Interview with 19-Year-Old Entrepreneur Isaac Mashman

Isaac Mashman2:11

And I was going through life and family issues. I was going through a lot of personal issues and reaching a very dark time where I really had no idea what I wanted to do in life. You know, I'm an entrepreneur by nature. But I recently got introduced to being a creator for an app called Lasso. Lasso is an app by Facebook and it's similar to TikTok, right? And I was going to get, I was invited out to VidCon out in Anaheim and VidCon is a big convention for content creators, videographers, filmographers, et cetera, et cetera. And so I was invited out to attend that meeting and I was like, all right, I'll fly out to California, I'll stay there for a couple of days and then I'll fly home and then...

Continue on with my life and that really wasn't that appealing to me and you know not going into too much detail regarding what dark time I was going through quote-unquote, but I was talking to a friend of mine. His name is John. I was like John I really don't know what I am doing. I don't know where I'm going. I kind of want to just tell my family, you know, screw off. I'm going to disappear off the map and you know live my life and He's like Isaac, you know exactly what to do. He's like fly out to California and don't fly home and you see last year I actually went to Bakersfield at the Let's see August of 2018.

So it's actually approaching the one year now. Yeah, yeah, it's awesome. But last time I was on Baker's field, I was originally planning on moving out here, but the plans fall through. It didn't work out as plans. And I made some really great connections and it's kind of funny how I made those connections I sent out a tweet on Twitter and I was like, hey, I'm in California if you're in Cali, like let's link up and a guy, his name is Gabriel. He responded that tweet. He's like what part of California are in and I was like, I'm in Bakersfield. So from there I went out had coffee with him, a minimum out of Barnes and Noble and actually dude I ended up going with him around town.

He introduced me to some of his friends group and they're all local entrepreneurs. You know, they're similar mindsets. They have similar aspirations and I maintained contact with him over the past year, whenever I flew back home to Jacksonville. And so I knew that I had those great connections in Bakersfield. So needless to say, not going into too much, I attend VidCon in Anaheim. I enjoy myself. I make some really great connections, meet some really great people. Have a really great time. I take a Greyhound bus from Anaheim to Los Angeles and then from Los Angeles to Bakersfield. And I've been in Bakersfield for over a month now. And yeah, I won't tell everything right now. I'll let you ask some more questions. Certainly.

Isaac Mashman5:03

Eric, man, if I'm being honest with you, there still is so much uncertainty. You know, I literally, there really is, but going out, you know, of course. Yeah. A couple hundred bucks to my name, I really wasn't sure where I'll be staying, you know, where, you know, how long I could stay at one person's house. I was like, dude, I'm about to go from one couch to the next couch back to the other couch back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And I was like, I knew that it would work out in the end, but, you know, I wasn't sure where I was going to stay in California.

I wasn't sure if I was going to. you know, because I only had a hotel for two nights. And then my flight was, you know, coming up the day, the last day of VidCon, I was like, all right, I got my flight, but I'm not taking my flight. So I literally got the notification on my phone. It's like, your flight is leaving soon. And I was like, I dismissed the notification. I was like, screw that. But man, there was just so incredible. I didn't book my Greyhound ticket. I wasn't sure how long I was going to be in LA, you know, because I was like, I made so many great connections in Los Angeles.

I was like, who knows, man, I could possibly stay at one of these people's houses, you know, and make content with them because we're all, you know, I'm a content creator now. I never expected myself to be a content creator, but that's something that I found myself getting involved with in 2019. That's topic for later on in the podcast, but man, the uncertainty was just It caused a lot of anxiety, but I knew that it would all work out. I've always, you know, I've been the adventurous type. I've traveled by myself a lot just because I'm like, I gotta do what I want to do.

And, you know, I'm a very independent person. I like the company of other people, but at the same exact time, I know that if I was thrown in the wilderness, you know, with a knife and matches in my hand, I would be fine. Like, I could survive by myself and I really wouldn't need the company of other people. But going into Bakersfield, man, I was like, you know what, this is going to work out. And it's funny because this is a story that I haven't said yet. But my actual Greyhound bus taking me from Los Angeles to Bakersfield was delayed by like four or five hours.

So I was supposed to get into Bakersfield at 3.30 in the morning. And my guys were supposed to pick me up and I would stay at one of their houses. My bus didn't pick me up from the Greyhound station until 3.30 in the morning. So I didn't get into Bakersfield around you until like six o'clock in the morning, man. Everyone was asleep and I have my suitcase and I get dropped off in the heart of downtown Bakersfield. And Bakersfield is a big city or not really a big city, but it has about a population of 400,000 people, but it's not like it's not developed. So it's a different culture, different atmosphere, different people.

And I'll be honest, there are some meth heads and some tweezers, man. It was an interesting thing getting in that early in the morning, but I end up walking a mile and a half and you know, they weren't able to pick me up. So I had an Uber to my friend's house and man, just leading up until that point and then staying at my friend's house for a couple of days, I wasn't sure where I would be, how long I would be welcome there. And it just, man, I feel truly blessed to be welcomed into the household and you know, have a roofful for my head with that, you know, level of not knowing where I would be the next day. But it's kind of ironed out. It's worked out much better than I could have ever expected.

Isaac Mashman8:57

And you know, it's it's not easy You know, I I don't know what what specific audience your listening audience has but you know for the whether you're an entrepreneur whether you're going to college or whether you know You're not sure what you know what you're going to do next in life You know that uncertainty you need to welcome that uncertainty you need to welcome getting out of your comfort zone and I'll go ahead and speak about that for a minute, but you know, I was starting to get comfortable in my discomfort You don't have to be in a very uncomfortable situation to be comfortable. You can be in a very comfortable situation to be comfortable rather, excuse me.

