Mitch Lacsamana: Creative Engineer

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All right, everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Business Blast podcast. I'm your host, Tyler Wagner. Today I have Mitch Laxmana with us. He is a creative engineer enabling clients to define their brands and amass their followings through social media. He is also an entrepreneur, conference speaker, and live interviewer. So welcome to the show, man.

Appreciate it, brother. Thanks for having me.

Of course, man. Grateful to have you here. So Mitch, the first question we ask on the show is what is the best story from your life that has an underlying valuable message?

The best story in my life. Okay. I would have to say that it's not really so much a story as it is a mindset. Tyler Wagner, I want to thank you for for having me here. I really love what you're doing with this podcast. I love the whole process, getting it set up and everything. There's a lot that goes to the back end of everything that you do. Thank you. And from a— yeah, dude, from just a putting together process standpoint, I appreciate it. It's the little things that matter. If I have to choose one defining moment, I would just say that what defines me today is accumulation of all my experiences. I'm 25, but I wouldn't be here unless I lived 24 unless I did what I did at 23 and so forth. So I would say one of the most defining things I can remember was that when I was in the 6th grade, I was bullied on the bus. You know, I remember being very, very terrified to actually go to school. I would cry at nights. You know, my parents would be like, what is going on with this kid? And I just, I felt like I didn't have a place. I didn't have a bearing. I couldn't find— I just was kind of a little bit lost in my direction, especially in 6th grade when that was just like my world. And my parents, my dad specifically being an engineer, he always taught us to— he always taught my brothers and I, I'm the eldest of 3, to think from a value position. Think about how you're going to bring the next person value. The person in front of you, the person beside you, how can you bring them value? And how can you put yourself in a position where people value your friendship, people value working with you, aligning with you? And I thought about this because I didn't know what I was doing wrong back then. And so I remember there were two boys specifically, I'll name them Nick and James. And before they were bullies, within a year, they were my best friends. And it's funny enough when I say that, it's not a defining moment. It's actually a mindset. I put myself in the mindset of being value-oriented. I didn't give any of the bullies any mind. I didn't really pay any attention to any of that sort of negativity. I just always thought, okay, if I put myself in a value position, maybe people will rely on me more. People will stop picking on me and rather look to me for advice and counsel. And I thought about this in the 6th grade, bro. So the first thing I did, I remember that everyone in school had $2.75. That was the price for lunch. So their parents would give them $3, they would have a quarter left. And by the time they got on the bus, everyone would have quarters in their pockets. So what I did was I started selling Pixie Stix. Then that was my first entry point into entrepreneurship. No, for real. I bought Pixie Stix. I charged them $0.25 each and I sold them. I remember the first week, the first couple of weeks, everyone was clamoring. Everyone was getting on board. It was freaking hectic. The second the bell would ring, I get on the bus, I was just being bombarded. At that moment, that was when my bullies became my best friends because I needed someone to facilitate the line. They were the biggest kids in the bus, bro. So they actually, for like a dollar a day each, they would help me facilitate this craziness that would ensue on the bus when I sold Pixie Stix. And from that point on, for me, again, it just really became a value thing. It just became a matter of positioning. And so I went on to sell not just Pixie Stix, but Orbit gum. I remember the 15 packs at Costco, I copped them for 7. Flip them, that's an $8 profit. Tech Decks were huge at the time. Tech Decks, I became that limited edition Tech Deck collector. My mom would drive me to Walmart every night so that I always had the most brand new Tech Decks. And I also controlled the supply because I would always buy out every single one. From that mindset, bro, I really think at such a young age, I learned how to combat so many of my challenges with just this focal point, this mindset of value positioning and being of value to others. If that makes any sense at all, that's my defining moment. Exactly.

Dude, that's amazing. Those are all good stories, dude. I love it, man. So you knew you were an entrepreneur at a young age. So my next one for you, man, is what is the most valuable piece of information we should know that's within your expertise or industry?

Bro, okay, right now, I mean, there's a huge opening for this. You know more than anyone, bro. You connected with me on LinkedIn. We're having this conversation now. You connected with so many others. You've utilized your leverage properly. You've built your social brand, your personal brand properly through social media. Right now, social media isn't just a place to, you know, find out when your cousin's birthday is and to be notified about that or to post on someone's wall or to post something political. In fact, social media right now is being used in such innovative and creative ways to enable business, to enable personal goals. And if you're not seeing that right now, if you're running a business and you're just not seeing the power of social media, you're just not using it properly. You haven't been introduced into the proper strategies, the proper frameworks. So if I had one piece of information to give to someone right now, doesn't matter what your business is, who you work for, where you stand in the world, social media will be a great tool to connect you with the people and the information and to provide you the platform to enable your goals, whatever that is.

