Tweetin 'Bout A Revolution...

Twitter Revolution: How Social Media and Mobile Marketing is Changing the Way We Do Business & Market Online

how Steven Johnson's seminal book saved my life...

Twice in my life have I done a double-take at a book or magaize for sale. The first time Cosmography: A Posthumous Scenario for the Future of Humanity and the 2nd time was Friday at a Publix check out when I saw the Time magazine cover I Tweeted about here. (Seeing Time's cover didn't bowl me over at first site, this isn't a continuation of my long awaited conclusion to the @MarkJoyner bowlbetterology saga, not yet...)

I was skeptical. Who is Steven B. Johnson, the persuasionist, asking me to buy Time. Steven, pardon me, the first thing that went through my mind was a Ben Harper song...

Cosmography begins... "THE DARK AGES STILL REIGN over all humanity, and the depth and persistence of this domination are only now becoming clear. This Dark Age’s prison has no steel bars, chains, or locks. Instead, it is locked by misorientation and built from misinformation. Caught up in a plethora of conditioned reflexes and driven by the human ego, both warden and prisoner attempt meagerly to compete with God. All are intractably skeptical of what they do not understand. We are powerfully imprisoned in these Dark Ages simply by the terms in which we have been conditioned to think."~R. Buckminster Fuller, Cosmography: A Posthumous Scenario for the Future of Humanity. There is a fineline between persuasion and domination and Buckky well addresses these concerns.

"It is not for me to change you. The question is, how can I be of service to you without diminishing your degrees of freedom?" ~R. Buckminster Fuller

Dear Reader,

With a blog titled, "how Steven Johnson's seminal book saved my life..." you knew we were going deep, right? I was startled by the meta-implications of this cover. Time's cover with @stevenBjohnson's Tweet reminded me of Scientific America putting a satellite photo of subscriber's addresses. I had to RT, reTweet as linked above. When I bought the magazine I was connecting where I knew the name Steven Johnson. I have Propper Noun Anomia so this experience is commonplace for me. I felt depressed twice in my life: once at thirteen, again at age 36. While I was not formally diagnosed at either of those times, I got to a space of contemplating suicide and then found myself laughing hysterically. Suddenly I saw myself as silly, taking my thoughts too seriously.

I'm 41 and regularly happy. I didn't grow up happy. I've taught myself how to be happy. I didn't grow up with happy role models. I was born with huge socio-economic advantages: male, white, United States citizen, highly educated Dad and cultured Southern Mom. All the trappings of success. As early as I remember, I had non-stop words in my head. In 1980, when I was twelve, I would test if I always had words going in my head. I set my digital watch's alarm clock without looking, making it as random as i could. EVERY TIME THE ALARM WENT OFF I had words going through my head. <= This might have been noteworthy to some psychologists, and not to our public school shrink. He said everybody is like that. Really? Wow, did that idea take me a while to drop.

When I was 13 I became very isolated. I read Buckminster Fuller's Synergetics on a challenge, and while the book was a challenge for me, I made it through every page. The real difficulty was then finding folks to talk to about synergy. My Dad and Stepmom provided me with more than anyone else at AFSC peace gatherings with folks from Cal Tec and JPL there. From my perspective as a thirteen year-old, on-the-one-hand, few people that were concerned about human's impact on Spaceship Earth appeared skilled leading or managing people. And, when grown-ups would tell me not to worry about it, that strategy didn't work on me no matter how many tried it. At 13, when I was miserable, I was planning to make the world disappear. My mom is psychic and she screamed at me with the full confidence she was reading my mind, which she was, that why didn't I try what Bucky tried, treating the universe as how I wanted it to work. That got me over the first of two very dark moments in my life. The next year was impreoved by my asking myself how I wanted Universe to work. Hormones kicking in helped alot. By 14 I was fuly distracted by impressing girls. I had other distractions, namely in the name of magic and making a name for myself. That was embedded in me young, the importance of making a name for myself. Ego got turned on, and I was virtually always ill-at-ease, I had a voice in my head that wouldn't shut up. I named my voice Bobby as depicted hear.

