Business Mentors Interviewer, Andrew Mason
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Andrew describes himself as a nerd raised by nerds in a corn field!
Connect with Andrew Mason!
Hailing from the state of Delaware. Andrew took his passion for learning to another level when a friend and him decided to start a company based around blogging and WordPress sites. It was his friend who suggested that he start up a podcast for the website, to help build content and a following. Starting out they interviewed the members of their team. Soon the podcast started to reach out and interview people from other companies.
Eventually the company had dissolved, but Andrew wasn’t about to give up on his new found passion of podcasting. The Proguide has allowed Andrew to learn as well as pass the knowledge along to others from successful business mentors. He has had successful business mentors like Guy Kawasaki and John Lee Dumas on the Proguide.
I’m really great that Andrew decided to come be on Dreamers Podcast because he is a really great, down to earth person. He is a great example of finding something that you are good at, and pushing hard to make a great show. Something else, that Andrew shared with me before the interview was that he got to interview John Lee Dumas on his show, Entrepreneur on Fire in Episode 333. I would suggest everyone check out that episode as well, because it was very informative in what it takes to stick something out.
Episode 40
Transcription
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this is the dreamers podcast where
dreamers shared their stories to inspire
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you
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now join host Joe Pardo as he interviews
a dreamer who is living their dreams
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yeah
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ok
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welcome to the dreamers podcast I’m your
host Joe Pardo and today I’m
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interviewing andrew mason who is living
history by interviewing mentors and
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business tech and creativity
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welcome to the show Andrew thanks Joe
thanks for having me I’m honored to be
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here man
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thank you I really appreciate you coming
on the day when we get started by giving
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some background about yourself
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yeah okay so i got into podcasting
probably about four years ago and the
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reason I did that is I had a mentor in
like that really really helped me out
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about I was in kind of a rough place in
life I was a little bit depressed going
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through some tough stuff and he cared
enough to tell me the truth about myself
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and the truth about his perspective in
life and it just pointed me in a really
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healthy direction and from that moment
I’m like you know what there is no shame
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in learning from others
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there’s no shame in and finding out
people that have a different and better
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perspective than u2 and where you are in
life and so I set out to learn from as
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many people as possible about just
different things in business and in
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technology and creativity and I wanted
to have an exclusive coaching session
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with them and they just pass that
information on to to everybody else so
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that they can do what they do better to
that was the canned answer and then the
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where I’m actually from is in Delaware
and Delaware is kind of like it’s the
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strange mixture of redneck and
technological savvy people so you have
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like this kind of rural farmer that like
updates his the the status of like how
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his corn is going on Twitter and and
that that’s that’s really unusual but
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that’s kind of our demographic over here
I’ve been here all my life and i love it
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actually
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and it’s so it’s kind of cool to be in a
spot that isn’t really populated but
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you’re connected to the rest of the
world through technology and so that’s
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that’s a little bit about me
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so what does interviewing mentors mean
to you i think for me it means
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accelerating the pace with which you can
do your life well I think interviewing
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mentors means that they’ve learned from
stuff just from life they’ve learned
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from their mistakes they’ve learned from
their successes
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and being able to hear about what they
have to say can keep you from making
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some of those same mistakes and I mean
let’s face it we’re all only here on
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this earth for so long and I’d hate to
have to waste portions of my life
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relearning stuff that other people have
already gone through and so why not
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stand on the shoulders of other people
who have already done this stuff and so
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I’m surprised that not more people are
interested in that it seems like a lot
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of people really do want to blaze their
own Trail and make their own mistakes
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and I totally get that that’s an
identity thing that in my mind I’m like
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you know what if somebody’s already
written a book about it or told me what
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I need to know about it and you know
sign me up I’m in yeah i mean it totally
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makes sense to learn from what other
people have already experienced I mean
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that’s how i’ve pretty much gone through
life and know as much as I do because I
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take the time to listen and not just
listen to respond to people so what
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would you say inspires you
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I think what inspires me is seeing
somebody who didn’t pushes that edge
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pushes that envelope a little bit
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it seems like there are people out there
that they put it all on the line they
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they push the envelope creatively or by
the amount of just sheer hard work that
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they do or just by thinking a little bit
differently than the crowd and I think
