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You're listening to the Travis Makes Money podcast presented by GoHighLevel.com for a free 30 day trial of the best all in one digital marketing software tool on the planet, just go to gohighlevel.com travis Life moves on. Let me tell you guys a story. This is the podcast where it's just me, you and the mic, just us, we're just talking. I want to tell you guys a story about one of the most embarrassing moments of my life. Now, I understand that this happened some time ago, but bear with me because it might reopen some wounds of mine. I was a teenager and. Which is probably just in general one of the more embarrassing times of life anyway, just because so much stuff is happening that you have no idea about and there's so much opportunity for embarrassment. Like if embarrassment was a field to be farmed, the majority of the harvest would be taken out during your teenage years. And this is one of those scenarios. So I, I was going to say I was, I was kind of popular. So. So it's weird because I wasn't and then I was, and then I wasn't. I don't know, the way that I grew up was I was in this sort of fundamentalist Christian school from the time that I was in kindergarten all the way through senior of high school, and then I went to college on the same campus. And I've told this story a bunch of times, you know, on the podcast. But what's unique about that is that you could be, you could have all the traits of somebody who is technically somebody that would be popular but also be looked at as like a weirdo. And so I was kind of riding that line for at least, at least when I was younger, like junior high and early high school, because the kids that were high schoolers at the time were just a bunch of a holes, to be honest with you. They were bullies, they were mean, they made fun of me, they made fun of my friends, they made fun of other people who were just like weirdos, just like the weirdo loser kind of kids on campus. They would make fun of them and then I would stand up for them as freshmen to these seniors making fun of like a classmate of mine who was like, mentally challenged. And I would stand up to them and tell them to knock it off and they'd make fun of me for doing that. So. But I was also like, pretty good at sports and stuff. So, you know, my freshman year of high school, I played. I played. I was a starter and team captain on the JV basketball team. But I was also. I made the varsity basketball team. I sat the bench for the most part, but made the team as a. As a freshman, me and one of the freshmen. And I started hanging out with all these, you know, seniors and juniors, the basketball team. And so they had their fair share of their moments of making fun of me and me feeling belittled and rejected. But then by the time I was starting to get up later on into high school and some of those kids were sort of like phasing out and heading into college, I remember being made fun of not liking it. And so, like, for me in my class, because when I started getting older, I was one of the more popular ones because I played a lot of sports and. And frankly, I did everything else too. Like, in that small world, you sort of got rewarded for doing multiple things. So I was doing drama and I was doing speeches and I was doing basketball and football, and then I was doing, you know, I was the captain of Bible quiz team and then do academics and ensemble and singing and everything else. And so when I was getting older, I was more like, hey, let's be nice to everybody because doesn't cost you anything and it feels better to be nice anyway. So I was more just like sarcastic and mean to my friends, which I feel like is a normal thing. But anyway, as I started to get older, I started to get a little bit more bold because it, you know, the. The guard was changing, so to speak. So I think this was heading into maybe my junior year of high school where I was starting to become one of the top dogs on campus type of a thing. And this was during summer camp. It was, I think, the summer, I think, if I'm remembering correctly, I believe it was the summer heading into my junior year of high school. So there at our teen camp, you would. That they would do every summer, the people, the kids who just graduated high school were allowed to come that was like their last year going. So there was graduates, there were people that were going to be the seniors, and there's people that are going to be the juniors. So still a couple, you know, classes that were ahead of me. And we were playing this game at teen camp. It was called tube tug. We played tube tug every single year. Basically, it's like steal the bacon on steroids. They take these, like, big old inner tubes and fill them up with a bunch of air and then set them in the middle of this big old dirt. I mean, it was supposed to be grass, but it seemed like all the places we went to Camp could never keep their grass actually alive. So to be fair, there's a bunch of kids running around on it. So, you know, it's not easy to keep green, fresh grass in that context. But always seemed like there was more dirt than grass. And they throw these tubes in the middle of the thing, and you have two teams on either side. And then they would blow a whistle or whatever, and then you run to the center, grab the tubes, and then pull them back to your side. So hence the name tube tug. So you'd get in, like, tug of wars, you know, like, the first few were always people just grabbing them. But then towards the end, it became, like, real wars to grab this additional tube. And so we play that every year at the end of tube tug. For some reason, I think they just had time to kill or something. Maybe we did all the competitions before the next was set up. And so they were like, well, what should we do here? And they. And they decided to set up the tubes in the middle of the field, stack them in a couple of stacks as high as they could, and then they basically started doing competition to say, okay, each team can select. I don't remember, like, four or five people. And the first one was like, who can run into it the fastest and the hardest to make the tubes go the furthest? So, like, can you run as fast as you can punch into this pile of tubes, and whoever gets there gets one of the tubes to go the furthest in the direction wins or whatever. And the second one they did was a creative competition, Basically, whoever can jump into the tubes in the most creative way possible. And so they were, like, picking people from teams to go do this thing. And they looked at me, and they were like, can you do something? I was like, I can. I think I can do a handspring. And they were like, okay, cool. Well, you go do that, then. So. And I. And I could do one. To be fair to myself, I could do. It wasn't a backhand spring. It's a side handspring. I could do one. And I. We lined up. I was third or fourth to go on my team, and I saw the tubes in my sight, and this is. The whole camp is watching. You know what I mean? So both teams, everybody's watching. You know, all the authority, all of your peers from, you know, junior high age all the way up to secondary, a couple hundred teenagers watching. And get the tubes in my sight. I start running as fast as I can toward them, and then I start gathering to do this handspring, and I My hands hit the dirt, and then I flip myself around, and then before I realized it, I landed. But the problem was when I looked up, I looked to the left of me and realized that the tubes were still standing there, perfectly stacked. So what had happened was I did a