Now that you’ve learned how to improve your own life using the power of belief, it’s a natural step to want to help others improve their lives as well. And since most of us believe that “what goes around, comes around,” we will actually benefit ourselves when we go out of our way to help others.

Of course, karma isn’t the only reason to help other people. If you’ve ever been on a diet, you know it’s a lot easier to lose weight when those closest to you are following the same diet plan. It’s hard to stick to a diet when you’re constantly surrounded by folks stuffing their faces with all sorts of junk food.

The same is true when you’re on a mental diet and ridding yourself of old limiting beliefs. It’s a lot easier when those around you are also following the same mental diet and not tempting you to believe in limitation and failure. Many successful people refuse to watch TV news programs for exactly this reason.

There’s also a third reason to involve other people in your quest for a better life. Others can usually see our limiting beliefs better than we can ourselves, and when groups get together to work with this material, everyone benefits. Not only can the group members help each other find the hidden beliefs stopping us from experiencing the fullness of joy we desire, but the group also acts as a support system to give us encouragement and motivation to keep at it until we succeed.

I know that for myself and many others, having a group to report to once a week is strong motivation to invest the time and effort required to make this material productive. If left to ourselves, many of us would put it off forever and never get around to putting this information to practical use. With a group supporting you, it’s “put up or shut up.”

MasterMind Groups

When you first invite a group of friends and colleagues together to study and practice this material, you may want to follow a proven format. This allows you to start in a comfortable environment. As your group becomes more acquainted with the principles and how they are applied in individual situations, you may find your own way of working together.

Most successful MasterMind groups begin with a brief period where everyone reports on the progress they’ve made over the previous week. Many groups like to start the session with a prayer or short meditation, and this is fine. When this is done, results are reported right after the opening prayer or meditation.

In the beginning, these progress reports usually reflect the way each person feels about the issues they are working on, and they may not have actual physical results to report. This is fine and a good indication of early progress. As time goes on, there will be actual physical events and experiences to report, and these will help new members realize the possibilities awaiting them.

Regardless of whether results are subjective (feelings only) or objective (actual physical results), all members should be called upon to report, and all results should be complimented and supported by everyone in the group. This is very important, and is one of the primary reasons for having a MasterMind group.

After each member reports their results, each person offers information or inspiration to the group. This may be a section from this book, another book, or it may be an article about someone who has successfully used the power of belief to create change in their life. Since most groups like to keep their meetings shorter than two hours, each person with information to share should keep their portion to ten minutes or less.

After this sharing of new information, successful MasterMind groups will turn their attention to helping each member with whatever challenges they may be facing. This may be in finding hidden beliefs, finding new beliefs to replace them with, presenting possibilities to use in creative daydreaming or creative pretending, or suggestions for physical action that may lead to the desired goal.

This section of the meeting can be thought of as “group coaching” or brainstorming, where each member of the group receives help and advice on how to proceed towards their goal. As with the information sharing phase, this time should be kept short, maybe between 10 and 15 minutes per member. The idea is to present ideas to work with, not solve the issue at hand.

Groups starting their sessions with an opening prayer will usually close with another prayer. Other ways of ending a MasterMind group session would be to state an intention for the following week, or to have each member commit to a certain level of activity, such as a number of belief conditioning sessions or one or more practical steps towards their goals.

Another aspect of successful MasterMind groups is that they all have a set of “ground rules” that are in effect during their meetings, such as “no criticism is allowed without a corresponding suggestion for improvement” or “no one is allowed to speak for more than 10 minutes at a time.” Many sample sets of rules may be found online. Feel free to use one of them or make up your own rules.

The general guideline is to simply be courteous, kind, and supportive. Each member should feel they are supported and a vital part of the group, and any behavior counterproductive to this goal should not be allowed.

One final thought on MasterMind groups is that many people feel they should be relatively small — ten members or less. This allows everyone to have enough time to share with the group within a reasonably short meeting.