Probably six or seven different things that I learned that helped me multiply my income over the next few months and over the next few years that I still use some of those strategies today. Then the next month, I had built five key relationships out of this 15 person room, five relationships where all five of these individuals.

• 8:29Lewis Howes?

  We got along, we had a lot in common and they wanted to promote the product that I had, which at the time was a LinkedIn course, teaching LinkedIn marketing and advanced LinkedIn strategies. And these individuals all promoted my course via a webinar to their audience, to their list. And I generated over $250,000 in the next 30 days because of these five relationships. Now, the whole year before, I'd only done almost a half a million dollars in sales, busting my butt, day after day, week after week, month after month, for the whole year. We'd generated about almost half a million dollars in sales. Then we go to

• 9:09Lewis Howes?

  one mastermind, we meet five relationships, and within 30 days, generate $250,000. Now, we generated $250,000 from five key relationships in the mastermind because it was very specific. I also got, again, six or seven different ideas and ways to optimize my business and ways to save time, save money, accelerate growth, that I implemented. And it did something else for me. It created a sense of accountability at a level I've never faced before because now I'm in a room full of peers. Now, I was at the bottom of the room essentially, in terms of credibility and results and success, but it created a sense of accountability for

• 9:54Lewis Howes?

  me that I'd never had before, where now I was surrounded by a group of peers that I highly respected, and a facilitator who was coaching all of us and guiding all of us that I really respected. And it made me level up the way I thought, the way I acted, the way I took action, the way I believed in myself, more than I ever had before. And that's when the moment I realized, I need to be a part of masterminds more and more, because it generated $250,000 in direct sales from five relationships I built from this in 30 days afterwards. It generated over a million and a half dollars that that year

• 10:34Lewis Howes?

  in sales. This was my second year in business, guys. I'd only done maybe six or seven months of business before this. My second year of business, a million and a half in sales. Then the next year, went to two million, then two and a half, and continued to grow. And every year, I was a part of at least one or two different masterminds. And again, if one relationship generated six figures out of the mastermind, if one idea generated six figures for me, if one moment of being accountable to take action on something generated an extra six figures for me, then it was worth the investment that I was paying to be a part of these masterminds. And many of them were 20, 25, 30, $50,000, right?

• 11:17Lewis Howes?

  And it seemed like a lot of money upfront, but every time I went to one of these private speakeasy weekend experiences where I was getting coached and learning about the industry secrets from everyone else in the group and getting feedback and being inspired, it elevated my business. It elevated me. And that proximity and those relationships are so much more valuable than anything I ever spent in order to get there. So for me, a lot of people ask, well, if you could go back and do one thing, Lewis, what would you do again? What would you start with? And if I could do one thing from the beginning, or if I can continue to do something now,

• 11:58Lewis Howes?

  now that I am achieving incredible financial results, I keep doing this. I keep looking for masterminds and core groups of individuals who are excelling far beyond what I'm doing, who are achieving far greater results than I'm achieving, and I'm learning from them. It's part of the reason I have this podcast is that I seek out the most brilliant people in the world to teach me, to teach me how can I continue to grow? How can I evolve? How can I become a better person? How can I build my business? How can I have better health? How can I do all these things to improve, to get to where I want to be? So if you are at a place right now where you want to grow your business,

• 12:43Lewis Howes?

  you want to grow yourself personally, then you've got to be looking for these core groups. You know, in the industry, people call them masterminds. You can call them a core group. You can call them an accountability group. You know, it doesn't really matter the name. But in the industry...

• 13:00Lewis Howes?

  A lot of people call these masterminds in the business industry. And I want to talk about the six things you should be looking for when wanting to join a mastermind. I've already set the stage and let you know that you need to be a part of one. And you need to be a part of something where there's a community of people that are creating similar results as you, if not more results of you than you are. If you want to support your growth even more. And that's what's helped me grow my business the fastest is having proximity to the ideas, the people, the partnerships and the information that I need to accelerate my growth. And that's why it's important to be a part of these. And some people have a one-on-one coach.

• 13:42Lewis Howes?

  And that's great as well because a one-on-one coach will support you in personal accountability. But you're limited by one person's accountability and one person's coaching and ideas and feedback. As opposed to being a part of a group of people, peers, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 people. And an abundance of ideas, an abundance of accountability, abundance of partnerships. So you miss with one-on-one coaching, you get that one-on-one accountability. You get that more intimate support maybe. But you missed out on the abundance of partnership opportunities, the abundance of joint venture opportunities and higher level accountability. So here are the six things you need to look for when joining a mastermind.

