Isaac Mashman / Building a Personal Brand

How to Build a Personal Brand That Grows Your Influence

Many professionals and entrepreneurs struggle to build a credible personal brand online, often feeling inauthentic or overwhelmed by the constant pressure to create content and maintain a perfect image.

Imagine having a powerful personal brand that authentically represents who you are, attracts your ideal clients or opportunities, and sets you apart as a trusted authority in your field – all without feeling fake or burning out.

In this episode, Isaac Mashman reveals his proven strategies for building a genuine and impactful personal brand. Learn how to leverage your unique story, build credibility through free press, and navigate online criticism with confidence. Stay tuned to discover how you can transform your online presence and accelerate your professional success.

5 Key Takeaways:

• The importance of personal branding for entrepreneurs
• How to manage your reputation both online and offline
• Tips for growing your influence and reaching new audiences
• The role of storytelling in building a personal brand
• How to differentiate between your business brand and personal brand

Link: IsaacMashman.com

Paul Povolni, the founder of Voppa Creative, has been a creative leader for over 30 years, with clients around the world. He’s led teams in creating award-winning branding and design as well as equipping his clients to lead with Clarity, Creativity and Culture.

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Transcript

Paul Povolni (09:20.13)
Hey, welcome to the Headsmack Podcast. My name is Paul Povolni and I'm excited to have another misfit with me. I have Isaac Mashman with me. He is a businessman, author, podcast host, investor, speaker and coffee addict. And just like me, and he's originally from Jacksonville, Florida. He's now living in Little Rock, Arkansas. And he is a founder of the consulting firm Mashman Consulting Group. Isaac specializes in helping public figures optimize and scale their personal brands and has hosted multiple podcasts himself.

published author and owns several other companies. Isaac, welcome

Isaac Mashman (09:54.563)
Paul, pleasure to be here, man. Excited for this conversation.

Paul Povolni (09:57.506)
Yeah, looking forward to this conversation. love conversations about personal branding and we've been connected for a little bit and I've enjoyed seeing you and what you're doing and you just moved into a cool new office space, which is amazing. You know, I remember the days of having office space and now I'm just kind of my fortress of solitude here at my house, but it looks amazing and looking forward to talking.

So talk to me a little bit about the origin story of Isaac Mashman. And like, you can go as far back as you want and as detailed as you want, but what was the deformation of Isaac Mashman that brought you to where you're at right

Isaac Mashman (10:37.315)
Poverty and misfortune, I suppose you could say. That's a great way to start out, Everybody's feeling very optimistic already. No, I mean, I am from Jacksonville, Florida. I was born into a single parent household. I never met my biological father and didn't connect with him until later in life. Thankfully today I have a great relationship with him. One of those situations where mom and dad just, they were on two different wavelengths and my mom had me when she was young and she was 21.

Paul Povolni (10:41.35)
Yeah. Yeah.

Isaac Mashman (11:03.325)
And, he eventually moved down to Brazil and started a new family down there. have two half brothers I've never met yet, but, I was raised in large part by my grandparents. My grandmother pretty much stayed at home, you know, taking care of me. My mom would help, you know, support some of the bills and she'd raise me and drop me off at school. Grandfather was a carpenter used to build cabinets. And so I remember getting up at five o 'clock and taking him across the river with my grandmother to drop them off at the cabinet shop and pick them up after school.

you eventually my mom remarried and just a bunch of different things and experiences growing up that I realized something could have been better. Now I'm very grateful for my, for the way that I was raised. taught me, you know, that there's something else out there. And this is what I don't, don't like, you know, I, I love sloppy Joe's, but that doesn't mean I want to eat sloppy Joe's as an adult and feed it to my kids, you know, when they're later, later down the road.

Paul Povolni (11:52.022)
Right, right.

Isaac Mashman (11:54.755)
But I'm also not one those DRF students, Paul. I'm not one those entrepreneurs that's like, started because I sucked at school. No, I excelled at school. Top 10, high GPA, AP classes, one SAT test away from a full ride scholarship to FSU or UCF, got accepted into both of those. Screw the Florida Gators, they didn't accept me. But all in all, was really a surprise when going into my senior year, I was going through this teenage crisis

Paul Povolni (12:13.72)
Hahaha

Isaac Mashman (12:21.025)
I was fighting my stepdad, I was fighting my mom, was fighting religious figures in my life at the time. Everybody was just getting on my nerves and I've never felt like anybody understood me. And so I'm thinking to myself, why would I go to college and get a marketing degree and my mom has a master's and hasn't put it to use yet? And I'm thinking to myself, that just doesn't make sense. And so I started a clothing line and I had these entrepreneurial facets that I didn't know it was entrepreneurial spirited. mean, my stepdad and...

know, stepbrother encouraged me to do like lawn care one summer and I did, a law firm and did work for Boy Scouts and things of that nature.

Paul Povolni (12:56.61)
Now, what part of you did you feel that all those people in your life didn't get? What part of you do you feel they missed?

Isaac Mashman (13:03.351)
Yeah, I think it was how much, you know, I'm not here to talk negatively about family, but I think that going in and as a teenager, it's kind like, I hate you, mom, I hate you, dad, but there was actual things going on when I was younger where like my stepdad had that narcissistic personality that ultimately whatever you said would be manipulated. And into adulthood, I think my mom started to really realize that it just created this rift between me and him and my mom to where arguments nonstop. And I don't really share this often by

I figure if this is a podcast for misfits, it's like, think entrepreneurs stem from struggle and stem from bullshit and stem from things that are just rough. And that was that. And so I was that rebel, you know, going into high school and middle school. I wanted freedom. And I, and all of the issues were caused because I didn't have freedom growing up. And it's not that I wanted to go out and party with a bunch of college students. It was just, I wanted to have the ability to think for myself. And I didn't, I wasn't given that. And so it makes sense why entrepreneurship.

Paul Povolni (13:39.436)
Yeah,

Isaac Mashman (14:02.647)
had an appealing structure to me because or lack of structure, I suppose, because I could go out and build something that was my own. so long story short, I got involved with the network marketing industry. That was a phenomenal experience. Three different companies, four different times, first business trip, all that good stuff. And over the span of several years, I got out of that industry and into a bunch of others. And it eventually led me to what I'm doing now, which is personal brand consulting and working with public figures, which is quite exciting. I enjoy it quite a

Paul Povolni (14:29.549)
Yeah. Yeah. So you mentioned you went through several different jobs during that time. Were they all in marketing space or were they just whatever you could take on or what kind of jobs were those?

Isaac Mashman (14:40.771)
Well, I I did work two jobs. I've worked two jobs in my life. One was at a Publix grocery store as an overnight stock stock boy for about three months. And I would blast Andy, Andy for sell as MFCEO project in my ear. used to piss the boss off because I'd always have something in my ear listening to him and he'd be talking to me. And I'm like, huh? You know, like because I was focused on personal development. Why not get the most of it? I'm not going to listen to the same playlist of 2000 hits over and over again at night. Like, no. And I worked at a barbecue joint. But after I got out of network marketing,

Paul Povolni (14:56.619)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (15:04.598)
Right.

