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5:00am I'm up with a crisp Celsius energy drink running 12 miles today. Grab a green juice, quick change and head to work. Meetings, workshops. One more Celsius. No slowing down. Working late, but obviously still meeting the girls for a little dancing. Celsius Live Fit. Go grab a cold refreshing Celsius at your local retailer or locate now@celsius.com.

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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 hey everyone. Welcome back to the show. This is another solo show, just me, you and the mic today. And we're continuing a little bit on the life lessons angle that we started last episode. This is if you're, if you didn't listen to the first one. Basically, for the last decade or so since I've really been pursuing personal development and reading a lot and listening to a lot of audiobooks and podcasts and everything, whenever I get something that, that I just, I found that was really helpful for me or whether it's something that I thought about, it's a quote that I wrote down, it's an excerpt from a book, or it's my thoughts around something, I basically just started taking notes about it. So I have this like long document of just a bunch of life lessons and there's like 70 something things on this list. And so the first episode we went through, I think about 10 of them. So we're gonna just start where I left off on that episode. So let's go ahead and jump in on the next one, which is you don't have to like someone to learn from them. When I first started podcasting, I saw this happen in real time because I was new to the space. I was, I was, you know, green to the podcasting industry. I was new on the scene and I would learn from basically everybody. But then what I noticed was that there were some people who like, we would hang out at conferences or we would spend some time together and I would tell them some things about what was working for me and then they would immediately start shooting down the things that I was saying because it didn't follow the traditional sort of podcasting wisdom of when they started, which was four or five years prior to when I started. Yet when I saw the results that I had versus the results that they had, it was clear that what I was doing was working better than what they were telling me to do. And I remember internalizing that at that time and thinking, like, man, you guys are, like, leaving a lot of, you know, room on the table, a lot of growth on the table here, because you're just wildly averse to learning from somebody who is behind you in podcasting years. And to be fair, I was also behind them in regular years, too, because I started my show when I was 24. So it was probably a couple of things. It was like, well, you're. You're new to podcasting, and you're only 25, 26 years old. You know, you only been doing this for a couple of years. I know better because I've been doing this for way longer, and I'm 40 and whatever else. And so. But again, it was like, yeah, but also the results are what matters, I think, like, if I'm, you know, if I'm being objective about this, like, you can keep patting yourself on the back all day long if you want to, but clearly the strategy that I'm using here is working better for me than what you've been doing for the past few years. So why are you allowing this? To prevent you from being willing to even acknowledge that this is a good path. Like, it'd be one thing if they were just like, yeah, but I don't want to do that. Okay, great. Totally fine. Like, we're. We're on the same page. But for. For them to just to push back against the results that I was seeing was just so silly to me and strange to me. And then I had the experience of having podcasted for quite some time, and then seeing people who started after I did blow me out of the water. And my initial gut reaction was to be completely averse to anything that they were doing because I was just like, I've been doing this longer than they have. I deserve the success that they're seeing. Why am I not seeing it? And I felt myself falling into this. This. This veteran trap of man. Well, I've been doing this longer, therefore I know better, and what you're doing shouldn't be working. So I'm going to keep doing what I'. And I had to take a moment to adjust my own thoughts behind that and go, you know what? Just because that person's been doing it for, you know, less time than I've been doing, it does not mean that they don't know what they're doing, because clearly they're getting some results that I'm just not seeing. So what are they doing that I am doing incorrectly right now? And this eventually Would ultimately started leading me down the path of doing like in person interviews, in studio interviews and, and doing a lot of it on in person so that we could put it onto YouTube and things like that. Like we wouldn't have done any of before because before it was like when, you know, when I started the podcast, it was, it was you either start a podcast or you start a YouTube channel. They're sort of, they're sort of adversarial. It was, it was like schools of thought. Which one's better? Should you podcast or should you do YouTube? Now? It's silly to say that because they literally live. They're, they're the same. They're, they're one in the same. If you have a