162: The Power of Masterminds with Andy Traub

In this episode, I talk about generous shopping, and then we talk to my friend Andy about masterminds. Hey, everybody, this is Bjork Ostrom, and you are listening to the Food Blogger Pro podcast brought to you by WP Tasty, which is a site for you if you run a WordPress blog. And if you run a WordPress blog, you know what a plugin is and how important some plugins are to the success of your site. And we found that very early on with Pinch of Yum, that it's really important to have certain plugins, especially if you're in a certain niche like a food blog. But we also found that it's really important that you have plugins that are up to date, that are maintained, and that are continually evolving. And that was the really hard thing when with adding plugins to our site is we didn't know if they'd be kept up to date. And that's why we started WP Tasty. It is the place where we are using these plugins. We are creating plugins that we want to use, but then we also offer them to other people who have WordPress blogs. And the idea was we were putting thousands of dollars into creating these, and we said, hey, why don't we spin this off into another business, offer these to other people. We can continue to put that money back into creating awesome plugins and. And at the same time, allow other people to use those as well. So if you wanna check those out, go to wptasty.com and you're gonna see three different plugins. Tasty recipes, tasty links, and Tasty pins. I'm not gonna go in depth into what those are and how those work, but I did wanna do a little moment here or a little section where we talk about the testimonials. And I think that's one of the best ways to understand if a plugin is a good fit for you to see what other people's experience has been using it. And we have testimonials for each one of. And I'm gonna read Ali's today. Allie from Ms. Ali's Kitchen says, just wanted to thank you guys for being so awesome. I put off getting tasty recipes for months, and I am beyond glad I did. I've really seen myself go up in search. So thank you. And thank you, Ali, for that testimonial and thank you to everybody else who has left a testimonial for any of the plugins that they use on tasty recipes. So WP Tasty sponsors the podcast. It is our own company. And so we talk a little bit about wptasting the plugins, but we also do what's called a Tasty Tip. And today's Tasty tip is about Amazon and a lot of us think about Amazon as affiliates. But actually, what I wanted to do a little quick tip on today was using Amazon to give back to be generous and to be generous while you are shopping and specifically to do that through this program called Amazon Smile. And if you go to smile.Amazon.com, what will happen is you will see a prompt to pick a nonprofit where a portion of every purchase that you make through Amazon will be donated to that nonprofit. For us, I've decided to elect Children Shelter of Cebu, which was the orphanage that we were involved with when Lindsay and I lived in the Philippines a few years back. And it's awesome because I know that every time that I go to Amazon, or more specifically every time I go to smile.Amazon.com and make a purchase, that it's not going to cost me anymore, but a little portion of that is shared back to Children's Shelter Cebu or for you, whatever nonprofit it is that you pick. Now, here's the bonus tip that goes along with that. Usually you have to remember to go to smile.Amazon.com before you make a purchase. But there is an if you use Chrome, there is an extension, something that you can add onto Chrome that allows you to always be redirected to the smile URL smile.Amazon.com and it's called Smile Always. So if you search Smile Always Chrome, you will see a link to that extension where you can add that, and that will allow you to always be redirected to the URL where you will donate after you purchase through Amazon to the nonprofit of your choice. So the Tasty Tip today doesn't exactly have to do with optimizing your site to earn more. It doesn't have to do with showing up higher or getting more traffic. It has to do with giving back. And a lot of us purchase through Amazon and I know a lot of us want to figure out ways that we can be effective in giving back and being generous. And so that is the Tasty Tip today. And I hope you are able to implement that and to give back to your favorite shared. All right, on today's podcast, we are talking to Andy Traub. He is a good friend of mine and somebody that describes himself or I described him as kind of a Robin, Batman and Robin. He said, well, not exactly. That's not exactly how it goes. I would use a different character to describe how I. How I think of myself and how I operate in the online space. And he's going to talk about what that character is, but then he's going to go deep into talking about masterminds, what those are, why they're important, how you can go about setting those up and what that looks like structurally in terms of, you know, the tools that you can use for it and the structure that you use for it and the questions that you should ask. And he's also going to talk about how you can even use that as a potential revenue source if you act as the facilitator, the manager, the organizer of Mastermind. So it's going to be a great interview, and I think it's going to be some really cool perspectives. Let's go ahead and jump in. Andy, welcome to the podcast.

Lovely to be with you again, my friend.