Isaac Mashman (15:09.059)
tried my hand and, you know, drop shipping and wanting to do some social media work and some podcast management. And my first thousand dollars was podcast management. And that was really a big shocking moment to me. Cause I'm thinking to myself, wow, I just got paid a thousand bucks. Like I was getting paid $300 for 30 hours of work at the grocery store a week. And I just made a thousand dollars and it'll take me 10 hours maybe of my time to do this. Like, and, all of these different experiences kind of shifted things, but it wasn't until

Paul Povolni (15:33.346)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (15:37.954)
That was enough of a taste of it for you to say, okay, there's, there's something else out there.

Isaac Mashman (15:40.547)
Absolutely. Yeah. And I was in California at the time because I pretty much graduated. And then there was a moment where I was flown out to California for VidCon by Facebook in 2019. Everybody knows about Facebook Reels, but they don't know about the precursor to Reels. It was called Lasso, like the Lasso Europe, a coward. And it was an app that was short videos, you know, under a minute, I think it was under 30 seconds. And I worked my way into one of the star creators and I was flown out

Paul Povolni (15:58.309)
Huh. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Isaac Mashman (16:09.827)
to LA for VidCon in 2019. And rather than flying home, I stayed in California. And I spent the summer in Bakersfield with people that I met the year before when I was out there. But those risks were, I suppose the big thing in my mind was, what's the worst that could happen? Like, what's the worst that could happen? Why not? And yeah, man, I could go into a million different directions there, but it's been good.

Paul Povolni (16:19.266)
Wow. Wow.

Paul Povolni (16:28.194)
Right.

Paul Povolni (16:34.924)
Yeah. Well, and you know, talking to a lot of entrepreneurs is it's they've said, and they've they've shared that entrepreneurs make terrible employees. You know, did you find that in kind of your hustle and grind and the mindset that you had is that, you know, you just you weren't a great employee. You just knew that there was something else for

Isaac Mashman (17:00.376)
Far from. I mean, I made a great employee, which is the ironic part. Just like I was a straight A student, I was an excellent employee. And I know that, you know, whatever, if I was to choose a marketing career or choose to work a business or a nine to five, I would have excelled at it. And I found that building a business is more challenging though, simply because you lack that structure and you need that discipline to do yourself. And that's been like the biggest moving into this next stage of having the discipline

Paul Povolni (17:04.03)
Interesting,

Isaac Mashman (17:24.483)
get up when I need to get up and do the things that I need to do because it's not like you have a boss who sang or this sense of, know, in school I performed very well. And I remember in PE, was thinking about this in ninth grade, I was the fat chubby kid. And I remember my grades being paralleled by how fast I could run the mile. And when I started the year, it was like 11 minutes, it was horrible. And by the end of the year, I worked it down to eight minutes and 20 seconds, it got an A in the class. But I realized,

looking back in retrospect that the reason I was able to do that was I had a milestone and this expectation that if I didn't meet, I would get a B on my report card. And why am going to be a straight A student in every class and then have a B in PE? Like that's, that's pathetic. And moving into my jobs that I did work, I mean, my first job at Sunny's Barbecue, was hired for $8 and 50 cents. And then I was there as a dishwasher for like three days and the boss moved me into the back.

Paul Povolni (18:05.976)
Yeah,

Isaac Mashman (18:19.117)
to work with food prep. He's like, you're overqualified, get back here. Like literally, and I didn't have a choice. mean, I was like, okay, sure. And that's why my story and why I don't talk about these things is it's atypical to what most entrepreneurs talk about in their own journeys and their own progressions.

Paul Povolni (18:23.54)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (18:36.674)
Yeah. Yeah. And so, so you went, you know, through those multiple jobs that, know, weren't in marketing, weren't in branding and anything. When was your first step into marketing from those places? Like, what was the first thing that kind of drew you into that and what was

Isaac Mashman (18:52.599)
That would have to be the podcast management because when I was building all these different side hustles and endeavors, what I was doing was building out my personal brand because I understood early on Paul that, you know, obscurity is the enemy of success. Like I have to make sure that people know me. And so, you know, some of the people that have been connected with me, the longest have seen me go through five different pivots and they've seen, okay, after six months, let's change this up. After six months, let's change this up. And it always pissed me off when I did that because I'm like, man, I spent all this time.

But at the same point, I feel like there's something else and it was this pursuit of clarity almost like I was, I was seeking something that I could naturally be good at. But when I was in California and I had the friend group that I had at the time, I had a lot of them coming to me asking for help with their social media, with their pages, with their business pages. And I realized that there was this wide open opportunity to work with the personal brands rather than the businesses. Cause everybody works with the business to run leads and run ads. But what about the business owner? What about the

And so that was in 2019 when the seed was planted. And, you know, I, that's when I moved into the music industry a little bit and managed musical talent because branding and marketing tie great in to music management and positioning an artist. And, you know, eventually got out of that and into the other consultant.

Paul Povolni (20:12.558)
So where did that skill set come from? it from just out of necessity, just people asking you to help with stuff? It was a natural talent in that space? So where did some of that skill come from?

Isaac Mashman (20:26.327)
I wouldn't say natural talent, but I would say reverse engineering everything. Like that's the big secret. mean, if people think about how they can build a brand or build a business or run a successful ad, mean, there are people online that charge thousands of dollars for reverse engineering, click funnels and reverse engineering a funnel page. It's like, right. You're, you're, seeing what works and adopting it. And that's what I did. So what I would do is when I was in high school, I remember sitting behind my desk during my free period, my senior year.

Paul Povolni (20:44.492)
Yeah,

Isaac Mashman (20:53.451)
And watching Gary Vaynerchuk's videos and editing my podcast and everything else. And I'm not a fan of Gary today in a large part. mean, I don't have anything bad to say about the guy. just, feel like you graduate from Gary V and go into like high level tactical stuff. I feel like he's the introductory course into like the gourmet meal. but I reverse engineered, you know, what Gary did, what Ty Lopez did, how Grant Cardone positioned himself. Cause he went from being this obscure sales trainer to being

well known in the matter of less than a decade. And so I would look and I'd run Google searches and I would see what blogs they got on, how they built their podcast, where the podcast was distributed, what those little details were, how their social media looked. For example, if I'm going to want to do public speaking, how do I get on the bureaus that they're listed on? And I just looked for all of those different avenues that I could go down.

Paul Povolni (21:22.658)
Yeah.

Isaac Mashman (21:48.545)
And eventually I figured out, this works, this doesn't work. Let me go ahead and do this. And then this is also duplicatable for clients. And that's where I started to really pinpoint the strategy into, I could take anybody, look at what they've done, look at what they're wanting to do and position them to where they could be that public figure and get in front of, you know, whatever audience they want to get in front

Paul Povolni (22:09.774)
So why does personal, you you mentioned you kind of this metamorphosis or this progression of your career of just learning and absorbing and researching and reverse engineering. You know, as this growth happened and you started leaning more towards focusing on personal branding, why does personal branding matter in 2024?

