People Power!

Success is never a destination you reach on your own. That's because it takes "People Power" to really achieve prosperity in business.

Andrew Carnegie, the founder of U.S. Steel and one of America's biggest industrial success stories, is a prime example of this axiom. He was one of the first great business leaders to utilize a business Mastermind Group to create, 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 he met with regularly to discuss every aspect of his growing steel empire.

I've written about Mastermind Groups before, but, if you're unfamiliar with them, they're all about putting the best brains available together in a room to help solve business problems and challenges. You may have been looking at a business dilemma from only one viewpoint; someone else may approach it from a completely different direction and give you just the answer you're looking for. You simply have to be open to hearing other opinions and options.

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

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

Your answer is important. Because having a key Mastermind alliance - a small group of people you're completely in tune with - can make a huge difference to your business.

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

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

Yes, yourself. Sometimes, we don't really listen to ourselves when it would be to our advantage. That hamster on the wheel doesn't really do self-reflection - but we should 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 we are, where we're going and how we feel about the journey we're on.

That's the most important Masterminding of all.

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