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This is The Perfect RIA, in case you didn’t know. Bringing you all the strategies to help your business grow. Are you happy? Are you satisfied? Are you hanging on the edge of your seat? Sit back and listen in while you feel the beat. Another myth bites the dust…

Micah Shilanski: Welcome back to another amazing podcast. I am the co-host and co-founder of The Perfect RIA. And with me, as usual, is the legendary Matthew Jarvis. Matthew, what’s going on, bud?

Matthew Jarvis: I’m good, I’m good. And just for all of you listening, this is in fact, Matthew Jarvis. I have on multiple occasions had people tell me, “You know Micah Shilanski? I love his podcast.” And I’m thinking, “What do you mean you love his podcast? Come on, I’m on like every episode.”

Micah Shilanski: You have no idea how much that costs me to make sure that happens, but it is so worth it. That’s the moral of this story.

Matthew Jarvis: It is so worth it. Well at least you’re getting something from the podcast. If all you hear is Micah, you’re getting some good stuff. And speaking of getting good stuff, Micah, really excited to tackle this episode today, the subject of masterminds. It’s something we’ve talked about quite a bit, but we’re still getting a lot of questions. And really it’s been something that you and I have been doing together for several years. In a way, this is how the whole TPR platform started.

Micah Shilanski: It really did. It started in a bar, in a mastermind, is really where it came into fruition, which is just amazing. But this is something that is so easy to talk about, but is so hard to do.

Matthew Jarvis: Yes.

Micah Shilanski: Like so many other things, right? I’ve been a part of a lot of masterminds that have fizzled out. I’m a part of two masterminds right now. And I get a tremendous amount of value out of that TPR mastermind that we have. And there’s a special methodology, if you will, for me anyways, because I’ve done other masterminds, which are virtual, I’ve done some in-person ones, and I’ve done really intense ones and all these other things. But it seems, what’s interesting about the TPR one, is not only do we have a consistent group of guys that continues to show up, continues to deliver massive value, but everyone not only looks forward to them, but we get a ton of energy output when we’re done with these masterminds. And those are key components in running a successful mastermind.

Matthew Jarvis: Yeah, they really are. And I would gauge a mastermind success… Not would, in fact, you and I do at the end of masterminds, TPR masterminds, we debrief. And we’re really looking at a couple of things. We’re looking at, how much fun did I have? And yes, this is a business thing, but I’m really looking to have fun. How much quality time did I have with other people like me? As advisors, as entrepreneurs, we think differently than most people. And it’s hard to find people like us. And then two other ones, which are kind of related, how motivated and energized am I to go back and deliver massive value? And the last one, and Micah, I would argue the most important one, you and I were joking about this before the episode, leaving with extreme accountability.

Micah Shilanski: Oh yeah.

Matthew Jarvis: And there’s just nothing… I’ve got to confess, one of our last masterminds I left telling Micah, I said, “Hey, I need to hire an advisor this year to meet my personal goals.” And Micah, you and I joke about this, you said, “Great, well, how badly do you need to do this?” And I said, “Well, I’ll get it done.” And you said, “Oh yeah, right. If you were to get it done, it would be done.” So I said, “Great. I’ll put my Tesla on the line. I love my car. If I don’t get an advisor hired by the end of the year, barring some kind of emergency, I will send you my Tesla and it will be your car.” But that wasn’t even enough, by the way, Micah, if you remember, that wasn’t even a high enough bar?

Micah Shilanski: No, no, it really wasn’t, right? Because it was that thing about saying, “Okay, well how much is it really worth?” Jarvis, would you just blow it up for the sake of blowing it up, just so you didn’t have to worry about bringing on the advisor, right? That’s one of the big questions with this extreme accountability is, where is that line that’s going to force you to get it done? Because it can’t be a small enough thing. And we’re joking about a car right now. Bad news is, guys, I’m going to have to go car shopping, so this sucks. I was hoping that Jarvis you’d take care of that for me. But since he accounted for his things, it’s not just about a car, it’s not just about a dollar amount, it’s what motivates you to get this task done. That is the most important part about this extreme accountability.

