The importance of surrounding yourself with people who raise you up...

Welcome back or welcome to the Empowered Business Show, a podcast that has been created to help you in just 15 minutes a day transform your habits so you can transform the results you achieve in your business and your life. My name is Hayden Brett and I'm by trade and training a high performance coach. I'm deeply passionate about the science of performance and growth. In this podcast, I'm going to explore in just 15 minutes the principles of mind flow and micro habits to help you develop a more empowering inner framework.

Let's get to it. Today's episode, I want to talk about surrounding yourself with the right kind of people. Now, I think it's Jim Rohn who's attributed to have said that we are the average of the people, of the five people we spend the most time with. And the reason why he said this is because when you surround yourself with people who inspire you, people who challenge you, people who increase the level of your thinking, then you can't help but increase the level of your performance.

Equally, if we spend a lot of time around people who are smaller than us, think smaller than us, who are drainers of energy, maybe who are negative, then we ourselves will find ourselves being diminished and thinking in a more negative way. So the amount of time we spend around the right kind of people is absolutely critical for our success. Now I'm going to tell you a little bit later in today's episode about something that we're doing next week, which is about helping our clients to raise the level of their thinking.

But before we get into that, I want to talk to about what I did last week. So I had the great fortune last week to spend a week in the Italian countryside. I've been part of a mastermind community now for about 18 months. And in that group, there are self-employed business owners, all running various different types of businesses from different sizes as well.

So not everybody is kind of the same size, but lots of different people in different stages of their entrepreneurial growth. But we come together three times a year. typically in an international location where we can connect, engage and really work on our businesses together. And part of the reason why Phil, who runs the Mastermind Group, wants to take us to international locations is because he's very keen to remove us completely from the ordinary, from the normal, from the way that we operate for the other 49 weeks of the year.

And it feels like a lot of time when you're running up to go into the mastermind, spending four days out of your business. And in fact, in reality, it means that you'll take an entire week out because by the time you've added travel at either end of the mastermind, you literally are taking a week out of your business. And it feels like a really big investment to take that time out. There are lots of things that we could be doing in that week that you're having to put aside for the purpose of your own development and growth.

But it's an intentional choice and intentional action. And this is the reason why I do it. When I go along to the mastermind sessions and I surround myself with people who are further along the journey than I am, even not necessarily because their business is bigger than mine is, but because they are more advanced in certain areas of their business than I am. I'm constantly learning, I'm constantly tuned into what's happening.

And as we connect with one another and we share our knowledge and our experience, as we start to ask questions of one another, both in the social settings and also in the formal kind of mastermind sessions we start to get insights and learn And if you been part of a mastermind group typically the way they operate is that there are hot seat sessions where a person will bring their big question or challenge around the thing that they want to work on and improve. And then everybody in the group pitches in with their insights and their information, their questions and their experiences to help that person to think into that challenge.

So rather than just having one person's thoughts or maybe a second person, if you're working with a coach, then you actually get the benefit of seven, eight or in our case, nine thoughts, nine minds coming together to work on how can you solve that problem. And as I'm sat there listening to people who've got challenges in their business that are completely different to what's going on in my business right now, and I'm hearing all of these great inputs and great piece of advice from other people, it just triggers spark after spark after spark of thoughts in my own mind about what I'm doing in my business.

even if what's going on in my world is completely unrelated to the subject at hand. The creative process when you have different perspectives projected into a group where everybody is committed to helping and support each other, the creative sparks just start to fly. And I have a note, my remarkable notepad, and I have a page which is Hayden's Notes, And I just capture those sparks, those inspirations, and just list them out, even if it's not about me personally or my subject.

So why a mastermind versus other types of group development? Because there are plenty of spaces where you can go and get together with other like-minded people, networking events, training programs. the difference between a mastermind and those groups is a typically it's a consistent group so you have the same people and you can build those relationships over time which builds depths of connection that actually create a really psychologically safe space where people feel like they can contribute without the fear of ridicule without the feeling that they aren't good enough and so you get the best of people so that's the first reason why masterminds can be really really valuable and then the second one is it goes beyond just the kind of classroom or the structured learning environment when we were out in Italy we were having dinner together we were going for walks in the morning we were going for walks in the afternoon we were just chewing the fat chilling out we even played charades one night and we had a bit of fun because we were kind of in this remote castle with very little else to do so we had lots of fun we did a a pub quiz.

So there were lots of social interaction. And again, in that social interaction, you really start to pick up insights into the people you're around. And it gives you this really informal space to create connection, but also to learn. And whilst in the formal environments, you might be talking specifically about your business and things that are going on in your business right now.

When you get into that informal space, you start to learn about other things that people are doing, whether it be certain podcasts they're listening to, whether it be that they are engaging in certain hobbies and interests. And again, when you start to be really curious, when you start to open your mind and ask questions, you start to learn an awful lot about the world itself and also what those people are doing within it. And so creating this environment where you have a combination of structured, formal learning, but done in a really informal way, but structured kind of approach, and also then really relaxed, casual conversations over dinner or food or connected to go for a walk or environments where you not feeling like you on the spot really helps to build these kind of social bonds that are very powerful to come away And what you then get is you walk away from it.

