7 ms·

Why paid masterminds are mental masturbation

66 points by ltadeut 4y ago

jedberg 4y ago
This entire argument is flawed from the premise. You know what else those CEOs didn't do? Graduate college. But that doesn't mean that skipping college is the right move. These people are the exception to the rule. Mastermind groups may or may not be good, but arguing that top CEOs don't use them is not a solid argument.
- SteveGerencser 4y ago
  Agreed. Top CEOs at "top" companies tend to be outliers anyway, so basing how you grow your business on those few unicorns is never a great idea to begin with. A solid mastermind group can to wonders for nearly everyone else. They can take beginning business owners and make them better business owners and offer support for struggling, or even not struggling, business owners. This strikes me as another one of the many, I didn't do this thing so you don't need to do it either articles.
  - KyleBerezin 4y ago
    The book "Good to Great" was based on this idea. I understand I am in a minority opinion here, and may be wrong, but a large portion of that book seemed based on that one fallacy.
  - AlexandrB 4y ago
    The idea of a community of people facing similar struggles and problems meeting to help each other perform better doesn't seem that outrageous. But paying thousands of dollars to some guru for the privilege does. I think this kind of thing used to happen "organically" on the golf course or at the country club. But at least there you get a round of golf for your money, not just the privilege of being in the same room.
    - vorpalhex 4y ago
      Choosing to spend money instead of spending time, when your time is worth a lot of money, is entirely reasonable.
- viscanti 4y ago
  You'll never be Warren Buffett or Bill Gates if you do X because neither of them did. Which misses the point that it's incredibly unlikely that anyone would ever be as successful as either. Most people probably won't be a Warren Buffett or Bill gates and optimizing for that statistically unlikely outcome could be suboptimal for the vast majority of people. It also makes the mistake of assuming it's an "if and only if" argument. One becomes a Warren Buffett or Bill Gates, if and only if, they don't do X. But there's no proof given for X preventing becoming a Warren Buffett or Bill Gates. The lack of X in some small sample isn't enough to prove this implicit part of their argument. Their argument fails on multiple levels. Maybe Masterminds aren't great for everyone. But that's orthogonal to their argument.
  - known 3y ago
    [dead]
- btilly 4y ago
  No, the argument is not flawed from the start. The burden of evidence is on whomever asserts the positive. There is a dramatic lack of evidence that these mastermind groups lead to success. And therefore we should view with suspicion anyone who says you should pay many thousands of dollars for something with no evidence of effectiveness.
  - balls187 4y ago
    First what defines success in your comment? Second, how would you go about measuring success? Since it's hard to measure the efficacy of a mastermind, especially against a nebulous definition of "success", putting on an economist hat, find a near approximation and measure that. Turns out, a mastermind is essentially like a fitness trainer that people hire to lose weight. So does hiring a fitness trainer lead to better weight loss outcomes?
    - btilly 4y ago
      Let me turn the question around. People join mastermind groups because they hope to get specific benefits that the groups advertise that they may give. This is an implicit declaration of success. For which of these forms of success is there evidence that the group works? When you have to pay to be a member (particularly for celebrities like Tony Robbins), is there strong evidence that it is actually worth the money? Note, there are strong psychological biases that makes us tend to justify money we've spent, whether or not it was actually worthwhile. I'm looking for external evidence. There is considerable evidence for benefits for various kinds of mentoring and peer groups. We can see that because people who put their money where their mouths are, like venture capitalists, encourage those behaviors. But I'm not aware of any independent evidence that highly paid "masterminds" are actually worth the money that people pay for them. And, given the burden of proof, it really should be on them to provide that evidence. They don't. Now to fitness trainers. There are lots of kinds of fitness trainers, on lots of kinds of business models. But it isn't hard to find fitness trainers like https://www.homeexercisecoach.com/personal-trainer-guarantee.html https://www.homeexercisecoach.com/personal-trainer-guarantee... who guarantee your results or you get your money back. That's pretty strong evidence that at least some fitness trainers know how to do things that really work. And I'd personally be willing to pay a premium for someone who is willing to provide a guarantee of results over someone who isn't.
