Have you ever been part of a mastermind group?

Where are you curious about the power of mastermind groups and how

they can supercharge your business?

That's exactly what I'm discussing with entrepreneur, Chris Docker.

In this episode of architecture business club, the weekly podcast

for solo and small firm architecture practice owners, just like you.

It wants to build a profitable future proof architecture business

that fits around their life.

I'm the host John Clayton.

If you want to get notified, when I release a new episode

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John clayton.co.uk forward slash ABC.

And sign up to my free weekly email newsletter.

Now let's talk all about masterminds.

Chris Ducker is a serial entrepreneur and the author of bestselling books, Virtual

Freedom and Rise of the Youpreneur.

Based in Cambridge, England, Chris owns and operates several businesses, including

the VA recruiting hub, virtualstafffinder.

com and the personal brand enterprise education company, youpreneur.

com.

He's regarded as one of the top experts in the world on subjects of remote team

building and scaling expert businesses.

Since 2008, Chris has been a trusted international business mentor.

Keynote speaker and podcaster, and currently spends most of

his time working with successful entrepreneurs, as well as investing

in and advising startup companies.

His work is regularly published on chrisducker.

com and it can be followed on Instagram and LinkedIn.

Chris, welcome to Architecture Business Club.

It's a pleasure to be here, John.

Thanks for having me.

Oh, absolutely.

It's great to have you here, Chris.

I know that when you're not busy working, um, in the different

businesses that you operate, that you'd love to sketch in your free time.

And I'd love to know where this interest came from in particular,

if it was anything to do with your father's profession.

It was.

My dad was an architect, as you're well aware of.

Um, and, uh, yeah, you know, I, I still have very, very fond memories.

He was an old school draftsman, right?

We always had, it was at the big drawing table with the, you know, the weights

and the rulers that slid up and down and all that good stuff growing up.

It was great.

He never, um, kind of jumped over to CAD.

He refused.

To do to, to sort of understand the idea that buildings could

be designed with computers.

Like we need rulers and pencils and pens sort of thing, you

know, blueprints, you know.

Um, and, uh, I loved that about him.

And I've still, I've got very fond memories as a kid.

We lived in Wimbledon and he worked just outside of Vauxhall.

So we used to get the train every Saturday morning.

We used to get the train, um, up to probably around.

14 or so years old.

I used to go with him pretty much every single Saturday and he would work

probably through to around middle of the day, but I would go up with him in

the morning, would hop on the train on the district line, go from Wimbledon

to Vauxhall, jump off or cross the bridge and go to go into his offices.

And there was a couple of things I always remember about his offices.

There was, first of all, the moment you walked in, uh, you could smell the coffee.

You know, they always had coffee on the brew.

Always.

And that was the first thing that hit you the moment you walked through the door.

Um, the second thing was, I always remember his highlighters, his stay below

highlighters and the rotary pens as well.

And a little pots of ink everywhere and, and, you know, pencils and rubbers.

I just loved all that stuff.

And so I've always drawn, I've always sketched, uh, you know, as a kid and

I went through probably though much of my thirties and forties, I didn't pick

up a pen for anything other than, you know, signing contracts or acquisition

documents or something, and then sort of.

Time goes on and, um, when the pandemic hit, uh, I realized actually what this is

going to drive me mad, not getting on a plane, not seeing friends from afar and,

you know, all that, not being able to travel with my family, you know, so, um,

I kind of, uh, just instinctively picked up the sketchbook and some fine liners.

And, um, one afternoon with my daughter, who's a big art fan as well.

She loves arts and crafts and just started drawing.

And before I knew it was happening, you know, I was using Google earth

to pick out, you know, uh, you know, corners and getting, getting,

getting my two point perspective on in the middle of a Kuala Lumpur from

the other side of the world and.

I just started sketching again and now it's really over the last year getting

more and more into uh, watercolor washes and uh, kind of very much,

um, when it comes to the urban stuff, very loose kind of sketching and

washing and watercolor kind of, uh, focuses, but I love my pro markers and

I love my details every now and then.

And get involved with that stuff as well.

