“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

~Theodore Roosevelt

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 onto 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.

Sari 0:39
Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the Food Business Success podcast. It is great to be here with you today. I can't believe we are past the midway point of January already. And we are getting into the next episode in this three part series around setting your impossible goal, achieving your impossible in 2021. Before we get started, I want to give a shout out to Butterfield Farm and read their review. I would love for you to leave a five star review and read it here on the podcast. It's super easy on your phone, just go to Apple podcasts, pretend like you're searching for Food Business Success. And then you just click on five stars and you type in your review right there. "Starting and running a CPG business is hard. You need this get practical tips from Sari but more importantly, get the encouragement to keep pressing on to get your product into the market." Thank you so much for leaving that great review.

Sari 1:43
In this episode, I refer to the impossible goal worksheet and you can go get that at FoodBizSuccess.com/impossible. Many people have set a resolution in 2021. And I'm guessing a majority of them have already given up by now for all the reasons that I talked about in episode two of this series, because they took huge action that was not sustainable. They failed, made it mean something, gave up and just went back to kind of comfortable normal life. But we are not anybody. We are different. And this year is different for you. And we are achieving our big goals by doing something different this year. If you've been following the impossible goal series, you know, the first episode is about defining your impossible goal for 2021. Remember, you have to make it big enough, you have to 10 times your goal, you have to make it just out of reach like not like I'm going to go to Mars, right? Like that's, that's definitely way impossible. We needed something that is big enough that it's going to inspire us. But the reason why we go we call it an impossible goal is because we do want it to actually feel impossible. And it does two things for us, it generates enough action, it will spur enough inspiration for us to get moving, get off of our couch, stop doing the things that are keeping us safe, it'll generate that action and momentum. And it actually helps us trick our brain to not have it be so heavy and such a big deal. So we can say to our brain that immediately as soon as we set a goal, we'll come back at us and say oh my gosh, I'm freaking out. I don't want to do that I want to stay safe and comfortable. And we can say to our brain no, there there, it's fine. This is impossible. We know it's impossible. And we're going to get to work anyway. So it helps you calm down and kind of release some of the panic and the fear that you're going to have as soon as you set a goal. So that was the first episode. I believe it's Episode 18. And then the second episode 19 is making small changes in our comfort zone. So this is where we're going to take small actions, small intentional changes that add up. I was trying to think of a good analogy to use this morning and I came up with this example. Have you ever heard that example where let's say you were going to set sail from you know New York to London, and you're on a ship until you set your course but if that course if you is off by like one degree if we change it by one degree on purpose, not out of like blind Oh, I don't know but we are like purposely just making a small degree of change, something that's barely noticeable. And I give you a ton of examples in that episode about maybe it's journaling for 15 minutes a day, maybe it's, you know, posting once a day on social media, like, it's just small, tiny actions. It's spending 20 minutes a day on your business. Nothing that's gonna like, you know, this rock the boat, nothing's gonna freak you out, you're just making a tiny change to your day. So we're going to set the course, different by one degree, right? And we're going to end up in a completely different place. It's an I don't know, I couldn't find a quick example of like, if you set your course for London, and then you shifted it by one degree south. But let's just say you're actually going to end up in like, Morocco, right? Just crazy to think about. But it is that compounding of small tiny actions, our daily decisions that will add up over time and lead us to the life that we want. to become the person that we want to be. And remember that doing these small, tiny actions, by committing to something every day, that you are increasing your confidence in yourself in your abilities. When you have success at a tiny little thing, like meditating for 10 minutes every day, or I think I've used this example, before making your bed every single day, the first thing you do when you wake up, it actually sets your course of your day, in a very positive way. And you can immediately be like, yes, success, I had a small wind today. First thing in the morning, I made my bed. So I don't care what it is, you can keep adding more, I think you will quickly find like, it does build your confidence. And it does build your sense of like, Oh, now I can do more. And now I can do more. And it's just by doing one tiny thing different, making small changes inside your comfort zone. So the goal has to be outside of your comfort zone, the next step is making small changes inside your comfort zone.