podcast, you're not putting it on YouTube. It's like, why aren't you doing that? Even if it's just zoom screen interviews or even if it's just you talking directly to a camera, doesn't matter. You should be putting on YouTube because more podcasts are consumed on YouTube than any other single plat comparatively to Apple podcasts or to Spotify or whatever. So there were several things like that that took me a while to learn. But I watched people far surpass my own, my own podcasting success and did it really, really well. So I had to defer to them. And it was not easy, let me tell you that. Especially when you don't like the person, it makes it even worse when it's like, yeah, they're, they're, you're younger than me or they're more successful than me or whatever. But then you add in the third layer of like. But I don't even really like them as a person. It's like matter are. Is what they're doing, getting them results, yes or no? If the answer is yes, then you probably have something to learn from them. Barring this is this should go without saying but anymore feel like it doesn't. So I have to say it. Barring any, anything that is illegal or immoral or unethical. Of course that's not what I mean. I just mean like just not liking somebody, not liking their personality for some reason is not a reason to just not learn from them if they're getting the results that you want to be getting. So you do not have to like someone in order to be able to learn from them. Next thing here on the list, you can choose to catastrophize the unknown or trivialize the unknown. One leads to anxiety and the other to peace. So you can catastrophize what you don't know or you can trivialize what you don't know. And only one of them is going to lead you to a path of peace. Now, I have found use in catastrophizing the worst case scenario in a lot of senses. Like if I'm looking at making a big decision, taking a big risk, I, I allow myself to catastrophize the worst case scenario. Like, what is the absolute worst case scenario? And what would that look like if that ended up happening? And I like that exercise because most of the time it's not as bad as you think it's going to be. And even if it is as bad as you think it's going to be, it's not as bad for your life as you imag. It's going to be, if that makes sense. So what I mean is like, okay, worst case scenario, I spend three years doing this thing and then I make no money and I have a bunch of debt and I, I am starting from scratch in three years from now. It's like, that is a bummer of a scenario. Nobody wants to be in a scenario like that. But if you truly imagine that as a worst case scenario, but you know, in the back of your head, like, okay, but I have this degree to fall back on, or I have this skill set that I can fall back on, or I have this relationships, they have these relationships that I fall back on. I can get this job here. Like, there's, there's some, there's some things that I could do that. If that were the worst, if that worst case scenario did actually end up happening, I, I would, I would probably be totally fine. Meaning that like, I would probably still have a roof over my head. I would probably still know where my next meal is coming from. I would probably still have access to clean water. Like there, it's, it's. If you look at the totality of what life has to offer you, you're probably going to be just fine. Even if the worst case scenario ends up happening. And that has been a very useful exercise for me. However, in the context of this particular lesson that I learned, I. This is, this is not necessarily what I meant by it. I meant to say that it's sort of that idea of worry is just faith that something bad is going to happen. So stop having faith that the bad part is going to happen and start having faith that the good thing is going to happen. And yes, I re. Deal. I, I realize that sometimes that require. There's a ridiculous level of delusional Optimism, but also, by and large, people who have delusional optimism tend to be more successful in life for a reason. Optimists tend to have better lives than pessimists do. And part of, and that's part of the reason why I think that it's more difficult to be successful the more intellectual you are, the, the quote, unquote smarter that you are. I think it's more difficult to be successful because it sounds smarter to be pessimistic. It sounds smarter to be skeptical. And if you' not careful, you can, in pursuit of intelligence, start sacrificing your own dreams because you are telling yourself that the realistic version of what this path is going to offer to you is not going to be good, that the statistics are against you, that the, the odds are against you. There's just no way you're going to see success in this thing. So then you allow yourself just to play small instead. And that is a pretty bad case scenario to me. So you can catastrophize the unknown. Like, you know, I'm going to go down this path and I'm going to shoot to build this whatever $10 million business, or I'm going to build a million subscriber channel on YouTube or I'm going to write a New York Times bestseller or whatever. You can, you can look at the unknown and go, well, look at all the bad things that could possibly happen to me. And you could spend your time worrying about the bad things and thinking about the negative