Glenn Leader

Tag: Napoleon Hill

  • How to Set Up Mastermind Groups: My Own Story, Mistakes Included

    People ask me how I learned to set up mastermind groups as if there was a master plan from day one. There wasn’t. I built my first one because a problem kept showing up, and nobody was solving it.

    I’ve covered the theory on how to build a mastermind group that lasts and the background in my review of Think and Grow Rich. This one’s different. This is the actual story of how I set up mastermind groups in real life, in order, mistakes included.

    The Problem That Started It

    I was a Senior Laboratory Technician for the London Borough of Waltham Forest. Science technicians in schools are an odd professional group. Every school has one or two, tucked away in a prep room, solving problems that nobody else in the building understands. Broken equipment, awkward risk assessments, exam board quirks. Each of us figured it out alone, in isolation, and as a result we were often re-solving a problem that a technician two miles away had already cracked the year before.

    set up mastermind groups - Waltham Forest science technicians meeting

    That waste bothered me. So I decided to set up a network of my own. Nothing grand. I simply asked around to find out who else was doing this job in the borough, and started getting us in a room together once a term.

    How I Set Up Mastermind Groups, Step by Step

    I should point out at this stage that none of this was clever. It was simply persistent.

    1. I found the other technicians. There was no list. Waltham Forest had around 200 schools, so contacting all of them myself would have been a massive job. Instead, I asked a handful of volunteers to each take on a handful of schools themselves. That one decision was a huge time saver, and as a result the network started life as something built by several people, not just me.
    2. I picked a low-pressure first meeting. No agenda beyond seeing if this would be useful. I didn’t want anyone feeling obligated to attend a second one.
    3. I made the value obvious early. I came with a genuine problem I was wrestling with, and consequently others did too once they saw it wasn’t a trap. That’s the bit people skip when they try to set up mastermind groups of their own: it only works if the first session proves its worth, rather than just promising it.
    4. I kept the rhythm light. Once a term. Often enough that people remembered why they came, but infrequently enough that it never felt like a burden on top of an already full job.
    5. I let it grow on its own terms. Word spread, and the network reached around 250 members eventually, which is a huge number for what started as a handful of people in a prep room comparing notes.

    Where It Got Interesting

    Here’s where it gets interesting. Once the network had numbers, equipment suppliers noticed. They wanted access to 250 technicians as a sales opportunity, but I saw it differently: as free training.

    I turned their product demonstrations into proper training sessions. The supplier provided the trainer and covered the cost of lunch, so we got hands-on time with the latest scientific equipment, in our own laboratories, at no cost to anyone. Not every school could release staff for it, but twenty or so technicians would turn up each time, and the knowledge spread from there through the rest of the network.

    It wasn’t all supplier-led, either. Some technicians had specialised knowledge of their own and were happy to share it, leading training sessions for the rest of the network on whatever they knew best. I led several of these myself. That’s the bit that made it a proper mastermind rather than just a training calendar, because the expertise was coming from inside the group, not only from outside suppliers.

    We also ran an annual group purchase of science equipment. By aggregating everyone’s individual orders into one collective buy, I negotiated a discount that none of us could have got alone. It’s a simple idea, but it’s only possible because the group existed and was organised enough to act together.

    My manager backed the whole thing from the start, and the department benefited directly, with better-trained technicians, fewer repeated mistakes, and faster fixes. Eventually the borough’s Design and Technology departments asked me to come in and advise on setting up something similar for them. That worked too.

    Sometimes One Session Is Enough

    Not every mastermind needs 250 members or years to prove its worth. One of the most useful I ever took part in lasted about twenty minutes, solved a real problem, and never happened again.

    It was activities week, just before the summer break, when the curriculum gets suspended so students can dig into whatever they’re actually interested in. I loved those weeks. We’d set up drop-in sessions for experiments, and two students wanted to design their own, looking at photosynthesis in Elodea. It wasn’t scheduled or planned, just an ad hoc conversation that happened because the problem needed solving there and then.

    Good idea, but I could see a problem coming before they could. They wanted a constant light source, which meant the lab’s old-style bulbs, and those bulbs heat water.

