Mastermind: Mental Conditioning

Guest Contributor: Melody Campbell
Melody's Posts - Melody's Blog


There's something almost magical about being a part of a mastermind group where everyone in attendance is in sync with each other. You might see individuals leaning forward in their seats, listening intently to whoever is speaking. You might see furrowed brows or big smiles, others taking notes as fast as they can write. There is a passion and an intensity stirring in the group.

The outcome from a powerful mastermind meeting are ideas and interpersonal connections that may have never come to be outside the context of the mastermind.

It has been my observation that this intense level of energy and stream of ideas comes easier when there is regular mental conditioning, individually, within the group. For example a short term dose of mental conditioning within the group might be to bring in a special speaker that is particularly inspiring, or to study a book that speaks to the areas of growth and change that the group is seeking.

There are also mindsets that must be unwelcome at the mastermind. One such mindset that should never be welcome at a mastermind group is Fear & Worry.

You may think that this is quite obvious, but I can tell you that I've attended mastermind groups where it was obvious that some of those in attendance had been in a state of Fear & Worry before they came to the group.

When you come to your group it's as if you must "step into character." Yes, of course you should be yourself, but the self you should be at the group is the fearless, and powerful, ready to influence and be creatively influenced towards achieving your goals.

David Hawkins, in his book Power vs. Force, has rated the vibration levels of different emotional states of mind. Fear is in that lower level of vibration that doesn't attract prosperity.

If, through out your day you spend your mental energy in worry or fear or even anger, you can not come into the group with your mind in that lower vibration level and expect to add to the productivity of the group.

It's important to condition your mind to be activated with maximum thinking energy each time you join your mastermind group. If everyone in the group comes to the meeting just after taking some time to not only check out the condition of their mind as they enter their meeting, but also spend time listening to inspirational cd or speaker, bringing their individual mental energy into a higher vibration of thought it will most definitely affect the creativity of the group.

Let me challenge you to invest some time conditioning your mental energy prior to entering your meeting next time. You may find that it's quite a different meeting.

Has your Master Mind Group ever hit a dry spell?

Guest Contributor: Melody Campbell
Melody's Posts - Melody's Blog


Has your Master Mind Group ever hit a dry spell? Has your Master Mind Group lost or changed energy? You know how sometimes you might have a group that seems to really resonate and then things just seem to go stale?

There's a number of reasons why this might have happened but the most common being that the group or certain individuals have lost their "focus" in some aspect of their lives. Even if just one member loses focus - and maybe not even master mind related, such as a personal event - this lack of focus can change the energy of the group.

To keep your group fresh and fully energized I recommend scheduled "mental conditioning events."

My mentor Bob Proctor recommends this very thing to the Master Mind Groups that I lead as a LifeSuccess Consultant. Following is an example of the kind of mental conditioning that I might bring or recommend to a master mind group.

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Would you be interested in understanding how a person can move themselves from simply setting goals with random achievement, to ACHIEVING goals with predictable success?

It is in understanding that our mind is a "Human Goal Achieving Mechanism" that works with the precision of a well programmed computer, that will deliver to us consistently produced results in goal setting.

Let me illustrate this for you using a graphic for our mind that was developed by Dr. Thurman Fleet, a chiropractor in San Antonio, Texas in the 1930's. This simple graphic will give you a visual aid to help you understand how your mind works.

As this illustration shows we have a mind and a body. Our mind is divided into two parts - our conscious mind and our subconscious mind.

Our conscious mind is our thinking mind. It's where our thoughts originate. This portion of our mind chooses to accept or reject any new thought or idea presented to it. It is the portion of our mind where we reason. It's where our awareness lies.

Our subconscious mind is our emotional or feeling mind. It's a warehouse of our memories, habits and conditioning. It is where our belief systems lie. Dr. Maxwell Maltz in his book, Psycho-Cybernetics, states that this part of our being is our self-image, that causes us to feel, interpret, and perceive the world through our own ego.

In our conscious mind, our intellectual mind we can choose our thoughts - any thought we want. We can choose look at the world around us and pick out the things that are out of place or that make us uncomfortable, or we can be in difficult circumstances and choose to seek out what is good and best about that circumstance.

Ultimately we have responsibility for what we choose to think. And what we choose to think about determines our feelings. Our feelings are expressed as action - and it is our actions that produce our results. So it follows, that if we desire to change our results, we must change the thoughts that we are choosing. It is necessary to become consciously aware of what we are thinking about.

It's important to realize that the results we are getting are in no way a reflection of our potential. The results we are getting in our lives are a reflection of our thinking up to this point in our lives. Our potential is infinite and all we have to do is increase our level of awareness.

We have a mind - conscious and subconscious, and a body. We have five senses that we use to communicate with the world around us - we see, smell, taste, touch and hear. We begin to use these senses immediately when we are born and develop our thinking from the outside in. We have learned to allow our environment to determine our thinking vs. allowing our thinking to determine our environment. I'm here to tell you there is a much better way.

