How to Get Your Music Heard During Lockdown

Isaac Mashman0:47

Thank you for having me on. I always wanted a hell of an intro. I love it. Epic.

Isaac Mashman2:04

Anytime, anytime. We first got connected through Twitter. Fast forward, we've been on a multitude of podcasts. I still have to get you on my show. I'm working on getting a new setup going for that to make it like really, really professional, but you're on the list for the future, future hosts, or co-hosts, or people I'm going to have on as guests. There we go. Dude, I have not had any coffee.

Isaac Mashman2:35

Yeah, absolutely. My name's Isaac Mashman. I'm 19 years old. I'm originally from Jacksonville, Florida, living in Bakersfield, California now. I'm not going to go into all of the different [minor] details. But I first got introduced to the concept of owning a business and going through a different route rather than the traditional nine to five back when I was a senior in high school. At the time, it was like, I saw that there was an opportunity for me to make more money than just the traditional nine to five. Literally, I grew up with very humble beginnings. My grandfather was a carpenter, woodworker. My mom was a single mom for a lot of my life, and I watched her struggle, watched finances have a big role in that.

Then I also recognized the power of, I guess you could say, having influence and being able to help other people take action or learn something. It's always been a passion of mine to teach, and it wasn't until recently that I really recognized that that was one of the deepest passions of my life. So through a bunch of trial and error, different businesses, different side hustles, I got involved with network marketing a couple of different times, got back involved with it. But my main focus now is working in the music industry. I manage one artist. His name is [Diggy Derek]. He's based out of Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Great guy, really talented artist, and so I'm working on helping his career flourish, but at the same time I noticed that there was a huge, huge gap when it came to entrepreneurs and the music industry. See, everyone nowadays is trying to be a social media guru and go after businesses and go after helping other entrepreneurs literally become better entrepreneurs, and I just got so sick and tired of the space. I recognized that I could go in and help actual musical talent and artists succeed without ever signing to a record label. I was originally going to start my own record label. But then I was looking at business models, and Dante, if I'm being honest, I realized that the music industry is literally not made for the record label to make money and the artist to make an equivalent amount of money.

It's one or the other. Either the artist is going to be independent and make a lot of money, or the label is going to have a big control over their career and then make a lot of money off of their artists. So I just was like, well, now I'm going to rebrand myself as the visionary disrupting the music industry. This is actually the first time I'm coming forward and saying that, because this has literally happened within the past week. I'm actually going to be recording a YouTube video later on today. So that's a little bit about what I do. Then I also create content. I'm not going to talk too much, but I create content, have my own podcast.

My main purpose, aside from businesses, is to really help people always grow, to live without limitations, because I've seen so many people in my life hate their lives, honestly. I don't like using hate, but I feel like we're probably going to end up getting into this subject later on. But I literally saw a lot of people hate their existence, and they were waking up in the morning and just doing the same exact thing, and the reason why is because they stopped growing. We as humans should always be growing. Our cells are consistently splitting and growing and reproducing every single day, 24-7.

Isaac Mashman5:38

Completely. Absolutely. Yeah. So it's a biological thing, yet many people just physically stop growing. They stop working out or they stop pursuing something. There's a big reason why, once people retire, the mortality rate skyrockets, because they were working their entire lives and then they go to not doing anything, and then having a little money to where they really can't go out and do what they really want to do in retirement, and man, it's an entire mess, but yeah, man, I mean, my major purpose is just to help people fucking win, you know, go after what they want to go after.

Isaac Mashman6:51

It is now Chase the Vision with Isaac Mashman. It's the vision. It used to be called The Hustler's Choice. But when I first got into business and entrepreneurship, Gary Vee was one of the biggest figures I followed. He wasn't the very first, but he was pretty much one of the [first]. He's all about hustling. He's all about being an entrepreneur. I've always had that, I guess you could say, entrepreneurial spirit in my heart. I was literally in the sixth grade messing around with pens, trying to sell pens to other students because I turned them into a little pen gun. Like, I kid you not, I had an entire catalog, a company name, I brought a friend in on it, all this other crazy stuff.

I always had that ambition because school was always easy, but at the same time I wanted to do more. It was natural. Once I got into the industry and just saw all of these cliches and the memes going online and all the same stuff and listening to mentors, I'm like, man, I got so sick and tired of it. I was like, I feel like I'm narrowing myself down. Like hustle is almost like a negative, derogatory term in 2020. I think it's kind of moving towards hustle being overused and overplayed. So I was like, man, I don't want to just focus on business, because every single person has a vision.

