“It's not freedom from difficulty or freedom from struggle or hard work, but it's the freedom to choose the hard work that you're doing and the struggles and the challenges that you face." — Isaac Morehouse, founder, Crash
Curt Mercadante interviews Isaac Morehouse, founder of Crash -- a career launch platform that’s disrupting the job search industry by empowering individuals to brand and sell their impact.
In today’s episode, Curt asks Isaac what the word “freedom” means to him.
This shorter episode is taken from a full interview with Isaac, which aired in April 2020:
FULL RAW TRANSCRIPT OF THIS EPISODE:
[00:00:00] Isaac Morehouse: We have to live with ourselves through time, not just in a single moment. And so when you think about, if I don't wanna do stuff, I hate if I don't wanna be a person that I hate, right. If I wanna be someone that feels good about themselves, if I wanna respect myself, then it's not just what I do right now.
[00:00:16] It's how, what I do right now is likely to make me become later.
[00:00:25] Curt Mercadante: Hey everyone. This is Curt Mercadante. Once again, with the latest edition of freedom media network, where we bring you awesome interviews with amazing individuals who are either living the freedom lifestyle or helping others to break free to a life of freedom and abundance today, we're here with someone.
[00:00:41] Who was on my podcast, maybe two years ago, Isaac Moorehouse. He was disrupting the way that people educate themselves. And when I said educate, I didn't say school, cuz there's a difference between big difference two. He is the founder of Praxis. Awesome apprenticeship startup. Today. We're talking about his new startup.
[00:00:59] [00:01:00] Crash. Is it just called crash or crash.ceo? Crash. CEO is the website, right?
[00:01:03] Isaac Morehouse: Yeah, it's just called crash.
[00:01:04] Curt Mercadante: And it's about crashing your career. We're gonna talk about what all that means. Isaac. Thanks so much for joining us today.
[00:01:09] Isaac Morehouse: Hey man, it's great to be back again.
[00:01:11] Curt Mercadante: So Isaac, we've had many discussions on camera off camera are about freedom and Liberty and what that means.
[00:01:18] And a lot of people think it in the, well, it could be the economic realm, the political realm. I tend to think freedoms between your two ears and it's what you make. two years ago. I asked you what freedom meant to you. I gave you a shirt today. Now I have official shirts. so I'm gonna ask you again, the word freedom.
[00:01:34] What does it mean to you, man?
[00:01:35] Isaac Morehouse: I wonder what I said two years ago. Yeah. I should have looked it back that way. We'll splice it together and compare. I think freedom to me is choose your own challenge. That's that's why I think the freedom to choose your own challenge, because it's not freedom from difficulty or freedom from struggle or hard.
[00:01:53] But it's the freedom to choose the hard work that you're doing, the struggles and the challenges that you face. So you're always gonna face those. [00:02:00] That can, that can mean something as small, as you know, you're in a situation that you feel, you know, you don't want to be in knowing that you were the one who chose to put yourself there.
[00:02:10] If you can't immediately get out, at least saying, no one else is responsible for this, I am. But if you can, once you realize you're responsible, you often start to find all these creative ways that you can exit the situation if not immediately soon. And so I think constantly reminding. I get to choose my own challenges.
[00:02:28] I, I don't get to choose a life. That's free of challenges. Yeah. Cuz that's like death. That's not living right, right, right. But I get to choose my challenges. That's what freedom is to me. It's interesting. Cuz I recently had Randy G who's the, I call them, I think the prosperity godfather on here. And we were talking about victimhood.
[00:02:42] We were talking about struggle. and I was thinking about it last night on the airplane and the fact that so many people wallow and marinate and, uh, kind of promote maybe it's the, the martyr syndrome. Yeah. What I [00:03:00] coin struggle porn. Yes, where it's, uh, you know, Randy quoted, uh, Tom Peters. If you haven't failed by age 40, something's wrong.
[00:03:07] And, and, you know, we've talked about religion and other things, but it's like, it's the struggle. And that's what it's all about. And the struggle. And even, even someone like Gary V, although he changes his tune depending on the hour and the video he's doing, but it's all about the struggle and people post on LinkedIn, I'm sleeping under my desk and aren't I so awesome.
[00:03:25] And, and it's wonderful, but in doing so maybe. Unconsciously or subconsciously turning themselves into victims. Yeah. And making it seem well, that's what the world is. I can't do anything about it. I just gotta take it as a comes. Yeah. Yeah. I think if, you know, for me, it's, there's a big difference between struggling when I don't feel like I'm free.
