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 for names and terms. Wording can differ slightly from what was said; the episode itself is the record.
Hey, what is going on everybody? I'm 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 that 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? And 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 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 to 35,000 attendees right here. 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 Brentson 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 that are spending half of family member salary for me at the time.
my family what they were making, they were spending on a fucking seat, on a floor seat so they can get closer to the stage. And it wasn't even about being closer to the stage.
Yeah, that's cool for ego. You know, 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. Who else have, you know, 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 can network with other high caliber 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. You know, they bought hotels, they bought ubers and lifts and taxis and rentals, they bought plane tickets to come and be in this place to where they could learn and to where they could grow. And 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 work 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. You were also there and they 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 and 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 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 click, stay in my little group of other network marketing, you know, buddies that were also at the event taking notes. And I'm not saying that you have to step away from the information in the stage, but there were literally dozens and dozens of opportunities over the course of three days that I could have broken out of my shell, broken out of my group, split off said guys, I'm going out to see who I can meet, right? And I'm at the event of Grant Cardone who is famous for saying, who's got my money? And I could have said, hey, who's got my money?
Who's, you know, connection? Should I be in? Who's radar? Should I hop on? And I didn't do that. And I realized looking back and I didn't realize it at the time. And sometime over the past couple of years, I had the thought crossed my mind that, man, I left so much opportunity on the table for that. Now, I'm not going to regret it, but I made a promise to myself that whenever I would be in 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 networking event if you don't network?
And 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.
And so this past week, Monday through Wednesday, May 16th to May 18th, I had the opportunity of being flown out to Washington DC 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 to or the network group to come together and talk and learn and collaborate to understand how they could better use the products. And I was fortunate enough to be one of the 500 business leaders who was flown out and 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 the 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. I'm forever going to be grateful for them. And 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. And I was racing to get the traveler, Regiments 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. It was an 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 application 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 who I was sitting next to, I'm starting to talk to it. 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 looks 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 on the, 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 I'm saying, hey, let me talk to these different people.
Let me talk to random strangers to get out of my show because given 98% of my business is online and I'm growing out my personal brand through visit or through virtual, you know, relationships most of the time.
And so when I have that 2% opportunity to go out, I need to make sure that I have, you know, the gears oiled and the gears ready to go to where there aren't any hiccups to I'm going to be stuttering or I'm not, not going to know my sales pitch or I'm not I'm going to know my elevator pitch, you know, because even if you repeat it a thousand times, you know, 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, you know, speak on stage, then you might go ahead and get your energy, right? Ground yourself in the proper energy. I talked about that a couple episodes ago, you know, on being an effective speaker.
And 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. Just so happens I get on the 10th floor, which was a nice view. And 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. And I'm like, you know, I'm carrying my bag. And 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. And prior to this, you know, 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 talk and break out and talk to as many people as possible. And there were 500 people. I didn't talk to 500 at the event, but I definitely talked to dozens, dozens, dozens, dozens, dozens. Got social media accounts, was able to sit on meetings. There's 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 is born with the person.
I don't think that 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.
And 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, might do a video talking about my experience in more detail. However, I'm even at the airport and I get out of the lift. They pay for the lift. So I'm like, all right, lift, lux, black, excel, 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 lift and having a conversation or normal Uber.
But I was deciding to take the nice lift 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.
And it was one of the people that I didn't have the opportunity meaning with because it wasn't like it was a weekend conference. It was Monday night all of Tuesday. And that was it. And so Wednesday was kind of fair game to where a lot of people were going home, but continuing to network was just an extension of what you were able to do. And so she gets out of her vehicle, she ends up dropping something and I'm like, hey, you were part of the leaders network and just so happens that I had an airport buddy that I was able to talk to for the next like two hours going through TSA cracking jokes and was able to send her out an invoice literally as I was sitting next to her at the airport while she was waiting to board her gate, who is now going to become a client.
And it was just great conversation. It just so happened that what she needed to help with was something that I provide through my public relations for a Mashman Ventures. And 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. And if you choose to stand 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 of talking about being proactive. You have to be proactive. And 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. And otherwise, what will happen is like what happened to me in Miami will happen to you. And then you'll have the opportunity again to do something and you'll do literally the same exact thing. And 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.
And it doesn't even have to be about networking and getting to know more people, but it could be about creating content. If you travel, you know, 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. You as a creator, a content creator, that's a lifetime commitment, especially if you're going your personal brand using social media. So you have to take advantage of it, take photos of it, you know, 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. You know, I will say out of the whole, you know, being raised in a, you know, a family that was out in that scarcity mindset of saying, oh, you know, you're at the end of the toothpaste role. 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.
And so if you can get any ounce of value, you need to take away from today's episode of Chase the Vision with Isaac Mashman. I would say to stop wasting opportunities when they come your way.
take advantage of those opportunities, take advantage of those things, because the last thing you wanna do is to look back with regret. And 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. And I would start leaving things on the table. And 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. Might not start 25 different businesses, but if you have the opportunity getting flown out or get the opportunity to speak or get the opportunity to attend something complimentary or even making the investment to attend a networking event or a function or a conference, look, it's just like those people who pay $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 they 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 the people who have absolutely no concern for business or self-improvement or, you know, you gotta break out of your shell and become friends with new people. And 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 is 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.