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Sari 0:00
Maybe you like sitting around in confusion and overwhelm and doubt, but I sure don't. I want to skip the line experience. I want to get inside a community with an expert who knows how to help me and understands my problems, and gets me answers fast so that I can make decisions and keep moving forward. I also want someone to hold me accountable and keep me focused on my business and moving it forward and limit the life distractions that happen for all of us. And I want to be surrounded by a community of other entrepreneurs who understand what it's like. It helps me to not feel so alone and so overwhelmed in what I need to do to put myself out there and possibly be judged or rejected or laughed at, and all the crazy stories that our brain makes up when we start to do something uncomfortable when we get out of our comfort zone. That is why I am for a limited time opening up the Fuel membership as a standalone product. So you can go and just get the Fuel membership. I have people ask me all the time, I've already have a business, I'm already launched. How can I work with you? How can I get information and feedback and community? Well, now is your chance. It starts at $57 a month and you can cancel at any time. So come and take a small risk that has potential for huge payouts to skip the line and get yourself into action and get yourself results so much faster than just spinning out on your own. I see the difference that it makes in entrepreneurs who come to the calls, who get coaching, who connect with community. We have members in there that are constantly reporting, I tried this, I did this, I got this advice, and I am increasing my sales. It is working, I'm going faster than I ever thought possible. And studies show that you are 95% more likely to actually achieve your goals when you get accountability and support. Don't put this off, go to foodbizsuccess.com/fuel and get inside. I look forward to meeting you in Fuel and we are going to add some rocket fuel to your business.

Welcome to your Food Business Success. This podcast is for early stage entrepreneurs in the packaged food industry ready to finally turn that delicious idea into reality. I'm your host Sari Kimbell, I have guided hundreds of food brand founders to success as an industry expert and business coach and it's got to be fun. In this podcast, I share with you mindset tools to become a true entrepreneur and run your business like a boss, interviews with industry experts to help you understand the business you are actually in, and food founder journey so you can learn what worked and didn't work and not feel so alone in your own journey. Now let's jump in!

Welcome to the 156th episode! Three years of podcasting, of creating a weekly episode for you on the Food Business Success podcast. It has been an honor, it has mostly been a joy. But it is part of the process of creating a business, of being a CEO, and a founder, and one that I love. And I'm excited to continue and whatever form that looks like, I can't guarantee that podcasting will continue forever. But as long as I am enjoying the process of it, not for any end result, but just because I love it, because it fills me up. And because I get to come here every week and talk to you all. And even though I don't know all of you personally, there are so many downloads, so many people listening from all over the world. Let me just say thank you from the bottom of my heart for being here. And for being that person that I am speaking to. I make this podcast for you and my greatest hope is that it has helped you in your journey and that it has helped you to get to where you want to go to be more successful. And as you know from last episode, I am doing a two part series on the keys to success. And yes, there are definitely more than two but as I really thought about what are those two or three things that like I really want you to grab on to, I really want you to get outside of your product. And if you can master these two things, if you can really just embody them, you are going to have a much smoother ride. I can't promise you it won't be any bumps. But it'll definitely be something that keeps going, that gets momentum, and something that you actually enjoy, right? And something that will last a whole lot longer and something you'll be able to look back and be really, really proud of yourself for. So today, the key I want to talk about is the ability, the willingness, the ownership of falling in love with the process. I kind of foreshadow that actually, in the opening for this podcast that I have come to love the process of putting together the master classes or the workshops or the boot camps, and to record the podcast and to create the social media and write the emails. There is a love of that. And that helps to keep me going. I have fallen in love with the process, and less about the outcome. And it has not been easy. And it is taking me years, if I'm honest, to finally get to this point. And I so wish that I was able to do it sooner. I mean, things happen the way they're supposed to. And I teach what I most needed to learn. And so I'm here to help you to hopefully speed that up and do it sooner. This doesn't have to take you five years, you know, like it did myself to finally be like, hey, what if I just actually show up and love my business and the process of being in