I didn't find happiness until I was 38. Sure, I glimpsed excitement, and I used to have a noisy head, monkey-mind. Between the words of R. Buckminster Fuller, and how I found Bucky's optimism reinforced by today's leading media theorist Steven Johnson, I have a stable optimistic spirit. Steven Johnson, allowed me to see the optimistic side of Fuller's quote: "Humanity is acquiring all the right technology for all the wrong reasons." ~R. Buckminster Fuller

I needed to see that Spaceship Earth's trajectory was aligning with pressing needs. I found this sentiment from the first words of Steven Johnson's Everything Bad Is Good For You available on Amazon... "You CAN'T GET much more conventional than the conventional wisdom that kids today would be better off spending more time reading books, and less time zoning out in front of their video games..." read more on Amazon

It's as simple as that. Our youth is developing the right technology, a sophistication that exists outside of the medium through which it receives stimulus. This gives me confidence that potable water for all is on its way. We need drinkable water because there are so many thirsty folks without clean drinking water.

I have helped developed technology that has spread domination. I worked on the report for The Nag Study by Lieberman Research Worldwide as depicted in The Corporation. I haven't always been proud of all my work, until I re-read http://BuckySecrets.com and could see my work on memetics in a brighter light provided by the lens of Steven B. Johnson. Thank you Steven. The title of this blog is a contrivance and true. You did save my life, because you allowed me to see the development of technology as life affirming. Because of this shift in perception, I don't imagine I will get depressed again, and that's a blessing. Thank you.

I still often feel isolated, and much less so than in my teens. I've been studying memetics and this allows me to see how to better fuel ideas worth spreading. Memetics allows for the study of idea replication. Linguistics limits itself to language. Memetics is broader. Through this lens, I don’t see a difference between magick and marketing, they are both disciplines for increased effectiveness. Writing allows us to externalize intention and reflect and craft our purpose, objectives and values. Writing also reveals the limitation of language--I am not the subject of this sentence—and with this knowledge, more folks can begin to see the silliness of objectivity and perhaps glimpse the possibility that scarcity is also a man-made perspective. I still feel isolated because I see so few folks studying the keys of effectiveness in sustaining ideas worth spreading... I expected I would find like-minded folks in advertising and I didn't. I figured maybe I hadn't got high enough, so I got a Senior Vice President title and invited into upper level meetings. I saw that my perspectives were not only uncommon, but unhealthy to externalize in traditional advertising cultures.

Today, I'm spreading Good Energy... http://ged999.com and teaching entrepreneurs how to wag the dog...

“Advertising has become the dominant culture, yet what an irony that we know so much about specific advertisements, so little about advertising as a form of persuasion, and almost nothing about the history of selling. This phenomenon is not limited to consumers. In fact, if you really want to observe the paradox, ask an adman…chances are you will be met with a blank stare.” ~James Twitchell's Twenty Ads That Shook the World: The Century's Most Groundbreaking Advertising and How It Changed Us All

Massive Change with grace under pressure...

"Don't fight forces, use them."
~R. Buckminster Fuller



" I never try to tell anybody else what to do, number one. And number two, I think that’s what the individual is all about. Each one of us has something to contribute. This really depends on each one doing their own thinking, but not following any kind of rule that I can give out, any command. We’re all on the frontier, we’re all in a great mystery — incredibly mysterious. Each one possesses exactly what each one is working out, and what each one works out relates to their particular set of circumstances of any one day, or any one place around the world." ~R. Buckminster Fuller

does Branding + FastCompany = Memetics?

Who else remembers reading FastCompamy when they were the first to take personal branding to new personal heights? Breathtaking Memetic Branding ideas... “The fundamental components of ideas act just like genes, competing for brain space the same way organisms vie for breathing space…Memetics promises marketers a more scientific way to reach consumers.”-John Hoult, FastCompany, July 2000 If you want to mainline memetics... follow the 1Link on Seth's Blog here.

Remember when

How to levitate us

Carnegie Mastermind presents...

when Chair is a verb

The 5-Step System to Chairing

Apprentice Advisor, your first-step into The Advisory Guild, an association of professionals supporting the growth of one-another and their industry.

1. Apprentice Advisor
   
2. Mastermind Advisor
3. ROI Consultant
4. President, Board Member
   
5. Chair, Board Of Advisors

The earliest guilds were formed as a Union of Prayer, held in guildhalls constructed and used as meeting places.

3 Types of Masterminds

NOTICE CarnegieMastermind.com redirects to this page if this page accurately reflects important criteria for you.