Every single person has something that they want out of life. So if I could appeal to that larger audience and then do great things.

Isaac Mashman11:37

An immense amount of self-control, an immense amount of discipline. The reason I say that is, if you go back, you listen to pretty much an interview by anyone who's ever achieved anything of quote success, whatever you want to define success as, but let's say success is measured by fame or popularity and a monetary amount. If you want to look at the people who have achieved those two things, that fame and money, a lot of what they say is consistency is what helped them become successful. Consistency, and being that consistent person to put out music every single year, to post on their Instagram every single day, to engage with fans, for content creators posting on TikTok or posting on Instagram literally every single day and being consistent with what they do, that is the one thing that they say makes them become successful.

But if you don't, it's like most people, the majority of people that I've found go through a period of highs to where they go for like a week or two weeks or even a month. They post every single day and then they drop off. That's something that I did myself for the longest time, and that I still do. Like, I'm actively working and progressing towards being that consistent man and consistent creator. But by dropping off, you're losing all of that momentum that you had established. You can build so much momentum in a matter of one month, but yet for whatever reason, whether it's mentality, we get stuck up in our thoughts, we get stuck up in our head, which is why what you're doing is amazing, because you're helping people overcome those thoughts and become clear.

For whatever reason, people stop, and they think that because they established that one month of momentum, they can pull back, and instead of posting every day, they post every other day or they post once a week. What they're doing is they're sacrificing their momentum by getting ahead of themselves. If you look at people who have actually become successful, they post every single day up until the point they are successful, and now they are still posting just as much. So it's a very broad question to ask, what do I see as [next]? But man, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, I'm putting a huge emphasis on my health and my well-being.

On being the very best man I can be, because I recognize, too, this was about the transition from business into more of, not self-help, I don't want to say self-help, but putting the emphasis on personal growth, because how do you expect your business to grow, your brand to grow, if you do not grow yourself? The more you grow, the more everything else will grow as well. It's like you have to have firm roots in the tree in order for the tree to rise up. If the roots are weak, the tree is weak. The roots are what keeps that tree planted and what keeps that tree growing and seeking life and seeking well-being. So a lot of growth on a personal level and also in business, man, I got a ton of things that...

Isaac Mashman14:38

Fucking people following me. Well, you see, I got the brand aspects 100% down pat. I know how to have a fire brand. I know a lot of the details of having a brand. Now it's about taking that and, it got a little dark here, let me open up a window really quick. Working on getting new lighting in this room, I got a new setup recently. But I got the branding aspect down pat, but what I need to get down pat now is the whole marketing side of things. Like how can I market myself and market my service and market my artists without having to really spend a whole lot of time messaging thousands and thousands of people.

That's always going to be an effective strategy, but it's time consuming. What I recognized I was doing, Dante, this goes to the topic of energy. You only have so much energy to give. It's like a battery. A battery is at 100% and then you open up Instagram, your phone battery is at 99. You use it for 10 minutes and it's at 90. Then by the end of the day your phone might be at 20%. You know, it might be at 10% or it might even be at 1% or it might be dead. Then you have to recharge your phone. We're the same exact way. What I saw myself doing, what I've done to establish my brand up until this point, was a very tedious process of messaging people, interacting, getting to know all about them, getting to know what their dog was [named], the different things, and spending a lot of time messaging and going super horizontal in the way that I was approaching it, rather than focusing on what I have going on and letting the people follow me because I have the direction.

One person out of 10 is going to be the leader and the other nine are going to follow the leader. It's like if you're providing value and providing something that, yes, in the end it's almost kind of selfish, because what you're doing is also contributing to your own success. We're ego-driven creatures, and so you have to have a balance between ego and selflessness. It's like, what am I doing that is also benefiting me, but also recognizing and having the awareness that what you're doing is benefiting another person without affecting their morals or doing harm to them. So man, I'm on fire right about now. So sorry. Sorry. I'm talking to you. I love it. I love it.

Isaac Mashman19:06

But I was actually, not to interrupt you, but I was doing some research last night, and I've actually been intrigued by more of the instinctual side of humans that has maintained itself over thousands of years. I was doing research and I found that humans are naturally lazy. Humans are naturally lazy, because if you go back 10,000 years ago, however long you want to believe that we can go back, humans had to conserve energy to reproduce, for the hunt to eat, and to travel. Like, they had to conserve energy. So whenever they were not doing those active things, they were sitting down, they were laying around, they weren't doing anything super productive, because they were conserving energy [for survival].

