Stay Stubborn
Host: Isaac Mashman · April 4, 2022 · Episode 97 · 7 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.
[Welcome] to Chase the Vision with Isaac Mashman. Yo, yo, yo, what is going on, everybody? Isaac Mashman here, and welcome back to another episode of your favorite show, Chase the Vision with Isaac Mashman, the podcast that is all about helping you become a more capable individual through me sharing my experiences and knowledge in business, life, and personal growth. Man, I'm excited about today's episode, and I am very simply going to tell you to stay stubborn. Yes, to stay stubborn. Okay, Isaac, what the hell do you mean? I'll get to that here in a second. But first, I want to remind you guys of the fee for listening to the show.
It is not monetary, and I'm not about to run advertisements. All I ask is that you very simply share this with another person. If you got value from the things that I'm sharing with you, that I'm talking about and telling you to do and apply in your own life, well, hey, send this to a business partner, send this to your mom, send this to your friend, send this to your significant other, somebody else that you think will get just as much value from it as you did yourself. Now, I want to talk about stubbornness. I think that being stubborn growing up, at least in my household, was viewed as a negative thing, because my version of stubbornness was almost rebellion.
It was, I am going to do the opposite of what you're telling me to do. You tell me to turn left, I'm going to turn right. You tell me to go right, I'm going to turn left. You tell me to sit down, I'm going to stand up. That is how I was as a child. No wonder I'm in entrepreneurship. Go to college? [Psych], I'm not going. Don't start a business? [Psych], I'm starting a business. Don't do this? Well, I'm going to do it anyway. I wanted to learn for myself, and I wanted to do [my own thing] and be my own person.
So I was extremely stubborn growing up, but it is only now, whenever I look back, that I realize how much of a good trait stubbornness is. Now, to a degree, you have to be humble, and you have to be accepting of other viewpoints. You have to at least be respectful of the people around you and the opinions other people have about what you have going on. But that does not mean that you take it to heart, or that you listen or care. When it comes to business, if I was not stubborn about my goals and about where I wanted to go in life and about what I'm working towards, which I'm still working towards today...
Being able to lead a life that nobody else in my life had ever led before, being able to make money, do whatever I wanted, go wherever I wanted, those are still the forefront of what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. That really hasn't evolved.
But I was stubborn about this vision, and I didn't give in. I didn't give up, regardless of how many struggles and cycles and bullshit have come my way. I think that success a lot of times comes right on the tail end of an extremely low point. You get to that other side, you get to the end of that tunnel, and you're like, oh my God, thank God I didn't give up. It reminds me of some country song. I can't remember who it's by. If you've ever listened to country, you are going to know exactly what song I'm talking about. It might be Rodney Atkins. You're probably like, Isaac, why are you talking about a country song?
I don't even listen to country music too much anymore. But when I was growing up, my mom would put on the radio, and she'd put on the country music station. There is a song: if you're going through hell, don't give up, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Motivational cliche, bam, you get the point. But I say all of that to say this: staying stubborn when it comes to pursuing your vision or your business or your life or your career keeps you going despite the hardships that are going to come your way. Despite the things that are going wrong, that previously might have been a speed bump in your life and in your journey, you're not going to care. It's not really going to faze you.
If there are any moments where you're off track, it's not like you're going to be like the rest of society and get comfortable for the long term. Because it's in your stubborn nature, and the nature of wanting more, and the nature of setting high standards of operation for yourself, you're not going to stay complacent. You're not going to stay comfortable, because your stubbornness is going to drag you out of it. You're going to be like, I know I shouldn't do this, so let me go ahead and actually do what I know I need to be doing. There are so many ways and so many different applications that I could list off today about stubbornness being a good thing.
Yes, stubbornness definitely has its drawbacks, if you're so stuck in your ways that somebody's actually speaking logic to you and you're just like, no, I'm not going to listen.
It's like in some of the different movies where it's like, you need to get off the land, you need to go, the invaders are coming. And it's like, no, I was born on this land, and I'm going to die on this land. In the movies and such, [that] might not be a good example of being stubborn. You might want to leave. But when it comes to life and business and such, stubbornness is a blessing. Stubbornness is something that is good because, despite the people around you telling you to be comfortable or to give up, or that one day you'll want to settle down and retire, you're going to be so freaking set in your ways that you're going to say, no, I'm not.
That's not what I want. Then that stubbornness is going to allow you to stand up for yourself, to defend yourself, and to really make it known what you are, who you are, what you're doing, and where you're going.
So next time somebody says, oh my God, you are so stubborn, you're like, absolutely, yes. Yes, I am. But it's not because I'm a jerk or I'm an asshole. It's very simply that I know what I want. I like what I like. That's who I am. Embrace that. Don't be cocky. Don't be a jerk. But don't think that just because somebody calls you stubborn, that's innately a bad thing. I think we have a tendency of doing that. Somebody says something, and they don't even mean it in an ill-intended way, or they're not even saying it in a way that means it's a bad character trait.
But just because it's coming out of another person's mouth, sometimes we can perceive it as such and perceive it to be a negative thing.
It's not always the case. Don't be so self-conscious. Be stubborn. [Love] you.