version_five 4y ago
Fun fact, trying to quote the post's title will make your comment DOA: Why paid masterminds are mental masturbation (On the off chance my post gets vouched, try it yourself) - you'll see you can't reply, a dead giveaway it's dead.
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y ago
  It was deaded, I vouched, and now I'm attempting to reply. Edit: looks like it worked. (The comment was absolutely dead 4 minutes after it was submitted when I vouched.) Oh I'm dumb. "On the off chance it gets vouched." My bad.
- operatingthetan 4y ago
  This has gotta be a spam filter, right?
- mikestew 4y ago
  Wait a minute, are you trying to get me to type my HN password in the text box? (For the lucky 10K: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/hunter2 https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/hunter2)
reiichiroh 4y ago
David Shing comes to mind.
- jonathankoren 4y ago
  Shingy gets a lot of hate. I get it. He looks goofy. He was literally AOL's "Digital Prophet". It's all readily mockable. I mocked him myself; but I've changed my mind. A few years ago, he gave an interview with New York Magazine[0], and its eye opening. He was just a marketing guy that fell into an internal evangelist role, because he could talk to people at AOL that still had no idea what the internet was. I really recommend reading it. I came away thinking he wasn't the cartoon everyone thinks he is. [0] https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/10/shingy-reflects-on-his-time-at-aol-and-whats-next.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/10/shingy-reflects-on-h...
- dbrueck 4y ago
  LOL, yes, although Shingy is actually an unfinished ChatGPT bot.
CamperBob2 4y ago
I never heard of "paid masterminds" but it doesn't sound like a promising career path. It sounds like something that's already on the radar -- and on the whiteboard -- at various AI startups.
havblue 4y ago
Slightly off topic, but wouldn't the correct wording for this be, "Why paid masterminds are mental masturbators" or, "Why paid masterminds are mentally masturbatory"? It looks like the title uses the object as an adjective and it just doesn't sound right to me.
- upghost 4y ago
  How about, “Paid masterminds are a circle of jerks”?
chasebank 4y ago
I've always referred to it as business church.
tetrisgm 4y ago
Been doing startups since 2006. Mostly as a CEO. Sometimes as an EIR or a mentor. Never, ever heard of a paid mastermind. It sounds like the villain in Inspector Gadget who sits in the leather chair and strokes a cat in an ominous manner. There's no way this article applies to a significant portion of HN readers.
- balls187 4y ago
  Is your unfamiliarity with a paid mastermind a reflection of the relatively low value they provide, or a reflection of the echo chamber that exists in the HN/Startup/EIR community? Masterminds are big fitness community (martial art school owners, gym owners, dance studio owners, etc). Masterminds are one tactic used to monetize an individual community. This isn't at all dissimilar to the annual conventions various tech companies put together for their customers.
  - TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
    “Life coach” is another term for mastermind.
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    I'm certainly not stuck in the HM/Startup/EIR community, but I'd never heard of "masterminds" either. Maybe because I'm not a part of the fitness community? > This isn't at all dissimilar to the annual conventions various tech companies put together for their customers. Those conventions are of very dubious value.
    - throwaway173738 4y ago
      A mastermind is more like the guy standing at the front of the gym selling shake mix. Doing the exercise will make a much bigger difference no matter your diet, but he gets paid to sell shakes. So of course he’s going to tell you you need to buy his pre and post workout, and the diet shake and that’s how everyone else at the gym looks as good as they do. You see him talk to everyone who comes in, which validates what he’s saying. But you’re over by the weight stacks lifting so you don’t know what gets said. He greets everyone like an old friend because he knows the effect it will have on people. And you mistake it for the truth.