So, yeah, I mean, I don't think there's a day now, honestly, very seriously

that goes by where I don't crack open the sketchbook for half an hour, at

least, you know, last night I sat here and did a loose sketch of the

shard, added a little watercolor 20 minutes later, happy camper, let's go

and watch EastEnders, simple as that.

So yeah, it's, it's become, it's become kind of full circle.

It's, it's, it's, it's nice to switch off at the end of the day.

And, um, you know, as and when I get the opportunity, I'll go out and, uh, do some,

uh, location sketching and stuff as well.

But, um, I just, it's just a nice way for me to switch off and I genuinely enjoy it.

that's awesome.

And what a nice, um, sort of legacy from, you know, your upbringing with your

father, um, something that was his bag that's kind of been passed on to you.

It's interesting.

It, it might, it might have actually been, um, not to get too personal here,

but my wife and I were staying at the Corinthia in, in London, uh, for a little.

Um, a few years ago and in their gift shop, they had a framed and I'm looking

at it right now, a framed kind of washed out negative blueprinty style print of

Battersea power station and we used to go buy it obviously right on the way to

Vauxhall and my dad, you, you know, made the same dad joke every single Saturday

morning, Oh, look, it's the upside down table, you know, and, uh, I saw it and

I told my wife, Oh, The story and then before I know what's happening when

we were checking out a couple of days later, there it was all wrapped up.

She bought it for me and we came home and I stuck it on the wall

here and it was around the same time that I started sketching in.

And painting again.

So yeah, maybe that's slightly loosely connected.

You might be right.

yeah, yeah.

She's definitely a keeper, Chris.

Yeah, I'll keep, I'll keep her around for a bit longer.

She's a good girl.

Brilliant.

Uh, Chris, I got to say as well, your memories of the,

the architecture office there.

That's just actually, it's just brought back some fond memories from the

first office that I used to work in.

Honestly, it could have been the same office, like that description of walking

in the door, the coffee on the boil there, you know, that smell when it hit

you when you walked in the reception.

And it was all drawing boards as well at the time.

I think they

just

boards, you know, piles and piles and piles of, uh, of, of, you know,

large scale drawings, some folded, some rolled, lots of rolls everywhere.

Um, you know, technical pencils, you know, more technical pencils that you can

shake a stick at, you know what I mean?

It was, it was, oh man, it's awesome.

They don't, they don't look like that anymore in our

don't look like that.

No, I'm afraid not.

Maybe there's a few still out there, but no, generally not.

I'm afraid.

Um,

we could, we could talk about this all day long, Chris,

yeah, we could.

geeking

out.

we're geeking out.

what we are going to talk more about though.

We're going to talk about masterminds.

Um, so for the listeners that aren't familiar with masterminds could you,

could you tell me what is a mastermind?

Silence.

or so, because it's cool to be part of a mastermind or something.

This is not new.

This has been around for decades and decades and decades.

Um, there was a collection of, uh, big writers, um, that used to call themselves

God, we're going to probably butcher this now, but I think it was something like

the ink men or something, or the word Smith men or something big writers, right?

Um, there was another big group of the imagineers at the Disney studios.

We're talking, we're going way back snow white, you know, kind of animation days.

Um, masterminds, they're nothing new.

They've been around for a long, long time.

And ultimately what they are is a collection of individuals that are all

ultimately on a very similar journey.

They've all come from a similar background, nine times out of 10.

Uh, and they've got similar goals and they come together to.

You know, brainstorm with each other to validate their crazy game changing

ideas, uh, and to ultimately help each other achieve their goals.

And that's one of the reasons why I got into them, right?

I needed the accountability.

I needed the support myself personally.

Um, the first time I jumped into a mastermind was in, um, very, very late

2010, uh, started my own one in 2011, which ran for a few years before I kind

of put it on the shelf for a little bit.

And then we kind of reincarnated it again in 2018 is the round table mastermind,

which obviously you're aware of.

And, uh, it's just, it's, it's a game changer for anybody that gets

involved, you know, like just imagine having the opportunity of not being

alone with your ideas and with your plans when it comes to growing.

Your business, any type of business, architectural business

or whatever, because a lot of the time entrepreneurs are quite alone.

A lot of the time their partner is not involved.

Their spouse is not involved in the business.

