Getting Flown Out To Washington D.C. By Meta: Not Wasting Opportunities
Host: Isaac Mashman · May 23, 2022 · Episode 104 · 18 minutes
Transcribed from the episode audio and edited to read cleanly: names and terms corrected, grammar fixed, filler words and false starts removed, punctuation added. Words in [brackets] could not be made out with certainty. Wording can differ slightly from what was said; the episode itself is the record.
Hey, what is going on, everybody? Isaac Mashman here, and welcome back to another episode of your favorite podcast, Chase the Vision with Isaac Mashman, the show that is all about helping you become a more capable individual through me sharing my experiences and knowledge in business, life, and personal growth. Before I jump into the subject matter of today's episode, I want to remind you of the fee for listening. This fee is not monetary. It's not going to take too much of your time, but it is something that I would greatly appreciate as we continue to scale and produce high-quality content and things that are going to help you cut time frames.
And that is, if you got any ounce of value from today's episode, you share it with a friend, a business partner, a family member, somebody in your community, somebody else that you think will get just as much value.
So today I want to talk about wasting opportunities. Now, I'm not here to decipher and to break down what opportunities you should go after and what ones you should leave on the table. That would be an excellent conversation for a future episode. But I want to talk about when an opportunity presents itself: are you actually taking advantage of it? This is an opportunity that you should be taking advantage of. Or are you leaving it on the table? Are you just letting it waste away? Are you letting it glide right in front of your face, not even reaching out and saying, hey, let me grab hold of this, let me take advantage of this opportunity?
Now, I want to give an example. A couple of years ago, in 2019, I had the opportunity of going down to Mr. Grant Cardone's 10X Growth Con in Miami, Florida.
There were approximately 30,000 to 35,000 attendees right there. It was pre-COVID, and Grant Cardone was on the way up when it comes to social, before he did Undercover Billionaire, and still the marketer that he is today. It was a fantastic event. Although a lot of people were like, man, it was just a pitch fest, if you read in between the lines of all the pitches and Russell Brunson speaking and selling from stage, there was some pretty good value. But regardless, at this event, we have all of these people, all of these business owners, and even the seats that were on the ground level, on the floor, were probably $25,000, $10,000.
People were spending half of a family member's salary, for me at the time. What my family was making, they were spending on a fucking seat, on a floor seat, so they could get closer to the stage. But it wasn't even about being closer to the stage.
Yeah, that's cool for ego. You go to a concert, you want to get as close as possible. But this was actually about who they were going to be in association with by sitting on the floor, by getting those exclusive seats. [They also had] the tables in front of them where they could take notes. But the thing is, notice I mentioned and implied that these people paid the money so they could be in that caliber and that vicinity, so they could network with other high-caliber people and high earners. There were still 30,000, 34,000 other people that might not have paid $20,000 or $10,000 for a seat, but they did pay money.
They took time out of their lives to go and attend. They bought hotels, they bought Ubers and Lyfts and taxis and rentals, they bought plane tickets to come and be in this place where they could learn and where they could grow. That's why physical events can never be beat, in my opinion.
Physical events will always have a place in my heart, and there's no replacing them, because that physical connection is so important, being able to come up to somebody and shake their hand. So at this event, I'm in the very beginning stages of my journey. I'm in the network marketing business, and I walk away from that event, over the span of three days, with one new contact. I had a couple other contacts that were formulated and created based off of me being in attendance. [He] was also there, and [he] saw my post, but I didn't shake his hand personally. It's funny, because I'm actually going to his wedding later this year in October.
But the thing is, I walked away with one contact, and it's Mr. Barry McQueen, and he's still on Instagram. He's somebody who I stay in contact with, who's also in the public relations business. His work is a little bit different than mine, but I'm still friends with him today and I keep in touch. We've grown together and seen one another's growth, but he's the only person that I really connected with through this event. I had other people that were also in the network marketing business. It was a dream-building experience, but I left so many potential connections on the table. Now, I don't necessarily think I was ready, or that I knew what I could have talked about or how I could introduce myself, and I think because of that, I didn't want to get out of my comfort zone.
But I also believe I wanted to stay in my little clique, stay in my little group of other network marketing buddies that were also at the event taking notes. I'm not saying that you have to step away from the information on the stage, but there were literally dozens and dozens of opportunities over the course of three days where I could have broken out of my shell, broken out of my group, split off and said, guys, I'm going out to see who I can meet. I'm at the event of Grant Cardone, who is famous for saying, who's got my money? I could have said, hey, who's got my money?
Whose connection should I be in? Whose radar should I hop on? I didn't do that. I realized it looking back, and I didn't realize it at the time. Sometime over the past couple of years, I had the thought cross my mind that, man, I left so much opportunity on the table with that. Now, I'm not going to regret it, but I made a promise to myself that whenever I would be in a situation where I could network at scale and I could talk to people, I would not leave that opportunity. What's the point of going to an event, especially a networking event, if you don't network?