There are at least 3 Types of Masterminding:

1. Guru Mastermind,
   
2. Free Mastermind &
   
3. Carnegie Mastermind.

Which of 3 Types of Masterminding is right for you?

Guru Masterminding is excellent for when you want expert advice. This is a cost-effective way to efficiently access the expertise of a Maven. This is especially appropriate if you are a professional seeking to take your business online. Guru Masterminding is also especially appropriate to get ongoing direction on building a specific business module that your guru has a successful track record of repeatedly providing that service to other people just like you. Learning directly from people who have been there and don it shaves months and years off of our learning curve.

Free Masterminding is an excellent way to get restarted. However, free comes with hidden costs such as a lack of profitable contributions.

Carnegie Masterminding is an excellent for when you want to elevate and call forth your best, evolved from Andrew Carnegie's original formula as depicted in Napoleon Hill's Think & Grow Rich.

I love you Dad

I love you Dad & Betty,
everything else is details.

Father's Day, 2009
The 3rd Sunday in June

Father's Day, contrary to popular belief, was not a marketing invention of Hallmark ...Mrs. John B. Dodd first proposed the idea of a "father's day" in 1909. The first Father's Day was observed on June 19, 1910 in her home town of Spokane, Washington. The notion spread. In 1924 President Calvin Coolidge publicly supported a national Father's Day. However, it wasn't until 1966 that President Lyndon Johnson signed a presidential proclamation declaring the 3rd Sunday of June as Father's Day.

i'll start us off with $100

I'll pay a premium to not see commercials. I'll pay a premium for a remote tropical vacation. My friends who own swimming pools sometimes tell me about the premium prices they pay to have their pools cleaned...

Guess what? It's time to clean our POOL.
MemePool.us <= to see if this link is redirecting to this page, yet.

If you don't know what I'm raising money for then please don't donate... Allow me to suffice it to say these funds are for subversive purposes.

We're hiring a cleaner. Not like in the movies where that's a hit man. Not that kind of "cleaner." We're hiring a forensic hacker to reveal an identity.

Some folks will have qualms with what I'm doing.

I'm sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you.

We have an angry thing running around speaking uglies of many of my friends. I simply want a name because he swims in our aquariums and no good comes from his toxick memes.

I'll discuss publicly... AND please don't call me to discuss this in private unless you and I have emailed or it is simply to let me know you already donated so i can thank you in person.

Forbidden Magic

This Is Not A Game: A Guide to Alternate Reality Gaming

Branding Mastermind

My name is ✈ Ben Mack.

My approach to Branding is called...
Direct Response ✈ Branding.

My teaching approach is maieutic.
Although I use a few $20 words, my
branding system is easy, simple and

• ✈ PR☮FITABLE...

I am not for everybody. I give professional
grade coaching and i don't often suffer fools.

• ✈ My successful clients enjoy the pursuit of

profits, they believe in magic and they believe
in the power of words empowering us to speak
new realities into existence.

I teach a technology that produces the most profitable
magic you can predictably engineer and repeatedly
schedule.

A lot of people can do magic.

A lot of people are unconsciously competent magicians
and they appear to me to wield messy magic.

• ✈ I teach Magic, branding Magic, the science of effortless

profits. I provide the communication architecture required
to build-out sustainably scalable Direct Response sales
systems... what I like to call Automated Profit Machines,
or APMs.

• ✈ There are three reasons to believe that my students can

build their own Automate Profit Machines, engineered to
provide sustainable residual income.

There are 3 Reasons To Believe
you'll get an APM, a cash pipeline to your bank account
pumping effortless profits into your lifestyle.

I comprehensively can either teach or direct students to
the resources required to build an APM of their own...

• ✈ 3 Reasons to Believe =
  3 ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS... of your Glory Story
  

There are three essential elements to an APM:

1. Optimized Scripts,
2. Metaphysical Gravity, &
3. Automated System.

Optimized Scripts, are the present winners chosen from continual split-testing.

Metaphysical Gravity = Love = Life Affirming. Marketing that isn't Life Affirming festers in our meme pool.

Automated System are designed for leverage, in search of repeatedly profitable propositions with tested operational business plans ready for recursive optimization.

That may sound complicated to some. I chunk it down with the help of my friends.

At the end of the day... You get the benefit of branding magic, effortless profits.

