By Steven Gordon, Lemonade Day National President

“So, what is a mastermind group exactly?

Mastermind groups offer a combination of brainstorming, education, peer accountability and support in a group setting to sharpen your business and personal skills. A mastermind group helps you and your mastermind group members achieve success. Participants challenge each other to set powerful goals, and more importantly, to accomplish them.

Through a mastermind group process, first you create a goal, then a plan to achieve it. The group helps you with creative ideas and wise decisions-making. Then, as you begin to implement your plan, you bring both success stories and problems to the group. Success stories are applauded (loudly!), and problem are solved through peer brainstorming and collective, creative thinking.

The group requires commitment, confidentiality, willingness to both give and receive advice and ideas, and support each other with total honesty, respect and compassion. Mastermind group members act as catalysts for growth, devil’s advocates and supportive colleagues. This is the essence and value of mastermind groups.

Each meeting has a mastermind group agenda, so that conversations stay on course. The Facilitator is tasked with making sure that conversations are deep and balanced, and that all mastermind group meeting agenda items are covered in the time allotted.

(Source: The Success Alliance, http://www.thesuccessalliance.com/what-is-a-mastermind-group/)

Not only does summer represent the continuation of Lemonade Season, but summer appears to be the season for conferences and summits.  Debbie Nazarian, Lemonade Day National Director of Cities, and I are flying to Des Moines, Iowa to showcase Lemonade Day at the Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives Conference that kicks off tonight, July 17, and continues through Friday, July 19 (see the blog post from July 10, 2018 for details: https://lemonadeday.org/blog/stepping-and-stepping-out-pursuit-growth-lemonade-day-recruiting-association-chamber-commerce.)

Lemonade Day is privileged to have been included in an invitation-only, expenses paid Conscious Capitalism mastermind experience hosted by Microsoft Innovation & Policy Center in Washington, D.C. on July 26-27.  Conscious Capitalism, Inc. is a non-profit organization dedicated to elevating humanity through business. In its efforts to support the growing community of conscious capitalists around the world, this organization is organizing several invitation-only gatherings of thought-leaders in the spheres of finance, media, technology, education, and law. The purpose is to gather and learn from innovative changemakers as well as share the philosophy and best practices of Conscious Capitalism as an effective and impactful methodology for problem-solving and decision-making in businesses across all sectors of society.

This mastermind event that Debbie will attend will bring together a small group of leaders from premier organizations that reach students to share best practices on how to encourage entrepreneurship with young people and share the philosophy of Conscious Capitalism. Debbie will share Lemonade Day’s programming plans for 2018 and 2019 and will outline resources or needs that Lemonade Day has that other participants may be able to fulfill. “I’m looking forward to meeting others from organizations who share our common mission and purpose. I believe that by learning from each other and working together we will all be stronger, better, and impact more youth, families, communities, and even the world,” Debbie expressed prior to the event.

Excerpt from the Conscious Capitalist Credo

https://www.consciouscapitalism.org/

 “We believe that business is good because it creates value, it is ethical because it is based on voluntary exchange, it is noble because it can elevate our existence and it is heroic because it lifts people out of poverty and creates prosperity. Free enterprise capitalism is the most powerful system for social cooperation and human progress ever conceived. It is one of the most compelling ideas we humans have ever had. But we can aspire to even more.”

Lemonade Day leaders like Debbie and me, our Board of Directors, and our city champions and city directors all believe that business is good, too. We are thrilled that our effective Lemonade Day youth entrepreneurship program is expanding in the United States and Canada. We appreciate your support. As always, I welcome your comments, questions and ideas any time. Please email me at Steven@LemonadeDay.org.

ABOUT LEMONADE DAY

Founded in Houston in 2007 by Michael and Lisa Holthouse, Lemonade Day is a non-profit organization dedicated to teaching every child across North America the business and financial skills that are the key ingredients of entrepreneurship.  By learning these skills early in life, children will be better prepared to be successful, financially healthy adults.  Through our fun, hands-on program, kids K-5 are empowered to start their very own business—a lemonade stand—and experience the feeling of earning real money, using 100% of their profit to spend, save and share based on their own goals.

Lemonade Day is hosted in 72 territories in North America and is growing. Over the past 10 years, we have served more than 1 million kids in our youth entrepreneur programs. Within the next five years, Lemonade Day leaders estimate that 250,000 mentors and millions more kids will be hosting lemonade stands in North America and on other continents throughout the world.  Please visit lemonadeday.org to learn more.