1003: There is no finish line! (IT'S ALL A TRAP!)

Transcript

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Hey, what is up?

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Welcome to this episode of the Entrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.

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As always, I'm your host, brian Lofermento, and on the week of episode 1,000 coming to light.

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It was so much fun.

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I hope you've tuned in to episode 1,000 at this point, but, importantly, I wanna share with you some very important internal reflections that I've had on this very momentous week, and I think that it's actually even more important for all of us, for myself, for you, for every single one of us as entrepreneurs and even beyond that in life, because we are talking about milestones, we're talking about mindset, we're talking about the future.

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I'm excited about this one.

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Let's dive in.

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So this episode is truly I mean, you are 100% getting inside of my head with my rawest and realest thoughts, because I'm very much in the mood where not only am I looking forward to 2025, but I've just been all up in the fields this week because so many of you listeners, our past guests, friends and family everybody's been reaching out to me this week congratulating us on episode 1,000.

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And it means the absolute world to me, honestly, and in the way that we commemorated it, with Dr Zachary Ginder joining me for episode 1,000, in the longest episode in our show's history.

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I hope that you had the chance to tune into that, because you definitely would have heard a lot of behind the scenes stuff, some stories I've never shared publicly.

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And I've heard a lot of behind the scenes stuff, some stories I've never shared publicly.

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And more important than any of those things that Dr Zachary and I reflected on is just the realness, the real stuff behind entrepreneurship the mindset, challenges, the obstacles, the ups, the downs all of the things that are a very real part of all of our journeys.

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That's really what I'm excited, and I was so excited that Zachary and I got to celebrate in that episode.

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It's just the real part of everybody's journey because we truly all do share in these things.

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But something weird happened inside of my mind this week following episode 1000 and all these amazing messages that I've been getting from people, and I want to share it with you because it almost felt like the weirdest milestone ever.

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You know, on our birthdays we get so many nice messages from people and we get to sit with our birthdays and we get to reflect on how great it is and all the great things in our lives, what we're grateful for our friends, our family, our health all the things that we get to enjoy every single day in our lives.

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But I'll be honest with you, episode 1000 has felt quite different for me because, as much of a milestone it is and as excited as I am to celebrate it, I think it's so important that all of us celebrate big milestones in our lives because life is about celebrations.

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It's not about just doing the work, it's about enjoying our lives and celebrating all of these important moments and reflecting on them and learning from them and growing from them.

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But where I'm going with this episode today is that, as everyone's been saying, all that stuff, I appreciate it and at the same time, I realize my own feelings and my own inner thoughts of, yeah, episode 1000, it's a thing and I appreciate it, but gosh, I'm so focused on the future.

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I'm so focused on the future, I'm so focused.

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Episode 1000 in no way felt like a pause, in no way felt like a finish line.

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It feels so much A lot of people always ask me about my energy levels and it's because it feels so much like it's the starting line.

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And that's really when I thought about what I want to talk with you about and really share with you here in today's episode I kept coming back to there's no finish line.

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There's no finish line.

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I've talked about it in past episodes, probably years ago, where I confronted the very real fact that for all of us, as entrepreneurs, we're always trying new ideas, we're always launching new things, we're always working on different projects, and so frequently, what I found in the earlier days of my entrepreneurial journey heck, let's call it the first 10 years.

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To be honest, in those first 10 years, when I would work on something, I was always looking for the finish line and I was thinking that one of these things I was working on, or one of these things I was launching, or one of these ideas that I had, would be the thing, would be the finish line, it would be the thing that propels me to that next level.

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And you know, after 10 years of doing that and hoping for that and looking for that and working for that, you, very quickly or not so quickly it could take 10 years you, very one day, you realize that there's no such thing.

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There is no finish line.

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There is no finish line.

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There's no point at which any of these things are going to change anything on its head.

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And so that's why I'm really excited because this week we saw that.

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What came after episode 1000?

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Well, I'll tell you Episode 1001.

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We had Julie Silvestri here for episode 1001.

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It was so much fun to chat with Julie for episode 1001.

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I'll tell you quite frankly, from my end, the feelings that I had sitting down with Julie was Business as usual.

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Let's keep the show going on.

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And then yesterday you heard from Justin Merritt.

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Justin's amazing.

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He is such an entrepreneur to his very core, and what's fun for me about that is, again, business as usual, and that's really what stood out to me.

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So when I sat down for today's episode, the thought that I had in mind was just that very simple phrase there is no finish line.

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And I'll be very transparent with you that I'm a sucker for quotes.

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You all know that.

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That's no secret, and so typically what I do is when I have these words pop up in my head, I think to myself someone definitely has thought these words before.

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There's no chance.

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I'm the first person to think to myself there is no finish line.

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So usually I Google it and I Google other literature out there.

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What I'm really looking for is I hope that there's some sort of quote that I can give to you, because I believe that other people can articulate things way better than I can, and so I want a quote that really ties it all up with a nice bow.

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But what I found instead is Nike actually did a major marketing campaign many years ago called there Is no Finish Line, and they actually published a book to go along with that, and it's fascinating to me because you can hear the messaging in it.

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They're speaking to athletes and they're speaking to runners, but I know it's going to resonate with all of us as entrepreneurs, so let me read this to you.

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It's when I Googled this is not something that I found, I just simply Googled there is no finish line.

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This is the first thing that popped up.

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It's I don't know if it's a poster or an advertisement or what it is from Nike, but the big headline says there is no finish line.

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And now I wanna read to you what that marketing campaign said underneath.

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Here it is word for word.

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Sooner or later.