You spend your time with whomever you want, wherever you want, whenever you want.

“Controlled time is our true wealth.”
~R. Buckminster Fuller

what is Ender?

Is Ender Good Energy, simply a vessel or a force of nature beyond good and evil?
are you Ender? are you Willing 2?

he chose anti-depressants over Marketing?

...when I moved to Atlanta in 2002 I met a florist named Bob who played in my weekly poker game. I ran into Bob Yesterday at Trader Joe's. The dude is on anti-depressants. His business has gone from $650k+ a year to under $100k. In my opinion, Bob doesn't need psycho-pharmaceuticals, he needs marketing that works! Sometimes I feel like Cassandra, the Greek Goddess who had the gift of foresight yet was cursed with folks not believing her. I'm just sayin' Here's the story of Bob... People ask me marketing questions all the time... unfortunately the questions most people ask aren't what I can see as the most profitable for them to be focusing on.

After a couple months of playing poker together...
Bob brought a yellow-pages phone book to our poker game. Bob was showing off his new Yellow Pages ad & asking everybody what they thought of his ad. Everybody except me was complimenting him on his ad in the new phone book (Remember this was 2002).

Bob asked for my opinion of his Yellow-Pages ad...
I told him if he gave me $1 I would tell him. This upset Bob, what in poker is called going on tilt. I proceeded to win about $120 from Bob that night, and then he really wanted me to tell him what I thought of his ad, for free. I learned the hard-way that I will only give my professional advice when somebody pays me. The point of the $1 wasn't the buck, it was for the construct of Bob receiving professional advice. When Bob finally paid me $1 3-weeks later...

I told Bob his Yellow-Pages ad was irrelevant! The problem was actually that Bob had a business based Yellow-Page Marketing, a dying medium.

I said... MEDIA & the ECONOMY have changed, right? You either join the social marketing revolution or you join the ranks of the Buggy Whip Manufacturers.

What Bob really needs... Proven Tools & Tricks, with hands-on LIVE examples of How to use Social Media for BU$INE$$ & make Bigger Profits Now.

The Platinum Rule...

If you are like me...
Growing-up I was taught The Golden Rule as "Treat others as you want to be treated." How Narcissistic. I'm just sayin'
Problem... The Golden Rule assumes others want to be treated just like how I want to be treated. Every personality test I've ever seen shows that the most common "personality" is less common that 50% of the Population. What does this mean? If we are treating others as we want to be treated... We are mistreating the vast majority of the people with whom we come in contact.

Solution... The Platinum Rule
Treat others as they want to be treated.

How do we know how others want to be treated? Ask them.
Hopefully you are with people who are able to know what they want.

I'm growing to better know what I want with Barbara DeAngelis' Coming Alive with Love (Making Love Work Personal Growth Seminars)

Encourage their DREAMs...

How to become an...
Overnight Persuasion Expert...
and How to E.N.A.C.T. a Social Movement

The NEW relevant TRUTH...

In 2004, during the last three-months of what some in These United States called an election.
WHO ELSE WANTS TO LEARN HOW...

...I drove 300k unique visitors to a website in 90 Days with $0 in advertising and spent less than $100 on Bumper Stickers? Ask Mark Horn. (FYI => You can do the play without the Bumper Stickers!)

In 2004... friends & I created a website: WhatWouldBillHicksSay.com. The web page and forum no longer exist and a New York publisher created a book around our phenomenon.

In 2007, I created a product with Tellman Knudson called The Relevant Truth. At the time, it was the best I knew how to teach about What To Say. What I've found is that more people are interested in, more people get stuck on... How Do I Get My Word Out? How did I get 300,000 unique visitors flooding into my site for no cost? I used a free service that is amazingly relevant again RIGHT NOW BECAUSE of Twitter.


You want your message to be a Boomerang, getting read and heard or seen by millions and bringing back relevant prospects who are ready to buy from you now. That's what Mark & I are teaching Tuesday night.

JOIN US Tuesday as Mark Horn & I reveal to you The Original Formula... the free traffic driving tool that will flood your sites with relevant prospects that allowed us to Wag The Dog and bend the Web in 2004 and is strikingly relevant RIGHT NOW.

Agenda FOR TONIGHT’s Call is in comments below...

Please CLICK on comments below for call outline...

I'm loving me...

