The other day, I was invited by an experienced coach & friend to attend a coaches' gathering at her house. She invited about 8 coaches who all graduated from the same professional coaching school iPEC Coaching. Some of us hadn't seen each other for months, and some of us had never met. The purpose of the meeting was for us to catch up, meet new colleagues (some coaches just finished their training), and to determine if there was any desire for us to meet on a regular basis.

It's always wonderful to meet other professional coaches, whether from the same school or not, to compare notes and possibly make new friends. I'm always curious about their business experience, coaching niche and personal stories. I believe I can always learn something from everyone I meet.

Making new friends and having fun is important. On the other hand, if we were to meet on a regular basis, I'd like to make the most of our time together and really learn something valuable from the group. After all, we are a group of professional coaches who can offer a lot for one another.

There were 6 of us there, and everyone showed interest in meeting on a regular basis. So, when we discussed what we would like to get out of this group, and the directions we would like to focus on, I suggested that we made our group a coaches mastermind group.

After a lively discussion, we agreed to establish a coaches mastermind group for:

• mutual support
  
• mutual accountability
  
• interpersonal contact

We would like to use our meetings to focus on our roles as coaches through:

• coaching skills practice
  
• coaching case studies
  
• business how to's
  
• presentation skills
  
• shared resources
  
• networking & referrals

We also envisioned that we could collaborate to create coaching-related programs & events in the future, and create "energy dominoes" (ripple effects) to the society at large through our mastermind group.

We've agreed to commit ourselves to this group process, and we would send out invitations to the other two coaches who couldn't make it that day. The group decided that we would plan to meet once a month, and test out the group meeting format & frequency for the first couple of months. At that point, we will re-evaluate the effectiveness of our mastermind group. Depending on whether everyone would accept the invitation to form this mastermind group, we may or may not invite more members to join our group.

I hope for great success from our new mastermind group.

Labels: coaching, getting support, goal-setting, mastermind, personal development, success, vision