If you only eat what other people feed you, you will literally starve to death the moment they walk away. If somebody had to hand feed you every meal, every snag, every sip of water, what would happen when they get tired? What's going to happen when they get distracted? What do you think is going to happen when they disagree with you? Or maybe even if they decide to leave, you are going to starve. Honestly, this is what a lot of you are doing with your vision, not with food, with validation. You need someone to clap for you, to understand you, someone to support you, someone to tell you that you're doing a good job. And the moment that that stops, you stop too. The most unhealthy habits that I've seen, it's not a lack of talent or a lack of intelligence. It's not even a lack of opportunity. It's a dependency on external validation. And here's why this is so dangerous. External validation works just like sugar. It gives you a quick, a quick rush, a quick feeling that you're on the right track. It does not last because after, you need another hit. You need another compliment, you need another like, another encouraging comment, and another person telling you that you're doing great. And before you know it, you've built your entire vision around reactions instead of execution. The problem is that vision was never designed to run on applause. When I first started my speaking career, I was hired to do a 15-minute talk for a women's event. I remember being so excited. I was ready to go. And one of the things that I do when I'm getting ready for my talks is that I have to think about the message that I want to give based off of the theme of the event. So I prayed about it and I put 100% in it. And the day finally came when I had to get on stage. And the moment that I opened my mouth, I caught myself doing something. I wasn't focused on the message anymore. My mouth was running, but my mind was paying attention to all of the facial expressions. I was focused on who was engaged or who was half listening. I was focused on who was responding, who acknowledged what I was saying, who supported it by their loud claps and their major head nods. And honestly, that realization, it bothered me. Now don't get me wrong, I didn't stop in the middle of my talk or anything like that. I kept going. I kept, you know, with the same exact effort, the same exact energy. And it wasn't that my message changed. It wasn't that my value changed. The thing that changed was the thoughts that I had about the reaction that I was seeing. And somehow I allowed that reaction to become more important than the actual accomplishment. I mean, this was my first speaking engagement. That this was my first taste of the sugar craving. And this is when I realized a lot of us are not managing our vision. What we're doing is we're managing our audience. And those are two completely different things. And this is going to get a little interesting because the moment that you start changing, something shows up that most people aren't prepared for. And I like to call it social friction. And this is what a lot of people get confused because they think friction means that they're doing something wrong. But what if that friction isn't a warning sign? What if it's just evidence that you're actually changing? I want you to think about that. The people around you, they get comfortable with a certain version of you. They know what to expect from you. They know how you think, they know how you move. Then suddenly you start growing, you start seeing differently, you start making different decisions, you start pursuing a vision that they never expected from you. And now they have to adjust. And that's the uncomfortable part because your growth is forcing them to examine themselves. And sometimes the easiest way for people to avoid that discomfort is for them to withhold the very thing that you've been craving: approval, support, validation. And it's not because they're bad, it's because naturally they gravitate towards what feels familiar. And this is where many visions start to die. It's not because they're impossible visions, but because the person pursuing them misunderstood, mistook social friction for failure. And once you've had had a taste of that sugar, you start arranging your whole vision around getting another fix, another hit. So there's four sugar cravings. And I want to show you what that actually looks like. The first sugar craving, I call it the sugar rush. Some people, they're not going to move unless they hear an applause. So they they launch something and then the room is quiet, they're not getting much feedback, nobody's clicking, and then they quit. It's not because their vision was wrong, it's because nobody celebrated them fast enough. So the craving is actually saying if nobody's clapping, maybe this just doesn't matter. And that's a lie. The second sugar craving is something I call the sugar coating. And this one is really subtle. It's you waiting for permission, you waiting for a green light or waiting for somebody important to tell you that it's okay. But the question is, how many dreams have you been delayed because the committee never voted? What am I saying is you don't need a board meeting to pursue a vision. The third sugar craving that I have is called the bitter aftertaste. And this one is very expensive. You have one comment, one opinion, one side eye, and one person that's questioning your decision. And suddenly a whole entire week