Sometimes they are, but a lot of the time they're not sometimes actually, you know,

you could even your friend group, your peer group are, you know, they're great

people to enjoy a weekend barbecue with or have a quick pints at the pub with

or watch the football with or whatever.

But.

They're not business people.

They, they, they've got a quote unquote job.

They're not running their own businesses.

So they don't understand the importance of watching costs and paying attention

to your profit and loss statement and what it's like to bring on board new

clients and convert people and upsell people and all that kind of stuff.

Right?

So a lot of the time we are alone and I think this is the one

thing that entrepreneurs struggle with more than anything else.

It can be a lonely journey and masterminds.

Fix that fundamentally, they fix it.

Absolutely.

That is, um, I mean, that's a huge benefit, particularly if it's somebody

out there that is a sole practitioner working on their own, it can be hard

to have that net, that support network in place to help you on your business

journey, whatever direction that's going in you've mentioned a few.

Points already, Chris.

So just want to kind of recap on some of those.

Could you maybe list out a few of those benefits again?

If there's any others that spring to mind, the benefits of mastermind

groups and being part of one.

Or the other thing that I've not mentioned is the fact that almost always, you

know, you'll, well, there's basically two types of masterminds, right?

The first one is a peer led mastermind.

So it's you, a handful of friends, you'll get together.

Once a month, once a quarter, twice a year, once a year, even

it doesn't matter what it is.

You just, you get together consistently.

Uh, there's no leader, right?

There's no followers.

It's just everybody around the table.

We're going to take it in terms to ultimately talk about what

we want help with, what we want validation on, et cetera, et cetera.

That's peer led.

Then you get a leader led mastermind, which is exactly what

the, what the round table is.

Right?

So.

There is a leader, and that leader not only leads the discussion, leads the

mastermind, but that leader nine times out of ten Will be, you know, five

years ahead of you, maybe more, right?

Very rarely less.

They've been in the game for a lot longer.

They've got a lot more experience.

Their Rolodex is deep.

They've got, you know, lots and lots and lots of expertise and

skill sets that they can share.

And ultimately people are happy to invest in their own growth, working

with these leaders, but also get the added benefit of surrounding themselves

with other people that are on.

Uh, you know, a similar journey.

So, you know, what I will do is not only will I mentor people

individually, but I'll coach them as a group together as well on.

I'll go through, you know, a number of different types of training or

coaching sessions throughout the course of the year, but I believe

as a group as well as individually.

They'll get some sort of benefit out of, but yeah, they're generally

two different types of groups that you can look at potentially joining.

That's really interesting.

And I'm glad that you've highlighted that because there's

quite a distinct difference

between those two types, whether it's peer led or, or if it's a leader

type mastermind group, Chris, could you, could you tell me the story?

Of your first mastermind meeting, or perhaps one of your earliest

recollections of attending mastermind.

I've been to a few masterminds online in person myself, I could

distinctly remember the first one and it was quite impactful on me.

I was wondering if maybe you had a story that you might be able to share

from one of those early mastermind experiences that you've had.

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Now, back to the show.

Probably got a couple.

From the position of running the masterminds myself, um, one of the first

ones I ever did actually, we, uh, Myself and my wife were involved, who's involved

with the, you know, with the businesses day to day, we came up with the idea.

I was going to London to speak at an event and this is when I lived overseas

and I was coming back to London to speak in an event and I, and she

said to me, look, when you're there, you've got this online following,

you know, why don't you run sort of like a one day brainstorming session?

Um, that can.

Ultimately bring a few people together they can pay for the pleasure you

might be able to offset a little bit of the cost of the trip you know might

be kind of cool to meet some of the people that are commenting on your blog

posts or listening to your podcast in person like give it a go kind of thing

and i never really thought about it.

To be honest with you, this is like late 2011.

I'd never really thought about it.

And so what we did is I sent out a very quick email to my email list, which at

the time, I don't, I can't remember how many people on the list, maybe three,

4000 people or something like that.

Um, and.

I said something to the effect of I'm running a one day mastermind and I used

the term because I heard other people talking about it sounded kind of sexy.

So I'm using, you know, I'm going to do this one day mastermind in London.

Here's the date.

