We're All Playing Too Small

0:00

Yo, what is going on, everybody? Isaac Mashman here. You are now listening to another episode of your favorite podcast, Chase the Vision with Isaac Mashman. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you so much for tuning in. If this is your first time ever listening to this show, I want to tell you why you're going to love this and why you're in the right place, on the right podcast, at the right time. It is because this show is about getting you to live without limitations and recognize the potential you have. I'm not some spiritual guru or any of that who's going to talk about the law of attraction nonstop for three hours straight. No, but the fact of the matter is, guys, we have one life to live, and we have to make this life seriously count.

0:40

If all of these people for the past several thousand years have been able to have massive success (I'm talking about pharaohs, I'm talking Thomas Edison, the Wright brothers, the presidents, all the people who have shaped the world that we live in), and if these people have been able to achieve these levels of success without the technology we have, then we are just playing way too small. So this show is all about getting you to understand that aspect and to actually give you the tools and give you the keys, whether that is related to lifestyle, business, mindset, or even music (for those of you who are artists and musicians, I have a focus in the music industry), to get you to chase after your vision, to give you the keys. You have the keys after listening to this, so unlock the door.

1:23

So guys, before I go and talk about what I'm going to be talking about today (actually, I already mentioned it briefly), I would like to ask a favor of you. Yes, I am asking for something. Every single episode I do this at the very beginning, and that is basically an inquiry for you to share the show. As simple as that. My goal is to give you value, so if you get value, if that value is received, share this with a friend, share this with a family member, a business partner, a wife, a husband, whoever it might be in your life. Post on social media, tag me in it, and tell the people what you learned. Tell the people why they should listen to this podcast. That is the number one way that we are going to grow.

2:02

This show's numbers are going to grow, and we can all be happy. It's honestly a win-win situation, guys. So today, I'm kind of frustrated, to be honest. I've already recorded two episodes today, and I'm about to record a third episode of the [Lincoln Girl] podcast with my good buddy Eric Chow in about an hour and a half. I've just been in this frequency lately of understanding how the world is functioning and how the world operates, and I've come to the realization that people play too small. We have two different narratives going on right now. Actually, we have three different narratives going on in social media and the world.

The first narrative is go to school, get a job, work your entire life. That's the narrative that's been talked about for the past 50, 60, 100 years, since the industrial era, the era of the Rockefellers and the Carnegies, when everything started moving to factories and moving to corporate. That is the one narrative that we have.

2:59

The second narrative is go and do stuff that makes you happy. Pursue something that you're passionate about, that you're happy about. It doesn't matter how much you make each year, as long as what you're doing makes you happy. Then the third narrative is go big or go home. It's basically everybody on Instagram trying to flex Lamborghinis and flex designer and flex money and say that they're making a whole bunch of cash, so that they're able to sell you this course that's going to make you a millionaire overnight. Then you have these rappers who are rapping about the lifestyle. Rap is the number one genre in the world right now, the number one genre of music, and if you listen to the lyrics, most of the lyrics talk about money. They talk about drugs.

4:26

So that's the one narrative. The other narrative has everybody telling you to be happy, do what you love. Yes, that is great, and the money can come with that. But at the same time, if you're doing what you love and you're only making $30,000 a year, you cannot afford medical expenses or medical bills if one emergency happens per year, or you can't afford to live in the house you actually want to live in. Then regardless of you being happy, you're not truthfully as happy as you want to be. So it's like we have all these different narratives that are going around, and I'm recognizing that the one narrative that is actually true and the one narrative that will make the most sense for everybody is to play very, very, very big. I think that we have all, myself included, been playing way too small.

5:08

The reason I say that is because we are creatures with unlimited opportunity, unlimited potential. We are only going to be on this earth one time, and we're so focused on what everybody else is telling us and what everybody else thinks. "Oh, this guy's [mean], he's money hungry, so he's narcissistic or egotistical or he's an asshole. The rich are mean, the rich are this, the rich are that," when in reality they took the extra time. They took the time to find a mentor. They took the time to put in the work. They took the time to actually make and sell the product, to market the product, to brand the product.

