The Success Solution
Lesson 4
In this lesson, you will learn what a Mastermind group is and what makes such a group successful. I will discuss the benefit of finding and using your own unique abilities and allowing others to do the same. We will revisit the concept of metaprograms from Course 1 and their use in attaining your goals.
IMPORTANT: Please always listen to the lesson lectures first, as they often contain information or experiential processes not found in the notes. You can use the notes to review, or to follow along as you listen.
Lesson Four Notes
1. Welcome to Lesson 4 of The Success Solution Course. Let me start once again with a plea for your taking action regarding the information I’m sharing with you in this course. Without action, none of this information is really of much value to you. If you're having trouble taking action, you need to do one of three things: either examine why you are focusing on what you don't want which, in addition to many other negatives, will cause you to procrastinate, acknowledge that you don’t want to pay the price to create what you want and just be content with who you are and what you are currently creating, or perhaps try some baby steps by picking a small goal and applying what I’m suggesting to that smaller goal, just to find out how it works.
2. I want to emphasize how easy it actually is to create what you want in the world, if you follow the basics I've given you. It does not need to be a struggle or a lot of work. Let me share something Napoleon Hill says in Think and Grow Rich, something that has stuck with me since I first read it in 1977: "When riches begin to come, they come so quickly, in such great abundance, that one wonders where they have been hiding during all those lean years." In this passage Hill is talking about money, but you could apply this statement to achievement in general, to achievement of anything. So let me paraphrase it: When your ability to create whatever you want in your life comes, what you want comes so quickly and in such great abundance that you wonder why you ever thought that creating what you want in life was difficult.
3. I’m trying to get you to see that mastering these principles is actually easy and it’s fun. The only thing that can make it be otherwise is if you focus on what you don’t want, what you are worried about, what you are afraid of, or what you want to avoid. I want you to know that there is nothing to worry about, nothing to be afraid of, and nothing to avoid. Following the steps I’ve given you diminishes the chances that anything negative will happen. Doing what you are currently doing is what invites into your life whatever negative outcomes you are currently experiencing.
4. Some people hold back from sitting down to do the homework because they mistakenly believe they need a large piece of uninterrupted time before they can start. Or, they think their life needs to smooth out before they can start. There’s just too much chaos, and they think they have to wait until things are running smoother. If you're such a person, I understand how you feel. It is easy to get into the mind-set that to tackle a big project you need a big chunk of time, or that you need to complete other things that are taking some of your attention. I understand this. I feel this way, too, sometimes. However, I know that I rarely ever get a big chunk of uninterrupted time, and my life rarely calms down so that nothing else is pulling at my attention.
5. For that reason, I don’t wait. I take action anyway. I know that if I wait for the time or for my life to be smooth and calm, I’ll never do anything. So I either move projects up in the priority list that seem to demand a lot of time or clear attention, or I just carve out twenty minutes here and there to work on them. Then, once I get into them and have some motivation, they take on a life of their own, and it’s easy to keep going. Plus, we're talking about your ability to create the life you want. What is more important than that? Is there something you’re doing with your spare time that is more important? I doubt it. So please, set aside a few minutes each day, perhaps after your evening meal, and sit down with the homework. If you do this for twenty minutes a day, in one week you’ll have spent an hour and twenty minutes and you’ll have made some real progress. Sure, you may miss Survivor or Bachelorette or Fear Factor, but so what? On your death bed are you going to regret missing Fear Factor, or not taking charge of your life?
6. I also want to make another appeal for you to email your goal statements, your questions, and your feedback about the course. I really need this feedback so I can make the course more closely fit your needs. Please do communicate with me. I want this course to change your life in the best possible way, but I need your feedback. So click on the Questions link on the web page along with each lesson and send me your comments and thoughts, even if you don’t have a question.
7. Okay, let’s review quickly, and then move on. I’m going to quickly go through many of the ideas I’ve already shared with you, partly because I’ve found that repetition is one of the keys to learning, and I really want you to be able to learn and fully integrate what I’m sharing with you. I don’t want you to just take the course and have a good time. The purpose of this course is to change your life, so you can really and truly be in charge of what you create.
8. In the last lesson, then, I reviewed the idea that there is a price to pay for everything, and that you must be willing to pay that price. Now when you begin to think about paying a price, it’s easy for your mind to go to the idea that paying the price is difficult, and that you don’t want to pay it. You have to get over that way of seeing it because, first of all, the idea of getting something without paying the price is a total fantasy. In those rare cases where you get something without paying the price, you still have to pay it, and paying after you get the reward makes the price higher. You will always pay, and the best way to pay is in advance. Second, the real trick is to have fun paying the price. I certainly am having fun paying the price, and you can, too. The way to do that is to focus on what you want, and add as much positive emotion as you can. So I want you to remember that the way to get anything is to find out the price, be willing to pay it, and then pay it in full. And, have fun doing it.
9. We talked about Napoleon Hill’s first principle, that of adopting a Definite Major Purpose, and reviewed all the benefits of doing so. You’ll remember that virtually every positive trait you've ever wanted comes to you when you adopt a definite purpose: self-discipline, self-reliance, personal initiative, imagination, enthusiasm, concentration of effort, and the ability to budget your time and money. It also attracts to you the resources you need and the help of other people. Even more important, it brings to you the Twelve Great Riches of Life, which once again are 1) a positive mental attitude, 2) sound physical health, 3) harmony in human relationships, 4) freedom from fear, 5) the hope of achievement, 6) the capacity for faith, 7) a willingness to share one’s blessings, 8) a labor of love, 9) an open mind on all subjects, 10) self-discipline, 11) the capacity to understand people, and 12) financial security. I know you want all of these, and the way to get them is to adopt a definite purpose in your life.
10. I also reminded you that making money is okay, and that the idea that it involves manipulating people or compromising your principles is pure baloney. Making money involves helping someone else get what they want, and the more you help others get what they want, the more money you make. Rather than compromising your principles, making money involves living them. If it’s true that the more service you render the greater your reward, which it is, this means that you can have the best of both worlds: you can live your principles, doing as much good for others as possible, and at the same time have as much prosperity as you want.