Uh, here's the cost.

Here's what it's going to look like.

Lunch is included.

Um, and if you're good boys and girls, I might get you a beer

afterwards sort of thing, right?

Um, here's the link first come first served 10 spots available.

And I, it was 150 pounds is what I was charging, which is a fraction of what

I charge now for a similar situation.

Right.

Um, and, uh, we went out, I hit the send on the email and I went out to dinner.

And then when I got back, I checked my email and we told out in the space

of like two hours, I was like, Holy moly, this is crazy, but not only do

we sell out, John, we sold another six spots on top of it because I

wasn't expecting to sell that many.

So there was no cutoff for the shopping cart to stop working.

So we just kept taking orders and within the case, you know,

case of a two and a half hours or whatever it was, I, I brought in 16.

So I said, what am I going to do?

I'm going to have to refund these six people.

And, uh, my wife said, no, are you mad?

Just run another day.

Just run another day and so I did and 24 hours later it was sold out and I ran

two days back to back with two groups of 10 people different group each day

and um, by the time we were done, it was just so clear to me that I'd hit

on something like people needed this.

Big time and there was one guy there specifically who I can't remember his

name now, but he was chugging down Red Bulls like his life depended on it and I

think he worked at like the post office or he was a nurse or something to that

effect and he gave birth to his business.

Idea in that day or on that day that he was part of the group and a few years

later, he came to another mastermind that I ran, I think it was 2016 this one in

the Barbican in London and he came back to me, said, you know, man, you got no idea.

Like I went from doing 60 hours a week, like I was chugging

those Red Bulls, if you remember.

And, uh, you know, now I've got this businesses, you know, I've quit my job.

I'm working full time on my business.

I've never been happier working good amount of hours each week.

I'm getting stuff done and here I am to learn how to grow it again.

Kind of thing.

So that was kind of cool to, for it to come out of one of the first masterminds.

That was cool.

Um, the flip side being part of a mastermind myself, and I still, Uh, I

still invest close to 5, 000 a month on two masterminds that I'm a member of,

which are both leader led, um, because I believe I've got to continue to learn

in order to continue to lead myself.

Right.

And, um, it was not so long ago, probably maybe three years ago that I was working

with one of my coaches at the time in this one particular group who in the space

of probably about 15 minutes was able.

To highlight a huge gap in my ecosystem that was causing problems, getting

a certain amount of my clients from here to here, and this gap was

making sales for this higher end product so much harder to achieve.

And by bridging that gap with one little product idea,

not only actually is it made it easier, it's made me a lot more money as well.

And that's just 15 minutes of just working with the right person

at the right time, you know?

So it's, it's been pretty, uh, important to me across the board.

One way or the other

Wow.

I mean, those are some incredible results for you and for your own clients as well.

So, I mean, definitely there's a lot of value in being part

of mastermind without a doubt.

Chris, what, what common myths or misconceptions do you think

there are about masterminds?

You must've maybe come across a few over the years.

really big one honestly is that people think that it's going to be like a

magic pill that they can pop and that everything is just going to be perfect

from the outset it's not like that at all you know the idea that you can join

a mastermind group and it's going to solve all your problems without you

doing any kind of work at all is just.

It's silly.

Why anybody would think that?

I don't know.

Um, I say to my clients when they jump on board and I had an onboarding

call actually this morning with a brand new member of our round

table and I said to him like, you know, I'm going to guide you.

I'm going to advise you.

I'm going to point you in the right direction.

I'm going to give you all the tools you need that I know work when it

comes to fixing this particular issue.

But I ain't doing the work for you.

You gotta do it yourself.

And if you do the work, based on my recommendations, you'll come out the other

end, not only unscathed, but actually with a lot more money in your pocket.

If you don't do the work, you've only got yourself to blame because

I've walked people through this over and over and over again.

I know it works when the work gets done.

And I think that's the big misconception is that joining the mastermind is

going to fix all your problems.

Uh, the fact is you're going to fix the problems.

The mastermind is just going to be.

Thanks.

A tool, a resource to a certain degree on the root of you from where you

are, to where you want to get to.

And I think that's the big one more than anything else.

That's really valuable to share.

So essentially joining a mastermind, obviously huge benefits.

