Never Stop Building
Sam Kaufman, an accomplished entrepreneur and thought leader, brings his wealth of experience and expertise to the forefront in each episode. With a captivating voice and a genuine passion for building, Sam creates a welcoming and dynamic atmosphere that draws in listeners from all walks of life.
In "Never Stop Building," Sam dives deep into the stories and journeys of remarkable individuals who have achieved great success in various industries. From startup founders and CEOs to creative artists and social entrepreneurs, Sam explores their triumphs, failures, and the lessons they learned along the way. Each episode is a captivating blend of personal anecdotes, valuable insights, and practical strategies that listeners can implement in their own lives.
What sets "Never Stop Building" apart is Sam's ability to extract powerful wisdom and actionable advice from his guests. He skillfully guides conversations, asking thought-provoking questions that delve into the mindset, strategies, and core principles behind their achievements. Listeners can expect to gain a deeper understanding of what it truly takes to overcome obstacles, cultivate resilience, and create impactful change.
Beyond interviews, "Never Stop Building" also features solo episodes where Sam shares his own perspectives, reflections, and strategies for personal and professional growth. His relatable storytelling style and ability to distill complex ideas into actionable steps make these episodes highly engaging and accessible.
Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur, a creative professional, or simply someone seeking inspiration and guidance, "Never Stop Building" offers a wealth of knowledge and inspiration to help you on your own journey. It's a podcast that encourages listeners to embrace their entrepreneurial spirit, embrace continuous learning, and never stop building their dreams.
Never Stop Building
Trust The Triggers | Ep 101
When my daughter's anxiety became a daily battle, it led me to a profound realization about the power of the subconscious and the triggers that govern our responses. We're all on a journey, and sometimes the most valuable lessons come from the unexpected twists and turns life throws at us. Join me as I share insights on identifying and questioning our automatic reactions, and learn how to distinguish between irrational fears and valid concerns. We'll explore the empowering practice of reflective questioning, which can help us manage our emotions and mindset, and delve into my daughter's story as a beacon of hope and learning for anyone grappling with anxiety.
Embarking on a path of personal growth often means confronting and reshaping the belief systems that have been passed down to us. In this candid conversation, we discuss the necessity of consistent action and the role of self-coaching in breaking free from outdated modes of thinking. I'll share a personal example of conquering morning routine anxiety and highlight how trusting your instincts can catalyze immediate action, circumventing the familiar trap of procrastination. Tune in to discover how open communication can transform thought patterns and why embracing change is not just beneficial, but essential for a lifetime of growth and development.
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Welcome to Never Stop Building, where we discuss all things business, growth and leveling up to become the most elite version of yourself. We're here to challenge fear and shatter doubt. Let's dive in what's up everybody. Welcome back to Never Stop Building. I'm your host, sam Kauffman, as always, incredibly grateful, always pumped to be here talking to you guys. Today we're going to talk about trusting your triggers, and as we dive into this, I want to give you a definition of what I mean by trigger.
Speaker 1:Trigger is when you think something that sparks a physical feeling or reaction, be it fear, be it happiness, be it anxiety, be it excitement. That's what I mean when I say a trigger, and so the point, the message here, is going to be why you need to be trusting your triggers and stop overthinking everything that you're doing. Your triggers work as a mechanism to give you feedback. You're getting biofeedback from your body about things happening in your brain. It is not the other way around. You do not feel anxiety and then think you do not feel happiness and then find something to be happy for. You do not feel excitement and then go search for something to match the excitement. You do not feel fear and then go look for something to be scared of. You always think first. The brain is in full control of everything your body does, everything you feel, everything that you touch the senses, everything that happens as a reaction starts in your mind. So, as we talk, when we talk, when you hear people talking about mindset such an overused, over consumed buzzword when we talk about it here right now, what we are actually talking about is the framework that makes up your subconscious mind, and your subconscious mind is made up of all of these processes and thoughts and all of these they're connections in your brain. These are electrical pathways, neural pathways that are formed throughout your lifetime, most of them primarily in childhood, that create your belief systems, that create these triggers. You are subconsciously always equating something to another thing on autopilot. So these thoughts that you're having that create, let's say, something's happening in your business you hear, you get an email and you read the email. You immediately perceive the email as bad news. Your brain immediately equates bad news to something bad happening to you. Something bad happening to you immediately is equated to losing money. Losing money is immediately equated to having to let an employee go. Having to let an employee goes immediately equated to not being able to service your clients, which is immediately equated to losing your business, which is immediately equated to not paying your bills, which is immediately equated to losing everything. And all of a sudden, you went from reading an email to being homeless on the street, not being able to provide for your family.