11. I also reviewed the six step process I taught you in lesson one. I want you to burn these six steps into your brain and think about them whenever you set out to accomplish anything. They are the recipe for getting everything you want.
These steps, once again, are: 1) know where you are, 2) know where you want to be, 3) take action, 4) evaluate the results of your action, 5) based on your evaluation, refine your action, and 6) keep repeating steps 3, 4, and 5 until you get what you want. Even if your goal is to get up out of your chair and get a glass of water, you’ll use these six steps. If you use them on the bigger things you want in life, you will be unstoppable.
12. I also told you, once again, that there is a certain way of thinking and acting that will get you any particular outcome you want. Your job is to find it and adopt it. I told you three ways to figure out what it is. The first way is to find someone else who has done what you want to do, and find out how they think and how they act, and then copy them. The second way was to do the same thing, but through books, and I noted that you can learn almost as much about how a successful person thinks and acts through books as you can in person. And finally, the third method is trial and error. Most successful people, especially in the beginning, use trial and error, mainly because they don’t yet know enough to model other people. You, on the other hand, do know enough to model other people, so you have a head start.
13. I brought up the subject of feedback again, since it’s through feedback that you accomplish steps four and five in the six step process. Because a lot of the feedback you get will be telling you you’re off course, and most people see this as failure and a reason to quit, I urged you to see feedback—especially negative feedback—as diamonds. I want you to fall in love with feedback. Remember what Thomas Edison said to an interviewer when asked if he had been discouraged after trying five hundred possible filaments for the light bulb, none of which worked. He told the interviewer that each filament that didn’t work just brought him closer to finding the one that would work, so he was thrilled each time he found one that didn’t work.
14. Tom Hopkins, a very well-known sales trainer talks about dealing with failure quite a bit. When he was training real estate agents who were going door to door asking people if they wanted to sell their house, he figured that the sales person needed to knock on one hundred doors to find one person who wanted to sell their house. In those days the commission was about $1000 for selling a house, so he figured that at $1000 for every one hundred doors he knocked on, each door was worth ten dollars. So when he knocked on someone’s door, and they ended up slamming the door in his face when they found out there was a real estate salesperson on their doorstep, he would walk to the next house saying to himself, "Thank you for the ten dollars!"
Now that’s a good way to deal with failure. Just as Thomas Edison knew that as long as he kept looking it was just a matter of time before he found out what would work, Tom Hopkins knew that it was just a matter of time before he found someone who wanted to sell their house. He kept focusing on what he wanted—a listing—rather than focusing on what he didn't want: rejection.
15. I also mentioned probably the key point in all of this, that the key to life is what you focus on. If you can put this principle into practice, you will be in charge of your life. One of the great things about being a human being is that you have a brain that creates in reality whatever it is focused on. So the problem isn’t that you don’t have the ability to create results. It’s that the mechanism that creates your results—your focus—has, up to now, been running on autopilot, unconsciously. Once you take charge of how you focus your mind, and consciously and intentionally focus the spotlight of your mind on the outcome you want, you will find a way to make it happen in reality. I have never seen this fail.
16. I reviewed several Big Ideas from Napoleon Hill. The first is that the starting point of all achievement is the adoption of a definite major purpose. The second is that any dominating idea, plan or purpose held in the mind through repetition of thought and emotionalized with a burning desire for its realization is taken over by the subconscious mind and acted upon through whatever natural and logical means may be available. The third Big Idea is that any dominating desire, plan or purpose which is backed by faith is taken over by the subconscious mind and acted upon immediately. And the other Big Idea I mentioned was that the power of thought is the only thing over which any human being has complete, unquestionable control.
17. These ideas are really highlighting what I have been emphasizing: that when you focus your mind on what you want, add strong positive emotion to it, and—even better—add faith, the certainty that you will create what you want, you will figure out how to get the outcome you want. And, Hill also adds the idea that you are in charge of what happens in your mind. Look at what a great arrangement this is. What determines how your feel inside and what results you get in the external world is what you focus on, and the one thing your really have total control over is what you focus on. This means that you have pretty much total control over what happens in your life. The only thing you can do to sabotage yourself is to allow your mind to run around loose, focusing unintentionally on what you are afraid of.
18. We talked quite a bit about the idea of adding strong emotion when you focus on your goal. I reviewed how you can increase the positive feeling you have about your goal by changing the submodalities of your internal pictures of your goal to match the internal pictures you have of things that excite you, that you feel certain about, and that you believe strongly. This adds an element to your focusing on your goal that Hill didn’t know about in his day, and which makes the whole process more powerful. In fact, the way to have the faith Hill puts such stock in, the faith that makes things happen almost immediately, is to make internal representations in the same submodalities you use for those things you already have faith in.
19. For instance, I have total faith that the sun will come up tomorrow. When I allow a picture to come to mind representing the sun coming up tomorrow, that picture has certain submodalities. In other words, it is in a certain location, a certain distance away, it has a certain amount of brightness, a certain amount of focus, and so on. This is how I distinguish between something I am certain about and something I’m not certain about. I’m not certain I will live to be 150 years old, so if I allow that picture to come to mind, it will have different submodalities than the picture that represents the sun coming up tomorrow. So the idea is to add the submodalities of certainty, excitement, and faith, to your internal pictures of your goal. In this way, you will learn to have the necessary faith.
20. While I’m on the subject of visualization, let me add something else. A lot of people tell me they have trouble visualizing, or that they can’t visualize. I dealt with the question before, in course one, but it’s important enough that it bears repeating. If you have trouble visualizing, or think you can’t visualize at all, what’s really happening is that your internal pictures are happening unconsciously. It’s a question of not having enough conscious awareness, rather than not being able to visualize. I’m sure there are a few people on earth who really can’t visualize, but I would be surprised if you are one of them. What’s really going on is that your internal pictures are whizzing past very quickly and outside your awareness. You can, however, learn to be aware of them, with a little practice. Just allowing a picture of something you believe in, for instance, to come to mind, and playing with the submodalities, as we have done, will increase your ability to visualize. If you practice anything you will get better at it.
