I just got back from a trip out to Cincinnati, OH. Now… just for the heck of it, close you eyes and see if you can figure out exactly where Ohio is. Now tell me where Cleveland is. Can you do it? I couldn’t, and heck, I still can’t.

I think I am gonna hit up Google now to figure it out.

Okay, I am back… that explains why I was 10 minute drive from Kentucky.

Ohhh... so THAT's where we were!

But I digress…

So why in the gawd’s name did we fly out to Cincinnati in the middle of winter where the temperature was FREEZING?

Simple.  We were there to mastermind with a mentor of ours.

It All Started Back When…

We joined the Theme Zoom Protege program run by Russell Wright, Sue Bell, Jon Keel, and their staff several months ago.  The program is a collection of elite online business builders who specializes in what I like to call “Internet Marketing Optimization (IMO)“.

This means that we optimize your online business to generate more revenue through attracting more appropriate customers.  I’ll touch on this more in another post later on.  But suffice to say, Fernando and I are among the 20 members that make up this elite group.

Taking Jon Keel Up on His Invitation

Jon Keel

Anyway, Jon Keel, one of the founders of the group invited us to his place in Cincinnati for a brainstorming session.

Now, Fernando and I were thinking… “Ya know, it’s the middle of winter, where it’s literally like 7 degrees in Ohio, we are right in the middle of our SEO Networker launch, it’ll cost us time and money… NOT to mention that the meeting goes from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM EST (this means we’ll be jet-lagged like heck).”

So many justifiably excuses popped in our heads it’s not even funny. We were thinking, “Do we really need this right now?“  “Maybe we can push it back to a more convenient time…”

It was pathetic.  After our excuses brewed in our heads for a little while, we finally snapped out of it and said let’s go.  (It’s amazing what a little less thinking/reasoning and a little more action can do for ya…)

We know the value of a good mastermind session with folks whom we respect.

So We Went… and We Go at Least 10x the Return!

As we were driving to Jon Keel’s office, tired and jet-lagged as heck (it was like we were up at 5:00 AM our time), I got scared…

I was afraid I was going to fall asleep during our 9 hour brainstorming session.  Lack of sleep and boring discussion that drags on for 9 hours is the perfect recipe for Raymond going “Zzz…“See, it's happened to me before...»

So I downed a bunch of coffee and prepared for the worst.

Time Flies When You are Having Fun

As it turns out, not only did I stay awake the WHOLE time, but I was so excited and energized by the amazing ideas that were flowing during our session!

We talked about how we are handling our current clients, how we ought to handle potential clients, how we should attract future clients, along with our SEO Networker program, now and in the future. (Oh sure, we talked about off the wall stuff too but that’s off the record )

We got so many ideas it was awesome!

It Wasn’t Anything Mind-Blowing… Just Things We Missed

Here’s the thing, what we discussed weren’t off the charts in creativity, they weren’t like “bazillion ideas no one’s ever thought of“.

Granted Ferny and I learned quite a bit from Jon from a business operation perspective.  But in terms of flowing ideas into how we should run our business and manage our projects, the ideas that flowed were simple and and some even should’ve been, dare I say, obvious to Fernando and myself.

The thing is, those ideas, in their simplicity and elegance, will supercharge our business, and we are ever so grateful that Jon brought them up.

If they were so simple and obvious, how did we miss them?

Getting Our Heads Out of Our A$$es

See, Ferny and I were so BURIED in our everyday activities that we failed to come up with fresh new ideas.  We in essence missed the forest for the trees.

We got caught up in our $10 and $100 an hour activities that we forgot to make time for the $1,000 an hour activities (namely, brainstorming and thinking up of fresh new ideas to add life to our business and projects).

We were so busy answering customer emails, writing copy for our salespage, worrying about how to handle current “problems“… that we didn’t afford the time to think on a much larger scale.

It took us sitting down with one of our mentors to finally make the time for the $1,000 activities.  It took Jon’s fresh new perspective, from a different angle, to get our heads out our rear-ends and see the larger picture.

Don’t get us wrong, $10/100 an hour activities are necessary and make your business go round-and-round.  But realize that it’s the $1,000 an hour tasks that will take you and your business to the next level and beyond.

Where’s Your Mastermind?

I am so grateful to having braved Cincinnati’s freezing weatherso cold that...» , fought off jet-lag and sleep deficiency, and took the time and spent the money to pay Jon a visit.

The returns we will generate from just those 9 hours we spent with Jon will be enormous.

We are looking forward to our next mastermind session, which will take place in Atlanta, with not just Jon but everyone else in the Theme Zoom Protege group.  We were just reminded the awesome power of being able to mastermind with folks, to bounce ideas off of others, to get a different perspective from those whom you respect.

I cannot stress the importance of masterminding enough.  You outta try it some time if you don’t already.

Special thanks to Jon Keel and the rest of the Theme Zoom Protege group.

Raymond Fong

Time’s Fun When You are Having Flies!