Our problem is that we have been conditioned to think and relate to our world with our senses and we've never been trained or encouraged to develop the higher side of our personality. It is the development of our intellectual faculties that allow us to control the way we think. These intellectual faculties are like "mental muscles," that when properly developed we can control our thinking and get the results we desire in our life.

The very first of our our intellectual faculties is PERCEPTION. Our perception is our ability to look at the world and see circumstances different than from what they may at first appear to be. Wayne Dyer says, "When we change the way we look at things, the things we look at change..." When we look at obstacles as opportunities to grow we no longer get emotionally involved in that which we think we cannot do and we look for possibilities.

The next intellectual faculties is our WILL Our WILL is our ability to concentrate or to remain focused to the exclusion of all outside distractions, not allowing our own negative thoughts or comments from unaware people detour us from our intended course.

IMAGINATION is the intellectual faculty that allows us to mentally create big beautiful pictures. Albert Einstein had carved into his desk that imagination is more important that knowledge. Look around you, everything in this world started out as an idea in the mind of an individual. That's how we're able to fly around the world, fly to the moon, light our world, communicate globally without wires in seconds, save lives with miraculous achievements in medicine. Prior to these great ideas and discoveries, the perception was that none of these things were possible, but what these great individuals did was introduce us to their ideas and developing their imagination to overcome obstacles of precedent so they could discover the unknown that was there all the time. Our imagination is our key to seeing what we want, believing we can do it and achieving our dream.

You've probably heard people say they have a bad memory, and they repeat this over and over and when they try to remember things - they can't. The truth is that we have a perfect MEMORY. We have the ability to pull up the memories of past successes, how we felt when we won, achieved or accomplished something. We have the ability to inspire ourselves to action when we face opposition to our Great Big Creative Idea by recalling our best memories to remind us that we can succeed.

One of my most favorite of our intellectual faculties is our INTUITION. Wayne Dyer describes this perfectly when he says, "If prayer is our communication with God, Intuition is when he communicates with us." Unfortunately most of us aren't aware of how to use our intuition to it's fullest advantage. We get an idea and compare it with our current circumstances and make the conclusion that if our new idea and our current circumstances are not in harmony then the idea must be impossible. The truth is that we would never have gotten the idea if we were not capable of bringing it to pass. If you are gifted by God with the idea, don't ask yourself if it's a good idea or a bad idea, rather ask yourself "If I act on this idea, will it move me in the direction of my dream. If yes, then just step out and do it.

The last of our intellectual faculties is our ability to REASON, the God-like ability to think and choose.

Each of us are created in God's image,

1. We have the responsibility to be grateful - to look at the amazing world around us and give thanks.

2. As god-like creations we have the ability to forgive and release others to their higher good.

3. We have the ability to love, be loved and express love.

4. And, we have the ability to create things with our thoughts.

In this realization of our divine nature, created in the image of God , we can do all things - we can create the life we desire.

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This is a good reminder of how our mind works. As a follow up to this session it might be a good idea at the next meeting to discuss ways to develop the intellectual faculties further specifically relating it to the needs of the group.

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Your Organic Master Mind Group

Guest Contributor: Melody Campbell
Melody's Posts - Melody's Blog


Don't overlook the most basic of all master mind groups. Your most important, most powerful master mind resource might be right in front of you. Well, maybe.

If you have a family - you have an "organic master mind group." A master mind group in simplicity is a group of 2 or more people having a common goal. I know that many families do not live as if they have a common goal, but that might change with the realization of how much more powerful one could become in attracting success by making peace with one's family.

I realize that this can be a challenge, but imagine with me. If a married couple could realize that they have greater potential in all that they do either together or individually if they would intentionally endeavor to have a harmonious relationship. Then imagine, if this couple would practice harmony with each other as they raise their children, the master mind group would grow in power in proportion to the harmony cultivated as the children grew. It's funny how children mimic what their parents do.

I know that might sound like a "perfect world," but we would move closer to that perfect world if we would view our most basic relationships as the powerful master mind group they are. Men, women and children are more effective moving out into the world from a place of harmony.

The energy increase brought into your life by cultivating a harmonious family will increase every other master mind group that you contribute to. Begin to cultivate harmony in your organic master mind.

Mastermind Intensive - an exersize for solutions.

Guest Contributor: Melody Campbell
Melody's Posts - Melody's Blog


Since I've never heard anyone else talk about this or read about it, though I am sure they must have, I gave this exercise my own name, "Mastermind Intensive."

Here's how it goes:

1. The mastermind group chooses a member to focus on.

2. The individual comes to the mastermind group with a single problem that needs a solution to present to the group. It should be a problem that is seemingly impossible.

3. The group spends all or a large portion of the meeting on brainstorming a solution or a list of options to solving the problem.

4. Depending on the nature of the problem, more than one person can be the focus of a Mastermind Intensive during the same meeting.

