Full Transcript

Sari 0:04
I'm Sari Kimbell and I've done just about everything in the food industry. I have helped hundreds of packaged food business entrepreneurs and now I want to help you make your delicious dream a reality. Whether you want to be successful at farmer's markets, online, or wholesale on the store shelves, Food Business Success is your secret ingredient. I will show you how to avoid an expensive hobby, and instead run a profitable food business. Now let's jump in!

Sari 0:38
Hey there, welcome back to the podcast. So happy to have you here with me today. I just heard a statistic this last weekend that new business applications are projected to end this year around 5 million or surpassed 5 million, which is bonkers! That is crazy town! That is going to set a huge record and it gets me so interested. So curious about why that is. And I have a lot of people ask me if I have seen kind of a surge with the pandemic and everything with Food Business Success, and the answer is a resounding, yes! A hundred percent. I have definitely found that more and more of you are tinkering in the kitchen, right? We all had to spend a lot more time at home for a while there. And so more people are cooking at home, you're spending more time there, you're experimenting, you're playing around, you're like hmm, what if, what if this could be a business? Or you've had that dream on the shelf for so long and it's finally like, what the heck am I waiting for? I've been wanting to do this business for 10 years, for 20 years. I literally had somebody tell me, I've been wanting to do this for 20 years. And it's like, what are you waiting for, a pandemic, right? I remember the same thing happened after 911. I definitely reevaluated my life and my priorities and made some big shifts. So I think that's what's going on with a rise in business applications. And I would say that definitely mirrors what I'm seeing inside Food Business Success, that so many more of you are like, yes, I'm going to start if not now, when? So I'm really excited to announce that the Whip Up A Business Workshop is now available, is now open for registration. You can buy your ticket, it is a small $27 to reserve your seat and seating will be limited online. Of course, that's virtual. But we're going to keep the room intimate and small. And you can come to this, it is a workshop, it is not a webinar. This is not, you know, a little bit of information and then a whole bunch of sales. This is going to be packed. This is your recipe for starting a packaged food business in 2022. So if you're interested in getting your ticket, your seat with me for that workshop, go to www.foodbizsuccess.com/start

Sari 3:17
I love learning, I love growing, and learning new concepts. And I love bringing them to you guys. Because this can be everything, there is that certain piece where you need to know the how of starting a packaged food business. But so much of being a successful entrepreneur is about managing your mind, learning new concepts, evolving, becoming a better version of yourself. And so I'm really excited to bring to you a concept that is perfect for this time of year as we head towards the end of 2021. And I'm going to have some suggestions for some exercises to do and some habits that I want to encourage you to take on. But I think this concept is just gonna like blow your mind as it did mine. I will just say it has been transformational for me. And really, I'm so grateful. But it's gonna set me up for going into 2022 with a really massive big goal for my business. And I'm working with so many of you on your big goals, your massive goals for 2022 that this just cannot come at a better time.

Sari 4:33
So I've been listening to a book called The Gain and The Gap. And it's by Dan Sullivan and Ben Hardy. And I highly recommend you go and listen to this or read this. There's also a number of podcasts where they do interviews. So if you want to kind of get a little glimpse into it, but that's essentially what this is. I'm going to share with you my learnings and how I think you can apply it in your life specially around starting a packaged food business. I work with so many high achievers, I consider myself one as well. And this concept is going to be really, really helpful for you as well. So pay attention if you are one of my high achievers, as one of my clients said, I just want my gold stars for the day. So here is a way to give yourself the gold stars.

Sari 5:27
Alright, so this is a kind of radical way of measuring your progress. And there's two different ways to do it. And so, Dan Sullivan and Ben Hardy have explained their concept of the gap versus the gain. When you look at your life, how do you see it? Are you constantly comparing yourself to a missed opportunity, to something you wish you were that you are looking outside of yourself, and you're either measuring yourself against anything, someone else, things outside of you? You're maybe looking at other businesses. I have a client that said to me, but I want to be like them, like they're at the place where I want to be. And they were so in this place called the gap, where you're looking at where you're at and where you want to go. And you're really just beating yourself up, you're saying, you know, I can't be happy until they have it all, I'm suck. I'm not doing those things. What's wrong with me? If you think about the emotion that brings up. It's that fear, there's competition, there's comparison. So you're measuring yourself against the future and what you are not. It's a feeling of lack and that you're never going to be good enough. You're chasing after something, that it's just never gonna quite happen, it's always outside of your reach. Because even when you accomplish the thing, potentially you're gonna have something new. That's just the way we are wired as human beings, right? So you're always going to be wanting to go after something new and seeing yourself and so if you're motivating yourself out of the gap, it's gonna be really hard. In fact, I would say it's where you're going to give up. And then you go on that cycle that I've talked about, right, where you start, and you stop, and you start and you stop because you're living in the gap. And you can also be living in the gap when you think about your past that you might have regret, that you're like, oh, I wish that hadn't have happened, that totally screwed up my life, I'll never be the same, that took away opportunities for me.

