Dreamer's Summit 2021
Host: Isaac Mashman · July 21, 2021 · Episode 71 · 21 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.
Yo, what is going on, everybody? Isaac here. I just wanted to [hop in] really quick before the start of the episode and give you a little bit of context about what you're about to listen to. Now, this is not a traditional podcast episode. It's not a monologue and it's not an interview, but rather this is the audio version of my keynote speech at the Dreamers Summit in Ghana, Africa. I had the opportunity of being asked to speak at an event that had a couple dozen people in attendance, by a friend of mine, [Samuel Gion], out of Ghana. He's like, hey, the topic of this keynote and of this event is how to master your vision, and university in and out of entrepreneurship. How can university be leveraged to better expand your network, or really help you with your business and contribute to your own success?
So I talk about those subjects. I talk about a variety of different things. There's not one specific topic of choice or thing that I put more emphasis on. I'm a little bit across the board, and I cover a lot of fantastic information, from the subconscious mind, to sales, to always be growing, to networking, to how to leverage the internet, maybe in a country that isn't as developed, in the sense that you're not rubbing elbows with millionaires in Los Angeles. So it was a really fantastic opportunity and I wanted to share it with you guys. I wanted to ultimately provide that value to you as well, even if you weren't able to go to the event.
Now, down the line, it would be a dream and an honor of mine to be able to speak at an event internationally, especially on the continent of Africa with all the amazing and brilliant countries, live in person.
I know that in due time, that opportunity will arise. So without further ado, here is the audio version of my keynote speech at the Dreamers Summit 2021. Enjoy. Hey, what is going on? Isaac Mashman here, and welcome to the Dreamers Summit 2021. I am so excited to be talking to you and sharing my message and being able to pour out my experiences and knowledge to help you get the results in life that you truly desire, want, and are dreaming about right now. When Samuel Gion asked me to do this event, I was so honored, honestly, because I am over here in the United States, and I am able to help you guys and share what I know all the way across the world in Ghana.
That is such an honor, and I look forward to it. I look forward to being able to speak to you in person in the coming years, as the Dreamers Summit grows and we take it to thousands and thousands and thousands of attendees and participants. So today I'm going to be talking about how you can master your vision and also get the most out of university, while you're attending and after you've already graduated and received your degrees and certifications and everything. But before I jump into that, I want to share a little bit about my story. I want to be able to connect with you. Number one, I run my public relations firm, Mashman Ventures.
I launched that in 2020. Fast forward to today, I have a team of 12 independent contractors, and we are a public relations firm that works with people to build out their personal brands. Now, I'm not here to give you a sales pitch and talk about all the things that I've got going on in business. But I do want to impress upon you that anything is possible.
I don't come from money. I don't come from a background with people who were wealthy or entrepreneurial. Notice I say entrepreneurial, because there's really a specific mentality. There's this mindset. There's this way of thinking that is more important than anything else when building a business or when pursuing success of any particular kind.
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I was raised with the entire mentality of go to school, get good grades, and go to university.
Now, I'm not telling you to drop out. Continue going to school if you're going to school. Just know that going to university isn't the only way to become successful, but I do think that it is extremely beneficial if you actually take and apply the very things that you learn. So going into my senior year of high school, which in America is between the ages of 17 and 18, I decided to not go and pursue a degree. I didn't drop out of high school, but I decided to do a complete 180 and jump into the world of business and entrepreneurship. Since 2018, when I graduated, I have been involved with nearly half a dozen different business ventures, from managing an artist, a musician, a rapper. I managed him for six months.
I wanted to start a record label, and decided that wasn't for me. I did drop shipping and e-commerce online, and decided that wasn't for me. I did a clothing line and apparel business. I decided that wasn't for me. Then I even did media related services and decided it wasn't for me. Now, none of the business models that I mentioned are bad business models. But I was experiencing different things to understand what I wanted to do and what made sense, what I enjoyed, what I could see myself doing long term that was also scalable. And as I was building out these businesses, I was also building out my personal brand on [my own].
