Episode #560 - Getting An Executive Assistant with Trivinia Barber

Welcome to this edition of the Million Dollar Mastermind podcast. This is where we pick the brains of high achievers from all walks of life and get their hard earned real world insights on winning. I'm your host, Larry Wydell.

Talk about. You got in the situation where you needed to make a breakthrough on charging income and you could not figure it out. And you went, you were proactive, you looked around, you found you paid money, you had to pay money and you went across the country. It sounded like, so talk about getting help from advisors, mentors, people who know things you don't know and how that can, that can cause you to save time frame. That's what you know. When I talk to people about why I wrote the book, it was like to save you decades of having to figure out things you probably would eventually figure out. It's not rocket science, but just having someone explain this stuff to you has the chance to have the impact on you. It did on me. It's like, oh, that's how you do it. And it's like you're not some kind of high powered, super skilled individual that nobody could relate to. You just knew how to call this person and get this. If you know the inside track, it's like, wow, I can make things happen like other people that I thought were beyond me. And so how much of that have you done in your career and how did you. Do you continue to do it?

Yeah, absolutely. I think that there, when often asked, sort of like, what business advice would I give my younger self? Right. Um, one of the things that always stands out to me is I think that we need to have three different types of people in our corner. I think that you need to have somebody who's going to tell you the truth no matter what. If your idea is crappy, you need someone to tell you that it's crappy. Right. You also need someone who's going to be your cheerleader when you want to quit or when you don't know what to do. You need that sort of keep going person in your corner. And then you need another person who's going to hold you accountable to your goals. Now that can all be one person. I find that it's often not because the person who's going to tell you the truth, then you need a softer person to be your cheerleader. The person who's going to hold you accountable. You need someone to tell you the truth when you're not being honest with yourself. I have found that you can have those relationships by paying for them in a mentorship in a mastermind, in a business coach, in a therapist. There are ways that you can seek out those three different types of people. But. But I highly recommend mentorships and masterminds. And having a business coach, I think it's really important. And ever since we started, I have always had actually all of those. I've always been in a mentorship with someone and that's typically not paid. That's typically someone who's further down the road than me that I can call every once in a while. Some people call this like a board of directors for their business. Right, Right. You don't have to have a $20 million business to have a board of directors. Get some advisory board to help you when you've got tough decisions. And then I've always been in a mastermind that's a paid community that I pay to play and be a part of, and those are the people that hold me accountable.

And do you change that on a regular basis or you just stay in the same group?

I have changed over the years. Yeah. I've been in one community for four years now, though, and it's pretty amazing.

And talk about the Diary of a Doer podcast. How did that come about? And why is it worth it for you to do it?

It's worth it because it's an outlet for me to be able to talk about the joys and pains of building teams, of entrepreneurship. It kind of goes through the whole hierarchy of building teams, leading teams, me growing as a leader, my successes and my failures that I found in my own leadership, and things that have helped me and the guests that I bring on my show get through their hard times. And one of our sort of unofficial taglines at Priority VA is don't do it alone. And I think so many leaders get stuck feeling like whether they're isolating themselves or they just have this sense that they're all alone out there and they're not. And so I just wanted to be able to create a way for them to hear me and hear other people's stories of success, of redemption, of pain, and of joy.

That sounds like an answer that you gave in the Forbes article titled, eight Entrepreneurs Discuss the Obstacles They Never Anticipated when They first started. And your answer started off with, I didn't anticipate feeling so alone, even when surrounded by friends, peers, teammates, mentors, and paid coaches. And so talk about. Elaborate on that.

Yeah. I think that, as I mentioned earlier, I grew up relatively poor. Right. And. And I didn't realize that my success, to some in my inner Circle would be too much. Right.

But that was a poor daughter, right? Yeah. In the world. You know, to me, I, I, I just can't relate to. My apologies. I just can't. I guess I'm just hardcore, but either that or just a male. But the thing is, like, how in the heck can you feel lonely? Got a job like you got a thousand. To me, loneliness. The only time I've ever had a whiff of that was when I'd have a brief second. Nothing to do for the moment, you know.

Oh, I think we're talking about a different kind of lonely, Larry.

Yeah.

You can be in a room full of people that love you and still feel alone. I think that it's mindset and it is how you value yourself. The relationship that you have with yourself is the most important one that you'll have. And if you feel lonely being alone, then that's a challenge. And I didn't realize that entrepreneurs, it.

Sounds to me, help, help me on this. It sounds a little bit like a cousin to depression. You don't deserve it, or this, or you're not comfortable in your own skin.

