You are probably here because you want to make “passive” income.
In this post I describe my experiences with the SPI* membership which I joined for the same reason 7 months ago. The goal is to help you understand what exactly you will get if you join.
!Disclosure: In this post there are partner(affiliate) links for signing up to SPI, which will provide me with a commission if you do. This means I may be biased. Although I try to remain as authentic as I manage throughout this post.
Uncertainty May Lead to Work Without Rewards
The hard thing about content creation is that I’ve basically been working for free for the last 6 years, and I don’t know when, if ever, I’ll get a reward.
In contrast to, say, working as a delivery guy where I knew that a delivery brings 5$+- from day 1.
No Guarantees, But Higher Chances
Which is why I’ve been constantly looking for the guidance of someone who did it to follow his example.
Although no-one guarantees that if I join this or that membership, even with the greatest guide, I think it raises my chances. Because following the advice of someone who is earning “passive” income may very well rub off on me and I may catch some of it. 🙂
Why I trusted Pat
1) Pat Flynn is a guy who made millions of dollars on the web across the 17 years of being in the business.
2) One feature that differentiated him from other authorities in the field is that he used to make detailed income reports on his website, showing exactly how much he made every month and from certain products. I kept that in mind when I joined, even though I didn’t look through the reports recently or maybe ever at that point.
3) I think that just consuming some of his content and his 3 books is what actually sealed the deal.
Eventually all those made me feel he was transparent and trustworthy.
Why not just get a book?
Well, I did get his books, all three of them. And I did get value from each. But, the thing is that the books are written for a big amount of people and I wanted a more personal touch.
Without personal guidance progress is delayed
Today there’s a boatload of knowledge on the web. We may get whole books at 5$, but figuring out exactly which books are worthwhile and which principles to apply from the books that will be most effective takes a lot of trial and error, which takes time. And time is extremely valuable because making passive income in a year or five years may mean the difference between achieving your life’s goals or not.
Current technologies do not produce time
Also, it is as of now not in our technology’s capabilities to generate more time. But money may be generated in great amounts if we find the right way.
Here’s one way in which I got “personal touch” when I joined the community.
Office Hours with Pat Flynn
Bi-weekly coaching sessions
Office hours is where you may ask Pat your personal questions, according to what most interests you. For accelerate members it happens every two weeks.
What makes Pat Qualified?
Besides what I already said about him being in business for 17 years, making income reports and being an author of 3 books(4th launching in June 25), he also interviewed a boatload of influential people on his podcast.
Your questions in written form
To set your expectations straight, you ask the questions in written format, and Pat answers live on video.
You don’t go live on camera. That said there’s still a chat and you may clarify what you meant and interact live.
How does it compare to video form questions?
The advantages of text over video are (In relation to my experience as a Bulldog Mindset member):
1. You are forced to better form your question and it comes out more “baked”.
2. Pat has more control over the speed of the answers and can answer more questions, which means that you can ask more questions.
The disadvantages of text under video are:
1. It feels a bit less personal than really being face-to-face
2. Some emotions are not transferred through text
Pat Explains Why Text
I asked Pat on Live-Stream why he chose to do it with text. Here’s the answer:
*Posted after receiving Pat’s permission
Pat encourages multiple questions on stream
It’s important to mention that Pat encourages multiple questions, when someone says “sorry for asking so much” or “last question promise” he says: “Don’t be, that’s what we’re here for.” Or something to the likes.
3 Things I changed as a result of the office hours
I assume I attended more than 10 of those sessions as of now. Here are 3 things I applied as a result that come top of mind:
1. I have taken up the YouTube from Scratch course in the membership, whereas without the office hours I wouldn’t have known if it is recommended for my point in the journey.
2. I changed the format of my videos from complete book summaries to chapter summaries to increase the frequency of delivery.
3. I listened to books that Pat suggested on stream: Ali Abdaal’s Feel Good Productivity, Dan Martell’s Buy Back Your Time
Masterminds
THE reason I was seeking a membership
I think THE reason that I was consistently in search for a membership is because I was looking to fulfill the instructions of Napoleon Hill in his book Think and Grow Rich which presents a Mastermind as an ESSENTIAL to wealth. Here’s a small part of the instruction.
"You must have the advantage of the experience, education, native ability and imagination of other minds. This is in harmony with the methods followed by every person who has accumulated a great fortune."
It took me 8 years to find
I read this book 8 years ago, and since then I was repeating this set of instructions and others on and off. But have not managed to find a Mastermind until a few months ago.
What is a Mastermind?
A “mastermind” is a group of people with whom each member shares his life goals and creates practical plans to actually follow through and achieve those goals.
4 Memberships I considered as partial masterminds
Since it was very difficult to find a real mastermind, I started looking for an alternative.
I mean, the essence of the previous quote says that it is essential to have the co-operation of other minds, so I figured I could be fulfilling part of the benefits of a mastermind by consuming courses or chatting with people who know a thing or two in my field.
Here are 4 of the alternatives I joined(1)/considered(3) towards that end to inform you of the possibilities, with 1 line describing each.
1. Bulldog Mindset with John Sonmez.
Centered on Mindset, Women, Fitness and Wealth. (I was a member 20 months, 997$/Year today)
2. Channel Jumpstart by Derral Eves –
A 3-month concentrated course for YouTube creators (5,000$ for 3 months is not my budget though)
3. Part-Time YouTuber Academy by Ali Abdaal –
Ali has a book – “Feel Good Productivity”, which Pat mentioned on stream. YouTube Centered. (995$/Year)
4. Creator Now by Airrack –
Led by a YouTuber with 16m followers as of today, and has a friendly Price tag (150$/Year)
If you’d be interested in an elaborated post about the alternatives, let me know by mail.
How I found a mastermind within SPI
I needed to Work
It was NOT an obvious and simple setup when I joined.
First, I published an Introduction post and a Mastermind searching post, then I went to networking events.
I found 2 one-on-one masterminds for a short period, had a matching conversation one-on-one that didn’t continue with two more people, and only then became aware that there are facilitated masterminds which are led by David Masnato within the community, which led to me joining the current mastermind 3 months ago.
Today it is much simpler
Today there’s a “Mastermind Directory” for the Accelerate tier too(More on tiers later). It looks like this:
This allows you to view the existing masterminds that accept new members and contact David to introduce you to each other. (Currently there are 3 masterminds accepting new members)
It took me 8 years~ to find one, and you, after reading this post, may find one just as simple as that.
Why is a mastermind so important to me?
What is extremely valuable about such a group of people is explained by the following quote:
“TELL THE WORLD WHAT YOU INTEND TO DO, BUT FIRST SHOW IT. This is the equivalent of saying deeds, and not words, are what count most.”
I’ve been following this quote for a long time and, as a result, I basically talk to almost no-one about my goals and keep them to myself.
But, in contrast to most people, a mastermind is a relatively safe environment of ambitious people with whom, for once, the exact purpose is to share your not completely formed goals, and who may actually think with you how to get to those goals. Without having to worry that they’ll put obstacles in your wheels.
5 Results The Mastermind Helped Me Achieve
Since I joined the mastermind 3 months ago, I made the following progress:
1. Additional focus tracking – Although I was tracking how I use my time, I felt it was not detailed enough, so I started “tracking my time tracking” and sharing it with the mastermind.
2. Daily output goals – On top of a goal of how many hours I input, I started writing what product do I want to have in this time period and share it with the mastermind (Review 4 paragraphs/Publish blog post/Contact 5 editors, etc.)
3. Searching for a video editor – Contacting over 50 editors(Estimate, as Fiverr only stores 30 conversations, so I didn’t confirm it was over 50) and getting four project samples
4. Collaborating with a video editor – Finally actually paying an editor and producing the first video together
5. Creating 3 content piece blueprints in +- 3 weeks – Through reducing the workload of the video-editing work itself, and the
added accountability of point “2.” I managed to prepare 3 blog posts and 3 scripts with voiceovers for potential editors in 3 weeks, whereas my publishing rhythm is 1 a month previously. They weren’t published yet, but there’s big potential in this!
!Disclosure – This is an affiliate link.
Comprehensive resources at your fingertips
Specific Knowledge to your platform
SPI has specific courses for the following platforms:
– Podcasts
– Email
– YouTube
– Websites(A mini course of 5 units)
and a few universal/general ones for affiliate marketing, webinars, courses and communities
I doubted the usefulness of the courses
When I was just starting with SPI I didn’t know if any of the courses would be of help to me.
You may be thinking something similar.
