Let's Bounce Back
Host: Isaac Mashman · February 11, 2020 · Episode 16 · 11 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.
If you are listening to this right now, I just wanted to tell you, thank you. Whether we have personally connected, whether we haven't personally connected, whatever industry you're in, if you're an entrepreneur, if you're a musician, if you're an artist, if your [form] of art is underwater basket weaving, whatever it might be, I don't care. You are appreciated because you're listening to this episode. You're now listening to episode 16 of the Hustler's Choice podcast, and I know for a fact that you're going to enjoy it. In today's episode I discuss how you can bounce back from a loss, and then some ways that you can prevent yourself from getting trapped in the same exact cycle and having things happen over and over again.
I know that you're going to enjoy it, so that being said, I'm going to be quiet and let you get to listening, and make sure to listen all the way through.
It's all love, so I'll see you on the other side. Yo, what is going on, everyone? Isaac Mashman here, and you are now listening to episode 16 of the Hustler's Choice podcast, the podcast whose goal is to get you to take your hustle, your life, and your business to unprecedented levels. Today we are going to be talking about the topic and the subject of bouncing back from a low point. Now, whether or not you want to admit it, I am certain that you have had a time in your life where you've just felt so depressed. You felt low. You're like, "My dream is starting to fade away from me.
I'm not exactly sure what I'm doing. [I've lost] momentum in my business." Whatever it might have been, it's not an easy conversation to have with yourself, to have with other people, and it's not an easy thing to accept.
But face it, guys, we are only human. We are in the process known as life. For all of us entrepreneurs, and for all of you musicians and rappers and artists and people who want more out of life, who want to have the lifestyle of success, who want to have the lifestyle of going out and ordering off the right side of the menu versus the left, going into the store and not purchasing things off of the price tag, for those of you who want to go travel and see the rest of the world, who want to see what's out there to be discovered, you can't do that without momentum, and you can't do that without really, really pushing for your dream and pushing for those desires. I know that it is a struggle sometimes to maintain that focus, to maintain that drive, when you're just feeling down.
There are certain days where you might get up in the morning and you might be like, "I really don't even want to get up. I just want to stay in bed." There are going to be some days where you get up and you feel better than others. It's a process, but it's about [finding] that consistency that really, really matters: being consistent in your actions and being consistent in your purpose and your reason why you're even working in the first place. One of the easiest things that I can say to do, if you're looking to reestablish that momentum and reestablish what you're doing, is not to overthink it.
Over the past couple of months, I've taken a lot of time for myself. I've been in this process of ups and downs and ups and downs and ups and downs.
It's almost felt like a cycle, and it's been super, super annoying. It's been difficult to go through. It's been depressing, mentally. It's been a struggle. But the one thing that I keep reminding myself is that the only way this is ever going to change, the only way that my life will ever change, my situation will change, is if I put in the work, don't overthink it, and just get going. I feel like procrastination and overthinking, overthinking life in general, is the one thing that will really hinder most people from ever achieving success, from ever seeing success. It's unfortunate, because it's something that isn't necessarily easy to overcome but is easy to identify.
When it comes to overcoming something, it takes time, it takes effort, it takes focus. It takes self-awareness. You can have the self-awareness, you can have all the self-awareness in the world to understand why you're not getting the results, but it takes willpower, and it actually takes sheer focus for you to actually follow that self-awareness up with action, which will then result in the change. I want you to go ahead and replay that past 30 seconds one more time to get a really clear view of what I just said. And guys, how do you bounce back? How do you go from having momentum...
...to not having momentum to getting momentum again? And how do you prevent the drop-off from happening again in the future? It's called work. It is honestly called work and consistency. It's called dedication. It's called being firm in your decisions. You know Napoleon Hill, the author of Think and Grow Rich? If you haven't read that, I don't even know why you're listening to my podcast. Definitely go grab Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. He has a chapter in there called Decisions. It is one of the longest chapters, if not the longest chapter, in that entire book, and he talks about and discusses how people of success, men of success, come to decisions quickly, and they very rarely, if ever, change their decision. When I first heard that information, it went right over my head.