it, instead of always needing the outcome, the goal, the achievement to feel good about myself. So the reality is, of course, everyone who I know who starts a business has a goal, right? You start this with something in mind that you want to achieve. And I love goals. Don't get me wrong, I want you to set a goal. But I do want you to think about, what is the reason why you want to achieve that goal? There is a story behind it. In coaching where I like to ask, what are you making that mean? What is the story behind it? Because oftentimes, we attach things like worthiness and good enough and deserving and respect and power and some other things attached to those goals, right? When I finally do this, when I get my business off the ground, then I'll be happy, then I'll be enough, then I can prove to everybody around me that I have my stuff together. And so it is really good to question your goal. I want you to have goals, for sure. But do question the motivation behind it. Because here's the reality and I know you know this, when I say it, you're going to be like, yeah, that's me, is that even when we hit that goal, when we're doing it to prove ourselves as worthy or good enough, or whatever, right, those things we attach to it, then we get there. And we're like, well, that wasn't actually it. Let me move that finish line out. Now, it's actually when I do this, right? We just keep moving that out. So it's like, well, when I make my first $5,000 then I'll finally be good enough and I can say that this is a success. And then you get there and you're like, that wasn't it, let me actually make that $20,000. And then it's $200,000. And then it's $2 million, right? We never actually get there. And if we're approaching our business with those types of goals, most of us will quit because we're never satisfied. It's never enough. So having a purpose can be really helpful. I talked about that in last week's episode that can really ground you and change the goals a little bit like they can still be high hard goals that are big and fun to go after. But it might not just be all about you, right? They're more about like, I'm serving a bigger purpose. And so it's not just about like, I sold 10,000 units, right? It's like what's behind, what's the meaning behind the 10,000 units and that you're doing something bigger for the world, you're making a difference. But let me ask you this, like, we could think about it in terms of athletics to start with.

I watched the Stephen Curry documentary on Netflix when I was on vacation. It's like having a weird late night Netflix scene binge session, which I never do in my normal daily life. But I was on vacation so why not? And it was just so interesting. You know, every time I watch stuff around athletics, it's like what separates somebody like Stephen Curry, or Michael Jordan, or Scottie Pippen. I know you're not even into basketball. But anyway, like I know some of these names, right? I've been to like two basketball games recently and that's it. Anyway, the point being is that what separates them when they were younger, right, and they're playing in high school, and then in college, like what separates them, there was a lot of people who they were playing with who never went on to the NBA, and then even in the NBA, then they are competing with all of these other high performers like very incredible basketball players. So what separates them, you know, those really elite athletes from the ones who are still playing at a very high level? And you could say something like, well, it's genetics, right? They need to be tall. It's luck. Maybe it's training, timing, where they grew up. Yes. And all the people in the NBA have a lot of those qualities. So what is it that separates those really elite people is their ability, their willingness to fall in love with the process, with the boring, mindless reps. With doing the work that has to be done that nobody really wants to do. And yet they could actually see that as part of the fun of it, and make peace with even if they don't love it, that they're making peace with, this is part of the experience, this is part of what I have to do. Michael Jordan was notorious for getting in early and staying later than every one of his team members and putting in the shots like taking the reps, doing the work. And even when they were off the court, then doing the active recovery work, the ice baths and the massages and the rolling out. And even though that might sound lovely, it's very painful, and nobody really wants to do it. Or it's the saying no to going out or the saying yes to certain types of foods and workouts and all of that stuff, right? It's the really boring stuff that actually gets them to that level of greatness. And so you could do the same thing with some food businesses. So what's the difference between Justin of Justin's Nut Butter, or Sam, the female CEO of Just Date, or Dave, the founder of Dave's Killer Bread? Or, you know, what is the difference between them, and any other nut butter brand, syrup, or bread business? Well, I can tell you from interviewing Justin last year is that he was willing to fall in love with the process, he was willing to do the reps, he was willing to do the things that most people won't do. He was bought in to say, let's just keep going. Let's keep putting one foot in front of the other. And because believe me 10 years, he didn't know he would actually