Isaac Mashman (22:33.731)
because it's everything. mean, you, of you being on social media or not, you have a personal brand. And Paul, this is one of the biggest misconceptions people have. They think that their personal brand only exists on Instagram or because they're creating a new website, they're creating a new personal brand or they're pivoting, they have to create a new one. No, you are working with the same personal brand you have had from the moment your mom had pushed you out all those years ago.

That's the thing that people need to understand. And as you go through, just like I was the straight A student, I have friends from my past that know me or that I've forgotten about me. I know people from my past that I have perceptions about. We all have perceptions as children. And then we go and get older and you go to college and you land a career. How do you land a career with a resume and what is a resume or reflection of your personal brand? And so I realized that there's this philosophical approach in 2024 that needs to be preached more than ever because

If the internet disappeared tomorrow, you can still go outside and shake hands and people will know you in your local community. You're still known, your mother, your son, your daughter, your aunts, your uncles, your friends, they still know you. And that is your personal brand. It is you. And that's something very few people are talking about.

Paul Povolni (23:43.662)
So what is your personal brand not?

Isaac Mashman (23:47.435)
It's not just one thing. It's a spiderweb of everything. So just like your reputation is not your personal brand, it is separate. It is something that is an aspect of your personal brand, whether that's good or for bad. Your book is an aspect of your personal brand. Your interests and hobbies are an aspect of your personal brand. There is literally nothing that I could say that isn't a part of your personal brand aside from your actual company brand. Your company is an extension of you.

but it is not you. And this is something small business owners really screw up with. They use their business pages as their personal pages. They use I instead of we or our first person versus third person. That's not your personal brand. But every single thing, just like you have Superman in the background and Hulk comic books on your wall, which I see, your interest in Marvel or DC is a part of your personal brand. Just like me drinking coffee is a part of it. And this hyper fixation on

only showing the professional side is hurting people because it's not allowing them to get connected to on an emotional basis and have rapport established.

Paul Povolni (24:51.182)
Yeah, I want to go down that path in a second, but you know, something you had mentioned about the difference between a business brand and a personal brand. so, you know, in, in 2024, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a lot different than it was 10 years ago, you know, or before the phone, you know, before the iPhone came out, um, talk about the difference and the value of creating a personal brand outside of a business brand and how to separate those

Isaac Mashman (25:21.345)
Well, there are three main reasons why you would build your personal brands. And pretty much every other small micro reason falls underneath these three. You have the ability to make money and generate revenue. You have vanity and ego. And then you have to drive awareness to a cause. Those are the three biggest reasons and everything else you can fall underneath. Those are like the umbrella reasons. And so you building out your personal brand and being positioned as an expert.

you're able to grow your company's brand. You're able to say, no, I'm associated with this or, you know, I would automatically choose you over the next designer because I've seen your work and I've connected with you as a person. People do business with who they know, like, and trust. This isn't new. Now you can also build your personal brand because maybe you just like the attention. And I think that there's nothing innately wrong with that. I'm not here to dispute the morals or the ethical ramifications of being famous, but having

that desire to be well known is, I mean, all entertainers have that narcissism. I you think about entertainers, the reason they grow is not just for money, it's for vanity. And then you have the alternative side, which is like a mission. wanna drive awareness to a cause. Maybe you have something that you care about or something that is close to your heart, whether that's how

improve businesses cybersecurity because you hacked into a system 20 years ago, which is, I had a conversation with the prospect the other day and he hacked into the system 14 years ago and is now able to do white label security service and basically help people and help lawyers and businesses with their MSP and their network security because he did that. You know, and so it's like they're, those are like the main reasons why you build your personal brand. And from there, you know, people will follow you for those interests and for those things.

Paul Povolni (27:00.202)
What are some ways to separate a personal brand from a business brand? Cause there's, you know, th there is the, the challenge or the fear that people have. If my personal brand is too tied into my business, then if I leave, if I depart, then will the business fall apart? And so what are some healthy ways to create a, a personal brand that while they tie into

a business brand, but they can also separate without a lot of fracture.

Isaac Mashman (27:34.765)
That's a really great question. And I love that question too, because we can look at what I did and I can tell you what not to do. And what I mean by that is all of my businesses are named after me for the most part. Mashman Consulting Group, Mashman Ventures, Mashman Investments, Mashman Properties. That is what you should not do unless you are looking to never sell it. I am building my businesses to go back to the old Americana way of passing it on to my son and saying, you're into the daddy's business. That's what I'm building this for, to where this is a generational thing. Okay.

Not everybody wants to do that. A lot of people want to build a business to exit the business. Now, whether that's good or that's bad, I'm not here to talk about that either. But what I can say is you have to start building a team, building a culture, building it as an extension of you to where if you were to step away, the business can still function. And this is something like Andy Frisella talks about in depth. And he says that it's his own microorganism. Like, and that's how you can really tell if a business is good. So with Mashman Consulting

I'm building a consultant's team to where even if I'm not doing any consultations, I still have a team of people who can go out and land their own clients and are self -sustaining to where they could grow the business. And if they have a question, they could go to Eric or they could go to anybody else that is in that position to say, Hey, what should we be doing? Well, Isaac's not here. That is a business, right? Versus having a side hustle or a business that you're only starting and you're like a one -man shop. It's very difficult to differentiate the two.

Because if you're working a solo and there's no other capabilities where it can function without you, you're pretty much being a sole proprietor, not a business owner. And that's like a massive jump that it's not set in a disrespectful way. Some people want to only be that one man freelance shop, but that's different than building a business with the culture and having 25 people working for you or having a thousand people work for you. But you can go and do podcasts and you know, interviews just like I'm doing and talk about your business and your expertise on.

on shows, but you should also make sure that you're building your own company's email list, your own company's social media, creating posts and not making yourself necessarily the face of it. Like Terra Mana Tequila by Dwayne The Rock Johnson. I know that Dwayne's behind the company, but it's still functioning with or without Dwayne. I know that like Aviation Gin, I'm thinking about liquors because all celebrities do is start a liquor company. Aviation Gin was, I believe sold by Ryan Reynolds.

Paul Povolni (29:56.462)
Right, right.

Isaac Mashman (30:00.877)
but I'm still gonna be buying it because I like the product. But he was the introductory taste, right? And so you have to make sure that the business is able to withstand itself even if you're out of the picture.