Matthew Jarvis: Yeah, it was. And it wasn’t… we’ll talk about this in the mastermind, it wasn’t until the last night of the mastermind, after we had been skiing all day and doing all sorts of fun things and sitting in the hot tub for endless hours, that I finally said, “You know what? I’ve got to do this.” And we’ve had similar extreme accountability from other members of our mastermind. I won’t mention those because those are confidential. But again, it’s the late nights. It’s where we say, “Hey, this is something I really need to do in my practice and I’ve got head trash or I’m afraid or it’s hard.” Or whatever the case may be. And that’s where a mastermind group really pulls together and delivers massive value.

Micah Shilanski: Yeah it is. And it’s not just about you figuring out what you need to do. Some of the great parts about a mastermind is your team, the other mastermind members, seeing your Achilles heel that you didn’t even know was there and making you accountable for that and making you fix those particular things.

So let’s dive into this, Jarvis. We talked a lot about some of the good stuff in here. Let’s get into, what is that recipe? What is that creation that you’ve put together with creating these awesome masterminds? Now, before we get too far down this line, I do want to let everyone know, if I could jump in… we have announced we are going to do a 2021 live event. This is going to be in May of 2021. It is going to be absolutely outstanding. We’re going to take this entire concept of masterminds, of conferences, of the things that we love that drive our practices, and we’re putting it together in a three day event. So if this is something that you’re interested in, we’re going to have a little bit more information about that at the end of the pod.

Matthew Jarvis: Yeah. Very, very excited about that. So masterminds, for a mastermind to work, I think the most important element is to find a fun activity, find something that you really enjoy doing. We’ve done skiing, I’ve done mountain biking, we’ve done astro and golfing, anything that sounds like fun to you and to other advisors, that’s what you build it around. It also makes the invite very easy. If you’re starting a new mastermind, if you say, “Hey, let’s meet virtually for a zoom meeting one hour a day for seven days.” No one’s going to take that invitation. That sounds like torture. But if I call… and this is literally what I did, if I call up Micah and said, “Hey, I would love to go skiing and snowboarding in Colorado with you. Would you like to come with me?” That’s an easy yes. So start with building it around something that you really enjoy.

Micah Shilanski: Now, I want to dive into this from a client perspective as well, if I can, right? And I don’t think this is too far of a stretch, but feel free to call me on it. So one of the things is, I work with about 198 households. And one of the questions I get a lot is, “Micah, how do you work with so many households?” How do I do it? How do I remember all these things going about them? Well, the how is simple. I like all of my clients, right? I enjoy engaging with them. So if I’m having fun in my meetings, I’m having fun talking to them. I’m able to progress that conversation. Well, guess what? The same in a client meeting is the same in a mastermind. If I’m not having fun in a mastermind, I am disengaged, right? I’m not putting my energy into it.

I’m not putting that enthusiasm into it. And I’m not going to retain what’s there. Versus some of the best meetings that we’ve had has been sitting on a chairlift, right? It’s a 32nd conversation as we’re about to hit the next run, but you have not only the physical experience, and I think that’s really important, right? Some type of workout, some type of physical activity. It’s a bonding between everyone that’s there. Because we’re all shared the same experience versus sitting around a conference room, that’s there. And it really opens up to so much more creativity than being forced into a classroom setting for eight, 10, 12 hours.

Matthew Jarvis: Totally does. Now, I also want to take one small step back. I learned about masterminds, maybe my first year or two in the industry. And I was crushed for years that no one invited me to join a mastermind. And I thought, everyone’s talking about these, no one’s doing them. And then I ultimately decided, Hey, if I’m going to be part of a mastermind, I just need to man up and make this thing happen. So if you want to be part of a mastermind, either find someone who will invite you to one, right, do a Micah, or just make it happen. So my team handles all the logistics. And so Micah and I are getting ready to do a mastermind in January. My team’s going to contact the… get the Airbnb set up, which, by the way, I recommend an Airbnb over a hotel.