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that’s what makes people stand down in
AC kind of a bell curve of humanity and
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then there’s these people just kind of
on the fringes you know Malcolm Gladwell
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calls them outliers and they seem like
these instant success stories you know
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these just like they’re absolutely
obscure and then they just like rise to
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fame and and you know the world and
MSNBC and Fox News and the entire you
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know every News Network everywhere wants
to know what did you do you know what
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was the one thing that you did but every
single person I’ve ever interviewed has
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told me you know it’s it’s not what we
got one thing we did we can’t even
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answer that question well I mean there
is a series of small decisions that we
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made to be excellent to do the difficult
thing and to do what we know is right
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and be true to ourselves over a long
period of time that’s given us what the
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platform that we have the influence that
we have in the success that we have
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yeah I mean I if I had to pick one thing
i think i would say just doing just
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doing it and learning as I go along
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and get put in the extra hours that
obviously it’s going to take to do
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something because you don’t know it’s
funny Joe that we’re live in a culture
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where we love to to analyze stuff we
love to you know after every sports
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event we spend you know two hours of
analysis about what happened in that
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event and and we’re a culture of
spectators and we almost confused being
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a spectator with actually doing and so
there’s a very few people out there that
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are actually doing and putting in the
hours and the rest of the world’s kinda
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likes to sit at the sideline and
critique what they do is it’s so
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interesting to me that we feel like we
have the ability to make judgment
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decisions on on how other people do when
we’re not doing anything ourselves and
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so there’s that difference between
looking at and observing and doing i’m
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even right now this is the fun part you
and me are talking about this but there
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is a huge difference we both know about
the work that goes into you know
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creating a podcast and building a
platform then there is just talking
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about it and it’s just what you said it
all comes down to execution are you
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willing to do the difficult thing when
you really don’t feel like it
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so how does your dream come about I
think a little more specifically just a
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little bit more background I’d love to
say that you know one day I woke up and
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you know is wide open immediately had
this you know vantage point of me
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podcasting and interviewing leaders but
in reality it came at the suggestion of
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a friend buddy of mine his name is John
saddington and I were talking about just
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different things that we could do in the
technology space and he was really
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really interested in crafting accompany
a different kind of software company
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that the wordpress themes and just
really kind of made a dent in that space
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and he was passionate about blogging and
he saw that I was passionate about
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giving him a hand in helping him with
this but my area of interest was kind of
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more in marketing and more in
communication and he was like you know
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what dude you have a semi okay voice why
don’t you like runner company podcast
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and I said sure that’d be great
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first you know we started interviewing
just each other we actually interviewed
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different members of our team and just
what was happening at the company at
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that time I was called a bit i think
though the website still around even
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company isn’t it was aight bit . I oh
and we just kind of talked about what
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was happening in the company at that
time but then we started widening the
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circle a little bit and interview just
asking other companies and their PR
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sections for you know i do you mind if
we hang out a little bit and just get
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some advice about what you guys do and
that circle just like slowly over time
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became broader and broader and it’s
funny
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one of the things that John taught me
and I’ll never forget this is it never
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hurts to ask
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he’s told me some crazy crazy stories
about how he’d ask for discounts or how
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he did you know look for just different
ways of doing things and just asking
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people who are supposedly in charge
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hey do you mind being on our show you
know you’ve never heard of us there’s no
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reason that you should but you know we’d
love to have you want to just ask you a
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couple of questions and learn from you
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we were so surprised as soon as we
started getting people to say yes so
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after a bit dissolved we kind of took
some of those episodes and and rebranded
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and i turned it into a show called the
programmed and the idea behind that
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title was no meaning professional guide
guiding you along so a lot of people get
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that confused saying that you know do
you think your professional and not
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really i’m just here to learn from them
and not you know I consider them
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professionals and learning from them and
we started getting people like guy
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kawasaki from apple and and David Allen
from getting things done and and all of
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a sudden were like oh my gosh man there
are so many amazing people that are
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ready willing to share their life
experience and I really found out that I
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love learning from people it just became
a passion of mine you know what is that
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one or two nuggets of information that
maybe they haven’t shared with somebody
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else if I asked the exact right question
it might elicit from them just something
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that nobody else has ever heard before I
mean maybe it’s a piece of life
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experience maybe it’s just something
that they’re passionate about a
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different way of looking at something
they’ve already done that could maybe
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uncover some wisdom that they would have
for everybody and i just want to share
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that with the world
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ya know I i could totally understand
it’s interesting because uh I really
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haven’t had the interview chair you know
flipped before and then the person that
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is being interviewed and I find myself
you know even silently critiquing what
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I’m saying you thinking like man I’m
taking so many words to say
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it but I i think people love sharing
what they’re passionate about you you
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hear their heart just as much as you
hear the words and I think that’s
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something that’s important to definitely
so how was your dream received by your
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family members they are very receptive
to it um they they’ve always ipad i
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don’t know if this is the new norm or
not but my family’s been really really
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supportive of just about anything that
I’ve wanted to do
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growing up I wanted to program video
games and I tell the entire world that
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im a nerd raised by nerds which is
really rare but also even rare in a you
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know a cornfield in delaware stop my
parents invested in me so much to to
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help me you know learn or pursue
whatever career path i happen to be
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interested in at the time so originally
it was it was programming and video
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games now working full-time at a
non-profit and i really love that
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because i get to do all the tech stuff
for them but on the side i started you
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know realizing man i really love
learning from people and it’s it’s
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really funny my mom is the first
personal to like or retweet anything
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that actually hurt so even if it’s like
complete utter like you know I should
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never have shared that or was awful or
meaningless or whatever
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my mom is supportive she retweeted or
share it and so even if I if I ever look
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at anything that any kind of a status
update that I’ve seen my parents I mean
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if there’s a number one by it i know
that that’s my mom or dad retweeted me
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so they love me and I i’m so thankful
that pad that kind of a support system
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and i know that a lot of people don’t
have that and i’m super lucky to have
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that yeah you are and and not only that
have that but to have parents that are
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socially aware
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ok so what steps did you take to get
started in terms of pursuing podcasting
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and also pursuing just learning from
people a piece of advice I got from one
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of my mentors that actually haven’t even
had on the show yet he said if this is
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something you want to pursue make sure
it’s something that you really would do
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for free already and and podcasting
absolutely is learning from people
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absolutely is
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I think the way i got started is just
got a microphone and and started
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recording conversations with people i
spent a lot of time really thinking
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about the questions I feel like a
well-crafted
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question could change the direction of
an interview and so I it’s funny my
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personality if you look at it on a disc
profile if you happen to be familiar
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with that I ma sanga are a melancholy
sanguine which means i am a inwardly
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turned out going person which means
there’s like animal inner civil war
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going on all the time
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basically that means i love being in
front of people but I love being well
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scripted as well so this kind of off the
cuff thing where you know you and I are
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talking is is a little bit outside of my
comfort zone i’ll be honest but
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generally i love being able to just
spend some time in solitude and just
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really script out a well-crafted
question that I think that would just
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get that person’s gears turning and get
them the open-ended enough to let them
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just sit there in and and share so
apparently you’re doing that really well
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too because huh
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go on and on i think the original steps
that I took to get started were just
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interviewing as many people as possible
and getting content out there as quickly
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as possible i think a mistake that I
made early on that I would suggest other
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people not to do is don’t over edit
yourself don’t try and make yourself
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sound more polished than you are
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if you have any kind of technical skills
that your tendency will be to want to
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you know take out every single dead
space every single um mrs. speaking that
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you do and although that’s that’s you
know makes you sound more polished it’s
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almost like photoshop for audio penacles
people an unrealistic expectation of
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what you’re capable up
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I mean why not let your floss show
because it’s a real you and you want
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people to like you for you to sew
authenticity i think is a huge thing too
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i tried to spend myself is this really
well polished well-spoken person and
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looking back I don’t think I would have
done that that’s that’s really
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interesting i mean i-i battle with that
all the time with how much i should edit
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a show i mean i’ve spent up to three
hours adding an hour of one show and I
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really want the guests to sound good at
the same time I don’t want to sound
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robotic and I I think for the most part
i I’ve struck a good balance i don’t
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know x times episodes i guess for now I
think there is a line between putting
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your best foot forward which i think is
it you need
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I mean you need to have
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at least some level of Polish to be able
to have your show be listenable I mean
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if you’re just tuning into somebody’s
conversation you know nobody’s getting
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to the point then it almost feels like
you’re not respecting the listeners time
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but at the same time there there is a
line and people can overdo it and and I
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think I was guilty of that or earlier on
so when you do your questions for your
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show do you make them specific to the
person which are interviewing i have a
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couple of framework questions that I
feel like work almost in any case in and
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you you might have heard these questions
some of these questions work with some
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other podcasters that I’ve modeled after
that just you know they’re just good
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questions when you’re asking the person
you know what advice do you have
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somebody who’s just getting started I
mean that’s just a really good question
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no matter who you’re asking but as you
start delving a little bit deeper into
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the area of business or tech or
creativity there there happens to be a
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few like the more specific you get to
that person’s life situation the more
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time you spend studying them so that you
can kind of get the morning gritty at
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the better because if this is a higher
level person to where they they’ve done
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you know 70 interviews already you know
if you ask certain questions you’re
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going to get their canned answer and so
if you already kind of it
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ask a question with their answer
presupposed in it it’ll help you dig a
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little bit deeper and so some people
have just like their elevator pitch of
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what they say and you can start your
question with you know hey I know you
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believe that you know X but tell me a
little bit more about why that is and
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that will give them time to just
presuppose the answer that they usually
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give and then just jump a little bit
deeper
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so are there any roadblocks that you fit
along the way I it’s funny I heard a
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different podcast if you’ve ever
listened to the temperature just came
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out a little while ago I can’t remember
who said it might have been jason silva
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but he had a guest on recently that said
something that really resonated with me
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and he said the obstacle is the way so I
really feel like you know this this
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journey there’s been a lot of roadblocks
but I kind of just considered to be part
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of the path and I guess it depends on
what the end result is you know you
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don’t consider something a roadblock
into you know where you’re actually
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trying to get to an end up fighting for
that with my
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podcast I feel like the pro guide is
almost a running log of all the people
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that I’ve had the fortune of being able
to spend time with and in that that
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sense all the people that have have said
yes to an interview
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there’s not really much of a roadblock
but I think in the in the sense that if
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you’re trying to make this your
full-time job that i would say expect
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maybe a little bit more good planning
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that’s something that was a roadblock
for me that maybe I didn’t do as well
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and I could other people could learn is
take some time and plan your episodes
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well in terms of the release schedule
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I don’t feel like I released as
consistently as I should have or maybe
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as frequently as I should have
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if I were looking to make some sort of
financial gain and off of it because
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advertisers are looking for something
that that they can count on that’s
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consistent and I feel like maybe looking
back that if I had that in my court I’d
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be able to use it to financially support
the program a little bit better but in
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terms of just interviews I don’t really
feel like there were too many roadblocks
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I mean outside of getting a person to
say yes but in my mind getting a person
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to say yes an interview which is kind of
a numbers game you know you know that
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not everybody will say yes but found out
over time as I sent out emails that or
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requests or phone calls that you know
one out of every maybe 12 people would
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say yes and so it became a numbers game
if i send out you know 36 emails that
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maybe i’ll get three interviews you know
that’s great and I never really did that
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in terms of a roadblock and actually I
were some of the failures quarter quote
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proudly you know I got a rejection
letter from dan cathy from chick-fil-a
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and I did all but frame that but I kind
of kept it with me with you know as a
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reminder hey maybe one day I’ll be able
to get get to interview him I’ll you
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know I have that as a sign that you know
you get to interview more and more
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interesting people along the way so I
don’t think so yeah I mean one of the
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people that I wanted to interview was
Leonard Susskind a plumber turn
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I don’t know what we would say
astrophysicist or something to that
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effect he proved Stephen Hawking wrong
about his black hole theories macro okay
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yeah everybody started out as a plumber
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so so what I did was I went and I i
looked up his
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you know I looked them up online to see
if he had contact information apparently
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works for Stanford at the time and his
phone number was right there so I was
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like you know what I was like I’ve only
released like one episode so far but you
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know what I’m gonna call and it was very
kind about shooting me down a lot of
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people that’s our have a lot of it you
request have very gracious ways of
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saying no sometimes I’ll give a
follow-up you know where they say
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they’re too busy right now I’m like well
what about 2015 here 2016 and that has
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turned around maybe one person’s know
just because they assume that you know
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this week or this month so it is worth
you know kind of following up i wouldn’t
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be pushy but I would you know I would go
at go after just a little bit farther
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than just the normal yes or no sometimes
depending on how badly you want the
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interview I guess so can you share a
favorite memory i think one of the most
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fun interviews I’ve gotten to do so far
was David Allen who wrote a book called
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getting things done a while back I was
familiar with his book and read it but I
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didn’t know the type of interviewee he
would be he’s very succinct very type-a
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personality which makes sense if you’ve
read any of his material it always in
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the list season 2 checking things off in
progress and all that I would have asked
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a lot more open-ended questions i think
with him pick a good memory with that
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was after having a really really good
interesting conversation with him i went
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ahead and read his book he had two more
books after that i read it was really
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really good stuff
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honestly I don’t know if I would have
been as interested in the material had
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not have already talked to him and GTD a
kind of adopted as as my way of you know
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clearing tasks and getting stuff done so
we have him on the slate to be another
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guest coming up in later this year i
think in december so I’m really excited
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about doing a follow up with him and and
just thinking of you know is there
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something I could ask this guy that he’s
never been asked before you know I don’t
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know how crazy this sounds
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I’m trying to push the limits of this
metaphor that he’s using two to get
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people to be more productive and ask you
is there a way that he looked at this
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that that maybe I could look at this
little bit differently and ask a
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question that would maybe reveal a new
insight from him and so
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able to have 20 minutes to pick some of
these brain like that dude I’m I’m
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pumped about that
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yeah maybe you could look up his other
interviews and read up on it and listen
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to it and then form a question that
maybe they didn’t go as far you know
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then take that next step I i have
borderline stalker status and a
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restraining order chef but I totally
have and so is there any part of your
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dream that haven’t quite worked out yet
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you know any time that you’re doing
something you love you always look to
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the future about what could be you know
brighter or better picker and and I
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think for me there are a couple of names
of people that i would love to interview
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that I haven’t gotten a chance to yet
just because of the size of the platform
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they have or whatever reason and then
maybe even the financial portion I’d
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love to get to a point where this could
be supported and be a full-time gig you
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know i love to interview people you know
five or seven days a week i think that
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would be fantastic
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some people that come to mind that i
haven’t yet gotten to interview yet
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would be maybe ken blanchard i love his
stuff
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Stephen cubbies son had just his book 7
habits of highly effective people being
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able to interview a son and just kind of
see what his dad was thinking as you
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wrote that book would just be huge for
me and maybe one or two other people but
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yeah there’s definitely a lot of people
I’d still like to interview I don’t feel
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like I’m anywhere near being done yet
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so what are your dreams for the future
look like I feel like maybe five to ten
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years from now I’d like to maybe have a
studio of some sort right now I’m just
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recording yet a mic which I seen your
picture you have which is do this thing
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if you don’t have a getting Mike man
this thing is like probably the best
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bang for your buck but i’d like to go
ahead and invest in some really good
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equipment definitely not necessary for
being able to learn from people but you
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know helps up the the show quality a tad
I’d love to actually interview people
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one-on-one in person you know mostly
interviews that are happening right now
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are you know via skype or telephone
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I’d love to be able to travel from place
to place and just sit down with somebody
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in a coffee shop and just pick their
brain because the reason for that is
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there’s just so much you don’t get even
across skype in terms of body language
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and in terms of just what that person is
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thinking and feeling that I feel like
you can and it comes across the
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interview as well you know there’s just
a report that people get when they’re
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talking together in person that there’s
still a disconnect even their well
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connected online there’s just something
missing for me with with that online
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connection so i’d love to maybe be able
to travel a little bit more and have a
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little bit more equipment but other than
that man i love it
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so is there any last thoughts you’d like
to share something a mentor told me once
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is that life is a marathon and and not a
sprint
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you know I don’t know about you but I
come up with so many different ideas for
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just different stuff that I could do or
try or should try and most of it lasts
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00:23:07,810 –> 00:23:13,30
for about a day or a week and if you
don’t see whatever success that you feel
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like you’re looking for in a short
amount of time
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make sure your paces sustainable make
sure that that the rate at which you’re
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doing stuff is something that you can
continue to do for years because if you
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don’t you’ll burn out and a lot of the
reasons that people haven’t reached
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their goals or their success i feel like
it’s because they tried so hard at a
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unsustainable pace that they burned out
maybe even inches before the goal line
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and so I feel like rhythm
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I feel like a sustainable paces is such
a huge thing and having a balanced life
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I mean and what I mean by balance i
guess a life that you know even though i
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love interviewing people and I love
learning from them that is just one
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aspect of my life I mean I’m so happily
married and I have a great group of
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friends that I spend time with and it’s
just one slice of the pie and don’t get
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00:24:04,840 –> 00:24:08,350
so focused on the slice that you’re
trying to improve that you miss the rest
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of the pie so could you share your
websites with us
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00:24:12,730 –> 00:24:19,60
yeah absolutely right now the site is
called pro guide . I oh and that’s the
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00:24:19,60 –> 00:24:22,90
website it’s a little bit slower in
terms of being updated with the latest
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00:24:22,90 –> 00:24:24,760
podcasts then what’s on itunes
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00:24:24,760 –> 00:24:28,270
so if you want to see the latest and
greatest head over to iTunes and search
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00:24:28,270 –> 00:24:33,490
for the and then space program all one
word and you’ll find it very i’ll have
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00:24:33,490 –> 00:24:37,870
them in the show notes you have a
twitter account or Facebook page thanks
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00:24:37,870 –> 00:24:39,40
for asking
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00:24:39,40 –> 00:24:43,600
I seem to forget to promote myself as
crazy on twitter account is at Andrew J
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Mason and that’s me personally and then
at the pro guide is the show’s twitter
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account which is just kind of constantly
updates with just inspiring quotes or
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thoughts from people that’s a that I’ve
learned from well it’s awesome thank you
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for coming on the show I really
appreciate answer I’d love to have you
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00:24:58,240 –> 00:25:01,750
on again in six months to a year and
we’ll talk and see who you’ve
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00:25:01,750 –> 00:25:05,440
interviewed since then maybe you
captured one of your unicorns Joanne
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00:25:05,440 –> 00:25:09,130
fantastic interview and thank you so
much for having me here man I i just had
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a blast hanging out with you and do I
wish you success man thank you very much
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i really appreciate that
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00:25:14,500 –> 00:25:18,640
well thank you again for coming on the
show my pleasure thank you Joe thank you
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for joining us for this episode of the
dreamers podcast
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follow us on twitter and dreamers
podcast join us on facebook at
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00:25:28,640 –> 00:25:31,640
facebook.com slash dreamers podcast
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00:25:32,530 –> 00:25:36,760
if you or someone you know would like to
be a guest on the dreamers podcast
387
00:25:36,760 –> 00:25:44,770
please send an email to j and j parr .
co this podcast is copyright 2014 by j
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parr . code
