It's About The Team

Grab your drink and get ready. This is the caffeinated hustle, the best place to learn about entrepreneurs and FTS and life expert advice and guest interviews to launch your business and NFT journey further than you ever imagined. Now, here's your host, entrepreneur, coffee fanatic, and founder of the NFT project, caffeinated creatures, Ben Carson. Hey there, welcome back to the caffeinated hustle. I'm your host, Ben Carson. And I'm just grateful to have you here today, today is gonna be a fun episode. For those of you that don't know, we are in the middle of launching our NFT project, caffeinated creatures. Excuse me not launching, building, we're in the middle of building and today I just signed on our artist, I've been talking to him for about a month. And maybe not quite that long. But for like a month, it was a, it was a long process. Now, for those of you that don't know, quickly, the NFT space is unique, because if you hear about NF T's, most people think they're scams, they don't understand them. And, you know, some people are collectors, it's an investment, it's not investment, bubble, blah, blah, at the end of the day, we're gonna get deep into that in another episode. But what I want to tell you today is that the artwork matters. The artwork is important, because in some form, the NFT really is a unique piece of artwork that you can't have any other way. And the thing is, is that it's so easy to go cut a corner. And so initially, I was thinking my project is all about utility utility means it has a purpose, it's not just something it's not a JPEG, no, you can't right click save, and have my earn your NFT basically saved on a computer and call it good because the utility that comes with this project is very unique is very all encompassing, and saving the picture doesn't get you access to any of it. And so you need the actual NFT to get into everything we're going to do. But the thing is, is that if you don't have phenomenal artwork, it's really hard to stand out. And so initially, I was thinking because I'm utility first, I'm just going to pay someone on Fiverr or Upwork. Or just find a local artist and just bang something out. And while it's it's not a bad idea, the issue was that the rest of my team is so solid is so strong, that it will be hurting everyone, you are only as good as your weakest link. And we're going to get into the meat of caffeinated creatures, eventually. And I'm really excited to talk about it. But we've got some phenomenal players in this in this space. We've got some fun, some just incredible team members. My developer manages 200 other developers all on the East Coast, he's he's just, he's a rockstar, my project manager is a senior pm in a fortune 100 company, he has gone all out to make sure that we're going to deliver success. I've got advisors that have manage multiple projects, even though I know what I'm doing, I still want outside help. I'm treating this like a real business, I'm doing as much as I can to succeed here. Because if I succeed, I add value to everyone involved. The community, the team myself, everyone gets something better than what they had before. And if I cut a corner, if I say everyone else is doing solid, I don't feel like giving away any more money, percentage of the mint of whatever, I'm just gonna cut a corner and we're gonna pay five grand 10 grand 20 grand to an artist and call it. The issue with that is that now you no longer have someone on your team that's aligned with the same values as everyone else. And the team. For lack of a better word for lack of a better thought process. The team is what matters, right? Your team is everything. If you go find a business owner, and they say, I'm amazing. I'm really good at doing this. I'm really good at doing this. I can do this well for you. I can take care of the business for you. I got what you need. That project that business that anything in life is going to struggle because it's ego, it's too much about what they can do, what value they have, what what's in front of them that when you talk like that. You basically say you basically tell people I matter. And I matter more than you I matter more than everyone because what I do what I bring to the table. The best leaders focus on the team are the best leaders I've ever met. The best managers, the best owners, the best founders, whatever it is, you focus on the team, you focus on the strengths and the weaknesses of the team and you improve where you need. You help where you need, but you are focused on the entire team. Of course, you're going to work the hardest if you're the owner, you have the biggest stake in the outcome, you have the biggest potential salary, why would you ever expect someone else to work as hard as you are, when you have the potential to make so much more than they do? If you structure your team, right, though, they can believe in it just as much, they can try almost as hard. And their success can be greatly and almost identically tied to the results like yours are. If you cut the corners, though, and you don't care about the team, because you focus on yourself on where you can succeed the best where you can look the best, whatever else it is, you're going to hurt the team. And if