From Stuttering to Unstoppable: Sam Koranteng || Masterminds Podcast EP68

Download Achieve By Petra – https://app.theachieveproject.com/PSL0001000

He stood up in front of his class to say his name. Two minutes of silence. Then laughter. That one moment cost him nine years of his confidence — and eventually became the foundation of everything he built.

In this episode of the Masterminds Podcast, Richie Mensah sits down with Sam Koranteng — confidence coach, founder of Unmuted, and living proof that your greatest challenge can become your greatest calling. Sam spent years hiding behind his stutter, avoiding questions in class, shrinking in rooms, and letting one painful moment define an entire decade of his life. He breaks down exactly how he rebuilt his confidence from scratch, why confidence is never the starting point but always the result, why you don't need 8 billion people to accept you, and how treating yourself as a business with six departments will change the way you show up in every area of your life.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why confidence is not what gets you started — it's what you build by starting anyway
• How one moment in high school cost Sam nine years of his voice
• The exact steps Sam used to rebuild his confidence and overcome his stutter
• Why accepting yourself fully is the prerequisite for everything else
• How to treat yourself as a high-performing business with six key departments
• Why you only need to find your people — not impress the whole world
• What Unmuted is and why Sam built a community around the one thing that almost broke him
• Why the lesson you should learn from influencers is not what they do but how they do it

Chapters

00:00 – Intro 01:59 – Meet Sam Koranteng: Turning Challenges Into Calling 05:09 – The Day the Whole Class Laughed 07:36 – How That Moment Affected Sam for Nine Years 10:29 – How Did You Rebuild Your Confidence? 15:33 – Confidence Is the Result, Not the Starting Point 19:50 – You Are Your Own Biggest Critic 22:54 – Treat Yourself Like a High-Performing Business 27:57 – Take Back Leadership of Your Own Life 40:32 – How to Start the Journey to Confidence 48:21 – Accept Yourself First — Then the Right People Find You 54:22 – Final Message: The World Needs to Experience You

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

The man saying that you overcame stuff. Yeah. But I don't hear you start at all.

SPEAKER_01 0:06

I cannot recall. I was 68 when my parents said I felt it a bit difficult for them, so they shipped me to my grandparents. Every time I have to talk about something, it gets me a little bit. So every time I opened my mouth to speak, it was met with a lot of laughter. I stood up for like two minutes, I couldn't say my name. And then from that point I said that.

SPEAKER_02 0:30

What did it be for confidence? Because feeling like everybody would laugh at you when you speak. That's not a good place, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:38

I I had to pay about five thousand dollars for that. I went through the therapy with the promise that by the time I was done, I will be this whole new brand new summer. I can confidently speak and not have to worry about my stutter again.

SPEAKER_02 0:54

So now, the big question How did you rebuild your confidence to overcome the stature?

SPEAKER_01 1:01

How did I do that?

SPEAKER_02 1:03

Before we jump into the conversation, I wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for supporting and deciding to watch this episode. But now I have a favor subscribe to the channel. Subscribing to the channel helps me and the entire masterminds team to continue bringing you wonderful conversations and episodes that bring you closer to being the mastermind you deserve to be. So join the community. Hi, and welcome back to the Masterminds podcast. As usual, I am your awesome tour guide on the journey to sharpen your most powerful tool, your mind. This episode is going to be a great one because one thing I keep telling you guys is that the greatest people are those who are able to turn their challenges around and use it to build something great. You know, it's not enough to just accept what life has given you. You also need to ask yourself, what can you use that? How can you use that to your advantage? The man I'm sitting here with is somebody who took the things that life said should be problems and said, No, I am confidently going to turn these things into a bigger identity that he's not only used to help himself, but he's using to help other people. So please help me welcome Sam Cranton. Sam, how are you doing today?

SPEAKER_01 2:30

Yeah, um I'm super great and uh really excited to have this conversation with you.

SPEAKER_02 2:35

I'm really excited to be here. I watch you on TikTok all the time, by the way.

SPEAKER_01 2:38

Nice, yeah. You know what? When I was um growing up, one of the songs that used to be my jam was this song from you and um Assem. If I got you girl, no, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:52

So you're going to say some good boy, some like Yarrow or something. Okay, that was my biggest jam. Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you very much. No, that was a different hat. That was a different hat, yeah. And I'm wearing the mastermind's hat. Understand. So, welcome, welcome here. Thank you. I need to start by understanding. I always like to start by trying to understand the person I'm sitting with. So, what was life like for young Sam that led you towards this path?

SPEAKER_01 3:17

Yeah, good. Um, growing up, it wasn't really um like a street path. I was six years when my parents said life was a bit difficult for them. So they shipped me to my grandparents. So I lived with my grandma from the age of six, so I was 19. Um, if you've ever lived with a grandparent before, then you can understand what I'm talking about because then you know they will not um give you the sort of love that a parent can give you. No pump print, right? Exactly. Yeah, they have their own way of um raising kids up. So that was the kind of upbringing that I had. Okay, but also at the same time, I learned a few things from her because she was somebody that used to farm a lot. So I used to follow her to the farm. We would cultivate cassava, yam, and then all of those things, and then I would help her sell those things at the market. Okay, so yeah, I learned a little bit from her. She used to also sell um that very local drink called Apateshi. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 4:24

So also from now they call it Cane Spirit.

SPEAKER_01 4:29

Yeah, and then that is also where I picked my first no matter what to rule. Okay, because I saw what um that Apateshi did to my uncles and then the people that were purchasing it from here. So I said to myself, I was never gonna drink alcohol. Okay, so you know, it wasn't a path that was um really, really straight, but I also learned a few things from there that has actually shaped the person I became. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:54

So it goes back to your story. Exactly. Every challenge you find the lesson that helps safety. Yeah, let's talk about the biggest challenge that I've seen you talking about on TikTok. And the first time I saw you talking about it, I was like, Are you sure? Because this is a man saying that you overcame stuttering, yeah, but I don't hear you stutter at all. So when did it start? I have have you always started as a kid?