Paul Povolni (30:06.53)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (30:12.044)
Right. And I think that's healthy leadership. And a lot of leaders talk about hiring people better than themselves. They talk about, you know, putting their DNA and, their, core values into the business strong enough that when they depart, the business carries on without, there being an issue and, and the businesses that fail when a personal brand is separated from the business brand are the brands

the leader has not done a good job of putting into the business himself and hiring people smarter than him to take it further and greater than he's ever taken it. And so I think there shouldn't be a fear of building a personal brand with your business brand if you create it in a healthy way,

Isaac Mashman (31:01.943)
Yeah, there shouldn't really be a fear because I mean, I suppose most all of this, the same thing with putting yourself out there. mean, a lot of people like their privacy and a lot of people also don't do it not because of privacy. And they say that privacy is the reason, but the real reason is they just don't feel confident in being able to put themselves out there because they feel like they'll look stupid. And I think developing your confidence in your own abilities and going basically baptism by fire is the best way that you can start seeing what works and what doesn't work because

well, what's the worst that's gonna happen? You might look stupid on a show for a couple of minutes or you might look and maybe make a simple mistake. It's not like you can't come back from these little mistakes. And your personal brand, the only way that you can ruin yourself forever is if you do something so egregious, I doubt anybody listening to the show would ever do. Otherwise, you can pivot Jordan Belfort, Wolf of Wall Street.

scammed so many people, had a movie made about him after he wrote the book, and is now getting paid the same amount of money he was getting paid back then doing training. So if you can say that you're afraid of hurting your personal brand and not being able to come back, look at Jordan Belfort and what he's been able to do over the past decade. It's like, come on now, stop making excuses. Put yourself out

Paul Povolni (32:11.062)
Yeah. Yeah. So somebody that says, okay, you've got me interested. you know, I, I don't know whether I've, I've built a personal brand. I've just let a personal brand develop by default. And that's what most people do. Like they don't have a plan for building a personal brand. just, by default, they do what they do. They put out what they put out. So if somebody comes to you and says, okay, I've got to get a lot more strategic about my personal brand because it hasn't been on

It hasn't been by design. It's been by default. What's the first thing that you would tell them or start doing with

Isaac Mashman (32:48.483)
I adore that question because some of my best clients are the people who have the authority offline that haven't done a thing online. Because what you're really asking about is what can I to build my personal brand online, not build my personal brand offline? That's the real question here. And so let's take a lawyer, for example, who has been practicing law for 20 years, has a big law practice, is well known in the city and they're local hero.

Right. Let's take, I remember growing up and there was Farrah and Farrah, Morgan and Morgan, Herald and Herald, the big lawyers that I saw their commercials after school every day. Those people could easily go on social media and be like, let's say your name is Todd Smith, Todd Smith lawyer. Right. So you go on social media, you grab your handle for all of your, all of your social media platforms. So it'd be Todd Smith that would be taken. So you would do Todd Smith real or Todd Smith official.

You'd grab that handle on every single social media platform, update your profile picture, update your name, update your header image with a photo of you doing something. And then you would put a marketing message together based off of what you're looking to get from your personal brand. So again, do you want to make money? Are you building your business? Are you driving awareness towards like, let's say, you know, some of the clients you represent are underrepresented. Okay. Do you want to drive awareness to that? Or do you want to just

go and become famous and send out law tips, right? So you put together a marketing strategy. I help, let's say, I help people recover damages after automotive accidents. And then you put in the front of that, you put something personable. So let's say you're a lawyer that is known for going and doing crazy events or crazy stunts in order to get promotion locally.

So you would do your skydiving lawyer. And then I help people after automotive accidents, get the money they deserve. And then you start creating content that reflects that. And you might show a skydiving stunt. You might show you bungee jumping or doing an event or like Richard Branson is a perfect example of this. Like he did all of these different stunts to build the Virgin brand. And he was known for that, but he was also known as the founder and as somebody who was a respectable business magnet. And then he could create content about law and about.

Isaac Mashman (35:06.945)
some of the craziest cases and about some of the things that you've seen over the years. And you start doing that and then you naturally get people to follow you. But how do you start from zero with your social media? Well, you start by the people that you already know. So you reach out to your friends or your colleagues. You'd probably be on LinkedIn. So get your people who you're connected with on LinkedIn to follow you on Facebook, to follow you on Instagram. And you start creating the spider web and that's your personal brand online.

that you're able to do things to eventually strengthen and gain more exposure and then get in front of more people, which is ultimately the game. think eyeballs and attention is like the main reason why you do these things. That's what you're fighting for.

Paul Povolni (35:48.248)
So what are some things that you have seen people that thought they were creating a personal brand were doing and was actually not doing what they thought it was doing?

Isaac Mashman (36:00.087)
Well, I could talk for hours about some of the mistakes I've seen, whether like I mentioned using the business page for the personal page or creating a content with another person's quote. That's something I've seen so many people do, which is so dumb. It is the dumbest thing I've ever seen somebody do. And it's like, why would you use a photo of yourself with a quote from John D Rockefeller? That'd be like me going and using Dwayne the Rock Johnson's quote next to a photo of me. That's not doing anything.

Paul Povolni (36:12.124)
Hahaha

Paul Povolni (36:25.996)
Yeah. Yeah.

Isaac Mashman (36:28.129)
That's, as a matter of fact, that's harming my personal brand. I've seen people purchasing followers. We could get into the dark side of this, right? Purchasing followers, paying for Forbes features, paying for news wires, paying for, you know, all these things to get their audience up. And all they're doing is they're catering to a bunch of bots and accounts that don't exist. That's not building your personal brand. That is harming your personal

Paul Povolni (36:34.989)
Ryan.

Paul Povolni (36:52.11)
Right. Right. And it's building fake authority that people will eventually see as fake authority. And then it your personal brand. They realize that, oh yeah, you can easily have an Amazon bestseller by having a niche, super niche category and having all your friends buy it, you know, for 99 cents, you know, download and suddenly you're an Amazon bestseller or whatever. And, know, you can buy these exposure on some of these magazines and things like that. And

Some people don't know you could do that, but once they find out it immediately hurts your personal brand because you've purchased followers or you've purchased exposure in a deceptive way. mean, you could purchase exposure in a healthy way, but in a deceptive way as well. so, you know, be careful of the gimmicks that people will tell you about building a personal brand. Sometimes it is, it's just doing it's, it's creating, it's putting stuff out there

makes a difference in building a personal brand. And so, you what are some other things when, you know, you've worked with people building a personal brand and you've, you've kind of taken them through an evaluation process. What are some things that, you know, some, things that you decide to augment or, or subdue in a personal brand that make a difference in what somebody is

Isaac Mashman (38:16.323)
Well, and let me answer or go back to the previous question really quick and I'll answer that one. Organic does not necessarily mean it's slow. That's something people really need to understand. So there are certain podcasts that charge appearance fees and they're like $3 ,500 plus. And if somebody, if I see somebody who's been on that show, I respect them less because I know that all they did to get on, yeah, there might only be a couple guests per month, but they bought their way into that. If I see them on certain outlets and I know that they're paid outlets, I don't respect them as much.

But Paul, I've been able to land Forbes features and entrepreneur features, and I haven't paid for either of them. You know, it's like I've done dozens of interviews and a hundred plus press interviews and stuff and quotes and mentions, and I haven't paid for any of them. So it's like, if you were to compare the best press, ultimately, I'm getting merchandise made about this later this year. Actually, I've been thinking about it. I'm gonna get a hoodie that says the best press is free press. And it's gonna have my signature and it's gonna be on the front because this is seriously something that I'm so passionate about and I don't use passion lightly. I've really never said that.