you hurt your team, your success in business, in your projects in whatever is going to suffer. I am focused on my team. Because if I have the right team, if I have a power hitter, and all aspects, and I put all of them together on a good team, I know that team is going to get success. And if I have success in this project, I know I'm going to help out a lot of people. And I'm going to help out a lot of people, I have to have a strong team, they just interconnects so well, it's just like a chain link fence, I'm sorry, not chain link chain, on a swing, you know, from the top down, every one of those links is connected is supportive of each other is holding the swing together. If you break one of those chain links, then the swing can collapse the person in the fall the swing, you're gonna get hurt. If you go to a park and you see a broken swing, you're not gonna let your kid get on that swing. Because you don't want them to get hurt. You know, it's not safe, it's not going to last. That's a terrible analogy. And I apologize, I'm just going off a high of just of just who I've just hired because I've hired for my team. And x, Disney and X illumination are just a phenomenal designer that's going to get this project where it needs to go. We're going to have artwork better than 97% of all projects out there. Straight out the gate. Except we're not an art project. We're just that good. We're going to be like I've never seen before. I'm very excited about this. Because if you are Gary Vee, yes, you can draw stick figures and charge half a million dollars and people will pay for that because you're Gary Vee. I'm not Gary Vee. You're not Gary Vee, your strength is in your team. And so unless you have a following and a voice that most people just don't have, if you have the connections like that, and yes, you can focus more on yourself, this message is no longer for you because you are your unicorn. Alright, congrats. But I'm talking to everyone else. I'm talking to the people that start a business that are running a business that are succeeding in business. I'm talking to people that are looking into launching their own NFT project are considering going into other projects to invest to speculate to do whatever you want to do. Look to the team look to who is in charge, look to how they talk about themselves how they talked about others. Look to the overall team, are they strong? Are they together? Are there a bunch of weakness and there's just a few strengths and just a few points that may help get across the finish line more likely, it's not going to happen. That matters. That matters to me, that should matter to you, because the strong team gets a strong finish. And if you want success in your in almost anything you do, it's not about you. It's about your team. It's about making sure that everyone sees the same goal about making it happen about making sure you can help where you can. If you have the option to encourage and build your team up, or to cut a corner and help yourself in the short term, you're going to regret it in the long term. All right, success does not get measured. On days, it gets measured on weeks on months on years. Doesn't matter if you're winning today. If you're cutting corners and hurting your team, you're hurting yourself and long term you're going to suffer from that. I am so excited for who we just signed on. Maybe bring him on the podcast at some point. But try and bring my entire team different times on this podcast so you can meet the people behind caffeinated labs, caffeinated creatures, get to know everyone get to know what we're about. But today I just I'm ecstatic for who we got. It's gonna be a great addition this project. And it's going to really provide value that I couldn't provide any other way. I had multiple artists lined up that would have cost me five to $10,000 for decent piece of artwork that would have handled it and I could have moved on. And I could have had a successful project without going this path. But now I'm going to have a great project. There's a very Every small degree of difference between good and great, and I want to be great and I can't be great. If I cut a corner. The only thing that separates you from the very best version of yourself is the corners you cut. And I want you to focus more on the team today than individually. We'll get to that in another lesson. But today on the team, what's the very best you can do for your team, if you're cutting corners where you shouldn't, it's, it's part of the reason you're struggling in your team. Find the way that you can help your team succeed, not get by. And that is a powerful lesson that when you learn when you adapt, when you implement is going to offer some phenomenal upside to you and your organization. Till next time, I hope everyone has a great rest of their day. Great rest of the week, and we'll talk soon. Thanks for listening to the caffeinated hustle. Sponsored by caffeinated labs LLC. For more information or to connect with Ben, check us out online at caffeinated labs.io. Or email us at support at caffeinated labs.io. Be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode, or give us a follow on social media by checking the links in the description. We'll see you next time.