Speaker 1:This happens to all of us. We have preformed neural pathways and connections in the brain, deep in our subconscious mind, that make A plus B equal C. Every single time something happens. The problem is that we actually believe these things to be true. That's the problem. The problem isn't that our subconscious mind controls a lot of what happens in our day-to-day activity beliefs, reactions, thought processes, patterns. That's just human behavior. That's how we were created. The problem is that we believe that they are true just because they exist. The solution is understanding that these things can be rewired. Your mind can be rewired, your subconscious can be rewired. How do we rewire?
Speaker 1:We trust our triggers, meaning Meaning Well first, not meaning that when we feel it, we trust it to be true. What I mean by trust our trigger is trust that a trigger has been hit, something has put off a trigger. I feel anxious, cool, stop, why? This is a question, and I'll talk about anxiety primarily here for a moment. This is a question I ask.
Speaker 1:I have a teenage daughter. My teenage daughter has suffered from anxiety for a few years now. When she started entering what seems like right around entering puberty, middle school, teenage years, she became very anxious. Anxiety started to play a huge role in her day to day life. It's been difficult. It's been difficult. I'm a coach and there's nothing more difficult than not being able to quickly and immediately fix your own child's coach, your own child, out of something. So this is a question that I came up for her years ago that works for everybody that I've given this to.
Speaker 1:What is the evidence that proves the trigger to be true? What is the evidence? Now, I understand in the moment it will be difficult for you to process that question because so much of the subconscious activity happens so fast, so much of it happens so fast In from your perspective, it actually happens slower than you think it does. You read the email, you process the email, you start responding to the email. While you're responding to the email, you're actually having all these thoughts. So what you perceive is man, I got from here to here in 10 seconds.
Speaker 1:It's actually like seven minutes, 30 minutes, five hours, because what happens is you try to ignore it. We all do. We try to ignore it. I'm not going to think about it. I respond to the email, I'm going to go on to the next task, but it lives inside of your subconscious, in the back of your mind. Every 40 days, 70 minutes, it's like a ding of like. Be afraid of that thing. Remember that email, be afraid of that thing. Be afraid of that thing. I know, you know what I'm talking about, because you go about your day trying to ignore what is happening. You go about your day instead of telling yourself you're lying to yourself and so the solution here so trust the trigger, meaning the trigger happens.
Speaker 1:I feel anxious Stop, stop. What is the evidence that tells me that what I'm anxious about is true? If you're not even ready for that question, the first question could be why am I anxious? Okay, well, I just got this email. Okay, well, this email is actually not that big of a deal, so why am I actually anxious? Okay, what did I think about over the last two or three minutes? Okay, I thought about this. I thought about okay, this sparked this. This event sparked a trigger of anxiety because I thought about this other event that happened a few years ago where I thought about this event that could happen Because of this one Stop. What is the evidence to say that that event is going to happen? Well, chances are there is no evidence to say that that event is going to happen, okay. So what is there to be anxious about? Nothing? Oh well, that's interesting. Okay. Well, now I'm not anxious anymore.
Speaker 1:Trust the trigger means stop. Trust the trigger Stop, ask and then act. Don't delay, don't not act, but give yourself a pause to coach yourself, and in coaching yourself, you will subsequently rewire your brain activity. This takes time. This isn't a one-stop shop, because the triggers are sometimes so subtle and so detrimental we honestly just don't even recognize them as triggers. We recognize them as part of our personality. We recognize them as almost identities that we have. Well, I don't like that. Okay. Well, why don't you like that? I don't? Well, because this, this, this and this, okay. Well, what's the evidence of those three things that lead you to not like that? I don't know.