It's going to help you leverage your time and perhaps get to where you

want to get to quicker, but ultimately you've still got to do the work.

Absolutely.

And you know, it's like nothing lands in your lap.

Nothing lands in your lap.

I don't believe that.

Luck is a thing either.

I don't, you know, when people say, Oh, I've been lucky.

You haven't, you're just trying to be humble.

You've not been lucky.

You've worked your ass off.

You've got everything that you've got at this current moment in

your career because of the fact that you've earned your stripes.

It's that simple nothing lands in your lap when you're running your own business

there's no luck you create whatever luck means for you at whatever period

of time whatever part of your journey you're on right so i'm just a big

believer that you know action will trump.

Everything else you can't throw money at everything sometimes you just got to

roll up your sleeves and good old bit of elbow grease is all that's needed you know

Yeah, I think that's a lesson that I would have liked to have

learned a little bit earlier in my

you and me both you and me both

rewind the clock there a little bit.

Um, Chris, what, what things might you want to consider before

joining a mastermind or perhaps choosing which mastermind to join?

Let's do the peer led mastermind first.

I think the one thing that's really important is that

you, it's better to go small.

So I think peer led groups, quality over quantity any day of the week, when it

comes to a leader led mastermind, then really it comes down first and foremost.

And we know this for sure, because we survey all our members

and we know this for sure, 99.

9 percent of the time people will join a leader led mastermind.

Because of the leader, not because of the mastermind itself or any of the members

for that matter, it comes down to the person that's actually leading the group.

So you've got to not only earn that trust, but understand that it's

actually your uniqueness as a leader that will attract the right people.

Towards you,

So if somebody is looking for a group to join, if they're looking to, to

join a mastermind group, where's the best place to find the right one?

or your friends first, your friends first ask around first and foremost, I mean,

after our own opinions, we're well, you know, well, more likely to believe the

opinions of our friends and the people that we hold dear and trust properly.

Right?

So you can start with that first of all, and see if anybody knows of a group,

um, you know, that, that might suit you, you know, just because somebody

might know of a mastermind doesn't mean it's going to be a good fit for you.

But, um, I think that's where I would.

Personally start for sure, but then, you know, use Dr.

Google, right?

Like, you know, see whether Dr.

Google can also, uh, point you in the right direction as well.

Social media is another great way because anybody that's really running a mastermind

of any real weight will be creating regular online content of some variety,

whether it be social content, blog, podcast videos, whatever it is, right?

So, you know, you can get on their email lists.

Read the material, watch their videos, listen to their long form

content, like podcasts, see whether their, their vibe is your vibe.

Uh, and generally don't rush into it.

You've got to.

You know, you've got to have several touch points in place with

somebody to know that they're going to be the right person for you.

But I will say, you know, nine times out of ten, you follow your gut.

It'll very rarely let you down.

That's good advice.

Chris, we're going to try and wrap things up.

I just wanted to ask what would be the main things that you'd like everyone to

take away from this conversation today?

Looking at what other people are doing who have been in the game five, 10 years

longer than you, of course, they're going to have more accolades, of course,

they're going to make more money, of course, going to be on more stages, of

course, they're going to sell more books or have more clients that are high end.

Of course they are.

They've been doing it longer than you.

Right, so you shouldn't really spend any amount of time comparing where

you're at compared to somebody who's been in the game a lot longer than you.

So, you know, couple that together.

The fact that there are many, many masterminds out there.

Um, you've got to find the right kind of mastermind for where you're at.

Currently right now, because if you jump into one that is, you know, two

years, you know, two years too late, you're going to realize pretty quickly

that you're further along in the journey than the large majority of the people.

And maybe you signed a contract for a year and you can't get out now.

You're stuck now.

It's a waste of time and money.

Likewise, flip side of the coin.

If you get into a group that's too advanced for you, somehow you got

through the vetting process, you did the discovery call, you filled the

application, whatever it is, you've paid your money, you've also signed up.

Now you're swimming out of your depth.

They're already two or three steps ahead of you and you feel like

you've kind of, you know, got yourself into some sort of hot water.

You don't want to do that either.

So just take your time and, and play the field a little bit before.