Yeah, for sure. It is fun to have on a friend who is also somebody that is in the industry and we go way back and we have actually done a podcast episode before. But a fun fact for you. When I was looking for podcasts to listen to, I was searching. I can still imagine where I am standing in our new Brighton, Minnesota, condo and the kitchen, and I was in a corner there, and I was searching for Seth Godin Godden. I don't know, how do you say his last name, but Seth Godin. And I came across this podcast called the Linchpin Podcast. And I was like, wait a minute, that's my friend Andy. Which is so funny to know that our paths eventually crossed here online as well. So are you still doing the podcast? Is that something that's still a part of.

I haven't done the Legion podcast in a long time, but, yeah, for a long time. Seth has his own podcast now.

Yeah.

Which is great. It's very. It's very Seth. Yes, everything is very Seth. But. But no, that served me very well for a while. And Seth was very, very generous to, like, let me use the name and the book cover. And it was. He's. He's just. He is. He is a miracle worker when it comes to empowering people. Yeah, yeah, it was very. It was good. It was good for a long time that anyone, anytime when someone would type in Seth Godin into itunes, I came up.

Yeah.

Which is.

I think that's probably what happened. As I was listening to a couple of his books and I was like, andy, wait a minute. How did this happen? And I can affirm what you're saying. About Seth, he's just this incredible person. Actually, this was maybe a year, two years ago, I should revisit this. But I asked him on the podcast and he emailed back within like 15 minutes and said, hey, thanks so much for reaching out. Not doing as many podcast interviews right now, but best of luck. It was the two people that have done that, Seth, Seth Godin and Mark Cuban. Both times when I emailed them, they emailed back within the day. I was like, oh my gosh, you guys must get so much email. And so incredible that they are responding like that. So anyway, so you did a podcast for a while. Uh, and one of the interesting things I know during that time was you were doing your own podcast, but you also were helping some other people with their podcasts as well. And that's actually a good little transition here into something that I think about a lot that you had talked about. And I brought this up as we were chatting before the interview started. I said this idea of Batman versus Robin and how you say you're kind of a Robin and you're like. Well, I don't like to say Robin, I like to say Spock. So can you explain kind of the thinking behind that and then why, why, why Spock over Robin?

Well, let's just be really clear that if you're in an argument or if you're in a fight, like no one's picking Robin over Spock. Like, Spock's a stud. Yeah, right. And I just don't want to be anyone picturing me wearing tights, you know, that's not a good thing. So. No, it's. The idea though is that I have fought for 10 plus years of my self employed life. I fought against internally and sometimes externally, this idea that, that I was supposed to be the man. Right. And in reality, I think it's gonna sound like a rhyme. In reality, I think there's some duality to everyone that serves other people and that is that you have to be capable enough to actually help people. But a lot of people just aren't meant to be the front person. So Spock was very capable of running, you know, and Captain Kirk would leave, he'd say, you know, the bridge is yours.

Yeah.

And Spock, no one went, oh my gosh, why are you leaving Spock in charge? Well, Spock knew what he was doing, right? So, so the first part of it, you have to be really capable. But also like, Spock just didn't. He didn't have his own ship. Like, he wasn't the captain. That doesn't mean that he was worthless. And I think that because there's so much hero worship, whether. Whether they're worshiping Gary V. Or your local pastor, that you just. People forget that there's a lot more people that aren't the man or the woman and that there's a lot of space for and that God made a lot of people that aren't supposed to be standing in the spotlight. Maybe it's supposed to be just off to the side a little bit.

Yeah.

And that's kind of where I found myself. And I'm okay on stage. I love being on stage. I love that. But I am working to really embrace the fact that it's okay to just make a living helping people.

Yeah. Whatever that looks like.

Yeah. Or it not being about me necessarily. And I'm not dissing those who make it about them. Whatever. Good for them. But the other part is I found myself in the past going, I never want to ask myself the question. And I have in the past before I post something about my kids or belief that I have, like, what will my people think? I don't want to ask that question. That's not a healthy question. It's what do I think? What will my family think? It's not what does my tribe or my following or my whatever subscribers. That to me is just a really unhealthy thing. So that's why maybe I've self sabotaged some of my personal brand, but my personal brand is that I help other people that are bigger than me in large part because I've seen what comes with that sometimes. And you don't want it.

Yeah. The realities of what comes with being a figure, whatever that might mean.

Yeah. Like you can't say anything of substance or people get mad at you. It's just. It's just. Yuck.

Yeah.

Yeah. So I am comfortable being a Spock and I have weird pointy ears, which.

That'S actually the main reason. And you buried the lead on that.

Nice way of saying I have big ears.

No, I. I think that the. My intent in having that conversation and bringing that up is I think what can happen a lot of times, especially online, is that we can look at people and see things and we can immediately or oftentimes what we do is we then put ourselves in that position and say, if I want this, it needs to look like that. If I want work that I enjoy and has freedom around how it's done, I need to replicate this other person that I see doing that.

