This of IS the most common definition of this term which has in recent years as it has become an accepted asset that every business needs.

Today, let’s look at two kinds of “Mastermind Teams”. The key function that a Mastermind Team has on your life and your success (or failure) is their INFLUENCE.

Let’s stop and consider some key questions:

What does a true Mastermind Team actually do for you? (At least SHOULD do for you).

• They encourage you. (Their words influence you positively).
• They believe in you. (Their faith in you influences you to believe in yourself).
• They believe in what you are doing and are enthusiastic about it. (Their enthusiasm influences you and empowers you to keep moving forward).
• They expect you to succeed. (Their belief in you and your dreams lays a sense of accountability on you. Now, not only can you not fail yourself but you don’t want to fail them either).
• They help you to decide on what may work best for you and your business (or project).

To sum up these 5 functions:

This is your Positive Mastermind Team.
You leave their presence feeling encouraged, fired up and ready to go to the next level.

This is the Mastermind Team that you need to surround yourself with in order to achieve your goals and dreams.

(This is affirmation # 137 of the 210 Day Affirmation Challenge I recently did and continue to blog about.)

Now, let’s stop and consider another kind of “Mastermind Team” that may be surrounding you every day.

This is a Negative Mastermind Team. What? How can I have a negative Mastermind Team, you might be thinking? Well actually you can’t if you want to succeed, and that’s the key.

Here are some more key questions to ask yourself:

Do the people who surround me every day -

• Encourage me to pursue my dreams or do they scoff at my dreams?
• Believe in me or are they constantly putting me down?
• Expect me to succeed or are they waiting for me to fail so they can say “I told you so”
• Help me to decide on what may work for me or are they constantly insinuating that my dreams are just fantasies and I need to “get real”?

Now if you have people around you every day who fit this negative bill, then they have actually become your “Negative Mastermind”.

How so? Because the influence that they have in your life and on your dreams is a negative one.

Do you see how important it is to surround yourself with positive, like-minded people who can encourage you, challenge you and believe in you and your dreams?

Today’s Challenge:
Take some time to stop and seriously ask yourself the questions outlined in this article.

Now ask yourself this key question concerning each person who is influencing your life:

Resource:
Every affirmation in this 210 Day Affirmation Challenge is authored by John Di Lemme, founder of the 210 Day Lifestyle Freedom Club

It is not too late to get involved with this challenge. Go to the Lifestyle Freedom Blog Click on the menu at the top that says “Affirmation Challenge” to get involved. It will be the best decision you make today!

Can you imagine life today without being able to flick a simple switch and light up your room or even your whole house?

It took a lot of determination and tenacity for Edison to persist during those 18 months of trial and error. History reports that Thomas faced almost 1000 failures before his final breakthrough to success. What determination and persistence!

The life of Thomas Edison is certainly an example of someone who was able to walk tall, stand strong and believe for his miracle.

Do you think he would have persisted through close to 1000 experiments if he did not believe he would succeed? Of course not.

Today is Day 56 of following the 210 Day Lifestyle Freedom Club Affirmation Challenge and today’s affirmation is:

Why did I choose a picture of a palm tree on today’s slide?

There is no doubt that Edison walked tall and stood strong as he persisted with his experiments, determined to make a difference in the lives of the world around him. And he most certainly did!

Today in history offers you and me a perfect example of what can be achieved by one who is willing to stand strong and persist with their endeavors UNTIL they succeed.

This CAN be you too!

Here is the key:

• When you walk talk, you show your certainty.
• When you stand strong, you are demonstrating your faith.
• When you are believing for miracles, you are also moving towards your miracle (ACTION).

Do these things and you WILL find miracles coming into your life.

Resource:
Get involved with this 210 Day Lifestyle Freedom Club Affirmation Challenge TODAY:Go to the Lifestyle Freedom Club Blog, then click on the menu at the top that says: “Affirmation Challenge”.

Thanks to cpzhao on flickr for picture used on slide.

Today I have a real life story, which is in fact my own story – at least some of it (I promised to share in this story in the previous article Your Why and Your Dreams)

My Story:
Like millions of other folk on this planet, I have always loved the Disney cartoons. However I was not just interested in watching them. I also loved to copy the characters and soon found that I had some talent in this cartooning.

My parents encouraged and supported me in this pursuit and they had a cartoon course sent out from the USA at a price that was a sacrifice for them at the time. I am very blessed to have had very supportive parents. I still have that course today.

With help of this cartoon course, some of the Walter Foster books and lots of practice my drawings came to life. I loved what I was doing and began to dream of one day being a cartoonist in the Disney studios.

This dream was not a passing one, but persisted for several years, each year getting stronger.

I discovered my why.
Then one day while at a youth meeting, I discovered my WHY (or “my calling”). As the speaker delivered his message, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was called to the mission field.

That would mean leaving everything else behind, at least that was my understanding at the time. However, I was so sure that this was the path set out for my life that nothing else mattered.

I left my dream and set out to pursue my WHY:
So I set out to the mission field (in Mexico), leaving behind any dream to become a cartoonist.

At the USA/Mexico border, I met a missionary who had been in Mexico over 20 years. This gentleman gave me some very valuable advice.

Find a need and fulfill it and you will succeed.

(This is a valuable key that will lead you to succeed in any area of life).

The glaringly obvious gap in the churches at that time was the lack of attention given to the children. So I began by working directly with children. That led to looking for resources for them but there was very little children’s literature available in the Christian Bookstores (this was in 1978).

When I had taught Sunday School back in New Zealand, one of my projects was to create a children’s magazine. That led to creating worksheets for them with puzzles and quizzes. These worksheets became so popular that a large church in town asked permission to reproduce them for their children.