I thought that whenever he was talking about decisions, he was actually referencing deciding to go and pursue a certain occupation, and deciding who you're wanting to stay with, or just [decisions] on a much more long-term scale. Like, I was thinking way too big in this specific scenario. Normally it's really good to think big, but in this case it's more so thinking small that will do the do and help you achieve those results that you want. What he speaks about is maintaining your promises to yourself. If you say that you're going to do something, do it. If you say that you're going to fast for 16 hours and then have a window of eight hours of eating, intermittent fasting, maintain that commitment to yourself. If you say you're going to do it, actually do it.
If you say that you're going to get up at five o'clock in the morning and go work out, you maintain that commitment to yourself, and you get up the next day at five o'clock and you go out and work out. Now, saying and promising is much different than actually doing. One of the big issues that I've had in my life, that I've really been combating and really trying to overcome, is maintaining those promises, those self-promises. It's one thing to maintain a promise to another person, but when it comes to maintaining the promises to yourself, we need to treat those just as if we made a promise to another person, another individual.
Because you're afraid of what the other person might think of you if you don't maintain that promise or if you don't keep your word.
You're trying to establish your reputation. Well, it's the same exact thing with yourself: maintaining the promises made to self, maintaining your own reputation in your own mind. Because, you see, consciously it might not seem like a big deal. You might be like, "Ah, one slip-up might not be too big of a deal. If I sleep in today, if I have that cheat meal, it's cool, [no] big deal." Big deal? Wrong. Because what happens over a period of time is your conscious mind starts to establish a pattern in your subconscious mind where you get used to doing something the wrong way. You get used to breaking those promises, and once that habit is established and once that paradigm is established in your mind, then you have to spend a whole bunch of time breaking that.
In the end, you're just going to be repeating those same exact things that you were trying to avoid or you were trying to change in the first place. It's just going to be a repetition until you finally break that cycle and you maintain those commitments. So the best way to establish that willpower and to build yourself back up is keeping the small promises you make to yourself. So start with something small. Say that you are getting up right now to do the dishes. As soon as you have that thought, don't overthink it, don't procrastinate, but get up and go do the dishes. [Same] if you say that you need to do laundry or you need to fold clothes. I imagine that almost all of you have that one chair in your room where all your clothes go and get laid on.
That's kind of a negative thing to have in your life, because it shows that you're unorganized and that you're not actually doing things when you need to be doing them, that something else in your life became an idol over the thing that you needed to do. That's called procrastination. Procrastination is just the... It honestly makes no sense why we procrastinate in the first place, because we're hindering ourselves and holding ourselves back from [reaching] the potential that we really have, from performing and acting with the potential that we have. Procrastination in and of itself is one of the worst things you could ever do and one of the worst habits you could ever establish, because it affects every area of your life.
When it comes to relationships, when it comes to business, when it comes to friendships, when it comes to whatever it is, whatever it is, procrastination can affect it.
So don't let that habit get established. Guys, there are going to be multiple periods in life where we have a lot of momentum and then we fall off. It's not about those times that we go through. We learn from those experiences, obviously, but we don't understand what we're going to learn until months down the road or days later, when you look back and you're like, "Oh, okay, so this is what I learned that I should do or that I shouldn't do. This is how I do it differently next time. This is how I prevent it from happening altogether." That's just a part of life. It's going to be a cycle.
It's going to be a cycle. But it's about becoming better and actually breaking through that cycle; that is what's important. And guys, don't be so held back and focused on yesterday, and focused on the things that you didn't accomplish, that you feel overwhelmed. You beat yourself up and you just get in the wrong energy. You get in the wrong state of mind by focusing too much on yesterday.
We can't change what we didn't do. We can't change what we did. We can't change yesterday. What we can do is influence today. We can determine what we do today, and that will influence our tomorrow and really shape our lives into what we want out of life. Every person's definition of success is different, but ultimately it has to do with potential. It has to do with pursuing dreams. It has to do with pursuing and becoming the person, the individual, the father, the mentor, the brother, the son, whatever it might be, that we've always wanted to become. Every single person who's listening to this has that potential, has that capability of becoming that individual. It's about controlling yourself, controlling your mind and controlling your willpower, which will result in you actually becoming that person you want to become.
I know that you [have it in you], guys. The process isn't easy, but big deal, we can overcome that, and we're stronger because of it. So guys, keep focused, keep your eyes forward, keep hustling, and always remember: success before rest. You have just finished listening to episode 16 of the Hustler's Choice podcast. If you liked this episode, make sure to share it with a friend, and follow me on social media @isaacmashman and go to isaacmashman.com. With that being said, guys, keep crushing it, and talk soon.