Speaker 1:A lot of our subconscious triggers were taught to us by parents, schoolmates, teachers, people that aren't living your life. So many of the pathways that are formed, that create these belief systems and patterns were taught to us by people who aren't living the life you're trying to live, which means you need new belief systems and patterns. And I can always tell when somebody has a new idea. So they'll say they have an abundance mentality, or they'll say that they're getting really into something. Or they'll say they're an entrepreneur, but I can always. Or they say that they're humble, or they say, but I can always tell when it's not really an ingrained belief system. Yet you can tell by the words, the attitudes, the reactions, the habits, the heart posture, because it takes time. There's nothing wrong with none of us not none but most of us aren't raised to be those things right, not at the level that a lot of us want to be those things.
Speaker 1:And so I always find it interesting when someone says they're something and then when you dive into like well, how do you react when this happens? How do you react when this happens? What do you do in these situations? So, hey, man, and that's why we say it's not like is or isn't, it's just levels to everything. There's just levels to everything, and level one of certain things is generally just forming new habits, and level two of those things is habits habits being consistent and disciplined, new activity. So level one is really like new activity. Level two is like activity becomes habit. Level three is activity creates new belief system. Level four is new belief system creates new activity, et cetera, et cetera. And then we stack and stack and stack and we stack habits that way that lead to totally new belief systems.
Speaker 1:And so like I can say, like not everything I believe, think or feel is different than I was 10 years ago. Like there are parts of my personality that's just like this is who God made me and I love that and I love him for that. But there are definitely parts of me that are radically different belief system and it's even like talking to my own parents, talking to my own family, who I love deeply, like there are things I don't bring up or say because, like I formed new belief systems over time by recognizing the triggers, asking myself better questions and coaching myself into believing what I actually believe to be true. And I'm not interested in arguing my opinion right, and I think that was better earlier, where I was, like I said, like idea. I think like opinion is better. I'm not interested in arguing my opinion honestly with anybody, I'm just not. I don't actually care if you believe what I believe. What I believe has led to the results of my life Some of it true, some of it not. I've picked up new belief systems that have hurt me, and I had to rewire the belief system to understand that they weren't true. Or they were true for the person I learned them from. They weren't good for me. That's okay too. I would rather be a man who is capable of rewiring his subconscious, to take risks, to try new things, to find new truths and screw some up and have to fix them, and be a man who's stuck in his ways forever and doesn't grow. And so when I say trust the trigger, the trusting of the trigger is recognizing the trigger and stopping in a lot of cases, and in some cases it's recognizing the trigger and taking action. So another trigger, for example, is every time you think something.
Speaker 1:I'll give you an example from my morning. Literally, I thought this morning so I have an initiative for this year to read the New Testament. Just start to finish. I don't know why I've read the scripture already. It's just like start to finish, from Matthew all the way to revel it, just in a row.
Speaker 1:This morning, after my workout. I got home and I thought to myself man, you should take post-it notes and you should write each chapter. Each chapter you're gonna read on a post-it note and stick it on the wall and then, every time you're done, you should take it off the wall and put it in a little thing and then you just like I don't know, I don't know, it just seemed like something fun and cool to do in my office. My very next thought was I'll do that later or another time. My very next thought was why are you not doing that right now? And this is the rewire, right? So the initial thought is I'll do that later. That's typically everybody's initial thought. I'll do that later, what I like to, why don't I just do that now? Looked at the clock, looked at the calendar, looked at my morning. So you got plenty of time to go write 27 post-it notes and stick them on your wall.
Speaker 1:I walked upstairs, I got my post-its out, I did the thing and I felt so good. I felt so good for going to idea to completed action in 16 minutes, but so many people delay by not trusting the trigger of like I wanna do this. This would be cool. This would be good for me. This is a healthy thing. That would be good for me. I'll do it later. Then, if you don't fix that, you become anxious because when's later? And then you'll think about it tonight. Oh man, when am I gonna do that post-it note thing? That was really cool, I don't know. I guess I'll do it in the morning. Every time you pile up, I'll do it later. But you know, you know you're not gonna be able to do that with your own thoughts and ideas. You're not gonna be able to do that with your own activities, thoughts and ideas. You create this loop of anxiety, shame and guilt because you constantly remind yourself that you're not doing the thing that you wanted to do. That excited you that would have been good for you To taking care of it quickly.
