Conducting a Mastermind Alliance
Creating a Mastermind Alliance
The Mastermind Alliance principle is the “hub” or “axis” of Napoleon Hill’s philosophy. It is the principle that makes it possible for an individual through association with others to acquire and utilize all the knowledge needed for the attainment of any desired goal in life. Be sure to stress
that the Mastermind Alliance is the principle in which two or more minds work together in perfect harmony in attaining a definite objective. This process requires a great deal of initiative and cooperation, which is perhaps why there are few great Mastermind alliances.
This principle makes it possible for an individual to acquire and use all the knowledge needed to attain his or her desired goal in life through association with others. The Mastermind Alliance principle is an alliance of two or more minds working in perfect harmony to attain a definite objective.
There are several fundamental principles involved in connection with the development of this subject.
- The Mastermind Alliance principle is a practical medium through which you may acquire and use the full benefits of the experience, training, education, specialized knowledge and native intelligence of other people just as if these were your own.
- The Mastermind Alliance principle is an active alliance of two or more minds in a spirit of perfect harmony to attain a common objective which will stimulate the mind to a higher degree of courage than that ordinarily experienced and pave the way for faith. Discuss with your class the following terms briefly: confidence, understanding, fairness, and justice.
- The Mastermind Alliance principle stimulates each mind in the alliance to move with enthusiasm, personal initiative, and imagination. This accelerates the capacity of the minds to receive and transmit thought vibrations.
- The Mastermind Alliance principle when actively applied has the effect of connecting the subconscious minds of the allies and gives each member access to the spiritual powers as well as other powers of the other members.
- All individual successes, based upon any kind of achievement above mediocrity, are attained through the Mastermind Alliance principle.
There are Twelve Great Riches of Life
- A positive mental attitude
- Sound physical health
- Harmony in human relationships
- Freedom from fear
- The hope of achievement
- The capacity for faith
- Willingness to share one’s blessings
- A labor of love
- An open mind on all subjects
- Self-discipline
- The capacity to understand people
- Financial security
Two Types of Mastermind
- Social
Consists of one’s relatives and friends and religious advisors and where no material gain is sought.
- educational alliance
- religious activity
- political activity
- social activity
- Economic
An alliance with the proper kinds of people so that harmony and cooperation is the result.
There must be coordinating of efforts of many people to produce a single result or purpose.
How to Form and Maintain a Mastermind Alliance
- Adopt a “Definite Major Purpose” as an objective, choosing the right people to achieve that purpose. Make the selection from people chosen for their ability to help you to get to where you are going. List the things you need for the attainment of your goal and systematically fill in the steps with the proper persons who will help attain that objective.
- Determine what appropriate benefit each member may receive in return for cooperation in the alliance. Review very briefly the nine basic motives, using the most important one (the desire for material wealth) for this subject.
- Establish a definite plan where the members of the alliance will meet. Have a definite schedule and have an arranged meeting place to discuss the plan. Have frequent and regular contacts. Irregularity will bring defeat.
- The leader must shoulder the responsibility of the group and see to it that harmony is maintained.
- Be sure that your watchword is definiteness of purpose, promptness of plan backed by continuous perfect harmony.
- The number of individuals in an alliance should be governed entirely by the nature and magnitude of the purpose to be achieved.
Be sure you stress the importance of these five relationships as a concluding emphasis for your lesson presentation.
Stories
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Motive to Supplant Fear with Faith
When Franklin D. Roosevelt was first elected President in 1932, he used an effective method to induce the American people to supplant fear with faith.
In 1932 the people of this country were in a state of fear—selling their property, stocks and bonds, for whatever they could get for them. Actually, there was a Mastermind Alliance based on fear and racing downhill. Mr. Roosevelt stepped in with the qualities and the temperament needed to change the minds of the people and start them thinking in terms of achievement and recovery instead of panic and depression.
Through the understanding of human nature and the power potential of this principle of the Mastermind Alliance, he went to work to turn the tide of fear and replace it with a sustaining faith.
Here are the highlights of how that Mastermind Alliance was organized.
First. Both houses of the Congress worked together in harmony for the first time. Under the magnetic personality of the new President who inspired their confidence, a majority of the members of the Congress momentarily forgot their party lines and put their collective shoulders to the wheel to pull the nation out of the sloughs of depression.
Second. Many of the newspaper publishers of the nation were called together in a conference and asked to replace the scare headlines they were using with headlines which would show some hope and promise and the possibility of a brighter future for America. Instead of playing up the business failures, they were asked to accent business successes. Human interest stories were to point up those who had remained valiant and who had kept their heads above water.
Third. Operators of radio stations were asked if they would cooperate and have their commentators and news editors say
something pleasant instead of continually painting the darkest, gloomiest aspect of events. For some reason, the average person loves to hear about misery and trouble, poverty and want, disaster and peril. In the early thirties the newspapers and the radio reflected this negative thinking until it became a vicious cycle, one supporting the other, so that it was almost impossible to put over a positive idea.
The winning personality of the new President had its effect and there began to be signs of cheerfulness, even in the radio scripts. And then along came Gabriel Heatter, a well-known radio commentator, with his “There’s good news tonight!” That was just what we needed, and it had a telling effect on public feeling.
Fourth. Religious groups, disregarding denominational differences, got behind the movement and worked together to promote positive, hopeful thinking.