Right.

And the thing is with spock you know, somebody who is playing that pivotal role of, of working alongside the Captain Kirk is that you don't. It's. This is maybe where the analogy falls apart a little bit because your Spock was very visible.

I'll hold it together, I promise.

Okay, Spock, the Spocks aren't as visible and so therefore you don't hear from them or see them. And yet for many people, you can develop a thread thriving, successful job, career path that you, that's a perfect fit for you, that you really enjoy. But we don't see it as much because people, the spocs aren't, aren't the people that you are seeing as much. So can you take that analogy and apply it to the Spock? Does that work?

Well, I just think it's. The question is how much room is there at the top? And the other question is the answer is not that much. Number two is, you know, is that really the best business plan? There's not that much room at the top. You know, is it really the best to go, I'm going to build a brand. Maybe you're just not supposed to be the brand, like, and that. And that's okay, right? Like, I know our moms told us we were all special snowflakes and we are, but I just don't feel really comfortable telling everybody that you should build your own personal brand. Now, that being said, I have a personal brand and it's as a helper, but I just don't want to live my life saying, you should live your life just like me. You should do your business just like me. Now I have some things I know and we'll talk about that today as we talk about masterminds. But I just get really uneasy with this idea that I should hustle just like this person. I should have affiliate income just like this person. I should be a speaker like this person. That's just a lot of running around trying to fit in other people's skin. And that only works well in the movies.

Yeah. And I think the important thing here is that you have built your own career, you are self employed and yet you have this mindset and mentality in doing it. And I think the thing that people would say then is like, okay, what does that actually look like in a practical way? And that's maybe the transition into masterminds and a really good example of how you've implemented that as somebody who is building businesses online and having success with that in this role of person, that is the supporter and teammate alongside other people. So can you talk about the role that you had with Dan and his mastermind group and, and kind of how that's an example of this idea of Spock.

Yeah. So a mastermind is a group of people that are committed to each other's personal and professional growth. Not either, but both. Okay. But we do that through consistent feedback and shared experiences. So it's more than going out and having coffee because there's some structure to it. Right. But it's also not this program that you put people through that's like coaching. Right. That's like a course. It's very relational, it's very purposeful, it's personal, it's also professional. And also there's a huge spectrum of what that looks like, what a mastermind is. But it's not hero worship. It's not, oh my gosh, I want to be in so and so's mastermind because I just want to sit at their feet and learn. You should feel that way about most people in your mastermind and they should feel that way about you. So at its core, masterminds have people that have two things. Every person in mastermind has to have two things. They have to have gifts. They have to have things that they can offer. Right. Expertise, wisdom. Right. And they have to have needs. If you just have gifts, then you don't let people speak into your life. Then, then that's sort of. That's like putting a lid on a cup and trying to put water in it. Like there's still. It's not. It's not like their cup is full. Everyone has needs, but some people aren't willing to accept help. So you don't want people that have no needs because they're not going to accept feedback. You don't want people that are all need because they don't have anything to offer you. Right. So a mastermind is a group of people that are committed to each other's personal professional growth through consistent feedback and shared experiences. And my friend Dan Miller, who wrote a book called 48 Days to Work youk love another one. No More Mondays Wisdom meets passion is another one. His brain is around the 48 days and this idea that you can go find work you love and it takes 48 days. And he's not all about self employment. He's about finding work that you love. And he's been doing that for a long time. And he invited me to start a mastermind with him. And it's a pretty large mastermind, numbers wise. But he wanted to. He actually left a mastermind. He Was in with Dave Ramsey and a few other really successful folks, and he started his own Mastermind. He said, I want to balance the leadership, so I'd like for you to help me out and I'll give you a percentage. I said, absolutely. And this is why I was still living in South Dakota at the time. And one of the things I said was what we were thinking about moving to Tennessee. He said, well, that would really help, you know, with you working in this mastermind. And I went home and I immediately told my wife, Dan said, we have to move. Didn't say direct. I lied. But it worked. So, yeah, part of my income, and it's like less than my mortgage. Right. But it's still part of my income, has been helping facilitate and lead the 48 Days mastermind, which now we call it the Eaglepreneurs. And so I help lead that. We help choose the new members, we help some administrative stuff, we help with organizing in person events, and we just really try to keep the mastermind healthy.