21. The other thing that causes people to think they can’t visualize is thinking that their internal pictures should be as vivid as real life, or as vivid as a dream they might have at night. It is possible to learn to create such vivid internal pictures, but most people’s internal pictures are not that vivid. If yours aren’t, let that be okay. The more you work with visualization, they better you’ll get at it. As with anything you want to do, use the six step process. Know where you are means to find out how good you are at making internal pictures right now. Then, be clear on where you want to be, which is to be good at making and making changes to your internal pictures. Then, take action, which is step three. That means practice making internal pictures. Do more of what works. If what you do doesn’t work that well, keep trying other things. Notice what happens, and keep working on it.
22. The reason I’m pretty good at visualizing is because, first of all, I have many years of Holosync practice under my belt, and Holosync definitely will increase your ability to visualize. Second, I spent many years doing exactly what I’ve asked you to do: reading my goal statement aloud several times a day and visualizing myself already in possession of what I wanted. If you practice like this, you’ll get better. Now, here’s something else you can do while you are practicing your visualization. Find pictures in magazines of what you want, or that represent what you want, and put them on the door of your refrigerator, on your bathroom mirror, and in other prominent places. In other words, find a way to picture what you want externally while you’re practicing seeing it internally. As you look at the picture, summon up as much positive emotion as possible, just as I’ve asked you to do with your internal pictures.
23. If you know the submodalities you associate with strong belief, or excitement, or motivation—especially where such pictures are in your visual field, and how far away they are—place these external pictures in a place where they will be in the same part of your visual field when you look at them, and stand the same distance away from them. For instance, if you find that pictures of things you are sure you can do, when you see them inside your head, are a little up and to the left, and about three feet away, place your external pictures on your refrigerator in such a way that when you look at them they are about three feet away and a little bit up and to the left. In that way, you will get the same feeling of being sure about accomplishing them.
24. Okay, onward. The next thing we did was to ask you to step right into your picture of yourself achieving your goal, which is a submodality called being associated into the picture. Then, I asked you to float up above your life, in the picture, and take it out to the place in the future where you have decided you want to have achieved the goal.
Then I asked you to float down into that spot in your time line, place the picture there, step out of the picture, so you can see yourself, at that future time, having achieved your goal, feeling how good it will feel. This is called future pacing, and it is a powerful way to give your unconscious mind an instruction to create your goal.
25. Then, I reviewed the idea of creating a goal statement. I urge you to sit down for fifteen minutes and create your own goal statement. You can use mine as a template, and just plug in your goal, your time limit, and what you are willing to give in return for the achievement of your goal. If you will read your goal statement aloud at least twice a day, and as you do, visualize yourself as having already attained it, and add the future pacing I just described, it will create very powerful motivation to take action, and will also make your mind super-alert to the resources and ideas you need. Please do this. Once you have it written, all you have to do is take five minutes twice a day to read it.
26. Next we talked about modeling, which is the shortcut to figuring out how to get what you want. This is the way to find out the way of thinking and acting that will get you what you want. Remember that you want to model excellence, so be sure you pick someone who really knows what he or she is doing to model. Also remember that you can model people in person or by reading books by them or about them. Model their beliefs, their values, their metaprograms, their internal strategies, including their decision-making strategy, and their actions. If you do this, you’ll have a huge head-start. In everything I’ve done where I eventually gained a high degree of skill and success, I have sought out the best people in that area. In learning marketing, I looked for the best marketers. In learning about meditation and personal growth, I look for the people who were tops in that field. When I learned to fly an airplane, I looked for the best instructors. I did the same thing when I learned to play golf. Why not just find the best, and learn to do what they do?
27. I then discussed decision-making in some detail, because a big key to success is the ability to make decisions. I told you that to make a decision, you first have to know what you want. Otherwise, you won’t have any basis for making a decision. Second, you have to have a way of recognizing what you want when you see it, hear it, feel it, or whatever representational system you’re using. Third, you have to have some way of gathering data and comparing it to the criteria you have. Let’s say you want to start a business, and you have to make a decision about what business to start. First, you have to be clear about what characteristics you want in a business. Do you want a small business, with no employees, a medium size business with a few employees, or a huge business? Do you want it to be a local business, or an international business? An internet business, or a retail business, or something else? And so on. If you don’t know what you want, how will you know if you've found it?
28. Next you have to have some way to recognize it, some actual criteria that when you find them you’ll recognize them. What do you need to see, hear, feel, etc., about the business? Do you need to visit the business, if it’s a place? Do you need to see the financial statements, if it’s an existing business? If you did, how would you know if they were any good? Finally, you have to have some way of gathering information or of retrieving it from memory if it is information you already know, and comparing it to your criteria. Finally, I mentioned a big pitfall, which is trying to make this comparison in the wrong representational system, particularly using your feelings to evaluate something that is better evaluated using auditory digital—in other words, rational criteria—or visual.
29. Then I discussed creating a plan, and suggested three ways to do it. One was to just take the best action you can think of and see what happens, then refine your action based on the results you get. This is the way most people start, and it works, especially if you keep going and don’t quit if everything doesn’t work the first time, since it rarely does. This is why you need a burning desire to achieve your goal, because that burning desire keeps you going. The second method I suggested was to model what others have done, which is a very powerful way to create a good and workable plan, though you still need to take stock of the feedback you get as you act and refine your actions. Don’t just blindly do what someone else did, regardless of what results you get. Use what someone else did as a good starting point, but always carefully watch what happens so you can refine your actions.
30. The third method I suggested was to start at the final result and work backwards. Say to yourself, okay, I want X. What would I need in order to get X? Let’s say that you figure out that to get X you need Y. Then ask yourself, okay, if I want to get Y, what do I need? And just keep working backwards until your plan takes shape.