You can be in an uncomfortable situation. So I was living and I was dealing with a lot of issues. My environment wasn't that healthy. All these different things. And I'll talk about that later on down the line probably in a couple of years from now. But let's just say it wasn't really a healthy living environment. and I was starting to get comfortable in that. I was like my grandparents were in the middle of a move and they were going to move to a trailer. And me, I'm trying to brand myself as an entrepreneur because I am an entrepreneur, but I'm trying to build a business and help other people make money and make money myself and my mind was just not in the right place.

I'm going to go and live in this trailer and it just it starts to it speaks to mental health to and having that self-awareness to understand how one situation can affect you and You know I was I was really getting comfortable and being average and living in that situation living in that place And I knew that if I if I came back home to Jacksonville I would have been in that same exact environment that I left and that I wanted to get out of so so badly and don't get me wrong my environment here in Bakersfield isn't like it isn't the best because like they can we can obviously you know have Perfect environments, but that's not that's not possible, but there are some things that I would change some things that I wouldn't change But it just really speaks to speaks to having that self-awareness to understand how you react in different environments how different environments affect you And that's what a lot of people don't realize.

A lot of people don't realize the power of peer pressure. They don't realize the power of being in a situation and how that situation can trigger certain emotions or cause you to act differently tomorrow. There are just so many different things that I could talk about regarding this topic, man. So I'm going to prevent my school board from going on too much of a tangent, but it's very exciting.

Isaac Mashman12:58

And you know, just, it's been, let's see, we got on a phone call about a week and a half, two weeks ago now, and we were planning the audio and this podcast episode rather. And man, just within the past two weeks, my North Star quote-unquote or what, like not my actual North Star, but just the things that I want to do and the businesses I'm focusing on, man, I've already had so many different changes just in the past two weeks because... with every single day that passes, I have a better understanding of who I am, a better understanding of what I've already built and what I'm really passionate about.

And you speak about knowing not necessarily exactly where you're going, like the very end all be all, but you know a couple of steps that are going to really help you get to that situation. I like to use the example of like Let's say you're going on a road trip and you let's say your destination is New York City. You start from let's say Lynchburg, Virginia, right? So you you're driving along the road and the weather's fine and then all of a sudden you get hit with fog and the road gets foggy for a matter of 100 miles. You're still going to New York City.

You know you're going to New York City, but you're you might not see directly in front of you for the next 100 miles. Does that make sense? And so and make total stuff. That fog on the road is just a part of the journey. I don't know exactly everything that I'm going to be doing in the next three months. I wanted to be in a penthouse right now making all of this money, all of these people and speaking on stages and fast forward. It hasn't gone that way, but it's helping me understand myself. It's helping me understand other people. It's helping me understand how the things that we expect are going to happen might not always happen in the time that we expect it to happen.

It still will mark my words. Everything will, but it's like. We just have to consistently be putting in the work today in order to get to that point tomorrow and you know on the phone call that we were having I was telling you that You know I have I have a basic understanding of what I want to do You know I have an understanding that I want to help a lot of people I want to live a life of freedom. I want to make a lot of money You know I don't believe that money is you know everything in the world But I believe that what you can do with money and having the freedom to do what you want in life is a very powerful thing and for me That's very appealing.

You know I grew up without having a lot of things you know, compared to what I might have wanted. Let's just say that. You know, I was extremely blessed to have a very hard-working mom, but man, oh, and I could go on so many different tangents, but I'm a shut up.

Isaac Mashman15:30

Yeah, 100%. But I'll let you ask another question.

Isaac Mashman16:59

Very, very true man. And, you know, I'll speak on that for a second myself. I'm the type of guy to where I'm a very analytical guy. I'm a very logical thinker. I like to have a lot of things figured out before I go and actually do it. I also have that adrenaline junkie side of me to where I like the uncertainty, but deep down, I like to know how a situation is going to work out. I like to know how another person is before I talk to them or become friends with them. But growing up, I wanted to do so many different things. And the things that I wanted to do switched.

I want to be an engineer one day and I want it to be a crime scene investigator in the next. That's just an example I'll give you. And I thought that being an entrepreneur, I wouldn't have that issue. I wouldn't have that issue of switching from one thing to another thing to another thing. And man, I've only been involved with entrepreneurship for the past year and a half. I got involved. Or actually two years now, holy crap, it's roughly September. But man, just along my journey, I switched from a clothing brand and then I got involved with network marketing and then I got out of network marketing and now I'm doing social media business but I'm also finding myself doing more coaching work and it's like it varies.

But the great thing about the varying Degree of what we have is just it shows us the opportunities that we are presented it shows us what we can really do and just that there is no one Limiting thing that we can become you know even the person who wants to be an engineer could still go and go to school and be a lawyer You know I'm saying and so many people have a really mindset of like they they feel like they have to be stuck in one field They have to only do one thing and it's like you have to have the self-ornest to know that you can't put your eggs and you know a whole bunch of different baskets But man like Stop doubting your capabilities and embrace the change embrace the uncertainty embrace the you know just overall differences or the Changes that you're going to make man because that's something I've had to realize like I was starting to beat myself up because I was like I want to do this and I want to do this like what the hell am I doing Isaac and I I even this morning I was thinking about this I was like Two weeks ago I was focusing now on social media and now I'm doing coaching.

I was like what the hell is that all part of the journey because we're both young. A lot of us who are listening are probably our age 18, 19, 20 years old, even 25 years old. We have time to figure all this stuff out and I've had to realize I hold myself to such a high degree and such a high standard. If I do not live up to that standard I beat myself up. But beating myself up isn't always the best thing because it triggers negative emotions. But if you use that as a driving factor to get you to a higher place, then there's, you know, there's some positive things that can come out of that.

Isaac Mashman20:48

I'm thinking about it right now and I'm thinking about just how crazy it's going to be for a couple years from now. I'm going to go back and listen to the various podcasts that I've been on in the podcast. I produce myself and I'm going to be like, wow, one podcast I bounced now is like this way and then the next podcast I was entirely getting over this. We're constantly evolving. We're constantly becoming better, right? And I know a couple of times in the past couple of days I've looked myself in the mirror and just been like, what the heck? And just like, what am I doing?