We have all these different people voicing their opinions, and to be honest, an opinion is worth nothing at all. An opinion is the cheapest commodity ever, but at the same time, an opinion can be the most expensive commodity if it is the wrong opinion.

5:53

If you listen to a broke person telling you not to pursue your dreams and not to pursue the business that you want to do, if you listen to them, then that is the most expensive opinion you have ever listened to in your entire life. I am looking on social media, and I have a lot of business professionals. I know I don't get connected with a lot of you on Facebook. I'm connected with the majority of my audience through Instagram and through Twitter, and I'm grateful to have you on those platforms. But I also have a Facebook profile, and I have over 4,000 connections on Facebook.

A lot of them are business professionals, and I've been scrolling through their profiles and looking at some of the things that they post and some of the things that they do.

6:31

They have one focus in business. They have one focus: "This is what I'm doing. This is what service I offer. This is how I help people," and that's it. They only provide that service, and they're capped. They're capped at an income. That income could be six figures, seven figures, or even low eight figures, but they are capped at this specific income because they're playing only in this one field and they don't have a brand for themselves. They don't have an actual solid brand based off of their name. You see, branding in 2020 and moving forward is all based around your personal brand: your name, your reputation, how many followers you have, how much attention you have.

It's not so much about the followers, but the attention and your reputation. This is like the old days, when you had the aristocrats. They were respected because of their reputation.

10:35

They say that they own it, but the only reason they own it is because they took a loan out from the bank. So that means that they have another person who has leverage over them. They don't own it. The bank owns it. I don't understand how a person could drive a 20 or 30 thousand dollar car and be 100% happy when he's going and driving down the road. You're probably thinking right now, "Isaac, you're a dick, dude. You are an asshole." Listen to me. Listen to the next thing that I'm about to say, because this is the truth. Have you ever ridden with someone who has a nice car?

They're driving a nice car and you're riding with them, and then they see a Lamborghini or they see a Corvette or they see a Porsche or they see a Mercedes even, or a Lexus, and they're like, "Oh, that's such a nice car."

11:22

Or they're like, "Man, check that sports car out. Check that Escalade out." You mean to tell me that they're genuinely happy driving that $20,000 or $30,000 car when they're looking at this other car and they're like, "Man, that is a nice car"? Then that means that they want that. That means that they are looking at that and they're like, "Man, that would be really, really cool to have." Or they're driving by houses and they're looking at different houses and stuff. You could live in a $250,000 house, and then you're driving through a neighborhood with $600,000 houses and you're like, "Oh man, that house is so beautiful." Well, yeah, if you like that, and if that is what you want, then why don't you have that in your own personal life? How does that make any sense?

12:01

It's because they settle. It's because people are thinking way too small. Society has programmed us to settle for our grades, to settle for a participation trophy. Growing up, I didn't even realize it until I was in a point of reflection over the past couple of days, but growing up, whenever I was at field days in elementary school and middle school, they would give out participation trophies. I would keep those fucking ribbons. I would keep those ribbons and be like, "Oh, this is cool." Now I'm like, fuck, man, I didn't even realize that I was programmed to be a little wuss. Society has programmed us, conditioned us, to take a curriculum in school that nobody questions, that no one evaluates, and no one actually asks, why are we learning this, and how is this contributing to society?

12:44

They're not teaching us life skills. They're not teaching us the things that we need. Then we go to college and we take a whole bunch more classes that we never use for any of our degrees, and you wind up $50,000 to $180,000 in debt depending on what school you go to, on top of living in a shitty dorm room and partying, and it's like you're conditioned to be average. Then you work a job, and you have somebody else who is telling you how to live your life, telling you what to do, when you can take a shit, when you can go and take a break, when you can go and leave, and how much money you can make. That is not freedom. I do not care who you are. If you say that that is freedom, it is not.

