Why Not?

0:09

Hey, hey, hey, what is going on, everybody? Isaac Mashman here, and welcome back to another episode of 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. I'm super excited to be coming to you today with this episode because, number one, it is actually a question that I want you to be asking yourself. But before I get into the subject matter, I want to do a little bit of housekeeping. Now, I am well aware that it has been over a month since I published an episode of the show.

The last episode I did was episode 85. That was in the middle of October, and it is towards the end of November right now, at the time of publishing this episode.

1:02

Wow. So, Isaac, why the gap? Why the month of no podcast? You have this momentum, you have these interviews going, and then you're going silent on the podcast. Well, to tell you the truth, I have not been in the frequency of content creation. I've been in the frequency of business and building my business. I've taken that focus away from content to get a couple things in line that have propelled me forward when it comes to 2021 wrapping up strong and then 2022 starting off strong. October and November were very pivotal moments in my life. They were challenging moments. I lost clients. I made a lot of new clients.

I had record-setting months. And then, most importantly, I also published my very first book, which was years in the making. So [amid] all of this chaos, I was going to be moving to a different state, but decided to move to a different city instead, to kind of get things planned out before we made another major move.

2:01

There were just a ton of things that were kind of in motion, attacking all at once. I had to take a step back and realize that, hey, this is a moment of defeat in terms of, I lost this battle, but I did not lose this war at all. It wasn't my lowest point of business. I recently published a video on my YouTube channel talking about [how] I published a book. In that video, I mentioned that it was a moment that I had to kind of switch my mentality and say to myself, Isaac, look, man, this is one of those moments in business that these people talk about that basically are going to make you or break you.

This is a moment where you either throw in the towel and throw away your sacrifices up until this point, or this is the moment that you're going to say, no, I'm going harder than I've ever gone before, and I'm going to continue pressing forward. Well, I decided to press forward. It wasn't my lowest point in life. By no means was it that horrible and that bad, but it was challenging. Then I took all of that energy that was focused in the wrong areas, and I redirected it and got into the right frequency of, hey, let me go back to building my business. Let me talk to new clients. Let me talk to new people. And then also, let me finish up my fucking book, and let me publish my book.

3:17

Guess what? I published my book. So that really is testament to saying that in the moments when you're really considering maybe throwing in the towel and switching gears or making a pivot, it might not be that you should make the pivot. It might actually mean that you should stick with it, and you should stay with it, and that you should see it through. If you start something, you should see it through if it makes sense in terms of your long-term vision. So that's exactly what I did. I've wanted to write a book for literally years. I'm not going to spend too much time talking about this book that I have published, because I've been doing a ton of marketing about it.

I'm going to be making my shift towards other forms of content, in terms of going back hard with Chase the Vision, and doing articles, written essays.

4:05

I'm talking about video content, long form, short form, vertical, horizontal, and any other thing that I can come up with that would be creative, that can help provide you value and propel the personal brand forward, and propel Mashman Ventures forward, and my other business ventures that have actually come about from the struggles of October and November. I'm talking literally getting my first piece of property in 2022, and connecting with the right people that I would have otherwise not connected with had I worked with another client or had some of those business deals actually occurred. It's super interesting how everything works out in the end if you decide to see it work out.

So anyways, I started writing Personal Branding: A Manifesto on Fame and Influence earlier on in this year. I've wanted to write books for several years now.

4:54

I have half a dozen plus titles in my phone with a paragraph or two each, but I never got far in any of these different books, because I just didn't feel engaged. I didn't feel passionate, to use that word, and I'm not one who talks about passions too much, but I wasn't really feeling the subject matter. Then I got involved with Mashman Ventures in 2020. I launched my firm, and it's been great to me. It's been a fantastic experience, but I started to understand that personal branding is something that many people might have heard of, but they don't necessarily understand it. So I started writing the book, and as soon as I had the name and the first sentence of the book down pat, everything started to flow.

In the following months, I would write whenever I felt like I had a good thing to talk about and a good thing to mention and put down on paper.