SPEAKER_01 5:20

Yeah, I think I grew up knowing that I always had a starter. Okay, if I remember my childhood, I don't think there is a time or I cannot recall a point where I did not stutter. Okay, so I think it was from birth. I cannot say, but you know, growing up to knowing myself as a person, I have always had that. Okay, and um it was it was a huge one. It was a huge, huge problem for me across like having that social life with friends, especially when I was in high school, it was crazy. Every time I high school with all the bullying, yeah, every time I have to talk about stuttering, it gets me a little bit emotional because like then, you know, I reminisce some of the things that I went through as a kid who just wants to speak, who just wants to socialize with people, who just wants to be himself, and then because um the environment he found himself with, everybody can speak fluently, and then he did not, I felt like an outcast. And so every time I opened my mouth to speak, it was met with a lot of laughter. So, yeah, it was it was really, really a challenge growing up with starting. I remember my first day in high school, the teacher came to class, and then he said that everybody should introduce themselves. Yeah, Richie. I saw my mate go by, you know, like um yeah. He said we should tell him our name, where we grew up from, our age, the high school we went, and then I think the town that we came from. And so I saw other people go through it like 20 seconds they were done. And then when it got to my 10, the whole place was just quiet.

SPEAKER_04 7:03

Oh, Charlie.

SPEAKER_01 7:05

I stood up for like two minutes. I couldn't say my my name. I couldn't say my name is Sam Quantum. Wow, and then he said, Should I give you a pen to write it? Then the whole class started laughing.

SPEAKER_02 7:19

Oh, Charlie. I'm sure the teacher meant no harm, but no, yes, I think young students will find the humor.

SPEAKER_01 7:26

Yeah, I think in his mind he was just trying to help a young boy who cannot speak, but you know, it turned out that that is not how it was being received. So they were just laughing at me, and then from that point I said that okay, I was never, I will never answer a question in class, or I will never raise my hand. And Richie, for the three years that I spent on that campus, I kept that. Wow, you never answered a question in class, and then you know, every time they ask a question, even if I know, I'll just keep quiet, and then the teacher will just whip me for even though I know just because I was trying to avoid speaking. That laugh tight. Yeah, so stuttering, stuttering was was was really a huge toll on me.

SPEAKER_02 8:05

So, what did it do to your confidence? Because feeling like everybody would laugh at you when you speak, that that's not a good place to be. How did you handle that internally?

SPEAKER_01 8:16

I think it really crossed me, like it crossed everything I am as a piercing. Um back in my junior high school, I was a very smart boy. I used to represent my school in like district quizzes and all of that. So I was very popular on campus. But that experience from high school really gave me a different version. Okay. You know, people on campus didn't see the version of me that was smart, the version of me that was confident, speaking, just being myself, because of what happened on my first day. So it really crashed me. And then what it actually did was six years after high school, I had to just be home because because of that, you know, I failed a lot of papers from my high school. So the six years after I was, I was just home trying to rewrite these papers. Yeah, so yeah, it's it did a lot to my confidence. I was I was this person who would never speak. I can be very free if I know people, because then I know them, so it's easier to speak. But if I meet new people like me meeting you for the first time, it would have been super difficult to see my name.

SPEAKER_02 9:25

Wow, yeah. So this this shows the impact of a pivotal moment because from what you're saying in junior high, because your confidence was there, you were able to actualize it more. Yeah, but that one pivotal moment in senior high affected you for everything. So it means it affected you for nine years. Nine years because three years in school, six years after. Indeed. If if you could go back and undo that day, would you?

SPEAKER_01 9:53

I don't think I would. Okay. I don't think I would because I think that has also shaped the person I've become. I think every time I need to draw inspiration from something, I look back to those moments, and then you know, I see myself as that person, and then I see myself, and then I can go um come back in time to look at the person that I want to become. So I think I think I would never take anything that happened in the past back.

SPEAKER_02 10:21

So now the big question is how did you rebuild your confidence to overcome the stature?

SPEAKER_01 10:28

How did I do that? I think it was you know, um, it started with me uh getting my first job as an IT guy. And I and then I had this uh manager who really, really wanted me to do all. So she, you know, was pushing me to make presentations, you know, and then in the field of the field that I was in, I was building a whole bunch of automations and then systems and then stuff like that. So I needed to communicate to the team what I've built, you know, and then every time I need to make a presentation or I need to kind of you know like um give a verbal um um um um information on what I have built. Yeah, right. So that was the point where she saw that every time I need to do that, I struggle. Okay, every time I have to stand in front of people to speak, it takes me like forever. A meeting that was planned for 30 minutes can stay longer than that because of the way I was speaking. So she called me in one of our one-on-one senses and said to me, Sam, I see that you really want to excel in your career, but I also see that this is uh becoming something that is having a huge toll on you. So I mean, I'm just speaking from a place of help. I think you need to do something about it. And then she said she knows of some some sort of therapy that I can go through. So if I want, I can take that. And you know, I agree to it from the start. We went through that. I I had to pay about five thousand dollars for that. I went through the therapy with the promise that by the time it was done, I will be this whole new brand new sum that can confidently speak and not have to worry about my starter again.

SPEAKER_02 12:16

No, it didn't sound like a very nice dream. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:21

You know, you know, that's also the thing of today. You see people online and then they paint stories to you, and then it's it seemed like this is the world. Get six pack in three weeks. That's a thing. This guy told me I would overcome my stata in five days. In five days, yeah. So I had to take a whole break from work to go through that therapy five days, and then still nothing, guys.

