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
Don't Forget To Water Your Crops When They Grow | Ep. 111
Imagine standing at the peak of success only to be haunted by the fear of losing it all. That's the heart of our conversation today, as we peel back the layers of what it means to hold success and face the terror of its potential loss. We're going deeper than the glossy surface of achievements to confront the internal battles entrepreneurs face—how ego can warp our view, and why protecting our wins too fiercely can backfire. I'm here to assure you that stability isn't a sign of failure and that the vigor we applied at the start of our ventures must be sustained to keep our successes thriving. Together, we'll recommit to our core values and integrity, weathering the inevitable highs and lows with grace and determination.
Then we turn our gaze to the deceptive perfection of social media, stripping away the veneer to reveal the highlight reel for what it truly is. As your host, Sam Kaufman, I'm urging you to draw inspiration from these snippets of curated excellence without letting them diminish your own worthy accomplishments. Remember, the real victors in this game of life are those who simply don't quit. So let's push forward, crafting our paths with confidence, sidestepping the misleading portrayals online, and continually nurturing our ambitions with genuine resilience and authenticity. No guests needed in this intimate session—just you, me, and the raw truths of navigating the complex dance of fear and success in the entrepreneurial world.
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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 Kaufman, as always, incredibly grateful to be here talking to you today. Your host, sam Kaufman, as always, incredibly grateful to be here talking to you today.
Speaker 1:Look, this episode is probably going to be brief. I know I've said that before and then ended up being a long ass episode, but I really just want to give you some encouragement today. I really just want to tell you and I've had a lot of conversations with people recently business owners, primarily, just people in general and man, some people are winning right now and don't know how to handle it. Some people are finding the success that they have fought for in their businesses and they don't know what to do with it in their businesses and they don't know what to do with it. I'm talking to people who are dealing with the sales and the people and the team and everything coming together in their life and in their business and they're afraid the shoe is going to drop and I just want to give some encouragement to all of you right now who maybe are winning in an area and dealing with the fear and the insecurity and the doubt that you're going to be able to keep it. One of the most dangerous things that I've seen people do and something I've done in the past that has hurt me tremendously is start to hyper protect what we have instead of watering it to grow. I want you to picture like you're a farmer and your crops are coming in and all the work you did to bring your crops in the water, and the sowing of the seed, and the care and the attention and the sunlight and all the things that you did to get the crops to start growing. Imagine if they started growing and you stopped all of that activity and you just built a giant fence to protect the crops from being damaged by intruders. And then you realize, well, what if the sun burns too bright and it dries everything up? So you build a big roof, a canopy, over the crops to protect them from the sun, and then you're like, all right, but what about insects? So you go out and you buy a bunch of pesticides and you're spraying the crop and you're doing all these protective measures that at the time in your mind make sense because they're counteracting all the things you're afraid of, which is really just one thing, and it's losing all your crops. The thing you're really afraid of is you've tasted this harvest and you're afraid that it's going to go away, to stop damage from happening to what you have so wonderfully grown in your life and business. And all the while you forgot to water it, you forgot to sow the seed, you forgot to pick the weeds, you forgot that some insects actually eat the ones that are bad, and you killed all the insects. So now there's infestation of all kinds of things.
Speaker 1:Don't get so hyper fixated. What happens when we become afraid of losing what we have or what we're about to have is ego. It's not really about like, well, if I lose this new success, I won't be able to eat, I won't have any money, I won't have a place to live. It's what if the people who see me this successful see me fail? If you really dig down to the root of why you become over and hyper protective of what you have, it often has really nothing to do with your own well-being and your own ability to survive and live and thrive and be happy and fulfilled and joyful and of service to others. It really has to do with your ego. What if X person, what if you see me here and then I fail? And you see me fail, you'll view me differently. What if you see me for who I think I am? And it's those of us? It's when you think you don't deserve the success that you're experiencing is when you assume it's all going to be taken away from you, when you realize that success isn't really the end game to begin with.
Speaker 1:A lot can change in this category. What I mean by that is when I talk about business specifically. Some years are going to be up and some years are going to be down. Some quarters are going to be up and some quarters are going to be down. Some years you're going to consider fucking, quitting everything and getting a job and never going back in entrepreneurship ever again. Some years you're going to say, oh my God, this is the best thing that ever happened to me and you're going to buy a new car and you're going to upgrade your house.
Speaker 1:It ebbs and flows and ups and downs. Man. What you're experiencing when you see these wins is not some end, all this fear of losing it. You will. The 150% growth year where you tripled your profit margins is not going to happen every year. Eventually it's going to stabilize out, and what is really dangerous when you're being hyperprotective is you view stabilization as shrinkage, as a threat, as a failure. It's not, and so what I want to remind you of and encourage you to do is and I'm not saying don't get hyperprotective, just go be the riskiest person in the whole world no failure is possible.