prepend 4y ago
Ben Franklin had a meetup club he called a junto [0] that he claimed was really helpful to him. I tried it with some of my work colleagues and it was super helpful but it was hard to keep together. It was good to be able to work through ideas and share good approaches. However, it’s more of a mutual benefit society and don’t think it would work for pay as the incentives would be off. With the junto, each member is trying to learn and teach. For pay, the incentive shifts to some are trying to learn and some are trying to sell memberships. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junto_(club) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junto_(club)
btilly 4y ago
I'm in strong agreement and can offer a very simple piece of evidence If these "masterminds" actually offered effective advice, then the best way for them to make money is find likely candidates, PAY THEM to take the advice, and then GET PAID a share of the success. Sounds ridiculous? It isn't. A wide variety of businesses do some variation on exactly that. For example this is exactly what Y Combinator does. It is how coding camps work. You can find interview coaching that works on the same principle - they get a share of your first year's salary. But if THEY ask YOU to pay THEM, maybe the advice is worthwhile and maybe not. However their business model should not inspire you with confidence.
- collectedparts 4y ago
  Oddly enough, less than 1 day later someone has launched what purports to be a YC for real estate investing: https://twitter.com/moseskagan/status/1643228164439814144 https://twitter.com/moseskagan/status/1643228164439814144 I have no knowledge of if the individual involved is credible but in broad strokes, I do love to see it. It's exactly what btilly said. If this guy is actually so good at teaching people to make money in real estate, he should want to fund people to use his advice, not the other way around. Apparently, he does.
- MrLeap 4y ago
  New revenue stream: join masterminds, accept their proof-of-confidence money and do what they say. Use hollywood accounting to always post a loss. Huzzah!
  - floren 4y ago
    I think this is just called "making a VC-funded startup"
  - btilly 4y ago
    That's why there needs to be a "find likely candidates" step. And getting it right is part of the core of the business model. That's why Y Combinator has an interview process. Why venture capitalists do due diligence. Why coding camps start with a test to see if you're worth educating. And so on. The incentives for fraud are also why many variations on this model involve putting a visible investment into you, but without necessarily paying you directly.
csa 4y ago
Hampton (joinhampton.com) was just announced last week (no affiliation). It’s structured mastermind groups. This is a new business by Sam Parr of The Hustle newsletter fame. Check out the recent MfM podcast that talks about it. I think some CEO folks may find it beneficial. Short summary seems to be that it’s a small community of folks in a similar but unique place in life. Specifically: - Can be open and vulnerable when it might be tough to do so with others (e.g., employees, investors, friends/family who are not in the same line of work, etc.). - Addresses some of the loneliness that some ceos feel. - Highly structured meetings run by professional facilitators. - Peers can help with finding quality service providers like lawyers, copywriters, etc. as well as using their networks to help with hiring. The podcast mentions some specific examples. $8500 per year, iirc. Edit: Due to the downvotes, maybe I need to elaborate more. Specifically, I think they mastermind groups can be something productive, rather than mental self gratification, when done correctly. I think most of the mastermind folks don’t come close to doing it correctly, but (possibly) Hampton does.
0xbadcafebee 4y ago
[dead]
tantalor 4y ago
Think of a few top writers or journalists. What patterns did they take to write their stories? Did they lead with boring questions? Each in a separate paragraph? Consider the question for a moment. I’ll tell you the answer. No.
balls187 4y ago
