Think Twice Before You Start That Mastermind
Hey.
I’m writing you from my bed at 5:32 am, jet-lagged and ache-y, bulletproof coffee in hand.
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I was going to skip this week, but Little Miss Hasn’t Missed An Email in 7 Years has too much pride for that.
Normally, I write this email on Wednesday. By the end of the day, I have a draft that I can finalize on Thursday. This gives the team a minimum of two full business days to proof, load, and schedule the email before it hits your inbox on Tuesday—morning if you’re part of the subject line test, afternoon if you’re not.
My battery is at 14%, so this’ll be a short one. 
Last week I told myself, “I’ll write the email on the plane.” But, after hosting my mastermind Power for four days in Europe, all I wanted to do on the flight back was take an Ativan, listen to ACOTAR on audio, and play Royal Match for 7 straight hours.
(Not a joke. Candy Crush is but a distant memory, folks. #savetheking)
“I’ll do it on Easter Monday while the kids play Minecraft,” I reasoned. But, by the time Monday came, I was limping around with a seized calf muscle (from my morning runs on the bumpy sandstone in Malta, maybe?), and all I wanted was to lay around reading, snuggle my kids, and drink Horlick’s.
Which brings us here to bulletproof coffee and (now) electrolyte water at 5:52 am.
The title for this email was going to be “masterminds aren’t for everyone.” We’ll see if that works.
Many people think of a program with a 5-figure enrollment fee and go, “Ha! must be nice,” but it’s also more work than anything else I do and more expensive.
By a long shot.
My members get the absolute best of Tarzan.
I’ll jump on a call with them anytime, day or night, if they need it. Thinking about and tending to their needs takes hours each week. Then there’s planning calls and retreats, plus debriefing them with my coach Sophia Apostol, who provides oversight and accountability for my facilitation.
The budget needs an update, I now realize, but support alone is in the neighborhood of $10K, if you include in-person retreat support from my wonderful assistant Zya. I don’t regret one cent. That support is what makes running the program possible.
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The retreats are partially subsidized by the members who pay for accommodations and food, but they’re still very spendy—even before Tarzan goes temporarily insane at the Polo store in Sliema and drops 250 euros on a must-have “Slytherin Polo.” (Yes, that is my house. As a queer, you’d think it would be Hufflepuff, so I felt the need to correct this.)
Even though it’s not nearly the cash-cow people think, running this program is one of the best things I’ve done in the last 12 months. It stretched me in so many ways to be in leadership with these incredibly smart (and very weird) humans.
I’m not the highest earner in the group, I don’t have the most employees or the most business experience.
I do have the biggest email list and I’m the undisputed King of Email (in this group, anyway). I’m also a terrific facilitator, thanks to my work with Sophia.
But running a mastermind isn’t about being the smartest or the best.
Teaching is only one part of the gig; The job is leadership and facilitation.
I don’t recommend running a program like this if it’s only to add a juicy high-ticket offer to your product suite. Scalable lower-cost programs generate more revenue for hours worked, though that requires a healthy email list to be profitable.
End of the day, it’s not one type of offer that makes a business like mine profitable. It’s a range of offers that suit the needs of different types of customers, keeps me engaged and having run, and not running myself ragged (which I am obviously doing – ach! I have 9% left on my battery, it’s 6:23 am, my calf hurts and also there is now a sleeping child’s legs draped across my lap).
But I wish I could show you my camera roll from last week!!
I’m exhausted and also, like, “When can we do this all over again?” I am the level of exhausted I image you’d be after running a marathon. Fckn flat out tired and radiating pride in what I’ve done.
I’ll be enrolling for the next cohort in April and May. The program starts in July, with the first retreat in September, likely somewhere near Toronto.
The focus this year will be growth (specifically audience and list-growth, using low-lift strategies that don’t take more than a few hours a week). But of course, it’s a mastermind, so inevitably, it’s a bit of everything.
Two things to do if you’re interested:
- Click here to add yourself to the waitlist automatically.
- Hit “reply” and say, “Hi, Tarzan. My ears are perked.”
Okay, so much for a short email.
Kids are still sleeping, so I’ll move on to loading this up to ConvertKit since my assistant in the Netherlands doesn’t start until noon.
I take full responsibility for any and all spelling mistakes, broken links, misplaced commas, tagging errors, absentee parentheticals, etc.
Remember, I wrote this one on my phone.
P.S.
A favorite memory from Sleima: the waiter who started a trend by calling me “Sir.”
After that Zya started bringing me coffee in bed every morning and saying, “Your coffee, Sir.”
It made my little gender-bending heart soar.