For example, YouTube from Scratch was saying that it is for beginners and I didn’t want to have a whole course telling me how to open a YouTube account.
Podcasting is irrelevant to me.
Smart from Scratch is also aimed at people who are just starting out, but I already have quite a good idea of what I’m doing – Marketing book summaries, and I didn’t need to do market research. By the way – The book Will it Fly of Pat Flynn is all about market research if you’re at that phase.
Then there was Email Marketing Magic which was the only course I was pretty sure I would take. If it was for this alone, I wasn’t sure the membership was going to be worth it, because again, I didn’t know whether the content is worthwhile.
One more is the Heroic Marketing courses that focus on building a course, again not something I was thinking of at the point of signing up.
Because of all that doubt, I do not think the courses were the main thing that triggered me to join.
And, it reinforces my assumption that it was probably trust.
Bonus Features Are Important, But Trust more
I mean, even though I was unsure regarding
1. Whether all the courses will help or not
2. Whether the social platform was worth it and
3. Whether the office hours were really included in the tier I was joining – All Access Pass
I eventually decided to join because, as I explained before, I trusted Pat.
From there, once I saw his confidence in the value of the community it was enough. (Coupled with joining for a quarter to reduce risk, instead of a year)
Building the courses required effort
It also seemed the courses required a lot of effort(By looking at their table of contents[!Disclosure: Affiliate link]), which raised the probability of effectiveness, or so I was convincing myself.
A very brief aside back to masterminds
I’ve been looking for a mastermind since the stone age, I kid you not. Just to illustrate, my first “mastermind” in the form of 1-on-1 calls with a real person (not membership) was in the end of 2021 with a YouTuber I looked up to.
The membership is constantly updated
The community seems to constantly be updated. For example, during my 7 month membership:
-The tiers changed from All Access and Pro to Start, Accelerate and Thrive.
-Weekly office hours became bi-weekly for accelerate
-A mastermind directory was published
-Recently a point system was added (gamification) of the community
And those are just a few changes that come top of mind and that I noticed. So whether the changes are for good or for worse, what is certain is that currently the community is not neglected 🙂
Testimonials
This post
Even though we humans tend to justify our choices to avoid feeling regret.
And even though I offer an affiliate link at the end of this post
For what it’s worth my own is a testimonial too, since I’m a paying customer after all, for 7 months already.
On the community sales page
But if you want to see a few more, there are a few on the SPI community sales page [!Disclosure: Affiliate link]. Take into account that as of the nature of things a sales page only contains the most glorious ones, and not the negative ones of course.
Tailored experiences for every stage
As stated earlier, there are 3 Tiers in the community. Each provides access to different features.
Below are their costs and the main differences(as of 18th May 2025).
For more elaborated information you may visit the sales page.
Below are their costs and the main differences(as of 18th May 2025).
For more elaborated information you may visit the sales page.
Start
Price: 49$/mo paid quarterly.
Difference from others: Gives you access to all the courses but without masterminds and office hours.
Number of members: Since this tier is new, it has the least members. I counted 80.
compared to about 280 of thrive, which I counted in the last post, and the other 4,000 or so of accelerate, which are the older memberships that were SPI pro and All-Access Pass accordingly.
Accelerate
Price: 99$/mo paid quarterly.
Difference from others: It has all of start’s features + masterminds and office hours bi-weekly among other things.
Number of members: The largest, around 4,000.
Thrive
Price: 149$/mo paid quarterly.
Difference from others: It has all of Accelerate’s features plus masterminds weekly among other things.
It is application based for established business owners, I wasn’t accepted when it was still SPI Pro.
Community powered accountability
We already talked about masterminds, but SPI also has a sort of social platform like Facebook which helps keep us accountable, get updated on progress in other people’s content and feel “less alone” as a result. All tiers are on 1 platform, so Start members can see Thrive member’s posts and vice versa.
Honestly though, I haven’t used the “Conversation” spaces much. I did as a part of quests, accelerators and events. But almost no chat for chat’s sake.
Monthly quests
The monthly quests are 5 bite-sized daily “missions” shared in the community at the end of each month.
I only found out about these quests after joining, so it’s a nice bonus but probably not THE reason to join.