SPEAKER_02 12:47

Refund that money, okay.

SPEAKER_01 12:50

Yeah, and the thing is usually what happened was I got a whole bunch of um sorry, bunch of strategies and tips to speak in some situations, okay, but it wasn't actually helping with my starter because the thing about starter isn't the way you speak, and this is what I tell the people that I coach that it is actually the story you tell yourself, okay. And so until you change that story, you can have all the tips, the tricks, everything in the world, you will still starter.

SPEAKER_02 13:21

So it's almost like instead of helping you fix your starter, they were they were teaching you public speaking. Public speaking, which is a different problem. You know, somebody who wants to learn public speaking is not the same as someone who's trying to overcome the internal struggle that is leading to the starter, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:37

And you know, I will not discredit them. What it made me understood was um how my starter or what startering actually is, and that I really appreciate. But you know, you go in with the idea that you are going to come out a completely different person, and then at least they should refound how, yeah, yeah, I think I think that would definitely do. So afterwards, I realized that okay, I've wasted this money and I still speak the same. So, what I did was actually trying to find for myself ways to overcome this, and then I realized that why not do the things that I've not been doing all this while? Okay, which was why not put myself in situations I've not been putting myself in all this while. In the past, if I meet new people, I will never be the person to speak first. You would have to speak to me, right? And then every time somebody um speaks to you, you are being forced to speak. And so then you don't get the time to relax and then you stutter. So, what I'm going to do is if I'm in any sort of social setting, I will be the first person to ask, hey, how are you doing? Yeah. Then it calms me down, then I can speak. So, you know, I started um doing that, and then I started going out speaking with people, like random people I meet in the streets. I'll just, you know, like meet a person and be like, hey Charlie, what do you think about this football match? Just to get myself out there. Because every status' biggest fear is to be out because they want to protect this version or this part that they want they don't want people to know. Yeah. So then I'm going to expose that version, and that is what I did.

SPEAKER_02 15:16

Okay. So that that settles an argument because there's an argument that people have on whether confidence leads to action or action leads to confidence.

SPEAKER_01 15:27

Which let me tell you something about that. You see, uh confidence is uh just a repetition. Yeah, it's as simple as that repetition. Why do we say somebody is an expert in something?

SPEAKER_02 15:42

Because they've done it over and over and over and over again.

SPEAKER_01 15:45

To the point that when they sleep, and then you call them, they could just wake up and then recite it. Yeah, the more you do something, the more confident you become in that. So somebody can have a starter, right? But they can learn how to confidently speak to the point that they will speak to you, you never know they have a starter. Yeah. Right? It's it's also the same with people that go to the gym. When the cessparks come, when the arms come, what do they do?

SPEAKER_04 16:13

Sally.

SPEAKER_01 16:13

And then we think that is confidence because they've done it over again and then it is showing. So confidence is actually repeating something um over and over again till it becomes part and parcel of you. Yeah. Right. So every I always tell people that whatever you want to do, and if you really want to get to the peak of it, build confidence in that area.

SPEAKER_02 16:35

I think most people have it backward. Most people watch a confident person, yeah, and they think I can never do what they do because they are confident. Yeah, but they don't understand that doing what they do is what made them confident. Exactly. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 16:51

And that is something that it takes a lot of time and a lot of um pushing people to act, to understand. Yeah. Because you see, we can be here, or um, people can see me or see you and be like, oh, I want to be like him, I want to be like Richie, I want to be like this guy. But what they forget is Ritchie wakes up every day and does the same thing over and over again. Yeah, Ritchie comes here to do the same mastermind with people, different people over and over again. And I'm pretty much sure the first time you started, right? It wasn't this good. You weren't this good, yeah. But now you're confident in it.

SPEAKER_02 17:29

Now I know what I'm going to say even before I say it because it's like you know, yeah, muscle memory. Sally, yeah, yeah. That is that is simply recently. Uh a host I really, really respect, watched Masterminds and said I'm a great host. I was like, Okay, I am, yeah, but I I realized okay, it appears that way only because I keep doing this. Keep doing this. Do you get me? Yeah, there's there's nothing special about me. Yeah, and I think that's what most people don't realize. There is nothing special about anybody in the world if you want to do something, you can just do it. In the beginning, you'll be an amateur, in the beginning, you'll be laughed at because you are not getting good at it. But as you keep repeating it, repeating it, one day you are the person that they'll use as an example to inspire other people to do something.

SPEAKER_01 18:18

Exactly. That's just basically it.

SPEAKER_02 18:20

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SPEAKER_01 18:57

That's that's a very good one. I would say that startering is not something you overcome.

SPEAKER_02 19:02

Really? Oh, you don't stutter. Exactly. That's the point. Where'd he starter? Have you heard him starter even once?

SPEAKER_01 19:09

That is the point. You see, it's not something you overcome, it stays with you all the time. But just like I was saying, if you build confidence in speaking, yeah, right, you can speak, you can be anywhere, and then somebody might not ever think that you have a starter. And so the more you do that, the more you don't even feel it. But you know, it's always there. Sometimes you feel the nudge. And then when you understand how to speak confidently, you know when to breathe, when to take your time, when to pitch up, yeah, and then that is how you go through it. So it's the constant action, constant action.