"It is not for me to change you. The question is, how can I be of service to you without diminishing your degrees of freedom?"
~R. Buckminster Fuller

"Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments. Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove: O no! it is an ever-fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark, whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks within his bending sickle's compass come: Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, but bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved." ~William Shakespeare

As i learn to forgive others for they knew not what they did, i became forgiving of myself, and how grown to more fully LOVE myself than I ever have before.

How did I learn this? I'm in two weekly Masterminds where our Mastermind Leader welcomes our Masterminders and reads the following opening covenant...

I RELEASE… I release myself to the mastermind because I am strong when I have others to help me.

I BELIEVE… I believe the combined intelligence of the mastermind creates a wisdom far beyond my own.

I UNDERSTAND… I understand that I will more easily create positive results in my life when I am open to looking at my self, my problems and opportunities from another's point of view.

I DECIDE… I decide to release my desire totally in trust to the mastermind and I am open to accepting new possibilities.

I FORGIVE… I forgive my self for mistakes I have made. I also forgive others who have hurt me in the past so I can move into the future with a clean slate.

I ASK… I ask the mastermind to hear what I really want; my goals, my dreams and my desires, and I hear my mastermind partners supporting me in MY fulfillment.

I ACCEPT… I know, relax, and accept, believing that the working power of the mastermind will respond to my every need. I am grateful knowing this is so.

Why does a dog wag it's tail...

...Because the dog is smarter than the tail; If the tail were smarter, the tail would wag the dog!”

Wag The Dog... Outsmart BIG MEDIA by leveraging a partially automated multi-media submission robot by clicking this link :-)

PLEASE click ON COMMENTS to get the training details. Thank you.

What's the key to your HAPPY, Loving Marriage?

Hi, Ben Mack here.

I'm getting married 10/10/10, and I don't know to whom.

I'm researching happy, loving and successful marriages. Please share with me...

What's the secret to your sustained HAPPY, Loving Marriage?

Thank you for blessing me with your truth.

Love & Light,

Ben

Branding. Before i begin...

speaking at Hogan's Persuasion Boot Camp 2008
Mark Victor Hansen explains the 3 Genius Factors...

Post Foist Ben

Eastern Box Turtle - I Know Sometimes a Man is Wrong - Click here for another funny movie. Hi, my name is Ben, and I am a Foistaholic. Hi Ben. You're in the right place. My biggest addiction in life suddenly appeared to me as My uncontrollable desire to foist my ideas on others.

I was a foister. As opposed to meeting folks where they're at, I'd presume they wanted my direction. I foisted in all sort of ways that in hindsight are so pretty.

Post-Foist Ben is wondering if he is living Boy-Meets-Girl or Man-In-Hole story. Kurt Vonnegut proposed that there are three primary profitable story structures, plus one that is posthumously profitable, Hamlet. I ran Hamlet for a while and I found it hard to pay my rent habit.

Vonnegut's 3-Profitable Story Structures below are extracted from A Man Without a Country.

The things to talk about...

During the precursors to making decisions... The things to talk about are the things that need doing, that we see need to be done, and that we're in the process of doing...

Then we'll conceive a way of doing that which needs to be done, that no one else appears to be focusing on as productively as we are.

(above is my agenda with Bucky Creativity expert Mark Fox)
GREAT business creativity MP3 => http://is.gd/LpsL <=

Good Energy Day

"Observation of my life to date shows that the larger the number for whom I work, the more positively effective I become. Thus, it is obvious that if I work always and only for all humanity, I will be optimally effective."
- R. Buckminster Fuller

We embrace green energy, human energy and drinkable water.

In what ways might we embrace social media and networking bridge these energies to improve the environment for mankind?

Human Energy is Good Energy. Humans radiate energy.

We hold this truth to be self-evident... When humans radiate love and resiliency we feel better then when we radiate hate & doom.

It’s as simple as that.

Good Energy is about love and resiliency, in all it’s forms and expressions.

Green Energy is Good Energy
Buckminster Fuller defined wealth as the ability of a system to sustainably maintain it’s current trajectory into the future. Green Energy is the form of energy that allows for us to design and engineer a statically-indeterminate energy network.