13:19

It is a form of corporate slavery. It is a form of slavery in 2020. I am a firm believer in that. America was not built on the foundation and on the principles of having people work for one another. Most people back then would work for themselves. They would have their own farm. They would trade. They would work with one another. They didn't have a system where, man, I'm just thinking through everything, and I'm like, guys, we have one shot at living this life. I think that we're all just playing this way too small. We are playing on a level that other people aren't playing on.

If you look at the people who are super successful, they're thinking really, really big. All it takes is doing your freaking research and taking a little bit of time to study and taking a little bit of time to understand what you need to do, and being willing to sacrifice some things that aren't even benefiting you in the first place.

14:17

Let's think about this for a second. Anybody who parties, anybody who smokes, anybody who drinks: if you go and do that, are you actually having a good time, or are you convincing yourself that you're having a good time, when you would much rather be in Miami in a penthouse smoking a hookah or drinking a nice bottle of champagne? Are you convincing yourself that that two-dollar, that cheap-ass Bud Light is as good as that champagne that you actually want to drink? Or are you just doing this because, "Well, you know what, I work hard," ha ha ha? But with that mentality, you're never going to make it to the penthouse and drink that champagne.

Are you actually happy? Are you actually having fun? Or are you convincing yourself that you're having fun? Or the people who spend time... I looked at the statistic the other day, and it blew my fucking mind, how much people watch TV in 2018. There was a statistic report that the majority of Americans watch over six hours of TV every single day. Six hours. What does TV do? What does watching Netflix require?

15:15

It means you are sitting down. Your body is stagnant, you are not moving, you're probably munching on chips and eating ice cream, and then guess what? You're sitting down and you're glued to the TV, you're glued to your show, you're glued to whatever, and then you get up and you're like, "Oh man, I feel bloated, I feel crappy, I ate all of that." Then you go to sleep, wake up, go to work, come home, do the same thing, wake up, go to work, and you wonder why your life doesn't fucking change? Are you kidding me? How... are you kidding me? I feel bad because people do not realize that their life [is 100% in] their control.

It is in their hands. This is all the more reason why we need more leaders stepping up and more people showing people that, hey, life can change as quickly as you want it to change if you put in the work, if you work and you have an idea of what you want.

16:07

Those six hours a day, let's say you're watching TV, and you don't have the body you want. It's like, okay, do you know how fit you would get if you spent a couple hours a day working out, like two hours every day, sweating your ass off? You would be so healthy. You would be ripped as fuck. But you can't sacrifice two hours of your day to go work out because you're too busy watching TV. Or at the same time, "Oh, I hate the amount of income I'm making, I hate my life, I hate my situation, I'm in debt." Well, why don't you do anything to change your situation? Why do you just sit at home and wait and expect your life to change, man?

18:08

You can't travel making $30,000 a year. You can't travel to all the places you want. You can't travel if you're stuck in a full-time job. You can't travel if you're not making money as a business owner. If you make six figures a year, yeah, you might be able to travel, but you're not going to be able to do all the things that you want to do, man. Everybody is forced to fucking settle, dude. It disgusts me. It disgusts me. "Oh, I fly economy," yet deep down you would much rather fly first class. "I'll settle for this Honda," but you'd much rather have a nicer car, be more comfortable, have a better experience, not break down as much.

"I'd rather be healthy, but you know, I like these Little Debbies." You settle for things that you don't even want, and you try to reason with yourself. You have this little voice in your head. Andy Frisella calls it the bitch voice, and that's the best way that I can call it too: the bitch voice and the boss voice. You have this little voice in your head saying, "This is good, this is fine," so you reason with yourself. You go to a restaurant, you sit down, and guess what? Instead of ordering what you actually want off of the menu, you order the cheaper thing because it's not as expensive.

God, how is that a fucking way to live, man? How is that a way to live in 2020? How is that a way to live no matter what year you were born in?