5:42

So I published the book. It's by no means the longest book in the world, either. It's not 550 pages, but it is 55 pages. However, I must also mention that some of the most impactful things that I've ever read were the shortest. As a Man Thinketh by James Allen, You Squared by Price Pritchett, some of these different things I have read, and I've been like, wow, this has shifted my mentality. This has shifted my life in X, Y, or Z field. So with this book, I wanted to really cover the what and why of what is known as your personal brand. What is personal branding?

Is it something that you have always had? Is it something you create? Is it something that you need to work on? Then I focus on the why.

6:26

Why would you build out your personal brand? Why is it important? Why is your personal brand important? What are some examples of other successful personal brands that might not actually be beneficial to the outcome of society? Now, you'll see by reading the book, but I use some real-world and old-world examples without actually explicitly mentioning anybody by name. Writing this, going into it, I wanted to do something that would stand the test of time. It wouldn't matter if it was 100 years from now. 100 years from now, I am confident in the things that I talk about. If mankind still exists and is civilized, and we have not had some nuclear fallout or been invaded by aliens, well, guess what?

This is going to apply. I don't go into specifics of technical media strategies, but I go into technical, relationship-driven strategies that will exist as humanity progresses and as we move forward. So anyways, I am super proud to have that out.

7:26

It rose to the number one new release in public relations on Amazon. It also rose to the number nine spot on the top 10 bestseller list in public relations, also on Amazon. I want to make that clear, distinctive factor of on Amazon and in that category, because it would be misleading to say I had a top 10 bestseller when in reality you would probably think that's New York Times, but it was actually on Amazon. So I just want to be clear. I want to be transparent with you. But regardless of that, it is still a feat. It is still an achievement that I am extremely proud of. Every single client that works with Mashman Ventures gets a signed copy, because I want to make sure that they have something in hand.

8:08

Now there is a book that can be in somebody's household, that can be a conversation starter, that can be something that people can read, highlight, mark up, take notes from, and actually get value from me. So it is a technical aspect of my personal brand. It is something that was strategic on my end. It's not just a lead magnet. It's not just a way to provide value. It is a variety of different things that come together, like the inner workings of a nice Swiss watch. It comes together like a Rolex, in the sense that without one piece, everything else would fall apart. So I'm very excited to have this out.

You can pick up your own copy by going to my website, isaacmashman.com slash book, by going to Amazon and typing in my name, or by going to Barnes and Noble or even Google and just typing in Isaac Mashman book. You're going to be able to pick up a copy of Personal Branding: A Manifesto on Fame and Influence.

9:02

If you're listening to this, chances are I'm also doing signed copies. If you'd like a signed copy, go to my website and click on Isaac's book. You'll see a link where you can purchase your very own signed copy that I'm personally signing and shipping out with a couple of different goodies as well. So today's subject matter isn't promoting my book. I don't want to do this to promote this and promote that and anything else. I'm doing this episode because we're getting back on track, baby. We are getting back on track. There has been a month break. Cool. Big deal. That is one month, and in other ways I progressed.

I progressed in other avenues in my life and my business and my career and my success. But now it's time to go back to where it all started.

9:46

One of the ways it all started was podcasting. I want to make sure we're giving this attention, that we're still talking and having phenomenal interviews, having phenomenal conversations. This is what we're doing next. This is what we are doing next. Same thing as before: monologues every single Monday, interviews every single Friday or biweekly. I might not be interviewing as many people as I did before. I'm increasing [the bar]. I've had a standard of who I've interviewed, but now I want to go for the big dogs. I want to go for the big players. I know plenty of information. I've had plenty of experiences and stories, where there might not even be a need to interview everybody. I want to make sure that you guys get a better glimpse of me and connect with me personally.

10:26

I want to talk about some of the things that I've had to overcome, some of the different experiences and business trips that I've taken that might make you stop and be like, wow, I need to step up my game, or making this sacrifice or taking this risk is absolutely okay because Isaac did it. I want to make sure that I'm able to connect with you, because I feel like there might be this disconnect to a degree, to where you might only know me from a business standpoint. Now I want to make sure that we're knowing one another personally. So there's going to be a couple of different changes.

