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. Excited that you're here with me today. We are talking about something so important for every entrepreneur. We are talking about getting more sh*t done, right? I just can't say it any better way. So this is all about my tools, my coaching, my mindset hacks, all the things that I use with my clients and inside Food Business Success, and I decided to make May all about productivity. So I just finished up my outline for May's VIP call inside Food Business Success where I'm going to lay out the tools as well as the mindset of things that I do, and frankly, don't do, to be super productive.

Sari 1:32
If you don't know everything that I do and you don't marvel at it a little bit, because I know I do. I mean, podcasts, YouTube, social media, I have two virtual assistants that I manage, all of my calls with Food Business Success, all of the promotion and emails and everything that I do for that program to help it grow. And then of course, all of my one-on-one clients. And I put together three or maybe four one off workshops this year as well. I do a lot. And some people would say how do you do all of that? Well, I'm going to tell you, because there was a time when I was not productive. And it caused me so much anxiety. I actually remember early on being an entrepreneur, I think it was in my first year. And I went to lunch with this woman who I looked at and I just saw her as very productive. Like I was like, how does she get so much done? And she seems to be holding that together really well. Because I was a hot mess. I was overwhelmed. I was super anxious. I was having, you know, that feeling of anxiety where you're just like you can barely breathe and like your breath is really short and light. You're like, oh my gosh, how am I gonna get this all done? And I look back now and I think, I laugh at that, I think oh my gosh, I barely had anything to do. But I had so much anxiety over it. And I remember talking with her and just asking her about tools and things that she did. And there are some things that I actually did take from that that really helped me and helped me get organized. So more like the strategies. And I thought that I had it pretty well together when I was at Whole Foods Market and my professional work before that. But there is something about being an entrepreneur that we need to learn these tools and strategies and mindset all over again, it's so different.

Sari 3:45
Today on the podcast, I want to offer you a little bit more about the mindset piece, which is going to be such a good primer because if you're inside Food Business Success, which you can still get into ahead of time, you can join me on that call where I'm going to talk about strategy. I'm going to talk about hows. So it's good for you to listen to this first and then come join me in Food Business Success. First, let's just pause and ask ourselves the question, why is it important that we learn to manage our time and be more productive as an entrepreneur. I work with a lot of entrepreneurs who, we are working on transitioning them out of their full time work and transitioning them into full time entrepreneurship. I notice and they tell me flat out, they're not very good at managing their time when it's their business. They're very good at managing their time when it's somebody else's, when they're an employee. Right? And so, there's a, I think that there's a couple of reasons. I mean, mainly we want a successful business with the fun and freedom and financial success and reward of having a great business, right? That's probably why you started. But it can be really easy to get sucked into hustle culture, I was just talking with a client about that the other day like, it's like I don't want to be in hustle culture, I don't want to just be like, I did that in my full time job, right? I was hustle, hustle, hustle, like I want to create my business differently, and I am all for that. But we have to work smarter, not harder. And your business is going to require more of you than like a stable nine to five job. Because those have already been defined, the rules are defined. But as an entrepreneur, you're jumping into something where there's not a lot of rules, and there's not a lot of structure, and there's no accountability. You are the only person that you are accountable to. And most of us stink at being accountable to ourselves, we can do it for other people but not for ourselves. For you to create a successful business, there's gonna be a lot of figuring it out, a lot of trial and error, a lot of failure, of course, we're not really going to want to do things that may lead to failure. So the reasons we want to be more productive, which just means that we are getting more done in a less amount of time, right? So we're going to get rid of the hustle, the overwhelm, and the stress. We're going to feel confident that everything that needs to get done will get done.