SPEAKER_02 19:47

And you know, one thing I realized from doing this, when I at first I even just started before the interviews, just filming myself. Yeah, I realized sometimes we judge ourselves more than necessary. Yeah, you know, let's say some days we'll be shooting, and then Barbara McJo can testify to this. We'll be shooting. By the time we finish shooting, I'm like, I don't think I did well. I'm like, why? Yeah, like there were too many breaks. I was pausing to think too much, and then they're like, watch it. And I watched it, I'm like, oh wait, yeah. That break that in my mind felt like for 10 seconds I was pausing to think of what to say next, was like a millisecond on camera. Yeah, so I came to realize I was judging myself in my head. You know, I was my biggest critic. Yeah, so it it taught me to just relax, feel free.

SPEAKER_01 20:35

Yeah, and then let me tell you something about this pause. When you speak to people that actually um makes a lot of sense, they take their time to speak. Yeah, they always have pauses, and then the pause makes the other people curious. So it is something you always have to use to your advantage. Yeah, I like it when I speak with people that take their time because then in my mind I feel like, oh, okay, this guy is going to say something.

SPEAKER_02 21:05

Yeah, and then I believe I know what I'm going to say. I'll pause and then come when you watch great speakers.

SPEAKER_01 21:12

These are some of the skills that they use. Yeah, because speaking takes a huge toll on you yourself, and so you need people to be attentive to listen to what you're saying, yeah. And the way to do that is to kind of, you know, like build their curiosity with those pauses, right? And so, yeah, you might see it as, oh, I didn't do all, but when you look at it from somebody who is just watching you, they watch it and you feel like, oh, Salita Sky.

SPEAKER_02 21:42

Yeah, he's deep. He's deep. You know, one of my favorites Kanye moments, and Kanye has a lot of crazy moments, but somebody a journalist asked them a very serious question. And he paused, he wasn't answering. And then the journalist was asking, and he's like, Hold on, I'm thinking, that's a deep question. I need time to think. I was like, yeah, I like that. I need time to think. Why do I need to rush?

SPEAKER_01 22:06

Always. Always. I when I was going from like a very um huge starter to becoming this confident in fluency, one of the things that I used to tell myself is if I'm speaking to you and you don't have the patience to wait for me to speak, just go. That's fine. I don't want to talk to you. You're not worth my speech. You are not worth my speech. Because the thing is, I will give you all the time for you to say what you want to say. And so I expect that you do the same for me. So if you feel that, oh, this guy is taking too much to speak, just go.

SPEAKER_02 22:40

Yeah. Yeah. I like that. That's true self-confidence. Yeah. Okay, now let's go from being able to fix your startup and build your confidence to unmuted when now you are helping other people overcome it. What led to that?

SPEAKER_01 22:56

Okay, so or maybe first of all, what is unmuted?

SPEAKER_02 22:59

Let's tell them what it is.

SPEAKER_01 23:01

Okay, cool. Unmuted is a confidence and fluency building platform. Okay. Basically channeled towards people who have a starter. Now, when I was growing up, I didn't have something like that. I don't ever recall I ever went online to see a platform or a community where people like my kind were. And so it always felt like I was an outcast. So the whole idea of unmuted is to create a safe space for people that have a starter to come in, build confidence, and improve their fluency. Okay. That's on so that's the whole idea. It started, I'll say last year, September.

SPEAKER_04 23:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 23:45

When I first had somebody who entered my DMA and said, hey, I'm going to pay you $300 for you to coach me.

SPEAKER_02 23:53

You should have paid $5,000 like the other one. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:57

He said he's going to pay me $300 a month for me to coach him. Oh, okay, good. I mean, that that is something good to start with. And so I entered with the mind that I will just help this person with everything that I know. And then one time he sent me this video with a huge appreciation, and that was it. When I saw the video, the way he said the things that he said, the way he was very, very happy with the help that I've been able to give him, that was it. But then in my mind, I felt like, okay, I can help a lot of people. So I decided that I'm gonna build a business around the coaching. And so I started, you know, like putting flyers out, making videos out, you know, asking people to, you know, like, yeah, I can help. Because then, you know, prior to that, I've had a lot of people preach out to me, ask me questions, and then I would always do it for free. I'll just give you like a whole bunch of tips, go and do this. Yeah. But then I see that these same people, they kept coming to my DMs all the time. And then the caveat was that you give them the tips, the tricks, what actually worked for you, but they don't do it. And so they see you, right? Um, even though they have all the knowledge that you use to improve yourself, they are not um applying it. Yeah, so they feel like, yeah, things are not working. Okay. So then the coaching seemed like a very good opportunity for me to bring those people that I've given the tips to in so that I can walk them through the procedure myself. Okay, that is how the whole thing started. I started with like two people, it was going fine, and then I started getting a whole bunch of people reached out to me. And so I realized that oh, there are a whole bunch of people like my kind. And so I did a research and I realized that about 1.5 or 1.8 million people in the world have a startup. Interesting, huge number. That's a huge number, huge number, and then these are the ones that have been recorded. So imagine, especially Ghana here. A lot of people haven't recorded, yeah. Exactly. Right. So it means that the pool is huge, and this is the way even our population number is wrong, how much more? And this is the way my my mind always works. You can find a business in everything, yeah. And so the moment people started reaching out to me that way, I decided, okay, how can I turn this into not just helping people, but also getting myself to a point where I am happy with what I get in so that I can more exactly. Yeah, so I turned it into a business, and that is what you know, that is how the whole unmuted thing um started. And then later on, I felt like it makes sense if I build an app, right, that is more easier for them to kind of you know, like communicate with themselves.

SPEAKER_02 26:57

Yeah, so the whole community is there on unmuted. Yes, that's a very good idea, you know, because um one of the hardest things when you're not feeling confident is feeling alone.

SPEAKER_00 27:09

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 27:10

Yeah, sometimes knowing that okay, other people share your pain, yeah, other people are on the same journey as you, it boosts your confidence a little. Yeah, especially when you see people who've gone further along the journey, then it confirms for you that you can also make it. So it's a brilliant idea. And they say a business is all about solving problems.