They’re going to get the guys lined up. They’re going to get the food lined up. They’re going to get the experts lined up. Everything is going to be taken care of by one team. And so I can email all of my buddies and I have about 15 people that I invite to these. And I say, here’s what we’re doing. It’s these days, it’s this activity and the budget’s going to be about $4,000.

And now, I’ve masterminded with Micah and these guys for a long time. So I have no problem collecting the money when we’re done. If this is a new one, I would collect the money up front. I would say, “Hey, our budget’s $4,000. If there’s money left over, I’ll distribute that back out to you. Or if there’s a little bit more due, we’ll do it that way.” But that way one person is taken care of everything. It’s not who got dinner, who got lunch, who got the Uber. We want to make this as streamlined as possible and extreme accountability or extreme ownership. If you want this thing to happen, you need to make it happen.

Micah Shilanski: Yes, I’ll tell you a funny story real fast. Before I jump into that, one of the things on that, the extreme accountability on the finance side of things, in our mastermind, there’s no question about costs, right? The cost is the cost. It’s four grand. There’s no quibbling about the bill. There’s no quibbling about what’s being done there. That’s not the point of the event and we don’t want to suck the fun out of it.

So when you’re designing your mastermind, create those rules and Jarvis, you’re really good. He says, look, it’s four grand. I don’t want to talk about the price. You either come or you don’t come. I don’t really care. Right? It’s all about you. If you want to bring it, awesome. If you don’t, totally fine.

You talk about mastermind, I have some embarrassing stories though. I’m going to rewind the clock a few years. My first next gen event, I think it was down in Texas. I went down to next gen. This is after, I’ve been taking six, seven months out of the office and doing all these things and whatnot. So I went down to next gen. They were talking about masterminds. They are grouping everyone up. It was the public forum. Everyone was there in a giant circle and they’re grouping everyone up into masterminds and no one would join a mastermind with me.

I was like, I’ll be in a mastermind. And no one wanted to be in a mastermind with me.

So it was absolutely embarrassing. It was great. So it was a wonderful learning experience. So finally I found someone to have pity on me. His name was Matthew Jarvis and was able to be in there.

Matthew Jarvis: You know, and we laugh about these embarrassing moments. There’s so crushing at the time, I mean, when I sent invites for the first mastermind, I didn’t think anybody was going to come. We actually did at my office because I thought, well, I mean, if nobody shows up, I’ll just get work done. It takes a leap of faith to do that.

A couple other logistics things for the mastermind and then we’ll talk about how to get people to come. And we’re going to talk about how for the TPR nation, we’re going to try to facilitate that for you because that is tricky. One thing that seems trivial, but it’s very important, have all the food delivered. So we typically have it, not necessarily catered, but all the food is prepped. So that each meal, we just need to throw it in the oven. That makes it very easy.

We also, when we’re booking the Airbnb, we let them know in advance that we’re not going to clean the place. And so to go ahead and charge us a cleaning fee, not that we’re trying to be rude, it’s just that, none of us particularly enjoy cleaning house and we don’t want to get to the end of the trip and be like, well, now we need to spend two hours cleaning the place. So we just tell them in advance, we’re not going to trash the place, but we’re not going to do the dishes. We’re not going to make the bed. Just charge us a fee.

Micah Shilanski: And also think about it a little bit more, right? Let’s say we went and did this and we decided to clean up and it wasn’t clean enough and we were charged a cleaning fee. Who are you going to blame for that? Right? Who’s in charge of all this stuff. These are things that are supposed to be fun so pay the 200 bucks and move on with life.