Yeah, yeah, I think it's all of that. I think it's all of that. I think it's, it's, you know, my mom used to tell me all the time, I would say, like, I don't know, I'd hit some milestone in my business or I like took the girls to Disney World for the first time and I would want to share those successes. And she'd say, it must be nice. And I felt this sort of, yeah, I felt this kind of pain of like my success is hurting her. Right. It's, it's wounding the people that I care about. And so I stopped sharing that. And that creates loneliness.

Well, this is a thing of realizing, although you love them, family and friends, most people, you know, I don't address this enough on here, but family and friends are not always excited about what you're doing. They're proud of you in a sense and everything, but it makes them uncomfortable. And my grandmother, I remember when early success, the business, we won some trip to Hawaii. I'm taking the young kids, you know, we won the trip to Hawaii. Unbelievable. And I wound up taking my mother and my mother in law, you know, it was going to be a big adventure they're going to do. And here was my grandmother's reaction from over there in Stuckey, Georgia, which is where I was about 10 days ago, over there at that family reunion not far from you. Her thing was, well, I hope it turns out all right. It's like, how did it not turn out all right? Well, okay. And it's. You just cannot. But that affected you. But that was good. That was good for you. Because in terms of developing the thick skin, it's another thing of you maybe related to you where you had trouble raising the charges for your.

Yeah, no, for sure. Yeah. And I think that, you know, the lesson in that was that I got to choose who I shared my success with. And I also had to reckon that reconcile, excuse me, the. The fact that entrepreneurship, both the highs and the lows, would be hard for some people. Right. Some people would see me in the low pits of entrepreneurship and they'd be. Trevinia. I mean, you know, you're a really good executive assistant. You, you could just go back and be an executive assistant. Because I did that for, you know, nearly 20 years. And so that was as equally destructive as them feeling offended that I'd made millions of dollars too. Right? And so I had to learn to ride that wave of other people's expectations of what I could handle.

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Yeah, and the one thing that we've got to tell ourselves, I think to educate ourselves on, because it is a shock that you tell them, hey, I just went to the moon. You know, you heard I was in that astronaut program, and I don't know if you noticed, but I went to the moon. That was me in that spacesuit. And they said, oh, yeah, that's great. You know, like, it's like what? You know, really, what are they going to do? Bow down in worship? You know, it's like we're expecting reaction, euphoria, parades and everything, but what else can they do? Like Louis CK Talked about, he said, he went on, you know, the holy grail for comedians is to get on the Tonight Show. And so he got on the Tonight show at some point, after years of Struggling. He got on the Tonight show and he killed it. You know, he was unbelievably successful. So he got back in his old community in New York and everything. He was going around the clubs and said, hey, I don't know if you saw me. I was on the Tonight show, you know, last, you know, two nights ago. And the guys go, oh, great. You know, and then they. Wait a minute.

It's like, you know, like, does anyone see me? I was on the Tonight.

I just climbed Mount Everest. Yeah, I just climbed Mount Everest. Most people die, you know, they don't come back alive, you know, no frostbite. It's unbelievable. And yes. She's like, yeah, great. Because we've gotta be smart enough to realize, you know, some of that they're happy for you, but what can they do, you know?

Well, and the reality is, Larry, is that everyone really is dealing with their own stuff, right? I mean, they're dealing with their own things. And so Joe Polish just wrote a book called what's in it for Them? And I mean, that's really the reality is that if you said, hey, I just climbed Everest, or, hey, I just. I went to the moon and I want to take you with me next time. Well, all of a sudden that's. Oh, right. It's a different story. So I think we have to keep that perspective, that if people aren't enjoying our success or they're reveling in our failure, it says more about them than it does about us. And we've got to be able to keep a distance in between the two and keep moving forward no matter what.

Yeah. And, you know, that's really why it's enjoyable. To be able to take your successes like you're the first one over the wall, to be able to reach back over and have a way to pull them over the wall. I got you. You know, I can introduce you to the producer on the night, you know, on the Tonight Show. I know him well. Now we're going to dinner tomorrow night. You want to go with us to dinner for the event and, you know, find a way to help. Now all of a sudden, they're excited about it, you know, because they can get pulled up into it. But just to celebrate something that happens to you is really kind of selfish on our part, really, you know, to. You think, you know, I'm the daughter, you know, she'll be happy for me. Well, yeah, but.

But it's a human need to be seen, right? Affirmation is. Is kind and great for all of us to receive every once in a while. And I think we want it from those closest to us. But the reality is, is that sometime it. Sometimes it's going to be someone on a podcast that gives you accolades, or it's going to be someone in a mastermind, or it's going to be someone on your email list who replies back to one of your emails and say you changed their life. Sometimes it's going to be different than what you expect it to be, but it's there if you look for it.

Oh, by the way, I want to congratulate you. You're ranking in the top 100 in the management category in the US in the UK and Canada.

Thanks. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Congratulations on that. That's a big deal. And so. Or somebody from Rencon, Georgia.