Now in Mexico when I saw that very little children’s literature available, I sat down to write AND draw.

A series of booklets entitled “Templos Vivientes” or “God’s Templos” was born.

These were cartoon illustrated booklets which were sent out to Mexico and Central America in large quantities.

My dream fulfilled:
No, I did not become a cartoonist in the Disney Studios, but YES I did become a cartoonist on the mission field.

My WHY did NOT conflict with my dreams.
The dream was simply tweaked on the way to fulfilling my WHY (my call or purpose) and as far as I am concerned my dream was fulfilled, and I sense there is still more to come.

So to sum up, here are:
Three steps that WILL lead you to success (including the fulfillment of your dreams):

• Find you WHY.
• Go after your WHY.
• Within the scope of your WHY, find a need and fulfill it.

Go after YOUR why, because:

• If you believe that success is not for you, it is very unlikely you will succeed.On the other hand, if you believe that you CAN succeed, then you will.
• What you believe to be true is the foundation of your mindset. Mindset is what motivates you and me and me to do what we do in life.

It takes time and effort to train your mind to stay focused on the positive things in life. But it is well worth making the effort to do everything you can to learn how to focus on the things that will bring you success.

What is your definition of success?

You define your own success. You will have your own goals, passions and vision of things you want to achieve in life. Success does not necessarily mean you have to be a millionaire.

There are really two very important things that will define success for you.

1. Your main goal in life will be to achieve the deepest desire you find your heart wanting to achieve in life. This will be your main purpose for living (or your WHY as John Di Lemme so aptly teaches).
2. Once you are on the path to fulfilling your main goal, you will enjoy everything you do even when things get tough and you have to work hard.This is because you are working with a purpose. When have a real purpose for what you are doing you hardly notice any difficulties that come your way.

   Once you are doing the things you enjoy you have already reached a great measure of success in your life. You will find yourself enjoying everything you do.

Here is a suggested checklist to prepare for success!
Write down your answers to these questions in your notebook or journal:

• Have you defined your purpose in life?
• What does success mean to YOU?
• Do you have your goals written down?
• Can you visualize yourself enjoying success?
• Do you have a plan of action for each day?
• Does your plan of action include time for self development?
• Does your plan of action include activities to help train your brain for success?
• Are you surrounding yourself with people who are successful?

I am sure you could add many items to this list. I would love to hear your suggestions in the comments below.

You will find many posts on this site that I trust will help you to create a strong Mindset For Living.

I invite you to spend some time checking out the categories on this site that attract your interest. And above all, please always remember:

There are at least five success principles we can learn by taking a little time to observe some ants at work:

1. Active

I have never seen an ant stay still for too long. In fact they seem only pause to consult with their friends or think something through (well that’s what it looks like when I have observed them

The key is they are active. They don’t just sit down and dream. A dreamer is always saying “I wish that this would happen, or that would not happen. I wish, I wish”. They spend their whole lives wishing.

A successful person is always turning a dream into a plan, then turning the plan into a strategy and then following his strategy with ACTION.

2. Creative

One of the most creative little thinkers I have seen in the insect world is the ant. Yes it does seem that the ant has a brain.

Interesting Fact: It has been estimated that an ant’s brain may have the same processing power as a Macintosh II computer. Illustrated facts about the ant (for kids)

When my sister and I were young our parents took us camping many times. It was always fun, especially the trips around the North Island of New Zealand. We would cross the straight on the boat, car and all and then drive up one side and come back the other.

Our tent was a reasonable size and could accommodate a small folding table. We would leave some things on the table when we went off site seeing. Only problem was we came back to find an army of ants found the goodies on the table.

Well we had a plan. We filled up four containers with water and placed each table leg in the container. Ant’s will not cross water. Next day we came back from our site seeing to find that the ants also had a plan! They had climbed up the walls of the tent, crossed the roof and dropped from the roof onto the table!

How creative is that!

Use your creativity in your planning and you will always find a way to conquer obstacles and succeed with your goals.

3. Persistent

Have you ever tried to stop an ant in its track? I am sure you have. I would often put a rock in an ants path in an attempt to stop it from reaching it’s goal. But no, it would climb over the top or go around the rock.

There is no way of stopping a little ant from achieving its purpose!

Are you unstoppable?

4. Team Player

That little ant is a great team player. I am sure that if you have watched some ants at work for any length of time you would have seen a group of them almost stuck together.

What are they doing? According to scientists, they are communicating. They do this by touching each other with their antennae. Ants also use chemicals called pheromones to leave scent trails for other ants to follow.

It is also known that if worker ant has found a good source for food, it leaves a trail of scent so that the other ants in the colony can find the food.

Are you a team player? One of the great keys to success is to help others to succeed. When you do that, you can’t help but succeed yourself.

5. Clean

The other day a twitter follower ProsperbyDesign (Melissa Gait) made an interesting comment. She stated:

Clutter is the physical manifestation of indecision. MAKE A DECISION, now!

How true this is. When there is clutter around our office and home you can be sure that area is not clean.

My grandmother also often used to say: “Cleanliness is next to godliness”. I think there is a lot to be said for that also.

Ants are clean and tidy insects. Some worker ants are given the job of taking the rubbish from the nest and putting it outside in a special rubbish dump!

If your surroundings are clean and organized you certainly do have a head start on being able to clarify and organize your mind.

Yes the ant can teach us a lot about how to be successful. There is a reason we find the wisest man in the world telling us to Go to the ant, … ; consider her ways, and be wise: (Proverbs 6:6)

Follow the example of the ant and: