Mastermind Your Way to Success
Brandon Straza, The Success Finder
ABOUT BRANDON:
My sales career started at a young age, hocking sugar mixed with Kool aid packets to my neighborhood friends & classmates…
I spent my high school years cleaning golf clubs, listening to business owners talk about their work. Deep down, I always knew that school wasn’t built for me but, my mom pushed me to have a piece of paper to fall back on.
So – just in case – I worked three jobs, pushed through college, and graduated with a BS in Finance. I continued learning sales directly through Norwest Financial. There, I learned two major lessons: 1.) Accountability and direct sales was something that came naturally. 2.) problem solving was better than offering a customer what I thought they needed.
We built our first company in 2011, partnered with a mortgage bank where I was one of 12 owners. I leveraged my previous relationships to not only grow the insurance company but be apart of the C suite team and Board of Directors. I eventually sold my ownership where the bank was doing over 2 billion a year in lending.
In order to create additional value, I created a platform called The Naked Agent. It allowed me to interview and highlight our referral sources to put them in front of a wider audience. Through this, I learned about the world of podcasting and masterminds. The power of an evergreen platform would allow me to learn more about self education and increase my appreciation of learning other people’s experiences. The Mastermind Effect is a gateway into what the future can hold for anybody willing to experience and lead with the give mentality.
Earlier this year, my team and I have also launched The Success Finder app. The Success Finder is the #1 platform aiming to help knowledge seekers discover the right Coaches, Masterminds, and events that match their desires and level-up their lives. Best part? It's FREE and anyone who's interested can download it from Apple's App Store or Google's Play Store today.
The Success Finder app download link:
https://linktr.ee/thesuccessfinder
Brandon's Websites:
The Success Finder - https://thesuccessfinder.com
The Mastermind Effect podcast - https://podcast.thesuccessfinder.com
Connect with Brandon on Social Media:
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/bstraza
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandonstraza/
Download The Success Finder app on the Apple Store or Google Play Store. It's FREE and you can download the app today. Link here: https://linktr.ee/thesuccessfinder
Coaching a lot of the time…is one on one. Amazing. A Mastermind…equally amazing if it’s the right mastermind…is a group of people and they can be from all different industries and, in fact, I prefer it to be from all different industries…coming together, sharing what’s working for them and using the collective brain power to help move the needle forward.
I prefer a little more of an intimate type of a mastermind….10, 20 people….whoever’s hosting the mastermind has curated the right group, the right mentality of the people there.
You can have two day masterminds which you can say ‘this is an event’ ‘this is a mastermind’
Cole Hatter holds one that’s called Thrive. I would consider it an event because we’ve got over 1000 people, 15-20 speakers, items going on during the day, in the evening…to me an event is whatever happens there, happens there. There’s no continuation of it.
But you can have a 2 day mastermind. I think there are some brilliant ones. Steve Sims holds the Speakeasies and to me, that is mastermindish.
I think it really depends on the person that is curating it and the material that you’re leaning.
There are events..masterminds…that you can go to and they get you all jazzed up, they get you all energized, they motivate you. The problem is they don’t activate you. They don’t give you something that you can leave and work on afterwards getting actual results.
…there was one common theme that we worked on throughout the whole thing. I’ve got… actionable items walking away from this that are for daily implementation. Weekly, monthly, yearly that it’s life changing….Those are the best ones.
You need to start and first find out who is curating it. Look into them. Look at what results, what realm they sit in….I think those are the great ones. They know what lane they’re in, they stay in that lane, they teach in that lane and for when they need the outside sources, they sprinkle in other result leaders, other educators in there that are good in those individual areas.
I’d look into the individual. Who are they learning from?…If whoever is curating the mastermind or is a coach and they do not have a coach, they are not in a mastermind, they are not reinvesting in themselves? That’s my first sign just to walk away.
If there’s not a curriculum…this is what we’re going to be working on and these are the sub items along the way…if they can’t really define what that is? That, to me, is a red flag.
Now, I know I just mentioned a Speakeasy by Steve Sims…Steve has such record of who he brings in, what’s going on…you know what you’re gonna get is good because he’ll tell you ‘Hey, this isn’t for you’. Literally, the man will turn money away, turn people away if this isn’t for you.
Who are they being coached by? What mastermind are they are in? What are you going to learn in it? And are they going to bring in outside sources?
My favorite thing is when they bring in outside…result leaders that can help you. If it’s 3, 6 months and it’s one teacher? It’s really difficult to be able to curate that..quality content to help you move your needle.
