The Fear That Binds Success
By Sean McCool

Hi, Sean McCool here, throwing my two cents about the writer’s life into the mix this week.

This week is all about working in groups. I know you’re a freelancer. A solo entrepreneur.

But here’s the deal …

I cannot overemphasize the value of finding a group of peers and plugging yourself into human conversation. The potential for what you will gain from a group is enormous.

Your writing will improve. You’ll become more productive. You’ll have a network to tap into that will lead to more projects and new clients. And that’s just a start.

However, we can sometimes be fearful of meeting with a group. Sometimes just extending ourselves to others can be a scary prospect.

So this week, besides showing you the many benefits of being part of a group, my goal is to curb some of your fears. I will be attacking several of the main fears we have and showing you how to overcome them.

I will be calling these “resistance fears.” Let me explain that term for a second. Often, we know something will be good for us, but we are scared of it. We resist that good thing, even making up reasons why it won’t be beneficial to us.

That’s what a resistance fear is—just an excuse.

Just one of those quirks we have as humans, I guess.

Let’s begin:

Resistance Fear #1 – My individual ideas will be lost

When joining a new group of people, we fear for our individuality. We feel like we risk losing ourselves by gaining the group. Nothing could be further from the truth.

In fact, we are just adding to ourselves. When you meet with new people whose goal is contributing to each other, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

The idea of mastermind groups was popularized by Napoleon Hill, author of Think and Grow Rich. He has a great quote on this subject:

“No two minds ever come together without, thereby, creating a third, invisible, intangible force which may be likened to a third mind.”

You see, we, in a way, create a third person. A new personality that is part of ourselves that we can draw from.

Think about it—a new person—devoted to your goals and your career.

Within a group, you draw from each other’s knowledge and experience to combine each other’s strengths.

For instance, you could …

• Have a group that looks at each other's writing and gives constructive feedback.
• Meet with a group of freelancers and help each other with ideas about how to get clients.
• Even start a new business venture.

A new business is exactly what I did with two other people I met. I’m a copywriter. And I know my way around a blog. But I’m not at all an expert when it comes to programming.

I have a friend who is the exact opposite. One day, we had an idea for a company that finds blogs that have good info but need help monetizing. We joined forces. I’m the idea and copywriting guy. He does the artistic elements, programs the site, and handles the business side of things.

And the third member of our little group is the expert and provides the content.

Thanks to this powerhouse trio, we’re able to do things we could have never done on our own.

But that’s just one example … I’m sure if you stop and think about it, you’ll discover that your career, your continuing education, and nearly everything you have of value can benefit from some form of cooperation with others. Feel free to share with me by posting a comment below.

And be sure to check out my article, “The Justice League for Freelance Success – Part One,” to find out ways – that you may not even realize –working alone all the time can be sabotaging your success.

Tomorrow, I’ll be writing you about what you can learn from working with a group.