I believe that it remains true. Most humans are naturally lazy. I think that that's where the discipline, that's where the ambition, and the recognition that you're not going to obtain anything great in life unless you just go after it and you put in the work comes into play. You have to recognize that that lazy mentality and that lazy nature you have has to be reprogrammed, and you have to nurture a mentality of effort, of growth, of discipline.

Isaac Mashman20:28

I agree with a lot of what Gary Vee says, but I also don't think that if you love what you're doing, you're not going to be lazy. I think you can do the thing of your dreams and you can still be lazy. I think that that's true. I don't think that it's really like, find something you're good at and you're never going to be lazy. It's more of a buzz phrase that goes around, because you look at different people, Warren Buffett doesn't say to do what you love. Warren Buffett says to do what makes money, and Warren Buffett's also one of the top three richest people in the world.

So it's like, it really varies based off of a person, and it boils down to self-awareness. Well, what do I see myself doing? What habits do I have? How am I behaving? How can I change my habits that aren't good? A lot of people lack that self-awareness. I was thinking to myself earlier, I was like, man, this journey that I'm on makes no sense. Why am I on this journey? Every single thing in my childhood led me to go to college, led me to go and get a career. I never knew what that career was going to be, but it was an effort to be an entrepreneur and do anything like what I'm doing right now.

I began asking myself, I was like, why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Most people live their lives without asking why. They don't know why they're waking up in the morning. They don't know why they're going to work. They don't know why they're doing the things that they're doing. They don't know why they're overweight. They don't know why they're unhappy.

Isaac Mashman23:51

I do and I need to get more ritualistic on it, to be honest.

Isaac Mashman24:16

Huge, huge. Okay. So first, some tips, man. Honestly, one is don't consume a lot of caffeine. I have found that whenever I drink a lot of caffeine, whether that's tea, Pepsi, Coca-Cola, coffee, energy drinks, whatever, your mind begins to race. It's more difficult to focus. It's more difficult to find that peace. So one, try to limit how much caffeine you consume. I don't even think drinking a lot of caffeine is healthy in the first place. That's something I've had to take a step back and be like, Isaac, whoa, I don't need to drink two pots of coffee every day. That's not a lie. Other than that, I would say guided meditation is also a phenomenal thing, especially if you're just starting out.

I tried doing meditation without doing guided meditation. I found myself almost slipping to where I wouldn't be as at peace. I would let a thought creep in my mind, and that thought would come in and then I would start thinking about the thought and I would forget that I'm even meditating. So I think doing guided meditation, I know that there's a lot on YouTube. You recommended me some. There's also an app called Headspace. I think that was the name of the app. I use that. I used the entire free trial and it was phenomenal. That's how I first got introduced to it. But I think it's really great, especially when you're thinking a lot, running a business, when you're stressed out, when you might have anxiety issues.

I know a lot of people are paying attention to the news. Don't pay attention to the news. I'll be the person to tell you that, because it's going to cause anxiety. But if you want to really calm your mind, I think meditation is a phenomenal thing. It's not just for spiritual gurus. It's not for spiritual teachers, it's for anybody. But it's just important to not, like, sit down and meditate 24-7 and forget to act.

Isaac Mashman27:40

Absolutely. Yeah. Oh, let's go to the updates. Let's go to Twitter. Let's see the news. Let's see the updates. I've been guilty of that. I'm going to admit it. I've been guilty of that. But again, you have to have an awareness of all of your actions and what you're doing and recognize the consequences of your actions. So man, I just can't wait for it to blow over. I ended up having to cancel two concerts that Diggy was hosting because of this crap. Kind of pissed me off. I was supposed to be in Indiana last month.

Isaac Mashman28:26

Building a brand, I'm actually writing a book right now called Seven Steps to Getting Your Music Heard Around the World, and I'll be launching it in the next month. One of the chapters in the book is going to be building a brand online. The other chapter is going to be building a brand offline. There's a healthy balance between those two things. A lot of people only focus online and they don't focus on offline. It's like they don't realize that whenever you meet someone new, you should own up to the fact that you're an artist and you should be like, yeah, I make music. What do you do?

