Who makes up your braintrust?

If you don’t have one, you need one.

You need people close to you – who know you, your strengths and weaknesses well – who can be a sounding board for your ideas, who can be a source of new perspectives you can’t see from your own perspective.

You need people smarter than you, with different backgrounds and experiences. People who will see things differently but still filtered through the professional and personal goals & objectives most important to achieving success in your business, life and career.

Your braintrust needs to be a constant source of ideas, feedback and accountability. Ideas are great, but nothing happens unless there’s a next step. A deadline. A reminder or gentle nudge to get it done. Your braintrust can provide both ends – the ideas, the inspiration, and the forced discipline to triage, prioritize and execute.

You probably already have a braintrust. If you take a couple seconds, you could probably list the people you use for these functions already. And I bet they’d jump at the chance to help you more than you’re using them today.

This doesn’t have to be a formal thing. But if you organized this concept and those in your braintrust just a little more, I expect you’ll see an exponential jump in value and results.