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Thomas Edison's Top Ten Secret
"Million Dollar" Invention Strategies!

Thomas Edison's Top Ten Invention Strategies: 1--2--3--4--5--6--7--8--9--10

Thomas Edison, surely the greatest inventive genius of all time. With thousands of patents to his name, who better to instruct you in the strategies of invention, creative genius and mind empowerment? Here's a low-down on Thomas Edison's top 10 tips for brain brilliance...

1. Put Your "Heads Together" with a Mastermind Alliance Invention Factory

Most of us know of Thomas Alva Edison as the genius who invented the light bulb, but did you know he also developed a system for inventing? He realised that there were sage words in the old saying, "two heads are better than one". So he brought together teams of people having different areas of expertise, and got them working together on problems and visionary projects.

He set up his "Invention Factory" at Menlo Park in New Jersey and employed the best minds from around the globe. Together, Edison and his mastermind team cranked out invention after invention!

'Nudge Your Neurons Into Becoming POWERHOUSES of PROFIT!!!'

If you have read any of Napoleon Hill's books, you will be familliar with the concept of a mastermind group alliance. Hill first learned of the concept from Andrew Carnegie but realised its true potential while witnessing Edison and Henry Ford use it so powerfully to create and dominate their industries.

Throughout history geniuses have had role models, mentors, heroes and mastermind groups from whom they drew inspiration and support in order to achieve their goals. I guess it's originally a tribal thing ... clanning with the strong and smart in order to survive and thrive.

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"The brain can be developed just the same as the muscles can be developed,
if one will only take the pains to train the mind to think."

~ Thomas Alva Edison

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In order to pursue your own genius, you must develop a cadre of friends and advisers who you admire and value. Determine your goals in life and the areas that they fall under. Then cultivate friendships and joint ventures with people who you think can help you succeed in a certain area.

If you want to have a great relationship, then search out, befriend and learn from people who have great relationships. Discover what they do differently, and emulate them. If you want to learn to be a superb actor, you can't do it alone, you need to get on the stage and in front of the camera with "the greats" of today. All the stars start out in bit roles alongside the heavyweight stars of the day and they learn from them.

Edison's Invention Factory was not simply an environment for Edison to learn from others who knew more than him, however. The creative process invokes different elements mixing together to create new forms. Think of it like two sticks rubbing together to generate heat and then a flame. When you bring two or more minds together, the sparks really begin to fly!

Edison's invention factory was a think-tank, a hot house for inventions. All those sharp minds forced together and focussed on specific aims combined to form more than the sum of the parts. To paraphrase the Bible, it's as though the Creative Spirit says, "When two or three gather in my name, I'll be there!"

Bill Gates has done the same thing at Microsoft.

A Mastermind Alliance is formed when you get two or more people working productively together in total harmony towards a common definite aim. It allows you to use the full strength, training, experience and knowledge of the other people as if that were your own. Each of the minds involved are expanded and reinforced by exposure to the other minds.

We are social animals and our brains are only made complete when we are together. Jokes aside, any married man will admit that his thinking is more balanced than when he was single by the close contact with his wife. Thoughts cluster and bloom in company... well, stimulating company! You really don't want a Gomer Pyle or Homer Simpson in your mastermind group!

Here's a guide to setting up your own mastermind alliance. It's up to you to turn it into an idea or invention factory.

Determine Your Goals and Your Purpose.
Genius gets its legs by having purpose. Get clear on your "definite major purpose". You need to formulate your group and ensure that everybody in it shares the same purpose or one closely aligned to yours.

Select The Members of Your Alliance.
When choosing your team members, the essential things that each member must bring to the group are an ability to do the job and the ability to work in harmony with the others in the group. Don't be swayed by friendship in choosing your team. If your best friend doesn't have the qualities you are looking for in order to achieve your purpose, then he or she shouldn't be a part of your mastermind group. Forging the ideal mastermind group will be a process of trial and error. There will inevitably be unaccounted for areas of knowledge that you need to fill. And some existing people may just not work out and will merit "the order of the boot"!

Specify The Rewards of Membership.
To further the harmony of the group, you have to set out clearly what rewards and benefits will accrue to the members of your mastermind group. Get very clear on this at the outset to avoid later recriminations and wrangles. Wealth will obviously be the most significant motivator in a commercial mastermind venture, but people are also moved to action by other motives such as self-preservation; love; fear; sex; desire for life after death; freedom for mind and body; anger; hate; desire for fame, respect and self-expression.

Thomas Edison certainly wasn't one to give financial rewards unnecessarily. Edison's "muckers" as they were known were often young men fresh out of technical college. They didn't make much money, getting ordinary worker's wages. Edison explained, it was "not the money they wanted, but the chance for their ability to succeed." An electrician named Arthur Kennelly concurred. "The privilege which I had being with this great man for six years was the greatest inspiration of my life."

Schedule Regular Meetings.
It's no use having a mastermind group if you don't meet regularly to make progress towards your goal. Be sure to establish times and places where you can get together to work on the challenges that you have set yourselves.