I know, right? Yeah. When we first moved here, they called it Stinking Rinkin. I was like, oh, that's great, that's great. We moved to this town with this. Such a funny name. But yeah, yeah.

Where now if I were to put you on the spot and say, what do you see as the potential for your business and why are you excited about your business? Do you. If, you know, if I'm now turning the tables on you. Okay, let's go. And I'm saying, all right, darn it, 20, 23.

Yeah.

What's it going to be with you? Are you okay? Now listen, Trevinia, are you going to have. Was 22 a growth year?

None of 22 is a flat year. I think we'll probably grow just a little bit, but yeah, it's pretty flat.

All right, now let's talk about 23.

Yeah.

Are you going to have another marginal stay even? Because you've got priorities, you've got the daughters and they're going through and you're going to have to be going, choosing colleges, going to their events and everything like that. And this is the time of their lives, Trevinia.

It is.

You want to be able to spend the time with them and you don't want to be. Mom's gone all the time, so.

Oh, no, I can't. I can still spend the time with them.

It would be all right for you to have a little growth and then down the road the kids are gone, then you could dive in. Do you want to have that kind of year or do you want to have more of a, you know, you know, a dramatic year, you know, something special, or do you want to have a career year, a mind blowing year? What do you want and what do you see as possible for your business?

Yeah, it's a great question. I think that anything is possible with my business.

I torment people all the time.

I love it. No, anything is possible with my business and any of your listeners, businesses, if they have a team that they can trust. And so I can be gone visiting colleges with my daughter Briana.

There you go.

Traveling this year. And I can have a successful growing business to come home to. So it is all made possible with an amazing team so that I'm, I'm, I'm certain of that. But looking into the horizon of 2023, we're changing things up because I'm a quick start and I like new things. And so we're actually going to be merging two of the programs that we have, so our mentorship for executive assistants called Momentum HQ and our priority hire services. So basically, when a leader comes to us and they want an executive assistant, they're getting placed with an executive assistant. And also that executive assistant is going to have a year of training and onboarding that is overse seen by us so that we can ensure that relationship does exactly everything that that leader is hoping it will do. So I'm really excited about that.

Unbelievable. Well, how about your podcast is, you know, once you start a podcast, it's hard to say, okay, I'm going to have my greatest year in a podcast. It's just a matter of you kind of. They have a life of their own and to a large extent, bounce off of the magic that you can create from the guests that you can get. And if you're tapping into nerves, you know, the, a nerve of what people are looking for. Yeah, but it's a big ocean. I mean, there's. This time next year, you and I will be buried. There'll probably be five times more podcasts for sure, you know.

Yeah. Ronsley Vaz owns a company called Amplify and he often talks about, you know, there are hundreds of thousands of podcasts, but the majority of those podcasts have less than 10 episodes. Right. And so we are far and above the rest. I'm into hundreds of mine. I'm sure you have many, many of yours as well. And it is that consistency, right? It is getting the reps in and doing the thing you said you would do and showing up for your listeners week in and week out. And that, I think, is what makes the difference. I don't have to have the best content. I have to have consistent content that delivers value. Right. I'm not going to be Tim Ferriss. I'm not going to be Joe Rogan. I know that I don't expect to be that, but for the people that listen to me, I want them to know that I am here for them. I am listening to them and we are responding to what they have to say about what they want on this show. And so I don't really care what the numbers are for that show so long as the feedback for that show is still high.

Yeah, that's fantastic. And I really appreciate you taking the time. I don't want to keep you any longer and you've got to get back to that bustling beehive of activity outside your door. But really the small town living has a lot to lot going for it, don't you think? Especially if you got where you're at the stage of raising kids.

Yeah, no, it's lovely. We've got chickens. And it's a whole different lifestyle than living in Denver, Colorado, that is for sure.

Now what, what are you doing with the one last thing? What are you doing in Tanzania again?

Oh, so I was on a church mission trip and I was. My husband and I were teaching pastors how to love their wives. Well.

Ah. And they have that problem over there too.

Oh, yes, they do.

How strange. Okay, well, I'm sure you were a huge hit and congratulations on the success of your business.

Thank you.

And say hello to your girls for me. And I'm wishing nothing but the best for you and your business. And call me anytime. Any last word you want to have for the entrepreneurs out there.

Yeah, I think I would just end with this, guys. It can be hard. Well, let me just say this, actually, it's going to be hard. All right, Pick your hard. Just choose the hard. Do you want the hard that means your family is decimated at the end? Or do you want the hard that means maybe you have to spend a little money to get some help? It's going to cost you either way. So just pick your cost and pick your hard.

All right, thanks so much, Trevinia and I can't wait till next time. See you later. Goodbye.

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