Piecing Together the MasterMind Matrix
The MasterMind Matrix Chart came together out of necessity and not necessarily by choice. Several years before the MasterMind Matrix Chart came to be I would absorb myself in reading hundreds of books, listening to CDs, watching DVDs, and attending about a dozen seminars about self-improvement, spirituality, business and personal transformation every year. I would crave information with an intense passion. At one time the magnetic pull for more information was so strong that I ended up purchasing approximately 150 books from Amazon at one time. It cost me a small fortune, however the knowledge I gained from skimming over this material in the months that followed was well worth the investment.
Looking back at myself at the time, I was filled with many insecurities, fears, broken dreams and the like. I wanted life to get better, and I felt that I needed to fill that void by collecting as much information about my PROBLEMS as possible. In short I was looking for answers. However, I was nothing more than an Information Collector. Taking Action on what I was learning was just not part of my psychology. I just wanted to collect, organize and gain as much knowledge about everything that pertained to the psychology of success as was humanly possible. I figured that if I knew everything that there was to know, that it would eventually help me climb to the top in any field of endeavor.
I would religiously take notes about everything I learned and came across. I kept a diary about my daily interactions with others. I even studied television shows and took notes about the psychology of people and how they interacted with the world around them. Reality television shows actually brought forth some of the greatest insights. They allowed me to see people in a “real world” environment, dealing with the challenges and pitfalls that life threw their way. My personal favorite television shows at the time were Survivor, The Amazing Race and The Apprentice. I would tape these shows and watch them back with extensive use of the “pause” button. Every word people spoke, movement, gesture and facial expression they made were jotted down, and the consequences of their actions were also meticulously noted down. It was an incredibly insightful experience that lead to many future breakthroughs as the MasterMind Matrix developed.
I also applied the same kind of observations in the Real World while interacting with other people. However, as you can imagine it was a little more difficult to take notes while conversing with another person. I couldn’t politely, in the middle of a conversation press the “pause” button and say; “Could you just hold on a second? I want to note down the facial expressions you used while telling me this absurd story about your life.” (picking up whether a person was lying or not was becoming a lot easier. Those Reality TV Shows were really paying high dividends)
At the time I had heard of Mind Mapping, however I hadn’t yet reached a point in my life where it became an indispensable tool. So instead, I would transfer all my notes into Microsoft OneNote. The “tab” feature within this program was brilliant, allowing me to categorize my notes much more easily than I could within Microsoft Word. Originally the notes were very much disorganized and scattered under a variety of disjointed topics. However, as I progressed and collected more and more information I decided to categorize everything into Alphabetical order. I arranged the information into “tabs” from A to Z and created pages under each letter that corresponded with the topics I had on file. Afterwards I spent several weeks organizing all the information I had collected over the years into very specific topics for easy reference within OneNote.
Around this time I decided to broaden my knowledge about self-improvement and decided to become a Life Coach. My studies at the Life Coaching Institute of Australia gave me practical experience and confidence to start applying what I was learning, and putting that information into Action for the first time in my life.
The development of the MasterMind Matrix began as I was undertaking my studies at the Life Coaching Institute. What I learned at the Institute was extraordinary, however there were so many gaps within this knowledge base (and within all the information I had collected up to that point) that it would often leave me frustrated trying to figure out how all the pieces of our Psychological Puzzle fit together. I essentially needed a diagram that could piece all this information together and simplify my Life Coaching work with clients.
Then one night in 2006, I was sitting on my computer at home, and decided to try my luck by creating a simple diagram that pieced a few key components of this information together. The original Chart was composed of only 30 to 40 pieces (the bottom image shows Version 1.5), however it presented me with a starting point and something I could work from.
I would spend the next 12 months (mainly evenings, nights and the very early hours of the morning), plowing through my notes and piecing the MasterMind Matrix together step-by-step. I had all these questions I needed answered about the psychology of being human – and the Chart was providing me a means to express myself. As a result I persisted with the creation of the MasterMind Matrix until all questions were answered to my satisfaction.
As I was expanding the MasterMind Matrix, I came to realize how many pieces of information were still missing. I therefore undertook further research, read more books, listened to just about every self-improvement program on CD I could get my hands on, to ensure that no stone would remain unturned. I instinctively believed that the information these Self-Improvement Gurus were sharing with me could be compressed into an easy to understand format that would effectively piece all the components necessary that lay down the building blocks of success in any field of endeavor.
By early 2007 the MasterMind Matrix had grown out of control and had become a dominating part of my Bedroom wall – presented in A4 sized chunks that were stuck together with tape. I posted the MasterMind Matrix Chart right on the wall beside my bed so that it would always be at the forefront of my mind as I went to sleep and woke up in the morning the next day. The Chart was still rather rough around the edges, however the main pieces were in place. Over the remaining 2 years – moving into 2009 – I updated the Chart with new snippets of information from books, personal experience and through working with clients. Every piece of new information I came across seemed to fit seamlessly into the MasterMind Matrix, which gave me a lot of confidence that everything was on the right track.
In 2008 I launched the IQ Matrix Blog. The blog is built around Mind Maps that are directly connected to specific segments within the MasterMind Matrix Chart. Their purpose is to expand areas of the MasterMind Matrix into greater depth and detail, thusly providing a comprehensive picture of what it takes to achieve success in any field of endeavor.
I often look back at the MasterMind Matrix Chart and wonder how it all came together. The answer I get is “one very small piece at a time“. Could this short statement hold the greatest secret to all success? You be the judge.