Sari 7:23
Okay, so then this episode is about doing the bigger things. And I guess if we were gonna stick with my ship navigation example, this would be more like the, like putting in the big engines and getting like a massive push in the direction that you've now charted, the course that you've set. You've changed things by one degree but now we're adding some, you know, rocket fuel, a thrust in the ocean, that's going to get us there faster. So let's talk about the F word. And I don't mean, the F word you might be thinking of we are talking about the four letter word fail. Why are we so scared to fail? I hear it over and over and over again, from my clients in Food Business Success. They are terrified of failing. You are terrified of failing. The very word makes us just clench up and want to just like go hide in a hole somewhere, right? We want to stay comfortable, our brains do not like us to fail. But we can see in other contexts, that it is part of the process. So let me give you a couple of examples. If we were training, we wanted to be able to lift 50 pounds, we know we can't just go out of the gate and start lifting 50 pounds. We would need to actually move our muscles to failure. And we do that by gradually increasing the number of reps, taking that small action, right? But we are willing to do it go hard enough that we don't just like lift a five pound weight two times, we actually have to push our muscles literally to failure. That is what we want. And that is what is actually going to build up the strength for you to then lift a little bit heavier weight, go for longer reps. And eventually you keep doing that and you are able to lift that 50 pound weight. We know in science, right? It is about I mean it literally is failing over and over and over again. It is experimentation that is built into an experiment to have be testing and trying and trying something different, changing one variable. It's built in, like when you are in school, you do experiments that you know will fail. And that's part of the process. You gotta love the Edison quote of "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that didn't work" when he was trying to invent the light bulb, right? It's such a great attitude like that is built into discovery and exploration. And even the dictionary, right? When we go to what is the definition of failure? It's the admission of expected or required action. That's not that bad. Like, that's actually pretty benign, like, okay, so I just didn't take expected or required action, and it fell short. What's the big deal?

Sari 10:53
For some reason, we think that we set a goal, and then we should just have to try once or twice, and then we should get it, right? I actually sometimes feel like, myself included, that there is this entitlement feeling that starting our entrepreneurship dream, our packaged food business dream should be easy, that it should be one or two tries following some magic formula that somebody else has given us instead of the grand experiment that it is and that it will take so many failures, and so many trials and errors and learning and experiments. I know this cliche gets used over and over again, but think about a toddler learning to walk. I mean, walking is all about failing over and over and over again, you are failing until you are walking. And it is actually the strength that builds up over time from a child pushing themselves back up that gives them the strength in their legs to actually be able to walk. And yet we go to school and all of a sudden something shifts. I don't know exactly where. I actually taught junior high for two years, just like another lifetime ago. But so I'm sure that there's like some educational analysis psychology of this, but there's somewhere, probably in elementary school, where we are taught all of a sudden that failure is no longer an option that grades matter. And you need to know your spelling list and your math and your all of your subjects, right? And something in there switches where all of a sudden failure is no longer an option. I don't know did any of you guys hear that word in your house over and over again? Failure is not an option. Failure is not tolerated in this house. And an F was disaster. And so we've like bred perfectionist, all these perfectionist tendencies, as you know, we've talked about in the 80% rule. So when we get that A-, B+, B-, C, D, F, we make it mean all of these terrible things about ourselves. We question our worth, our intelligence, our love ability. We're so scared to feel the emotions that may come up because of failure, that we avoid it all together. We avoid making attempts. In fact, what that actually means if we go back to the definition, is that by not making expected or required action, by just avoiding doing the action that is required, we are actually failing ahead of time. So you set a goal to start your food business, you make one big giant action, it comes up as a fail, you make it mean all of these terrible things about you and then you want to avoid feeling that all those emotions that come up, which aren't even true. And then ultimately what you've done is go into inaction. And so you're failing out of time. And it's so boring. That's no fun. Think about the stories and the the people we root for in sports and in movies and in books. They put it all on the line, they go big, they give it everything they got and we are like rooting for them. And sometimes they do fall up short. In fact, most of the time we fall short. We fail. Most of the time we will be living in the failure, in the journey and if you want to not fail and you want to live a mediocre life and not go after your goals and not evolve as a person and become the next best version of yourself, that's, that's totally fine. But this podcast is not for you. If you're still listening to this, it's because you want to have an above average life, you want to go after your goals. You want to make your salsa, your jam, your kombucha, your scones, your chocolate, your coffee, your hot sauce, your condiment, whatever it is, you want to make that real. You want to create a profitable, successful food business.