Man we can't expect to have everything figured out and this is something I could speak on of just like myself personally man I would love to have everything figured out but you know a prime example is like I'm going to France next month to To see that I've never I'm in person I'll be living with her and her family for three freaking months, bro If not longer like and there's so much uncertainty and everything that I have going on in life But I'm also realizing that on an external level the people that I'm inspiring to take charge and take change in their own life because what I did I got the opinions of other people.

Don't get me wrong. I went to some people that I trusted very, very highly and looked up to. And I was like, what do you think I should do? And they ultimately told me, follow my heart, make it, take the jump. If you're feeling driven to do it, do it. And so I did. But at the same exact time, we have to look to ourselves for the answers too. What is your heart telling you to do? If you're in a job or you're pursuing a degree, like I tweeted this the other day and I was like, Why would someone go to college to pursue a degree that they don't even like in the end?

You know what I'm saying? It is like I stand with a lot of people do and I was going to go to college and do something that I really didn't even want to do because I was like it's easy. I had no clear direction, but I was like I'm a go for it. But that just shows what society shapes us into becoming. But if you stop and you block out the noise and you block out the filters and you look deep down into what you want to become and what you want to do, disregarding the opinions of the next person, because dude, I'm gonna tell you something, Eric, and I know that you're going to groove me on this and all the listening audience.

All of these people are telling us what we should be doing with their lives when they don't even have their own freaking life figured out. Dude, it's such a profound thought. So why are you going to listen to a person giving you life advice when they don't even have their life figured out? And that's something for me doing coaching, like I do coaching and consulting, right? I do not do life coaching because I do not believe an 19 year old kid should be giving a person advice on how to live life. I can do social media coaching, but I'm not going to tell you how to raise a kid or how to raise a family or do any of those things.

And so many people just... I just don't understand, you know, it's difficult in this day and age, you know, it's social media and I mean I was born and raised around social media, you were as well, so I don't know what it's like to live in a time before the internet, but at the same exact time I recognize just the amount of noise that we are faced with, all the, you know, we get into this box of just opinions, you know, we get on Twitter and we just see opinions thrown around, we get on Instagram and our feeds are made of specific things, it's like the media pushes specific topics on us and it's like...

Isaac Mashman26:44

Absolutely, and it's like, well, for example, man, you know, being an entrepreneur, I've had to, you know, being an entrepreneur and being in the whole self-help thing, there's a difference between being an entrepreneur and being someone who's in the self-help, self-development space, you know, doing a podcast, doing more writing a book, running a book, tweeting specific things and stuff like that. Like you could build a business and be an entrepreneur without ever being in the face of the public. But for me, the way I see it is the more influence I have. The more, you know, not only it's not really about the money, but yes, the more money I'll be able to make based off of the more influence I have, but also the more people I'll be able to reach and the more people I'll be able to inspire.

You know, just with what I have going on, I've had so many people reach out to me and say, thank you, Isaac. Thank you for doing this. Just the other day, man. I had a friend of mine. He called me up and he's like, Isaac, you inspire me with this move to move to California in the next eight months. And I was like, wow, like it's. That's unbelievable to me. And we can't expect other people to necessarily listen to what we have or what we say or what we think because they're living their own life. But again, it circles back to self-awareness. I realize that all of these cliches, successes, a journey, not a destination, or these different things, the cliches have a lot of truth behind them.

Just going back to talking about who you listen to and who you bring in into your life, you know, in entrepreneurship especially. Man, you have to filter out the voices. So why are you going to listen to a hundred different internet gurus or a hundred different mentors or stuff like that? So what I've done is I'll narrow down the people I listen to. So I'll listen to Andy Fressella. I'll listen to Tai Lopez here and there. I'll listen to Grant Cardone, Gary Vee and a select few of other entrepreneurs. But every single person that I listen to has in some way, shape or form the amount of success that I want.

And especially when I was a network marketing man, I'm no longer involved with the industry. I've learned so many different things because of the industry because people I was around, the training that I received. But what I did is I looked at all of the different entrepreneurs and all of the top leaders in the company, the top income producers, and I was like, what is one trait that I can use from them? What is one thing that I can take away? What is one positive quality? and I would disregard the negative. So what I would do is I would look at, you know, what is one thing I can learn from you, what is one thing that I can take away from that person, and I would start implementing it into my own personal life.

You know, and that's not trying to be another person. I was not trying to fake it or anything like that. It's just about what you can do to be better because one person, there's another person out there who has what you want. There's another person out there who has the success that you want. So why are you going to spend 20 years of your life? learning and making the same mistakes that that person made when you could cut that time frame and you know by a tenth and You know have that success in a quarter of the time Yeah, I mean one of my own mentors once told me like My job is to make you better than me.

Isaac Mashman30:30

Yeah, I I'm kind of the same way, but then I think to myself and I put myself in that person's shoes and whenever I first got started, man, I looked highly to a lot of different people. I've messaged Gary Vee before. I've messaged all these different people thanking them out of gratitude and yeah, they might not have responded to me just because they're deans with thousands of other people saying, what man? On a micro scale, just on my own personal life of like being able to help and impact another person, I don't think you and I quite understand the amount of value that we truly are bringing.

It's a very humbling experience, but unless you're in that person's shoes, you really don't know just how much you helped them. And for me, that level of not knowing is something that drives me and pushes me for even more, because I was like, how much impact can I have on this person's life? What can I do to really inspire this person? What can I do to help this person? And going in the future, another reason why I want to have money is because, dude, I would love to be able to give $1,000 to a 17-year-old kid who wants to start a business. You know, I want to be able to donate.