A lot of people don't want to admit that they're a rapper, that they're an artist. It's like, I'm trying to change that narrative, change the direction, but what people should be doing right now, because they can't go out, because they really can't focus on building a brand offline, they need to go ahead and get their brand right online, to where they have the same exact social media handle on Instagram, on Twitter, on Facebook. Do the small things, do the research. Every single thing that I've learned on how to do branding, I've done through research and trial and error. I think by having and owning up to the fact that you're an artist and starting to make connections with people, the only reason we're having this interview right now is because we got connected through Twitter, we established a relationship, we got to know one another, and fast forward, we're great friends.

Like, I knew that you wanted to do a keynote in June. I don't think that's going to be going on anymore because of this crap. But at the same time, I was about to fly out to do the keynote with you, because that is the value of a relationship. Just because you're talking to someone through a screen or through a laptop, through the internet, doesn't mean they're [not] a real person.

Isaac Mashman30:10

You have to realize that every single person you're talking to is a real person with real thoughts, with a real network, with real value, with a real personality. If you're able to encourage the community in your music to share your music, that's huge. That is huge.

Isaac Mashman30:45

Ask. It's literally as simple as asking, Dante. So many people don't want to ask for someone to do something. Or when they do it, they do it in a way that's spamming. They do it in a way to where that's the only thing they post, to where you ever get a message on Twitter and it's just like a music link. Do you know how annoying that is?

Isaac Mashman31:16

It's like they're expecting you to do something without them doing anything for you. Yes, they might be giving you music to listen to, but at the same time they're wanting you to check it out. It's not like you just got a DM from Rick Ross or Drake asking you to check out a song. If they drop the link in my inbox, dude, I would not complain. But these are just normal people who are making music. Yes, you should respect them, but they should also respect that, yo, you don't have to do anything in that. They could be a little bit more classy. So it's like, if someone follows you, send them a message.

Yo, I appreciate the follow. If there's anything I can do to help you out, let me know. I make music, by the way. If you've got a chance, I'd definitely appreciate it if you checked out my music. You establish community. Then what you'll notice is the people in your community will engage with other people in their community. If you ever go to the comment sections on WorldStar, on Gary V, on Tai Lopez, you'll see the community engages with one another. It's an ecosystem within an environment. It's a virtual ecosystem within another ecosystem. It's a very complex thing, but these people are engaging on a level of interacting with one another's comments, liking comments.

There are so many different strategies that go into community management, but man, I think that if you get the ball rolling and get that momentum going, think about Russ. All of his interviews, Russ is 100% independent. When he signed to Columbia Records, he got a 50-50 split, and he maintained 100% rights to all of his masters, all of his music. That is virtually unheard of. But the one thing he always says in interviews is his fans. As long as I got the internet and my fans, I'm set. Because they'll share that music. Think about the 12-year-old girl who's listening to your music. She's going to share it with her friends at school.

Those friends are going to share it with their friends at school. Then if your music is clean, depending on their relationship, they'll share it with their mom. They'll share it with their dad. They'll share it with their family. Next thing you know, you get this momentum going, because it's a spider web network. It's a spider web effect. It's like one person messages, another person messages, another person. I don't think people understand the power of the internet. That's why a song can go viral overnight. Think about Lil Nas X. He blew up because of the internet. Then you think about all of these artists who are blowing up over TikTok. I feel like I sound like Gary V by saying go on TikTok, but literally, man, I'm about to hit the 10K mark.

Isaac Mashman33:46

Don't remind me, man. I wasn't as spicy as I made it out to be. Not going to lie, it wasn't that bad. But my stomach hurt for the next like day, it was not fun. But man, literally TikTok, man, I'm about to hit the 10K mark, just off creating content. That's amazing. I fucking woke up and saw 240 follows. I'm like, what is this? I had to shut my notifications off. 300 follows, 300, 300, 300, and dude. There's so many, on this topic of artists, there are a lot of artists who are blowing up because their song is getting used for a dance video. K Camp, he did Renegade.

I don't know if you're familiar with that song, but the song Renegade blew up. K Camp disappeared from the mainstream for a minute. After his big run in 2014, he did songs like [1Hunnid, Slum Anthem], and then he was big for a minute and then he dropped off. He was dropping music, but it really didn't take off. The next thing you know, you have this 13, 14 year old girl. She sees this song by K Camp. She does a dance video to it. It goes viral. The dance video goes viral. The song goes viral. K Camp is right up in the mainstream again. Other artists like [Sueco the Child], he went from literally grinding it out, sleeping [at] a couple of friends' [houses and in] his dad's bike house, to having 200,000 plus followers on Instagram, getting signed to Atlantic, and a whole bunch of other things. So dude, TikTok for music is underrated.