I have spent a few thousand dollars plus, plus, plus investing in the wrong ones to know what to look for and to help other people from stepping in that land mine. That’s one of my give mentalities…that’s what we’re building with The Success Finder and what we talk about on the Mastermind Effect, the podcast, is helping you that when you’re going to invest in yourself, you’re investing in the right program, in the right group, in the right mastermind, in the right coach.
They have helped me think differently, see differently, surround myself with different people. They have helped me in the last 2 years move faster than I could have ever have thought….It has also helped me become happier….I’m able to access things differently. I’ve learned if we have a cup and the cup is filled with people in our life, I’ve learned how to remove people respectfully our of that cup. But, here’s the thing, usually when we remove something, we replace it. And we can replace it with something equally as bad if not worse. It’s helped me figure out who to replace into that cup….It’s taught me how to work…better. If I have a problem? Yo! They’ll solve it.
It’s not about the bottom line. The bottom line is a bi-product of actually becoming happier, creating something of purpose.
When I’m researching a mastermind, I’m equally curious as to who’s going to be in that room. Because…I’m probably going to interact with the people in the mastermind more than the one person. If I’m going to something where I don’t get to know who that is, then I have to trust the person at the top…they have to have earned my trust.
I looked at what they were curating, what was it going be about, did it serve me, could it help me and then what was I going to be able to give back?…then I kind of go from there.
The Success Finder came out of a Mastermind….when I was in a room overseas, I saw the problem and I saw where I was lucky….everything’s come up aces, but the probability of that is so low….there’s gotta be a better way. How do we entrust in over a $50Billion dollar a year industry…how do we entrust what we’re gonna get?…What is the intent?…On top of that, do we know that we’re investing in the right person?
The curated content, specifically for the paying people, is in one location. Where the conversations flow are in one location. Where you have your meetings are in one location. Now we’ve got intent….now we know what we’re there for.
If you’re everything to everyone, then you’re nothing because you don’t know where you lie.
The other thing that we wanted was to make sure the coaches, not the thought leaders but the result leaders, the activators not the motivators, how do we know that they’re the right ones? So they go through a process.
When we hear ‘I only have to be one step ahead of the people investing in me’…that’s really scary. Because you’re one step away from blowing yourself up….We want to make sure we curate the right result leaders.
Right now you can search by category and you can search by who the person is. What it’s going to be broken down into as time goes on…it’s going to be where you can search by price point, by category…through the knowledge center if you’re looking for specific subject matter…you’ll be able to find blogs, blogs and videos…then it reverse engineers it…it allows that individual to search however they want.
The coaches only have to manage from one area…You can manage your groups and sub groups and see what’s coming in….it’s easier to manage what’s going on.
To be a member on the platform is free. You only have to pay when you play….you will still be able to utilize the knowledge center for free.
Fro a coach, it’s free…if you’ve been approved. We’re going to have affiliation agreements…but here’s the cool thing with that affiliation. We’re going to hold back a percentage of the proceeds to reinvest in the member.
We’re also going to hold a portion back…where we reinvest in…the Sally’s of the world…
Now we’ve uplifted Sally, her school district…
We even have a thing called ‘Ripple Effect’ that we are still working on….we don’t want it to just be our legacy. We want it to be your legacy. And the next person. And the next person.
Download The Success Finder. Reach out to me on there.
We wanted to give the coaches and area where they can breathe…there has to be an area of intent.
But, you can reach out to me. My name is Brandon Straza. I will reply to anything you have to say on there.
I would first sit there and say, ‘Why do you want to invest in yourself?’ You should. But, what is the purpose?
When you can say that reason, then sit there and start saying…’What is it that’s going to help me move the needle?’
Start dipping you toe in the water. Come over. See who we’ve got on there. Let us help you connect with them. Is this a right fit for you?
I guarantee I could find in your books $100-$1000 for you to invest in yourself….the best investment you’re ever gonna have. Better than the stock market, better than the housing market is the investment in yourself because you can control yourself. You can’t control the other ones.
Find out what you really want to do. Why you want to invest in yourself. Let us help you with that. And we’re gonna take it from there with you.
Never stop learning. Always be a student.
To create a legacy where my son looks back and says ‘Dad did it and that means I have a responsibility to do that same thing.’ And that has a ripple effect to somebody else.
A knife. Cell phone.
thesuccessfinder (app)
Audio : Ariza Music Productions