What is a Mastermind group?

The concept of a Mastermind group was formally introduced by Napoleon Hill.

In his book “Think and Grow Rich“, Hill described the Mastermind principle as, “The coordination of knowledge and effort between two or more people who work towards a definite purpose in a spirit of harmony…no two minds ever come together without thereby creating a third, invisible intangible force, which may be likened to a third mind”, also known as, the Mastermind.

The Mastermind concept was inspired by Hill's many conversations with the highly successful businessman, Andrew Carnegie, who attributed his entire fortune and success to his Mastermind group.

Jim Rohn once said, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with”. Who you spend your time with influences the person that you will eventually become.

Ask yourself – are the people that you are spending the most time with helping you grow and take your business and your life to the next level?

In her book, “How to Create and Run a Mastermind Group”, Karyn Greenstreet expressed that there is synergy of energy, commitment, and excitement that participants bring to a Mastermind Group.

The beauty of this group is that participants raise the bar by challenging each other to create and implement goals, brainstorm ideas, and support each other with total honesty, respect and compassion.

Imagine being able to connect with other motivated and people who inspire you to achieve massive success, and who are dedicated to holding everyone else in the group accountable to doing the same?

I am hosting a private Mastermind event at my penthouse in beautiful Vancouver, BC., where you will have a chance to be personally coached and mentored by me.

I want to help you achieve the goals and results that you are after, both in your life and in your business.

Not only that, but you will have an opportunity to meet, network and mastermind with other like-minded people who are on the same path to mastery, like yourself.

Video transcript

Let me read to you guys something that I liked that kind of describes Masterminds. There's a synergy of energy, commitment and excitement that participants bring to a Mastermind group. The beauty of Mastermind groups is that participants raise the bar by challenging each other to create and implement goals, brainstorm ideas and support each other with total honesty, respect and compassion. Mastermind participants act as a catalyst for growth, devil's advocate and support of colleagues.

The concept of the Mastermind group was formally introduced by Napoleon Hill in the early 1900s in his timeless classic Think & Grow Rich, he wrote about the Mastermind principle as the coordination of knowledge and effort of two or more people who work toward a definite purpose in the spirit of harmony. He continues, no two minds ever come together without thereby creating a third invisible, tangible force which may be likened to a third mind.

In a Mastermind group, the agenda belongs to the group and each person's participation is key, your peers give you feedback, help you brainstorm new possibilities and set up accountability structures that keep you focused and on track. You will create a community of supportive colleagues who will brainstorm together to move the group to new heights. You'll gain tremendous insights which can improve your business and personal life and your Mastermind group is like having an objective board of directors. All right, so that's what a Mastermind group is.

The reason that I had the logo with the 2 hands is each hand represented a person and the light bulb represented an idea thereby the slogan “two or more people in harmony creating goals”

There are 2 other concepts for obtaining ideas

1)Brainstorming:

To brainstorm is to think about and try to come up with ideas or solutions to a problem, either on your own or in a group. If you and your co-workers sit around and try to come up with new ideas for an ad campaign, this is an example of when you brainstorm ideas.

Basically, there are four rules of doing it properly:

No judgements. This is the first rule of creativity in general, really. ...

Think freely. As I said before, no matter how crazy it is; while brainstorming, ideas are neither silly nor impossible. ...

Big numbers. The more ideas, the better. ...

Many heads are better than one.

2)Sitting for ideas:

But here’s another view of how good ideas are generated, courtesy of Napoleon Hill of Think and Grow Rich fame. Let me start by telling the story of Elmer R. Gates, a scientist and professional thinker profiled in Hill’s bestseller.

Elmer R. Gates had a special soundproof and lightproof room constructed in his lab. In this small room was a small table with a pad of paper and a pen. In front of the table, on the wall, was a pushbutton control for the lights. When he was faced with a problem to be solved, he would enter his ‘personal communication room’, turn off the light and sit there in the pitch black silence until he had some ideas. He called this ‘sitting for ideas’ and here’s how it worked. He would,

“concentrate on the known factors of the invention on which he was working, remaining in that position until ideas began to ‘flash’ into his mind in connection with the unknown factors of his invention.”

As ideas flowed into his mind, he would write frantically until the flow ended. Now, that’s an example of an ‘idea person’. In fact, he was such a prolific ‘ideal person’ that he had more than 200 patents to his name and he made his living ‘sitting for ideas’ for for an hourly wage paid by corporations and individuals.

Napoleon Hill suggested that there were two types of imagination: SYNTHETIC imagination and CREATIVE imagination. Synthetic imagination works with existing ideas, knowledge and experience and rearranges them into new combinations. On the other hand, creative imagination connects with ‘Infinite Intelligence’ and the thought vibrations from the minds of others (hmmm not so different from Steven Johnson’s approach after all) to receive hunches and inspirations. The creative imagination is responsible for the creation of anything entirely new, not just a rehash or recombination of other ideas.

Hmmm, perhaps this would be a good time to remember the words of King Solomon in Ecclesiastes 1:9, “…there is nothing new under the sun.”

Back to Napoleon Hill…according to Hill, in order to access our creative imagination, by tapping into the vibrations from other minds, including the ‘infinite intelligence’, we have to be vibrating at an extremely high level. How to achieve that vibrational level, you ask? With the use of ten mind stimulants. Here they are, in order, as laid out by Napoleon Hill:

the desire for sex  /   love  /  a burning desire for fame, power, money / music / friendship / a MasterMind / shared suffering  /  autosuggestion   /   fear   /    narcotics and alcohol.