Sari 6:51
We're gonna get more productive because we're going to build trust with ourself. And ultimately, we want to be more productive because I want you to have more time to relax, to hang out with friends and family to have fun. And ultimately, don't you want to be a boss that you want to work for? Like you guys go to work for yourself and you are the worst boss ever. Seriously, like the way you talk to yourself, if you like, just step back for a minute and pretend that when you have that negative self talk, and you're telling yourself, oh my gosh, you're just so lazy, why can't you figure this out? Would you ever talk to an employee that way? Of course not! So why do we do it to ourselves? It creates a really negative work environment. And who on earth would ever want to go work for you? Not even yourself, really. I'm going to give you tools to be more productive so that you can get your time back, so that you can have a feeling of ease and confidence, and more trust, and more time. All of that is possible. I typically have two kinds of people that I work with, I have underperformers people who sort of just lack the skills, they just have never been taught how to be more productive, how to manage their time, and especially when they're outside the confines of like a work world. Now they're in their own business and so they're sort of, frankly, they're wasting a lot of time. There's a lot of procrastination. There's a lot of lack of systems, lack of organization, and just kind of a lack of follow through. And you know, wanting to get things done but just always kind of blaming outside circumstances. There's often a lot of anxiety and running around like a chicken with its head cut off, right? Not a lot of prioritization. So sometimes the lowest things are getting done, which really aren't moving their business forward in the way that they want though. I'm just being really honest there but you may, you know, be honest with yourself. Is that you? I know one time that was definitely me. And then I have clients and members who are over doing it, especially ones typically that have already gotten started. And now they feel all of that hustle, that all of the shoulds, right? Anytime you find yourself saying I should do this, I should do a reel, I should do, you know, more baking, I should do more labeling, I should do the sales call. We're shooting all over ourselves. And oftentimes we're not even looking at like, is this actually the thing I should be doing? Instead it's like, we're just always doing more, always doing more, we're overdoing it. We're like, oh my gosh, there's so many things I gotta do, right? And we just keep adding more and more. So I'd be curious if you know if you can recognize yourself in one of those two people. Very few of us are at a place where we're like, I'm doing the right amount of work, everything is getting done. I'm at complete and total peace with myself and super proud and like, keep going. You're doing awesome, right? And I can honestly say that I am at that space, I'm in that space, probably 95% of the time. It's been a long time since I've had big anxiety over my work day. I enjoy coming to work, I have become a boss that I like to work for, and work with. And sometimes I'll tell people, you know, like, oh, do you want to go to lunch? And I'm like, yeah, my boss doesn't let me go to lunch. Or go out to lunch, I should say. Because I have made decisions around that and I say, no, that's not the best use of my time during the weekday. But I will sometimes refer to myself as like my boss. And it can be a little bit funny but think about how you are showing up as a boss. And if you're creating a work environment that you would want to actually work in. For many of you, the answer is probably no, unfortunately.

Sari 11:45
Okay. So, again, I'm going to help you with some workflow tools and some strategies and structure and some ideas there inside this month's group call. But none of that matters if first, we don't clean up our thoughts. So yep, we are going back to the model. So hopefully, you listen to last week's episode all about the model. But I want to offer that I think when most people think of their work day and whether they're productive or not, the number one feeling that comes up for people is anxiety. And I'm wondering if that's how you feel about your work day, your work week, that you feel like I have a lot of clients tell me that I just feel like my week is happening to me, and I'm not in charge. Right? That I have no control over this. Or they'll say, oh my gosh, my calendar, it's so full, I don't know how to get everything done. I don't know what I'm doing. I feel out of control. I'm feeling anxious. Well, here's the thing, we will do anything to avoid anxiety. Anxiety feels terrible. It is literally reproducing the same hormones that you would be producing if you are running away from a tiger. Same exact things like, and your body does not distinguish between, oh, this is all in my head versus I am running away from a tiger. So we are creating all this stress and all like your heart gets, you know, your heart starts racing, you get shorter breath. It's hard to breathe, right? And you're thinking all of these terrible things like catastrophizing. You know, how this is going, you're creating all this anxiety. And so your body and your brain are thinking, well, it's the tasks that need to be done that is creating all of the anxiety. Let's just say it's the work you need to do is your circumstance, right? And then you have a thought, which we'll talk about in a second. But you have all these anxious feelings that come up. Well, think about what you do or don't do when you're feeling anxious. You're doing everything you can to avoid doing the thing, which is the great irony of it, right? And I've been there. And what we end up doing is we procrastinate, we avoid, we delay we, you know, buffer. And ultimately we oftentimes create more issues, right? Because we put something off because we didn't want to deal with it today. And now it actually becomes a bigger problem that we have to deal with. So that's not fun. But ultimately, the work just isn't getting done, right? And we're not really doing our best work even if you are forcing yourself to do it. If you're feeling anxious, you are not in a place of like problem solving and clarity, right? I like to say when your emotions are high, your logic and your rationality is low. So this is not going to be a place where solutions are going to come. It just is not. Your brain literally locks up and cannot go there. So what you're going to end up doing if you are working from a place of anxiety, you're really just wasting a lot of time. Even if you are physically at your desk, you're still probably procrastinating, you're looking at your phone, you're looking at your email, you know, you're shifting task going back and forth. Or you're just in that heightened state of emotion where you're just, you're moving really slow, things aren't happening very easily, right? It gets hard and you're just not in a good place to solve problems. So ultimately and this is really what I want to talk about on this podcast is that what needs to happen is we we need to work on our thoughts because in the model, our thoughts create our feelings, create our actions, create our results. So put in the circumstance, work that needs to be done this week. And then let's focus on a different thought.