31. And the last thing we did was look at beliefs and values, and I asked you to do the Values Clarifier exercise from course one, except to find your success or career values. Since values are what provides motivation, and motivation is crucial—otherwise you won't take action—making sure your values are going to support what you want to accomplish is very important.
32. Now I can just imagine some of you are saying to yourself, "Geez, this sounds like a lot of work. He keeps giving me more and more things to do, and all these things take time." Actually, I’m giving you the shortcuts. Yes, these things take some time, but it takes a lot more time if you don’t do them. These are gems of inside information that took other people ten, twenty, thirty years to learn. You can set out to achieve your goal without doing any of these things, though it will be much slower going, with many frustrations and setbacks. Even with these strategies you’ll have your share of frustrations and setbacks, but they will be minimized, and you get the outcome you want much faster. So do be willing to do the things I’m suggesting. I promise you that I really am telling you the easiest way to get what you want.
33. Let’s move on to something new. I told you last time that there was a way to get all the knowledge, expertise, and connections you need to achieve your goal, and I want to tell you what it is right now. Hill found that every successful person he ever met had what is called a mastermind group, which he described as an alliance of two or more minds working in perfect harmony for the attainment of a definite objective. I’ve seen two kinds of mastermind group. The first is the type Napoleon Hill describes, where all the members are focused on the attainment of the same objective. Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison—and, really, all great achievers—have had such a group, consisting of their management team, other related experts such as attorneys and accountants, and any other people who had specialized knowledge they needed.
34. In this kind of mastermind group, the originator of the group, the driving force behind the goal, gathers together a group of people who have the knowledge, expertise, and connections he or she lacks. My mastermind group includes experts in technology, operations, marketing, business law, accounting, plus a number of other people who are experts at dealing with details and other tasks I’m not good at or don’t want to do. These people collaborate to figure out how to achieve the goals of the business, often meeting to brainstorm, identify challenges and solve them, and otherwise figure out how to make the business go where I want it to go. A mastermind group is a practical way for you to appropriate and use the experience, training, education, specialized knowledge and native intelligence of other people, as completely as if it were your own.
35. If your goal isn’t a business, you can still have a mastermind group. An athlete may have a coach and a trainer, for instance. He or she might have a massage therapist and a dietician. He might have an agent, and an attorney. A pilot has an instructor and a mechanic, and the air traffic controllers are really part of his mastermind group while he’s flying. If your goal was to travel around the world, your mastermind group might include a travel agent and the authors of many travel books, even though you might never actually meet them. Anyone whose ideas you pull into your decision-making process could be considered part of your mastermind group.
36. The second kind of mastermind group is where people with many different goals come together to support each other in the achievement of their goals. While the people in this kind of a group are not totally focused on your project all the time, they help you brainstorm and strategize, and introduce you to other people and resources that might help you—and you do the same for them.
37. A mastermind group solves the problem of how to get the expertise, experience, resources, and specialized knowledge you don’t have yourself. To get these resources, guess what—there is a price to pay. If someone is to join your mastermind group, there must be something in it for them. You might pay them, you might share the results of what you achieve together, or in some cases they might help you because they are already very successful and want to help someone else on the way up. They might help you because you are helping them. One way or another, though, there has to be something in it for them, and your job as the creator of the group is to make sure that the other members are generously compensated in one way or another.
38. If you’re not sure how to do this, ask yourself the magic question: how will I make this mastermind group of great benefit to anyone who joins it? Keep asking until you figure out an answer. Here’s a hint: ask them what they want. Ask them what you can do for them. Find out what their deepest desires are, both materially and emotionally, and figure out a way for them to get what they want while you get what you want.
39. There are several keys to a good mastermind group. First, the group must share a definite purpose. Even if you have the second kind of group, where people with different goals come together to help each other, when you are discussing one person’s goal, everyone must be focused in that moment on helping that person get what they want, to the best of their ability. I belong to such a group, called the Transformational Leadership Council, which was started by Jack Canfield. This group contains about 35 key personal growth leaders, and part of the group’s purpose is to help each other achieve our goals. When my goals are the subject of the group, they all focus on how they can help me. When someone else is the subject, we all focus on helping that person.
40. Something extraordinary happens when you get two or more people together to focus on the same outcome. In such a case, one plus one is three, or even four, in terms of the power generated. Napoleon Hill noticed in his study of successful people that when two or more people coordinate their thinking through a mastermind alliance, they dramatically increase the ability to tap into what he called Infinite Intelligence, and what I have referred to as that part of you that always knows exactly what to do. Ideas flow, and problems seem to be easily solved.
41. Another crucial element in a mastermind alliance is harmony. There must be a complete meeting of the minds, without reservation on the part of any member. In a great mastermind alliance, each member subordinates his or her personal needs to the needs of the overall outcome or goal. If at any time the harmony of the group is damaged, you must immediately do something to restore it, including eliminating a member if that becomes necessary. A mastermind alliance cannot succeed if there is a lack of harmony. Never try to operate a mastermind alliance that includes negative people, or if you are temporarily negative—though I realize that by now that probably isn't going to happen.
42. It also must be clear to each person how they will benefit from the group, and what the contribution of each person will be. I suggest that you error on the side of generosity with the members of your mastermind group. And, it is crucially important that the group share a single, definite purpose, and that everyone be clear as to what that purpose is.
43. Quite often I see people bring in a mastermind partner whose sole qualification is that they are a friend or relative. Friends or relatives might make good mastermind partners, but they often don’t. Choose the people in your mastermind group because of the expertise they bring to the table, not because they live next door, they are related to you, or you like them. This is how people get involved with what I call "the partner from Hell." Certainly don’t bring in a mastermind partner just because you feel unsure of yourself and want some moral support. If you’re unsure of yourself and bring in another person who is also unsure of him or herself, you’ll have a case of the blind leading the blind. Decide what expertise or resources you need, and look for people who have it. And, become sure of yourself, which you can do by focusing your mind on what you want.