Now, your personal brand is who you are. That is something I really want to express today in this message and in this keynote, because if you are able to position yourself and have people in your local community and across the world know who you are, then that opens up the door for countless, countless opportunities right there. That is the solution to a lot of your different issues.
So from there, I was experimenting with my personal brand. I decided that I wanted to launch a PR firm that specialized in personal branding, because at the end of the day, when you're asked by enough people to help them with something, you realize that there's a talent there, that there's something that you can enjoy. Fast forward to today, I have the PR firm, I have the podcast, and I've had Chase the Vision with Isaac Mashman since 2019. Podcasting is another great tool to connect with people and also grow your personal brand. So back on topic and talking about your vision: when it comes to starting something, when it comes to building or beginning a business, you have to have an understanding of why you're doing it. I'm not talking about your why in the sense of what makes you get up in the morning.
You get up in the morning regardless, and I'm not a huge believer in anybody who says, what is your why? I'm talking more about what you see yourself enjoying for the long term, and what is the real reason for you starting a business or a nonprofit, or [maybe] pursuing a cause that you believe in? Why are you doing it? Is it because you want financial freedom? Is it because you want to make a lot of money and be wealthy? Is it because you want to travel? Is it because you want to live in the United States, or you want to live in and travel to Australia or New Zealand?
Or is it very simply because you want to give back to your community and build up your local area? There are so many different benefits to building a business or building a brand or pursuing a nonprofit.
Going after causes you care about. But you always start with what the main motive behind it is. Be honest with yourself. There's nothing wrong with wanting to become wealthy. There's nothing wrong with wanting to build a multinational brand. Some of the greatest artists of today are out of the African continent. That should serve as inspiration and motivation to you by showing that in 2021 anything is possible. We live in a time of globalization. We live in a time where you can literally send out a tweet. You can send out a message and you can connect with a CEO all the way across the world. Like I said when I started out this keynote, I am able to pour into you and provide value all the way from Arkansas, a small city called Conway, Arkansas, in the United States.
I never expected to be doing a speech in Ghana in 2021, but here I am, and that is a blessing. So when it comes to starting out your business, establish why you're doing it. Then, after that, making the decision behind it is more important than, I think, anything else I could talk about today. I had a lot of mentors when I first got involved with this who were telling me, Isaac, make the decision to go all in, make the decision to go all in with this business or this passion. And I was like, obviously I'm going to make the decision to do something. But as I look back, I realize that the people who didn't make the decision and who didn't commit to it are the ones who haven't changed their lives.
Your life can change as quickly as you want it to change. Now, I'm not here to motivate you. I've talked about this before. I'm not a motivational speaker. I'm somebody who is going to tell you how it is and be brutally honest with you, and unless you take massive action to pursue something, your life will not change and your circumstances will never change, either for the better or for the worse. They will just stay the same, and staying the same and staying complacent is a horrible situation. The mindset and the mentality of complacency is an attitude of stagnation. Stagnant water is what breeds all of those different issues.
If water is flowing, think about a river that is consistently flowing, that is where you fish from, that is where you eat from, that is where you swim.
Later on today, I'm going to be going swimming in a lake that flows. You want to be in a constant state of motion, because the constant state of motion is what gets you results. It is what feeds you. It is what helps you get stronger if you're swimming in the river. Swimming in water that is stagnant just means that you're not going to be in a healthy situation. So stagnancy is what you always need to avoid. So you establish your vision, you establish why you're doing this, you're honest with yourself, and then you make the decision to go all in with pursuing that very thing.
Pursuing that very thing is going to require effort. It is going to require a non-stop and kind of psychotic and aggressive mentality. You have to go all in with it. What that means is you might not be able to go out and play sports as much with other kids or other people. You might not be hanging out with the same people who are doing the same exact thing. You're leveling up. Sometimes you are going to outgrow the people who began with you. That is okay. It is okay to go and move on to bigger and better things. That [is] the entire point of living life and going after your vision, going after your dreams. My podcast is called Chase the Vision with Isaac Mashman for a reason, because I want you to actively chase after something.