Yeah, and two things that you did in that which were great. One was defining this idea of masterminds, which we're going to talk more about. And then second was talking about this idea of how you played the role not as the person front and center, but as the person supporting and helping in this process of building up this mastermind. So I feel like that is a good segue to then focus in on masterminds. And so kind of the two things that I wanted to focus on this podcast, giving time, energy and space to this idea of, hey, what does it look like to be somebody who's playing that role of Spock? And then the second idea, which we can spend some more time on now, what is a mastermind? And how can we apply those to what we're doing? And kind of looking at it from two angles. Number one, defining what it is, which you spent some time doing, talking about your experience with that, and then talking about how we can use these as creators and business owners. There's also a way that you can use this as a strategy for creating income for your business. So let's talk first about, you know, you defined this idea of mastermind being something where people get together, they talk about the gifts, they use their gifts to help people that have certain needs. And everybody has gifts and everybody has needs in a successful mastermind. And those combined together are really helpful. So what does that look like in terms of a mastermind? How do you get started with one? Kind of like all the questions that exist around it and Maybe you can start by talking about some that you've been a part of and how those are structured.

Well, let me tell you what, like, let me tell you what bad masterminds look like. Like, so I'll show you the train wrecks. So like, for instance, a bad mastermind is like a networking group. Because the currency in a networking group is, I need you to give me business, and I'm gonna give you business. But here's the missing piece. Well, two missing pieces. One, none of it's personal. Like, you don't really know, should I trust this person? Right. And the other is that they haven't earned my trust. So I don't know them personally and I don't know if they're good or not. And so the currency in a networking group, when I've been to them, like business networking, international, BNI stuff, and there's probably good ones out there, but like, they put you in a room and there's one realtor and there's one house painter and there's one plumber and there's one whatever. And I'm supposed to give that plumber my business even though I don't know him personally, nor do I know if he's good plumber. Right. But that's the currency. It's not encouragement. It's not, let me help you because your logo is crap. You know, it's just the only currency is leads, leads, leads, leads. Right? So there's. That's one end that's not a mastermind group. Because the mastermind group is both professional, professional and personal. It's structured, but it's not so structured that it's like a networking group where literally you get in trouble if you don't give out seven leads a week. So on the other end, you have no structure at all. And it's just the people getting together, hanging out at McDonald's on 6:30 on Wednesday mornings, and they're just kind of blowing smoke and like, you know, that's not productive. So on a really practical level, we meet very consistently once a week for a zoom call. It's an hour, starts on time, ends on time. We meet three times a year in person. And we have leaders, we have members within the group, lead calls, we invite in authors, other business people, other experts. We had a patent attorney on a few months ago, which I thought was gonna be super boring. It was super fascinating. Um, and then we just have shared experiences together. You know, we'll go through books together, we'll go to events together, and you know, we're passing through town, we'll hang out with each other. And it is people that you go, hey, if I could do life with anybody, I'd want to do life with them. And they're not going to talk to me as if my personal, professional life are separate. They're not. Like, have the biggest fight you've ever had with your spouse and go to work and try to have a good day. Good luck with that. Right. Or have a great marriage, but your business just blows. I mean, it's just crap. I mean, it's just horrible. You hate your work. Is that going to affect your marriage? Yeah. Right. One of your kids is having a horrible day, you know, and then you got to go into work or you're, you know, like they call you at lunch or they get in trouble. Like it all. They never were meant to be separate. Right. And so masterminds really allow us to be our full selves with each other.

Got it. And the important part of that being that you are able to be who you are personally while also bringing to the table the business problems that you have. And so it's people that you trust that you can speak openly with, that you can be transparent with. And also not friends, strictly friends in the sense that you can also talk about business problems. So one of the questions that I have, mastermind, what does that. It sounds like that.

That sounds weird.

Well, it sounds like that cartoon movie with a guy that is. Has a big blue head. What does that do?

I think that's it.

Yeah, yeah.

Board game called Mastermind. Yeah, it's a weird term.

Yeah.