Matthew Jarvis: Micah, I did… this a funny story. I won’t mention this advisor’s name, but he knows who he is, somehow broke his bed. And I’m not really sure how that happened, but we ended up getting a bill after the fact for this broken bed. And so it was just kind of getting, there’s going to be things like that are going to come up. I don’t tell everybody their cut of the action until every single thing is done. We also had another advisor in our regular mastermind who like four months later, he’s like, “Oh, Jarvis, by the way, I found this other receipt.”

Too bad.

Too bad. In fact, our new policy is, if you charge anything to your credit card, we’re just going to assume that’s a donation to the group because I’m just, I’m not going to chase down these little things. We need to make it as easy as possible.

Micah Shilanski: I was going to say, we had another advisor put his lift tickets on the mastermind bill sheet and we were also trusting. We never even checked it. We had a Google sheet, everyone threw their expenses in there. We never even looked at it. He did it as a joke, inside of there, then sure enough, everybody checks the balance out and we paid for his fricking lift tickets. So yeah.

Matthew Jarvis: Something else that we’ve found to be a real value add to masterminds is, typically in the morning, depending on your schedule, to have some kind of expert, some kind of person that you respect call in or video in for an hour, we used to have them fly out and we decided that didn’t add enough value to make it worth the cost. So we have them call in for an hour or so and really deliver massive value to us and try to give us something to think about.

So we’ve had coach Joe Lucas do that and he would talk about what’s a possible practice structure. And is your practice growing or dying? We’ve had Peter Shallard call in, who’s a coach for entrepreneurs and had him talk about things. Micah and I have done ones directly with Michael Kitces, right? Almost anybody including actually, Micah yourself, you can get on the line for, divided five ways, of relatively small costs. And then have that advisor, have that expert deliver massive value. Then on the ski lift, then on the golf course, then on the mountain bikes, you have something very focused to talk about.

Micah Shilanski: And that’s so good, right? Because it gives a little bit of a purpose of a shell for that day. And it’s not, what does Bob want to talk about or Sue want to talk about or anything of that nature, right. It’s okay, how do we digest this? And one of the things that we also call out, a little bit more on extreme accountability, it’s up to you to pull that value out, right?

You can not be reliant on that expert, reliant on someone else to really pull that value. What are you going to need to get out of this? And so sometimes in advance, it’s great to talk about themes, right? What are problems that you’re having? What are things that you want to address? Those are awesome things to have, but even if you don’t have that, that’s not a reason not to do a mastermind because sometimes some of the best things I’ve walked away with is not the things I came into the mastermind with. It’s the other things we found along the way.

Matthew Jarvis: Oh, a hundred percent. Related to that, Micah and I are big fans of having the giant post-it notes on the wall. Those big, huge sticky pad ones and small post-it notes. That way, as you have ideas, you can put them there. As you have suggestions for your next mastermind… we even put complaints we have about the current mastermind. Hey, next time, why wasn’t the beer delivered? Right? I know that there’s a law about that. There has to be a work around. There’s no reason we should be going to the grocery store, whatever it is, that’s-

Micah Shilanski: It’s a great use of everyone’s time though, five or six advisors going into a store and trying to decide what food they’re going to buy. Great use that time.

Matthew Jarvis: Well that was one, one thing that came up as an example, we said, boy, anybody who calls into our mastermind, tell them, do not give an introduction. We don’t want to know your bio. If we didn’t respect you, we wouldn’t have paid you to come on this call. We want you to jump straight into the meat and potatoes. Don’t waste our time on your resume. We don’t need that. We already know what that is.

Micah Shilanski: Right. Or we’re just going to be thinking about that when we should be moving on to value. So running a tight meeting is really, really important along this as well, tight with the value add, right? What’s that hard break. So at noon, you’re stopping, you’re going to the lift. You’re going to the range, you’re going somewhere else. I mean, having that time and again, Parkinson’s law, things will take as much time as we allow them to take. So forcing that value in a smaller period of time adds tremendous value.