Speaker 1:I'll use hard conversations as an example everybody can relate to. Every single person listening to this right now has thought to themselves man, I really need to talk to them now, whether it's a spouse, an employee, a friend. Something has happened that triggered an emotional response that you knew a difficult conversation had to be had. What most of you do, what I have had done for years and years and years was thinking about it, thinking about the conversation, visualizing the conversation, having fake arguments in my car while driving, talking to other people about the conversation, pre-planning when the best time to have the conversation would be, when's the time to see. None of that does anything but create more anxiety. Why? Because you have a neural pathway in your brain that tells you that conversations about anything that isn't positive is a fight, and you have a fight or flight response to the thought of even having that hard conversation. So you try to overplan it, overmanage it over, control it to mitigate any risk of negativity instead of just having the conversation.
Speaker 1:And so one of the triggers that I picked up for me over the past, like 12 to 18 months, was once I think it, I'm having the conversation, I have to trust the trigger, and every single one of those conversations has led to an improved situation. No, they're not all pleasant, they're not all fun. There have been tears, but none of that was better. Doing it later, once I was angrier and more anxious and more scared. And the other person? Because here's what happens. Like you think to yourself, right now I have to have a conversation with this person, and then you don't do it for three weeks or six weeks, or guess what you're doing. You are subconsciously treating that person differently because you're angry, because you're anxious, because you're scared. You don't even realize that person already knows that something's wrong. Every single time I've done that, that person already saw something coming. Why are you doing that to people? Why are you doing that to yourself? Because that's what your brain is trained to do. It's trained to think, think, think, plan, manage, control. That's the pathway you have for things like hard conversations.
Speaker 1:One of the best triggers I've ever learned to trust was the second. I think to myself man, I think I really need to talk to them. I didn't like that. Talk to them immediately. Hey, man, can you talk at some point today? Immediate text message hey, can you talk at some point today? I need like 15, 20 minutes of your time and then just honestly have the conversation. Hey man, this happened. This is how it made me felt. Can you provide some clarity? That three-part conversation starter has been incredible for me. Hey, this happened. This is how it made me feel. This is how I perceived it. Could you give some clarity, cause I could be totally off base here, but I didn't like the way it made me feel. So I'm having a conversation with you.
Speaker 1:It starts the conversation humbly. It starts everybody on the same team. It starts it by you not accusing and you acknowledging that you might be wrong. I'm typically not, but I'm happy to acknowledge that I might be. I'm okay with that Cause. Sometimes I am.
Speaker 1:That is an example of trusting the trigger. So we trust the triggers in an attempt to understand that our subconscious mind, our subconscious mind, is not lying to us. Our subconscious mind has believed our lies for so long that pathways and connections have been formed that create what you believe. You don't believe what you believe because it's true. You believe what you believe because your brain tells you it's true. You can untrue and rewire anything, anything, and I know that this might sound all woo woo in space, but this is psychology and neuroscience and real, and you can look this up and read all about this for yourself. Because I am not a scientist, I am not good at research, so like I don't cite things great and I'm, I am not that guy. I read what I read and it makes a big impact on me and the way I read, deliver it to you, is exactly the way that I digest and process it. Trust your triggers. Pause. Ask yourself what the evidence is that proves what you're thinking to be true.
Speaker 1:Start rewiring things. When you think you have to do something, or you should do something, or something's a good idea, do it now. Have the conversation now. You will rewire your brain over time to no longer be afraid of having conversations where you have to hold people accountable or that are tough. You will still have some anxiety. You will still have some, but I used to be. I used to shake having conversations like that because I worked up so much in my head leading up to it. Now I just now it's just like any other conversation, because I've had so many experiences of quote, unquote, hard conversations going fine that I have rewired the pathway in my brain to understand that it just is what it is.
Speaker 1:People don't react the way you think. They're not as angry as you believe they're gonna be. Nobody storms out and quit, nobody. It just doesn't go that way. When you communicate, well, obviously rewire your brain new thought patterns, new triggers, trust yourself and start to see new belief systems, create a new life through new actions that create new habits, that become new disciplines, that rewire all new belief systems again, and then you can start that process over and that right there is basically the journey of growth for the rest of our lives, rewiring the belief systems and creating new habits and new actions and new disciplines and new consistencies that create massive, massive results for us. Thanks, guys, for listening. We'll talk to you guys next time.