SPEAKER_01 27:32

Business is always about solving problems, and especially for us Ghanaians, we usually want to wait till somebody presents to us, you know, an amazing idea, or we wait until the market has been saturated, then we want to enter. I always tell people that if you don't know what to do, ask yourself this very question. What is the one thing that I have found a problem, um, a solution to that people are still struggling with? Okay. Nine out of ten times that is your business.

SPEAKER_04 28:07

Okay, right.

SPEAKER_01 28:08

Because then when you you find that that solution that you found to that problem can become something that you can wrap into a business, and then people will benefit from it, and then you can also make money from it.

SPEAKER_02 28:21

Nice, and you're making money because I saw a mute that is valued at what 350,000 euros. Yeah, I mean, sign some check for me. I need to go and pay some of my bills. Yeah, but you've done well, especially you started 2025, yeah. So then that's very fast growth.

SPEAKER_01 28:38

Yeah, it is, and um, the projection for the next two years is two two million euros.

SPEAKER_02 28:44

Nice one. So, how do I get shares in unmuted? Oh, that one after the comment.

SPEAKER_01 28:48

We can talk about that after the comments.

SPEAKER_02 28:50

When you guys see me spending some plenty of money, it's unmuted money, okay? Yeah, okay. But you also have another baby that's you incorporated, right? Tell me what you incorporated.

SPEAKER_01 29:00

So you incorporated is just me saying to everybody that you are a business, okay, you are a high-performing business. And the the what I mean by that is to be able to build anything, your business, that is you, need to be built first. And everything else that comes out is the byproduct of the first business. This is what 95% of the world doesn't know. And this is what maybe even the five that knows know, but subconsciously they don't think that is what is happening. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:36

And so like Jay-Z said, I'm not a businessman, I'm a businessman.

SPEAKER_01 29:40

I'm a businessman, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 29:42

I'm a business. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 29:45

Yeah. And if I want to deep dive a little bit into you, and it um it is a framework that treats a person as a business with departments. Okay. So we believe that every person has department six. You have your brand, you have your finance, you have your communication, you have your operations, you have your RD, and you have your leadership.

SPEAKER_04 30:10

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 30:10

Right. I yeah, let me try to um break it down for me. Yeah, your brand is who you are. Your your brand is what people say of you when you're not in the room. 100%. Right. Um, if I hear the name Richie, I hear masterminds. I hear um links. Now, lengths and masterminds are the byproducts of your brand. Okay, your brand is that you love, you are exceptional in music, you are an eloquent speaker.

SPEAKER_04 30:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 30:45

That is who you are. Yeah. And then the byproducts are lengths and masterminds. Okay. So it is important for you to understand who you are, understand some of the problems that you you can easily solve that other people cannot do, right? Once you know that, the next phase is to shape that into your next department, which is your finance. Okay. Every time I talk about finance, people think that finance is money. Because, you know, of course, finance. Money, money, money, money, money, money, money. But finance is actually your time and your energy and what that goes into.

SPEAKER_02 31:20

Your resources.

SPEAKER_01 31:21

Your resources. What do you use your time for? How do you like what does your energy go into? You say you want to kind of, you know, like be great, but uh when you wake up, what is the first thing you do? Do you pick up your phone or do you start thinking of how you're going to plan the day? Right? So your finance is how you use your time and your uh energy. Now, the next department is your operations, and that is what you do on the daily every day. I I was speaking to a friend of mine, and then he said something very profound. He said that success is not built in one big step, it is built in tens of thousands of small, little steps being done daily. 100% that you know like really accumulates to give you excess, right? And so, like um your operations is where you actually do the same things every day. You build habits, you build proper systems to make sure that the goal is being achieved, right? And then you move that to your communication. Your communication is how well you can articulate your value. Okay, right. If you should ask me now, I would say that I help young professionals and entrepreneurs overcome confidence so that they can um enjoy the life the way they want.

SPEAKER_04 32:45

Okay, sounds nice.

SPEAKER_01 32:46

Yeah, if I tell you that now, and I walk out and then you meet somebody who has a starter, what will you think of?

SPEAKER_02 32:54

I'll say, Oh, I need to connect this guy to Sally.

SPEAKER_01 32:56

Yeah, that is me, that is my brand. And I have been I was able to um communicate it clearly to you that you can recommend me to people. Okay, and so you as part of you, you need to learn how to communicate and um clearly articulate your value, right? We need to know who you are. If we want to tell somebody about um like Richie, what can we say of him? Right, and that will be based on what you tell us, right? The next thing is your RD. Your RD is your research and development. Basically, what it means is that how you keep up to date with the world, yeah. Now AI is just taking over everything, automations are taking over everything. So if you are the person that still thinks that you need to go to um have your bachelor's and then still look for a job, you might not get because people, businesses are trying to automate those repetitive tasks in their business, meaning that manpower is going down. Right? So you need to learn, right? Keep your yourself up to speed with how the world's going. When you come to unmuted, one of the things that that is really helping us kill is Claude AI.

SPEAKER_02 34:07

Of course. Hey, Claude, yeah. My best friend in the world right now is Claude. Look, Anthropic, you are getting it right. In fact, anthropic, look for me. I know I'm in Ghana, but look for me.