But, you know, it's not. It's not like a fellowship group. It's not a Bible study. It's not a networking group. You know, it's a unique thing. And yeah, it's a little nebulous. It's a little foo foo. But at the end of the day, it's unique from a coaching group. It's unique from some paid coaching program. Right. Because everyone there is an equal. Now, I make money from our mastermind. I teach other people how to make money from running a mastermind. But when you sit down at the table, when I get on that call today with my mastermind members, my seat is the same size, Right. It's a round table. It's not a big long table. And I sit at the top of it, you know, like at the head of it, like it's a round table. We have equal. We are allowed to challenge each other. We are encouraged to challenge each other. I led a Mastermind call for another mastermind that I help lead. And this is all I did. I said, tell me what you believe about these things. And then we just hammered each other about those beliefs. So we were just pushing each other. Why do you believe this? Why do you believe that? Who told you that? What's your. Like, why do you. And it was. They were like, this was so great. It was so hard and so awkward. But this one person was like, hey, I believe that we shouldn't get what we want. And I was like, what? You know, but we heard them out and they explained themselves and we spoke into that. But it's like, how often do you get in conversations about, like, what do you really believe and why do you believe it? And, like, you don't. Right. And it wasn't all theological. Some of it was about money. Some of it was like, well, tell me about what did your parents believe about that? And sure enough, you know, it had something to do with the parents. So masterminds go where we usually don't go, which is really a powerful thing. And so what I teach people is there is tremendous value in facilitating that relationship and choosing what people get in the group. And so that's how I teach people to make money running a mastermind. That's why I have this podcast. I have a podcast coming out. I'm going to drop an episode a day for 21 days. And it's called Start yout Mastermind. And it's about just helping people start a mastermind. 21 different episodes about how to start a mastermind. I've got a program on how to start and run a healthy mastermind. And some people are going to go, great. I don't want to charge people. That's fine. But I think that there's real value in charging people because, you know, we recently, oh, gosh, probably a year and a half ago now, we left a church we were attending. Bunch of bad, weird stuff happened with leadership, and we left. And it was really easy to leave because we weren't that invested. Right. We just weren't that plugged in.

Right.

And so if you want to have a great mastermind group, I think people should pay. And if you benefit from that, it's because you're doing the work, you're providing value. Right?

Yeah. And that's. I would love to talk a little bit about that.

Let's go there, Bjork. Let's talk about it.

We can do kind of.

I want you to ask more questions.

We can do a rapid fire round here, specific Questions around a mastermind and what it looks like. First of all, is there always a facilitator? Is there one person who is the head of the group?

On any given call, the answer should be yes. Is there always a leader of the mastermind? No. You can have eight people that sort of get together. Right, got it.

So one person is given call.

Like on this call today, my friend Mark is presenting the information and I'll be sort of there as the sidekick asking clarifying questions. Cool.

So there's a facilitator. Is there a set structure for every call? And what would your recommendation be for somebody who's just starting out in terms of what that structure should be?

Start on time, end on time. Respect people's time. Don't spend 50 minutes saying, how's the weather in Texas today? Just Google it. Okay, so get to the point. Respect people's time. Push each other. Tell people what you're going to talk about before you show up so they can come prepared mentally for what's going to happen. And structures. I think that you should go from having members teach things, people from outside the group teaching things. I love the idea of going through books. I love the idea of, let's say, Bjork, you got an online course and you went through it and you're like, here's the five things I learned from that course. Yep, that could be a call. That could be one call with your mastermind has read this book. I'm going to teach everybody about the five things I learned from this book.

Got it. And I've heard different ways that people structure a mastermind where some will say, hey, every time we do 15 minutes of a quick round where everybody gives a two minute update, what's your biggest.

Win of the week? I mean, absolutely, you can do those things.

Got it.

I have found it to be difficult though, is when they say, what's going on this week? And you get to Bob and Bob's like, well, filed for divorce. And you're like, whoa, suddenly the call changes. Right. And my point is, like, I like to do those things at the end of like, hey, let's wrap with what's going on. What's going well. Right? Yep. But yeah, we have a check in sometimes, like, and we'll, we'll say like, everybody bring your, bring your, bring your biggest pain point today. And we'll get through as many as we can. Right. So a lot of different ways to slice that.

Got it. And so what I'm hearing from you is that there isn't necessarily A set rule for, like, if you're doing a mastermind, here's exactly how it has to be set up.

The biggest thing, there are masterminds like that. There are people that will tell you, you know, here's how you teach kids. You know, every kid learns this way. And we all know that's bull. Right. So I don't think there's a way. There's no mastermind council of, you know, the world that says you've got to do it this way.

Yep. And yet there are things that I would assume you've picked up and learned after doing it enough where you'd say, okay, these are the general guiding principles that I have for my groups. And for somebody, let's say, who's starting out, has never done it before, what would your top one or two recommendations be? We can do top, top three. Number one being, start on time, end on time, and then maybe one to two other things where you'd say, hey, these are the critical things if you're going to have success with your mastermind that you need to consider and implement.

Yeah. Don't wing it. Like, respect people enough to be prepared and come prepared. Ask them to be prepared. Like, I don't want to be a part of. I've never really loved anything that's never asked anything of me. Right. Like, I want to know that other people showed up and they were prepared. And so if we're supposed to read a chapter, we should read the chapter. Right. If we're supposed to bring our biggest pain point, bring your biggest pain point. Right. It's not noble to go, oh, I don't want to bother you. Like, okay, if everyone says that, then we don't have anything to talk about.