handspring, and I missed the entire stack of tubes and didn't even land the handspring because, like, once I. Once I launched off of the floor, I was like, I'm not focused on landing this. I'm trying to, you know, knock over a stack of tubes. So I didn't land it, and I didn't hit the tubes. Completely missed them. So I did the only thing that I knew how to do, which was basically lean into the moment. And I just, like, stood up and threw my hands in the air and was like, yeah, like, I totally meant to do that. And then everybody started laughing. And then, of course, every night at, like, the services, they would show highlight reels of everything that happened during the day. And they, of course, did, like, a slow mo of me missing the entire stack of tubes with the entire audience just laughing their asses off at me. And it was one of the more embarrassing moments of my life. It was funny because my wife and I were talking about this, and we were asking each other most embarrassing moments, and we had told each other the stories before, but it had been a while since I thought about it, to be honest with you. And it led me to this really important realization, and that is that I haven't thought about it in a while. At the time, it was, like, devastating to my social credibility, you know? But even then, I remember thinking when we were at camp, I. That was the only thing on my mind, like, basically the rest of that day was the fact that I missed these dudes. It was only thing on my mind for, like, a couple of days, because I. I thought everybody that looked at me was just thinking that in the back of their mind, replaying that moment and laughing at me. And you start to realize pretty quickly people forget about stuff, and then they just sort of move on. Everybody has their own life to think about. Everybody, especially when you're teenagers, everybody's more worried about what. What people are thinking about them more than they're thinking about what you're thinking about them. So they just. Everybody just kind of moved on fairly quickly. And then again, I was sort of a realization recently where I was talking about this, my wife, and was like, I haven't thought about that in so long. It was so embarrassing. And. And at the time seemed like such high stakes. Yet here I am, you know, 16 years later, whatever, which makes me sound super old. But yeah, probably about, probably about that. Probably about 16 years later. And guess what, guys? I'm okay. Nothing happened. Nothing. I lived a life afterwards. People went their own way, I went my own way. They did their thing, I did my thing. My wife was there at that camp. Literally she was there. We knew each other in high school. Like she was at that exact camp. And I had to jog her memory and remind her about it and she didn't even remember it at first. And we were like talking at that time. This is how, this is how ridiculous it is that you are allowing the fear of embarrassment to prevent you from chasing the life of your dreams. Because the stupid shit that you're worried about right now will not matter. It probably won't matter in a month from now, let alone a year from now, let alone in 10 years from now, let alone in 50 years from now. Yet we let this risk of embarrassment prevent us from tackling the smallest of risks in our lives because we're just so afraid of the perception of what other. What are they going to think? What happens if I announce this publicly and then I fail publicly? What happens if I say I want to do this thing and then I, I, I, I miss the mark completely? What are people going to think of me? How is that going to affect my reputation? Am I ever going to be able to work in this town again? You know, it's just you are so worried about it and it is preventing you from, from pursuing the life of your dreams. Like, that's the whole, if you look at the risk to reward thing, that just doesn't, it doesn't make any logical sense whatsoever. It's like this small moment of embarrassment that nobody will remember long term, especially not anybody who's close to me. They're not going to remember any of this stuff. You know, the, and the, the people who are that close to me aren't going to care. The people who do care are not that close to me and by definition probably won't even be my be in my life in five years from now, let alone remember any of this stuff or have it impact my ability to be successful at this point. And yet the reward on that risk is so high. Like we're talking about, we're talking about the ability to live your dream life. Like, like if you've never done this, take this, take a second. I do this at least once a year, right? Or I do, it's called A Day in the Life essay and I take the time to write out a small essay of exactly what my ideal day looks like. Here's what it like I wake up to this day thing or I I want my shades to automatically open to the sunrise and the light comes in and wakes me up naturally. And then I get up and I do some stretches on my balcony in the and bask in the glow of the sunlight. Like you write out everything that you want out of a dream day in the life of this is the lifestyle I've created for myself. Write that out. Feel it, touch it, smell it, get in a glimpse, meditate on this is the future state that I want my life to be. And you're going to sacrifice that potential ideal future lifestyle because you're afraid to be embarrassed for a day and a half with something that nobody's going to remember or give two shits about in five years, let alone 50? It just doesn't make any sense. And even if people do remember it, is it going to. Is it going to have any sort of, you know, social consequences? Probably not. Definitely not long term. And then the bottom line is this is kind of crappy to think about sometimes, but it also is pretty helpful to reframe how you're thinking about it now. 300 years from now, nothing will matter. None of this stuff will matter. None of the people that you're worried about will be alive to even care about any of the stuff that you're worried about right now. It just, it does not make any sense to continue to sacrifice the future version of the ideal life that you want to create for the fact that you don't want to risk failing a little bit, or you don't want to risk that this person from high school is going to see that I attempted this thing and they're going to make fun of me for it. And they'll never even tell you about it if they did. Like they're going to talk anyway. Who cares what they end up talking about because they don't have any. Say anything. And what happens in your life on a day to day basis. Stop making all of your decisions to avoid the potential risk of embarrassment when the reward is so much greater than the little bit of pain that you may or may not experience from the little teeny tiny bit of embarrassment that you feel because you didn't do this thing, or you didn't accomplish what you set out to accomplish, or the picture looked different, or you failed completely and fell flat on your face. Who cares? Get up. Try again. Take another at bat, swing that bat again, shoot for the fences again. You never know what's going to happen. Stop letting the fear of embarrassment run your life. I'm telling you, this will be one of the biggest things that you regret. So hope you enjoyed that story. I know, I know. It was interesting for me to think back on it because of how much I internalize that embarrassment at the moment and then for how long I just completely forgot about it. So anyway, that's it for today's episode. Thanks so much for tuning in. Catch you guys next time. Peace.