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Couple other things then we’ll jump into how to get people to come. Micah and I have found that having a place with a hot tub is great. It gives us somewhere, so I pretty much never book masterminds without a hot tub or a pool because it gives us somewhere to socialize, to talk, to just relax. You need that unfettered time to just talk about your practice and talk about what’s working and what’s not.

And really in our masterminds, there’s really no topic that’s off limit. I mean, we stay out of politics because that doesn’t go anywhere positive. But if you’re saying, “Hey, I’m trying to figure out how to be a good parent and manage a practice.” Great. That’s on the table. If you’re saying, “Hey, I’m having a hard time getting my exercise in and running a good practice.” Great, that’s on the table. There are very few topics that are off the table, other than just things that don’t make for good discussion, politics, being an example.

Micah Shilanski: You know one of the things on that line, we have to be really clear about when are we adding value to someone else’s question and when are we giving our opinions? Because sometimes our opinions are not super valuable, right? So the example could be, when someone states something, is how have you dealt with that in your life? Right? So, okay. When I faced that challenge, these are things that I looked into, not theoretical information that should be out there. Now, if no one has any real life experience then okay, fine. You can go to potential opinions that are there, but more than likely in that group, you’re going to have real life experience on how to deal with those issues. And that’s what you need to focus on.

Matthew Jarvis: By the way, quick soapbox moment. That should be your rule in all of life. If you can say, I have experienced this or something similar, and here’s how I handled it. Great. You need to really distinguish that from opinions. So, Micah, let’s pivot to, how do we get people to come to the mastermind? And this can be tricky.

So my first of several attempts at masterminds started off really slow. I first reached out to advisors in my geographical area and I found that they were all very guarded, that they didn’t want to share ideas, kind of this scarcity mindset. Next, I put it up on the FPA forum when I was still kind of welcomed there. And one of our mastermind members, Matt Daugherty, who, I’m in Seattle, he’s in Cleveland. He reached out to me and said, “Hey, I’m not in your area. Can we start a mastermind just virtually?”

And that was really our first one, then Micah and I met and I met a couple other guys. And so now, whenever I find an activity I want to do, I reach out to Micah first, because he’s my BFF. And we get that scheduled but then I have about 10 or 15 people that I reach out to. And I say, “Hey, I would love for you to come. I respect you. I think you could add value to this group. And here’s the details.” And of those 10 or 15, usually four or five can make it. And that’s what I need for a mastermind.

Micah Shilanski: So, you’re looking at a quarter to a third, right? So any list that you want to have, if you want to have four people come, times it by four and that’s how many people you need to invite. Now, you may not have that big of a list to start off with. So Jarvis, I want to pull that idea out there, go to the forums, right? Go throw it out there.

Okay, what happens if you get someone who’s the wrong fit, you got to spend a day and a half, two days with them, not the end of the world. Right? So throw that net out there. And the people that are going to come to these, generally are going to be good people. They’re going to be good for it. They’re going to be looking for the same things. Now, Jarvis, do you do any type of screening on what type of practice that they have, right? Because you could have somebody that’s crushing it. That’s a seven figure plus practice. And you could have a startup. Are those two good of the same people that we should bring together in the same mastermind? How does that work?

Matthew Jarvis: Yeah, I think there’s levels to this. When you’re first trying to build a mastermind, anybody who’s interested in being in a mastermind, who’s willing to make that financial commitment and has a growth mindset, I would go ahead and take those people initially, until you build your list. Now I have a very specific list and I’m only… Micah, to your point, I’m looking for people whose practice is in a similar or better situation than me. Now, selfishly, I’d like to have a mastermind where I’m the bottom performer and everybody is better than I am, but those people don’t necessarily want me in their mastermind. Right? If I call Ron Carson and Michael Kitces and say, “Hey guys, let’s do a mastermind.” They’re going like, “Thanks Jarvis. That’s cute.” Right?

