The principle of the Mastermind group is well known by many people and there are many groups that have been formed under the premise of mastermind support groups, but they rarely if ever deliver a successful outcome.

I have seen many of these groups and they have one thing in common, they are very short lived due to a quickly dying interest from lack of success.

This article is about the reasons that those groups have failed and naturally, the solution to creating an effective group.

The first reason for failure is lack of perseverance. People get discouraged and drop off far too quickly. I taught some exercises that take at least a year of regular daily practice before you would notice a result. Some rare students actually listen to me and accept the effort required, and eventually do reach success. Others quickly give up because they do not feel any major changes after a couple of days.

The solution to this problem of lack of perseverance is to know that the principles work ONLY IF you put in the required time and effort. It is all up to you and you must take responsibility for the success or failure rather than say the teacher or exercise is not good.

Next and most importantly, the principle of the mastermind itself is misdirected. It is a common theme that people want certain things in their life. The movie, ‘ The Secret ’ and other such books or courses all encourage people to get their personal goals. Everything is about me me me. With this foundation of self interest, the concept of the mastermind has been twisted into thinking that there will be a group of people to support you in your goal, and that in return you will support them in their goal.

This attitude does not work because that is not how the principle works. It is as powerful as squeezing out the water from a small sponge over a house on fire. You will quickly get burnt and the fire will not be effected.

Most of us have very large goals that are quite demanding of the Universe to deliver. I agree, almost anything is possible, as long as it is feasible and reasonable, but still, it is usually a big ask from our current position.

The amount of energy required to get so many factors and people focused on one goal, namely yours, requires a tremendous amount of mental energy. No one person alone can muster up that much energy, hence the principle of the mastermind group.

If you are trying to help your neighbor put out the fire in his house and you go over with one sponge full of water to help, then notice that your house is burning down, you will run back to your house, but your neighbor will stay at his trying to put out his own fire. Everyones house will burn down because everyone is putting in only a little effort to help each other while their thoughts are primarily directed towards their own goal.

The mastermind principle is not negotiable. There is only one way it will work, like it or not, the Universe will not change its laws for anyone. The truth is shown in nature with how a tiny ant can move a very large object when it joins with other ants who all want to move the same object to the same place on the same path.

The only way a Mastermind group can function is if everyone in the group has the identical goal and agrees to work on the same path and methods of achieving it. Andrew Carnegie who went from a penniless laborer to becoming the second richest man in history with a fortune in todays dollars of $309 Billion did so by building up a mastermind group of over 50 people who were all devoted to the success of his company. Of course he gave them adequate financial reasons to be so devoted, but devoted to a single goal the entire group was.

Now we must explore the reason and method to make this work for everyone, since I know that many of you will dispute the obvious question of why you should work towards someone else's goal instead of your own.

The answer to this is to find your true and ultimate goal; the reason you have any other goal in your life. Next, the question of how humility and ego effects our success must be considered. These two questions, if honestly explored will bring most people, at least the type of person who reads my articles, to the same conclusion.

I want to feel a sense of inner peace and balance and above all, Unity with something far greater than myself.

The process to make this happen is done in stages. The first one being the submission of the ego towards that ultimate goal of total inner peace and balance and serenity. To get to the higher levels of consciousness, we first have to break the bonds of the lower levels. It is just a natural process that has to be done in consecutive steps, like it or not.

My philosophy is to use the material world as the spiritual training ground. I use the principle of the mastermind group for a worldly goal as a method of my personal practice of conquering the lesser ego by joining humbly with others towards a unified goal.

In this way, my businesses succeeded and those who joined with the equal pure heart to serve the common goal also received great financial success, but more than that, they gained inner mastery.

The mastermind principle only works if everyone in the group sincerely works towards the same goal. That means each person must watch for their ego constantly to make sure they are not actually serving themselves instead of the common goal.

This is another version of the golden rule. The more pure the gold, the more it is worth. Likewise, the more pure the thoughts of every member of the group, the more valuable and thus powerful the group will be.

Author's Bio: 

David Samuel is The Entrepreneur Monk, a rag to riches story by understanding the mind and emotions.
Retiring at 29, he resolved the riddle of why we do what is bad for us yet do not do what we know is beneficial and teaches that very effectively.
David designed an iPhone app to build Intuition called ForeSight visit MindDevelopments.com
More about David EntrepreneurMonk.com