MasterMind Groups

The Fundamental Principles of Success and Achievement

Why are some people successful and others struggle without ever finding the reward they deserve? A key answer is Support. Whatever the field of human endeavour, successful people don’t go it alone. They have support teams, and that means not just staff ministering to their needs. It means, above all, a team of peers and mentors who bring their knowledge and expertise to the table. These teams are called MasterMind Groups.

MasterMind Groups were first described by Napoleon Hill in a work commissioned by Andrew Carnegie. He introduced Napoleon Hill to 500 leading businessmen, inventors and civic leaders. His task was to learn their unique secrets and principles of success. Napoleon Hill condensed his findings into a book called Think And Grow Rich (first published in 1937).

In this article, I provide a bullet point summary of the concept of MasterMind Groups developed by Napoleon Hill and subsequently expanded by various other sources. My summary should be used as a brief introduction and checklist. It is not a substitute for reading Napoleon Hill’s classic Think and Grow Rich (see sidebar).

Napoleon Hill’s goal was to unlock the principles of Business Success. However, what he discovered were the Fundamental Principles of Success and Achievement that apply to any field of human endeavour: commercial, academic, artistic, intellectual, athletic. For this reason, I’ll use the term “enterprise” in its widest sense instead of Napoleon Hill’s term “business.” Dictionaries give the following definition of

enterprise (n.) –

1. An undertaking, especially one of some scope, complication, and risk

2. A business organization

3. Industrious, systematic activity, especially when directed toward profit

4. Willingness to undertake new ventures; initiative

Let’s delve straight in:
Here are Napoleon Hill’s major findings:

All successful people he interviewed had MasterMind support surrounding them.
All of them used this support massively and deliberately.

Here are a few examples of MasterMind Support throughout history:

King Arthur and the Round Table
Ben Franklin (he called his mastermind Junto)
The Founding Fathers - Declaration of Independence
Aristotle, Socrates and Plato
MasterMinding is one of the top strategies of successful business people. All large corporations, private or public, have a Board of Directors, Board of Advisors, Board of Management.
Edison, Ford, Harvey Firestone and Luther Burbank (biologist), all were surrounded by high powered support groups.

“Whatever your mind can conceive and believe
it can achieve.”

Napoleon Hill

What is MasterMinding?

Napoleon Hill defines MasterMinding as the "coordination of knowledge and effort, in the spirit of harmony, between two or more people, for the attainment of a definite purpose."

MasterMinding brings together multiple perspectives, different degrees of maturity, diverse experiences and wisdom from multiple fields of endeavour. We come together to collaborate, to focus, to combine laser like attention on you, your enterprise, and to improve its performance, profitability / effectiveness and impact.

MasterMinding is a scientific, practical, repeatable, and pragmatic principle; it is a strategy and skill for:

Reaching Your Goals
Achieving Success
Finding Solutions/Remedies
Massive Innovation
Optimisation of Business or Any Other Enterprise.

What is the Value of a MasterMind Group?

MasterMind Groups multiply and leverage the brainpower of the entire group to create opportunities to grow and advance your enterprise, project or revenue.

What is the Objective of a MasterMind Group?

The objective of a MasterMind Group is to provide advice, direction, constructive critique, to evaluate and examine; to reduce risk and cost; in a nutshell: to not go it alone.

What are the Benefits of MasterMind Groups?

The benefits of MasterMind Groups are straightforward. MasterMind Groups:

model the success of others directly and immediately;
are guided by a group of mentors that have been there, done that;
provide exposure to a wide source of ideas;
shorten time required to take a project from concept to reality;
streamline the problem solving process;
create your own personal board of directors/advisors;
create more accountability for your goals;
develop strong relationships;
help achieve results: make more money, create more wealth; they help achieve any other goal in any enterprise you choose;
allow you to share your dreams and desires in a safe environment.

Why Don't More People Use MasterMind Groups?

MasterMind Groups require that participants in a group understand what they know and don't know, and that they are open to suggestions while accepting help from like-minded people. When MasterMind Groups fail, they fail because individuals:

don't appreciate the value or understand the impact a MasterMind Group can have on their enterprise
don't feel they are worthy of being helped
are afraid to share their problems, fearing it will make them less of a success in their own eyes
believe they can solve their problems themselves
think they have nothing to give in return
are afraid of people stealing their ideas
don't appreciate the perspective, wisdom, ideas of other people. They 'know' that they have a better way.

Why Do Mastermind Groups Succeed?

