How To Crowdsource an Answer to Your Challenge: Mastermind Dinner

This week, I'm in Boston hosting a Mastermind Dinner with 8 women. Each woman is bringing her specific challenge and we are doing mini problem solving at the table.

If you want to put together a group to help you through a challenge, this brand of conversation can be really powerful. BUT--- only if its planned out and moderated. You can crowdsource answers from a group that A. Wants to see you succeed B. That might have 8 solutions!

Unfortunately, most people don't know who to ask, or where to start. Most importantly,

They don't believe they deserve it.

They struggle with:

• Who to ask
• Who won't judge them
• How to share their problem out loud and be vulnerable
• How to get people together

No problem. I'm going to share how I put a Mastermind dinner together

Here's how, step by step:

Step 1: THE WHO: I make sure there are a few champions in the room

With the Boston event, I already had at least 3 women who said 'yes' to a dinner.

Make sure you already have some 'champions in the room' who believe in the idea and want to see you succeed.

Step 2: THE WHERE Figure out where/when to host the conversation

Most people get tripped up with the 'where, when' of the conversation and how it will take place.

To avoid this, I give people at least 2-3 month's advance notice. Most have plans 4 weeks out, but they rarely have plans 3 months out. Lock in the date.

Step 3: THE WHAT: Lay out an agenda

Where I see most meetings fail, is the lack of a good moderator and lack of a clear agenda and outcome for the meeting.

To avoid this I lay out an agenda with the questions I plan to ask to get the conversation going. I collected each attendee's challenges ahead of time, so once everyone is comfortable, we can make the most of the discussion time at the table.

My?name?is?Joya?Dass. I made?my?living as a television news anchor for 20 years. I covered the financial markets from the floor of the?New?York Stock Exchange. It was what I wanted to?do?since I was 4 years old.

I forged that career on?my?own and had to build the network to get to New York. Nobody teaches this stuff?in?school. My leadership platform today was born out of that personal pain point. You have a goal. You're at a critical inflection point and need the group and accountability to achieve it.

I have a Mastermind. It's called the Samita Lab Mastermind. 2022's cohort is already underway and heading to exotic Marrakech for the annual retreat. DM me to join the 2023 cohort. [email protected]

HOW TO CUT THE OVERWHELM AND GET PRODUCTIVE        

Last week we featured a powerful speaker on productivity. I interviewed productivity expert Tanya Dalton. One thing I loved is this: Challenge someone to write down what they DON"T want to do and they can very quickly create that list. Ask them what they want to do, they will stall and hem and haw

Either way, that's information.

Listen to this episode of "Tough Questions with Joya" here

HOW TO SET BOUNDARIES WITH TERRI COLE        

What I am still thinking about is our speaker on boundaries from two weeks ago, Psychotherapist Terri Cole, author of "Boundary Boss," shared ways that women leaders could be better boundary setters.

We, as women, have an inclination to want to fix things.

• Something happens to our child at school. We jump in to try and fix it.
• Our partner or spouse has a challenge. We jump in to find a solution.
• Our best friend calls with a problem. We are immediately Googling the answer and saying, 'I know somebody in that industry, I'm going to call them right now.'

Cole asks us to understand what's at work. It's happening to our child/partner/spouse, but we feel like it's happening to us and we want to end the pain.

• By jumping in to fix it, yes we are ending our own pain. But----we are robbing our child/spouse/best friend from doing the real work. Engaging in critical problem solving skills. What if you said instead, "Well, what do you think should happen here?"
• What is your level of urgency? Are we doing it/fixing it at the expense of our own time and energy. Possibly. "If you can't 'not do it,' that is a bar that you can look at if you can't step back."
• It is a covert or overt bid for control. At its very core, it is disordered boundaries. Because what are we talking about? We're overstepping, over-functioning, over-doing, auto fixing, instant advice giving in a bid for control. What if you let go, and let things take the natural course of action instead? Be there to catch your child/spouse/friend if the plan doesn't work out.

Cole concluded by saying that boundaries are teachable. But the student has to be willing to learn.? Listen here