Fifth. The leaders of both major political parties supported the administration. We are not talking about the rank and file; we are talking about the leaders. May it be said to their credit, they got behind Franklin D. Roosevelt, Republican and Democrat alike. If they had not, the fear stampede would not have been stopped and there would not have been a restoration of confidence in the short time in which it was achieved.
Sixth. An overwhelming majority of the people, forgetting political and religious beliefs, rallied behind President Roosevelt and supplied the impetus and popular acceptance necessary to bring success to the President’s program. The presidency is to some extent like any new job. A man may come into a new job in industry and be doomed from the first because the other employees take a dislike to him. When that condition arises, he might as well get out. On
the other hand, men may come in with such hearty approval of the other employees that they become more efficient men as a result of that support. And so it was in the case of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Through his efforts, the nation as a whole was influenced to discard his ears and to believe in and work toward recovery. This entailed an absolute reversal in the thinking of the entire country and the tide of events. It required tremendous power. This power Roosevelt
generated by creating the dedicated alliance of Mastermind Alliance groups.
Andrew Carnegie’s Mastermind Alliance
Mr. Carnegie did not know the details of making, distributing and selling steel and didn’t pretend to. He had his organization men who, together, knew all that was known at their time about these things.
When Mr. Carnegie first entered the steel business, steel was selling at $140 a ton, which made it prohibitive for a great many uses. He was determined to reduce the price, and he did. As a result of the combined knowledge of some twenty men directing and controlling his mills and enterprises, he whittled the price of steel down to around $20 per ton.
This made steel an everyday commodity instead of a luxury. Mr. Carnegie truly was the father of the steel age which was destined to change the appearance of every city of importance and to affect the daily lives of men and women in many ways.
Mr. Carnegie was one of the ablest men in history in the use of the Mastermind Alliance. His achievement and fortune were due to wise use of the knowledge of the men he had with him. This is what he said about his relations with them: “My job is to keep these men working together in a spirit of perfect harmony. It is extremely difficult to get even two people to agree on anything for five minutes.” And you know this is only too true. Here is one of the stories Carnegie told about his Mastermind Alliance. It shows the vital importance of the element of harmony, which has previously been pointed out in our consideration of the major points of the Mastermind Alliance principle.
Mr. Carnegie decided he wanted the best trained man he could find for his chief chemist, so he sent a scout to comb the world to find him. The scout finally found the one he thought would be satisfactory. He was in the great Krupp Steel Works in Germany. Carnegie entered into a contract with him on a five-year basis; but before the end of the first year, he had to release him. The reason? He was temperamental. He could not work in harmony with the rest of the
Mastermind Alliance. He kept the other members of the alliance in an upheaval all the time. Mr. Carnegie soon realized that it would be fatal to keep such a man on his payroll, so he paid him and sent him back home. Mr. Carnegie said that one man with a negative mental attitude turned loose in a factory of a thousand people could discolor the minds of the rest of them without saying a word. That statement, coming from so astute a judge of human character as Andrew Carnegie was, is worthy of our examination. Think about it!
A Truly Great Mastermind Alliance
One of the most outstanding Mastermind Alliances you will ever read about was that which existed between Mr. and Mrs. Henry Ford. It had its beginning in the kitchen of their home, in the days when Mr. Ford was experimenting with his first internal combustion engine. It was then that he found out the important part that a wife’s love and devotion play in her husband’s plans. She had a sincere interest in sustaining him through the trying period of inventing and perfecting a mechanical device in order to realize his purpose in life.
Their mutual appreciation of each other, and the harmony that bound them together in the months of patient effort required to make the engine run, were to last a lifetime. Although the world heard little of Mrs. Ford, who preferred to remain inconspicuous, those who know realize that she was largely responsible for the achievements of her famous husband. It was to her that he turned in moments of crisis, for her encouraging smile, her understanding admiration, her
ever-fresh hope of achievement, the comfort and care that tided him over.
Their Mastermind Alliance, based on the Definiteness of Purpose of two people who were willing to work in the spirit of harmony for the fulfillment of that purpose, is an inspiration to all who would achieve greatness. It is needless to elaborate on the tremendous power which grew out of this alliance and brought into being one of the greatest industrial empires the world has ever seen. Power was generated in the minds of two humble people who knew what they
wanted to do, who rendered service on the basis of going the extra mile, and who blended all their forces and concentrated their attention on their major purposes until success was achieved.
Mr. Edison’s Greatest Alliance
Thomas A. Edison used this Mastermind Alliance principle as the basis of his entire career. He did this to bridge the gaps in his own educational background by utilizing the special skills and knowledge of his associates. In this way, he created the physical inventions of his great laboratory. But there was another Mastermind Alliance which was in reality far more important to him than those involving the use of physics, chemistry, and mechanics. That was the alliance with his wife. He had the good fortune to have a wife with a sympathetic understanding of his problems. She always backed him up completely in any undertaking. No matter how late at night Mr. Edison would come home from his laboratory, she was up and ready with a cheerful greeting and an eager anticipation for the recounting of the day’s activities.
Mrs. Edison’s confidence and faith in her husband’s ability and her sustaining love encouraged him over many tough spots and inspired him to carry on against what were sometimes almost overwhelming odds.
Also in Your Daily Inspiration