SPEAKER_01 34:17

Claude, Claude, Claude is just doing amazing work for me. My whole marketing, my whole sales is just Claude agents. I have the CMO and I have other small agents working under him. So the CMO says that the CMO speaks to me. Okay, Sam, da da da I give him exactly what I want us to do. He goes back, give it to the small, small agents, they do their work, and every day they give me a report. Nice, right? So, and then look, if I needed to pay people for this, look at the amount of money I would have. And so how much you pay for an agent, exactly. Yeah, so if you are a person who is think um sitting down and not trying to improve yourself, these agents are taking your job away. Yeah, right. So that is the part of your who you are, and then the last thing is your leadership department, and that is basically how you lead your life. Most of us, what we do is we try to give the whole leadership part of our lives in the hands of friends who don't even know how to manage theirs. They say, Okay, let's do this, and then we go. Yeah, we don't even have um control of our own selves. It is all in the hands of people, and so it is important that as a business, you take back that control and then you own it. Yeah, so that is basically the you and principle. That is what we teach, that is what we try to let people know that you are a high-performing business, and every other thing, every success that you ever have in this world comes from treating yourself and then developing that first high-performing business.

SPEAKER_02 35:58

Yeah, yeah, it's a beautiful way of looking at it. You know, I tell my employees that they'll laugh at me because I say this all the time. I tell them that you are not working for me. No, you are working for yourself, yeah, because every individual is a business, yeah. And when you start structuring your mind like that, and you realize worst case scenario, even if you've not broken down to the six parts, see yourself as a CEO, see yourself as a CEO of your own business, your own business. Structure your life. I love the part where you spoke about leadership, yeah, and spoke about the fact that a lot of people are they're relegating their leadership to the people, exactly. Yeah, like it's it's my friend who controls where I go, it's it's my teacher who tells me what to do. My dad. It's my dad, it's the TikTok influencer who tells me what to eat, yeah. You know, yeah, right. You need to get to a point where you take responsibility and start leading your own life. Responsibility. Yeah, yeah. Even if you are being influenced, you need to choose the influence.

SPEAKER_01 36:58

You get me? Yeah, and that is leading your life because you are actually choosing what you want. Yeah, right. People present things to you, right? But you choose, just like you said, you choose that okay, this is what I want to be associated with. Right. Some people they do that in the face that they don't want their friends to feel bad or they don't want to look bad in the eyes of other people. Yeah, but every person that has become successful wasn't a person that was just being available for everybody. They keep to themselves and the world teases them. Yeah, one thing about leading your life that people don't take seriously is that people like to be curious about things, right? And so if you keep things to yourself, the world teases you. Now, let's think of why people become influences. They do that because they present a version of themselves to the world, right? And then you get to like it, so you just click and then want more of that, right? And so they are trying to tell you that okay, this is me, this is me. Nobody is telling me how to live my life. I am doing it the way I want. And then you see it, and then you love it because you are curious about how he's doing this. Yeah, so they are leading their lives, they are leading their lives, and then we are just so obsessed about people leading their life, yeah. And then we want to take how to lead our lives from them just being themselves.

SPEAKER_02 38:26

One of the biggest lessons I've learned in life and in business is that not everything deserves access to you. Your attention is valuable, your focus is valuable, and in this world, full of noise and distraction, the ability to control your world is your true power. Link's reverb was designed for premium sound, complete silence, an amazing clarity. So let's any company in the shop or my website, linkselectronics.com down in the description, and grab yourself a headset. Links reversible another clarity. Listen, you should be learning from the influencer is not even what they are doing, but the way they are doing it.

SPEAKER_01 39:11

What can you pick that would affect your path? Yeah, because their path is completely different. Leadership of you um leading your life is just one of the aspects that people don't really see or take seriously, but that is also one of the aspects that will control if you'll be successful or not.

SPEAKER_02 39:28

Yeah, and how does this begin? I love the life that influencers are living. Like they are being who they want to be. In fact, when I started on this journey, I know somebody who said, Hey, rich man, I'm an inspiration speaker. I said, uh somebody said, Hey, rich man, I'm an influencer, I said, there's there's nothing I think we've we've made ourselves feel like you need to fit yourself inside some personal box. Yeah, but the true people who are living life they don't fit in, yeah, they don't fit in, they do what they want to do when they want to do it, they want to do it, yeah, and that's even why you like them being mysterious, yeah, not being able to tell who they are. Exactly. You don't know what's coming next because you have no idea, even they don't know what's coming next, they're just living, yeah. Yeah, like today I feel like doing masterminds. Maybe tomorrow I won't. You won't open my channel, I won't be here again. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, okay. So let's go back to talking about confidence, right? A lot of people struggle with confidence. I love the fact that you know, because until I watched your content, I had never connected that stuttering can be overcome with confidence. And I think it's even bigger than that because you being able to identify that makes me see so many different ailments, so many different problems that people are facing can actually be overcome with confidence. So, how do you start on that path to overcoming your, you know, whether it's your shyness, whether it's being too timid? A lot of Ghanaians I know are stuck in a little shell and don't know how to break free. How do you start on that journey?

SPEAKER_01 41:09

Yeah, I think this is this is a very, very good one. And this is something that me, my myself, I really struggle with to kind of talk about because it is so simple. It is so so simple. Just do the things you're not doing. Okay, that's all. You see, just like you are saying, somebody is shy. What do they do? They will try to hide. Yeah, they will not put themselves in like um in an open space. If you want to overcome your shyness, put yourself in the open space.

SPEAKER_02 41:44

That's it. That's it.