Paul Povolni (39:10.382)
Hahaha

Isaac Mashman (39:16.375)
because there's just so much slimy crap online. And that's part of the reason why I got out of the PR and I was like, let me launch a consulting firm rather than a public relations firm. So I didn't have so many labels. Now, in terms of somebody who is looking to build their personal brands and what was the second question?

Paul Povolni (39:34.719)
about augmenting and subduing certain parts of a personal brand to make it an effective brand.

Isaac Mashman (39:41.698)
Okay, that's what I was thinking. So let's take politics and religion, for example. This is something that I think a lot of people don't have any direction on what to do. Because we all have political beliefs. We all have religious beliefs. And when I was younger and when I was early on in this, I used to say, never talk about these subjects at all. Never talk about this because it's going to split your audience. But then I realized the converse is true, that if somebody was to have enough open mind in this and we need to get back to the time to where we could have a disagreement on beliefs and still have a conversation,

Paul Povolni (39:51.948)
Right.

Isaac Mashman (40:11.155)
So as long as you're not being so forthright and disrespectful, you can announce a political belief every now and again, or comment or say that I disagree with income tax, for example. And even if somebody disagrees with you, there should be an active conversation where I've made posts in the past year that have been divisive. And some people have unfriended me and blocked me, but I've had others gain a massive amount of respect for me or have had a conversation and say, I don't necessarily agree with you and gotten into really intellectual conversations and debates.

That's how it should function. And the people who are just going to hit the block button or they unfollow aren't people that are doing business with you anyway. You know, it's not intellectual behavior. But then talking about like religion, you could go the one route. So for example, there was a magician friend of mine, I just did a vlog with Giancarlo Bernini and he's been performing at a Christian camp over the summer. But his main thing is doing corporate events. Okay. And so he does corporate magic shows and things of that nature. He gets paid to come out.

But he doesn't want to be known as the Christian magician. That's a little bit of an oxymoron in of itself. So it's not like he's going on on his social media. He's being like, you're a Christian magician. And this is also, you shouldn't be that kind of guy that's like, are you a Christian business owner and you're struggling to run advertisements? That's not how you cater to your audience. That's not what you should be doing. But what you can do is talk about faith and talk about the importance and talk about how faith has helped you with business or

Paul Povolni (41:14.54)
Right,

Isaac Mashman (41:40.203)
a certain political belief has affected your business or a certain political decision has cost you, you know, your business to go up. So I think that over the next couple of years, I was asked this question earlier about what are some trends I see. And I see Paul, this necessity and desire for more strategic advice, for more detailed advice, things that like in my pod, in this podcast, you could reverse engineer or listen to what I'm saying. And you have a step -by -step playbook on what you need to do. I could get on a show and talk

Be authentic, be on social media, do these things. But what value is that? There's a difference between value and strategic value. And if you want to grow your personal brand and be the authority, that's what you do. Just like before we started talking, you said, by name, thinking about doing the dollar a day strategy for my podcast, like Dennis Yu. That is a successful personal brand.

Paul Povolni (42:31.98)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, and I agree with you, you know, there's different ways to put yourself out there. I think, you know, talking about religion, you can be a Christian, whatever, or you could be a Christian, you know, a, a Christian that does whatever, you know, and so you can lead with whatever you want to lead with. and I think people have led in both ways, you know, I'm a Christian that also does magic or I'm a

Isaac Mashman (42:51.553)
Mm -hmm.

Paul Povolni (43:00.334)
Christian magician, you I think they're two very different things and

Isaac Mashman (43:03.597)
or like a Christian author who's writing Christian, you know, related books. There's a little bit of a difference there. So it's like take, one of the things is face value, of course.

Paul Povolni (43:08.564)
Right, right, exactly. And you've got to decide as a personal brand who you want as your audience. And so by saying, I am a Christian magician, then that immediately says, well, you are serving just a very niche demographic. Or I'm a Christian that does magic is a totally different group that you might reach, but it kind of depends on what your goals are. Because there might be a need for Christian magicians. There might be a need for a Christian that does

whatever. And some people might say, I, that's the type of person I want to find and use. Whereas others are like, well, you're a Christian that does that. You know, I'm fine with that. I'm an atheist. I don't care. So they might be fine with you doing that. Right. And so I think you're right in that is, is you've got to decide on what you want to lead with and be fine with the audience that you will then gather around you in your personal brand based on what you're putting out there on social media.

What are some mistakes that you see people making very badly when it comes to social media and building a personal brand? What are some of the big ones that you've seen that you've had to kind of go in and say, time out, you've got to totally stop doing

Isaac Mashman (44:22.241)
Well, I can think of several brand accounts that I might be subscribed to on YouTube and I don't even know the host's name. That means that as soon as my feed and the algorithm promotes another channel that is in the same niche, okay, I'm going to subscribe to them because I have no loyalty to the other. And so, you know, there's this idea of building a brand account, building your personal brand and then building a business account. There are all three different things, but I'm thinking of,

the unboxed review shows or unbox therapy or something like that, the guy who reviews all the Apple products, I don't know the guy's name. I know the channel, but I don't know his name. So that means tomorrow, if I got recommended another person, like I never go out and look for him by name, but the mentors I follow, the experts I follow, the people, the celebrities I follow, I search for by name, not by

Paul Povolni (44:55.85)
Yeah. Yeah.

Paul Povolni (45:10.316)
Right.

Isaac Mashman (45:11.499)
So that is a massive thing that people need to think about whenever they're building, building, wanting to build like a separate brand. No, like that brand might be there. There's a difference between building like some cool products or a podcast name, but having a podcast name, the Headsmack podcast is not the same as, you know, Paul Povolni Like there's a difference there, right? And so that's one of the biggest mistakes.

Paul Povolni (45:33.026)
Yeah,

Isaac Mashman (45:36.451)
And then I would also say limiting themselves to one platform. think that there are a lot of people who say that, you only need to be on one platform, but you know, there's been so much talk about TikTok being banned. And if these people have built 10 million follower pages and audiences on TikTok and it disappears tomorrow and they haven't diversified, they're out of luck and they have to start over. So I think that the determination of a strong personal brand is being omnipresent and being everywhere all the time. And having it to where if you were to Google yourself,

or somebody was to Google you from a different location, no matter where they're at in the world, you're able to pop up. You're able to show up in their feeds.

Paul Povolni (46:14.4)
Yeah. And, and, know, and that's so true because if you, if you're not collecting emails, if you're not diversifying your platforms that yeah, once, once you get locked out of one or once one disappears, you know, if tick tock disappears, or if it just morphs into something else, you know, or you get shut down, like there's people that have been shut down on platforms that they dedicated a lot of time and effort to. And then suddenly, you know, for whatever reason, they got

blocked, got banned, their account got hacked, they got deleted. And suddenly everything, all the effort they put into building on that one platform disappeared and they didn't have a plan B. They hadn't collected email addresses, they hadn't collected contacts, they hadn't collected, you know, likes and attention on other platforms and they get suddenly get in trouble. And so I think you're right in that is, is you've got to, if you're building a personal brand is definitely look at.

other platforms, might, you know, might dominate on one, but also have a plan to if, this platform was to disappear, how will I reach the same audience?