That was a wasted opportunity at the time. I got some great things that I can take away from it, but from a networking aspect, it was a wasted opportunity.
So this past week, Monday through Wednesday, May 16th to May 18th, I had the opportunity of being flown out to Washington, D.C. by Meta, previously known as Facebook, the parent company, for Meta Boost Gather, which is their annual conference, or convention, so to speak, where they bring out small business leaders and members of the Facebook Leaders Network, or the network group, to come together and talk and learn and collaborate to understand how they could better use the products. I was fortunate enough to be one of the 500 business leaders who were flown out, representing the state of Florida, because Mashman Ventures is based out of Miami, Florida.
It is a Floridian business, even though I'm not currently living there right now. So we had 500 members, and the crazy thing is, this is how I know that the event was, quote, meant to be. I was actually not one of the original 500 people that were invited. The only reason I was able to come was because somebody lost their spot, and so literally less than a full week before, less than a week, I get this message and it's saying, hey, you're one of the people, somebody dropped off and you're next on the list to go to the event.
I was one of the final people that had the opportunity of going, and I don't know who gave up their spot, but I'm forever going to be grateful to them. So I had a week, and I was like, yeah, I'll make time. I'll make space on the calendar. Don't worry about me. I'll be there. I was racing to get the travel [arrangements], and Meta was gracious enough to pay for my flights, to pay for my hotel, to pay for pretty much all of my meals and all of the drinks, and even transportation. It was nice. It was great. It wasn't the first time that I've ever been flown out and taken care of, so to speak, by [an organization].
That happened back in 2019. But anyways, at this event, I'm going, and as soon as I get to the hotel, I'm getting the room key, I'm checking out.
But prior to that, in the airport, I'm starting to talk to whoever I was sitting next to, as many people as possible. I'm starting to compliment people on their T-shirts or on their shirts. There's this one guy from Chicago visiting Little Rock, and he's going through TSA, and I'm like, nice shirt. It looked like he was going to Hawaii. It wasn't looking like he was going back to Chicago. I'm just talking to random people: hey, are you going to a conference? Because I see somebody who has the little tag, and he was going for a work event and then a training. So I'm breaking out, and I'm just going out and saying, hey, let me talk to these different people.
Let me talk to random strangers to get out of my shell, because given that 98% of my business is online, I'm growing out my personal brand through virtual relationships most of the time.
So when I have that 2% opportunity to go out, I need to make sure that I have the gears oiled and the gears ready to go, so there aren't any hiccups where I'm going to be stuttering or I'm not going to know my sales pitch or I'm not going to know my elevator pitch. Because even if you repeat it a thousand times, you can still kind of trip over yourself. But getting warmed up, it's like if you're going to sing on stage, you're going to warm up your vocal cords. If you're going to speak on stage, then you might go ahead and get your energy, ground yourself in the proper energy. I talked about that a couple episodes ago, on being an effective speaker.
So I'm breaking out of my comfort zone, and then by the time I get to Washington, D.C., I'm talking to the Lyft driver, I'm talking to every person around me. I get to the hotel. I'm cracking jokes. I'm saying, you're giving me the penthouse? It just so happens I get on the 10th floor, which was a nice view. As soon as I'm walking to my hotel room, somebody else, Miss Kate Zickle, comes out and literally almost tackles me to the floor. She's like, hi. I'm like, I'm carrying my bag. I'm like, damn. So this is the energy that we're going to be on. But the thing is, I kept replaying the event in Miami and me not talking to people. Prior to this, up until that point, I was saying to myself, man, every single person is going to know me.
Every single person at that event is going to know who I am. I'm going to break out and talk to as many people as possible. There were 500 people. I didn't talk to 500 at the event, but I definitely talked to dozens, dozens, dozens. [I] got social media accounts, was able to sit in on meetings. There was a client meeting on the day that I was flying out. So I'm just going out. I'm not going to get into all of the minor details. But I knew that I was not going to waste another opportunity. I do not believe that introvertiveness is something that a person is born with.
I don't think that it is nature. I think that it is nurtured. I think that early on, in the early stages of life, the child begins to get nurtured into this introvertiveness, and through a series of events they start to get closed off.
You don't have to agree with me on that. But I knew that at that event, I needed to talk and build and establish the foundations of as many relationships as possible. So by the time I get to the airport on the way back from the event, it's great. I'll probably go into detail, I might do a video talking about my experience in more detail. However, I'm even at the airport, and I get out of the Lyft. They pay for the Lyft. So I'm like, all right, Lyft Lux Black XL SUV, it's nice. The entire point of working is to be able to do that, but I could be rich and I'd still be fine with just taking a normal Lyft and having a conversation, or a normal Uber.