So there you have it. Get your group together and shoot for the moon. Bring in the best people that you can find, lead them well, ensure fairness in the group, and together you'll dominate life and achieve your purpose and goals.

You can still make use of the mastermind principle to stimulate your own creativity. You do it by creating an internal "imaginary" group of councellors. Now, even if you have an external group supporting you, this exercise will still bring you immeasurable benefits. So listen up.

The beauty of this exercise is that you get to choose all your heroes and heroines, whether they are living idols or long-dead luminaries from the history books. It's totally up to you whether you want Jesus, Buddha, Lau Tzu, Aristotle, Shakespeare, Leonardo da Vinci, Casanova, Elvis or Schwarzenegger as part of your internal mastermind group.

Naturally, you aren't limited by how many are on your inner team, and you can always form different mastermind groups for different purposes. You might choose to have a spiritual-philosophical mastermind group to help you "know yourself" and grow in wisdom, and an entrepreneurial mastermind group to help your business flourish.

You can choose the team to specialise in your chosen area of interest. Or you might prefer the "dinner-table" approach and pick people from diverse fields in order to stimulate lively debate through the broad range of subjects and interests covered.

If you don't already know very much about your chosen team members, get some info on them. The internet is the quickest source of information. Use www.google.com and just search using the person's name. Look at the lists of links that come up, and choose those that sound most promising. You might also try searching under other terms that are related to that person.

Make use of your library and bookstore too. There are usually great biographies available on the people you want on your inner advisor team.

The point of all this is that you want to get exposure to as much information about the person as you can. Books, audio tapes, videos, CD-Roms, biographies, autobiographies. You are feeding the information to your subconscious mind. It will take the information and like a police artist it will build up a multi-dimensional picture of the person.

It might also be said that you use this evidence to help "tune in" to the vibration, to the morphic field, to the archetypal meme, perhaps to the very soul of that person in order to share in their wisdom, insight and ways of thinking, acting and being.

How many people should be in your internal mastermind group? Between 3 and 12 is probably about right. I think 12 is a good number to aim for (hey - it worked for JC!). As you will be studying their lives in great depth, you can start small and add others as time permits.

Once you have chosen your internal team - create an imaginary meeting area. This can be anything you like: a boardroom with an Arthurian round table; a tranquil Eden-like garden; a sacred temple; a restaurant in Outer Space. Whatever it is, make it special and relaxing to you.

Take time out from your day to relax. Use a relaxation method like self-hypnosis, or autogenics, or simply get comfortable, close your eyes and count slowly backwards from 100 to 0. When you are deeply relaxed, imagine getting into a lift with a comfortable bed in it. Lie back on the bed, and feel the lift smoothly moving. Is it going up or is it going down? You won't know ... the ride is so smooth and comfortable. When it comes to a stop, notice the doors slide quietly open and you can enter your chosen meeting area. As you enter, notice each of your mastermind members arriving simultaneously and welcome them and express your gratitude for their presence. But don't kiss ass too much! This is your mastermind group!

How you organise your meeting is up to you. Set a purpose for each meeting. State your case and then let each personality contribute, as they will. Don't be surprised if after a while these meetings take on a life of their own, as they did for Napoleon Hill:

"My method of addressing the members of the imaginary cabinet would vary, according to the traits of character in which I was, for the moment, most interested in acquiring. I studied the records of their lives with painstaking care. After some months of this nightly procedure, I was astounded by the discovery that these imaginary figures became apparently real."

He goes on to say that: "...while the members of my cabinet may be purely fictional, and the meetings existent only in my own imagination, they have led me into glorious paths of adventure, rekindled an appreciation of true greatness, encouraged creative endeavour, and emboldened the expression of honest thought."

Sounds pretty good.

Use the power of external and internal mastermind groups to multiply your creative power, productivity and prosperity. It's the smart thing to do...

Next: Power Napping for Creative Gems, Inspiration and Invention!

References:
http://www.saveamericastreasures.org/profiles/edison.htm - Thomas Edison's Invention Factory
http://www.nps.gov/edis/inventionprocess/ENHS.html - Edison's Invention Process
http://www.speakernetnews.com/post/mastermind.html - How to set up a Master Mind Group

"Think and Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill

• Thomas Edison's Invention Secret 1: Mastermind Alliance
• Thomas Edison's Invention Secret 2: Power Napping
• Thomas Edison's Invention Secret 3: Idea Quota
• Thomas Edison's Invention Secret 4: Determination and Hard Work
• Thomas Edison's Invention Secret 5: Failure Feedback
• Thomas Edison's Invention Secret 6: Scribbling
• Thomas Edison's Invention Secret 7: Serendipty and Synchronicity Rewards
• Thomas Edison's Invention Secret 8: Playfulness is Fun!
• Thomas Edison's Invention Secret 9: Demonstrate Idea Value
• Thomas Edison's Invention Secret 10: Hunt with the Pack

Recommendation:
See actorpreneur (love that!) Frank Attwood's brilliant portrayals
of Thomas Alva Edison at his website: http://www.attwoodasedison.com/

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