You know, play the field before you end up getting engaged.

It could be a little, could get messy if you don't know,

Thanks, Chris.

Um, was, was there anything else you wanted to say that we, we haven't

covered already in the conversation?

not really.

I mean, I think, you know, your people tuning into this podcast because they've

aligned themselves with you, john, right?

You know, it's highly likely that everybody listening to this show.

Realistically, probably going to geek out a little bit more over the first

10 minutes of it that you and I talked about, uh, you know, rather than the last,

the last 10, 15 minutes of it, the fact is, you know, if you are an architect,

if you're a junior architect, if you're running your own architectural company,

if you want to run your own architectural setup, you know, you, this, you're doing

the right thing right now, listening.

In somebody and that somebody's guests who have been there and done it

already before and by doing that two things happen concurrently number one.

You set yourself to it.

You set yourself up to avoid mistakes that you probably would have made where

you're not listening to a show like this.

And secondly, you actually end up at the exact same time using that

as a springboard to be able to.

Go into the future a little faster than you would usually have to wait to try and

kind of navigate everything on your own.

So I'm just a big believer of self education, listening to

shows just like this, reading the right kind of books, surrounding

yourself with the right people.

Um, whether that be events or via a mastermind and just, you know, keeping

your eyes on the prize, because at the end of the day, the stark reality

actually is that life is very, very short.

And we've only got so many hours that we can put towards quote

unquote work on a daily basis.

So if you're doing something that you're not enjoying, there's something broken.

And if there's anything you can do in order to go a little further,

a little faster, then that is definitely worth looking into.

love that.

Crisp.

Thanks.

So much.

There's one other question that I'd like to ask you,

and it has nothing to do with masterminds

I'm getting worried now.

it's all right, don't, don't worry.

It's just nothing.

Um, nothing inappropriate.

Um, I, I love travel and discovering new places and I

think architecture is about place.

So tell me about one of your favorite places and what you love about it.

And this can be near or far.

It could be the end of your road.

It could be the far side of the world, just one place, one thing that you

love about it, that would be great.

One place is so hard because I've been really.

Note how I didn't say lucky there I've been very blessed to travel

the world quite excessively at this point in my life.

But if I had to pick one spot, one place I never ever tire of never get bored of.

It's probably Hong Kong.

Hong Kong is the type of city that it's just so in your face

at any point in the day or night.

For that matter, around any corner, there's always something going on.

And you talk about from a sketching standpoint, there's so much you can

so much you can you can create by being around, you know, any amount of

streetscape or landscape in Hong Kong.

Plus the people are amazing.

The food is incredible.

The nightlife is entertaining.

What more do you want?

You know, the humidity can get to you from time to time, but it's just a great spot.

I love Hong Kong.

It's such a cool place.

Oh, I love it.

I was fortunate enough to visit there just for a few days on a

flight stopover a number of years ago, and I absolutely loved it.

Um, yeah, fantastic place.

If you, if you ever get the opportunity to go, listeners out there, then get yourself

there well worth a visit, especially if you're interested in architecture.

Which obviously you are, if you listen to this podcast,

um, great city to go and visit.

Chris, thank you so much for everything today.

You shared a ton of value in the episode.

Really enjoyed the conversation too.

Could you just remind everybody where is the best place

online to, to go and find you?

I mean, it's chrisducker.

com, right?

I wouldn't be much of a personal brand business coach if I didn't

have my own domain name, would I?

So yeah, chrisducker.

com is where it's all, it's all about.

Everything is linked over there.

Awesome.

That's brilliant.

Thanks so much, Chris.

My pleasure, John.

Next time I'll be chatting with visibility coach Fifi, Mason, about

how you can start showing up and be more visible in what you do.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Architecture Business Club.

If you liked this episode, think other people might enjoy it.

Or just want to show your support, then please visit podchaser.com.

Search for Architecture Business Club and leave a glowing five-star review.

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If you just want to connect with me, you can do that on most social media

platforms, just search for @mrjonclayton.

The best place to connect with me online though is on LinkedIn.

You can find a link to my profile in the show notes.

Remember running your architecture business doesn't have to be hard.

And you don't need to do it alone.

This is Architecture Business Club.