Does wearing Nike Air Jordans make you play basketball like Michael Jordan? No. If you could hire Michael Jordan as a personal coach, could he help you play better basketball? Certainly. Will he tell you something you couldn't learn else where? Probably not. But will it make more of an impression because it is Michael Jordan? Definitely. Now, instead of a personal coach, Michael Jordan brings on Karl Malone, Stockton, Pippen, AI, and few other 90s all-star players, and you get a chance to meet with them weekly. Not everyone wants to play basketball like Michael Jordan, but there are people who want to take their home salon business and grow it into multiple locations, and believe that joining a group of other people who have done just that, would benefit them.
- MuffinFlavored 4y ago
  > If you could hire Michael Jordan as a personal coach, could he help you play better basketball? Certainly. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/dinner-with-jay-z-or-500k https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/dinner-with-jay-z-or-500k > Will he tell you something you couldn't learn else where? Probably not. > Now, instead of a personal coach, Michael Jordan brings on Karl Malone, Stockton, Pippen, AI, and few other 90s all-star players, and you get a chance to meet with them weekly. If I was able to have weekly meetings with Warren Buffet, Jamie Dimon, Tim Cook, and Elon Musk about "how to do business/grow a business I was in control of", how often do you think their ideas would be in alignment versus basically conflicting? > Michael Jordan tried his hand at three positions during his years in the NBA career. They are Shooting Guard (SG), Small Forward (SF), and Point Guard (PG). > Karl Malone, Nicknamed "the Mailman", he is considered one of the greatest power forwards in NBA history. > One of the NBA's best-ever pure point guards, John Stockton is the NBA's all-time steals and assists leader. > Scottie Pippen: Position: Small Forward > Allen Iverson: Position: Shooting Guard and Point Guard Could any of them combine and tell Steph Curry how to play whatever position he is today (magical mythical 3 point drainer)? If each of them had different attributes/style, what could they collectively come together to agree on/teach you on? > point guard (PG) or 1, the shooting guard (SG) or 2, the small forward (SF) or 3, the power forward (PF) or 4, and the center (C) or 5. Can any of them teach you how to be a great center?
  - 4y ago
gumby 4y ago
I’d never heard of these people except for Tony Robbins, nor the term “masterminds”, but Napoleon Hill’s story explains some of the confusing fundamentals of Ayn Rand stories (the weird clubs where the Übermenchen meet)
dbrueck 4y ago
Sounds like a paid mastermind is basically the upper crust of the hordes of LinkedIn spammers constantly offering to help grow your business.
preinheimer 4y ago
I feel like the post paints with a really broad brush. The author is targeting one specific segment, while also linking to a wikipedia article with a much broader definition "A mastermind group is a peer-to-peer mentoring group used to help members solve their problems with input and advice from the other group members." Microconf offers Masterminds, they're basically acting like a matchmaker. For your entry fee (determined by ARR) you get introduced to 5-7 other folks at a similar level. Your group then meets up on a regular cadence to discuss topics. My group has been meeting every other week for 6 months or so. I joined for our new project, so $250. We don't get speakers in, but we do get access to a great group of folks to bounce ideas off of, outsiders to offer opinions, and occasionally hold us accountable. About half our drop has dropped off (and we've added someone new on our own), but I've gotten a fair amount out of participation. https://microconf.com/masterminds/#fees https://microconf.com/masterminds/#fees
ke88y 4y ago
> Does Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, or Susan Wojcicki attribute their success to a group of like-minded hustlers? A group they paid thousands of dollars to join? A group that was run by a self-labeled business coach? Can you recall them saying, “If I didn’t pay that business expert $50,000 to join all-day meetings, I’d be nowhere today”? Susan Wojcicki is a graduate of the UCLA Anderson School of Management, where an EMBA is currently $88,245 for the first year and "TBD" for the second year. Warren Buffett attended Columbia Business School, which is cheaper at only $80K/yr. Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard, but even two years there is a cool 100 grand. The problem isn't that expensive elite all-day meetings don't work. The problem is that the meetings you can get into aren't expensive and elite enough.
n0tahacker 4y ago
German, but kinda fun: https://youtu.be/zPMHVZL7y9Q https://youtu.be/zPMHVZL7y9Q (Join the Whatsapp group!!!)