There is tremendous power in focused energy. When there is a collective of like minds that come together to create a force of focused energy towards the discovery of a solution, there is a blend of background and experience applied, resulting in the most amazing and creative answers.

The one rule is that everyone must participate and none of the discussion of ideas should be on how or why an idea won't work.

If your group meets weekly then conduction an intensive might be a technique that can be used monthly

Master Mind Principle Characteristics

Guest Contributor: Melody Campbell
Melody's Posts - Melody's Blog


In Napoleon Hills book "Think and Grow Rich" Mr. Hill says there are two characteristics of The Master Mind Principle -

*Economic

* Mental Energy

The economic alliance is the bringing together of the resources which we all readily understand. Resources such as money, time, experience, specialized knowledge and background.

The "mental energy" is more abstract and not as easily understood. Napoleon Hill makes the statement to explain, "No two minds ever come together without, thereby, creating a third, invisible, intangible force which may be likened to a third mind."

Napoleon Hill says there are only two known substances in the whole universe -- energy and matter. The human mind is a form of energy a part of it being spiritual in nature. When the minds of two people are coordinated in a Spirit of Harmony, the spiritual units of energy of each mind form an affinity which constitutes the thought energy phase of the Master Mind ... the "Third Mind" from two.

When I read this in Think and Grow Rich (chapter 9) I got to thinking about the physics of Resonance. When two objects "resonate" they are vibrating at the same frequency and in their combined vibration the energy they produce together grows in amplitude or power. Thus two objects in "resonance" produce a more powerful energy together than they would individually. The combined energy is exponentially stronger and more powerful.

Everything in nature is made of energy and has a frequency of vibration - including thought.

When a Master Mind Group is formed the goal is to create "resonate" thinking so that the energy created by the group becomes exponentially more powerful for the individuals towards a definite purpose or goal.

It is vital that the group be in harmony or there will only be a collaboration of resources and even that will be limited by whatever is not harmonious in the group. Without harmony the group will not generate a highly creative level of thought energy.

For some, I realize this talk of "thought energy" seems weird - but there are studies that show that thoughts are energy - vibrations that can be scientifically measured. There is much more that could be said in explanation of thought energy and different levels of frequency in different types of thoughts...but that's another topic for later.

A truly effective and powerful master mind group must

*be in harmony

*have a definite purpose as a group

As an individual seek to be positive and harmonious with your group. Your contribution to the harmony of the group will exponentially benefit your own goal achievement with more than just shared resources.

As a group expect and cultivate a powerful thought energy that is create by your harmonious group that will impact the lives and goals of the individuals.

Mental Conditioning for Master Mind Groups

Guest Contributor: Melody Campbell
Melody's Posts - Melody's Blog


Starting or participating in a Master Mind Group without conditioning your mind is like deciding to run a marathon without conditioning your body.

We were all born to be great, but unfortunately we spend our days from the womb to where ever we find our selves today conditioned to fail miserably. Our cultural information sources are full of messages of defeat, sickness, failure, humiliation - our journalists only report the bad, the sensationally bad news - because bad news captures our attention. Our movies are murder and mayhem, with "out of control, loveless sex." We have legalized abortion and put the elderly in "retirement homes."

Politics and religion aside - the message is very clearly hopeless with diminished value for the amazing creations that we are.

In this day, and in our current culture - not just in America, but globally also, we must absolutely embrace mental conditioning to maximize our experience as we take on the commitment of a Master Mind Group.

In Napoleon Hill's book, "Think and Grow Rich" he defines the Master Mind as: "Coordination of knowledge and effort, in a spirit of harmony between two or more people for the attainment of a definite purpose."

The "coordination of knowledge and effort" is key to the master mind group. Sounds obvious, but let's examine further the concept of knowledge as it relates to the success of the individuals and master mind group. Napoleon Hill's chapter on the Master Mind Group highlights three major sources of knowledge:

1. Infinite Intelligence

2. Accumulated Experience

3. Experiment and Research

Each of these knowledge sources must be formed on sound principles for success or the basic building blocks of the master mind group is undermined. Hill further states that knowledge is converted to power by organizing it - the above listed knowledge sources -- combined from the group into definite plans expressed in action.

As one enters into or participates in a Master Mind group it makes sense to condition the mind with the basic principles of success. Mental conditioning occurs through all that enters through our eyes and ears from outside of ourselves as well as the inner noise that we create with our own thoughts and self talk.

Mental Conditioning must provoke desire and inspire faith cultivated by auto-suggestions or affirmations. This conditioning produces a fruitful imagination brimming with ideas. Clarity results as organized planning is applied to specialized knowledge; decisively acted on persistently, driving ones goals and plans deep into the subconscious mind.

An individual mind that is so conditioned is prepared to substantially contribute to the collective mind of the group.

If you're not getting all you can from your Master Mind Group, infuse the minds of the participating individuals with some strategic mental conditioning.