• 14:25Lewis Howes?

  Number one, the coach or facilitator or curator or the person who has the mastermind needs to be extremely credible. And you need to aspire to want to learn from them. So they need to be someone who's extremely credible in your industry. Whatever industry you're in, it doesn't matter. They need to be someone who's created results that you want to learn from. You want to achieve certain results that they have achieved. It doesn't mean you have to be them, doesn't mean you have to copy them. It doesn't mean you have to believe in everything they do. It just means you need to want to aspire to learn from them. And they have to have credibility in their industry. And there was a lot of people early on that were just crushing it

• 15:08Lewis Howes?

  in kind of the online business world that I was not doing. And I was just like, let me learn from all these people. So I was joining all of them early on. You've got to make sure that they live by a certain level of ethics and and values that you that you also want to be a part of because you could have you could go join a mastermind, let's say in the business space where someone's making a, you know, 10, 20, 50 million dollars a year and you're like, okay, I want to learn how I can grow my business to that. But if the person is very unethical or if all they do is focused on making money, but if they're they're hurting their customers, then you don't want to be a part of a group like that because that's not going to rub off on you in a powerful, positive way. So you've got to think about that. The coach, the facilitator, needs to

• 15:53Lewis Howes?

  be credible and you want to learn to you need to aspire to want to learn from them. Number two is the content. Is the content and the industry right? So there might be a mastermind in the car, the auto industry, right? There might be a powerful mastermind in the auto industry or the the beauty space or the financial services space. And I might look at them and be like, oh, this is cool. There's a lot of great people in there, but I'm not in the auto industry. I don't I don't sell cars. I'm not in the financial services industry. I'm not in the beauty space. So you've got to make sure that the content fits exactly what you're looking for. Don't just join a mastermind because of, you know, one person's asked you to or something. You need to make sure that the content fits

• 16:37Lewis Howes?

  your model, your business, your content model as well. So really review what are they going to be teaching? What are they be covering? What are they be sharing with you? That's going to directly impact your space and your business. So number two is the content and the industry. Is it the right fit for what you're up to and your vision moving forward? Number three is the structure work for you. Most masterminds will meet in person a few times a year as a group. They'll do group calls. There might be some one-on-one coaching. There might be some different things. Is the structure work for you and your lifestyle? If it's constantly traveling around the world on retreats in exotic locations, maybe

• 17:20Lewis Howes?

  that's the most exciting thing for you and you need that. But if you like to be in your your hometown, Then maybe you just want to stay in your city and you don't want to travel as much. So the content might be right, the industry might be right, but the structure doesn't work for you. So you've got to find a structure that works for your lifestyle, your business as well. So number three is structure. How often are they meeting? How often are they talking? Is that support you as well? Number four, is the group right? Meaning, is the people in the group, the types of people that you also want to learn from, that you also want to be inspired by? Not just the facilitator, the creator of the mastermind, but are the people in the group, could they potentially support you?

• 18:06Lewis Howes?

  Could you partner with some of them, potentially? Could you learn from them as well? Are you inspired to be around that group? Or are you going to be the smartest person in the room? You know, you don't want to join a mastermind where you're still the smartest person in the room. It's okay if you're the smartest at one area of something, but you want to also learn from other people and make sure that they're really smart, talented people who are also thriving and successful in that room. So ask the facilitator, the creator, you know, who are the other people who are in this group? So you make sure that you're inspired by them as well and on a similar level. That's number four. Is the group right? The community of people in the group. Number five is accountability.

• 18:47Lewis Howes?

  Is there accountability in place in order for you to have marks along the year? Most masterminds are six months or a year. Is there accountability in place, whether it be monthly or quarterly, that allows you to set goals so that you can create big results on at least a monthly or quarterly basis? So that by the end of the program, the year-long program, you have created incredible financial results. Your goal is to create an abundance of wealth in your business or in your industry, whichever type of mastermind you're joining. That is the key. You want to have accountability in place and structure,

• 19:32Lewis Howes?

  whether it's a system, it's a structure, it's calls, it's meetings, whatever it may be, to make sure that you are set up for success. And that's what you need, is consistent accountability at the highest level. Is the mastermind that you want to be a part of creating that for you? That's number five. And number six. Is it coaching you to play bigger? So you don't want to join something and invest in something that's going to keep you at the same level. That's just going to maintain. You might as well just not do anything at all. Cause you can maintain where you're at without any coaching and without any inspiration and powerful mastermind group that you're part of.