19:35

Why would you even go to a restaurant? To cherish and make memories? Well, why don't you have a home-cooked meal, sit down at home and make something that's a little bit better? But no, instead you go to a restaurant and you buy shit you don't even want to eat. You would much rather order from the other side of the menu and get the $20 meal, but because you don't have the money, you order the $10 meal. I'm not saying that it's not important to cherish small things [and make memories]. But I'm saying if you actually want something, then why don't you go out and get the materials or get what you need in order to have the things that you actually want? Huh? I'm not saying that you shouldn't cherish the small moments or make do, or, not make do, but you shouldn't... Growing up,

22:15

People are going to tell you, settle for this amount of money, settle for 70,000. But what they don't tell you is you're going to settle for that amount of money. You're going to settle for 70,000 or 75 grand a year. I saw something where Gary's like, "If people would stop looking to become millionaires and settle for $75,000 a year, they'd be a lot happier." Well, yeah, I agree. I agree to an extent that they would be a little bit happier, because they don't have the overbearing stress of looking to make millions and not making it, and being so far off of making that million dollars. But at the same time, those people are going to be the ones who are stressed out whenever they have a medical expense.

22:57

Whenever they can't afford to give their parents a nicer nursing home to go into, or home care, or they're not able to go and take the trip that they want to make. They might be happier, but are they actually genuinely happy, or are they just supplanting their, quote, feelings and their happiness with temporary things, like watching TV or playing video games or stuff like that? Is that making you genuinely happy, or is there something else that would make you even happier? You need to stop reasoning with yourself. You reasoning with the devil and the angel on your shoulder, the devil voice that's telling you not to do it and the angel voice telling you to do it, reasoning with those two voices is the reason why you don't have success.

You don't have the life that you want to live right now, but at the same time, you can live that life as quickly as you want to. It's just a matter of you putting your head down, actually working, and getting it. Man, I've heard so many people say, "I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that." And then, yeah, yeah, okay, big deal, they never do it. I was like that for a while. I was like, "I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that," and then I never did it. I recognized that action is the number one thing. But it's like, I look at the results other people have, and I don't see people that are genuinely happy.

24:14

I see people that are trying to suppress their actual emotions with these different things to make them come across as happy, to try to give them temporary... See, happiness is a fleeting emotion. It's not permanent. Joy is more permanent than happiness. Big difference between the two. I see a lot of people trying to reason with themselves and make themselves seem happy, make themselves have a burst of joy, a burst of happiness. The thing is, when you have money, though, new levels, new devils. That is accurate. You have new stressors, you have more taxes to pay, you have more people who look up to you. That's to be expected.

But at the same time, you're able to go and actually do the things that you want to do. You don't have this thing in the back of your mind saying, "I wish I could do that, but I don't have the money to do that."

25:04

You feel shitty about yourself and your situation. But having money and having an expansive mindset and always looking for more [helps you create] more impact. Now, okay, well, let me help this person. Let me help more people. Let me make more money. Let me go ahead and do this. Let me go ahead and be in this constant energy of expansion, this constant energy of growth. That means you're never going to settle, and you're always going to be looking to new things. You know that no matter how big your dreams or your aspirations are, no matter how big that vision you have is, you [can] achieve it, because you are expanding towards that goal and you are expanding towards that vision. Isn't that powerful?

25:47

Isn't that powerful? That's not temporary happiness. You going and staying at nice hotels or eating nice food or driving nice cars or living in a nice house, is that trying to use materialism to make you happy? No, that's you having the things that you've always desired, having the things that you've always wanted and that you've looked at. See, humans have an innate thing about them where we always want the best. We want the best. Every single human has that innate thing where it's like, I want to have the nicest house on the block. Think about it. 50, 60 years ago, prior to social media, what they would do is they would measure their house sizes based off of their neighbors.