    So I pulled in the head of science, and the head of physics, and the five of us worked through it with the students there and then. The fix turned out to be simple: a second tank of water acting as a heat buffer between the lamp and the students’ tank.

    Solved on the spot, by exactly the right five people being in the room together. My head of department reckoned it was one of the most useful discussions he’d sat in on that year, and the students got more out of it than the experiment alone would ever have taught them. Sometimes a mastermind doesn’t need a name or a membership list. It just needs the right people noticing the same problem at the same time.

    The Bit Nobody Talks About

    There was something else going on underneath the training and the discounts. One of the technicians once described her own role to me as ancillary, as if she were an afterthought to the school’s real work. That word stuck with me, and for the record, it’s wrong. These were skilled professionals, and the network gave them a forum that proved it. Some of them went on to train teachers on the equipment they’d once felt apologetic about handling.

    I didn’t set out to fix anyone’s sense of professional worth. That happened as a side effect of giving people a room where their knowledge mattered, and it’s a huge part of why I think masterminds work, beyond the practical wins.

    What I’d Do Differently If I Were to Set Up Mastermind Groups Again

    This beggars belief, looking back, but I built the entire thing around myself without ever planning for what happened when I moved on. I didn’t rotate the organiser role, and I didn’t keep a shared record of contacts and notes that lived anywhere other than in my own head. When I eventually left that role, the network didn’t have a clean handover plan, so a lot of momentum that had taken years to build relied on no one else stepping up.

    If I were starting again, I’d build succession in from month one. I’d rotate who organises each term, and keep a shared document rather than a personal inbox. A group that depends entirely on one person is fragile, no matter how well that person runs it. I cover this properly in the build one that lasts article, and it’s the single thing I’d change about how I ran the Technicians’ Network.

    The Looser Version: Martin Avis’s Lunches

    Not every mastermind needs that much structure. The most informal version I’ve taken part in was a series of business lunches in London, organised by my good friend Martin Avis, who has a knack for getting the right people into the same room.

    We met roughly every two months, and Martin charged a modest fee that covered only the food. The lunch itself was structured enough, but the real value happened afterwards, in the hotel bar, when people hopped between tables and the conversations got specific. Martin steered the first few gatherings gently, and then it took on a life of its own, which, in hindsight, is exactly the succession point I missed with the Technicians’ Network. He built it to survive without him steering every session.

    Several joint ventures came out of those lunches. A handful of the people I met there are now very well known, and a few are self-made millionaires. I was even approached by a well-known online author to write software converting old websites into what was then a brand-new platform called WordPress. I didn’t have the bandwidth to take it on, but the fact that the ask happened at all tells you something about the calibre of people in that room, and the trust that builds when a group like that runs for long enough.

    If you want to go back to where this idea originally came from, Napoleon Hill’s foundation still maintains a good archive of his original writing on the mastermind principle at naphill.org. It’s worth a read once you’ve got the practical side sorted.

    What It Actually Takes to Set Up Mastermind Groups

    Looking back across both groups, the pattern is the same. Find people who genuinely understand your world, and give them a reason to show up that has nothing to do with politeness. Keep the rhythm light enough that it survives busy working lives, and build it so it doesn’t depend entirely on you.

    You don’t need permission, a budget, or a grand plan to set up mastermind groups of your own. I certainly didn’t have one. You simply need a handful of people willing to contribute, and somewhere to put the next meeting in the diary. Once you’ve got that sorted, the rest tends to build itself, so just make sure someone other than you knows how to keep it going.

  • Think and Grow Rich Review. The Mastermind Principle in Real Life

    I want to tell you something that might surprise you about Think and Grow Rich. It’s not really a book about money.

    Yes, Napoleon Hill wrote it during the Great Depression. Yes, it’s sold tens of millions of copies on the back of its reputation as a wealth-creation manual. And yes, there’s plenty in there about financial success, burning desire, and visualising outcomes. But the principle that stuck with me, the one I keep coming back to, is the mastermind.

    Here’s the thing: I’d already built one before I read Think and Grow Rich.

    The Technicians’ Network

    When I was a Senior Laboratory Technician for the London Borough of Waltham Forest, I noticed something. Science technicians in schools are a peculiar professional group. Each of us faced unique problems specific to our school, our equipment, and our department, and most of us solved them in isolation. There was no forum, no peer group, no way to tap into what colleagues two miles away had already figured out.