I want people… but mostly I’m solving for growth mindset, right? People that are somewhere near my production level, size of practice, type of practice, life goals, Micah, you and I talk about all the time. If they’re like, Hey, I want to work 80 hours a week. And I don’t ever see my family. I don’t want to have a mastermind with you. Our goals are too divergent for this to be productive.

Micah Shilanski: Yeah, that’s what I was going to go for on this one. So it’s not just about how the numbers line up. It’s more the goals. Where are you headed? Are you headed down the same path, that’s there? And there can be arguments that say, Hey, we should have discussions with people with different sets of goals. But I don’t know if I want to spend three days with them. I want to spend that kind of like time because I’m also looking to build friendships. I’m looking to build things outside of the mastermind, is a perk to the mastermind group. So definitely people with those same set of goals. So you can use independent screening tools, Jarvis for us, when we weren’t really looking at practice size, it was a dollar amount, right? Look, it’s going to cost like four grand. We’re not exactly sure, it’s an ish number. There’s no questions about the check, sign up or don’t come. That was kind of our bar that you had set, which was really great. So what’s your bar inside of this to make sure it’s geared for those like-minded people?

Matthew Jarvis: Totally. And I would again, really solve for people that I like, even if I’ve only met him briefly at a conference. And I think… in fact, one of our guys that’s in our mastermind, a very valuable member, I met him at an AICPA conference. He found me, he says, Oh, I listen to the podcast. I love it. We had beers by the pool for about 20 minutes. And I said, man, this guy is a great guy. He’s got same goals, same things. Come on down to our mastermind. Like you said, I took a bit of a gamble. Maybe he was a good fit. Maybe he wasn’t. Turned out to be a great fit, a very valuable member. So I’d take chances on that. If you like them personally, if they have similar goals, Micah, to your point, invite them. Worst thing they are going to say is, no, that doesn’t work for me. Odds are they’re going to do whatever they can to come.

Micah Shilanski: Absolutely. So I like this, right? We’ve got a lot of good stuff inside of this. So one, creating a list of people, that’s going to be there. Right? Keep the questions kind of simple. Who would be interested in these events? What activities do you like to do? What activities do you want to do with other people? Those are the basic sources for bringing those people in.

So Jarvis, let’s get a little bit back to logistics. What are some other things that we always make sure are there in order to make this a highly successful event, right? We’re going to have a coach. We’re going to dial in some expert, we’re going to have a writing instruments that are there, right? Now, this is like using lose stuff, right? We’re not bringing this stuff back home. So, but we order post-it notes to be there. We order sharpies to be there, we order notepads and pens and all of those things to be there so we can make this a high valued event. Anything else that we make sure is there? When I just show up it’s there. It’s amazing.

Matthew Jarvis: I would remember, what are we solving for us? So I always have this temptation to really try to dial in the food order so we don’t have any wasted food. And then I remember over solving so that whenever we open the fridge there’s food in there. Great. So we end up… and this is unfortunate, we end up throwing away a lot of food. That’s okay. We end up leaving behind a lot of beer for the Airbnb that’s okay. We’re solving for this to be as painless and as enjoyable as possible.

I made a mistake on our last mastermind I did in Colorado. It was a mountain biking trip. And I thought, well, I can just self guide this. Right? I can look at the trail maps. After the first day I immediately realized I can’t self guide this plus I was sucking wind like crazy at 12,000 feet or however high, Crested Buda.

So luckily I was able to get on the phone. I found a guide who was available and a guide took us the rest of the time. So don’t, even if you’re leading the mastermind, you’re making sure the logistics are put together, don’t make the mastermind dependent on you. It’s too much pressure. If you’re trying to guide the activity, you’re setting yourself up for failure.

Micah Shilanski: Or even focusing all day discussion, right? So you’re going to do all that and then you’re going to guide the fun activity and all that stuff. No, you need to be a participant as much as the organizer. So outsourcing that is just a key component of this.