Sari 8:01
So you're looking at the past and you're not getting any utility from it, you're not learning and growing from it. You're really blaming outside circumstances. So the gap, I think, just kind of summarizes that it's anything outside of yourself. And it's going to create pretty negative feelings. And so, you know, the model that I use with clients is that, your thoughts create your feelings, which create your actions. So we're gonna have like the same circumstance, right? You're gonna, whatever your circumstance is, where you're at in your business currently, like, maybe it's that you don't have a business yet, you just have an idea. Or like some of my clients, we're going after big money goals, or we're going after manufacturing. So there's the circumstance that you're in right now. Let's say you are currently in self production and you want to be in manufacturing. So that circumstance, if you're thinking thoughts, like it's never gonna happen. That's not for me. I can't believe it hasn't already happened. We screwed it up. We'll never get there. I wish I was in manufacturing. I wish I was in a hundred doors. I wish I had a food business. Think about the feeling that generates. I've talked on a couple of podcasts about your feelings being so important. That feeling is going to really drive actions that are more like gritting your teeth, right? It's more like, I'm just gonna get through this. I'm going to force it. I'm going to willpower my way through it. And I would just say that living in the gap feels like very disempowering. It's not a place that you're going to want to be in for very long.

Sari 10:07
And you could take this, I like to use other examples outside of business too, because I think it really paints a great picture. And sometimes we need to get outside of our like current. Like we're talking about businesses, your business but if you think about if you wanted to lose weight as an example, and if all you're doing is comparing yourself to other people who have lost the weight, or who are where you want to be, and you're just wishing that was the case, and you're beating yourself up for not being there, and you're blaming your past, and you're living in regret, and if only I had, you know, made different decisions at some point in my life, if I only had not eaten that one piece of cheesecake, my whole life would have been different. And you're living in that place. Think about the feeling, it's probably not going to be a very positive emotion. And then what are the actions that come from it. You're going to be taking action out of beating yourself up out of fear, it's very disempowering. And that is where you're going to give up. Okay, so that is the gap. And if that resonates with you, which I'm sure does, because like I said, I work with a lot of high achievers. And I can say, without a doubt, I have lived in this place and it is kind of a dark, dank cave. It is not pleasant, yes, you can still accomplish things, you can still accomplish big goals and I certainly have. But I can tell you, I have not done it as fast as I could have. And I have not enjoyed the process nearly as much as what was available to me.

Sari 11:50
So the opposite of living in the gap is living in the gain. This is just a perspective shift, same circumstance, right? Whatever that is, your x weightt now or you don't have a business yet, but you have a great idea. You're at x sales right now, and you want to be somewhere else, you have x number of accounts, right? You're in self production, same exact circumstance. But now we are measuring yourself against yourself. We are looking at the progress, the gain, versus what is missing. So you end up making yourself the measuring stick, right that you are measuring yourself against yourself. So you are going into the past. And you are saying, okay, where was I a year ago? And here's what I want you to do, because I did this exercise and I'm telling you, it was powerful, really, really powerful. So as we're coming up on the end of 2021, I would love for you to take 30 minutes, set a timer. I know sometimes these exercises, you're like, oh my gosh, these are going to take forever. Now set a timer for 30 minutes and I just want you to write. You know, keep it in a journal so you have it for reference because it's pretty amazing. So go back and look at where you were, you know, January 1, 2021. And then list everything in your life that you have done, that you have created, that you have changed, that you have evolved, and look at everything and say where have I made progress? What is the progress? What is the evolvement? Where have I become better? And I guarantee you, might take you a minute, you're like, I don't know, I'm not where I want to be, right? Yeah, maybe you haven't achieved the big goal. But where have you made progress? It's a matter of retraining our brain to look for the progress rather than where we have failed or where we didn't say that we have failed, where we have dropped the ball, where we're not doing enough. It is a radical shift as an intrinsic way of living. Because now you're reframing everything as a learning. You're reframing everything as gratitude.