[00:03:49] And when I start to get it slipping the victim mentality. Versus struggling by choice. Right? So I love to play basketball. Not very good, but out on the basketball court. I struggle sometimes, right? It's physically [00:04:00] difficult. I'm fighting in something. Or like I watch my kids play video games. They're frustrated.
[00:04:05] They're not just happy go lucky, but they're frustrated. They can't beat a level, but they're working, they're working. It's a, it's a, it's a struggle they've chosen and that feels meaningful to them. And I would distinguish that. Just assuming that struggle in and of itself is somehow purifying or good or makes you good.
[00:04:23] And I think it's hard today with the struggle porn thing. You can get a lot of quick positive feedback. If you go on social media and you talk about the ways you're struggling and you'll get that quick dopamine hit of likes of sympathy. Oh man road. Versus if you're just. I'm having a fine day. I'm not struggling, right?
[00:04:42] I'm in, I'm in control. I'm, I'm responsible for everything I'm experiencing in my life. You're not gonna get anything from people for that. You're not gonna get any easy likes. And so there's kind of this compounding thing where like you're in a struggle and it's, if you, if you say, ultimately I'm responsible for this, well, then you're confronted with a [00:05:00] choice.
[00:05:00] I gotta do something. If I want to get outta here. If you say, Hey, this is just happening to. It's it lets you off the hook and not only does it let you off the hook, you often get praised and rewarded just for the mere act of struggling. So I think it, it's kind of like a, you know, a double whammy. It's hard to get outta that trap.
[00:05:16] Sometimes
[00:05:17] Curt Mercadante: it it's interesting that you, you know, if you post that, Hey, everything's good. Not only will people ignore it. We were in London
[00:05:24] Isaac Morehouse: They you of being privileged and all kinds of stuff. Exactly.
[00:05:27] Curt Mercadante: I was in London and I posted a picture. We were at her. And I was feeling pretty great. Hey, created prosperity.
[00:05:34] It worked hard to get here or, or worked smart to get here. And I posted dry age steak and a glass of French wine for dinner or, or for lunch. And someone was like, check your humility at the door, man. And I said, I'm never gonna, why would I apologize for enjoying a nice steak that I could afford? Like, did you pay for it?
[00:05:54] No. Yeah. The other thing is in, in what you just said. when you're talking about the video games [00:06:00] and the ki, when you were on my show a couple years ago, you talked about the difference between hate and hard. And the fact that some people like if I talk about freedom mindset, or I talk about, they think it's all about a life of ease, like doing what you love is a life of ease.
[00:06:16] And like, listen, you're doing something. I know you're traveling around the country, you're raising money, you're raising cash. You know, you got yourself sick while doing, you're doing all these. Yeah, but you love what you're building. I assume. Yes. Often the things we love to do are the hardest, but they're worth it.
[00:06:33] And often the things we hate to do, I mean, I had a company, it was easy to make money. Yeah. Hated it. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Um, and, but I think it, it goes back to the guilt and the struggle porn and it's, if you're not struggling, something's wrong with you. Right.
[00:06:47] Isaac Morehouse: Well, and think. we have to live with ourselves through time, not just in a single moment.
[00:06:54] And so when you think about, if I don't want to do stuff, I hate if I don't wanna be a person that I hate, right. If I wanna be [00:07:00] someone that feels good about themselves, if I wanna respect myself, then it's not just what I do right now. It's how, what I do right now. Is likely to make me become later. And so when you're doing something and you say, you know, don't, don't do stuff you hate, which is a phrase that I love wrote a book by that title.
[00:07:16] Yeah. Yeah. If you're doing something that you hate, it's not just like right now. Do I hate it? I, I think the deeper question is, is this making me into the type of person that I hate. Is this making me into the type of person. Yeah. I'm gonna regret later. And so an example I've used many times is, uh, I ran a marathon years ago.
[00:07:34] It was like 15 years ago now I'll never do it again. Um, but my wife had, and I was like, I'll be damned if we tell our kids someday that their mom ran a marathon. So I was like, I'm gonna do this. So I hated the training, the whole thing. It was, it was brutal. But what I would've hated more was being the kind of person who didn't.
[00:07:53] Right. And so it's not, it's like, you may hate some things you're going through, but would you hate more [00:08:00] the opposite? Would you hate, would you hate yourself or not hate necessarily if that word is too strong for some people, would you be less well trigger yourself? You should have trigger warning. That's a good idea.
[00:08:09] We should have trigger warning. That's a hate that's hate speech literally. Right? Right.