Chasing means that you're in motion, just like that river. So you make the decision, and then from there, as you grow and as you scale, get creative and think outside of the box, and always focus more on the solutions rather than the problems themselves. This is something that I've noticed a lot of people do. A lot of people focus too much on the problem. They focus on why they can't do something rather than why they can do something. How can I solve this problem that I'm being faced with? How you can get into that mentality is basically through changing your subconscious way of thinking. You have a subconscious mind and you have a conscious mind. Now I want to do a brief exercise with you. You have blinked probably a couple hundred times watching this video.
Since you've been at the Dreamers Summit, you've probably taken a breath a thousand, two thousand times, and you haven't thought about breathing once. You want to know why that is? That is because your subconscious mind is controlling your body. Now, the subconscious mind is what dictates 95% of a lot of decisions. There are statistics that say that your subconscious mind and emotions are what dictate 95% of the sales that you might make, the purchase decisions that you make. Now, your conscious mind is the mind that you consciously think with. You're making decisions to do something. You made the conscious decision to show up to the Dreamers Summit this year.
It's not something that happened by accident. You had to go and drive. You maybe even had to take a plane, or you maybe had to travel by boat.
Whatever you needed to do, you came in. You made the decision to come to the Dreamers Summit. Now you need to make the decision to consciously go all out with building your vision and going and building up your brand, or building out your personal brand, or building out your company, or building out your cause and non-profit. That will help you a lot. So as you do more personal development... I believe that at the center of all achievement is personal growth. That is an original quote, and I [live] by that. At the center of all achievement is personal growth. So the more personal development you do, the more you listen to podcasts, the more you study mentors, the more you show up to events like this, and the more you read books... There are so many books that are available that cost very, very little money.
Or you could even find a lot of these books for free, or go to a local library, or find someone who has that material that you can study. Textbooks are a great way to learn. Your conscious mind, the things that you're learning consciously, will be absorbed by your subconscious mind, and your mentality will start to change. You're going to start seeing things with an attitude of optimism rather than pessimism.
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Of course it won't work if you never take the action to make it work. I had people in my life tell me, Isaac, there's no science to getting rich.
Well, yes, there is. The thing is, you just haven't discovered it yet. There is a science. There is a methodology. You have to really start making that mental shift, because you are at a great time and a great place right now in 2021. You could not be more blessed to have access to the things you have access to. Networking with people, sending out tweets, getting on Twitter, getting on Instagram, building your personal brand, talking to people, and also talking to people locally who also have that same shared entrepreneurial vision. Entrepreneurship is the number one thing that will solve a lot of problems. I believe that in the world as a whole, if more people had a solution based mentality and were entrepreneurs, the world would be a better place, because we would all be moving forward and making progress together.
So look to the person to your left, look to the person to your right. Those people are the people you need to be surrounding yourself with, because they are looking to grow, they are looking to be in better situations, they are looking to scale together. Work and collaborate with these people. At the end of this event, what I would highly recommend you do (I don't know what the itinerary is or anything like that) is go and network and shake hands with people you've never shaken hands with before. You need to communicate with them and be like, hey, what do you have going on? Can we work together?
Can we collaborate on a project? Do you know this person? University allows you to connect with people who have shared interests and degrees, especially at a school that is focused primarily on entrepreneurship.
Network with your professors, network with the people around you, because networking will allow your entire community of connections to expand. You don't know who that person might know who could completely change your life, who could invest in your business, who could invest in your startup, who could push your progress forward, because maybe they're connected with local officials who are able to get you the permits that you need, who are able to push you forward to the public. I'm in the industry of public relations, which basically means that I am here to take one person who is maybe out of reach, or maybe a company or brand that is normally out of touch with the community, and I'm able to bring them closer to the community, which establishes trust.
