Mastermind: the Neurology
July 24th, 2006 by Bill Perry in Spirituality, Network Marketing, Personal Development, BusinessIn this article, I will work to outline a neurological model of what the Mastermind is.
In Napoleon Hill’s book, “Think and Grow Rich”, he outlines the concept known as the “Mastermind Group”. I wrote briefly about that in the article, “The B-I Triangle: Team”. The Mastermind, in essence is the invisible Mind created when 2 or more people get together with a common purpose in mind.
I like to compare this to the model of the brain. The brain stores concepts, ideas and information by building connections between neurons of varying intensity. An interesting everyday illustration of how this is accomplished is a flock of birds.
Have you ever wondered who is actually leading the flock? What if I told you that no single bird did?
In the book “Emergence” (aff), author Steven Johnson explains that in a flock of birds, each bird reacts only to the actions of the birds in its immediate vicinity. With just a few birds, nothing spectacular can reasonably be expected to happen. If, however, you get enough birds in the flock to achieve a sort of critical mass, watch out.

Any time a single bird deviates even the slightest bit from its “norm”, the birds in the immediate vicinity will adjust accordingly. And the birds in THEIR immediate vicinity, INCLUDING the ones that caused the initial fluctuations, will respond accordingly. This “ripple” will propagate through the entire flock, nearly instantly, until a sense of equilibrium is once again reached. So, in looking at this model, no single bird is saying “ok, boys and girls, let’s turn NOW!” Each bird has but one purpose while in flight, and that is to FLY.
The general MISSION of the whole team of birds is the same. Each bird is contributing to the success of the team.
The brain is essentially the same thing; ideas/concepts are introduced to the brain in the form of sensory inputs. The brain’s neurons automatically adjust the weights and intensities of the connections to the adjoining neurons to accommodate the new information.
So, the brain stores information by looking at how ideas and concepts all relate to each other, nearly instantly. This is the basis for the neurological model of the Mastermind concept.
Let’s say we build a mastermind group of 10 different people. In order for the Mastermind to function properly, the team must have a common mission or goal. The power of the Mastermind comes to play when each person in the team has a unique skill or ability to contribute to the group. This is important because each person, having a unique skill set, will ultimately have a whole slew of experiences that are vastly different from anyone else in the group. Now, imagine that the different ideas, concepts and experiences that each person contributes to the group, all come together to form that third invisible mind, the Mastermind. This is basically like a whole new brain that exists because each person in the team is in alignment.