things and sitting in the reality that the odds are against you and that statistically it is unlikely that you will be successful in that. Or you can choose to trivialize the unknown and say, look, I don't know what's going to happen, so why am I going to sit here and worry about what's going to happen rather than just have faith that something good is going to happen. So you can choose to catastrophize the unknown, or you can choose to trivialize the unknown. And only one of them leads to peace, the other one leads to anxiety. So choose carefully. Okay, here's one that I think is really widely applicable to basically everybody. Master the cold open and watch opportunities multiply. Now, obviously, when I'm looking at this, I see it in the context of being a salesperson, because that's what I did for the first few years of my career was just door to door sales, which is quite literally cold opens. It's, it's, it's like a hundred cold opens every single day. But you also, you also can Learn a lot from those opportunities. You have the ability to, you, you, you basically are building the muscle of continuing to be courageous even though you know that rejection is probably a more likely scenario in any given scenario. Meaning that like if your close rate is not over 50%, it means that more often than not you are going to get rejected. And it's is really difficult to maintain a frame of optimism while you know that that is statistically accurate. But you still have to maintain the frame of optimism and think that, okay, but yeah, the last seven things didn't go well. The last 14 doors I knocked on were really terrible. But this next one, I smell a deal coming. Something, something good's coming, coming my way on this one. So it, it exists in a sales context, but obviously. But then you start looking at it across the board when it comes to just talking to people, managing people, leading people, getting a spouse, like dating, making new friends, building relationships with high quality people in your space, building a strong network of people around you. All of these things typically come from just a cold open, but people are so afraid to do that. I had a behavioral scientist on my other show, Travis Makes Friends recently who was talking about that. There was a group of, I think it was college, like graduate level college students who were surveyed and asked how important networking was to professional success. And almost all of them rated it as one of the most important things that you can do for your professional success is to get to know other people and to network, to build a strong network. Yet when they followed those people to a networking scenario, like a networking style event, almost none of them ever ventured outside of the social circle that they came into that event with. So even though all of them agreed that it was something that they should be doing, almost none of them were willing to just break out of the circle that they came to the event with and go talk to somebody new. It's just mastering the cold open. It's just getting comfortable by saying, hey, I'm Travis, what's your name? Or hey, I see that you're, you have a pair of Jordans on. You know, when was your first pair of Jordans? Why like is, is you a basketball fan? You just like fashion. Oh, I noticed, I noticed you have a Samsung and not an iPhone. What, what's making you hold out? You know, is there anybody who hates the fact that you have a green bubble in the group chat? Hahaha. Like just getting used to saying one thing to somebody who you don't have any reason to say anything to, if you can master that Opportunities in your life will multiply, I guarantee you. Master the cold open and watch opportunities multiply. And again, even in a dating scenario, like, you still will be rewarded for the volume of times that you go, just talk to somebody. Just say something. It does not always have to be with the intent to get them back home or to marry them immediately. It's just with the intent to have an opportunity if that opportunity presented itself. You just never know what's going to happen from saying hello to somebody. So just get comfortable with and get courageous. Get. Get courageous enough to start so that you can get comfortable with that, with that cold open. And I promise you, opportunities will begin to multiply. Next. Things that are awesome are equally not awesome. I still struggle with this to this day because I, my wife and I have talked about having more kids. And it's one of those things in life that is absolutely the embodiment of this. It's like having kids is the most awesome thing that life has to offer, in my opinion. It's just. Just, it's. It's unprecedented there. There's just not much else that I think life can reward you with is having kids. And by the way, I've had lots of successful people on my show, and, and even the people who have crazy success still point to their kids as like their most, you know, their. Their biggest success story. And I think that they're. I think that success leaves clues, and I think that's. That's, you know, one of those things that, that you can't get around. But also, having hits is sometimes not that awesome when, when you're trying to just relax for one freaking second and then your kids are arguing about the dumbest little thing on the face of the planet and they're screaming at each other and the house is in chaos and there's sticky messes on the counter and there's toys that you're stepping on in the middle of the night on when you're trying just to go to the bathroom without waking people up, or when you're getting bad sleep because your kid came in in the middle of the night and they're sick and they're coughing on you and they're kicking you. Yeah, not that awesome. But things in general will typically suck to the degree that they are also awesome. So a lot of people, what they do is they engineer their life to avoid the responsibility of the not awesome parts of everything, but then they don't get to experience any of the awesome things, right? So, like doing whatever of running a marathon or, Or Doing an Ironman or something like that. The work that is required to be able to train to do those things accordingly and effect. Not that fun, not that awesome. But man, like stepping across the finish line when you ran 26 miles, that feeling is awesome. When I did the, the 40 or 40, a 40 mile run in the middle of the night at a 38 mile run and the 38 mile one is actually more difficult for me because I was, I was not super prepared. I didn't really train at all for it. I just decided to do it. I didn't even have proper shoes. I didn't know what to expect because I'd never even ran a marathon, let alone anything, you know, over a marathon. I don't think I've ever ran a half. I did a half Marath in the, the Spartan Beast. But even that was not really a half marathon because it has a bunch of obstacles and it's a little bit different. You're walking some of the ways just to catch your breath. Took us like eight hours for a quote unquote half marathon. That wasn't really a half marathon. So I'd never really done anything up to that point. And then I all of a sudden did 38 miles and yeah, it sucked. It. It was not fun. My, my, my feet were all messed up. At the end of it. I had massive blister from like the, the bottom of my big toe all the way down, like halfway down my foot. It was no joke, probably three or four square inches like of like half of my foot was basically a blister on my left foot. But because that happened on mile three or four of that run, I was favoring my right foot and then, or I was favoring my left foot. So I was putting more pressure on my right foot and something happened like mile 20ish. So I had 18 more miles after this happened where like there. Something clicked like in my, in my right foot. And I still to this day don't know what it was. It was a hairline fracture. I don't know exactly what it was, but it, I started limping immediately. It was the first time that I, that I went from a jog to a walk after, after 20 miles. It was 4:00 in the morning, it was pitch black. I was by myself. The group that I was with, the, the two guys that I was with were two, three miles ahead of me. And I really, really, really wanted to quit in that moment. Cause I was just limping along and was just like, I have 18 more miles to go after this. And yeah, it sucked. And by the end of it, you know, when I got done with it, I could barely walk. I was on crutches for like three or four days afterwards because my feet were that messed up. Took off my shoes. It. My. My left foot, like I said, that blister, it was a blood blister. You could poke it and see the blood move from one side to the other side. And then my other foot was literally black and purple and blue all on the side of it from whatever. From. From whatever happened during the run on that one. And yeah, it sucked. But also the feeling of, the feeling that I got at the end of that run, the feeling of accomplishment that came when I, When I got that. It was. It was like any drug that you can experience, man, it's like things that are awesome are going to be probably to the same degree that they're awesome. They're probably going to be not awesome. So, however, what are you going to do? Just never do anything because there's some crappy things that come along with doing awesome things. I just don't. It just doesn't make any sense as a way to go about life. So you just have to accept the reality that if you choose to do awesome things, that there will be a bunch of really not awesome things that come along with that and that the sacrifices will be inevitable. So either choose a life of meaningful mediocrity, which to me is the ultimate form of something that's not awesome. You know what I mean? Like, like you're. You're doing all of this stuff to avoid the pain of the things that are awesome, when in reality, all it just really means is that you're guaranteed to embrace the pain of just having a crappy life, which to me is way worse than attempting things that are awesome and dealing with the not awesome things about them. So, yeah, things that are. That are awesome are equally not awesome. That is. You know, I was gonna go on another one, but we're coming up on the 20 minute mark, so I'll go ahead and cut it off there. We'll keep doing. Keep walking through some of these on, on future episodes here. But I appreciate you all for tuning in. Remember, remember to reach out to me @travischappel on Instagram, tag me, shoot me any questions or topics for future episodes. And I look forward to hearing from you guys over there. Thanks for tuning in. Catch you guys in the next one. Peace.