Sari 15:40
So if you're still with me, let's talk about how we can reframe that so that we can go after big fails, worthy fails. So let's change the script on the F word. Let's make fail, failing, failure a positive thing. That we are actually winning if we are failing. I actually love turning around and saying I'm either always learning or I'm succeeding. Or success is failing. And I've said it over and over again, that success is built on a pile of failures. I've been listening to How I built this, by Guy Raz, the book. He also has his great podcast. But you listen over and over and over again to all of these founders stories of the things that are like we take for granted now. And they almost gave up. I mean, AirBnB, they failed so many times. In so many cases, so many people were about to give up and then they did that one next thing and that is actually what changed at all. But imagine if they had given up. Imagine if they weren't willing to do all of those previous attempts to get here, right? The 10,000 ways to not create a light bulb created the light bulb. What if we measured our success by the number of worthy fail attempts. You're not going to fail in the attempt, you might fail in the result. Literally, I want you to fill a folder of failure attempts. This is success. Fill that folder full of failure. That's actually really challenging to say, but I did it. Doing these failures is actually what is going to strengthen your muscle, your entrepreneurship muscle to help you succeed. That's the way it works. What if I told you that you came to me, you're inside Food Business Success. We get on our first call. You have already filled out your your questionnaire and you've told me what your goal is. So you tell me that you want to bring your tea business to life, right? You want to be in these stores and on this online. And we go through all the things that you want to do and your big impossible goal. And what if I tell you that that's amazing, that is so it is possible for you? And it will require you to fail 100 times?

Sari 18:32
Did you just cringe a little? 100 times? Could you do it? Would you do it? Is your why strong enough? Would you be willing to go even faster and attempt those 100 fails? Because you knew that at the end of that 100 fails, that you would be successful? I bet you would if you really if you really had a hard why and you really believed in your goal, you would do it. You will have to do it. And I don't know if the number is 50 or 1000. This might be TMI but I've been dating for a while now. And when I moved to Denver, a friend of mine said, you know you're going to totally meet your partner in Denver. And he said but you don't know what if it, like are you willing to keep dating to meet that partner and meet that big love? If it means that you have to go on 500 dates? Like let's just say that that guy is somewhere in the 500 dates. You could go out with them on date number five, or it could be number 500. Are you still willing to do it? And I was like yes, absolutely. So dating and building a business are actually not all that different. So back to building a business. Let's say that you believed you had to take 100 fails, you would get moving, you would get off your butt and get moving faster on that journey of worthy fail attempts because you'd be checking them off so much faster, right? There would be a sense of accomplishment. Yes, you would be doing a small win, giving yourself a high five, doing the fist pump, right? Like, yes! Another failure. I did it, I'm that much closer. Do you see by just kind of change reframing this, how it actually makes failing a positive? It is absolutely required. So why do we like let's get out of making it mean all of these terrible things about us and just change it. We have the power to change it in our thoughts, that it's not a big deal. It's part of the process. And remember that failure is just data. It's information. Again, we don't have to make it mean all of these terrible things about us. It's just information that helps us course correct. Right? It helps us to given where we want to go on my sailing metaphor. That if we get off another degree, oh, that wasn't the right way. Let's just course correct. It's not a big deal. It helps inform your process. You learn from it, you're growing from it. And the byproduct, the positive byproduct of what you will get from making worthy fails, will increase your tolerance for failure even more. And you heard on last week's podcast with Christopher, his many, many worthy fails, and he just keeps getting up. Because he's so invested. He's so, he has such a hard why in his business that he's never going to give up.