Matthew Jarvis: I would say one more thing and then we’ll pivot into, how we’re going to help our TPR nation form masterminds. The last thing I would say, and this took me a few times to learn. If you’re the one organizing the event, you make all of the decisions. Do not try to get consensus from this group. This is a group of people who are used to calling all the shots. They’re not used to making consensus. So the agenda is typed up ahead of time. The meals have been picked, the venues where we’re going to have dinner, all of that has been picked. We’re not saying, “Hey guys, what do you want to do tonight?” That’s too much wasted time and energy. It’s potential for conflict. And even just, it’s wasted decision-making power.

I don’t want to spend my valuable mastermind time debating over if we should get Mexican food or Chinese food, right. It’s, “Hey, we’re going to Chinese food tonight. We already have reservations.” Let’s hop in the Uber. Let’s hop in the rental car we got, off we go.

Micah Shilanski: Yeah. Make it super easy. So less choices, especially for the higher D type of people, higher dominance type people out there, the less choices, the better. Have your team make those decisions for you.

Matthew Jarvis: Perfect. Now, Micah, something we’ve heard from our nation and from our backstage pass members. Oh, and by the way, for backstage pass members, I will have Coleen post to the backstage, pass some of our agendas and budgets from prior masterminds. So you can get some ideas there.

But for the nation at large, one of the biggest concerns we’ve had is they say, “Matt, Micah, you guys know a lot of people in the industry. I don’t know 10 or 15 people that I feel comfortable inviting, what is my option?”

And so Micah and I, you and I have decided that we’re going to help facilitate this because masterminds have been so powerful to our practices that we are excited to announce TPR Live 2021, which will be May 18th to 21st in Scottsdale, Arizona. This is going to be a large scale, hundred person, advisor only mastermind style event.

Again, we’re calling this TPR Live. It is automatically open to members of our backstage pass. If you are not a member of the backstage pass, what in the heck are you doing, sign up for the backstage pass.

Micah Shilanski: Amen.

Matthew Jarvis: But if you are not a member, you can go to theperfectra.com/live and apply, apply to be accepted into the mastermind. If you are a backstage pass member, or if you’re one of Micah and I’s close friends, you have received a personal invitation in the mail that gives you a VIP access to that, which is exciting.

Micah Shilanski: I’m sorry. Where did they receive their personal invitation?

Matthew Jarvis: I’ve tried to keep the post office in business, Micah. Plus it stands out, people like getting cold stuff in the mail.

Micah Shilanski: They do in the mail. I just wanted to highlight that. So it’s a physical item. Awesome. That is great. And with this, one of the things that Jarvis and I were talking about this live event we want to do in 2021, we wanted to make it different than the other stuff that’s out there that we may or may not get value out of. But we wanted to focus on, what would be an event that we would love to attend. That was the deciding factor. Every decision that we make inside of this is, all right, would we love to attend this event or not?

Or if we had a Matthew Jarvis show up afterwards and post comments on the forum, what would he say? Right? I mean, that’s what we’re solving for with this. So it’s not just about the business ideas that are going to come out of this. It’s about the people that we’re going to meet. This is going to be tracking these like kind advisers, these TPR, these Perfect RA advisors, don’t have to be an RA, right? We have a lot of wirehouse guys, believe it or not, in our backstage passes, guys and gals.

All of them are inside there, going for this lifestyle setup. So that is the main focus behind this, is not only delivering massive value on an educational level, we’re going to deliver massive value on a fun level. We’re going to deliver massive value on a community level because we need all of those things to really grow our practice.

Matthew Jarvis: Yes. I really want to stress that this is not a conference. This is not a coaching event. This is 100 advisors getting together to share their best ideas with each other, right. And so we’re going to measure success and we’ve been … success around a couple of things.

One, you’re going to have a whole lot of fun. We have sword fighting lined up. Yes, sword fighting. A surfing machine, we have all sorts of exciting fun lined up because that’s where a lot of the great stuff happens. You’re going to make professional friends, people who can now form small masterminds with, and you’re going to leave with extreme accountability. So if extreme accountability scares you, this is not your event.