You don't know what community leader could be that person, that one individual to bridge that gap between you and the community, and you and that startup.
So guys, if you want to master your vision, and if you really want to make the most out of your current life and current circumstances of being in university, you need to make the decision too. I can think of so many different times where I was lost, where I didn't know what I was doing, and this is another thing, I want to get personal with you. The number one thing that helped me get out of it, whenever I was lost and whenever I was in those situations, was the people around me. I didn't give up, and I made sure I was surrounding myself with the right people, the people who believed in me when I didn't believe in myself, and that's a crazy place to be a part of. That's a crazy place to be in.
That's a mental space that might not be the healthiest. From there, by surrounding yourself and building up this environment and building up this network... and I'm slowing down a little bit. I know I talk fast because of how emotional this kind of makes me, but that's when you know you're with the right people. Being around other entrepreneurs is a blessing. It is an absolute blessing. So if I could sum up everything that I've talked to you about today, about mastering your vision and about making the most out of university, it goes back to understanding what it is you want, making the decision to go all in with getting that very thing, and making it happen.
Then it's also about making the most of your current circumstances. I know that you might want to be in a different place right now.
Maybe you want to travel and be on a flight. I know that over the past year, with the pandemic and all this other stuff, I couldn't travel nearly as much as I would have liked to. But guess what? I didn't let that hold me back. I didn't let my current circumstances hold me back from pursuing my future circumstances. Just don't become so obsessed with the future that you don't live in the present. But you do need to understand where you're going. You need to make the decision that, hey, I will be traveling. Hey, I will be running a multi-million dollar company, or I'll be working and shaking hands with top executives out of France and out of Europe and the United Kingdom and Canada and the United States.
Look for these experiences and look for things that are going to push you outside of your comfort zone, because that is how you grow. The most growth that you can ever experience is when you're outside of your comfort zone. I went through times where I would purposely sleep on the floor. I have a comfortable bed, and I said, I'm not sleeping in the bed, I'm sleeping on the floor to be uncomfortable. I was taking flights where I didn't have a place to stay. I was going to sleep wherever I could sleep, because it made me uncomfortable, and from there it pushed me to become successful, and I'm still growing.
I'm still scaling. I'm still making active decisions on a daily basis that progress and push me forward. You need to be [doing] the same.
Make those conscious decisions to change your life. Then don't give up. There will be times where you go slow. There will be times where you're being hit with a lot of nos, and your vision seems to get farther and farther and farther away from where you are at presently. That just means that you need to continue progressing, because during those circumstances, during those times of nos and depression, those are the times that people give up. The times that people give up, that means that there is going to be less competition for you. There's more room for you to grow and succeed and help your family, help your friends, help the people who are around you.
This life is meant to be enjoyed. But just because this life is meant to be enjoyed does not mean that there will not be challenges along the way.
Embrace the challenges, embrace the difficult times, and make sure your attitude is an attitude of optimism, an attitude of, this is a solution to my problems. You have to understand the return on investment, the ROI. When we're talking about sales, what is the ROI of buying this thing? What is the ROI of the service that you're paying for? The return on investment for making the decision to go all in, and pursuing it, and chasing after your vision is whatever you want it to be. Travel, freedom, wealth, making sure your family is set up for life, building generational wealth, going and pursuing politics and changing your local government, changing your local situation.
There are millions of options, and no option is better than another, because at the end of the day we're all unique. That uniqueness and that difference of goals and that difference of mindset is what is going to really progress us forward all the more. So guys, it's been an honor talking to you. It's been an honor sharing my experiences and sharing my knowledge. I know that y'all can change your situation, or whatever situation you might be in, and you can get to the place in life that you really want to be in with a snap of your fingers. Make the decision, go all in, and don't be afraid to get uncomfortable. It's been an honor speaking at the Dreamers Summit.
I look forward to meeting you guys in person sometime in the very near future.