66 points by ltadeut 4y ago

This entire argument is flawed from the premise. You know what else those CEOs didn't do? Graduate college. But that doesn't mean that skipping college is the right move. These people are the exception to the rule. Mastermind groups may or may not be good, but arguing that top CEOs don't use them is not a solid argument.

SteveGerencser 4y ago
Agreed. Top CEOs at "top" companies tend to be outliers anyway, so basing how you grow your business on those few unicorns is never a great idea to begin with. A solid mastermind group can to wonders for nearly everyone else. They can take beginning business owners and make them better business owners and offer support for struggling, or even not struggling, business owners. This strikes me as another one of the many, I didn't do this thing so you don't need to do it either articles.
- KyleBerezin 4y ago
  The book "Good to Great" was based on this idea. I understand I am in a minority opinion here, and may be wrong, but a large portion of that book seemed based on that one fallacy.
- AlexandrB 4y ago
  The idea of a community of people facing similar struggles and problems meeting to help each other perform better doesn't seem that outrageous. But paying thousands of dollars to some guru for the privilege does. I think this kind of thing used to happen "organically" on the golf course or at the country club. But at least there you get a round of golf for your money, not just the privilege of being in the same room.
  - vorpalhex 4y ago
    Choosing to spend money instead of spending time, when your time is worth a lot of money, is entirely reasonable.
viscanti 4y ago
You'll never be Warren Buffett or Bill Gates if you do X because neither of them did. Which misses the point that it's incredibly unlikely that anyone would ever be as successful as either. Most people probably won't be a Warren Buffett or Bill gates and optimizing for that statistically unlikely outcome could be suboptimal for the vast majority of people. It also makes the mistake of assuming it's an "if and only if" argument. One becomes a Warren Buffett or Bill Gates, if and only if, they don't do X. But there's no proof given for X preventing becoming a Warren Buffett or Bill Gates. The lack of X in some small sample isn't enough to prove this implicit part of their argument. Their argument fails on multiple levels. Maybe Masterminds aren't great for everyone. But that's orthogonal to their argument.
- known 3y ago
  [dead]
btilly 4y ago
No, the argument is not flawed from the start. The burden of evidence is on whomever asserts the positive. There is a dramatic lack of evidence that these mastermind groups lead to success. And therefore we should view with suspicion anyone who says you should pay many thousands of dollars for something with no evidence of effectiveness.
- balls187 4y ago
  First what defines success in your comment? Second, how would you go about measuring success? Since it's hard to measure the efficacy of a mastermind, especially against a nebulous definition of "success", putting on an economist hat, find a near approximation and measure that. Turns out, a mastermind is essentially like a fitness trainer that people hire to lose weight. So does hiring a fitness trainer lead to better weight loss outcomes?
  - btilly 4y ago
    Let me turn the question around. People join mastermind groups because they hope to get specific benefits that the groups advertise that they may give. This is an implicit declaration of success. For which of these forms of success is there evidence that the group works? When you have to pay to be a member (particularly for celebrities like Tony Robbins), is there strong evidence that it is actually worth the money? Note, there are strong psychological biases that makes us tend to justify money we've spent, whether or not it was actually worthwhile. I'm looking for external evidence. There is considerable evidence for benefits for various kinds of mentoring and peer groups. We can see that because people who put their money where their mouths are, like venture capitalists, encourage those behaviors. But I'm not aware of any independent evidence that highly paid "masterminds" are actually worth the money that people pay for them. And, given the burden of proof, it really should be on them to provide that evidence. They don't. Now to fitness trainers. There are lots of kinds of fitness trainers, on lots of kinds of business models. But it isn't hard to find fitness trainers like https://www.homeexercisecoach.com/personal-trainer-guarantee.html https://www.homeexercisecoach.com/personal-trainer-guarantee... who guarantee your results or you get your money back. That's pretty strong evidence that at least some fitness trainers know how to do things that really work. And I'd personally be willing to pay a premium for someone who is willing to provide a guarantee of results over someone who isn't.

version_five 4y ago

Fun fact, trying to quote the post's title will make your comment DOA: Why paid masterminds are mental masturbation (On the off chance my post gets vouched, try it yourself) - you'll see you can't reply, a dead giveaway it's dead.

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y ago
It was deaded, I vouched, and now I'm attempting to reply. Edit: looks like it worked. (The comment was absolutely dead 4 minutes after it was submitted when I vouched.) Oh I'm dumb. "On the off chance it gets vouched." My bad.
operatingthetan 4y ago
This has gotta be a spam filter, right?
mikestew 4y ago
Wait a minute, are you trying to get me to type my HN password in the text box? (For the lucky 10K: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/hunter2 https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/hunter2)

reiichiroh 4y ago

David Shing comes to mind.

jonathankoren 4y ago
Shingy gets a lot of hate. I get it. He looks goofy. He was literally AOL's "Digital Prophet". It's all readily mockable. I mocked him myself; but I've changed my mind. A few years ago, he gave an interview with New York Magazine[0], and its eye opening. He was just a marketing guy that fell into an internal evangelist role, because he could talk to people at AOL that still had no idea what the internet was. I really recommend reading it. I came away thinking he wasn't the cartoon everyone thinks he is. [0] https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/10/shingy-reflects-on-his-time-at-aol-and-whats-next.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/10/shingy-reflects-on-h...
dbrueck 4y ago
LOL, yes, although Shingy is actually an unfinished ChatGPT bot.

CamperBob2 4y ago

I never heard of "paid masterminds" but it doesn't sound like a promising career path. It sounds like something that's already on the radar -- and on the whiteboard -- at various AI startups.

havblue 4y ago

Slightly off topic, but wouldn't the correct wording for this be, "Why paid masterminds are mental masturbators" or, "Why paid masterminds are mentally masturbatory"? It looks like the title uses the object as an adjective and it just doesn't sound right to me.

upghost 4y ago
How about, “Paid masterminds are a circle of jerks”?

chasebank 4y ago

I've always referred to it as business church.

tetrisgm 4y ago

Been doing startups since 2006. Mostly as a CEO. Sometimes as an EIR or a mentor. Never, ever heard of a paid mastermind. It sounds like the villain in Inspector Gadget who sits in the leather chair and strokes a cat in an ominous manner. There's no way this article applies to a significant portion of HN readers.