Isaac Mashman35:27

There are two different levels of sucking. There's a level of, you have no talent, and you're trying to force it. That sounds super bad. That sounds super negative. But there are some people out there who really want to make a career for themselves, but they have no talent whatsoever. I think that a lot of times those people try to force something that they're not because they compare themselves to other people. Because they look to other people, they look at the standards their parents might have given them as children. They look at everyone else, but they don't look at what would really make them happy.

Isaac Mashman37:04

It takes practice, man. I don't think it takes 10,000 hours to master one skill. 10,000 hours. Once you master your skill, guess what, Dante? You can still learn more about that skill. You never know it all. That's the brilliant thing about this human experience and this human journey that we're on. We're always going to be learning something. For these artists, man, they want it now. This is something that I had to take a step back from, because man, I got impatient for a time. I was like, motherfucker, why am I not here? And then I recognized, well, I'm not here because one, I haven't put in the effort to get there, two, I haven't put in the effort to get there, and three, I was lazy.

I didn't put in the effort to get there. I was like, oh, that makes sense. No wonder I didn't get it. Most of these artists, dude, they expect other people to fuck with them when they don't fuck with themselves. They need to put more time in there.

Isaac Mashman38:49

That's something I've been progressively trying to get better at. When I flew out to France, one of the things my friend told me, she said, Isaac, you've got to realize that there's a real world. It's not all just business, it's not all just on your phone. I was like, oh shit, you're right. There is a real world. That's been something that I've been working on over the past couple of months. I think it's important to at least get in nature. We were meant to be close with nature. We were meant to walk in the grass. We were meant to sit outside and to be underneath the tree and to get the sunlight on our face.

Thirty minutes of being in the sunlight has been shown to help curb the side effects of depression and other mental illnesses. So I think that going outside every single day for at least 30 minutes is huge. I've been going on a lot of different walks every day, trying to. Not only is it physical exercise, but 30 days of walking a mile and a half every day is 45 miles at the end of the month. It's that compound effect that builds up. So by going and just walking 30 minutes during the day, getting some sunlight on your face, putting on some music, listening to a podcast, whatever, or not listening to anything and just enjoying it, being in nature, it's huge.

Because we live in a technology-driven world. We are surrounded by Wi-Fi emissions. We're surrounded by signals. We're surrounded by, what is it called, electromagnetic frequencies, all that crap, man. I don't know all of the influences it has on the brain, but it does influence a lot of the brain, because we're having these frequencies go in and out of our brains all the time. Something I would love to do is [a day or a week] every month, completely go without any technology. I think that'd be big. I know that you mentioned an idea of doing a challenge of going an entire week without blue light, and I was like, Dante, our businesses are like...

Isaac Mashman40:49

Yeah, yeah, but it's like, if we could take a day to go without all technology. I know that I went a day, back when I [went back to] Jacksonville. I went out on the river with my buddy Kevin and his girlfriend Hannah. I left my phone at home. We just went on the water, and I was like, this is so refreshing, and they were worrying about their phones. They had their phones. I was like, man, if I could take my phone and throw it in the water and disappear, I would not complain. And I think it's important, man. We live in a fast food society.

Everyone wants it now. Everyone wants to eat now. They want to live now. They want to keep up with the news 24-7. Sometimes that causes anxiety. Man, have a little bit more aggressive patience. Understand that it's going to take longer. But also just get up and get out for it every day.

Isaac Mashman41:54

No, it's at Isaac Mashman on all platforms. I just transferred my website over to a new platform, isaacmashman.com, that's new. Then you can listen to Chase the Vision with Isaac Mashman, the podcast, on literally every platform, just as you can find Dante's podcast. You can also find mine. And it's been a pleasure, though, Dante, for real.

Isaac Mashman42:52

It's [from] your perspective, like, what would be fucking awesome? Yeah, and it's Chase the Vision. Chase is an active word. It's a pursuit for something. You're pursuing your vision, and I don't think you'll ever get it. You'll pursue certain degrees to it, but they're always going to be new levels. Infinite, man, infinite. I want to get a tattoo. I think I mentioned this on one of my other podcasts I did with you, but I wanted to get a tattoo, man. I want to get a tattoo of the infinity sign [with an] X, infinite X, because there are infinite possibilities.