• 20:13Lewis Howes?

  So I believe you want to be a part of something that's coaching you to play bigger. That the, the coach doesn't allow you to play small. That the other members of the team don't allow you to play small, that people don't sell out on you. That's what you need to invest in people, because you're probably one of the smartest people in the room right now. You're probably someone who's got a lot of the answers that people come to you. And if that's the case, you need to be having a beginner's mind again. You need to constantly clear your mind and be open to new possibilities. And that's the power of being a part of a mastermind. And in my mastermind, the greatness mastermind, the members, I'll do a one-on-one call with the members at the beginning of the year.

• 20:59Lewis Howes?

  And they'll tell me their financial goals, their impact goals for the next 12 months. And sometimes the goals are actually kind of like too big based on where they're at this year. Uh, this last year to where they want to be. Sometimes I actually got to like pull people back a little bit. Cause you don't want to say, okay, I made a million dollars this year and I'm going to make a hundred million in the next 12 months. And I say, okay, you know, in a world of possibilities, anything is possible. But tell me how exactly you're going to do that. And if they don't have the clear action plan of how they're going to do that. I say, okay, well, why not let's go for 10 million instead, you know, or let's go for five million or whatever it may be. Based on what they say their, their action steps are going to be.

• 21:41Lewis Howes?

  They say, well, I'm going to make a hundred million dollars working two hours a week. Unless you tell me the game plan of how it's possible. Let's create more realistic goals for you that are also crazy. That seem crazy based on where you're at right now. So I focused on that, but a lot of people. They play too small. They're saying, you know, they made a million dollars last year. They made three million dollars next last year and they're like, I want to make 3.3 million dollars. And I look at all the things they did, all the actions they took, and I can see what's possible for them. I am seeing the masterpiece that is available at the end of the year for them typically. And most of them aren't seeing it for themselves for whatever reasons. We have blocks.

• 22:25Lewis Howes?

  We have doubts that hold us back. And for whatever reason, that is a challenge. We need to eliminate those challenges. Again, those are the six main points you need to cover when joining a mastermind, when looking for a mastermind. Definitely do your research, do your due diligence. Feel free to ask people who've been a part of that mastermind previously about their experience, of course, what they gained from it, things like that. And when you feel confident and ready, then you can dive in. I've got my mastermind, which is called the Greatness Mastermind. If you go to greatnessmastermind.com, you can learn more about mine. You can apply there if you're a seven-figure earning entrepreneur,

• 23:06Lewis Howes?

  or if you have a massive audience, if you have hundreds of thousands of followers or millions of followers, and you feel like you're, you're not making the type of revenue that you want to. Maybe you're making a half a million dollars a year and you've got a million followers. You should definitely be earning multiple seven figures. And there's lots of people in our group over the last two years who have done that with larger audiences, really figuring out the systems in place and the actions to take week by week, month by month, to get clear on how to generate those revenue goals. My mastermind is all about impact and income. How do we build more impact in our own personal lives and the life of our community, our audience, our customers?

• 23:47Lewis Howes?

  How do we impact humanity through our message, through our work, through our service, through our product? And to our customers, that's the goal. And how do we earn more income in the process? Because with income creates resources, and those resources allow us to put us back into more impact.

• 24:10Lewis Howes?

  I hope you guys enjoyed this episode, this solo round. If you want more from me, if you want more content like this, where I'm diving in the strategy inside my mind, and what I've done to build my business, my brand, my lifestyle, my habits, my success strategies, if you want more, then just let me know. Send me a message over on Instagram, take a screenshot of this and share it with your friends, LewisHowes.com/728. Be a part of the community. Spread the message of greatness by sharing this with one friend. Share it on your social media, put it anywhere it makes sense, but get your community involved in our community of greatness. We'd love that. That'd be the best way to support us. I love you guys so very much. And I want you to reflect on this.

• 24:54Lewis Howes?

  I want you to reflect on what are your big dreams next year? What is the thing that's burning in your heart that you have yet to do? I want you to think about it. I want you to imagine it. I want you to feel it. Next year is all about creating the environment in your life to attract those dreams. You must build the environment around you to cultivate the energy so that it comes into your life when you're taking those actions. I did a video recently where I talked about on Facebook and Instagram where I said, you know, one of the biggest crimes we can commit is going to bed without a dream and waking up without a purpose. It's your job to dream big. It's your job to go to sleep with dreams and wake up with a purpose so that you can

• 25:37Lewis Howes?

  pursue your life with 100% passion, love, and energy. I love you guys so very much, and you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.