Do you have any books sitting around that you’ve been meaning to read, but just haven’t committed time to yet? Of course you do, who doesn’t? A few years back I approached Brian Kurtz and asked him that very question. That question led to an exclusive reading group, which led to something even bigger, which led to the lesson that Brian recently shared with troops at the Pentagon. In short, it’s a backdoor way to a powerful business concept, that the corporate world doesn’t even know about, that was detailed in Napoleon Hill’s 1937 book, Think And Grow Rich.
I recently sat down with Brian to ask him exactly what he told the troops. For those who don’t know, Brian Kurtz spent 34 years of his life working at Boardroom, Inc., the prolific newsletter publishing company. As a true intrapreneur and rainmaker, Brian helped Boardroom sell millions of newsletter subscriptions and books while overseeing the mailing of 1.3 billion+ pieces of third class mail. He is maybe the top living expert on learning about audiences, demographics and database marketing, and was inducted into the DMA Circulation Hall of Fame in the year 2000.
Here are some of the highlights of our conversation:
“I had the honor of speaking for an organization called American Dream U,” says Brian. “Basically it’s an organization that goes around the country and speaks at army bases to soldiers who are going to recareer after the military. So imagine after you’ve done 4 tours of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq, and now the military says you’re done, or you decide that you’re done. What’s next?
“So just a couple of months ago I was at the Pentagon and Fort Myer in Virginia. And I was talking to the soldiers about lessons that I had accumulated over 35 years in marketing — and none of them had to do with marketing.”
Introducing The Accelerated Learning Group
“I told them to find 4 to 5 like-minded people. Maybe they are other soldiers who are recareering, or maybe they’re civilians who you really respect and want to learn from and emulate in the working world,” says Brian. “And they probably want to learn from you, too, by the way. Because of the leadership lessons and other things that you learned in the military while in Afghanistan and Iraq that they’ll never know, as I will never know.
“Find those 4 or 5 people and create an Accelerated Learning Group. And what you do is, everyone in the group submits 5 to 10 books that are sitting by their computer or desk. Books that they’ve wanted to read, they’ve been told they should read and that would help their career or their personal life. Probably non-fiction rather than fiction. But if someone wants to read something like Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist, a fable that teaches a lesson above and beyond, go for it. For the most part, though, we’re talking non-fiction.
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“The group should also select someone to be the captain, and once a month the captain picks from a different person’s reading list so that everyone will have a book that’s chosen. That becomes the book for the month, and the monthly assignment is to read it. Then you set up a monthly call that you make the same night of each month — like the second Tuesday of every month — for an hour.
“Then, if you have 5 people, each person speaks for 5-8 minutes on what they got out of the book — how it might help you in your business or your life, and what your biggest takeaways and biggest lessons were.”
And Now You’ve Transformed Into A Mastermind Group
“Then what happens, which is wonderful, is that you leave an extra 15 minutes to just start bonding a little bit. Someone asks, ‘Who wants to share a big breakthrough that they’ve had in the last month?’ Or, ‘Who wants to share their biggest challenge in the last month?’ Or, ‘I had an interview and I don’t think it went very well. These were the questions, this is what I answered. What do you think?’
“You don’t realize that by doing this Accelerated Learning Group, you’ve actually created a little mastermind group. And in business, just one idea from a mastermind group can be worth tens of millions of dollars — in a heartbeat,” says Brian.
And that’s not hyperbole. Brian personally pays $25,000, $25,000 and $20,000 every year to be apart of 3 high-end mastermind groups — and they pay for themselves because of the ideas and connections that result. It’s a foreign concept in the corporate world, but it’s a way of life in the entrepreneurial world, thanks to Napoleon Hill who popularized the concept:
“Economic advantages may be created by any person who surrounds himself with the advice, counsel, and personal cooperation of a group of men who are willing to lend him wholehearted aid, in a spirit of perfect harmony. This form of cooperative alliance has been the basis of nearly every great fortune. Your understanding of this great truth may definitely determine your financial status.” p. 149 of Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.
Soldiers in a mastermind group, or anyone, for that matter, can help each other by giving advice and feedback about starting a new career, starting a business, networking, providing value or anything else — the possibilities are endless. And if you pick the right, like-minded, ambitious people to be in your Accelerated Learning Group, you will reap the rewards. Because more heads are better than one.
Says Brian, “The mastermind concept can be very intimidating for people, yet this is a really nice shortcut to developing one. This leaves no excuse — because everybody knows five like-minded people, and everybody’s got a list of books that they want to read. You just set up a date for 12 months, same time, same day, and it’s easy. So you don’t leave an excuse of it’s too hard.”
Brian Kurtz left Boardroom Inc. after 34 years to start Titans Marketing LLC, a direct marketing educational, coaching and consulting company. He currently hosts multiple mastermind groups, and runs BrianKurtz.me.