Sari 14:29
So here's the example. Ben Hardy gives the example of your kid says I wish we were having mac and cheese and you're not, you're having salad and chicken. You can either look at that and say, oh man, I'm really failing as a parent. I can't believe, I should have made a different decision. He's unhappy or she's unhappy. Or you could say, no, we are here, we have food on the table, I'm so grateful for my kid and it's totally fine that they feel this way. But in the moment like, wow, we've come so far that we get to eat this amazing, delicious food. And it starts to really bring gratitude, generosity. There's feelings of like, yeah, generosity, cooperation, creation, what's possible, as we look at the progress that we've made. So let's use the weight example, if you instead reframed it of like, I'm x weight now and I want to be here. Instead of saying, oh, I am such a screw up, I can't believe I did that, what's the point, I'm never gonna be like that. It's how have I made progress in the last day? What did I do differently from yesterday to today? What did I do differently? How have I made progress from last week? There is something you can find and you can feel it. If you go with me in this exercise, just feel the difference in your body of the feeling that you have. It's going to make approaching a goal so much lighter, so much more fun, so much easier. And when we have a thought that creates a positive emotion, our actions are going to be so much different. They're gonna be lighter, they're going to be more powerful. You're going to have much more kind of in the zone energy, right, where you're focused and you're excited. And so that is the way not only to go after a big goal but also to any kind of habit change that you want to create in your life. It's going to be through positive intrinsic motivation. And we get that by measuring the progress that we have made. And I'm even going to say, I really think this is going to help you increase your confidence as well. As you start measuring all the achievements, small and large, just from the day before or the week before, that your confidence will start increasing, and then the actions that you take are going to be so much more powerful. Also you're also gonna feel so much happier. Because when we focus this way, when we change our perspective, we are in gratitude, which brings us into the present moment. And the present moment is the only place I promise you, think about it, is the only place that we can feel happiness, that we can experience the emotion of happiness. Now, sometimes you might say, well, I think about the future and I feel happy. But it's happening in the present moment. They had a quote and I love this: happiness is a one person game. It cannot be created by anything outside of you. You may wish your partner was different, you may wish your kids were different, you may wish your body was different. But I guarantee you, as somebody who has lost weight, who's somebody who has made a lot more money than I ever thought possible in my business, that does not bring me happiness. It is only my thoughts about it in the present moment.

Sari 18:41
The actual act of losing weight or making money does not bring you happiness, it's how you think about it. And I have made money feeling really unhappy and comparing, and despairing, and wishing and hoping. And I have lost weight doing that as well. And I am doing it differently now. And it is changing everything. I am so excited about 2022. What if you actually had fun creating this business? What a novel concept, right? That you built in fun, that you built in success and pleasure and enjoyment into creating a business. That's what I want for you. Think about how you feel when you are measuring the game, right? When you're measuring your progress. You're going to come from a place of having your own back. Like you're like oh, okay, if I'm treating myself kindly by looking at the positive, measuring myself against, you know, past self versus future or current self. You feel how you actually are like, oh, I got my own back. I'm going to be nice to myself, I'm not going to beat myself up. You're going to be so much more motivated. So many of you as entrepreneurs are terrible bosses to yourself. If you worked for a boss like yourself, would you want to stay in that job for very long? I'm guessing that is a hard no. We are so mean to ourselves, we beat ourselves up for every little mistake, for not doing enough, for doing too much, for being too much. Being too big, being too little, right? This is an upgrade, you guys, we have to keep evolving. We have to keep growing. We are meant as human beings to evolve, to learn, to grow. That is a human need, I promise you. And just like these example from Adam Grant, which I've talked about his book before, I think again, but he has an example it says: we would laugh if somebody's computer was still on Windows 95, right? We'd be like, what are you doing? Why have you not upgraded this, it's so much better. This is upgrading your thinking, this is upgrading your ability to achieve so much more and get there so much faster and with more ease.