I want to be able to travel to freakin' Africa and build wells everywhere. Like, I want to be able to do whatever I want, whatever I want. And that's not on a selfish level. That's just on, I want to be able to help. I want to be able to serve and I want to be able to do, you know, a whole bunch of these great things. But guess what, Isaac? I'm not going to be able to do that, work in a nine to five job. No disrespect. But I cannot live my life whenever I'm, you know, only making a couple hundred dollars a week. And I have to show up to work every single day and hate my life.

You know, because I'm like... I want to work for myself. I want to do my own things. I want to do great different or great things, man. And I know a lot of people who are listening to this have very similar feels and very similar aspirations. And they're like, I don't know if I should do this. And I'm going to say something real quick. And it's not going to be easy. It's going to be difficult as hell. It's going to, you know, they're going to be nights where you literally hate yourself, you hate life, you hate everyone else. You don't want to talk to anyone.

You don't want to do anything. I've had plenty of those nights over the past couple of months. I'll tell you what. I know that everything's going to work out in the end because there, you know, one thing I've learned is from listening to all these different podcasts, all of these different people have a certain tug. I was listening to a podcast the other day with Jordan Belford and drama, Dr. Rob Deardex cousin. And something he was saying, I always had a little tug on my heart that said I was going to be great. I always knew I was destined for greatness. I always knew I was destined for something else.

And Eric, if I'm being honest with you, I've always had that similar tug. Whether it's a competitive nature in me or it's just me wanting to be something bigger than what I was yesterday or what I am today. you know, you're going to feel a tug on your heart that says you need to do something differently. You need to change your situation. You need to change your friend group. You need to be in a different situation and it won't be easy. Nothing. It won't be easy by any means, but I would much rather have that money and have that freedom or do what I'm passionate about or do what I love than do something I hate and live life, you know, hating life.

I don't want to one of my biggest fears is being on my deathbed, you know, when I'm 80 and looking back with a life of regret of like, I wish I would have done that. Like, dude, imagine We wouldn't be having this conversation if I never moved to California. We would not be having this conversation right now. How different would your life be if you didn't do it? I'm about to go on an entirely different tangent, another rabbit trail, but what if? You know, so many people ask this thing that says, what if, what if it doesn't work out? What if things don't go as planned?

And what you should be asking yourself is what if it works out? What if it goes as planned? What if everything, you know, goes great and goes phenomenally well? It's a matter of perception. It's a matter of perspective. We doubt what we are capable of. You know, we spend so much time on our phones and so much time on social media, you know, scrolling through our feeds, looking through the Explore page. But what if you are, you know, in sales and what if instead of scrolling through your feed and just doing nothing productive, you send a hundred different DMs, you've seen a hundred different messages and you make the most use of your time.

See, we can do all of these different things. We are seriously limiting ourselves. But if you buckle down and just devote 100% of yourself for let's say 30 days for 90 days, I am certain that great things can come about that. And that's what I'm about to do. I'm all announced a challenge right now. Like that's what I'm doing right now. I have less than 40 days to make a bunch of money, to make a lot of things happen. And I'm not talking about just making a lot of money to make a lot of money. But no, I'm literally traveling to France at the end of September.

I have to make a lot of money. It's a do or die situation. I am challenging myself to see what I can do in the next 30 to 40 days if I just go all in and go 100%. It's easier said than done. I mean, I've been in this situation before to where like I'm going to be, you know, achieve this and X amount of time, but man, it just goes back to how bad do you want it and just, you know, are you living your own life or living your life for another person?

Isaac Mashman38:10

You know something I want to touch on too is like content creation isn't isn't an entrepreneurial act like an entrepreneur think. Being an entrepreneur more so speaks about solving an issue building a company building a business or being a brand something like that but when it comes to content creation that's just that's kind of something that the internet's associated with being an entrepreneur you know entrepreneur and it's based on building companies building things. running companies doing those different things. The internet, because of the stay in age, and I was actually thinking about recording a video, which I'll probably do after this podcast, on talking about just the overall internet entrepreneur, because I go scrolling through social media and I have all these different people hitting me with digital marketing agencies and whatnot, and then I go and run it on their profile, and I'm like...

All of their followers are fake. And to me, it just speaks to me. Man, it pisses me off. I'll be honest. I go and I'm like, how are you going to say that you're going to guarantee growth on a person's profile when all you're going to do is put a whole bunch of bots on their profile? That is just so overwhelming to me. And I'm just like the current age of entrepreneurship and just self development because it's like everyone is saying, speaking into existence. Everyone is saying all these different things, all these phrases and cliches and all these motivational quotes. Dude, I'll admit it, I got started.

with a page called the Economy King on Instagram posting motivational quotes because I was like, I'll post this. I'll post these quotes. It resonates with me. It makes sense. I'll grow the page. I'll make money off of merchandise or off of doing shout outs and all these different things. But I quickly realized that it wasn't, that really wasn't what it was about. It was about going and actually growing as an individual. I'm not focused on making the million dollars. I'm focused on being the person worthy of making that million dollars. And we have to remind ourselves of these things. you know, why would you sacrifice your morals and your ethics for a dollar amount?

And that's part of the reason why I got out of network marketing, man, because I was like, I don't, it's not because of the company. It was just some of the different people and some of the different, it wasn't something I really believed in. But if it's something you believe in, then go do it and go chase after it. But it's just like that self awareness is so key. You know, you have the self awareness to understand that you're not going to be the next Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos, but you also have the self awareness to know that, you know, you are able to do what you love.

And then eventually down the road, you know, who knows, you know, lock and change, you might want to do a business. You might want to do these different things, but you all can do a content creation being a creator and being an entrepreneur to, you know, vastly different things. You know me, I got verified on a platform called Lasso, you know, I mentioned it at the beginning of this. I did not plan on really being a creator to that degree. And then from getting verified and meeting all these great people, I was at a party the other day for Lasso creators, man. And it was unbelievable because I'm able to network with these people who are doing content creation in comedy and in sports or in athletics and all these different things and it shows you just the vastness of opportunity that the internet has.