"All humanity now has the option of becoming enduringly successful."
~R. Buckminster Fuller

Human Energy is Good Energy
We hold this truth to be self-evident... When humans radiate love and resiliency we are Good Energy. On September 9, 2009 we are asking in what ways might we demonstrate the value of love and resiliency?

“We are called to be architects of the future, not its victims.”
~R. Buckminster Fuller

Drinkable water is Good Energy
We stand for the possibility of every human on Spaceship Earth having clean drinkable water. The question is not how cal we filter more water faster, the question is in what ways might we stop polluting our clean drinkable water.

“Pollution is nothing but the resources we are not harvesting. We allow them to disperse because we've been ignorant of their value.” ~R. Buckminster Fuller

Stickers...

48 Pack

The delight of a child

Shila Fisher knows humans are Good Energy.

You are doing your best in every possible way, for real...
Shila just seriously got this on a new level. Shila is a healer and an inspirer for a living, for real. That, and she can close.

And, within knowing your kids are adaptable, and adapting... You suddenly see in your child's that it is not for me to change you.

My question is, how might I be of service to you without stunting your freedom little one?

The delight of a child

Childhood wonder is the first step in human wisdom. To best please a child is the highest triumph of philosophy. A happy child is most likely to make an honest man. To stimulate wholesome curiosity in the mind of a child is to plant golden seed.

I would rather be called the children's friend,
than the world's king.

Amusement to children, is like rain to flowers.
He that makes useful knowledge most attractive
to the young, is the king of the sages.

Childish laughter is the echo of heavenly music.
The noblest art is that of making others happy.
Wholesome recreation conquers evil thoughts.
Innocent amusement transforms tears into rainbows.
The author of harmless mirth is a public benefactor.

I say, as the poet said of its ballads, if I might provide the amusements of the nation, I would not care who made its laws.

Dear Mastermind Friends... Thank You

Friends, before we beginn...

Will you Tweet for MJ?

Please Tweet something like this => "Congratulations @MJSchrader for stepping into @KimBurney's final seat in her 3 COMPLETELY FULL MASTERMIND's in June."

Thank you for Masterminding!

Thank you all for asking great questions. I'll answer your questions below. Follow-up questions are best asked on Twitter @BenMack. Getting into a free mastermind is likely to happen if you post a comment in the comment section below, and you say that you are seeking to get into a free mastermind.

Two Professional Mastermind Leaders are opening new Masterminds in the next 10 days. Rhonda has a private version especially for existing students of hers, and Mark Horn is beginning 3.

Learn more about Mark Horn's
Profitable Momentum Mastermind
=> Click hear <=

Chris
What 'tools' are necessary for a leader to do a good job? What should a leader focus on in choosing participants, for a group with creative chemistry? What 'works' in info/bio collection on participants in preparation for the first meeting?

Chris, Thank you for asking about tools and how to get started. This is a perfect question. If you want to do telephone masterminds... The first question is do you want a free service or a $97 a month service. Let's discuss this on Sunday Night's call and I'll have a laundry list for you there... two ways... 1) Free totally FREE, and the second way is... 2) Less than $200 with pro gear. I used free first, now Mark & I are all proservices. This is a great question for Mark Horn if you want to come on the call with him Thursday evening.

Bradley
"Is it a requirement that all Mastermind participants are part of the same business network or working in/on similar projects? Or can a Mastermind function effectively with a disparate mix of willing participants? Will you expore the pros and cons of same focus versus different foci for participants?"

Bradley, we love recruiting questions... Not necessary at all. Most masterminds I know of are masterminding for a better way of life. Money is part of a better way of life.

However, Big Ticket Masterminds are often niche specific. There are a whole bunch of structures for Masterminding. Here in Atlanta there is a quarterly Mastermind for CMO's and it costs $50k a year to meet 4x a year, for a single day.

I'm teaching the system I have optimized with Kim Burney.

Sybil
How do we market a new Mastermind group so that people will want to join us? i.e. Where do we find participants?

I'll be teaching a few ways, and this is a great question to engage in your own Mastermind. My first Masterminds were among friends I already knew. I began leading Masterminds because I saw the value of Masterminding and I would have that as a bonus for what I sold from the stage. Now, I've agreed to pay as much as $12k for a year of "Masterminding" with a guru. That use of the word Masterminding was for 1 hour a month of his time.

Trish
What is the focus and purpose of a master mind group?