    So I set one up. A network for all the laboratory technicians in the borough. We met once a term, organised training, shared knowledge, and gave each other second opinions on the kind of problems that don’t have a manual. It worked. It proved so popular that the borough’s Design and Technology departments asked me to come in as a consultant and advise on setting up something similar. That worked too.

    But the practical benefits were only part of it. One of the technicians once described herself to me as ancillary, as if her role were an afterthought to the school’s real work. That word stuck with me. Part of what the network achieved, beyond the training and the shared problem-solving, was helping a group of skilled professionals understand that they weren’t subservient to anybody. They were a body of professionals in their own right, and they deserved to be treated as such.

    The network grew to around 250 members, which attracted the attention of equipment suppliers. They wanted access to that audience, so I turned their product demonstrations into proper training sessions. The companies provided the trainers and covered the cost of lunch. We received free, hands-on training on the latest scientific equipment, delivered in our own laboratories. Not everyone could make it, as most schools couldn’t release all their staff, but twenty or so would turn up each time, and the knowledge spread from there. My manager encouraged the work throughout, and our department benefited directly. Over time, we also helped train teachers to use the latest science and technology. The people who had once been dismissed as ancillary were now upskilling the teaching staff.

    I didn’t have a name for what I’d built at the time. It just felt like the obvious thing to do.

    Then I Read Think and Grow Rich

    Hill defines a mastermind as the coordination of knowledge and effort between two or more people who work toward a definite purpose in a spirit of harmony. When I eventually read Think and Grow Rich, I got about halfway through that definition and thought: that’s exactly what I built in Waltham Forest.

    The technicians’ network wasn’t a management initiative or a training programme. It was a group of people with complementary knowledge, a shared purpose, and genuine goodwill toward each other’s success. Better-trained technicians, better-supported departments, problems solved faster. All of it followed naturally from the structure.

    Reading Hill’s explanation of the principle didn’t teach me anything new. It gave me the language for something I’d already discovered by instinct. And that, if anything, is the best possible endorsement of an idea: that people arrive at it independently, without being told.

    Why Most People Miss This

    The majority of Think and Grow Rich reviews focus on desire, faith, and autosuggestion. The more mystical end of Hill’s philosophy. I understand why. Those chapters are dramatic. But in my experience, the mastermind principle is the most immediately actionable idea in the book, and the most underrated.

    You don’t need to believe in the law of attraction to build a mastermind. You just need to find people who know things you don’t, who face problems you understand, and who are willing to show up and contribute. The rest follows.

    I’ve applied this principle in various forms ever since: in business, in creative projects, and in the informal networks that form when people with shared interests meet. It works every time, for the same reasons it worked in a school science department in Waltham Forest in the 1980s.

    The most informal version I experienced was a series of business lunches in London organised by my good friend Martin Avis, who had a knack for bringing the right people into the same room. We met roughly every two months. Martin charged a modest fee, but it covered only the cost of the food. The lunches themselves were structured enough, but afterwards, a group of us would retire to the hotel bar and the real conversations would start. People hopped between tables, shared ideas, gave advice freely, and took inspiration in equal measure. Martin steered things gently for the first few gatherings, then it took on a life of its own. It was just a room full of people who were figuring things out and willing to help each other do the same. I know of a handful of people from those afternoons who took what they heard and ran with it. Some of them are now very well known. Several are self-made millionaires. That’s the mastermind principle working without anyone calling it that.

    Several joint ventures were successfully put together after those dinners, too. I was even approached by a well-known online author to write software to convert old websites into what was then a new platform called WordPress. I didn’t have the bandwidth to take it on at the time, but the fact that the ask was made says something about the calibre of people in that room and the trust that had been built up between us.

    Is It Worth Reading?

    Yes, but go in with the right expectations. Some of it is dated. Some of the language is overwrought. And if you approach it purely as a get-rich manual, you’ll either be disappointed or you’ll become insufferable at dinner parties.

    Approach it instead as a study in how successful people think and organise themselves, and you’ll find more in it than the title suggests. The mastermind chapter alone is worth the price of the book.

    I know because I built one before I knew what it was called.