Are you the TIDE or the BOAT?

A rising tide lifts all boats.

Most of us are familiar with this classic aphorism. I heard it recently again and was reminded that when I was younger:

I thought of myself as one of the boats.

But what if I was the TIDE?

Recently I returned home from an incredible mastermind. As you’ve heard me mention before, I’ve joined numerous masterminds over the years. I left this one feeling like I attended a glorified seminar, (more so than my usual feeling of an energy and motivation jolt resulting from a sharing of ideas). 

This latest experience brought me back to a book I’ve read more times than any other:

“Think and Grow Rich” by the renowned self-help author, Napoleon Hill.

In it, Hill draws on stories of Andrew Carnegie, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and other millionaires of his generation to illustrate true principles of success. Carnegie talks about the power of creating a mastermind.

A mastermind is the cornerstone to all great achievement.

I didn’t always truly understand this concept.  I would read and reread this one chapter and ponder how it works. 

I mean, I always understood the principle behind the rising tide; I always wanted to contribute to others boats, but until recent years I thought how I could become the rising tide.  I was focusing on helping many individual boats, but didn’t quite understand the tide. 

In the beginning of my career, I had some great ideas.  

I had bodacious plans and strategies.

I had epiphanies and exciting successes. And I used everything I learned to build and grow my own business.

But I kept many of the details of these ideas to myself. I treated them like my secret sauce. 

My 11 herbs and spices. 

Maybe I was concerned with the competition, or fear that others might take my ideas and strategies and use it for their own advantage and it would somehow make my ideas less special?

Then I read “Think and Grow Rich”. 

Hill says that no mind is complete by itself.  It needs contact and association with other minds to grow and expand.

This is an idea that is often overlooked.

Think about it… Alone, we only have a limited amount of experiences to draw from.  

This is why I’ve come back to his book over and over again.  

This is why over the past several years I decided to join multiple mastermind communities.

 A mastermind allows us to draw freely from the experience, training, skills and knowledge of others who align with our mission.

When you outline your definite purpose it will become clear to the people in that room how they can most help you attain your goal.

The results are undeniable. 

The opportunity to be in a room (in person) with successful, innovative minds, all with a goal of helping others in their mission. The sheer magnification of all the combined qualities of each person paired with the courage to challenge yourself is invaluable. 

I think of it this way: 

On your own, you’re a single brush stroke. But in a mastermind, you could become a Monet.

I don’t mean to oversimplify this, or make it sound like it’s a simple solution.  

Opening ourselves up to other people’s thinking and sharing our own mindsets or strategies, is not something that comes naturally to some of us. It might mean changing your mindset or doing some important self examination to be ready for this.

In “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”, Stephen Covey talks about the ‘scarcity mindset’.  

Scarcity is usually defined by two main facets:

• Wealth and opportunity are limited
• The fear that one may never have enough

A scarcity mindset can also come with an obsession with what one is lacking. This creates tunnel vision, making it more difficult to move forward and achieve financial goals and milestones.

To get the most out of a mastermind, this ‘scarcity mindset’ can hold you back, and in turn deprive others of what you have to offer.

Instead, approach a mastermind with a ‘prosperity mindset.’

Where everyone understands that there is room for everyone to succeed and there is no shortage of wealth or opportunity. With this mindset, you’re creating an atmosphere where any idea, or shared story, is worthwhile.  

Success stories are always helpful, but with a prosperity mindset, your group will also feel comfortable sharing stories of shortcomings or failures. All of which are valuable when working toward your goals. 

Attitude is everything.

Amazing things can happen when you check your ego at the door.

Be open to the fact that people possess knowledge you might not yet have or that might be in your blind spot.

 Show others that you’re dependable, loyal and have a positive attitude.

By entering a mastermind with this attitude you’re creating partners as opposed to competitors.

And everyone benefits from that group’s selflessness to help one another achieve their respective goals.

I’m still feeling the glow from the mastermind I recently attended. 

This particular group of 14 people, each with their own unique skill set and abilities, all came with open minds as we shared our experiences and offered one another the BEST of what’s working for each of us.

We left that room as better individuals. 

Yes, we created great, new relationships that I look forward to growing and learning from.  But because the selflessness in sharing their own personal strategies and success, we all left energized and excited to take what we learned and find ways to implement them in our own ways and for our own needs.

We may have all arrived there as individual boats, but we left there with the understanding that we are all part of the tide that helps lift all our boats.

I can personally attest to this, given some great experiences from masterminds I’ve joined over the years.

But I can also speak to how we created our own mastermind within our team at Business Nitrogen!

We are always looking for new and exciting ways to improve what we do and how we do it. As a group we strategize how we can make a greater impact and get our message out there so many more can benefit.  

Recently we’ve been focusing on our Nitrogen Hiring Network and a new training called: ‘Winter is here… You just don’t see the snow’.

We first met as a whole team, and then we broke into smaller teams. We reconvened and then shared our collective ideas. We then broke back into teams and got together again…

Lather. Rinse. Repeat…and COLLABORATE.

Using this kind of idea sharing we had a complete plan of action and completed a month (or even two months) worth of work DONE by the end of day!

All of this was done by creating an INTERNAL mastermind.

I know that everyone may not feel that they have the opportunity to join or invest in a mastermind.  But that shouldn’t stop you from creating one!

You can seek out people locally, or use a platform like Zoom to put together a think tank so that you can start sharing and listening to new and interesting ideas.  

You have a lot to offer and a lot to gain from the knowledge of other great minds.  So assemble your own mastermind group and implement the ideas that people like Napoleon Hill have laid out so succinctly. 

I encourage you to not only find people that are working at your level, but also surround yourself with people who might be a few steps ahead of you or a little further up the ladder of success.

I’ve always said, “I’d rather be in a room with the smartest people versus being the smartest person in the room”. 

Think about when you’re learning something new. Like a new sport, or when you’re learning a language.

Will you learn more from working with someone who is at your level, or will you learn more, be more motivated to learn, and challenge yourself more by working with someone who is more skilled and experienced than you are currently?

For me, I will continue to be motivated and excited to learn from others so that I can continue to push myself and my team, in our boat.

But I am excited to share MY OWN ideas so that they might inspire others to think differently and take action in their own boats.

I am the TIDE. 

BE THE TIDE.

To your success, 

David