Sari 16:37
Now, we can't go to daisies and rainbows, and this is amazing, and I got this, and I'm so on it, I'm so productive, right? We can't go there like that. We can't just snap our fingers and go there because it doesn't feel believable. So what is the thought, we call these latter thoughts, what is the thought that is just a little bit better? It just feels like in your body, it releases just a little bit of the anxiety. So sometimes it helps to think about if I were my boss, if I were my own boss, what would I be telling myself, right? As a friend? As a good boss? Let's clarify. So let's just say, let's pick a task, right? It's social media. So you're making that mean all these terrible things about if you put yourself out there and, you know, what if it happens if you screwed up, or nobody likes it so you're feeling anxiety. So what if instead, we said, it's okay to put something out there that's not perfect. Or people are still going to like you, or it's not that big of a deal. We're just trying things right now. We're just getting it out there. It's okay to try this and fail. Just like a little bit of ease, right? Even just sometimes tacking on something at the end of the phrase that you're thinking so it could be, let's just say it's doing a reel and the thought could be, I'm just terrible at this. And what if we just tacked on I'm terrible at this sometimes? Or I'm terrible at this and that's okay. Does that give you just a little bit of ease? It's like you're acknowledging, okay, fine, we're just gonna say we're terrible at this and we're gonna say it's okay. We're gonna give ourselves a little bit of grace because nobody gets it perfect at the beginning. They just don't. So find something that you can just offer yourself to, like have it feel just a little bit better. Think about what is in your control and what is outside of your control and anxiety, which is oftentimes similar to worry comes up. I like to think about, what is it that I can control? Like what actions can I take to help fix this? And what is outside of my control? Because ultimately, sometimes the things that we're so anxious about are outside of our control. We can do zero about it. But then oftentimes the things that are in our control, we're not actually just doing them. We're just, we think that anxiety is helping. As I've told some of my clients worry pretends to be necessary. It feels like you're doing something. But really you're not. And so getting concrete with it, writing it down, I think I told you guys this example already, but I was, woke up in the middle of night and was feeling really anxious about some clients' websites. And I was like, oh, this one and this one, okay, this, I got it. And I said, I could not go back to sleep. And so I got out of bed like 2am, I got a piece of paper and I just wrote down all the clients that I was thinking about. And then I wrote down everything that I needed to do and my team needed to do on their website. And then I just started making a plan, okay, I just need to talk to my person about these things. And then I need to circle back with the client on these things, right? Like I figured out what was in my control, and then I actually took action over it. That's a huge one, to help relieve some of the anxiety. Oftentimes, we just stand at our computer. And we're just like, social media, must work on social media. And it's too vague, we haven't actually defined what it is we're going to do about social media or with social media. So reducing anxiety is probably your number one task as an entrepreneur. That's probably the thing that I see the most. It's usually you're pretty motivated to work on your business, you know, you're here, you're an entrepreneur, you're excited.