Not only do you have a clear action plan of what you need to do next based on the challenges that you took to the mastermind, but you come away really inspired. You come away really uplifted. uplifted, your energy levels are much higher. My experience is even though the weeks can be quite tiring because they're full on, and for an introvert, and I'll probably do another episode on this at a later date, but for an introvert, my energy levels are constantly being dissipated by being around others.

I still walk away from the mastermind uplifted with a real sense of hope and positivity, even more so than I normally am. I'm normally an optimistic guy, but I walk away with this real hope and optimism about the future and knowing that I'm in control of my own destiny. And so you walk away with two things, clarity as to where you go next, and then a real boost in energy that supports you and motivates you and drives you to want to take the next step in your own personal growth and development.

So that brings me on to the Inner Circle Summit. So at mindset we have for a long time now wanted to create an environment, a space where we bring people together, particularly people, leaders who are either at the top of their organization or are senior decision makers within their group. And the idea behind the mindset inner circle is we create a space for those people who are ultimately accountable and responsible for the decisions in their organisations to come together to learn, to grow and to invest in their own personal development, their career development and the development of their businesses.

And so we're looking for kind of managing director level, C-suite level directors, people who are on the board or senior critical decision makers who are involved in their organisations. And what we created is our inner circle. They are small groups, maximum of 10 people in a group. And actually for next week, this is our very first quarter, we've got three people.

So it's a very small group, very intimate group. But we are going to meet together and we'll do a combination of three things. We will spend time invested in helping those people work through the key challenges that they're facing in their organization at a strategic level. We're not interested in talking about how to solve a day-to-day problem.

We're really talking about the big issues in their organizations. How do they structure their organization for success in the future? How might they reconfigure the ownership structure of their business to ensure that they have a legacy? How do they create a high-performing leadership team?

Those are the types of topics that we will tune into and deal with. The second thing we will have is create that social connection that creates psychological safety that I mentioned earlier. So we have worked hard already and we will continue to work hard at our summit next week to create a space where these people can come and feel like they can be vulnerable, feel like they can share their challenges, but also feel like they get the support of the others around them. It's often said that leadership can be lonely.

And whilst I've always challenged that because I believe you should have a team around you that you can rely on in moments of crisis. I do recognize that sometimes you need an external force or an external group you can go to to enable you to really fully show up. And so you can kind of put aside that leadership hat for a while and just hang out with other people who recognize the challenges that you're going through. Leading a business, particularly in very senior roles is very different from other leadership roles in organizations So So this space to go and connect with people who are like you having the same challenges and just relax and enjoy the company of people who are in different environments to you.

And then the third part we have as part of our summits is we will do something special. So next week, we are going to be at the Open Golf in Liverpool. We're actually going to the practice day. So our entire theme is about the importance of practice.

But the idea is we will have some kind of hospitality-led event where you can go and experience something a little bit different, where you can go and let your hair down, have a bit of fun together, have those memories that we create together as a group that enable you to kind of reward yourself for the hard work you're doing, but also connect in the learning with the experience. And when the learning and the experience is connected together, it has a much more powerful inspirational effect on how you come out.

And so next week, we will be getting our group together. We will be meeting on Monday evening or Tuesday morning. We'll have a full day of learning together on the Tuesday where we've already had the questions and there's some brilliant questions been posed. We will then have a wonderful dinner on the Tuesday night.

And then Wednesday, we will get up and we'll go to the practice day at the golf at the open. Again, hospitality, food and drink all day, opportunity to hopefully meet some stars. We know Sir Nick Fowdo is going to be speaking in the space where we are. So an opportunity to meet some people you would not ordinarily have a chance to be around.

And just to fully immerse ourselves in the experience of elite performance and look for the habits, look for the behaviours, look for the traits that these elite performers, professional golfers, the very best of the golfers on the planet, it? How do they prepare themselves so they can perform at their best? And what can we learn as leaders to step away from that? And so step away from that with knowledge and insight that we can take away into our own leadership practice.

So we will be opening the doors to our next inner circle quarter in the end of this month, at the end of this month. And so if it's something that you think you'd be interested in, you're listening to this and thinking, actually, I could really do with being in a group of people who are going to help lift me up, raise my thinking, be surrounded by other key decision makers who will help you to look at your business from a different perspective and have the pleasure of going and having great meals and going to great environments like the Open Golf Practice Day and have great experiences amongst other people who can inspire you, then reach out to me, give me a call.

So the best way to do that is to contact me at Hayden, H-A-Y-D-N, at mindsetleadership.co.uk. So Hayden at mindsetleadership.

co.uk. Send me an email and I'll happily jump on a call, have a chat to you about what we're trying to achieve, what we're doing, and you can see if it's right for you. I look forward to seeing you as part of our inner circle.

And of course, I'll be back next week with the next episode. Enjoy the rest of the week. Thank you for listening to this week's show. I hope that you feel inspired to want to make a small change.

Remember, in just 15 minutes a day, you can transform the way you achieve results in your business. It's all about showing up each day, being consistent and committing to regular practice. Pick one thing from today's show and apply it for 15 minutes in your world for the next seven days.