of momentum disappears. When criticism becomes your compass, you are never going to stay on course. You're never going to arrive anywhere. And the last sugar craving, I call this the empty calories. This one is the biggest trap of all of them. It's like you're trying to explain your vision to people who don't have the capacity to see it. Can you relate to that? Trying to convince people, trying to gain their agreement, you're trying to gain understanding, right? And this is where all of your energy gets wasted. Not everybody is supposed to understand what it is that you're doing or what your vision is. Some people, they're not even going to see it until after you build it and after they see the fruit of it. So the truth is you cannot build a new future using old permission slips. You cannot pursue a bigger vision while you're constantly waiting for approval from everybody else. You want approval from people who are attached to the smaller version of what's possible. You cannot run on sugar forever. Eventually, we know that eating sugar a lot will cause other ailments and other issues, right? So eventually, your body and your vision is going to need something that actually sustains it. And at some point, conviction has to become stronger than your validation. You have to have execution become stronger than applause. And then your vision has to become louder than the crowd. So let me ask you something. Right now, I want you to be honest. What are you craving more of? The vision or the validation? Because here is what I know. You already felt it while I was talking, didn't you? That moment where you thought about that thing and you've just been waiting on someone to clap for it? That thing that you've been waiting on, someone to approve. What about the thing that you keep explaining to people who will never fully get it? That feeling that you have right now, that's the craving talking. And I built something specifically for this moment. It is called the mid-hour chat reset assessment. It takes about seven minutes and it does something most people are afraid to do for themselves. It shows you exactly where you've been feeding off validation instead of building your vision. It calculates what that craving has already cost you: your time, your money, your momentum, and it tells you exactly which area needs your attention right now more than anything else. Not someday. Right now. This isn't another thing to scroll past. This is the moment that you stop waiting for the sugar high and start building something that actually lasts. Take it before you close this episode. The link is in the description. Go find out what you've really been hungry for. How can you stop craving all the wrong things? Number one, stop measuring your vision by applause. Just because people are being quiet does not mean that your vision is wrong. There's many successful businesses that were ignored long before they were even celebrated. So what you have to do is you have to measure what you completed this week, not who complimented you. Measure the things that you executed on and the things that you completed and got finished. Number two, you got to expect social friction. Growth is what changes relationships. And that is normal. The moment that you start setting different standards, people are going to be uncomfortable. So stop treating every uncomfortable reaction like a stop sign. Number three, silence is not rejection. This is something many of you need to hear. A lack of response is not always a lack of support. So what you need to do is you need to keep moving even when the room gets quiet. Number four, everyone gets a vote. Everybody can have an opinion. Yes, they can, but that doesn't mean that everybody gets influenced. Be selective about whose voice carries weight in your life. You can't expect for someone who is unqualified to give you advice. And lastly, your vision cannot depend on feeding time. I know that that sounds harsh, but if you only move when somebody encourages you, you're giving the other people control over your progress. So you have to do one meaningful thing this week. You have to. And don't announce it, don't explain it, and don't seek any type of validation for it. Just execute on that. The sweetest things aren't always the healthiest things. Sugar feels good in the moment, but so does approval, so does applause, and so does validation. But neither was designed to sustain you. The people who eventually reach the vision aren't always the smartest, and they're definitely not the most talented. They aren't always the most connected either. They're usually the people who learned how to keep moving when nobody was feeding them encouragement. The people who learned how to survive through the quiet seasons. Those same people who learned how to trust the vision before anybody else could see it. Because eventually every vision reaches a place where nobody can walk it out for you. Nobody can approve it for you, nobody can understand it for you, nobody can clap long enough to carry you there. And at some point, you have to learn how to feed yourself. If this episode challenged you, don't just agree with it. Use it. Find one thing that you've been postponing because you're waiting for approval, you're waiting for understanding, applause, or validation. Just execute today, not when everyone understands it, not when everyone agrees with it today. Because your vision doesn't need another spectator, it needs your participation.