Right.

Again, you have to have needs and you have to have gifts. Yep. And I would say that you just have to have good facilitators. It's really important. You've got to be willing to say so you've got to be willing to say people's first names. Like if people don't remember anything, remember this. The best way to interrupt anyone is to say their first name. If I'm talking right now and you say, andy, I will stop talking.

Yeah.

Why? Because it's just a trigger. Someone says your name, you just stop talking. Right. And by that I just mean you have to have people to go, okay, thank you, Bob. Moving on. And Bob's not offended by that, but Bob's a little long winded. Like, I just despise that we let people waste other people's Times because the facilitators aren't, you know, strong willed enough to say, we got it. Thanks, Bob.

Yep. And that makes sense when you talk about the need for somebody playing the role of facilitator, because if not, then things can quickly get off course. So. And I'm guessing that that's one of the things that you talk about, you know, you've talked about your Mastermind program. I'm guessing that's one of the things you talk about is how you can be that facilitator and keep people accountable and don't have to go too far into that. But I feel like it's worth bringing up and important and worth acknowledging. That's why there needs to be a facilitator. Keep things on track, to clip things when they're getting a little bit long winded and to make sure that you follow along.

I think we have this very, like, utopian idea that, like, oh, this, everybody will be on the same level and they are with their ideas. Like, you need to run the meeting. Like, I don't have. I wish I had four hours just to hang out with all these people. But, like, I don't. Like, I got, you know, some kids gonna be banging on my door saying, dad, I need you to wipe my bottom, or, or, you know, dad, I'm hungry, or, dad, the dog ate something, or whatever. You know, like, I have a life.

Yep.

And so, like, let's just respect each other's time and then let's really be generous with our ideas and our criticism and our encouragement, all those things. That's very, very, very important.

Yeah, very important. So continuing in our semi quickfire question round, tools and resources that you can use for Mastermind, or maybe we'll just focus in on tools. So let's say you're remote, you're not in the same place. What do you need in order to make this happen where you can all get together virtually in the same spot?

I think you need two things. One is Zoom, which we're using to talk, and most people are familiar with Zoom. Us really has come out of kind of nowhere in three, four years ago and dominated sort of the virtual meeting place. So use that tool. Get the paid version. It'll cost you like 12 bucks a month, but it'll be much more stable and you can have unique meeting rooms for different events and such and you can record them. And then I would save them in your second tool, which would be Dropbox. So we have three years of recordings of our meetings that we just load upload to Dropbox. They're not even on our computer. We upload them to Dropbox. We don't sync those folders with our computer. So you want to go back and listen, you can, someone misses a meeting, you know, you can go back and get to it. But Zoom, you know, records the video and the audio and the text chat. So between Zoom and Dropbox, and if you're going to take payments, you know, 5,000 different ways to collect payments online. Yep. We just use a PayPal recurring monthly charge for that.

Yep. And let's talk about that. So we've talked about some of the logistical things that are involved with the Mastermind. Maybe one last thing is how often would you be doing this? Is it once a week, once a month, once a quarter.

So the problem with doing it every other week is if you miss, you don't talk for a month. Right. And you go, wow, once a week's a lot. Well then do it for 45 minutes or do it for 30 minutes if it's that much. And also I don't go to every meeting. I probably go to five out of six. Right. But yeah, I think once a week is fine as a check in. It's totally acceptable. You know. And another question that people probably nagging in their back of their mind is how much should I charge? How much should I expect to pay all those things? And the bottom line is, you know, you can do a free one. I help some people run thousand dollar a month masterminds, or you can pay ten thousand dollars at once and save two grand. You know, there's a huge range. And I was just talking to one of my program clients today and he said, you know, I want to expand our Mastermind. I said, well, okay, what are the deliverables? He said, well, I don't really have them written down. I said, well then you need to like people are going to pay you money for and hopes and dreams. No, like I want to know what am I going to get out of this mastermind? And so that's where the value comes in. The value is I'm going to let the right people in and I'm going to facilitate this so we get the most out of it. That's valuable, you know, I mean the key to a great nightclub of which you and I have probably never been to a nightclub. I never have.

I haven't either. So yeah, we're right there together.