Sari 22:05
So what if you absolutely had your own back that you are never giving up? You are never quitting. This is happening. Failure is part of the process. And I want to make as many attempts at failure as possible. Because that's how I get there. That's how I learn. That's how I learn what doesn't work and what does work. Alright, so let's put this into practice by going to get your impossible goal worksheet. So it's at FoodBizSuccess.com/impossible. And the link will be in the show notes as well. On that worksheet, there are 12 blanks for you to type or write in your 12 worthy big fails that are going to help you move your business forward over the next quarter. So in the food industry, we use quarters, Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4. You will often hear people as you start getting into kind of more industry areas of CPG, that's how we talk about businesses. So we are in Q1. So in the year of doing your impossible in the worksheet, we talked about what is your goal? What is your hard why? How will you measure your goal? Be specific. Then you're going to set your small, consistent daily actions. That is setting that 1%. It's just a tiny bit, but we are making small daily compound compounding actions that get us closer to our impossible goal. Then you're going to brainstorm a whole list of impossible things that would help move your business forward. I do want you to get a little wild and crazy with this list. This is just the brainstorm list. But I also want you to think about things that are actually in your control. So it can't be like get into 10 stores. It needs to be reach out to 10 buyers because you don't have control whether you're going to get into the store, but you do you have control over how many buyers you are going to approach. We're planning the attempts, the action, not the results. We don't have control over the results. And maybe you're like, I don't know, Sari, what are those impossible things? Now, of course, you do know what if I don't know was not an option. Okay, so I'm going to give you some ideas, but this is certainly not an exhaustive list by any means. So I want you to keep going with this and every business is a little bit different depending on where you are, if you've just starting, you're under cottage food, depending on your your sales channel, what your goals are. So some of these may work and some of them won't be applicable to you. You're going to approach 10 store buyers. You could approach that brand that you think is amazing and ask to do a partnership giveaway with them. You are going to do an Instagram Live. You're going to talk with a potential investor and make a pitch. You're going to sign up for that farmers market, get your application in by the deadline. You're going to reach out to three kitchens and make an appointment to go see their facilities. You're going to sign up for a virtual networking event. You're going to go over to the Food Business Success Facebook group, and post that question that got you stuck. You're going to reach out to a fellow entrepreneur and ask them to meet up for a virtual coffee. You're going to apply for Food Business Success. You're going to hire a coach. You're going to invest some money in your business. You're going to apply to that online marketplace that you've been considering. You're going to make that packaging purchase.You're going to go register your LLC. Now again, some of these you're like, some of these are like oh, that's not big at all. That's like I've already done that. It doesn't matter. You need to come up with your own worthy fails, the things that will if you did these things, that they will move your business forward, they will be that injection fuel in your business. And ultimately, what's going to be so important is not whether you actually succeeded, but that you made the attempt. I can tell you that I am so proud of the fails, that I have done. It makes me so much stronger. So what? So I reached out to a podcast host that I really admire and asked if I could be on their podcast. And they said no. Okay, because I realized, oh, that wasn't that bad. That was just a no. What else could I be doing? What other worthy attempts at failure could I be making?

Sari 27:03
So do you see how we can reframe this and actually make it a really positive thing? Let's look at failure as a badge of honor, something to be positive about. Something that we celebrate. And I know sometimes you get you guys get hung up on the right answer. And I'm just going to tell you brainstorm a list, choose 12 of them. There are no wrong answers. Remember that failing is data, it's information. So you can always go back and change this, but just decide and know that whatever you decide is the right decision. I got you. I'm telling you it's the right decision. You guys get so hung up on is it 10 stores or 12 stores? I don't know the number, I don't know the number of posts I should make. Just decide, I'm going to do one Instagram Live every month. Indulging in confusion and I don't know and doubt about your decision is ultimately your brains tricky way of keeping you safe and not attempting something outside of your comfort zone. Okay, so to recap, you're going to go back and listen to 18 if you haven't already. Set your impossible goal. You're going to then do what I talked about in Episode 19, your consistent daily and weekly actions, those small decisions that add up to huge results that take us from London to Morocco, because we shifted the course of our life and the small decisions that we make every day on purpose. And then you're going to brainstorm a whole bunch of failures. And you're going to choose 12. And over the course of the next three months, January through March, you will take action. That means roughly one a week, and every quarter you rinse and repeat. So we're gonna have four of these by the end of 2021. Is your business, is your goal worth making a worthy failure attempt once a week? I think it is I think you are worth it. I think your business is worth it. I want to support you in that inside Food Business Success. So if you want some help with this, if you want a cheerleader, and you want to get there faster, because I've done this over and over and over again, it's okay to get help. Of course, you don't have to be on your own and on an island doing this. So consider applying to Food Business Success as one of your first worthy fails. I want to wrap up this episode by reading the now pretty famous quote by Theodore Roosevelt, probably made most famous because of Brenee Brown. But this is a quote that I use frequently at least a part of it to generate the action in myself to do the worthy fail. This quote really inspires me and I hope that it inspires you as well. "It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man (or woman) who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he (or she) fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his (or her) place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” I hope you join me in the arena this year. Go after your impossible goal in 2021. I cannot wait to hear about it, and all that you achieve this year. And until next time, have an amazing week.

Sari 31:25
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 foodprenuers, 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.