So far I participated in 3. The first one made the most impact. The last two a bit less. Here are the details:
February Quest - Mindset & Momentum
This quest made the most impact. It got me to make progress on three matters I’ve been procrastinating:
1. Hiring a video editor
2. Researching dish-washers
3. Re-writing an updated content production system (S.O.P.) as explained in The E-Myth Revisited (4:53 5:50)
Even though the only one I brought to a close was hiring a video editor, I took some steps on all 3.
March Quest - The Power of Storytelling
Every day we were encouraged to take action on specific tasks to help us shape stories.
The last day was where we wrote a story for a short-format platform. But since I currently don’t publish on those I didn’t end up publishing it.
April Quest - Content Planning
It started by analyzing which platform and content perform best for us, then outlining the content themes, and then – my nemesis again, asked to publish and analyze performance. Which is where I got stuck again because my publishing frequency is a lot slower and I make long form content(Excuses?).
Accelerators
I attended just one Accelerator of 7 weeks of the course YouTube from Scratch, here’s how it was.
Going through a Course Simultaneously with Others
The point of the accelerator is to feel accountability and be a part of a group, which helps you finish a certain SPI course faster than if you would do it alone.
As a part of promoting this sense of “community”, there were:
1. A kick-off networking event – Meeting the other participants on video, and
2. A community “Space” (sort of like a Facebook group). The only time I personally used it though was for the mandatory check-ins… Which are…
Mandatory check ins
A once-weekly task where we’re required to update the others regarding our status in the process. Even if it is just saying that we’re falling behind. So long as we reply. If we don’t do this within 3 days we’re to be excluded from the accelerator space.
Events & Weekly live sessions (Were they qualified?)
Weekly live sessions with people who are “experts” on the subjects of the course so to speak.
Although I didn’t always understand whether these people were really qualified to take advice from.
I wasn’t sure they are where I want to be like Pat is.
Out of the 6 speakers some had a low subscriber count, others weren’t at all active on their channel.
However at least a half were clearly obviously an authority.
The speakers were:
Caleb Wojkic
Jackie Bernardi
Amalia May Valle
David Altizer
Pat Flynn
Jerry Potter
Events
The “events” of the community, if we exclude the regular office hours and accelerators, are workshops or interviews with influencers. In my experience they include Pat as the host and take place live. I have attended two workshops thus far:
1. A yearly goals planning workshop.
My takeaways: Setting a habit of searching for a real estate asset investment as I was going out to absorb some sun.
2. A storytelling workshop where Pat had shown some frameworks on how he tells stories.
Takeaways: Reinforcement of the importance of storytelling. Although I didn’t physically apply something in the content for now (at least not something I can clearly link to the workshop).
Proven pathway to success
3-Step (Clear?) Process
One of the sales-page benefits says we are presented with a simple 3-step clear path to passive income.
1. Choosing a niche and target audience
2. Picking a platform and attracting followers
3. Building an email list and making your audience an offer
I’ll be honest, this is a little bit like saying: All you need to get to Mars is
1. Study physics
2. Pass rigorous physical training
3. Fly there on a spaceship
While it is true, it doesn’t really make the process simpler 😉
I risked my money, but you don't have to.
One of the things that eventually drove me to take action is that I knew that without guidance I may be wasting lots of time every day that passes. But, that alone wasn’t enough, because it took me months to take action. I was so afraid to spend money on something possibly useless that I wrote an email to SPI asking if they would provide some sort of trial or guarantee so I could try it out
But they denied. However today a 30-day money-back guarantee is something they do offer.
So granted, it is a pain to request money-back if you don’t like something, but probably less of a pain than losing 300$, at least for me.
Have any questions?
Reach out to me at yan@improvementor.blog and I would love to answer any question you have whatsoever!
!Disclosure – This is an affiliate link.
Decided to join? Shoot me a DM in the community! You may find me as Yan Raychuk.
Cheers!
P.S. If you still do not feel ready
If you’re still doubting whether the membership is right to invest your time and money, as I said earlier, one of the things that helped me get to know Pat better is reading his three books. Maybe it’s something that may help you too. I only included my affiliate link for Superfans, since it’s the only one I reviewed here on the blog. It does not serve as a recommendation, since your experience may vary. But you can check out my conclusions and decide accordingly.
There’s also a 4th one coming up soon, which I didn’t read. I thought I’d let you know, in case you like the first three.
This post was created in the process of test-performing the exercises of the 8th Summary post of the book 7 Steps to Freedom by Ben Suarez