44. If you need money for your goal, which is a common problem, one choice is to bring in someone who is interested in profiting from your goal and who has some money to invest. You put up the idea and the hard work, while they put up the finances. Be careful, though, that you maintain harmony in your group. Part of that is being very clear up front regarding what is expected from each person and how each person will share in the rewards of the group. Also beware of the fact that the person putting up the money might disagree with your plans, but knows little or nothing about how to achieve the goal. Investors are notorious for butting in and making it difficult for entrepreneurs to do things the way they want to do them.
45. So before you decide to start such a group, think about what you need and what you have to offer. This is part of the first two steps in the six step process, that of knowing where you are and knowing where you want to be. This is why I wanted you to take a personal inventory of the assets and liabilities you have, so you’ll know what to look for as you put your mastermind group together, and so you’ll know what you can offer the other members.
46. When I first started my group, I didn’t have much confidence that I had much to offer anyone else, or why they would want to support what I wanted to do. And, since I had no money, I couldn’t pay anyone. You may feel this way, too. But don’t let that stop you from creating such a group. You’ll be surprised at who will help if you ask. The first person I asked was a marketing expert, and the person who gave me his phone number told me he probably wouldn’t even talk to me. But he did agree to see me at his office, and when I told him what I wanted to do, for some reason he took a liking to me and helped me. He even cut his fee in half. I’m not sure why, but I like to think that he saw my enthusiasm and sincerity, which came from my clear focus on my goal.
47. Certainly the people you would pay as you need them, such as an attorney or an accountant, are going to be willing to be a part of your group, and it’s always possible to get some other people together who have similar goals, as Jack Canfield has done in creating the Transformational Leadership Council. As with anything else, take the first step, notice what happens, refine your strategy, and keep going. You’ll be surprised at how easy it is to create such a group. Figure out what’s in it for the other person, whether it’s making money, being challenged, learning new things, helping others, or any other benefit they might receive. If you’re starting a group of people who all have a business or at least the same general interest and you’re getting together to brainstorm and share ideas, most people are eager to be in such a group.
48. Be sure, though, that you maintain harmony in your group, that the group agrees on a central purpose, and that you always keep in mind the benefit each member will receive and do everything you can to be sure they receive those benefits. If you do this, you’ll find that such a group is a fountain of ideas, and you’ll have a much easier time getting the resources you need to achieve your goal.
49. Here’s another way to look at a mastermind group, an idea I got from Dan Sullivan of The Strategic Coach. You have certain unique abilities, while lacking other abilities you might need to achieve your goal. This is why I wanted you to take inventory or what you already have, and what you need. What you’re trying to do is to create a unique ability team. Now let me define the term "unique ability." A unique ability is something you’re really good at and, at the same time, you are energized by doing it. Teaching is one of my unique abilities, and I’m energized by doing it. On the other hand, I’m good at managing people, but I don’t really feel energized by doing it. In fact I don’t like it very much at all.
50. Ultimately, you want to be using your unique ability, and delegating everything else to other people who have other unique abilities you need. This means that everyone is doing what they are really good at and what energizes them. This makes for a very happy and productive group. What you don’t want is for you or anyone else to be doing something you aren’t very good at or, even if you are good at it, you don’t like doing it.
51. So you want to become clear about what your unique abilities are, and also what unique abilities you need, but don’t have. You might be really good at strategizing, or be really good at implementing strategies created by others, or you might be really good at dealing with details, or really good with technology, or really good at negotiating, or really good at working with your hands, or really good at seeing relationships others don’t notice. Begin to think about what your unique ability might be.
52. A big clue is to consider what energizes you. If you’re good at it and it energizes you, it is a unique ability. If you’re really good at it, but you don’t like doing it, it isn’t a unique ability. Now admittedly, in the beginning, you may have to do everything regarding your goal. That’s the way it is for most people. It certainly was for me, and I had to overcome the feeling I had of "who would want to help me, or work with me?" Now it seems like everyone wants to work with me and help me. The feeling I had wasn't true—as is the case with many, if not all, bad feelings.
53. Once you know what your unique ability is, you can begin to think about creating a unique ability team. To do this, figure out what other unique abilities you need, and look for people who have them. I, for instance, am not very good with details. If I force myself, I can be, but I don’t like dealing with them if I can avoid it. I’m more of a big picture person. But I have several people who work for me who are geniuses when it comes to handling details and spotting mistakes in the details, and because that is their unique ability, they play an important role at Centerpointe.
54. Other people who work for me are good at organizing events, or good at managing other people, or good at technology, or good at implementing and managing projects. Now you might think that your unique abilities can’t make you any money. Consider a few examples, though. Let’s say you love to sit around and chat with people, and you’re really good at it. So what, you say. Who would pay me to do that? Well, Oprah Winfrey makes $50 million a year doing just that. Jack Canfield told me about a friend who is an international tour director and makes a good living hanging out with people in some of the most exciting cities of the world.
55. Rick Steeves liked to travel and to write about it. Over the last twenty years he has written many travel books, helping people travel on a limited budget but still have incredibly exciting vacations. He gets to travel all over the world to update his books. Here’s another example. Consider a woman whose main passion was watching soap operas.
Now who would pay you to do that?! This woman discovered that many other people also love to watch soap operas, but often miss their favorite shows for various reasons. So she created a magazine called Soap Opera Digest. Her job is to watch soap operas, and write summaries of the plots for those who miss their favorite shows.
56. This is the kind of idea that comes from focusing on what you want and asking the magic "How can I?" question. So find out what you are uniquely good at, and what you love to do, and ask yourself how you can create something where you get to do what you love. Then, look for people with unique abilities that you need but don’t have.
57. Let’s move on to something else now. I’ve said that the key to everything in life is what you focus your mind on. I hope you’re clear on that by now. As I’ve said, the problem isn’t that you aren’t good at creating the results you want, but rather than you are doing most if not all of your focusing unconsciously and automatically, which means you have to take whatever results you happen to get based on what is automatically being focused on. The whole idea is to learn to focus your mind consciously and intentionally.