But I was deciding to take the nice Lyft, and I see somebody else getting out of her vehicle, and I could tell that it was like a black SUV, and I thought I recognized her from the event.
She was one of the people that I didn't have the opportunity of meeting with, because it wasn't like it was a weekend conference. It was Monday night and all of Tuesday. That was it. So Wednesday was kind of fair game, where a lot of people were going home, but continuing to network was just an extension of what you were able to do. So she gets out of her vehicle, and she ends up dropping something. I'm like, hey, you were part of the Leaders Network, and it just so happens that I had an airport buddy that I was able to talk to for the next two hours, going through TSA, cracking jokes, and I was able to send her an invoice literally as I was sitting next to her at the airport while she was waiting to board at her gate. And she is now going to become a client.
It was just great conversation. It just so happened that what she needed help with was something that I provide through my public relations [firm], Mashman Ventures. I get home, and then what do I do? I continue connecting with people in the WhatsApp group. I give out my Calendly link. The thing is, I was not going to waste an opportunity. Now, in your own life, in your own situation, in your own business, if you are at an event especially, or if you know that there is an event locally that you might not feel 100% like going to, but you know you should, this is when you need to lean in and say, fuck it, I need to go.
I am going to go. If you choose to stay in your shell, how do you ever expect to break out of it and to get more results?
This goes and speaks to proactivity, which was the last episode, episode 103, talking about being proactive. You have to be proactive. This was a perfect example of me being proactive at the event and making myself known. You have to be able and be comfortable to talk about yourself. Otherwise, what happened to me in Miami will happen to you. Then you'll have the opportunity again to do something, and you'll do literally the same exact thing. Then it'll happen a third and a fourth and a fifth time until you say, you know what? I'm not going to waste opportunities again. It doesn't even have to be about networking and getting to know more people. It could be about creating content. If you travel, I understand that a lot of times we're on vacation.
I don't want to do any work. I don't want to do anything. But you as a creator, a content creator, that's a lifetime commitment, especially if you're growing your personal brand using social media. So you have to take advantage of it: take photos of it, take a video, take a reel, take a short-form vertical video, vlog it, whatever you need to do to be able to leverage that experience. If you're already experiencing it, why wouldn't you want to leverage it and reap the most and get the most out of the benefits? I will say, out of being raised in a family that was in that scarcity mindset of saying, oh, you're at the end of the toothpaste roll, let me get the last little bit of toothpaste out.
I think that that is actually a perfect example of a situation in life. It's like, let me squeeze the last little bit of this opportunity for what I can get. You're not trying to go and say, oh, I want to take it away from everybody else. It's very simply saying, hey, it's given to me. It's a blessing. It's something I've worked for. So let me go ahead and actually get even more benefits from it. There's no way that you can be greedy in that situation. If you're in it, why don't you use it? You take that time to go the extra mile, to do that extra thing.
So if you can get any ounce of value, [what] you need to take away from today's episode of Chase the Vision with Isaac Mashman, I would say, is to stop wasting opportunities when they come your way.
Take advantage of those opportunities, take advantage of those things, because the last thing you want to do is to look back with regret. What I did in Miami didn't really make me regret anything, but that trip definitely opened up my eyes and made me realize that if that happened again and again and again, I would start to regret it. I would start leaving things on the table. Leaving opportunities on the table, there comes a point when that's great, but at the same time, many of these opportunities would actually be worth going after. [You] might not start 25 different businesses, but if you have the opportunity of getting flown out, or get the opportunity to speak, or get the opportunity to attend something complimentary, or even make the investment to attend a networking event or a function or a conference, look, it's just like those people who paid $20,000 to sit on the floor in front of a stage.
It wasn't about being closer to the stage. It was about being closer to the right network, to the right people. So what can you do to get closer to the right people? That's my question to you today, and that's something I want you to start thinking about. As you go through and increase brackets and have conversations with people that are higher level and have more success, don't feel like a stranger to them. Don't feel like they're a god, and don't view them as anything like that. Respect their success. Respect them for what they've accomplished and for who they are and what they've done. But now, see, how can you do business with them? How can you work with them? What can you do to solve their problems and have that conversation and become friends with them?
I would much rather be friends with people who have a similar mindset than with people who have absolutely no concern for business or self-improvement. You've got to break out of your shell and become friends with new people. That's how you grow and hold one another accountable. That was one of the biggest things, and one of the largest things, I missed about network marketing: the association with people that might not know what the fuck they're doing, but at least have the mentality for growth. With that being said, I'll talk to you guys later. Be on the lookout for another episode of Chase the Vision coming this Friday. Much love.