by JimRaffel on March 25, 2010
Setting out to produc
e 31 posts in the month of March has resulted in the unintended consequence of turning me into an idea factory.
Napoleon Hill wrote about the importance of ideas in Think and Grow Rich. His premise, which I share, is that you become what you think about. I think about helping others and being successful and that is what my life has become.
This is a picture of one of my Moleskine notebooks. Everyday I have enough thoughts and ideas to fill at least a page or two. Strangely the one and two word ideas generally turn into the best blog posts. “Best” being the ones you guys choose to comment on the most.
The brain needs exercise like other muscles and practice makes perfect. Everything around me provides inspiration for blog posts. Sometimes it’s the blogs of others that I try to spend 30 minutes a day reading. Other days it’s walking into a brand new Hampton Inn like I did last week and wrote about the importance of sharpening the saw regularly.
Something sparks the creativity in all of us. Over the last 25 days I have gone from often struggling for an idea to write about to having to decide which of the six or seven ideas I had today will will make the cut. I find it helpful to let the good ideas age for a day or two before writing the post. Letting your subconscious work on an idea you have committed to paper is a way to filter the great ideas from the not so great.
Ideas are everywhere you just need to shut your mouth then open your eyes and ears. For example, today while struggling with the tuning and tweaking of the server this blog resides on I was able to call my blogstorming buddy Steve Duncan. Without community and social media tools like blogging and Twitter Steve and I would have never met. There’s a blog post in that story that I may or may not end up writing but I can see it, can you?
Ideas are important to everything we do. Where do your ideas come from? What sparks your idea factory?
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by JimRaffel on March 21, 2010
When faced with a tough decision, I often ask myself What would _________ do in this situation? Or better yet I pull together a group or four or five really smart people in my head to form an internal mastermind group.
I first read about the internal mastermind concept in Napoleon Hill’s classic Think and Grow Rich. To form an internal mastermind group you gather in your head those individuals you respect and admire whom you believe could help you address your current situation. The cool thing is that because this is all happening in your head the people can be living or dead. As a matter of fact you need never have met the person if you feel you know enough about their character and intellect.
If you could get inside my head during an internal mastermind group meeting you might find these people: My Dad, Thomas Jefferson, Napoleon Hill, Dean Eggert, Mark Geeves, Joe Sorge and even Chris Brogan. This is by no means an exhaustive list. I pull in those great minds I need to solve the problem of the moment. I’m here to tell you this works.
This blog has become my sandbox to test and hone my skills with all kinds of ideas. One has been the mastermind group. I have made many changes to the appearance and content on this site over the last four months or so. While I have directly asked many people their opinions on some of these changes, more changes have occurred with me asking in my head, a table full of people like those in the above list, for the answers.
For me the best time to assemble the group and ask the questions is as I drift off to sleep at night. First, I sleep like a baby and then I wake with a head full of ideas. I jump out of bed find my Moleskine notebook and start writing until I’m out of ideas and thoughts. You can go ahead and think my brain created those ideas…I don’t agree. I’ll leave it at that.
So, have you ever made use of an internal mastermind group? Was it successful for you? If you haven’t tried has this post encouraged you to give it a shot? Let me know!
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e 31 posts in the month of March has resulted in the unintended consequence of turning me into an idea factory. 