SPEAKER_01 41:45

Put yourself there one, do it again, do it again. The more you do it, you train this brain that okay, this is the new way I want to live. And the thing is, our brain picks up on things that we repeat. Your shyness didn't come from just doing something once, it can it came from you know avoiding one situation, then you did it again, then you did it again, and then it has chunked up. So your brain knows this is the order of the day. This is the order of the day. Yeah, this is the way I think. And something about habits is that when you do it over and over again, your brain now rewires that okay, this is the new path we need to start following. Exactly what I did. If people can come to me to learn how to speak confidently, the first thing, my first non-negotiable is that if you want me to coach you, you have to understand that you are going to put yourself in so many difficult situations. Can you do that? If yes, I can coach you. Interesting. Because that is the only way you can overcome that confidence. I'm sorry, that self-doubt, that low confidence that you want to overcome. Yeah. Right? See, when people, when you put yourself in like awkward situations, when you put yourself in the places that you wouldn't want to put yourself in, you feel this sort of energy that ah, it wasn't even as big as I thought it was. Yeah, it's not that bad. It's not even that deep. Right? And the more you give that feeling to yourself, the more you begin to like embrace this new way of living, yeah, and the more you now man up. So I always tell people that the first thing you need to do is to accept who you are. Acceptance is the first thing, the key. Okay. People who don't accept themselves, you cannot help them. And that is something that you cannot give to them. They need to do that first. And once they've been able to do that, the next thing you need to do on top is to do the things that you're not doing.

SPEAKER_02 43:53

Okay. That's all. But there's a problem. Tell me. So let's say, let's let me find. Example, maybe a guy who decided to talk to ladies, right? Yeah, then he goes to China. He's watching this video right now, he feels inspired. Yeah, he goes to school tomorrow, goes to talk to some lady, yeah, and she blasts him. Yeah, and all her friends laugh at her. By the time he gets to class, they've already heard oh Kojo, I'm a laugh, I'm crying, blah blah blah blah blah. And in this moment, he is down. Yeah, how does he pick himself up to realize that I need to try again?

SPEAKER_01 44:34

I'm gonna give you two um stories. When I was, I think, 11, 12 years old, I was in form two in junior high school then. There was this girl in my class. The girl was busting my brain at that age. 11, 11 years. That's why 119 understand. And you know, because of the way I I I was speaking, I couldn't really man up, walk up to her, and then tell her, Oh, Charlie, this, this, and that. Yeah, so you know, by then we used to have this really like fancy, like love letter um papers and then pens. So, you know, like I went to buy some, I wrote Charlie war stuff. Yeah, then I sent to to the girl. The next day, I was going to fetch water from from you know, like our community wall. When I walk when I went there, this girl was there with her friends reading my letter, and they were laughing. Oh, Charlie. They were seriously laughing, and then when she saw me, she said, Oh, hey Sam, what's up? And then just that sort of pressure, me seeing them laugh, and then she asking me a question back, I started stuttering like really bad. And one of her friends was like, She understands why I wrote, and wow, and that really daunted my confidence. I think somewhere three, four, five years um back, I went on on a date with this lady. We were texting on text um on um WhatsApp, it was going super fine, like going fine. Then we decided to meet up and then have a drink and all of that. When I saw her, it was nice. We started, we started, and then 30 minutes into the conversation, the lady told me that Sam, I don't think this is gonna work. And then it was like I I knew that it was because of my starter, it was just because of the way I speak. When when she when she went off, she asked if I could send her part of the payment. And then I'm like, okay, let me be my my nice gentleman and then own it up. But this is what that thing told me. It pushed me not to be that person again.

SPEAKER_04 46:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 46:59

This is how we need to think about things. Usually, when something happen when something bad happens to you, we feel like, oh, this is how the world is always going to be. So then let me just lay in it and enjoy. Yeah. We need to now change and tune the way we think about it that I don't want this to happen again. So move from just accepting it as the norm to not wanting to have that same experience again. Okay, right. And that is how I I decided to to train my mind. And so what I started doing was that I want to my I want my next date to be different. So the next time that I was on dates with you know somebody, the first thing I did was to disclose who I am.

SPEAKER_04 47:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 47:44

Usually, uh nine out of the ten times, you will feel a certain way about something because you were trying to hide it.

SPEAKER_02 47:51

True.

SPEAKER_01 47:53

You have been so conscious about it. And then the moment it comes out, it comes out differently to the other people because that is not who they know you to be. Yeah. Right. And so what I thought of my what I thought to do was that I would rather tell them that okay, this is who I am in a funny way, to kind of break the ice. Yeah, the moment you do that, it calms every other person down. Now they know who you are, so you can now feel yourself and then do do your stuff. That's how you build small, small confidence.

SPEAKER_02 48:24

Interesting. Yep. So that means first step is accepting where you are in the situation, exactly. And the second thing is accepting it doesn't mean you have to stay there. Yeah, you work on it until you're able to move there. Yeah. Then the third step is you have to let the rest of the world accept it by being honest about who you are, yeah, and then embracing it.

SPEAKER_01 48:46

Yeah. Yeah. And so this is something that I also did. When I started this whole journey to confidence, what I did was, you know, I like to dress a lot. So then in my on my um sorry, on my socials, I used to have, you know, like dressing, like, you know, really like nice pictures. People would see me and be like, oh, Charlie, this guy, he's wild. But then they will come close to speak to me, and then they will realize that oh, he has a starter, then they back off. Right? So what I did was, okay, I'm gonna delete every other picture. Tell the world this is me.

SPEAKER_04 49:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 49:21

And that's how you know I started the headshot.

SPEAKER_02 49:23

Okay. Yeah, interesting. Yeah. I like that. I want you I want to ask you something.

SPEAKER_01 49:29

Tell me.

SPEAKER_02 49:29

If you could go back to that day, senior high school, where they called you up, and your starter made the whole class laugh at you. Five seconds after that. If you could go and tell young Sam something, what would you tell him right now?

SPEAKER_01 49:44

I think I would tell young Sam to have kept going. Okay. I would have told I would I would have told Yams Young Sam to still speak in class, still proof to the people that this is just who I am. It's okay to have a starter. Yeah. I'm also a person. The thing about startering is it's a condition that you know happens to people once a while. And it's not something that is curable.