Speaker 1:Not only is failure possible, it's going to happen to all of us In some form, fashion, way or another. We all make mistakes. We all hit our head against the wall, especially if you're going to be a figure, if you're going to own a company, if you're going to try to grow that company, if you're going to really try to be a provider for your family, if you're going to try to be a public figure on social media. You're going to hit your head against the wall. There's no textbook for how to do this perfectly, because it changes every day. It changes every day. The rules change all the time. The most important thing that you can do is maintain your own core values and have integrity in everything you do for you and your family. That's the most important thing that you can do and at the end of the day, you can lay your head down at night and sleep, no matter what the result outcomes are.
Speaker 1:If you're in this season or you're experiencing winning and everything is actually looking up and you're just incredibly afraid that you're going to lose it all, where were you before it was up? I reminded a good friend of mine the other day. I got a call over the weekend. A good friend of mine is going through something similar to this. He said man, I needed some encouragement because I feel like everything is going really well right now. Business is way up by millions. I'm getting people from competing companies applying to join my sales team. I just, you know, seven-figure contract just landed.
Speaker 1:It's like man. Why do I feel like I'm going to lose it all? It's because you don't feel like you deserve what's happening. You feel in your head oh well, if they only knew how much I didn't do. If they only knew how much work I didn't get done last week. If they only knew that I slept in on Saturday and Sunday until eight nine o'clock in the morning. If they only knew that I didn't eat perfectly on Friday night. I ate too much dinner and then had dessert, and we start to just pick these random things in our lives that we are insecure about, that we don't love about ourselves, and we go. Man, if they only knew, like that's why it's all going to fall apart. No, man, being human is not why everything's going to fall apart. But if you take your eye off of the ball and you stop doing all the work and I'll use this person, this friend of mine, as an example this friend of mine spent 12 to 15 months absolutely busting his ass doing the work necessary to survive. Last year was not an easy year for any business. He did the work and then the results started coming 15 months later and so to think, man, I don't deserve this, this came out of nowhere, I'm going to lose. It is insane. And I had to remind him. I had to give him a playback of the last 15 months and remind him dude, this is the result. This is why we talk about in coaching like, hey, man, you got to hang on, you got to hang on.
Speaker 1:Everybody wants an ROI on their activity next week or in the next hour, and it's not how business works. The ROI on all of your activity is minimally 60 to 90 days away. That's at best, and that's at lower level activity. High level activity, ceo level activity. You could be 12, 18, 20 months away, more.
Speaker 1:Do not become overprotective because your ego doesn't want you to have other people see you fail. You have everything you need right now to have the success that you're walking into. You have everything you need to continue growing that. You have everything at your fingertips and your disposal to make this happen for you. Do not build a fence and a roof and pesticides and dig out the ground and kill all the creatures and forget to water what you're growing. Do not forget to do the things that got you to the point of where it's successful. And if you're in a bigger team or you're growing a bigger company or you're multi, seven or eight figures, the lesson for you there is the activity has to continue, but it just doesn't have to be you. It doesn't have to be you the activity. Don't forget to do the activity. That doesn't mean you have to do the activity. It could be time to delegate that activity. Maybe it's time for you to hire someone. Maybe you're thinking, oh, I've got to protect this because then this is going to go wrong. Great, it's probably time to hire and delegate some of the activity that got you to this place so that you don't lose this place, so you can go back to strategizing what you need 15 months from now.
Speaker 1:Life is a long game. It's such a long game. It doesn't matter if it's business, if it's life, if it's weight loss, if it's marriage, if it's parenting. This is a life game. This isn't a Q1, q2 game. We set initiatives for the quarters. We set initiatives for years. But, like, the vision for my life is lifelong. The vision for my life is a life game and I'm guilty of getting caught up in the moment, in the situation in the quarter, and I'm guilty of getting caught up in the moment, in the situation in the quarter and I get it. I'm human, I want results, I want people to praise me, I want to look good, I want to be good, I want to feel like I'm good at stuff and that I'm proficient and that I excel. But I also remind myself regularly man, I'm going to be okay, I'm going to be okay. This is a life game. It's just a life game. I'm 33 years old. There's a lifetime. If you're 43, 53, 63, you have a lifetime ahead of you to continue doing this stuff and continue to win and learn and grow.
Speaker 1:Truthfully speaking, a failure is only really a failure if you quit. Other than that, it's just a lesson learned. They're all just lessons learned. And all the people you admire and all the people you look up to, and all the big, big people all over the internet and TV and the news, and all the people it's just more time under tension, man. They've just been more time. More failures it's just more time under tension, man. They've just been more time. More failures, more lessons, more implementation, more delegation. That's it. The only advantage people who are actually winning have is more time.
Speaker 1:Now the advantage that some people like to pretend they have social media highlight reel and again I'll go back to a few episodes ago. Consider the source, man. Social media is a highlight reel for everybody. Nobody uses social media just to post their shit. Nobody would follow it. I don't get on social media to look at people's shit. I actually like. I like the encouragement and the inspiration of the highlight reel. I like seeing what's possible, I like the truth, I like the lessons learned. But lessons are always shared on the other side when the implementation is already in place. Nobody's above that. Consider the source of your information. Remember the only people who are actually winning, actually winning beyond where maybe you are right now. It's just time. It's just time. You have everything you need to keep it going. Water your crops. Talk to you guys next week.
