Starting a coaching mastermind group
It is December, and I have just wrapped up my last coaching class in my training program. Along with a few classmates, we were wondering how we can continue to grow as coaches.
We have learned so much from a formal education environment. There are many benefits of being in a formal education environment.
access to experts in the field,
find like-minded people who are willing to spend money to invest in their personal and professional growth.
built-in accountability: class meetings, deadlines, and assignments that relate to a grade.
financial risk: if you don’t pass, you will have to take the class again.
But what about when someone graduates from the program? No one taught me how to learn on my own without a formal education system when I graduated from high school, so I chose to go to college to keep on learning. After my bachelor’s degree, I went on to a master’s degree. But from 2016-2021, I had no formal education environment. I relied heavily on colleagues, books, articles, and whatever my boss assigned to me. My learning during those 5 years was freeing in many senses but also taxing because I had to spend a lot more time figuring out what I would learn, how I would learn, and how I would share my learning with someone else.
This year, I went back to school to finish my coaching training. And here I am, unsure of what to do after I finish the program.
I crave something more structured and want to be in a learning community with people who also want to learn how to be better coaches and run their businesses. Running a coaching business is something new that God has turned my attention to, and it is something that I have become more interested in doing. Even though I have no intention of quitting my job, I can see God’s hand in moving the next step in front of me, and that is to keep on learning and practicing coaching.
I came across a “mastermind group” about 2 months ago for leaders looking to better their skills in writing useful materials for the people they lead. I have heard about “mastermind groups” “before, but I always thought it is something you pay to be a part of, and it is for people who have additional income to invest because many groups require payment. I kept the idea in the back of my mind.
A few weeks ago, during one of my coaching sessions with a classmate, I shared the desire to continue learning after the training was over. My classmate echoed the sentiment that we were just getting started, and there was still so much to learn. So we thought we could gather a few classmates and learn together. I researched some mastermind group articles and felt we could create our mastermind group where we read a book together, learn, share experiences, and even do case studies together.
With this new insight, the classmate emailed 2 more classmates, and the 4 of us decided to form a mastermind group. We used a doodle poll to see when people are available, and we decided to meet once a month starting in January. We picked out a book we will be reading together, and we will learn as we go. Here are the 3 articles that I read before sharing this idea with my classmates:
and I recommended the “Libby Library” app for our group to find the book we will be reading for free.
I am feeling excited about this group, and I look forward to create a community of coaches where we can learn together and lean on each other as we learn to be better coaches and better business owners.