MasterMind groups succeed if the participants, that is you, believe:

that knowledge, information, experience and wisdom are the most important assets of any enterprise and
that you need an endless source of ideas to further your cause, whatever it may be
that both the quality and quantity of ideas are necessary to transform an enterprise
in the power, perspective and significance of other people to enhance your own perception of yourself and your enterprise
when multiple ideas are presented at the same time, you can look at all the hybrids, derivates and tangential possibilities and ideas
you will be given the opportunity to take off your blinkers
that people want to contribute and help support others in their commitment to success.

What are the Critical Success Factors for a Mastermind Group?

Certain things must happen for a MasterMind Group to be successful:

The group must encompass a diversity of people and opinions (from non-competing enterprises).
Different opinions are critical.
Participants are sharply focused on a specific opportunity, problem, or project.
Participants realise that every meeting, every perspective is important.
The group meets on a consistent basis.
The group has a facilitator, not a leader but someone who keeps the group moving forward and redirects it as necessary.
Everyone gets something of value.
The group holds people to high standards of excellence. Participants demand the best of every individual.
The group creates an environment to support you in your quest for the best you can be.

Do You Belong in a MasterMind Group?

If you believe:

that people are the key to your success and that you can't know everything,
that other people can help you leverage experience, position, industry and career and that people help each other,
that meeting people can help you who are not normally in the universe of people you come in contact with everyday,
and if you are willing to contribute selflessly and candidly,

then MasterMinding is for you.

How to Run a Mastermind Group

There are obviously a number of ways of running a MasterMind group. Here are three approaches.

The first type of group is suitable for beginners. By this I mean those who either have never participated in a MasterMind Group before or those who are starting a new enterprise.

To ensure the success of the group, it has to start from a common basis. For instance, agree that everyone who wants to participate has read Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich, or another fundamental book on MasterMinding. In my view, you can do a lot worse than starting with Napoleon Hill’s classic as he covers the whole field.

Meetings of this type of group should take between 60 and 90 minutes, depending on the number of people attending. 4 to 6 participants is an optimal size. Any smaller and there won’t be a sufficient breadth and depth of ideas and support; any larger and the attention will drop for and by those whose turn would be towards the end of the time allocated for the meeting. This type of group would meet at regular but no too frequent intervals, say fortnightly or once a month.

The participants sit in a circle, facing each other at a comfortable distance.

Each person is in turn the centre of attention. Take up to 15 minutes per person.

Each person whose turn it is raises only one issue. The meeting proceeds as follows:

5 minutes: Describe the project/business and the issue in question.
5 minutes: the others question you for clarification; after that
5 minutes: listen quietly to suggestions and take notes (no discussion). All contributions should be made to be helpful, constructive, inspirational and supportive.

Depending on total time available and to give every participant a fair shot, time can be reduced down to 2 minutes for each section (total of 5 to 6 minutes per person).

Finally, each MasterMind group needs a chairperson whose task is to ensure that time is kept to guarantee fairness and deviation from the proven method is kept to a minimum to ensure effectiveness of the group.

The second type of group is suitable for more frequent, regular meetings of the MasterMind Group. This group would typically meet weekly, and the group would already be well established.

The set-up is similar to that of the first group but instead of everyone taking their turn at every meeting, in this group one person is the focus of attention for the entire session. The rest of the structure remains the same:

5 to 10 minutes: Describe the project/business and the issue in question.
10 minutes: the others question you for clarification
40 to 45 minutes: listen quietly to suggestions and take notes. You may occasionally ask questions for clarification but there should be no discussion. All contributions should be made to be helpful, constructive, inspirational and supportive.
This MasterMind group, too, needs a chairperson whose task is to ensure that time is kept to guarantee fairness and deviation from the proven method is kept to a minimum to ensure effectiveness of the group.

The third type of MasterMind Group is a high-powered MasterMind weekend or even week. Groups in this category meet two or three times a year. Once you reach a level that you need such a group, advice on how to run it will readily be available.

Members of MasterMind Groups at this level are leading exponents of their field: high powered businessmen or women, leading thinkers, activists and politicians. Participation in these groups does not come cheap.

The best advice on how to set up and run a MasterMind Group is simple: find like-minded people, follow the instructions set out above and in the Resource box below, and get started. Then things will happen, and you’ll be set on your way to success.

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Resources

I'll continue to add more resources as soon as I have a chance to check them out. Keep checking back for updates here, in my blog, or follow me on Twitter

Download Napoleon Hill's classic Think and Grow Rich as a free ebook here
or
buy the print edition:

"How To Start A Mastermind Group" is an excellent blog post by Stephanie Chandler.

www.mastermindgroups.info/ is a blog dedicated to Mastermind Groups.

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