58. In the first of these three courses, the Internal Map of Reality Expander, I was really giving you a detailed picture of the process by which you focus your mind. You have an experience, it passes through a set of very complex filters, including beliefs, values, metaprograms, and so on. With what is left after that filtering process, you make an internal representation in one of the six modalities, visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and auditory digital being the most important. These internal representations have various submodalities, and are strung together in sequences called strategies, which lead to an internal state or an external behavior. In this way, you create whatever happens, internally and externally.
59. This is a description of how you focus your mind. The internal representations are the actual point of focus, but the filters are important because they determine what part of what you experience is left over to focus on. The submodalities are how you make distinctions, such as between what you believe and don’t believe, what is possible and what isn’t possible, and so on. The sequence of internal representations determines the end-result state or behavior. Everything plays a role. Because this process creates your results in life, it certainly is an important part of whether or not you are successful in creating whatever you want to create in the world.
60. I’ve asked you to become clear about what you believe about success in general and your goal in particular—in other words, to make sure your beliefs support your goal. I’ve also asked you to find out what your values are concerning success and career or whatever area relates to your goal. I’ve asked you to do this because the more these things support your goal, the easier it will be to achieve. The more your beliefs and values conflict with your goal, the more difficult it will be.
61. Realize that you give yourself a huge advantage when you do whatever you can to bring your beliefs and your values into alignment with your goal. When I started Centerpointe, my beliefs and values in many ways did not fully support what I wanted to do. As time passed, and I bumped up against the challenges and problems created by these deficiencies, my beliefs and values gradually changed and grew to be more and more aligned with what I wanted to accomplish. So don’t wait until everything is perfect to start. Start now. I’m describing all the aspects involved in really getting your ducks all in a row, but don’t wait until that happens to get started.
62. The next thing I want to look at in the process of making sure your Internal Map of Reality supports your goals are your metaprograms. Metaprograms are easily as important as beliefs and values. You’ll remember from course one that metaprograms are content-free filters that determine what you focus on in a certain area. This means they're not about the content of your thinking, but rather about process and structure. Metaprograms tell us what to pay attention to and what to not pay attention to, which I hope you can now see is crucially important. They also determine how we process information as it comes in through our senses. Metaprograms assist us in the process of deleting, generalizing, and creating our distortions.
63. Metaprograms let us pay attention to certain information, and filter out other information. Metaprogram operate at a very deep level. In other words, they’re very unconscious. Most people are totally unaware of them, yet they have a huge effect on your internal state and your behavior. So, it’s probably pretty important that you know about them. Some of them are very important in terms of communication, in particular. So let’s go through the major metaprograms and see how they affect goal achievement. Since we looked at these in course one, this will be review, but I know that in my life I had to look at metaprograms many times before I really understood them, and each time I looked at them I saw a deeper level of meaning.
64. The first category is extrovert and introvert. Remember that the main distinction between these two is that extroverts are energized by being around people, and want to be around people to recharge, while introverts recharge by being alone or with a significant other. Also remember that almost all of these metaprograms are a spectrum rather than an either/or distinction, and also that in some cases you may be in a different part of the spectrum in different situations. Though you may have a main tendency, you may be more introverted in certain situations and more extroverted in others.
65. There are a couple of major things I want you to understand about metaprograms. First, I want you to begin to become conscious of when you are acting out of a certain metaprogram, so that instead of filtering things automatically and unintentionally, you are aware of how you’re using each of these important metaprograms. Second, your main goal is flexibility. You want to use these metaprograms in whatever way is most resourceful, depending on the outcome you’re trying to get. That means that rather than always being an extrovert, there may be times you want to intentionally be an introvert, or vice versa. Instead of automatically and unintentionally acting out of a certain metaprogram, you want to be choosing how you do it in a way that gives you additional power to create what you want.
66. Okay, back to introvert and extrovert. There are times when, to achieve a certain goal, you might want to be an extrovert, and there are times where it might be better to be an introvert. Certainly where you need to create relationships extroversion can be helpful. On the other hand, introverts tend to have deeper relationships, so at some point in creating a relationship that will help you achieve your goal, you might want to operate as an introvert, so you can create a deeper, one-on-one relationship with someone. You might also do some of your best planning, thinking, and problem solving alone. In fact, there is benefit to brainstorming with a group, and there are other benefits to sitting alone and asking the magic question, "How can I?" As will be the case with almost all of these metaprograms, you want flexibility.
67. The next category is sensor and intuitor. Sensors are fact-driven. They like hard, cold, facts. They are good at chunking down to practical application. Intuitors are big-picture people. They like to focus on the relationships between facts. They are very chunked up, and tend to not like to chunk down into the details. When sensors overdo it, they totally miss the big picture, the overall purpose, and can get mired in small chunks that might not be all that relevant. When intuitors overdo it, they can be way out in the ozone, disconnected with reality, too theoretical.
68. As with many of the other metaprograms, there are times when it is good to look at what is happening from the point of view of a sensor, and other times when it’s good to look at what is happening from the point of view of an intuitor. When it’s time to plan, you might want to look at the big picture, the overall purpose. When it’s time to execute the plan, you may have to get into the details. If you have the flexibility I want you to develop, you will be able to rapidly go back and forth, always seeing how the facts create the big picture, and how the big picture is connected to the facts.
69. Very often people who are in charge of large projects or organizations are intuitors, and they delegate dealing with the facts and details to other people whose unique ability is dealing with such things. But if you are to be able to oversee the entire project, you’re going to have to be able to chunk up and down at will. Staying in the big picture just because you’re in charge of the overall project will make it difficult for you to know if the people in charge of the details are really doing something that will lead to the achievement of the big picture you want.
70. It’s actually pretty easy to chunk up and down. You need to know the questions that allow you to do so. To chunk up, ask "For what purpose," or "What is this an example of?" Let’s say your goal is to find a higher paying job. You decide to create a new resume. It would be a good idea to ask yourself what the purpose of the resume is, rather than just throwing something together. The purpose of a resume is to get you noticed so you’ll get called for an interview. By stepping back and looking at the big picture, you can evaluate each aspect of the resume to see if it actually supports the big picture. We've seen resumes here on weird colors of paper, or with strange cover letters, or that had other things that really didn’t support the attainment of the big picture for the person sending it.