Sari 21:28
This requires training, this is not something we're going to do naturally. Our brains are hard wired to look for the negative. So they recommend to practice to build the muscle to train yourself. And so I am declaring right now I'm putting this on my Badass 30, that this is something I'm going to do every night, is that you list 3 wins at the end of the day. You make a habit of it, you train your brain to look for the progress, to look for the positive. And then the next level, if you want to like really earn your gold stars on this is that you actually set yourself up for wins for the next day. So you also list 3 wins that will happen the next day. And if you think about what you're doing is you're setting, you're like telling your brain what's going to happen. And so you're actually like planning ahead and you are creating it because we are super powerful in our brains. And if you want to tell yourself that you're gonna, you know, suck the next day, I guarantee, you're gonna suck the next day. So retraining our brains to go to bed, go to sleep around gratitude, around positivity, is going to make a huge difference for what you can accomplish the next day. There's a very scientific term called reticular activating system, the R A S for short, where what you focus on is where you go, that is what you start seeing all the time. So if you can start training your brain to see the wins, put a sticky note up where you can see it this is, you know, see the wins. What am I doing? What how am I winning right now? What are my gains? Like put something to remind yourself, you start to see wins everywhere. I've talked to you guys mentioned this before, but the habit of making your bed every day, that's a win! You did it first, the very first thing you did after you got out of bed, right? This is such a better way to feel empowered, to feel ownership, like you are in control. You are steering your life. And you get to decide what each experience, what each circumstance means. We have that power, we are meaning making species. So are you going to make it mean that when something bad happens in your business, when there's a problem, and I've been having this conversation a lot with many of my clients, reminding them that you will always have 10 problems in your business. And so when we live in the worlds of it shouldn't be, there shouldn't be a problem, why is this happening to me, other people don't have problems. When we live in the world of shoulds and should nots then we're taking away our power. And we are not taking ownership of solving it, of learning from past, of being able to change the future. And you are making a label on that experience as good or bad and you get to choose.

Sari 24:41
So again, I just want to remind you that the present moment is the only place that happiness resides. And I will tell you when you are feeling more happy, and you're experiencing happiness more often, when you're experiencing gratitude, when you are experiencing wins, success. That is success, right, wins. I've talked about like giving yourself a high five, or high five yourself in the mirror, do give yourself a hug, right? Do something, do a little dance when you have a win. And the more you can make it physical that is going to even speed things up. But when you're coming in a present moment, when you're coming from a positive emotion, just think about what is possible for you? How much quicker you can get to your big goal? How much faster and with less energy and less hustle and gritting your teeth to become the next version of yourself?That's all entrepreneurship is, if you guys think that entrepreneurship is just about making your product, I have news for you. Newsflash, that is not what this is about. You can make your product right now, right? This is not about that, if you start a packaged food business, you are going on a journey, you're signing up to become a different version of yourself. To magnify all of your flaws, all of the things, the negative sides of you, all of your worthiness issues, all of the beating yourself up, all of the not good enough, all of your deserving stuff, all of your money stuff, the scarcity mindset. So this is a powerful tool, one that I really want to encourage you to first do a 30 minute writing exercise. As you approach the end of the year and think ahead, to really look like write down everything that you can think of that is a gain. Where you have made progress. And then I would love for you to start a daily habit. Put a notebook by your bed, make it easy. When you hear this right now I want you literally to go get a notebook and put it by your bed with a pen and make a sticky note that says Gains Today or Wins Today, right? It'll literally take you three minutes or less. Are you willing to do something that will change everything in your business? Are you willing to spend three minutes doing it? I hope so. Because these are the things that make all the difference in your experience and will get you there so much faster. I had so much fun thinking about this, writing it down, recording this, I'm going to just say your 25 minutes in, I feel like there's such a huge gain, I went from an idea and things in my brain to I've now recorded it and like I'm gonna high five myself on this, right. And I'm gonna look at this with such gratitude that I even get to stand here with my podcast microphone, with my computer, with an audience, with you guys. I'm so grateful for you just listening here. And I know that this is speaking to so many of you. If you would like to work with me one on one, I am taking on additional business coaching clients in the new year. So go to sarikimbell.com, the links will be in the show notes. But this is a place where you will get that accountability and support and cheerleading and making sure you are doing the work of becoming an entrepreneur, not just a maker of a product, because that's what it's gonna take to grow a profitable food business. All right, that is all I got for you today and for the year. Until 2022, have an amazing week!

Sari 28:54
Are you ready to start that delicious idea that you make in your home kitchen or grow your existing packaged food business and take it to the next level? The most successful food business entrepreneurs have support, guidance, focus, and accountability to help them make it happen quickly without wasting time or money. Plus, I think starting your packaged food business should actually be fun. Food Business Success is your secret ingredient to creating your food business dream. Please don't go this alone. Check out the private free Food Business Success Facebook Group to connect with other foodpreneurs. Get your questions answered quickly. Share your wins and receive special training and tools I only share inside the private community. Just search for Food Business Success on Facebook or get the link in the show notes. Curious about how Food Business Success can help you? Head over to www.foodbizsuccess.com and fill out the application to see if you're a great fit for the program. Together let's make your food business dream a reality!