Meet Isaac Mashman

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Isaac Mashman. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Isaac below.

Hi Isaac, so happy to have you with us today and there is so much we want to ask you about. So many of us go through similar pain points throughout our journeys and so hearing about how others developed certain skills or qualities that we are struggling with can be helpful. Along those lines, we’d love to hear from you about how you developed your ability to take risk?
Taking risks doesn’t seem so daunting when you have faith in yourself and trust that no matter what happens, you will figure out a solution.

I can think of many times when I have taken massive risks. From choosing to stay in California rather than fly home with less than $1,000 to my name, booking one-way tickets to France, and taking a bus ride to New York City to meet my business associates. I could go on, but in each of these scenarios, I knew that at the end of the day, I was going to be just fine. I never thought “What if this goes wrong?” I just went with it. Maybe it was foolish to do, but I would do it all over again, in a heartbeat.

It is interesting because now my major business is Public Relations and Personal Branding which has a great deal to do with risk mitigation. If you are looking to develop your own ability to take risks, develop yourself first. The more trust and grounded confidence you have in yourself, the better.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
Growing up in Jacksonville, Florida I remember thinking that I was from a small city. I suppose my perspective was influenced to what I saw on the big screen. I compared it to the likes of Chicago and New York City. I start off with this because, in retrospect, it gives a glimpse of how big I was really thinking, even from a young age. It took me leaving home and seeing some of the world to really appreciate my upbringing.

I didn’t come from money or a typical household. I only connected with my biological father in recent years and growing up in a single-parent household I was raised in a large part by my grandparents. I remember getting up in the morning at 5 am with my grandmother to take my grandfather to the cabinet shop across town where he worked. My mother is a brilliant woman but often limited herself to what positions she took in her career. We suffered financially because of it and although we never went hungry, I wasn’t the kid who wore the nicest clothes, or had the nicest things, or even had health insurance for that matter.

In my early years, it was normal, but as I got older, I started to see a disparagement between what life could be, and when I was living in. The thought of having those nice things was encouraging and exhilarating. It was a mix between material lust and the freedom of options. Eventually, when it came time for me to graduate high school, rather than going to college and pursuing a degree like I was preparing, I jumped, headfirst into the world of business. I’ll spare each and every detail of the business endeavors in the years to come but it took more than half a dozen attempts to find my vehicle.

As of today, I run a public relations firm, Mashman Ventures, and specialize in personal branding. I am a massive believer that your reputation holds more power than nearly anything else on this planet. Individuals have made and destroyed empires. Aside from my firm, I am working on building investment and real estate investment firms and am in the early stages of planning an international nonprofit with initiatives spanning the globe.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Charisma, the ability to network, and fearlessness. You’ll find as I explain these things that they all are interwoven.

I define charisma as the ability to take a stranger into a trusting friend in a short amount of time. It’s more than just being likable or “being loud.” It’s about being valued and sparking curiosity. Charisma is developed by developing yourself into a leader. The more conversations you have, the more you will understand how you react in situations, what questions get the best reactions, and how other people respond to you. Even if you’re not the most extroverted person in the world, you need to be able to come across as charismatic and trustworthy.

Charisma goes hand-in-hand with the next skill set, which is the ability to network. Networking really isn’t as difficult as people make it out to be! Your sole focus when meeting somebody new isn’t to pitch yourself but rather to find out as much information about the other person as possible. Ask questions! You’ll notice that the more questions you ask and in a genuine manner that is, the relationship will feel unlevel. The person on the other end will begin to wonder about you. This is where you can come across as mysterious but in the best of ways. Remember that at the end of a conversation, it is up to you to find a way to stay in contact with that person.

Finally, there is fearlessness. As we previously discussed, fearlessness enables you to take calculated risks. If you let fear dictate your direction and your behavior, you’ll be too afraid to ever network with somebody and therefore never develop your charisma. Ask yourself a snarky way when you begin feeling fearful, “What’s the worst that can happen?” Shrug it off and go get it.

Any advice for folks feeling overwhelmed?
Anytime you are approaching a major turning point in your life it is natural that you might feel overwhelmed. Maybe you lost a client, have a million tasks to do, or things are just adding up in your life. I know I’ve been in each of these situations. The first step is to be aware that you are overwhelmed. Once you have this awareness you can process what is causing it.

I will usually take a step away from my tasks, especially if it’s at the end of the day. I might say enough is enough and go to bed. I believe there comes a boiling point if you will, where if you try to force any more productivity, you’ll cause more damage than you would produce change. Depending on the circumstance, I’ll step outside and smoke a nice cigar and listen to music or watch one of my favorite TV shows. Once I feel levelheaded, I start strategizing what I need to do to address the reason behind my stress.

Contact Info:

Image Credits
Isaac Mashman, 2023.

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