Isaac Mashman (47:22.305)
Yeah. One, think two, being willing to follow the same people on different places and platforms is huge. we're connected on Facebook and as soon as we're off the show, I'm going to go onto LinkedIn and send you a request and I'll see if you're on Instagram and I'll see if you want, you're on Twitter and whatever else. And that establishes the law of familiarity. And I'm talking about this in the second edition of my

And just like Napoleon Hill did the first practical philosophy of success, I want to do the first practical philosophy of personal branding. That's my ambition to really define it. I have something called the law familiarity because just like you were the new kid on school in day one, by the end of the school year, you knew everybody, that anxiety went away showing up. You didn't have any worries. You know, your position was secured. You're familiar with your teachers, with your environment, with your students, your classmates. You're familiar.

Paul Povolni (47:52.258)
Yeah.

Isaac Mashman (48:13.429)
And just like that new kid on the block building out your personal brand online, you have to get people familiar with you to where their anxieties, their concerns, their questions go away and to where they automatically think of you in a conversation. Such as the other day I was sent a referral and she was having a conversation with a prospect and he's like, I want to publish a book. And she's like, Isaac Mashman immediately sent over referral, new client.

Paul Povolni (48:37.441)
Yeah, well.

Isaac Mashman (48:40.949)
And so it's like when you're doing these things, you need to be familiar. You need to get people familiar with you.

Paul Povolni (48:46.648)
Well, and you you mentioned about, you know, people being familiar with you talk a little bit about credibility and reputation management when it comes to, you know, being on these platforms and being out there as a personal brand. What, what about those two things building that, working with that and, developing that credibility and reputation.

Isaac Mashman (49:10.081)
Well, which is the most impactful? You calling yourself an expert and as somebody, you can trust me versus somebody else saying that you can trust this person. I vouch for him. Which one, which person are you going to trust the most? The one that has third party edification. Credibility is trust. That is the simplest term. is trust. It is a sense of faith.

that whatever this person does is going to meet my expectations. So if you are building yourself up as this expert and as this person who can deliver a client that works with you, there's a lower action threshold to where they're automatically going to pull out their wallets or say, all right, I have one question, but I'm ready to work with you. You don't have to fight as hard to close them, but you still have to fight to make sure that you're delivering up to their expectations.

So when you're building, or when you're doing things to where other people are able to talk about you, like doing a podcast interview, you invited me on the show. That is a form of edification because you were telling your audience that, Hey, you can trust this person. And if by the end of the show, you felt like I didn't do what I needed to do, you would delete the episode and act like it never happened. Right. Being on interviews such as press articles or. Vlogs or blogs or collaborating

Paul Povolni (50:21.772)
Yeah,

Isaac Mashman (50:31.447)
you know, just different things where people are able to introduce you, right? If you're going to a networking event and you get introduced as the number one plumber, the number one graphic designer, there is a degree of trust that is automatically established off of the personal brand of the other person who's edifying you. That is credibility. And so every single thing that you could do, whether that's collecting video testimonials or any of the things I just mentioned, to where another person can say, you can trust this person,

you can build out your credibility and that is also the biggest step to being a public figure because now you have people talking about you rather than you're talking about yourself.

Paul Povolni (51:09.034)
Right. Right. And that plays into reputation, right? I mean, they're very, they're very similar in that, you you're, you, you growing in your business and you being a success and you getting out there and people recognizing you, your, your reputation, which is basically your brand, you know, is, is your reputation. it's critical to make sure that what you're saying and what people are saying about you are the same

Right. And, when, when they're, they're out of sync, there's a disconnect when, when you haven't, when you say you are one thing, but the reputation is totally different. That immediately hurts your personal brand. It's like, yeah, he calls himself the best plumber. calls himself the best electrician, the best lawyer, but man, he's got a track record of being a miserable, terrible

Isaac Mashman (51:59.937)
Well, here's a really good conversation we could go down for a minute that I don't think I've ever had on a show, which is what can you do to fix that? Like, what can you do to fix that? you're, what you're saying, the expectations that you're talking about for yourself are not necessarily what other people are saying about you. So like, let's say you're getting some negative reviews for your business, right? Maybe you have a Google My Business listing or a TrustPilot page and your reviews are like one to three stars.

What can you start to do to change that? Well, you have two options. You can address the review. And I would say you need to do both of these steps, address the reviews, make up for it, ask what can be done to solve that and to make that salvageable if possible. And the second is to flood it with positive reviews. But this requires you to live up to your word and to actually deliver so you can collect those positive testimonials. So you fix it, salvage it if possible, and you flood

and you basically overpower it with more positive feedback and more positive words. And then you could do what a lot of people do on crisis management and get ahead of it and say that, hey, and be honest, you could report, like think about, and this probably wouldn't be the best example to give, but liver king, right? The steroid guy who eats liver, right? When it came out that he was doing those, he's like, man, I lied, I fucked up. And he did that apology.

And at one point it, it almost did more damage than it did help. He got ahead of it by admitting that he's a liar when he could have just kept doing what he was doing and not even address the claims. And that probably would have been a better way of handling it versus no, I'm a liar. Well, what you could do is if your work is not performing up to your standards or up to other people's standards, do something, make a post and be like, Hey, I've messed up. No, make excuses. Be like, I had things. So a couple of years ago, I had a client.

who I took on and sorry, my voice has been going out over the past couple of weeks. I'm in so many of these things, man. I lost my grandmother around the same time that I took her on as a client and I went MIA. I mean, I would respond, but I wasn't there for her. Right. And she's like, Hey, like this, this is rough. And I was like, you know what, let's call her Ashley. Right. I was like, Ashley, you're absolutely right. I'm sorry. I messed up.

Isaac Mashman (54:23.425)
And I made up for it. I was like, anything that I could do, I'm not going to charge you anymore. This is what happened. And realize that the person at the other end of the phone is human and they will understand if you communicate with them. And a lot of these issues can be solved with communication.

Paul Povolni (54:23.618)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (54:33.442)
Ryan.

Paul Povolni (54:36.972)
Yeah. I think this is a good discussion because, know, we're not perfect. we do mess up. We do make bad decisions. We are not always at a hundred.

You know, sometimes stuff happens, you know, like you shared, you know, with, the passing of your, of your grandmother and how that affected your business. We're not always, we're not always, you know, we wish we could. And, and it seems like people are online, like they're man, they're always just like, they're always batting a hundred. They're always doing amazing. They're, but real people aren't, you know, we have stuff that goes on. And then, you know, when, when we do mess up is yeah, not, not trying to hide it.

Isaac Mashman (54:49.517)
Mm -hmm.

Paul Povolni (55:18.862)
I'm not trying to make excuses, but being honest about it. And then, then you're going to have to go through a time of over -delivering. You're going to have to go through a time of hustle and grind and making it right in any way that you can. It's going to take work, but that's the price, you know, of, of sometimes, you know, things not going the way they should is, is you've got to do whatever it takes to, to fix those things. And, you know, the things you shared are ways to do that

Isaac Mashman (55:28.055)
Yes.