They'd be focused on getting a better position, a better job. Why do you want a higher position? More power and more money. Same thing with working a job. Why are you going to rank up in your job in the first place? Are you doing it because you love your job, or are you doing it because you actually want to make more money, that way you can afford a better lifestyle, that way you can have a little bit more influence and not have as many people boss you around, huh? Stop trying to run around from all of this.

27:00

Humans naturally want the best. We want the best experiences, we want things that are great, we want things that will provide us with a good experience. I can tell you, man, people say, "Oh, well, this is a car. It takes me from point A to B." Well, you're sitting in that car and the AC is broken, the window doesn't roll down. You have to open up your door to get... or you have to roll down your door in order to get out the... or roll down the window in order to get out of the door. Man, that was a tongue twister. You're saying that this gets you from point A to B, yet you're sweating your balls off the entire ride and your back is sweaty when you get out because the AC doesn't work?

Are you kidding me? You mean to tell me that being in even a thirty thousand dollar Honda Civic, or a Mercedes, that has air conditioning, that has a radio, where the windows function and the car doesn't have a whole bunch of problems going on, that that wouldn't make you feel better? No, no, because when it comes to wealth and when it comes to these things, what it is doing is creating a better experience for you.

28:03

It's not materialism in and of itself. It is an experience. These nicer products create experiences. Rolls-Royce, the car, is an experience. A Lamborghini is an experience. It's giving you a feeling that you wouldn't have had before, not so much because of the price tag, but because of the luxury, because of the feeling, or because of the knowledge that what you're in is giving you something that very few people would ever get. They could, but they don't. Or living in the house: "Oh, it's a house, man, we got a roof over our head." Yeah, except the AC doesn't function completely and the front door is broken or the roof needs to be changed.

"At least we still got a roof over our head, somewhat. We got a place to sleep." Yeah, be grateful for that, be grateful to have that. Everyone says be content. No, don't be fucking content. Be grateful and strive for a higher level. You'd much rather be living in a house that is nicer, that has the things that you actually want, that has the stovetop you want, that has the dishwasher you want, because it's all about convenience and experience. I don't know what else I have to do to convince people, man. I'm out over here convincing myself. I know what I'm working towards. It's experiences, it's travel, it's me doing and having the things that I've wanted, so I can have the best, most convenient, the healthiest, the most wonderful lifestyle that I could possibly have, and do the same for my kids and for my family.

That's what I'm working towards. "Hey, I mean, [I'm] going to school and getting an education." Yeah, but you're getting an education from a shitty school.

29:55

"At least this is a degree, a piece of paper." Well, yeah, but that degree, that paper, doesn't have any weight. You're just like everybody else who did it. Not knocking jobs and not saying this in a disrespectful way, but guys, honestly, man, if we really want this, if we really stop bullshitting ourselves, we're going to recognize that there is a lot that we need to go after. I'm not saying to do all of this in a selfish way, no. Do this for your family, do this for your friends, do this for your church, do this for the causes that you care about. Also, for those of you who are business owners and provide a service or provide a product, you're doing something to help another person out, man. This is a win-win situation.

30:37

It's a win-win situation. As long as you're ethical and moral about it, man, come on. Let's go for the top. That's it. So guys, I'm about to hop off and go ahead and record episode three of the [Lincoln Girl] podcast with Eric Chow in a couple of minutes. If you aren't listening to that yet, make sure you go [check it out on] all platforms. So thank you for listening to this, and I'm also curious to know your opinion. Send me a message. Let me know what you think about this episode. Reach out to me. Reach out to me. For those of you who are artists and musicians, I have a lot of amazing packages and a lot of different things that I can do to help you out with your brand, to take you from looking like a hobbyist to an actual career artist.

31:21

[I'm] on all social media at Isaac Mashman, and go to my website, IsaacMashman.com, and stay tuned for amazing content. Mondays and Fridays, brand new episodes of my podcast, a new episode coming out this Friday, and a new video coming out on YouTube next Wednesday. Much love.