be super successful and sell for 286 million when he started, right? And it took it over 10 years to do that. And you can't willpower your way to 10 years, right? Like most of us have a fantasy of our goal of or like, we're going to launch our business and make $50,000 in the first year. And you don't get anywhere close to it, and then you quit because it's too far out. We can't willpower our way there. Are you willing to do the work to overcome yourself, to overcome your emotions, and do the things even when you don't feel like doing them? And this is what we like to call grit. I've mentioned Steven Kotler's book, The Art of Impossible before, but he had a really great section on grit. And it really made me rethink it. And I've been playing around a lot with grit. And there are a number of different kinds of grit that he goes into the book. But if you think about that grit to overcome, oftentimes we think about it with physical activities, right? That do one more push up or hold that plank for that minute and a half without dropping, right? And that you're able to be in the hardness, like the pain even and the like mental fatigue and you stay in it, you keep going. And that is absolutely grit for sure. And then there's also the mental grit, right? That is what I'm asking for in entrepreneurship. And ironically, so over the last seven years that I've been in business, I have developed a significant amount of mental grit. And these are things like I put five things on my list on my power five every day, and even when I don't feel like it, I get them done anyways, right? I send that email that I don't want to send, I eat the frogs, I have the conversations, I record the podcast even when I'm like, does it really matter? I don't feel like doing it. I overcome my emotions. And so for me, I have been practicing mental grit for a long time. And I'm curious how you would rate yourself on your level of grit, whether in the mental area or the physical area. The beautiful thing is, it's a muscle. We can develop more grit if we practice it. And it doesn't have to be in huge giant leaps. We can do it in small ways that start to build that muscle and we get stronger, and we can apply it in different areas of our life. And I've actually been playing around more with grit in my physical area of life because I don't consider myself or up until this point, I have not considered myself very gritty, physically. I'm like, no, I don't want to hold that plank for that long. I'm done. I'm out. And so I've been playing around a lot more with that in my workouts. And when I go to a class, a Pilates class, I've been like, actually, the other day, I was so proud of myself, like you're holding a plank for a minute. And you're just waiting, waiting, waiting. And after she was like, okay, you're done. I held it for like three more seconds, right? I'm playing around with grit. I'm using how I know to be mentally gritty and using that in the physical arena. And you can do it the opposite. If you tend to be more physically gritty, can you apply that in that mental space? Because the process of creating a really successful business, however you define it, maybe you don't define success in the same way that I just described with Justin's or any of that, right? That's fine. I don't want you to necessarily own that as the only benchmark of success by any means. But let's just say it's at the farmers market, and you want to have a certain level of success there, it doesn't really matter. The same is true for all businesses, they're effing boring. There is way less glamour and romance than we think about in our heads. If you have not started your business yet, I am sure that you're romanticizing it and you're thinking about, oh, when I'm just at the farmers market, it's going to be so fun, or when I'm on Shark Tank, or when I do this next thing, right? When I get to this next level, when I'm in this store, and there's all this romance around it, and I can guarantee you, believe me that starting and growing working on your business is boring. It is the getting up and doing the things that you don't really want to do. That is the process. And the most successful people have incredible self discipline. They create routines that support good habits, and they follow them without fail. Now you could say that's really boring all the time and it is. And it works. And it doesn't mean that you can't sometimes go take a vacation, right? Like I was just saying, where I'm up late binge watching something that I normally wouldn't ever do. You can certainly build that in but you do it with purpose. And not just because you're bored or something is hard and frustrating, you don't want to do it. Listen, there is no guarantee that you will be successful at any of this. There's no guarantee. You are not entitled to the outcome that you are dreaming about. None of that is a guarantee. And in fact, I actually want you to go after bigger, more impossible, 10x goals, that truly may never ever happen. Because when you do that, you're going to expand, you're going to operate in a bigger way, you're going to get out of your comfort zone, and that is part of the process. And going after bigger goals forces you to expand and to step into an even tighter process and to actually really love it. And just remember, like you're only at the top of the mountain for a brief period of time. You're mostly on the journey.