balls187 4y ago
Is your unfamiliarity with a paid mastermind a reflection of the relatively low value they provide, or a reflection of the echo chamber that exists in the HN/Startup/EIR community? Masterminds are big fitness community (martial art school owners, gym owners, dance studio owners, etc). Masterminds are one tactic used to monetize an individual community. This isn't at all dissimilar to the annual conventions various tech companies put together for their customers.
- TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
  “Life coach” is another term for mastermind.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  I'm certainly not stuck in the HM/Startup/EIR community, but I'd never heard of "masterminds" either. Maybe because I'm not a part of the fitness community? > This isn't at all dissimilar to the annual conventions various tech companies put together for their customers. Those conventions are of very dubious value.
  - throwaway173738 4y ago
    A mastermind is more like the guy standing at the front of the gym selling shake mix. Doing the exercise will make a much bigger difference no matter your diet, but he gets paid to sell shakes. So of course he’s going to tell you you need to buy his pre and post workout, and the diet shake and that’s how everyone else at the gym looks as good as they do. You see him talk to everyone who comes in, which validates what he’s saying. But you’re over by the weight stacks lifting so you don’t know what gets said. He greets everyone like an old friend because he knows the effect it will have on people. And you mistake it for the truth.

prepend 4y ago

Ben Franklin had a meetup club he called a junto [0] that he claimed was really helpful to him. I tried it with some of my work colleagues and it was super helpful but it was hard to keep together. It was good to be able to work through ideas and share good approaches. However, it’s more of a mutual benefit society and don’t think it would work for pay as the incentives would be off. With the junto, each member is trying to learn and teach. For pay, the incentive shifts to some are trying to learn and some are trying to sell memberships. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junto_(club) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junto_(club)

btilly 4y ago

I'm in strong agreement and can offer a very simple piece of evidence If these "masterminds" actually offered effective advice, then the best way for them to make money is find likely candidates, PAY THEM to take the advice, and then GET PAID a share of the success. Sounds ridiculous? It isn't. A wide variety of businesses do some variation on exactly that. For example this is exactly what Y Combinator does. It is how coding camps work. You can find interview coaching that works on the same principle - they get a share of your first year's salary. But if THEY ask YOU to pay THEM, maybe the advice is worthwhile and maybe not. However their business model should not inspire you with confidence.

collectedparts 4y ago
Oddly enough, less than 1 day later someone has launched what purports to be a YC for real estate investing: https://twitter.com/moseskagan/status/1643228164439814144 https://twitter.com/moseskagan/status/1643228164439814144 I have no knowledge of if the individual involved is credible but in broad strokes, I do love to see it. It's exactly what btilly said. If this guy is actually so good at teaching people to make money in real estate, he should want to fund people to use his advice, not the other way around. Apparently, he does.
MrLeap 4y ago
New revenue stream: join masterminds, accept their proof-of-confidence money and do what they say. Use hollywood accounting to always post a loss. Huzzah!
- floren 4y ago
  I think this is just called "making a VC-funded startup"
- btilly 4y ago
  That's why there needs to be a "find likely candidates" step. And getting it right is part of the core of the business model. That's why Y Combinator has an interview process. Why venture capitalists do due diligence. Why coding camps start with a test to see if you're worth educating. And so on. The incentives for fraud are also why many variations on this model involve putting a visible investment into you, but without necessarily paying you directly.

csa 4y ago

Hampton (joinhampton.com) was just announced last week (no affiliation). It’s structured mastermind groups. This is a new business by Sam Parr of The Hustle newsletter fame. Check out the recent MfM podcast that talks about it. I think some CEO folks may find it beneficial. Short summary seems to be that it’s a small community of folks in a similar but unique place in life. Specifically: - Can be open and vulnerable when it might be tough to do so with others (e.g., employees, investors, friends/family who are not in the same line of work, etc.). - Addresses some of the loneliness that some ceos feel. - Highly structured meetings run by professional facilitators. - Peers can help with finding quality service providers like lawyers, copywriters, etc. as well as using their networks to help with hiring. The podcast mentions some specific examples. $8500 per year, iirc. Edit: Due to the downvotes, maybe I need to elaborate more. Specifically, I think they mastermind groups can be something productive, rather than mental self gratification, when done correctly. I think most of the mastermind folks don’t come close to doing it correctly, but (possibly) Hampton does.