71. Then, you might want to chunk down, which you do by asking "What specifically?" or "What is an example of this?" In other words, you might ask what specific things might get your resume noticed, and particularly noticed in a favorable way. You could smear mustard all over it, and that would get it noticed, but probably not in a favorable way, unless you were applying for a job at a hot dog stand. Positive things you could do might include using good grammar and punctuation, pointing out skills you have that would benefit the specific company you’re applying to, including a clearly written and intelligent cover letter, and so on. The main thing I want you to do is begin to consciously use these questions to chunk up and down in as many situations as possible, until it becomes easy and second nature for you.
72. The next metaprogram is thinker/feeler. The only real comment I have on this one is something I’ve mentioned before, which is making decisions based on feelings in areas where feelings cannot represent the criteria that are most important in making a decision is not a good idea. Make your decisions using the representational system that actually includes the criteria that are important. Now being a feeler isn’t always a liability, though. There are plenty of situations where being a feeler helps you gain rapport with people who can help you, or allows you to determine what a customer might need. Again, whether you come from a thinker perspective or a feeler perspective, do so on purpose rather than just allowing this metaprogram to run on autopilot.
73. Also remember that the difference between a thinker and a feeler is a submodality distinction. Thinkers are making dissociated internal representations, while feelers are making associated internal representations. When I asked you to think of your goal, make a picture inside, then step right into your body in the picture and see what you see, hear what you hear, and feel what you feel, I was asking you to operate as a feeler in that moment, because we've discovered that adding strong, positive emotion to these pictures, by associating into them, creates strong motivation, which allows you to do what needs to be done to achieve your goal. There are also times when you want to be dissociated. For instance, if you suffer a setback, you probably don’t want to associate into the bad feelings you might temporarily experience.
74. The next metaprogram is judger and perceiver. This one is very important, so please pay close attention. The main characteristic of a judger is that they have a strong need for closure and completion. They feel a certain amount of anxiety until they complete whatever they are working on. They are very future oriented. They look into the future, decide how they want it to be, and then work to make it that way. Perceivers feel anxiety about gaining closure. They resist completion. They think there’s always more information to gather or more options to investigate, and they’re worried they might miss out on an option if they achieve closure too soon. Perceivers are very much in the now, and rarely look to the future and try to envision what they want in the future. Instead, their motto is "Take it as it comes. Go with the flow."
75. In terms of achieving goals, you want to be a judger. Most of what gets done in the world is done by judgers. Perceivers tend to not act because acting means not waiting for that one magic option that hasn’t appeared yet. What perceivers fail to recognize is that until you choose an option and do something about it, you can’t experience the benefits of any option. When perceivers do act, it’s usually because a deadline has arrived, and they have to do something. Usually they choose whatever option is foremost in their mind at that moment, which may or may not be the best one.
76. When you do complete something or achieve something, however, it’s great to be a perceiver, because you can be in the moment and experience the glow of having achieved something. The judger may achieve something, but rarely feels the benefit of his or her achievement, because they’re already off to the next thing, building up new anxiety about completing something else. It’s also best to be a perceiver when you’re having leisure time. So each is valuable, and once again you want to come from each perspective intentionally, rather than just automatically being one or the other.
77. Usually judgers have a time line in which the past and the future are both in front of them, usually in a V-shape. Perceivers usually have the future in front of them and the past behind them. One way to switch from one to the other is to float up above your time line and move it, then float back down. After a while you will just automatically change depending on what you’re trying to accomplish.
78. Developing the awareness and the flexibility to use these metaprograms in the way I’m describing takes some time, so please don’t allow yourself to get overwhelmed by all these things I’m giving you to do. Just work on them here and there, as you feel like it, and over time you will get better and better at it. This is pretty advanced stuff, and most people aren’t doing what I’m suggesting. Most successful people had a background growing up where their metaprograms turned out to be mostly resourceful, but they’re using them unconsciously. If your metaprograms are not the most resourceful, I’m showing you how to become aware of them and how to take charge of them. And, as I said before, don’t wait until you’ve mastered all this to start moving toward your goal. Start now.
79. The next category is the Direction Filter. This one I’ve talked about over and over, so I’m just going to mention it briefly. The Direction Filter is whether you move toward what you want or move away from what you don’t want. I think you already know that I see no benefit to you in focusing on what you don’t want, other than if it provides clues that help you figure out what you do want so you can change your focus to that. So, we’ll consider this one covered, okay?
80. The next metaprogram is another I’ve talked a lot about, the Reason Filter. This is the filter that determines whether you sort by possibility or by necessity or impossibility. It determines the reason why you do something: whether you do it because it’s possible, or because you think you have to. As I’ve said so many times before, you want to sort by possibility. Very few successful people sort by necessity. When you sort by necessity, you filter out the possibilities, so you don’t see them. It’s hard to achieve anything when you think this way. On these two biggies, I want you to learn to notice when you are focusing on what you don’t want, and when you are doing things not because they’re possible, but because the rules say you should do them.
81. The next one is called the Convincer Representational Filter, and its cousin, the Convincer Demonstration Filter. In other words, what representational system is most convincing to you? Are you more easily convinced by seeing something, by hearing something, by reading something, or by actually doing something—and how many times (or for how long, in some cases) do you need to see it, hear it, read it, or do it before you are convinced.
82. You can probably tell that this metaprogram is important in decision making. Since you will have many decisions to make in achieving your goal, it’s pretty important. The main thing to keep in mind is that if you have to see something in order to be convinced, you might miss something important if the information is delivered in print, by the spoken word, or by you actually doing it. If you have to read something to be convinced, you might miss something important that you see, hear, or do. Again, you want the flexibility to choose how you take in information, rather than unconsciously and automatically doing things in a certain way.