Paul Povolni (55:48.53)
is make a better, apologize, be honest, and then do whatever you can to repair that in whatever it takes. When it comes to reputation management, it's easy to lie to yourself. It's easy

believe that things are not as bad as they are. What are some questions that you ask or when it comes to credibility, when it comes to reputation management or personal branding, that is a head smack moment for your clients that really kind of resets them into the proper mindset.

Isaac Mashman (56:37.059)
Well, I think a tree takes, an oak tree can take a hundred years to build and I could cut that thing down in an hour with a chainsaw. And your reputation is effectively that. And there are a lot of these things that you don't actively when you're building out your personal brand, unless you're going to a high level, you don't think about what is my reputation. That's not a question that you're asking in the front of your mind. You're thinking, how can I get more followers? That's the God honest truth. That's okay.

But as you scale and as you get more exposure and more people talking about you to where the biggest indicator, one or the other, I've said the biggest indicator, there are several indicators that you have entered into that public figure statuses. You have more people who know you that you do not know yourself. So I've had several people recently that have reached out to me and be like, hey, I've been following you for five years. And I'm like,

I feel bad because I don't know you. It's the same reason why you could go and approach a celebrity that you've been following for 10 years and be like, oh my God, I know everything about you. I know your daughter's name. I know where you went to school. I know where you were born. I know your birthday. And they don't know who you are. Right. And so I think understanding that this takes time and all of those contributing factors do add up over time.

Paul Povolni (57:32.075)
Yeah,

Paul Povolni (57:45.268)
Right. Right.

Isaac Mashman (57:55.413)
And once you get to the point to where more people know about you and who you are than you know them, that's a good indicator. And that's like a moment where you need to just smash. mean, I had one of those earlier this year and it was one of the biggest just aha moments, I think of my entire career, of my entire life, frankly, that I haven't spoken about too much in depth, which

I had a conversation with a friend who I've been connected with for several years. She was in the network marketing industry, a veteran, and she's building her own company. And I approached her last year about taking a relationship professionally and working with her and working for like three months for like three grand, right? No biggie. And I was planning on doing consulting with her.

I was like, why, you know, let's call her Jasmine. I was like, Jasmine, why haven't you worked with me? Like what's going on? Like you just paid $1 to go to this stupid podcast convention. And it's like, you're going for VIP access. You're paying for flight and gas and or whatever else. It's like, why don't you just pay the money and work with me? Like I've done this. have a podcast. It's still charting. It's like, I could help you. And she's like, Isaac, based off of our conversation.

And when I see it's like, I thought I needed to get established first before I could work with you. And I was like, damn, I've officially done what I wanted to do five years ago. And to where I get pitched every day to invest in companies. got pitched to invest in a script. I've gotten hundreds of hundreds, probably thousands of emails at this point every day, not every day, but like over the span of the past year.

You know, with all these people reaching out to me because they found my profile, because they found me somewhere. And that was an aha hits back moment where I'm like, damn, I have the knowledge panel. show up on Google. I've done these things. I've traveled. I've, I know what I'm talking about. And people know that I know what I'm talking about. And that I think is a big moment that people need to make too, especially business owners or anybody trying to do something. It's like taking a step back and thinking, Holy crap.

Isaac Mashman (01:00:03.203)
I've done it. I might not feel like I'm where I want to be 100%, but it's no, like it's, there. And that's a crazy, crazy thing to experience.

Paul Povolni (01:00:13.388)
Wow. Well, man, this has been amazing. So what's something that you wish somebody would ask you about personal branding that nobody has been asking

Isaac Mashman (01:00:27.789)
That's a really great question. And these questions always stump me. I never get stumped by other questions, but these questions always throw me off.

Isaac Mashman (01:00:38.647)
And I would have to go along the lines of.

Isaac Mashman (01:00:45.791)
When is faking it till you make it okay? This is something that a lot of people do online. They get in front of the Lamborghini. They get in front of the Rolls Royce. They get in front of whatever, the mansion for the Airbnb. they're like, no, like try to be Tai Lopez ripoffs. That's unethical. It's unethical. It's immoral. But is there a degree of acceptability for faking it till you make it? When I was a young entrepreneur, I didn't make it seem like I was

rich or some ultra successful person, but I still exuded confidence and made sure that I was building my ability in whatever business I was doing to where I knew that I wasn't BSing the person on the other end of the phone. And then eventually I became that person to where no, like he legitimately knows what he's doing. There's no question about it. And I think that business owners are afraid of being fraudulent. And I think that's a good fear. I think that's a really healthy fear.

And I think when you're building your personal brand, don't feel like you're a fraud for putting yourself out there.

That's probably the best thing I could say right now. Don't feel like a fraud for putting yourself out there, maybe even early, because all these great people had to put themselves early and had to shoot their shot in order to make their first couple of baskets.

Paul Povolni (01:02:03.756)
Right. Right. And I think that, I think that is a fear that we have, especially, you know, when it comes to putting ourselves out there and feeling like, I showing off? Like, am I being all uppity and up myself, you know, with putting stuff out there with confidence? Even that, like, obviously we don't lie. don't do all the fake in front of cars or inside a private jet fake set, you know, type thing to, know,

Isaac Mashman (01:02:17.165)
Okay.

Isaac Mashman (01:02:30.214)
Yeah, man, plenty of that in California.

Paul Povolni (01:02:31.75)
We definitely don't do that. All of that stuff is stupid, but I think we also sometimes have the fear of putting ourselves out there. And in Australia, they call the tall poppy syndrome, the, know, putting ourselves out there and do you think you're better than everybody else? And, know, I talked to somebody else, interviewed them for the podcast and you know, they're, they're in a, in a different country and they're like, you know, in my country, we don't like if we kind of put ourselves out

like everybody will try and take us down a notch because they think we're arrogant and full of ourselves. And I think sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. And so, and yeah, it's, it's somebody in Europe. And so, you know, I think we, we, we sometimes battle that fear of, know, if I put myself out there confidently, people are going to think I'm, you know, you know, full of pride and arrogance and whatever. And I think we sometimes need to get over that fear because no matter what you do.

Isaac Mashman (01:03:05.475)
Sounds European.

Paul Povolni (01:03:28.468)
No matter what you say, there's going to be somebody that is going to be jealous of you. There's going to be somebody that's going to think ill will. mean, if Jesus got crucified and he did nothing but good, guarantee that if you put yourself out there and try and launch your business, launch your whatever you're doing, your personal brand, there are going to be people that are going to judge you and not like what you're doing or try and criticize

Isaac Mashman (01:03:43.051)
Okay.

Paul Povolni (01:03:56.706)
But if you're doing it with integrity and with sincerity, and you're just trying to make a living, provide for your family, don't fear the haters because haters are always going to come. There's some people that they just thrive on that. And so what else would you tell for that person that does have that fear of putting themselves out there authentically? Like you mentioned the fakers. What about the one that has that fear of building a personal

Isaac Mashman (01:04:23.971)
Well, I think one, if you're thinking about authenticity or being inauthentic because you're trying to manipulate what you are or you aren't putting out. So don't focus on authenticity that's bullshit that everybody says be authentic and nobody explains what that means. That means you're being inauthentic. That's just the God honest truth. There's no way if, ands buts that you could get around that question. The second thing is I would start telling people to screw off. And that's the truth because 50 years ago, 25 years ago, before my time,

Paul Povolni (01:04:37.656)
Yeah.