I do have some pre-recorded interviews that I want to have coming out. So this Friday, if you're listening on the Monday of publishing this episode, this Friday I'm interviewing [Ms. Dio], who is the founder of Wisdom, a new social audio app. Super excited to have that conversation with her. So that is coming out Friday.

11:15

Then from there, it's going to go back into the monologue area, with the interviews spread out every now and again. But regardless, I had a question that has been on my mind a lot lately. It's the question of why not. I've talked about this in the past in various different forms of content, nothing too specific where I'm putting the emphasis only on this, but everybody tells you to find out your why. What is your why? Why are you doing the things that you are doing? What is important? Why is this important to you? This was brought about by somebody's book, and they're like, you know, Start With Why.

Then from there, it led into this self-help movement of, hey, focus on your why, focus on your passion, focus on your interests, all this other stuff that is really cliche and buzzworthy. I don't say buzzworthy in the sense of, this deserves a lot of attention. I say buzzworthy in the sense of everybody is buzzing about it and talking about it, but they don't even understand what the hell it means. They don't understand what your why would actually be. So that is something that I've been challenged with a lot over the past couple of years, because I'm like, why am I doing this? Truthfully, why do I care? Why am I sacrificing all these things?

12:32

Why am I trying to build a nine-figure business and make a billion-dollar investment by the time I'm 35? Why am I building out my personal brand? You can get into the specifics of things that add up, but they're not technically your why. Then I could get into the alternative side of the conversation: a lot of people ask you, why aren't you satisfied? Why aren't you stopping? Why don't you take a break? Why don't you settle? Why don't you go and be like everybody else in your family? Or, why would you do that? Why would you quit college? Why would you sacrifice that scholarship? Why would you start that business? Why aren't you going out with us tonight to the club? You get the drift, you get what I'm saying. Everybody is asking why.

13:11

I have a very simple answer, and it's kind of funny because it's asking a question back to them, and that question is, why not? Why wouldn't you do it? Why wouldn't you go out and become massively successful? If you already know maybe what your purpose is, if your purpose is, like mine, to live up to my potential... I very simply want to play the game of Monopoly in real life and see how big I can take this, because I have one swing in life. We may or may not come back. We might not come back in the future. This is, to my knowledge, the only life here on earth that we have, and so why wouldn't you go up to the very top? Why wouldn't you see how big you can take it? Why wouldn't you take that risk?

13:51

Why wouldn't you make that sacrifice? Why wouldn't you go out of your way to become successful? Everybody else wants you to conform to their level of comfort because they feel threatened by how big you are thinking. They are not maliciously going after you and gunning for you, saying, oh, you need to settle, you need to stop, you're stressing yourself out. No, no, no. They are thinking from the level of thought that they are currently on. They are thinking based around and based on their own current circumstances or previous life experiences. You see, if somebody has never become successful before in any terms, or never had any massive form of success, and you talk to them about what you have going on, they're going to be talking to you based on what they have previously accomplished, based off of how big or how small they have previously thought.

14:46

That is a concern. That is a risk, because now you are putting your own opinion, your own future, your own passions in the hands of somebody else, because their opinion is going to influence you. So I'm not here to talk about the opinions of other people. However, I do want to shed light on why it is some people question what you have going on. When it boils down to your why and what you have going on, I would highly suggest, I would highly recommend, that you start asking yourself, why not? Why wouldn't I do this? If you want to go and become somebody who's massively known in the world of philanthropy, or for a cause that you really support, that you feel deeply passionate about, that you feel deeply rooted in, then why wouldn't you see how big you can take it?