83. This is probably a good time to throw in the idea that the fastest way to gain the conscious awareness that will allow you to do this is to use Holosync, along with taking the time to play with these metaprograms so you are aware of them. You might consider writing one metaprogram on a card and carrying it with you for a week, noting on it each time you notice that metaprogram in your own thinking, or notice someone else who is using it. In this way, you’ll become more and more aware of them.
84. The next metaprogram is the Frame of Reference Filter, which determines whether you have an internal frame of reference or an external frame of reference. Those who have an internal frame of reference know inside if they are doing a good job, or if something they see, hear, read, or experience is valuable or not, or is accurate or not. A person with an external frame of reference needs someone outside of them to verify that they are doing a good job, or if some piece of information is accurate. Again, there are times where each of these is desirable, and you want to use both of them, by choice, in a way that best supports what you want to do.
85. Generally when you are learning something it’s good to have an external frame of reference, to check with someone who knows more than you to make sure you’re on track. Once you know about something, it’s generally better to have an internal frame of reference, to have confidence in yourself and your ability to evaluate each situation you encounter. The trick is to know when to have an internal frame of reference and when to have an external frame of reference. If you have too much of an external frame of reference, you’ll always need someone else to rely on for any decision you want to make.
86. On the other hand, if you don’t take into consideration the input of others, you may be making decisions without all the available information. Someone who has what is called premature closure on a subject—someone who thinks they know it all—can make some serious errors. It’s best to reserve a space inside for the possibility that there are aspects of any subject you can still learn, no matter how much you know.
87. Next is the Relationship Filter, which has to do with sorting by sameness or by differences. This is another important filter. Do you remember the metaprograms test you took in course one, where I showed you the three boxes and asked you to tell me what the relationship was between those three boxes. People who sort by sameness will list all the ways the boxes are the same, while those who sort by differences will list all the ways they are different. This is a spectrum, of course, so some people will be at the extremes, and others will be in the middle somewhere, where they notice some similarities and some differences. However, when you are noticing sameness, you pretty much filter out, and therefore do not notice, all the differences, and while you are noticing the differences you filter out the similarities.
88. Again, you want to be able to use this filter consciously, so that in each situation you filter out what you don’t need and keep what you do need, depending on what you’re trying to accomplish. If you don’t use this filter consciously, you just have to take whatever your brain unconsciously does. If you need to see relationships, which is what sorting by sameness gives you, but you are noticing differences, you won’t be able to see the relationships. If you need to make distinctions, which is what noticing differences does for you, but you’re sorting by sameness, you won’t be able to see the distinctions.
89. Just in terms of thinking power, this is one of the more important metaprograms. Being able to see relationships between different things is the source of imagination and creativity, and you need that in achieving goals. Noticing distinctions allows you to make decisions between different options, and to spot potential problems so you can solve them. People who have a highly developed ability to see relationships other people have not seen are considered to be geniuses. At the same time, people who can make very highly defined distinctions are also considered to be geniuses.
90. For instance, a baseball player who can tell, in a fraction of a second whether the ball coming over the plate at 100 miles per hour is a curve ball, a fast ball, or some other kind of pitch might make millions of dollars for his ability to make that distinction. I have people who work for me who can spot mistakes in things I write that I would never see, and I pay them well for being able to do that. Again, your goal is to be able to notice relationships when that is needed, and to notice distinctions when that is required, and sometimes to be able to go back and forth rapidly.
91. There are a number of other metaprograms I covered in course one that I’m not going to cover again in this lesson because they just aren’t as important. Now I realize I’m just burying you with information in this course, so I want to step back and try to put this in perspective for you so you won’t be as likely to feel overwhelmed by all of this. So I want to summarize the big points for you, and then I’ll follow up with the more subsidiary points.
92. a) The main thing in creating what you want in the world is to focus on what you want and take action. I gave you an exercise to help you figure out what you want, and also recorded a time line session to help you get rid of any confusion about what you want. If you just focus on what you want, take action, and keep doing it, you really can do anything.
b) If you want to make it a little more sophisticated, follow the six-step formula I gave you, which is to know where you are, know where you want to be, take action, notice what happens, perfect your action based on what you learned, and keep taking actions, noticing what happens, and refining your actions until you get what you want. If you do this, you’ll eventually get whatever you want.
c) The next thing to add would be to create a goal statement, including what you want, when you want it by, and what you’ll give in return, and read it aloud two or three times a day while you see yourself having already achieved your goal, adding as much positive emotion as possible. Be sure that you’re willing to pay the price to have the result you want, and remember to focus your mind on the end result and how great it will be to have it, so you can have fun paying the price. Do this, along with using the two above, and you’re really going to kick ass.
d) Knowing that there is a certain way to think and act that will get you what you want in any situation, find out what it is and be willing to adopt it. You can do this by trial and error, by following the six-step process, but a faster way is to model someone who has already done what you want to do. You can do this in person, or through books. Find out how they think by finding out their beliefs, values, metaprograms, decision-making procedures, and their internal strategies, and find out what actions they took. Though you still want to notice what happens when you take action, and keep refining your actions, this will give you a big head start.
e) If you want to get even more bang for your buck, look at your beliefs, values, and metaprograms, and find out all the ways you could align them with your goal, and find out how to use them consciously and intentionally, rather than just allowing them to run on automatic, which will sometimes give you good results, and sometimes not.
f) If you want even faster and better results, create a mastermind group, so you can harness the extra power that comes from more than one mind working on your goal at the same time, and so you can take advantage of the resources and abilities of other people.
g) Above all, remember the words of Napoleon Hill, who after over twenty years of research said: "Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve." If you can focus on it and believe that you can do it, you will be able to do it.
93. We’ll add to this list as we continue, but this is the big picture of how to create what you want in the world. Each of these could be broken down into many details, which is what confuses some of you, but for now just focus on the big picture. Start with the first of these instructions, and add the second when you can, and then add the third, and so on. Before you know it, you’ll be saying to yourself, "You know, Bill was right. This is pretty easy." So until next time, when we’ll go into the subject of how to deal with adversity and setbacks—and in fact how to turn any adversity into a positive—I'll say goodbye for now, and be well.
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