Sari 21:38
But oftentimes, you come in, you know, you're balancing all the other things in your life. And now you're adding entrepreneurship on to your already busy life. Or, you know, you're switching, you're spending your time in the entrepreneur world full time, and you haven't learned the skills of how to manage yourself, right? And then we have a whole bunch of anxiety. So that is probably the very first thing I can offer you. And the most important thing is just notice, are you spending out in anxiety? Sometimes it's confusion, sometimes it's worry. But those are the things we want to tackle first before we deal with any specific tools or strategies. I also want to offer that and this is the case with so many of the people I work with, including myself, that perfectionism is a dream killer. It absolutely will paralyze your productivity. It is a way, it's related to anxiety. But it can also just be its own specific thing. It is a form of procrastination, if you think about it, like when is anything ever going to be done? When is anything ever going to be perfect? How would we even know if it is? So one of the hardest podcasts for people to listen to and the most listened to is the 80% rule, right? It's about doing B Minus Work. And that Done is Better Than Perfect. Getting out in the world is better than perfect. And so really working on our mindset and our thoughts about perfectionism and needing to have it be perfect in the world. This will be the one of the things that really slows down your productivity because it's always going to be a moving target. The perfectionist fantasy is that if you just do this, and you do this and do this, then you will feel better, you'll finally be successful. Or you'll finally be a good person, a good entrepreneur, but your brain is lying to you. Because you're always going to keep moving that target down. You do one thing and then it's always on to the next thing, on to the next thing. So it's a never ending loop. We have to break that. The next thing I want to offer to help set you up in your day for less anxiety and more productivity is your morning routine. I know you guys are already like there she goes again talking about the morning routine. I don't have time for that. I want to offer that there are small ways that you can set yourself up for success. One of the main things is how you start your day from the very moment you wake up. Are you checking social media? Are you checking your phone? Are you checking the news alerts? This is a terrible way to get your day going on a positive, productive note, right? All experts will tell you, do not check your phone the first thing you wake up. What I do is I do a short meditation that's very positive. And then I literally get out of bed, I put my feet on the ground, and I feel the carpet underneath my feet. And I raise my arms up, and I shout, yes! That's it. What have you embraced every day with like, an attitude of yes, I'm alive. I am here. I woke up this morning and I get to go out and create some things. And I get to go out and create and contribute today. I don't know what my day is gonna look like. But I'm choosing the yes, I'm choosing to be grateful right now.

Sari 26:03
And that is the next thing is that just can you spend even 30 seconds getting into gratitude, being grateful for the covers on your bed, for the cozy sweats you could have put on, for your partner next to you or your kids or your parents or your car. I mean, I don't care what it is the weather today that the sun is shining, or that there's rain to help water the plants like, spend 30 seconds, a few minutes just thinking getting into gratitude. I know some of my clients do a gratitude journal, that's a great one, if you can take that extra moment to do that. But I just want to offer you a couple of things that take literally almost no extra time. It's just that you're refocusing your brain instead of like, oh, what's going on terrible in the world, gas prices, Ukraine on and on and on, right? And then all you're doing is you're focusing on looking for the negative. This is called priming. And there are so many studies that show that priming works. And it is working, whether you know it or not. And marketers and advertisers know very well how to use priming to get you to make choices and buying decisions. But you can use priming to set your day up for success, for wins, for productivity, and positivity. So that you are in the best frame of mind possible to solve problems, to get creative, to take action. So I don't need you to do a ton. But isn't your business worth setting up a 2 minute to 10 minute morning routine? What if I'm right about that, and you just shut off your phone. And you don't check it for a little while after you wake up? And you spend a little time in gratitude and you embrace the day with a big fat yes? What if I'm right about that? Just try it. Like you can always go back to the way you're doing it. Just see if something shifts for you. It's a really important strategy and a mindset shift. That could make a huge difference in your day. You decide what productivity looks like. What! You're like, wait, no. Society decides, no, that's not true at all. There is no definition of productivity. You decide what it is. And then you decide whether you measure up to it or not, and what you're going to do about it. I just want you to sit with that a little bit. Like what if you decided that when you got these five things done today, you are productive?