Isaac Mashman (01:04:53.699)
I almost wish I was alive during this time. If you trash talk somebody, you'd get your butt beat. Nowadays, you have these keyboard warriors or some mom who has a horrible relationship, has been divorced 10 times, commenting on a healthy relationship about kids on a video on Facebook, like the Facebook comments especially, It's like, oh, you did this wrong. it's like, Karen, how miserable are

How miserable are you? And I think that really just telling people to screw off, whether you do or you don't say that outright is your decision. I'm getting to the point where I'm just telling people to screw off if they're like really that bad. I think you should do that. And I think that that will develop either a new found respect for you. They'll be like, wow, he's an ass. And you know you're not, you know you're building something, but you have to have such a respect for yourself. You're willing to bulldoze your way through. And

Paul Povolni (01:05:27.842)
Yeah. Yeah. Right.

Isaac Mashman (01:05:43.305)
unshakable, unstoppable tenacity is what it requires. And eventually that cockiness turns into confidence.

Paul Povolni (01:05:50.498)
Yeah. Yeah. And understanding who you are and, and who, who you're for and who you're not for and being okay with that because yeah, people are nasty online and people will send, you know, I've, I've had somebody that shared a DM that somebody sent them and they were literally telling them to, you know, to go kill themselves, that the world will be better off without them. It's like, there are actually people that exist that are either just people that are just hateful and

Isaac Mashman (01:05:56.66)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (01:06:19.756)
They just like firing up people. just like being mean and, and there are just people that are not happy with who they are and they see what you're doing. And they, because of them not feeling good, good about themselves, they're taking it out on you. And yeah, you've got to have that, that decision that you just tell them, look, you're not for me. And if you don't like what I'm saying, stop following me, go away.

Isaac Mashman (01:06:45.239)
Send a cease and desist. That's the quickest way to shut somebody up. Send a cease and desist and I'll shut up. And sometimes that's what you have to do. I've had cases with that where clients gone berserk. It's like that, that's a part of building a business and that's a part of scaling up. It's like, and, and starting to do things that make your process better, more efficient, safer, secure, higher quality. All these things

Paul Povolni (01:06:46.55)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Goodbye. You know, you're not, you're not who I'm for. Yeah.

Isaac Mashman (01:07:10.879)
Ultimately, I think the pursuit of clarity, like I mentioned earlier today about why I went into different businesses and why I went through these changes is the pursuit of clarity. And if I'm clear that I'm making money or doing this because I'm looking to provide for my family or build the vehicle that will build the skyscraper I want to build, well, I don't necessarily care if you don't think that you don't like how I talk or you don't like a certain thing that I said or you disagree with me. But there's a difference between, I think, understanding if somebody's giving you genuine advice versus somebody who

genuinely hating. at the same point, think asking for advice or asking for opinions is important and underrated. mean, if we think about one of the most criticized works, which is Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince, he talks about how the king, the prince that is going to remain in power, always actively seeks out the advice of the people he trusts. But he disregards any advice that isn't given without being asked.

And I think that's a good philosophy to live by. You don't want to listen to somebody who's just saying, hey, you need to do this. But if you ask somebody, mentor, a coach, somebody, a brotherly figure, what do you think about this? Listen to those people.

Paul Povolni (01:08:19.276)
Yeah. And, and I would, yeah, I would add to that too, that there's a difference between subjective opinion and professional advice. Right. And so, so, you know, you could, you can get a hundred different opinions on something and they're just subjective opinions. They're just, you know, and I think it was Thomas, not Thomas Edison, Henry Ford that asked if we'd asked people what they wanted, it would have been for a faster horse, you know, instead of a car. And so, you know, if you asked for, for opinions, you'll get subjective opinions.

Isaac Mashman (01:08:27.264)
Absolutely.

Paul Povolni (01:08:48.684)
But like you mentioned is when you go to a mentor or somebody you trust, you get a level of, of informed advice, informed or professional. If you go to a professional, you get professional counsel. but yeah, be, be careful of what voices you listen to. And, and like we shared, you know, once you have your identity in place, that brings clarity and you know who you're for and who you're not for. And you're okay with that. And you keep moving forward.

towards what you're passionate about and what your purpose is and what you really want to do. So as we wrap this up, what are some final things that you want to share with those that might have been listening to what we've talked about that we might not have shared or just some final thoughts on personal branding?

Isaac Mashman (01:09:35.171)
Well, I have a feeling that a lot of the people who listen to your show probably have lead magnets and they probably have books that are lead magnet PDFs or whatever that are 30, 40, 50, 60 pages long. Have you ever considered publishing that as a physical copy of an actual book, getting an ISBN, investing in it having an actual paperback that you can give out to people? And you mentioned briefly about the Amazon author thing of, you know, are you an Amazon bestselling author in some niche category?

And I think that there is no less pride that you can take in being the best selling author in a certain category. So for example, my manifesto wasn't the best seller on Amazon, but my manifesto was the number one new release in public relations on Amazon. It was a top 10 best seller in public relations on Amazon. And I provide that clarification and people respect me more for it. And so I think that the, you know, the details matter.

is very important when building out your personal brand. The whole as seen in CBS, Fox News kind of thing. No, you sent out a press release that was picked up by CBS 42 out of Nebraska or Fox News, know, Wilmington, Washington, whatever. Be honest, be truthful, have integrity, have a moral compass, a moral code.

and your personal brand will thank you for it. The people in your network will thank you for it and trust your own ability and start building that confidence. And Paul, it's been a phenomenal conversation, man. Very tactical things that I haven't talked about before. I really enjoyed it.

Paul Povolni (01:11:05.346)
Thanks man, this is awesome. if people want to be a part of your world and get a hold of you, what's the best way to do

Isaac Mashman (01:11:11.137)
You can find me literally everywhere at Isaac Mashman on every social media platform. You could go to IsaacMashman .com or Mashman .org. Pretty cool domain I picked up. And you can find all my information there and you can grab a physical copy of my manifesto, personal branding of Manifesto on Fame and Influence. I'm currently in the process of writing the second edition coming out later this year. So that's the best way.

Paul Povolni (01:11:33.676)
All right, man. This has been awesome. I've enjoyed it. So good. So many good practical tips and advice and counsel. And I do encourage you to listen to this a couple of times, take some notes and then execute. And that's the whole reason for the Headsmack podcast is if you just take one idea and execute on it, it can literally change your destiny. And so I want to encourage you with that. Isaac has shared some great stuff. Check him out, follow him, connect with him, reach out to him if you need

with your personal brand or with publishing a book or working on a podcast, reach out to him. He knows what he's talking about. Thanks Isaac. It's been great.

Isaac Mashman (01:12:10.445)
Paul, pleasure's all mine.