0xbadcafebee 4y ago

[dead]

tantalor 4y ago

Think of a few top writers or journalists. What patterns did they take to write their stories? Did they lead with boring questions? Each in a separate paragraph? Consider the question for a moment. I’ll tell you the answer. No.

balls187 4y ago

Does wearing Nike Air Jordans make you play basketball like Michael Jordan? No. If you could hire Michael Jordan as a personal coach, could he help you play better basketball? Certainly. Will he tell you something you couldn't learn else where? Probably not. But will it make more of an impression because it is Michael Jordan? Definitely. Now, instead of a personal coach, Michael Jordan brings on Karl Malone, Stockton, Pippen, AI, and few other 90s all-star players, and you get a chance to meet with them weekly. Not everyone wants to play basketball like Michael Jordan, but there are people who want to take their home salon business and grow it into multiple locations, and believe that joining a group of other people who have done just that, would benefit them.

MuffinFlavored 4y ago
> If you could hire Michael Jordan as a personal coach, could he help you play better basketball? Certainly. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/dinner-with-jay-z-or-500k https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/dinner-with-jay-z-or-500k > Will he tell you something you couldn't learn else where? Probably not. > Now, instead of a personal coach, Michael Jordan brings on Karl Malone, Stockton, Pippen, AI, and few other 90s all-star players, and you get a chance to meet with them weekly. If I was able to have weekly meetings with Warren Buffet, Jamie Dimon, Tim Cook, and Elon Musk about "how to do business/grow a business I was in control of", how often do you think their ideas would be in alignment versus basically conflicting? > Michael Jordan tried his hand at three positions during his years in the NBA career. They are Shooting Guard (SG), Small Forward (SF), and Point Guard (PG). > Karl Malone, Nicknamed "the Mailman", he is considered one of the greatest power forwards in NBA history. > One of the NBA's best-ever pure point guards, John Stockton is the NBA's all-time steals and assists leader. > Scottie Pippen: Position: Small Forward > Allen Iverson: Position: Shooting Guard and Point Guard Could any of them combine and tell Steph Curry how to play whatever position he is today (magical mythical 3 point drainer)? If each of them had different attributes/style, what could they collectively come together to agree on/teach you on? > point guard (PG) or 1, the shooting guard (SG) or 2, the small forward (SF) or 3, the power forward (PF) or 4, and the center (C) or 5. Can any of them teach you how to be a great center?
- 4y ago

gumby 4y ago

I’d never heard of these people except for Tony Robbins, nor the term “masterminds”, but Napoleon Hill’s story explains some of the confusing fundamentals of Ayn Rand stories (the weird clubs where the Übermenchen meet)

dbrueck 4y ago

Sounds like a paid mastermind is basically the upper crust of the hordes of LinkedIn spammers constantly offering to help grow your business.

preinheimer 4y ago

I feel like the post paints with a really broad brush. The author is targeting one specific segment, while also linking to a wikipedia article with a much broader definition "A mastermind group is a peer-to-peer mentoring group used to help members solve their problems with input and advice from the other group members." Microconf offers Masterminds, they're basically acting like a matchmaker. For your entry fee (determined by ARR) you get introduced to 5-7 other folks at a similar level. Your group then meets up on a regular cadence to discuss topics. My group has been meeting every other week for 6 months or so. I joined for our new project, so $250. We don't get speakers in, but we do get access to a great group of folks to bounce ideas off of, outsiders to offer opinions, and occasionally hold us accountable. About half our drop has dropped off (and we've added someone new on our own), but I've gotten a fair amount out of participation. https://microconf.com/masterminds/#fees https://microconf.com/masterminds/#fees

ke88y 4y ago

> Does Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, or Susan Wojcicki attribute their success to a group of like-minded hustlers? A group they paid thousands of dollars to join? A group that was run by a self-labeled business coach? Can you recall them saying, “If I didn’t pay that business expert $50,000 to join all-day meetings, I’d be nowhere today”? Susan Wojcicki is a graduate of the UCLA Anderson School of Management, where an EMBA is currently $88,245 for the first year and "TBD" for the second year. Warren Buffett attended Columbia Business School, which is cheaper at only $80K/yr. Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard, but even two years there is a cool 100 grand. The problem isn't that expensive elite all-day meetings don't work. The problem is that the meetings you can get into aren't expensive and elite enough.

n0tahacker 4y ago

German, but kinda fun: https://youtu.be/zPMHVZL7y9Q https://youtu.be/zPMHVZL7y9Q (Join the Whatsapp group!!!)