Micah Shilanski: Maybe it really is. If you’re scared of it, you need to come down.

Matthew Jarvis: Yeah, if you think you’re going to show up and be like, well, I’ll just give you my word that I’ll do it. I’ll donate dollars to the boys and girls club if I don’t do it, nah, that’s not going to cut it. It’s got to be a scary level of extreme accountability.

Micah Shilanski: Amen. So we’re going to talk a little bit about this, right? But why should you do this? Why should you do events like this?

Well, number one, every single one of us should have a PD budget, a personal development budget. Now we’re going to be chatting pretty quickly also about business planning in an upcoming podcast. But one of the things that I always do, Jarvis, and I know you do as well, is I have a bucket of money set aside that is just for personal development. That’s use or lose money. Every year I’m putting X amount of percent, 10% of my gross, into my PD. That is what I put into my personal development budget. And it’s a use or lose budget. I am spending that money consistently, how to improve myself. This is worth that money is geared for, right? This is to improve yourself, not only as a person but as an advisor.

Matthew Jarvis: A hundred percent, a hundred percent. So I’m really excited for this. Again, we built this TPR Live event to be something that Micah and I were just stoked to go to. And let me tell you, we are stoked to go to it. So Micah, should we do some action items?

Micah Shilanski: Awesome. Yup, let’s go ahead and do it.

Number one, if you, I just said it, but if you don’t have it, you need a PD budget. You need a personal development budget. Whether you take it off the gross or the net, that’s fine. I want it simple to do, right? It’s a 5% of the gross or 10% of the net, is kind of the ideal where you want to go to, you always should be back investing in yourself. Every time you get paid, you scrape that account with five or that 10%, you put it in your PD budget and that’s use or lose money to make you a better person.

Matthew Jarvis: So I would say, item number two related to that, track it, right? We’re all about tracking things. Look back on 2020 and I know 2020 was a messy year, right? All the conferences got canceled. Great and average advisors just said, well, I guess I’ll just coast through. And TPR advisors said, no, I’m going to keep crushing this, I’m going to join the backstage pass, I’m going attend webinars. So go back and look at 2020 or even 2019. How much did I actually invest in making myself a better advisor? Or am I just coasting along, wondering why my practice isn’t changing because in fact, I’m not changing.

Micah Shilanski: Yeah. Number three, mark your calendar. In May of 2021, 18th through the 21st, May 18th to the 21st, we are going to be having this live event. I can only imagine this is going to sell out. And this isn’t a cheesy thing. We’ve done a live 2020 event, by the way. It’s going in about a week from when this airs and that was sold out almost instantaneously, right, within a week of announcing it, it was sold out. This is going to be as well. So make sure you’re on the list. You didn’t get that personal invite, jump on the website, the perfectra.com/live to apply, to get an invite to come to the event.

Matthew Jarvis: Yeah. If you’re on there and it’s already sold out, be sure you get on the waiting list for the 2022 live event. So action item, number three, I would really commit and do whatever it takes to get a mastermind forum.

So the easiest way will be to come to live in May 2021. If you’re not going to come to live, I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but if you can’t make it, schedule a mastermind, go ahead and look on your calendar for Q1 or Q2 of 2021 and say, I’m going to do a mastermind this week. In fact, you and I, we’re already scheduling masterminds for next year. And we’re saying great, here’s when I’m going to do it. I’m going to build into that, I’m going to make sure it happens no matter what.

Micah Shilanski: Amen. Amen. That’d be great. So because this is all about you, right? It’s all about taking action in your life to make you a better advisor, to make you a better spouse, to make you a better parent. This is what this is focused around and masterminds are a key part of that.

Matthew Jarvis: Perfect. Well until next time, happy planning.

Micah Shilanski: Happy planning.

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