You know, there are people with half a million followers that you've never heard of, but half a million people know who they are. You know what I'm saying? Gary V might have 3.5 million followers on Instagram right now, but there are still 6.5 million people who have never heard of him. It's just wild to think about the day and age we live in and I'm so I feel so blessed because we're having this conversation we connected on social media a couple weeks ago. We didn't ever exist in man. You know the girl I'm going to meet a year ago we didn't know one another existed and here you are and it just shows you how quickly life can change and if you're not willing to embrace that change then you're not living up to your potential. You're not living up to what you could be, what you could experience.

Isaac Mashman41:57

Yeah, I sit out one tweet last year and I was like I'm in California and from there a young hungry person who was open and networking responded and then Dude, I could have been like oh my god. This dude's a creep. I'm not gonna go out and get coffee with him Yeah. Yeah. The whole concept of, oh my God, the people on the internet, I remember when I was younger, my mom used to always tell me the internet is full of pedophiles, bro. Like I remember that all over the time. And I was like, and nowadays, you've heard this, this is becoming an internet meme, but people are like, you know, 20 years ago, we used to say never to talk to strangers or get in a car with a stranger.

And now you have these people who are ordering Ubers for their 14 year old daughters to take them home from school to get in a car. with a person that they've never met. And it's like, dude, people are much better than we make them out to be. Gary Veece talked about this. Gary Veece said, we are functioning as a society, as a civilization. We can't be that bad. If we were that bad, dude, there would be chaos. There wouldn't be no government. There wouldn't be any of these different things. Embrace the time that we're living in. We could be living in a time to where the medieval ages to where you couldn't freak and wash your clothes or go to McDonald's.

Stop complaining. Stop complaining and start doing it. That's something I've had to do. I can't even complain anymore. Like, and if I complain, I'll have the self-awareness to say, what the hell am I complaining about?

Isaac Mashman45:01

God, lead. Getting fired up man at the time we're recording this is almost midnight right now.

Isaac Mashman45:14

It's due So that's part of the reason I'm normally even more high energy than I am right now But I decided to cut caffeine so this is crazy But not man, you're absolutely right and it's difficult to man it goes back to having all this damn noise telling us what we should be telling us who to become, who to listen to and focus so much on freaking politics, man. It's all of this stupid shit. Excuse my language, but I've just like... It's difficult to be consistent. It's difficult to maintain focus. For me personally, man, I'll get focused on one thing and then all of a sudden a couple of days will go by and I'll do something stupid or something won't go as planned and I'll lose all of that focus.

I'll lose that mean like that consistency. That's never been natural to me. Some people are able to go and devote all of their time and all of their focus on one simple thing. I'm not like that. I'm too ADHD for that. I don't know if I have ADHD or what. I don't know if ADHD exists. That's the topic for another topic. But it's like... I'm not able to focus on one thing. So it's about having that self-orchest to recognize that and consistently improve to become better and recognize that you might not be focused right now, but you know what you can do to get focused.

Absolutely. And to start planning and to start doing it, to start implementing. I remember flying out to California, man, I've been out to Cali for over 40 days right now. I believe it's probably been 40. Yeah, right now, 39 days. And I have not accomplished anything that I wanted to accomplish. I've pissed at myself. But I'm like, Isaac, what? Getting pissed at myself, I'm using that to fuel me. But I'm like, this is what I can do and what I can accomplish in the next 40 days. And I have to block out that mental attitude of like yesterday and start focusing on today and stop focusing on my past and start focusing on my present.

And yes, it's great to have a vision of tomorrow. But one thing that I've also recognized is you have to be able to know what you need to do today in order to get to your tomorrow.

Isaac Mashman47:35

You know, personally, I've come to realize I've always held myself to such a very high standard. I can't hop on a podcast and say that I was a struggling student in school. There are a lot of entrepreneurs who said that there are DNF students, Gary B., all these different people. I can't say that. School was easy for me. And part of that was my parenting. I'm blessed. I'm not the smartest dude in existence, but I'm like, I know my things, I know my stuff. I can do anything I put my mind to on a high level. And I completely forgot where I was taking that thought.

Isaac Mashman48:16

Sorry guys, again, I'm blaming the caffeine for that. But I, firstly, I told myself to such a high standard of performance. If I got a B in school, I used to, my parents used to like, bitch at me for getting a B on my report card. So I've always had that high standard mentality programmed in my brain and I've continued that. I could have easily changed that and getting out of high school and be like, you know what, I don't care what my parents did. I don't care about what I was yesterday, but it's about maintaining that high standard of functioning to where it's like, if I know I'm not living up to my potential, then or not living up to my standard or if I'm going down the wrong path, I'll beat myself up.

I will literally, like... Take a baseball bat and like freaking like beat myself upside the head I'm not talking about that like literally like physically don't get me wrong, but mentally What the hell are you doing man? What the hell are you doing? You're a leader. You're something great You know you need to do different you need to do these things differently, but you can't let that That standard get you to the point to where you don't function You know, it's about having a self-awareness of understanding your reactions and what you were doing, man. I've realized that success and entrepreneurship and business and life in general goes back to self-awareness, consistency and gratitude.

Those are some of the biggest things and I don't think they get tossed around so much, but you know, it's about, I've also come to understand that another person has experience and has the knowledge that you need. And I'm not too proud to say that, you know, I got a lot of what I know from other people. You know, I learned about gratitude from Gary V. I learned about how to have a mentality of a leader from Andy Fursella. I'll admit that I've learned a lot of my social media stuff from, you know, from Tai Lopez, that I've learned how to be... you know, a father and come from a low area of life from Garret Cardo.