And then what is your best piece of overall business advice? So not necessarily industry specific.

I mean, business advice, I would just say do the thing, bro. I feel like a lot of people just are waiting. They're waiting for timing. They're making excuses. Oh, I'm not ready. I haven't done this enough. I haven't studied this enough. I haven't prepared this business plan. I don't know about this, about that. Sure, you have to have a minimum viable product, but at the end of the day, just do the damn thing. I don't know if I'm allowed to curse. Yeah, you are. Okay, word. Just fucking do the damn thing because the world is spinning. The world is spinning, and if you are not fucking moving, you will stand still and just decay. End of story.

And then if you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would that be?

Oh, dude, these questions are fire, by the way, bro. And I listened to a podcast too, and then for some reason I still feel unprepared. If I had to speak to my younger self, I would just say I know it did, but I would just say trust the process because there were so many times of adversity where I just felt so lost. I know so many other people are in this position right now. And even sometimes I'll wake up and be in that position of, am I doing what I want to do? Am I fulfilled in what I'm doing? Am I finding success, whatever metric of success that is? I would just say to myself, just trust the process and keep that mindset and don't stop moving forward. Don't stop moving, period. Keep doing.

And then in your opinion, kind of going down a little bit of a different path, in your opinion, what is the key to happiness?

I like that. In my opinion, the key to happiness. Okay. And this is just my opinion. I think the key to happiness is just making that effort to find it. If I'm being completely honest, I think it's just being very self-aware and enjoying the small things, the small victories in life. And I feel like there's— that's so many things. That's a loaded question, Tyler. I'm curious what you would say what the key to happiness is. I know you've given a lot of these podcasts, but I would really like to know what you think it is.

Yeah, for sure. Well, I can tell you, so I've almost done 1,000 of these interviews, so I can tell you what the majority of people say. And I tend to agree and I'll add a little bit to it. What a lot of people say is it has to do directly with the quality of your relationships, which I agree, but I will tell you that I think another aspect of it is doing what you love to do, which is obvious, but having what you love to do be like your main revenue generator. For me, I love doing the podcast. My other company, well, not really other company, they're all kind of intertwined, but it's called Authors Unite where I help people publish and market books and I love helping people do that. My days are filled with what I actually love to do and that's at every moment. I outsource the things I don't like to do. That's— Yes. Like you saw with the systems that this podcast is, I don't personally email you, right? It's an automated system reminding you. So all the little things that would be really annoying to do, I have systematized or I have outsourced. So by default, I'm only doing the things I enjoy, which is engaging with people in podcasts, going for walks, helping people with their books. And if you do the things that you like to do, you might be happy, right? I mean, that's what I'm—

smiling through my teeth and I have been the entire— like the second you said that you need to find something fulfilling that also is providing you financially. And it's just so crucial, bro, because in my opinion, I mean, just understand the framework of the world and the way it works. To be able to do anything, you need resources. You need not only time but money. And you have to be realistic about, okay, if you want to do this thing, like let's just say for me personally, I don't want to help people you know, develop a personal brand anymore. I don't want to be an engineer anymore. I want to move into music. How do I do that? Like, you don't— I wouldn't plan a full-on shift. I wouldn't just change my life, drop everything, quit my job, quit everything I'm doing, and just go to, you know, and move to wherever music is happening. I would have a systematic approach in terms of how do I create financial stability for myself to enable myself to move in that direction. And I think a lot of people feel like it's too much of a big move. They see it too much as like, oh my God, I need to make like a Lance— I'm sorry, a Neil Armstrong kind of leap forward. But it's not a leap. It's a series of incremental steps. And you have to be thinking from a financial standpoint of how you're going to allow yourself, enable yourself to do, to find that place of fulfillment, to move in that space of fulfillment, if that makes any sense at all.

No, it does. It does, man. Well, I mean, dude, because I help people with books. I mean, it's just that's what I do. So it's like easy to go back to that. I always tell people the same kind of thinking to finish your book. Most people, why they never finish their book is because they only look at the big picture. They're like, "Whoa, I could never write a whole book." It's like, "Well, a book is broken down into chapters, paragraphs, sentences, and words." Yes, I love that. If you can write words, you can write a book. That's true. It's just breaking it down. Speaking of books, perfect segue there. What is the best book that you've read and what's the number one thing you learned from it?