A good bouncer. Right. What's the role like? But instead of like, you're not pretty enough because both of Us would definitely be pretty enough because you're super attractive and I could just be your date. But it's sort of like an intellectual and attitude bouncer, right? Like, that's the role of the mastermind facilitator. That's what I do for the 48 days. Mastermind. That's what I teach my clients to do, is I say, listen, the value you're providing is you're this intellectual and emotional bouncer where you go, listen, if you don't have the right attitude, if you don't have the right mindset, you know, if you don't, if your business plan stinks, like, we don't want you to be in the group because you're going to lean on us too much. And again, this is the hard part. You want really healthy people that are doing good things. That's the giftedness, Right. But still express need. And most of us kind of are afraid to share those things. But, man, when you find people like that, it is glorious. And so you can charge $50 a month to be in a group. You can charge $500 a month. You can charge a thousand dollars, whatever. And you can keep some of that. You can. I encourage you to spend, you know, 10 to 20% on the group itself with gifts and resources. You know, like, when people come for our events, they don't. The event doesn't cost anything. They just have to get themselves here. Right. For our. Three times a year, we meet in person.

Yep. It's interesting. I like to think of analogies or comparables in the world. And I think of things like a yoga class where people pay to have access to somebody who's facilitating a class. A little bit different in that it's led by one person. But the idea is you are paying maybe for the space. You are paying for the person to organize it, to put it together, to have things prepared, to have a plan. And I think that crosses over into this world in that it's kind of like a yoga class for your business mind.

Absolutely. Because, you know, like, there's this thing called YouTube and I'm pretty sure it has yoga videos. So why is everybody just sitting home doing yoga videos right. At the same time, people. You know, I'm sure you could go hire someone to come to your house and do yoga for you or go to some special retreat in Colorado and do yoga there. There's this range, right. And what masterminds can do, and this is why I teach people or start. Your mastermind is like, if you don't have a Mastermind. Guess what? You can start one.

Mm.

Like you. Well, I'm not the smartest person in the room. Right. Good.

Yeah.

I mean, there are people smarter than you, but, like, one of the obstacles is people say, like, well, I don't know enough people. You have to know, like, five people, you know? And the other thing is, a mastermind is not a marriage. Like, you don't have to stay in it forever. I was in a mastermind, and I quit because they were too focused on business, and they weren't. They would. Couldn't be honest about having a bad day.

Yeah.

It was like. They were like, everything's great all the time. And I'm like, well, then I don't belong here. Not everything's great all the time for me, you know?

Yep.

You have to find the right kind of group. Another group I was in, I had to quit because it got, like, super inappropriate. It was the group I run now. Help Dan run is, you know, we have men and women in the group, and. But there's. There's. There's boundaries there where I'm not gonna come to the group and go, man, hey, everybody, I need some marriage advice today, right? Because there's men and women there, and people can disagree with this, but, like, I'm gonna find a few men in the group and say, guys, I need some marriage advice here. Right? Well, I was in a group. I just visited. Someone invited me just to visit and sit in on a call once, and this guy was talking about, like, really inappropriate stuff about his personal life. And I'm like, dude, there are women in the room. And so my point is, like, if it's too much business, no bueno, and if it's too personal, no bueno. Right. You want to find that balance where people can be vulnerable and say, I need help because my cash flow is low. I mean, I had this call with my mastermind, gosh, six months ago. I mean, I just. I lost a bunch of clients. Things were not good. And I literally sent a message to my mastermind, said, if you were me and needed to make $10,000, what would you do? It was not a hypothetical question. I was asking them, what do I need to do to earn $10,000? Because I'm stuck in my own self right now. I need your help. You know what? No one said. No one said, trab, you suck. You're pathetic. You're the leader of the group, and you're asking us that question. Who are you to be leading? No one said that. They just gave me great Ideas. Some people said thank you for posting that. Things are hard for me too, you know, so you have to have some vulnerability and some strength. It's the gift and needs balance. And that's what I teach people.

Yep, that's great. It reminds me of podcast episode we did. It was podcast episode 108, if you go to foodbloggerpro.com108. And Natalie, who runs bizchicks.com talked about using masterminds and facilitating groups as the single catalyst for going from kind of her struggling podcast and business into having some success and some traction. And I think there's huge opportunities for it. And yet it's something that's kind of intimidating and a little bit scary. And there are really important pieces that are a part of the puzzle and we gotta scratch the surface a little bit. And one of the things that we didn't get as far into as I would have liked, but I think there is a chance to talk about it a little bit here at the end and then also would love for you, Andy, to talk about your course and what's involved with that is how it works to play the role of facilitator and to be the person that isn't necessarily the, you know, influencer, but you are a facilitator of a mastermind. And using that as a way to create an income by organizing it and being kind of the analogous to the yoga yogi leader, whatever you call them. So if you can talk about that.

