People Power!

Andrew Carnegie, the founder of U.S. Steel and of America's largest industrial success tales, is a prime example of this axiom. They was of the first great business leaders to utilize a business Mastermind Group to generate, innovate and excel. According to Napoleon Hill, the noted author of the breakthrough 1937 book, "Think and Grow Rich," Carnegie put together a group of 50 people that they met with regularly to discuss every aspect of his growing steel empire.

Success is never a location you reach by yourself. That is because it takes "People Power" to accomplish prosperity in business.

I have written about Mastermind Groups before, but, if you are unfamiliar with them, they are all about putting the best brains available together in a room to help solve business issues and challenges. You may have been taking a look at a business dilemma from viewpoint; somebody else may approach it from a different direction and give you the answer you are looking for. You must be open to hearing other opinions and options.

Most of us have an casual business network they use to bounce ideas off of - our own unofficial Mastermind Group. But sometimes, it is better to make it an official with regular meetings, because it leads to a more focused, disciplined discussion, than an occasional phone call or lunch that doesn't have specifics goals attached to the conversation. It is the best way to optimize the People Power in your life.

Your answer is important. Because having a key Mastermind alliance - a tiny group of people you are in tune with - can make a giant difference to your business.

It is vital, however, to have in your Mastermind Group others who are as achievement-minded as you are. Motivational speaker Jim Rohn says that they are all the average of the people they hang around with the most - so look around you. Who are you listening to? Negative individuals who bring themselves down as well as those around them - or motivated and ambitious individuals who can inspire and help you?

You can Mastermind with someone in your circle that you respect and that you feel is worth listening to. That means not other business leaders, but also your employees, relatives members and even yourself.

Having said that, however, your Mastermind Group doesn't need to be about business. As a tiny business coach, I meet lots of entrepreneurs who have lots of difficulty balancing their personal lives with their professional ones. A Mastermind Group can help you learn to enjoy your success, in lieu of constantly feeling like a hamster on a wheel, always going, never getting anywhere.

Yes, yourself. Sometimes, they don't listen to ourselves when it would be to our advantage. That hamster on the wheel doesn't do self-reflection - but they ought to take time on a regular basis to sit down, cut off the day-to-day noise, turn off the iPhones and Blackberries, and think about where they are, where we are going and how they feel about the journey we are on.