Okay. I read— I know a lot of people probably say this, but I think it was perfect timing when I read this book because when I read it, it really was true honest to God, the most revelatory thing to me at that moment in time. That was exactly what I needed to hear in order to move myself out of the rut in a proper direction. And that book was Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. I read it when I was stuck in a very corporate office 9-to-5 desk job after having gone to grade school, having gone to high school, having moved on to college, following the steps, the systematic process that society, at least in America, has kind of dictated and programmed into people. And so when I finally got that boring corporate office 9 to 5, 401(k) paying, pension paying desk job, I literally wanted to blow my brains out. I couldn't believe that trap that I was in. I couldn't believe that all of this was for that. And so in that, that being said, I picked up Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich. And the name is a little bit deceiving. You're not really thinking to grow rich. You're not really thinking to earn money, but you're thinking in ways where you have financial success to enable this kind of lifestyle. It's not wanting money. It's about wanting geographical freedom. It's about wanting financial freedom. And what that means. And to be honest, I didn't come from a very wealthy family. I didn't have those resources put in place. My parents, they were, you know, they did well enough as immigrants to provide myself and my brothers, you know, the college tuition that we needed without. So I didn't leave college without debt. I'm sorry, I didn't leave college with debt. However, I left with the debt that like America, I feel like placed on me, or rather the system placed on me of just like this, this lack of fulfillment. And so when I read this book, it really helped me understand the power of assertion, the power of affirmations, and affirming to myself that I can do anything that I want to do. So if I had to choose one book that really had an impact on me, Think and Grow Rich got me at a really, really good time. Thank God.

And then what is your favorite quote and why?

My favorite quote and then why. I'm curious, Tyler, what your favorite quote is before I go and give you mine.

Yeah, mine actually is, is "Just be." It's only two words. Just be. And I guess why the reason I like that is really because I think a lot of times— are you familiar with Alan Watts?

I don't know.

I'm not familiar with Alan Watts. He's like my spiritual guy that I go to for guidance. He died like 30, 40 years ago, but yeah, check him out if you're into that stuff. It's really cool. He talks about one of the ways to not be successful is to try to be successful. What that means, it's kind of like a mindfuck, if you will, but what he really means is like sometimes when we try so hard, we're like not actually like doing what we should be. So he's like, just be, meaning like be in the present, be in the moment, and be aware of like what it is that you enjoy, right? Because sometimes it's like, sometimes like slowing down is actually speeding up, um, right? So I, you know, to me, just be is like You know, right now, like, we're doing this podcast, so I'm just with you and we're making this as good as it possibly can be.

Yeah.

And maybe I could be doing something like I could be reaching out to people on LinkedIn right now, trying to do other things at the same time. But like, that would be trying to, you know what I mean? It's just like just being in what is and I love that the best it can be.

Bro, that's like the book. I don't know if you've read Be Here Now. Have you read that?

No, I haven't.

Oh my god, you would definitely love that if you picked it up. It's really trippy. It's honestly this introspective kind of narrative about the author. He discovers his third eye, but he's like a PhD professor. And back then in Berkeley, all the professors were doing acid, dropping LSD, and having these spiritual quests and stuff. So It's a really interesting book. It's called Be Here Now. And that's really just like the premise. It's just like, you know, be here.

Yeah, it's awesome.

Now. But yeah, honestly, I have a real appreciation for advertising and just the effectiveness of messaging. And, you know, I'd have to say my favorite quote, I don't even know who made this, the geniuses over whoever made this advertisement, but I really resonated with Nike's ad campaign of like, I believe it went like, "Don't ask if your dreams are crazy, ask if they are crazy enough." And for me, that couldn't hit more on the mark. I love it when people are thinking so outside of the box and so out of what's norm and conventional that that really inspires me. And I often ask myself that too. Am I reaching high enough?

Absolutely, man. Dude, thank you so much for coming on. The last one I got for you before we let you go is where can our audience best find you online?

Okay, great. Awesome. I love the plug part. You can find me on LinkedIn. It's Classic Mitch Up. You can also find me on Facebook, Classic Mitch Up. You can also find me on Instagram. Again, same situation. And You'll definitely see one of my videos. I'm either interviewing people, I'm either yelling at the camera or doing walkthrough tutorials or just taking dope pictures, dope content with my friends and my family. If you want to find me, you definitely can make the mention. I'm curious, Tyler, what social channels you are on now because now that we're boys, I want to be up on what you're doing and I definitely want to have visibility to your hustle, bro, because I really Really dig it.

Yeah, for sure, man. I'm pretty much everywhere. The main place to find me though would be like my website, authorsunite.com. That's my main website. And then I guess Instagram is probably the next, so @tywagz with a Z at the end.

Awesome, bro. You got a follow coming your way. And I actually saw Authors Unite. I really liked it.

Oh, thanks, man.

Not sure at what point in my life I'm going to write a book. But maybe that's a conversation we'll have separately.

Absolutely, brother. Thank you again for coming on.

I appreciate it, Tyler. I hope you have a killer day, bro. Happy hustling.

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