Sari 29:21
What? The problem is, is that we work off of lists, right? And we live in a country where we just have to keep adding and doing more and more and look good doing it. But what if we changed the way we look at that list? And we actually and this is a tool that I'll be offering but we pulled five things off of that list every day and we said those five things will determine whether I get that gold star today, will determine whether I am productive, and then we get to work on those five things. And those five things should be the things that are going to move your business forward. I call this my Power Five. And I do it every single day, even on weekends. But they're more weekend things, right? But I literally have stacks of these of all of the results I have created every day. So we be realistic, we don't, you know, we got to be careful, we don't just say something huge. And we still have four other things to do, like break it up into small bite sized pieces but get five things done. And then what if that means that you get your gold star, and then everything else or anything else you do is bonus for the day, right? You get to write the rules. The beauty, as I have come into my 40s is I have realized that there are no effing rules. It's an awesome feeling. You guys, you get to write the rules of your business, you don't get to write the rules about the FDA. That's a whole other thing. But you get to write the rules on when you show up, what you do in your day, how you do it. That's the beauty of entrepreneurship. But most of us are defining our productivity and our success by some unachievable standard that you have seen on TV shows or on social media. And you are looking to other people who are only showing you their best foot forward, not the reality of what it really looks like on the inside. So just play with me on that just open yourself up to I get to write the rules on what success looks like, when I am a winner, when I am productive. Because I guarantee you, if you are creating wins every day and you're celebrating them, your business is going to get a whole lot easier and a whole lot more fun. And I will tell you that the more you can set yourself up to win every day. And here's how I'm going to wrap it up. Because to get all the tools and strategies, you're gonna have to join me inside Food Business Success. But here's what I want to offer because this is the coolest part about creating success every day in your productivity and honoring like deciding ahead of time what the rules around productivity and success are. And then giving yourself the W, the gold star for the day, is that you're going to want to keep showing up and doing your best, even when it's a loss in the result.

Sari 33:05
And what I mean by that is you put in 100% effort, but it just doesn't work. Like the thing that you do is a loss, in quotes. But what we want to do is separate success and wins from the results. Because we just need to create a lot more results, wins or losses in our business. And the only way you're going to feel motivated to do that is if you're feeling good about doing the work and not beating yourself up about every time there's a loss. Think about if you work for a boss that was super appreciative, and like celebrated your wins and gave you a high five and said yes, great job. How would you want to show up for that boss, right? You would show up, you'd be like excited to come to work. You'd be thinking about new ideas and getting creative and we could do this and what about that? You'd be solving problems. You would come to work early, you know, you would come in fresh and ready to go and get more productive and use the strategies and tools. But so many of you are doing the exact opposite and you're trying to motivate yourself out of fear and self loathing. And like the fear of I'm going to beat myself up at the end of the day if I don't do it good enough. And again, think about if you were working for a boss that way, how would you show up? You'd probably be avoiding and procrastinating and sabotaging and just not giving, you know, enough about it. That is probably how you'd show up and you'd start showing up late and hungover or just disheveled and not at your best right? It would not be a priority. So if you want to get more done in your business, and the reason why we want to get more done is so that we can accelerate our growth, but we're wanting to do it sustainably not in hustle culture, not doing it from overwhelm and anxiety. I promise, you cannot white knuckle a business that you love at the end. We have to be able to create a business where we enjoy the journey, where we enjoy the many, many days that we are creating this because success at the end is like a little blip on the screen right of our lives. We're going to spend most of our time in preparation and creating and then a very little time in the like, celebrating those moments, those big wins, right, for your business.

Sari 36:02
I would absolutely love for you to join me inside Food Business Success where we're gonna have this bigger conversation next week on our VIP call. And then it'll be available to everybody in the program where I'm going to give you more strategy and the how and different tools and things that I use to be more productive. But it does first start with mindset. And these concepts that we've talked about. Foodbizsuccess.com is the place to go and sign up. And until next time, have an amazing and more productive week!

Sari 36:48
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 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.