I mean, it's you know, I think the people talk about like, it's like 1% of the time you are at the peak, you got the thing. And the 99% of the time, you're just on the journey. You're slogging through, you know, on the trail. I did a hike and I was visiting my friend in Seattle and we did a hike, right? And for two miles or whatever it was, like we're just on the up and up. It's putting one foot in front of the other and you just go, and go, and go. And you try to enjoy the movement and the surroundings and the taking a break and seeing how far you've come. And then we get to the top. And we're like, cool, that's fun. Awesome. Take a photo, look around. And then like 10 minutes later, like let's head back down, right? So how do you do this? What are some strategic, some practical steps? I want to give you a couple of things to take away from this episode. So the first is just understanding and accepting that this is how it is. This is how we operate as humans. If we only have the goal as motivation, and we aren't willing to fall in love with the process, if we aren't willing to be in it and just be like, here's what we're doing. And I'm learning and I'm growing. And there's lots of uncertainty but I'm also creating certainty in my self-discipline and in my routines, and we can't just be in it, be on the journey, then putting everything on our goals is never going to give us the satisfaction and the achievement that we think that it will bring us. Number two is just, let's just own right now, let's just say and be done with it that you are enough, you are good enough, you are deserving, you are an incredible human. And can we just come to the table that we don't need to achieve anything to prove that. So if we just set that aside and stop making that part of our goals, and the reason to go after big things, there is no achievement that you can go after, that you can win, that will make you any more or less of a better human. Alright, so let's just leave that there. And then I want you to work on increasing your grit, your ability to push through the boring, the hard, the non inspiring. It's the oh, it's Money Monday and that's time to work on my cash flow. I don't want to do it but it's on my calendar and so I'm going to set a timer for 30 minutes and let's go, right? It's the willingness to do the uncomfortable, to do the boring, the things that are definitely not in your motivation triad. But here is the beautiful thing about grit is that as you start growing it in little ways, again, it could just be, I am going to write one more email, or I'm going to spend an extra 10 minutes doing this thing, right? There's so many ways that you can start to increase your grit and your self discipline, and raise your standards in small, tiny ways. But once you start doing it, there is an inherent build up, there's momentum that happens. And the more you do the gritty thing, the more you do the harder thing, it's like the exact opposite of what we think. We think if we just go watch Netflix and eat some ice cream, that we will feel better. But afterwards, we actually feel worse. Versus if we actually do the hard thing. At the end of it, we feel this jolt of dopamine. And we're like feel so good about ourselves that it makes us want to do more and more. And that is actually where true well being lies is when we do the hard thing, we push through it. And then on the other side, we get that little hit of dopamine. And then we want to do more. And then we want to do more. And we want to do more. And it's a pretty incredible cycle. You can write it on the down or you can decide to write it on the app. But it will require grit, which is about overcoming your emotions, and not letting your emotions be in control of you. And progress is what equals happiness. So by building in the grit, we're going to start making progress. As we start compounding our actions, we're doing more. We all have the same amount of hours in the day but most of us are wasting a lot of time thinking about it, worrying about our business, going back and forth in indecision, trying to get out of it. Instead of just making ourselves sit down and do the thing, eat the frogs, put the 30 minutes on your calendar for the finance thing or writing the post whatever it is, we'd actually get a lot more done if we stopped thinking about it and trying to bargain and negotiate our way out of it if we just actually did it. And then when we start seeing progress, that is true happiness, that is where humans across the board feel the most happiness. So the reward actually comes from the effort, not from the outcome. And I can honestly truly say, I would say in this year 2023, this is where it's all clicking for me. And it's just getting easier and time is slowing down and I have more I have it, and I'm just enjoying my life more, and my business. And I'm not putting so much pressure on my business to make me better as a human. It's the effort, it's the showing up and doing the things that I am in control of. I am not in control of whether you guys come and work with me. I have zero control over that, and you have zero control over whether people will buy your product or not. So let's go ahead and reward the thing that you can actually control. And that is your effort, that is your grit. That is being willing to feel your feelings and to not like doing something and to be bored and do it anyway. And it is so important that we celebrate our wins, and that we're rewarding that effort. So there you have it, my friends, that is episode 156. Three years of podcasting, I am definitely raising my arm and patting myself on the back. I'm high fiving myself, give myself a little wink in the mirror. I am rewarding the effort, putting the care, putting the time, putting the perspiration into recording these episodes for you. And I am loving the process. And if you want help to understand what the process is in the first place, and to help fall in love with it, I would love for you to come join me inside Food Business Success. And right now you can get inside Fuel only. So if you just want to check it out, if you want to see what this group coaching thing is all about and check out the community. You can come join me for a limited time. I'm opening Fuel as a standalone products. So you can just get that and it's $57 a month. So what are you waiting for? It's a small investment of money and your time that could have an incredible return on investment. Until next time, level up your grit. Keep practicing, build that muscle, and have an amazing week!

The smartest thing you can do as an entrepreneur is to invest in a who to help you with the how to speed up your journey and help you skip the line. When you are ready for more support and accountability to finally get this thing done. You can work with me in two ways. Get me all to yourself with one on one business coaching, or join Food Business Success which includes membership inside Fuel, our community of food business founders that includes monthly live group coaching calls and so much more. It's one of my favorite places to hang out and I would love to see you there. Go to foodbizsuccess.com to start your journey towards your own Food Business Success. Hey there, you're still here. How fun is that? If you want more, go and grab the book off of Amazon Key Ingredients: How To Turn Your Passion Product Into A Profitable Business. This is an actionable guide with step by step instruction on how to start or scale your product business. I also give you a special link so that you can access some book only resources. So what are you waiting for? Head over to Amazon or go to keyingredientsbook.com for more information.