Muslimah Mastermind Group: Our Purpose

I recently blogged about the idea of a Muslim Mastermind Group.  The Muslimah Mastermind Group is about being part of a group of sisters who are all committed to improving their lives and achieving their dreams. These individuals each bring their own unique perspectives, resources, skills, and networks to the group. Most importantly, each one is committed to working towards their own goals and also supporting the other members in achieving theirs Insh’Allah. A true win-win opportunity.

The purpose behind this group is:

To Share Resources

There is an abundance of great resources about every topic you can think of in the shape of blogs and websites, e-books, guides, checklists, tutorials and free training. I have added as many as I can to the resource pages and will continue to add things I come across or sisters sign post me towards. 

To Solve Problems and Capitalise on Opportunities

The group will present an opportunity for sisters to share a question or problem. The rest of the group will then have an opportunity to provides answers and opportunities. Examples of questions or problems can be things like:

• I want to start teaching my child Quran, where do I start?
• I am interested in starting an online business – which platform is best?
• I am launching a new product, can anyone help with spreading the word through blogs or their social media?
• I am coming to London next week, any suggestions on where to eat and visit?
• I want to increase my Islamic knowledge, what is a good place to start?
• I am thinking about sending my child to Islamic school, Is this a good idea? Can any sisters speak from their own experience with their children?
• I am sure there will be others that I can’t even imagine. I am also confident, that there will be sisters in the group that can bring great advice, contacts and suggestions to the issue at hand.

Or even:

• I've just done this amazing course, here’s the link if you want to try it out
• I have tickets to an event in New York that I am not attending, anyone want them? 

This idea partly came from my experience with working with a group of motivated women before and partly from Barbara Sher’s book Wishcraft, where she describes an “Idea Party”:

"Whether it’s a 3-hour or 12-hour workshop for public television or a corporation, at all my workshops I demonstrate what an idea party is. All of them are amazing, but one of the most memorable was at a public television show in Memphis.
I asked for an impossible dream and a woman raised her hand to say she wished she could go on a cruise.
“What's your obstacle?” I asked.
“I have three,” she said.
“First, I have no money. Second, my adult daughter is ill and staying at my place, and I'm looking out for her.
“And I'd rather not tell you the third obstacle.”
At that moment a man in shorts ran quickly from the back of the room up the central aisle waving a piece of paper:
“I just won a cruise for one person by running for the heart association, just a few hours ago. I don't want to go on a cruise. Anyway, I'm married.” And he gave the certificate to the women. We were wowed.
She was very moved. “That's so nice of you I don't know what to say, but I can't leave my daughter.”
A few rows back a hand went up. “I'm a public health nurse and I have to give 10 days pro bono every year. Would that help?”
The woman was flabbergasted (so was everyone but me, because I'd seen it so many times before. But this one did turn out to be unusual.)
“I think you'd better tell us your third obstacle,” I said.
She sighed. “My daughter's being stalked by her ex-husband and can't be alone.”
The room fell silent and then a man's voice came from the very last row:
“I'm a cop. What's his name?”
Everyone started laughing and cheering.
She went on the cruise."

Community

From speaking to sisters through my blog, I find that sisters can often feel very isolated. In this big beautiful ummah, why should anyone ever have to feel that way? I also think that success comes when we work together:

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has ~ Margaret Mead

Inspiration

I hope that the sisters in the group serve as a source of inspiration to each other. Sometimes we have a vague dream but can’t imagine what it might look like in real life. Sometimes we feel lost and can’t decide what our purpose in life is. One of the aims of this group will be to act as a source of inspiration for one another.

Encouragement

If we feel as if we have nothing to offer and if we cannot do anything else, the least we can do is to make dua for each other and act as cheerleaders for each other:

…Help each other to goodness and heedfulness. Do not help each other to wrongdoing and enmity. Heed Allah. Allah is severe in retribution. (Surat al-Ma'ida: 2)

No sister should ever think she is the least in this group and each of us should encourage and support the others in the good things they hope to achieve, whether through dua, encouraging words, good advice or ideas and resources that we can share or make available.

I hope the reasons in this post encourage and inspire sisters to join and be active in the group and give a feel of what we are trying to achieve and how we can interact and work together.

The Muslimah Mastermind Group will be based around:
A private blog which you can join with a Google account
A private Facebook group
An e-mail list, which I will use to send out messages to the group if required.

If you want to join, please e-mail me at umm_salihah@yahoo.co.uk and I can add you to the above.