SPEAKER_04 50:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 50:14

Right? And so I would have told some that look, this is just who you are. Right. And if people cannot accept you, just accept who you are. I think that is what young some didn't have. Okay. The acceptance of who he was.

SPEAKER_02 50:28

So once you accept you, and I think that's the beautiful thing. You know, there are what right now is about 8 billion people in the world. Yeah. We sometimes make the mistake of thinking 8 billion people need to accept us. Yeah. But we we don't need 8 billion people. We don't need that. Just the like-minded people. Yeah, exactly. One problem with me is one of my greatest strengths. Yeah. I don't really care what people think about me. I believe there are people who are like-minded and they will appreciate me just the way I am.

SPEAKER_03 51:02

Perfectly.

SPEAKER_02 51:03

So if um 7.9 billion people don't agree with me, and just that small fraction also agree with me, I'm I'm fine with it. So most of the things that we worry ourselves with, and we're trying to overcome this so that we're more like other people and we want to show people who we are and stuff, it's like no need, bro. You know, it doesn't. Just be you. Once you accept you, yeah, you will attract the other people.

SPEAKER_01 51:30

The right people. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:32

Who also accept you.

SPEAKER_01 51:33

And then, you know, just on this, you only spend time with a few people.

SPEAKER_04 51:39

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 51:40

Right? It's just always a few people around you. You want to tell like a different story to the entire world, fine. But a few people are the ones that will actually get in contact or in close contact with you. Yeah. And so I don't, I wouldn't sometimes first now knowing what I know, I don't understand why people would want to show up as a different version. Yeah. You always will find the people that understand you and would want to be there for you. As long as you accept yourself first, you will find those that accept you.

SPEAKER_02 52:13

And in that way, you actually end up living a more authentic life.

SPEAKER_01 52:17

Authentic life. Authentic life.

SPEAKER_02 52:19

You can't live the life of somebody else. I only came here to serve time in this prison called as myself. So if I'm going to spend that time trying to be somebody else, trying to please somebody else, then I'm wasting the time.

SPEAKER_01 52:34

You are.

SPEAKER_02 52:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:35

Yeah. No, yeah, it's true. And that is just the beauty of life. That is just the thing that most people don't understand about life. That life is just what it is. Yeah. Leave it and try to be yourself. Give the best um the best things you can to yourself and let it end there. Yeah. Don't don't try to impress anybody. Don't try to be who you are not. Because the more you try to be who you are not and try to give a different impression of what you are not to people, that brings the disappointment.

SPEAKER_02 53:09

Yeah. And the backwards law, the more you are trying to be someone else, the harder it is for you to actually enjoy life. When you let go, everything rather comes to you.

SPEAKER_01 53:20

Yeah. Yeah. And this is something that I give to myself that I'm so much proud of. Because the moment I accepted, sorry, the moment I accepted myself as some, this is me, this is who I am, and this is what I want the world to experience me for. That's when everything changed. Yeah. That's when you know I saw that my life is actually shaping for the better. Um, I I I changed jobs, and in in six months I got a promotion. Yes. Right? I started my platform, and then the um the growth was just like that because I am now being authentic, telling the world this is who I am. And so I I think that this is something that a lot of people need to start looking at. Telling the world who you are, not trying to be something else.

SPEAKER_02 54:08

Yeah, yeah. I need you to do something for me. Tell me. I always like to say, look in that camera over there. Yeah, imagine that somebody who's watching you, who's been struggling with confidence, and they they don't know how they're over going to overcome it. What can you say to that person to give them a mindset shift that will bring them closer to being a mastermind?

SPEAKER_01 54:28

To be in a mastermind. Okay, cool. Um look, the thing is your life is not just the peace that belongs to you. Your life belongs to the whole world. God brought you here, or you exist so that people can experience you for who you are. And so when you feel you're not confident, when you you let the low confident part of you take a toll on who you become, what you are doing is you are depriving the the rest of the world or depriving the people that needs to experience you who you actually are, right? And so just take this work with me. If you are here or if you're watching me now and then you feel very low confident of yourself, please, please start doing the things that you are not doing. Start doing them, put yourself out there. If you want to build confidence in um public speaking, start recording yourself. Start going out, start calling friends and then speaking to them. Because the more you do, the more you become confident in that area. If you want to build confidence in your body, start eating clean. If you fear the gym, put yourself in there. One, two, three times, you'll be comfortable with it, right? Because at the end of the day, whatever version you become is what the world experiences. I always tell people closer to me that I'm not doing this for myself. I'm doing this so that the world and other people that need to know, right? That needs to improve themselves, would also see that okay, this is possible. You can also be an inspiration to somebody by doing the things that you're not doing.

SPEAKER_02 56:17

Sam, look, first of all, I have to say, congrats. Congrats on the fact that you took a challenge and you've used it to become a very well-rounded person. And then you didn't stop there. Now you are letting the blessings that the world gave you also touch other people. And that is the best place to be where now we've gone from being of service to ourselves to being of service to other people.

SPEAKER_01 56:41

Exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 56:43

Thank you so much, and thank you for sharing all this with my dedicated subscribers. Please, have you subscribed? If you haven't, why haven't you?

SPEAKER_01 56:51

Why haven't you?

SPEAKER_02 56:52

Thank you so much, and I really hope this conversation has brought you three steps closer to being the mastermind. I know you are deserving. Thank you for watching this episode. Now, the mastermind's dream is about building a community of people who have the right mindset and are ready to take their success into their own hands. So do me this wonderful favor. Subscribe and share with anybody out there who you believe you want to see have the right mindset to succeed so that together we can all become the masterminds we deserve to be.