I'm not too proud or too prideful to admit to those things because I know that those people have what I want. They've been through these different experiences and I know that the best thing that I can do is to learn from their mistakes. And there's nothing wrong with learning from other people. You know, I used to like, I remember playing a video game, man. I used to hate when like when I was super young. This is a memory I haven't even thought about for a while, but when I used to play video games and I was like six or seven on the PlayStation, if I, if I couldn't beat like a boss, and I had to give the controller to my mom, I used to get irritated because I wanted to beat the game myself.

I didn't want help from anyone else. And I got on a phone call with a friend of mine months back and she said that Isaac, you have to realize that there's nothing wrong asking for help. And she was like, Isaac, the people who don't ask for help have a broke mentality. You have to be humble enough to be able to ask for advice, to be able to ask for $15 if you don't have that $15. You have to be able to Ask, but it also goes to you have to be able to give. You have to be able to give advice. You have to be willing to listen.

You have to be willing to help out. You have to be willing to give your time and see what a person is going through from their situation. You know, I know there have been multiple times and multiple instances recently in relationships in my life where I've had to give 100% but I wasn't receiving 100% back. But I have to understand to be able to recognize that person what they're going through. Man this podcast episode we're talking about anything and everything.

Isaac Mashman51:30

So I'm definitely ADHD or something This is yeah, you know what I think I'm I'm looking the same way. I don't think I have ADHD I've never been diagnosed But I've never been focused on one single topic because the way I go is I feel like I want to touch base on everything because that everything that I touch base on someone can get value from

Isaac Mashman52:32

And also the power of perspective, your paradigm, how you perceive a situation is super, super powerful. Are you going to, what if? what if it doesn't work out versus what if it does work out. Your perception and how you perceive your situation, how you perceive your past, how you perceive your situation is key. You know, you can take and have the victim's mentality from your past and from yesterday and perceive it to be a negative thing where you can perceive it to be a positive and say that, you know what, I might have went through and experienced these different things, but they made me who I am today, they made me stronger.

And don't take that as a freaking cliche, but take that as a genuine word of advice of You know, it is important to have a good perception and good understanding of everything in life.

Isaac Mashman53:58

Man, and the thing is too, I used to have this understanding of this thought of like, and it goes back to holding myself to such a high standard, but I used to have this. thought of like, oh, I've reached rock bottom, from here on out, it's going to be freaking great. And then you know what would happen the next day I would go a little bit lower and a little bit lower than the day after that. And I've realized like, dude, I haven't even hit rock bottom right now. I'm like, I'm not speaking anything negative into existence, but man, I know that there's going to be a point in my life in the future that something goes wrong in the family, that some shit happens that I'm going to hit rock bottom.

Because that's to be expected. That's all part of life. But it's not about that point. It's about the positive things. It's about those things that made you stronger. And it's like, yes, you can't change yesterday. You can't change what happened. You can't change what circumstance you were in. But you can change what circumstance you were in today. And those points of rock bottom really bring a high level of self-awareness to people like you and I rather. There are some people who will hit rock bottom and they will stay in rock bottom. But there are other people who go rock bottom and they're like, what the hell am I doing in this place?

Why am I in this pit? Why am I in this hole? And they get motivated as ever to get their asses out, to climb out, to pull themselves out, to dig themselves out, to crawl or freaking just pry themselves out of that hole. And that's what I've been doing, man, for the past couple of years of my life. That's what I've been doing in life in general, man, because I know that I'm destined for something greater.

Isaac Mashman56:26

Just talking on podcasts or producing content. I try my best to steer away from religion and from politics just because I don't see the point of dividing an audience. I mean, I wouldn't follow a person because let's say you're a Democrat. I'm not going to follow you or if you're a Muslim, I'm not going to follow you or any of those different things. I don't believe in that because I believe that we're all human when you break it down and look at the baseboard. We all are human. And I don't believe in like, oh my God, I can't associate myself with you because you don't have the same political viewpoint or the same religious viewpoint.

I'm the exact same way. And so barbaric, bro. But that's topic for another situation behind closed doors. But what I wanted to touch on is when it comes to religion, man, I'm Christian. I'll admit, I'll say I'm Christian. I'm not, I don't openly talk about it a lot because I'm still trying to figure my own faith out. I'm trying to figure myself out. And growing up, being raised, I was raised in a Baptist church from the age of seven on, my mom got remarried to my septet. And I was, you know, I was introduced to church. My grandparents weren't really religious. My mom really wasn't the most religious person, but my, you know, my, my stepdad's parents were.

And so I got introduced to religion and, you know, I'm not, I wasn't, I didn't have it forced down my throat per se, but in a, in a sense, I really didn't have a lot of say over my own beliefs. You know, I had to go to church. That was, that was forced. And, um, Because of that, growing now and being out on my own and being an adult, you know, adulting quote unquote, I'm having to reevaluate certain things in life and certain things that I was taught and see if I, you know, on an individual level, if I agree with it, you know, different aspects, different viewpoints.

It's like, do I really agree with that? Or do I view like more so like this? Same with politics, man. I'm the complete opposite of my parents. You know, I don't associate with either political party because I believe that that life in general should be based around logic for the most part. Emotion is great, but at the same exact time, emotion doesn't pay the bills when it comes to making big decisions. Yeah, great conversation. I'm an independent as well.

Isaac Mashman59:38

Yeah, I think I think I'm an idiot. I'm a bit bombers. Yeah, man I want to have shit figured out I you know, and that's again I'd be I used to beat myself up and I still beat myself up and I will continue to beat myself up over this I already know just because I'm just I'm naturally like sure Yeah, and it keeps me humble it really keeps me humble because I'm like why the hell are you looking at my follower count like So what I have 12,000 followers on Twitter, like what? What does that matter? You know what I'm saying? And it keeps me humble and for that I'm really grateful.

