Over the past 2 years I have started over 20 different “second-brain based mastermind-like groups” (See examples at OpenPrinciples Mastermind Groups), from 2 people to 100+ people groups. They have helped me to achieve some of the hardest things that I wanted to do but couldn’t be able to do before — — having multiple friends that truly care about me and can give me suggestions and support anytime, having productive afternoons that I can focus, maintaining a low-stress level, be able to check and find out my biases right after I have my ideas, be able to sleep early and wake up early to go to gym, attract girls that I like, become a speaker at conferences, create my biggest contribution at work — create the co-author group to create IBM consulting’s internal guide for foundation model for more than 10k business and technical consultants in IBM, be able to dive deep into and to learning almost anything I wanted to learn and create a proof of expertise through co-authored wikis in machine learning, ADHD, building second-brain systems, nootropics, career design, and more.

The groups I organized are always in combination with few of the following types of groups:

• mastermind group: sped up my thinking 1.5x faster and helped me see my bias 3x faster
• accountability group: get me to work 1.5x more efficiently, and have 3x motivation to do work
• study group: get me to learn at 2x speed, and have 2x motivation to learn
• co-working group: get me to be 2x more focused
• co-authoring group: get me to produce content and proof of expertise 3x easier.
• pair-programming / pair-working group: get me to code and build projects at 2x+ speed
• out-source & delegation: pull money to hire personal assistants to speed up mechanical work in the group by 10x+

And best of all is: when I combine multiple group types into one, their effects multiply. And as I built more groups, my network helping to me to build groups exponentially easier. And lastly, I am making so much impact while I am growing myself.

A few mindsets I think I have done right in this journey:

• motivate people in a group by focusing on giving them leverage — — for example, getting chances to help them to build a reputation
• focus on helping find people’s needs for everyone that I talk to, and try to turn them into actionable items between us right away
• focus on opportunities that broadcast my messages to / get feedback from the most number target audience — — recruit group members using ads and application forms like a job recruiting process, and filter them through group introduction event.
• when I have an idea, message people to build a group for it on the day I have the idea.
• be active in asking one friend of mine to help another friend. And create opportunities to let friends from different fields / with different frameworks of thinking to meet and help each other see their blind spots.