Trish this is the tricky part... whatever you want it to be. I like Masterminding for common ground and gratitude. I find that the more I speak in life-affirming ways the more miracles I see in my life. As I see miracles and enjoy their abundance I see even more. This may sound woo-woo to some... once I saw my first angel, I saw more all around me.

Myra
What is the best way to get someone to check ypur website from your business card?

Give them an irresistible offer... as described in this Mark Joyner seminal work => Click Here <=

Donna
how do you recommend to best market mastermind groups? do you have any "sales pages" that are good models to check out? also is there a recorded mastermind call to listen to one to get more deeper idea of how it goes?

Donna, Next Sunday we can dive into marketing tactics. "Best" is unobtainable because we are scientists that regularly measure and split test ideas. And, below, I outline an engagement tactic I call The Relevant Truth. It worked for manufacturing the phenom around What Would Bill Hicks Say... 300k Unique Views in 90 days with less than $100 spent (on bumper stickers for Burning Man).

Discrete Friend
I got what you should say on the 2nd mastermind call forward...however what do you say on the first call (ie...did you accomplish your goals last week)

Discrete Friend, um, we use our real first names in this group please. Thank you for understanding we have a couple house rules.

Ron
Are minutes of some sort being taken at the mastermind? Would those minutes be available to the group thru out the week?

Ron, absolutely you can provide that service when you lead your own masterminds. In a system I am building for 5/10 May of 2010, the Mastermind Leaders will enter notes into a backoffice, and that's not built yet. FOR NOW, I'm more concerned with getting Mastermind Leaders comfortable with my construct before I ask them to multitask. If you can already moderate and take notes you are good and yes, go for it. For beginners, I ask them to give themselves easy wins and stack those easy wins. :-) I hope this helps ~Ben

Doreen-CA
Can you give some ways to get people into my new masermind group?

Doreen, absolutely... On next Sundays call I'll explain a process I create called The Relevant Truth. Let me see if I might Nutshell this for you here, if you read closely...
Step 1: Search for "Mastermind" on Twitter by clicking on the previous word in quotes.
Step 2: Add to an existing conversation before asking for anything... Seek first to understand and then to be understood.
Step 3: Invite someplace else... Like to your blog post on Masterminding or to an affiliate program...to make money.

Rafael
Where do I find people to join my mastermind, and how do I get people to join?

Rafael it is heartening for me to read you are stepping into action! Congratulations. Kim recruited her groups using Twitter and Facebook. Ask Kim on Twitter please... @KimBurney

Crystal
Does the mastermind leader act as participant as well, or just lead others and hold their own stuff for another mastermind group?

Crystal, profoundly important question. When doing free masterminds, you'll likely want to participate with those folks. When You turn pro, don not participate. Mark and I will discuss the importance of this transition if you can make our call => Click hear <= Thank you for asking such a phenomenal question!

Mike
With Kim running 3 mastermind group...I am assuming that she is not starting all 3 at noon. So, what are the times that she holds her masterminds?

Mike, that's a great question to ask Kim on Twitter @KimBurney

Elsom
Have you determined "7" as the ideal number of MM group members?

Elsom, fantastic question. "Determined" and "ideal" an awfully strict word to some scholarly stringent folks. May iT suffice iT to say that the process was optimized to 7. We are certainly open to refinement suggestions from you. Were you thinking of something more scrumptious in some way? Love you Elsom.

David
Would you give more detalis on how the 7 minute period with each participate should be directed.

David, thank you for asking for more details! Yes, on this Thursday's call with Mark Horn we will break-this-down for you. (Note to Mark on Thursday call content @MarkHorn)

Beth
Please address Smart goals... in the slideshow, only reference when asked did you accomplish Smart goals. nothing about setting smart goals for the next week. When, and how?

Beth, thank you for asking for a specific deliverable. Great question! After each Mastermind Friend has taken their turn, there is a round of S.M.A.R.T. Goal-setting.

S.M.A.R.T. Goals
Each Mastermind Friend states a Specific Measurable Action, that will be Realistic for them to accomplish, albeit maybe a stretch, and this action is Time-bound... In other words you give yourself a deadline that you make happen.

Lorenzo
That would be great for us to be able to have one of those, depending on our market. Can one be developed to teach us how to create one?

Lorenzo, I imagine you are writing about the Self-Replicating-Physical-Brochure, yes?