But when it comes to just trying to have life figured out, man, I would love to have life figured out. I would love to know exactly what I would want to have an understanding of exactly what I want in life and who I am. But it's about having that patience and that understanding that you're going to have a better understanding tomorrow and as life goes on. Some people won't. Some people live their entire life without having it figured out. But guys, if you're listening to this podcast and you've gotten to this point, especially where you're an hour in, that shows and that proves to me and Eric and that proves to yourself, that should be an example that you want to change.

You want to know more things about life. You want to continue growing yourself and engaging in self development and figuring life out and figuring things out because there are some people, man, that I have to remind myself that there are people out there who aren't in the self development space, who have never listened to a podcast, who have never read a book, who have never heard of any of these entrepreneurs who have never heard about their passion or figured that out, man, because it's sad to me that society is going to literally do an industry approach literally to where we raise a kid, we throw into school.

and we filtered them through the system. They are told to go to college, they have to take the standardized tests, excuse me. They have to take a certain curriculum based around a certain thing, based around memorization, and then they have to go to college, and they have to go through another couple of years of all that bullshit, and then they have to go and get a job, which is literally the same exact thing as going to school because you wake up at a certain time, you go to school at a certain time, you eat lunch at a certain time, you can only use the bathroom at a certain time, and all these different things, man, and it saddens me.

to think that I could have actually went down that path. And it also saddens me to think that there are people right now who never know the first thing about life and the possibilities, man, because there are so many different things out there for us to take. There's no reason why every single person listening to this can't achieve their goals. Whenever I first got introduced to entrepreneurship, man, I was so ignorant. I was like, I thought that in order to become successful, you had to make a million dollars, you had to be rich. And I realized looking wank now, I didn't know shit. I mean, I still don't know anything.

But looking back then, just progressing, you know, to fast forward a year and a half, two years now, I realized I've grown a lot from that point. And I realized that every single person's definition of success is different. But at the same exact time, I would like to think like... Everyone would like to be able to live freely without having to worry about that paycheck. I don't remember the quite statistic, but just know that there's a very large percentage of Americans who, if they had one medical emergency, they would immediately be put into debt. They might not have over $1,000 in their savings, man. And that scares me.

That scares me to think that something could happen, and I wouldn't be able to have the money to pay for a certain thing, or I would be forced to go down the rabbit hole of debt and never get out. And it speaks to so many different issues in society, so many issues with life. And I tweeted this the other day that I was like, I'm starting to realize that there's a reason why there's a 1%. That 1% is literally, there's a reason why there's a 1% because the other 1% are literally led like sheep. But the great thing is, you're able to break out of the herd.

You don't have to be a sheep. You don't have to be, you know, you don't have to be like the rest. You know, dude, you shouldn't want to be like the rest. You should be yourself. You should be unique. You should be whoever you want to be. And not even speaking to some like, oh my God, you have some crazy beliefs and like you want to identify as a bucket. But like just on a level of like, if you want to go ahead and be an underwater, water basket weaver that that example has been thrown around so many freaking times. I'm sorry for using that.

But if you want to. Or if you want to go ahead and be an artist that focuses on painting unicorns or focuses on painting buildings, then go do it. There's no reason why you can't. Because people are going to want to follow you for being you. And network marketing, man, I'm going back to this. And this is something I'm going to produce or I'm going to be saying in concept for years to come. But one of the reasons that I had issues with it is everyone was programmed to be like the person who was making the most money. You wanted to walk like them, you wanted to talk like them, you wanted to act like them, you wanted to speak like them.

And I just, that never clicked with me because I was like, why the hell am I trying to mimic this person? But they don't even have the results I really want in life. Because I'm looking and striving to be something great that no other person has ever achieved. Because I have different goals, I have different aspirations. I don't want to be Jeff Bezos. But I want to, I might want to have the wealth of Jeff Bezos, but I don't want to have his marriage. You know, he was divorced. I don't want to have that marriage. I don't want to have that aspect of him. So we are never going to be like the next person. We might have similarities, but we will never be 100% like that person. We are ourselves. Absolutely.

Isaac Mashman1:05:57

Absolutely and Eric, man, if I'm being honest with you too, you're reminding me of some things that I really need to hear right now. I never have wanted to come across as a greater than thou or like I know everything and I have everything figured out. I might have come across like that whenever I first started out in entrepreneurship and that was on me. Being in my situation right now and just seeing and having all these different things and all these different new experiences thrown my way and not being in the same environment and not being with the same exact people I was with before, it's like this is reminding me of some different aspects of my life that like, I'm gonna use and I'm gonna implement.

It's one thing to listen to an audio, but it's another thing to actually take notes and to live that audio or to take knowledge or take things from that. It's like reading a book. Some people want to read a book just to say that they've read the book, but they couldn't tell you the first thing about it. you know, are you trying to teach a class or are you trying to really digest and understand it? You know, and I appreciate you for that and for you really given the audience and doing me a breakdown of some of the things I talked to you about and you know, just taking your own knowledge and your own spin on a lot of things.

Isaac Mashman1:09:09

We're going to treat people horribly and Having that you respect having that humility is such an important part of character and something that I've really started to work on too is whenever I message a person whenever I network with a new person whatever I meet a person or just Talk to a connection that I haven't talked to in a minute or just someone who I have been on talking to on a consistent basis is what can I do to help you? What can I do to really bring value to your life? And I felt myself almost going down the wrong path of trying to take too much.

But I realized I had to start giving more. And it's about giving without looking to receive it back. Like if you lend someone $20, don't expect to get that $20 back. Just giving without expectations. There we go. That's the right way of putting it. And you mentioned something too about humility. and about respect. And yes, you have to respect everyone else. You have to respect others for viewpoints based on beliefs, based on what they've done, based on their accomplishments. I have huge respect for Donald Trump. I might not agree with him, but I have respect for what he's built. I have respect for the position he's put himself into.