I've seen the greatest movie of the last year, which was the greatest showman, according to my family. Okay, Hugh Jackman is the ring master. Right? But he wasn't the bearded lady. Right. He wasn't Zendaya. He wasn't the trapeze artist. Right. He wasn't as handsome as Zac Efron, like, but he. His role was to get all these people together, and he benefited from that. And there was great value in picking the right people. And so the role is not that weird. Like, people don't question, why are you making money from this group? People will pay for value. And so you just have to be confident enough to say, listen, I'm going to charge $50 a month, $100 a month, $200 a month, $250 a month, 5. Whatever it is. But here's what you're going to get from that. And you're going to have to be able to communicate the value of what you're providing, but also understand that I'm just another member. I'm a pain Member. I've been a pain member of my mastermind that I run since the beginning. I think I was the first paying member, actually. And so I just, I get some money back from that. And you need to be able to say with confidence, this is the service that I provide and do you want to be part of the group or not? And this is how much it costs. And then you have to be able to list that out. So the 21 episodes of the Start yout Mastermind podcast that I'm putting out, like, the shortest is like six minutes and the longest is like 14 minutes. So they're not, they're not real long. It's just little shots about, you know, here's seven tips to run a good Mastermind meeting and five reasons you should quit your mastermind. You know, because sometimes you should quit. And then to start your mastermind program, it walks you through, you know, what are the standards? What are the threads? What are the consistencies of my mastermind group? Who are the people that I might want to have in it? What are the questions I need to ask them? How do I onboard them? What information do they need? How do we choose the topics? I have a giveaway that. On startyourmastermind.com it says, here's how to have one mastermind meeting and get six months of content for your group from one meeting. And so how do you find the people? What are you going to talk about? How do you run your meetings? How do you have affordable in person meetings? I put all that stuff in there and I talk a lot about it. Frankly, broke on my podcast. So if people can't afford the program, I get that. Just check out the podcast, get the downloads. There's a couple guides I made on how to create that content for six months. How to find your first members. There's lots of free stuff people can do, but I hope that I've earned some trust, some credibility today that people would check out the program and if they have other questions, they can always just email me. Just my first and last namemail.com andytroubmail.com awesome.

Yeah. And we'll link to all that in the show notes as well and really appreciate you coming on, Andy. Uh, one of the things that we are constantly trying to do with the podcast is expose our listeners to other potential areas that they can pursue their goals and reach their goals, uh, oftentimes which revolve around building something online that allows them the freedom and the flexibility that they desire for whatever reason that is. And knowing that this is one of the ways that people can do that. So I think we accomplished that goal. Uh, and then also gave some people some places to go after that if they want to continue and are interested in learning more about it. So if people want to follow along with you, Andy, where can they go to check out what you're up to?

Well, if you want to see me hang out with my son and we play a lot of baseball, he's 10.

Nice.

I love. I love Instagram because it doesn't allow me to be wordy. Post pictures. So my Instagram's dietraub. And yeah, find me@takepermission.com I don't post there a lot, honestly. But yeah, go to startyourmastermind.com and that's where you'll see those downloads. Or just look for the podcast. Start your Mastermind podcast and you'll get all those episodes. I'm releasing one a day for 21 days, so whenever this comes out, they'll probably all be out.

Awesome. Andy, thanks so much for coming on. Really appreciate it.

Appreciate you, bro. Let's talk soon.

Okay, Sounds good. Hey.

Hey. Wonderful listeners. Alexa here. I hope you are having a fabulous week. And I'm here today to bring you the reviewer of the week. And this one comes from our good friend ben@ramshacklepantry.com. ben actually has an adorable Saint Bernard little puppy named Kate Winslet, and it's adorable, so definitely worth checking him out on Instagram to see if you can catch a glimpse of that cute little pup. But his review says, I really like all of the content that Food Blogger Pro and Pinch of Yum puts out. I look to Food Blogger Pro and this podcast as one of my main sources of authority and expertise in the niche of food blogging. Such a good team with a kind and helpful attitude would recommend 10 out of 10 or 5 out of 5 because iTunes only allows 5 stars. Thank you so much, Ben. We really appreciate it. And we love that we are one of your main sources of expertise and knowledge in food blogging. And that makes us so happy to hear a lot of the content that we put out here on the podcast and on Food Blogger Pro. Our membership site is shaped from the experiences of not only Bjork and Lindsay over at Pinch of Yum, but also the experiences of the team.

And.

And we have people who are experts in video and social media and development, and it's so great to be able to put all of those minds together to help others start and grow their own blogs. So thank you so much. We really appreciate it. And I think that's all from us this week. Thank you guys so much for tuning in. From all of us here at fbphq. Make it a great week.

SA.