15:37

Why not? Why not work with this cause? If you love this cause, your why of doing it isn't because you love the cause. It's very simply, why not? It makes sense. Why wouldn't you do it? Why wouldn't you go out and spend time with it? It's not that you love the cause. It's just very simply, why not? Why wouldn't I? Why wouldn't I? I love it. I enjoy it. Cool. Why not? You don't have to get technical with every single thing, because whenever you say that you're doing something for something else, you're giving your power to that very thing instead of having the power yourself.

[Along those lines], and I love Dean Graziosi. I love the guy to death. He's a fantastic mentor. He does a lot of great work with Tony Robbins, and he was the godfather of the infomercial space. But I listened to one of his podcasts a couple months ago, it's probably six months ago, and he's talking about his own why, his own background. He says, I want to be in control. He's like, that is my why. It's like, I want to be in control.

16:38

I've been thinking to myself over the past couple of weeks, because I really thought that that was my why as well. I didn't talk about it publicly, because I'm like, I wasn't even sure how I felt about the whole why conversation. I'm thinking to myself, and I'm like, you know what, that really isn't my why. I'm not doing this because I want to have control. I'm doing this because, why not? Like, why wouldn't I do this? Why wouldn't I go and become successful, or go travel, or take flights every week, or why wouldn't I work for that? I'm like, my why isn't about control. I don't care.

I don't care about control in the sense of my actions or my life. I realized that I was actually giving my control away by inferring that I had to work for my control.

17:22

I was inferring to my subconscious mind that I was actually not in control and I had to achieve control. I had to receive control. I had to work to get control. When in actuality, I was always in control. I think deep down I knew that, but I was reprogramming my brain in the wrong avenue. So I stopped the other day after realizing that it really wasn't something that I could solve. It was something I'd been thinking about, almost pondering on in a philosophical way, trying to find the answer and find the solution, only to come to the realization that that wasn't what I was working for, that I was giving away my control by understanding that I had to get it, and that the real reason why I was doing it is, why not?

18:06

Why wouldn't I do it? Because any other answer and any other thing that you talk about, that you try to throw in, I'm doing this for my family, I'm doing this for that, it's taking away some of your focus. And you should be working, in a sense, to help other people. But at the end of the day, you're the only person that's going to be lying in your coffin. You should be asking yourself, why not? Why wouldn't I do this? Make this a game. If you could simplify this conversation, it would be to gamify your success. It would be to turn what you have going on into a game where there is a level where there is this consistent hierarchy of achievement. You could go bigger and stronger and higher. That could, to a degree, make you feel like you can never be satisfied.

18:55

But I think the satisfaction is to be found in understanding that you're working for something greater. At that moment in the future, I think that if you ever want to stop, you're going to know when it is you want to stop. There's a reason that some successful people who were super hungry and ambitious go and decide to take other routes, that all of a sudden they stop and sell everything, or they go and retire on a yacht and take a trip around the world. But alternatively, there's this conversation where a lot of people are afraid to get into this mentality, because they think that they will never feel satisfied. I think that fear holds a lot of people back, because they're anxious about something that may or may not happen in the future.

19:43

That anxiety is a preexisting condition. Actually, it's a condition that is not preexisting. It's a condition that is created and shaped and manipulated and instilled in your own mind out of fear of having to do extra work. You have to understand that. In order to achieve this, you have to put in more work? Yes, but you're not stopping, and you're not going to not take this initial leap of faith because, look, you may or may not feel satisfied in the future. If you want to stop and you want to call it quits, or you want to retire, take a step back, then cool. You're going to know when you want to do that.

But in the meantime, I'm here to tell you that you should probably go all in with it. I'm here to tell you that there is absolutely no reason for you to not do what you want to do.

20:34

Answer this question: why not? Why not? Why wouldn't you? That is all I have for you today, guys. Thank you so much for tuning into this episode of Chase the Vision with Isaac Mashman. Be on the lookout for new episodes every single Monday and every single Friday. Make sure to let me know your thoughts. Rate, review, and subscribe to this. This helps me understand how many people are listening, and I am not running advertisements on this podcast, and I never will run an external advertisement. So do your due diligence, spread the word, and I'm happy and grateful for each and every one of you. Much love.