I might not respect, I might not agree with something that X, Y, and Z person is done, but I'll respect them for who they are. You know what I'm saying? I also speaks about a personal level of respect. You have to respect yourself as well. and so many people go about life without giving himself credit. And that's something I've been starting to think about too, is I try to pride myself in being humble. I try to pride myself in being humble. That's kind of an oxymoron. But I really try my best to stay humble. But at the same time, I've started to realize I have accomplished a good amount of things.

I've been able to do some of the things that I set myself out to do. But that doesn't mean that's going to hold me back from doing something great tomorrow. A lot of people will achieve a certain level of success and stop. And that's a fear of mine because I'm like, you have to respect for what you've been able to accomplish, but you also have to look towards what you're going to do next because that's what keeps you hungry. That's what keeps you going and that's what keeps you motivated.

Isaac Mashman1:12:44

I think that That is that literally gave me shivers like I'm a little bit like I'm a talking I'm a send it to you absolutely I have to have tingles in my face dude because of what you just said because I found myself doing that so many times in myself like with a friend and then like you know a girl for example be like I'm fat I don't like you're skinny like when we're talking about like but at the same exact time I can find myself looking in the mirror and be like I need to work out more like I'm looking fat like I'm looking chubby but I'll do it in more of like a self-deprecating way than like a statement way.

And it's so much easier. It's like, for example, I was given a relationship advice to a friend, and speaking about what I might do in their situation, and then whatever I was experiencing, a very similar issue, I didn't know the first thing of what I would do. I was like, what the hell do I do? How am I able to give advice to another person, but I don't know what to do whenever I'm in that situation? It's a very interesting thing, but it also speaks about how are you able to tell another person to respect themselves when you don't respect yourself? or respect yourself when you don't respect yourself rather, excuse me, I got those mixed up and that's a very, very, very powerful statement and a very powerful story that you have that you just mentioned, man, that's, wow, I know a lot of people listening, definitely that'll be good.

Isaac Mashman1:14:07

Yeah, you're kidding. All right. Hey, this is an hour and a half. I'm 12 right now. I don't know.

Isaac Mashman1:14:45

This is something that I've never heard another person speak on it's just they've never directly stated it the way that I stated it But it's something I've really came up with because it's true why I'm gonna ask you question Why is the alcoholic or why is the person raised by an alcoholic father? Continuing to be an alcoholic. Why do they continue that family curse because that's the only thing they know just Because you know why is the person in poverty going to stay in poverty? That's the only thing they know. Yeah, right. You think about a lot of these things, a lot of these generational curses are passed down from generation to generation.

That's that's speaking on a very big level, but on a small note, it's easy to be comfortable in a toxic relationship and a relationship that's not healthy for you. But that's it's in of itself. It's a discomfort, you know, it causes the comfort. It's not comfortable, but you get comfortable and you get used to you might be living in a certain place. Why do you think a person lives in the same place for 10 years, even though that place is run down? or that apartment complex isn't like the best. You know what I'm saying? Because that's the one thing you know. Because change is difficult.

This moved to California, bro. I wanted a puke. I literally felt sick to my stomach the entire time I was sweating. I had a, you know, I, dude, I had to change my shirt in the airport just because of how like claimed the I was. You know, what I knew that that change was what mattered because that I started to get disc, I started to get comfortable in a very bad situation and I would have continued to stay in that situation. There's a reason. that these things happen to you. There's a reason why we're in these situations. What can we learn from these situations? And it's just like, man, everyone can become successful.

Everyone can become a millionaire. Everyone can do what they want to do in life. I was in VidCon with all these great content creators, man. And I was hanging out with people who have a million plus fans on TikTok that are famous on Instagram and all these different things. And I'm just like, there is normal ass people. They really are. They're normal people. Not everyone, just because someone has a million dollars doesn't mean they're going to be prideful. And if they are prideful, that's not someone that you want to associate yourself with in the first place. You know what I'm saying? But they got to that level of success for a reason.

They got to that level in life. They had to do something in order to get to that point. You can't become successful or become famous if you never produce a piece of content. You know what I'm saying? That speaks to another point of like myself personally, man. You know, I need to produce more content. I need to become and increase my overall personal brand. But if I don't produce any content, how do I expect that to happen? But going back to speaking about being comfortable in your discomfort, it's like, I'm going to use this example that Andy Fursella has. And I'll shout out to Andy Fursella, the MFCO project.

But he said he used to use this example of luck. You know, imagine getting into a swimming pool. When you first get into a swimming pool, it's cold normally. You get in and you're freezing your ass off. You're like, oh my god, you start shaking. But after 10 to 15 minutes, man, you forget that you're even in the pool. They're comfortable. You get used to it. It's true. Or getting into a hot tub, man. You get into the hot tub. You're burning up. But after five to 10 minutes, you're enjoying it. And it's the same exact thing. You know, in your life, in your situation, you know, if you're living in a place you don't like.

At first, you might recognize that it's not good. But after a while, that's the one thing that you That's the only thing you know.

Isaac Mashman1:20:06

Man, Eric, I'm gonna just say this and I'm gonna just say go out and do it.

Isaac Mashman1:20:18

Definitely, I definitely appreciate it, Eric. It's been my pleasure, man. An hour and 20 minutes of nonstop value and nonstop content. Incredible. I really do hope that people, I don't hope, I know, I know that someone out there is going to resonate with the things that we have to say. Absolutely. Mind if I plug my social media real quick not to be that dude please. Yeah, please Wrong and filled like I like to say man. No edits. No cuts. Um, but yeah Same to Eric so much for inviting me on. Thank you guys for listening to this But if you would like to connect with me on social media not to be that guy but shameless plug Follow me on Twitter and Instagram at Isaac Mashman and you can also check out my website Isaac Mashman calm and I'm actually looking to possibly bring Eric on for my own podcast the hustler's choice podcast So who knows we could very well be connecting in the future, but Eric man I appreciate it and I'm gonna go ahead and cut the audio right now, all right?