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The serious here it is you break through a barrier that separates you from casual runners forever, and from that point on, there is no finish line.

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You run for your life.

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You begin to be addicted to what running gives you.

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We at Nike understand that feeling.

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There is no finish line for us either.

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We will never stop trying to excel, to produce running shoes that are better and better every year.

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Beating the competition is relatively easy, but beating yourself is a never-ending commitment.

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That's the end of what I wanted to read to you today.

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How awesome is that marketing verbiage?

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So, of course, then I went down the rabbit hole of this incredible marketing campaign and the book called no Finish Line that Nike released, and in the book they had an opening paragraph.

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They had a foreword from their chief design officer, john Hoke.

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I wanna read to you.

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This is from Nike's website.

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When I was reading about this book.

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Here's what John Hoke, their chief design officer, said at the very beginning of the book.

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It's been said that the best way to predict the future is to create it.

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At Nike, we wholeheartedly agree.

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For over 50 years, we've endeavored to create a better future for athletes.

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This compels us forward.

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Always, when we say there is no finish line, it's not a lazy reference to an unending grind or destinationless journey, but rather an expression of our belief in the limitless potential of sport and design.

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So that's the excerpt that I wanted to read for you.

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I'm sure that at this point you really get the point.

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There is no finish line.

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And I think for all of us, milestones are important, going into every single project or idea or thing that we launch with hope and optimism that it's going to be a wild success.

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All of those things are important, but I think what's really important from a mindset perspective, for each of us as entrepreneurs and as people, is that recognition that there is no finish line.

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We have to stop hoping for finish lines.

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What we have to hope for truly is to become that runner that smashes through some sort of invisible barrier unbeknownst to us, an invisible barrier that we truly can't even comprehend until we get there.

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And when we get there, we realize that we were never even really running for some sort of finish line.

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We've been running for, as Nike says, our lives.

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We've been running for the actual thrill of running and I'm really proud.

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Eight years into this podcasting journey, over a thousand episodes into this podcasting journey, you know 16 years of me personally being an entrepreneur and launching things and growing things and failing at things and succeeding at things.

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This week has really been a reflection for me of the fact that I've reached that point where there is no finish line.

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I don't want there to be a finish line.

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I'm not even looking or thinking about a finish line.

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Everyone, when they've been congratulating me about episode 1,000, they've been asking me you know, how does this change things for you?

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What are you going to do from here?

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All of these questions, and I so appreciate those, but I think the biggest revelation I've had is man, I just want to keep doing this.

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I want to keep going every single day.

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Yes, we're making changes.

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Yes, we're doing a lot of incredible and hard work behind the scenes to show up in even more new ways and positively impact more people and even more deeply serve our existing people.

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We want to do all things better.

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But what I really reflected on on the milestone of episode 1000 is that in the grand scheme of the world, it's nothing, because it's just yet another step in progress.

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More than a thousand more steps that I want to take.

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I want to take a million more steps in this direction and continue showing up for others, continue showing up for myself, continue pursuing growth and goodness and entrepreneurship and service and impact.

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All these big and important things that Dr Zachary and I talked about in Wednesday's episode, episode 1000, all the things that I talk about with all of our incredible and brilliant guests that you get to hear from all these days.

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You know we air five days a week and we are not slowing down.

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It's all these things that we talk about and none of us are doing it for a finish line.

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And that took me a long time to learn and I've reflected on it a lot, especially this week, which is why I feel so strongly about bringing it here into today's Solo Sunday episode, because no one thing is going to change our lives, no one thing is ever going to represent the finish line.

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So stop launching things in the hopes that you reach that finish line, stop working on projects just because you think it's going to get you closer to the finish line, and start stepping into the very things that light you up, the very things that serve others that you care about, the very things that make your industry, your corner of the marketplace, your world a better world.

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Because when you start stepping into those real, authentic, important things, then you forget about the finish line entirely.

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So episode 1000 has been fun.

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It's been a fun week to celebrate that milestone, but for me, internally, what's been even more fun is recognizing all the work that lays ahead, and that's truly what gets me even more excited.

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It's fun to pause, it's fun to reflect, it's fun to make sure I extract all the goodness from all the work and resilience and ups and downs, and literally every single thing that went into the first 1000 episodes of this show.

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But, holy cow, I'm even more excited to keep showing up for you in all new ways, in all the same ways as well, and just in ways that even better serve you.

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So that's it.

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For me today, there is no finish line, and that's why I invite you to pound that subscribe button, because you already know that we are coming at you as always every Monday, wednesday, friday, saturday and Sunday here on the Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.

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Hey, it's Brian here, and thanks for tuning in to yet another episode of the Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.

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If you haven't checked us out online, there's so much good stuff there.

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Check out the show's website and all the show notes that we talked about in today's episode at thewantrepreneurshowcom.

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And I just want to give a shout out to our amazing guests.

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There's a reason why we are ad-free and have produced so many incredible episodes five days a week for you, and it's because our guests step up to the plate.

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These are not sponsored episodes, these are not infomercials.

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Our guests help us cover the costs of our productions.

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They so deeply believe in the power of getting their message out in front of you, awesome entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs, that they contribute to help us make these productions possible.

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So thank you to not only today's guests, but all of our guests in general, and I just want to invite you check out our website because you can send us a voicemail there.

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We also have live chat.

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If you want to interact directly with me, go to thewantrepreneurshowcom.

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Initiate a live chat.

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It's for real me, and I'm excited because I'll see you, as always every Monday, wednesday, friday, saturday and Sunday here on the Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.

1003: There is no finish line! (IT'S ALL A TRAP!)

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