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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 Calm is a skill, Chaos is a choice. Welcome back to the show. Today it's just me, you and the mic and we're talking a little bit about being calm and, and working on that skill set. We all have sort of natural dispositions when it comes to receiving news and deciding we're going to be, you know, jump for joy, clap your hands, scream to the top of the mountains about how excited you are versus, you know, being calm, cool, collected and accepting the information, processing it first and then having a reaction later. Now this is something that is not new. You know, the stoics back in the day, stoicism really put out this, this, this sort of a concept is basically you can't control what happens to you in life, but you control how, how you react to what happens to you. So this is sort of how I started thinking about this a little bit more, was through my study of stoicism because I've, I've found that to be a really helpful value system, but it's also been really helpful in a business context. And it's probably one of the underrated skills that has made me more money than any of the other, like soft underrated skills that are out there because it's not something that's easily, I guess, trained or talked about very much. But I call it reaction management. It's funny actually, when I had Dan Martell on my show, he's a big entrepreneurial influencer, I said, I call it reaction management. He was like, that's good, I'm going to steal that. So Dan, or anybody who's watched Dan's stuff, if he says reaction management, that came from me. Okay, you're welcome. So the way that I look at it is basically if, if constantly you're giving away all of your thoughts or feelings or emotions around something especially Especially, especially when you're inside of like a negotiation or something like that, then you're giving away your position. The goal is to have some sort of a poker face. Now this has bitten me in the ass sort of from a personal perspective, because I also do this. It's sort of like bled into my personal life a little bit. So, you know, my wife gets me something for Christmas that she's super proud of, and I don't have like a crazy over the top, oh my gosh, thank you so much reaction to it. And so I've had to, I've had to normalize a little bit. I had to, I've had to try to compartmentalize personal professional life because I know that that's important when somebody's giving you something that they've worked hard to give you, that they, they want to see that reaction, that's sort of like the gift that you can give back to them, is reacting better for them. So I've, I basically just, I had a conversation with her back when, when she initially, like, brought it up to me, and I basically was like, well, do you want, do you want me to fake it? Because I absolutely can. You know what I mean? Like, I like. And if that matters to you, I will, you know, if that's something that, that you want to see from me, like, I will try to try my best to have as much of an over the top reaction as I can so that you feel good about this. And she was like, no, I don't necessarily want that. I just want, you know, some sort of, you know, appreciation shown about this thing. So now I'm just really, I, I just take the time to do it in my own way. So instead of, you know, reacting like a giddy schoolgirl, clapping my hands, jumping up and down, which just is not my typical disposition anyway, I, I, it's just I try to intentionally pull her aside, look her in the eyes, and just express genuine gratitude and appreciation for it, which she has also expressed to me, has filled that gap a little bit. But in a business context, though, this is a skill that I think is wildly underrated and very useful. And then to give another example, sort of like personal life where it actually is beneficial is like you're in a negotiation with a realtor, you're in negotiation with a car salesperson or something like that. And there's been times where my wife and I were both there and the person that we're talking to would say something and then she would react in this of like, oh, wow, that's a good deal, you know, and in the back of my mind, I'm like, don't. Don't let them know that it's a good deal, because then that's. That's the one they're going to stick with. And we don't know if that was a good deal. They're just throwing a number out. You thought it was a little bit better because the perception was there, but it's like, I don't know if it's actually a good deal. Let me vet it a little bit. But now you've thrown all our cards on the table by having this, you know, reaction and actually saying the word sounds like a good deal or whatever. So in the context of making money, this has probably made me more money than most things. I remember this one time I was running a podcast guest booking agency, but we also did some podcast production work on the side for unique select clients. And I remember I was having this conversation with a guy one time. He was introduced to me by a mutual friend of ours, and we sat down for coffee in Vegas because he happened to be traveling through Vegas. And the context of the conversation was, hey, I want to get booked on more podcasts. And that's what we did at the time. So when we sat down, that was the initial entry point of the conversation. And this is sort of also just sales psychology in general. I did not immediately just go, okay, great, well, we can do that. Let's do this. Here's our pricing, here's our. Here's what we charge. Here's what we can do. I dug a little bit deeper and said, okay, well, why do you want to do that? And he started explaining to me why. And I was like, okay, well, how many shows have been booked on so far? Turns out he'd already been on, like, 300 podcasts, the majority of. And a lot of those ones were podcasts that I had relationships with that I was planning to get him booked on anyway. So it was just sort of like we started getting more into the conversation, and I was like, I don't know, man. It sounds to me like you kind of got this nailed down. Like, you know, I mean, obviously there's still room to get booked on other podcasts. I'm not saying that he tapped. He tapped it completely, but I was also like, in terms of what we can do for you, or in terms of bang for your buck, or in terms of what I view as, like, the next step for you in particular, for what your personal brand will require at this point, frankly, I think what you need is the ability to start building your own audience when people start searching you out from the appearances that you're doing, you know, because it's all also somebody who is getting booked on a bunch of stages, who's speaking live in front of audiences of a thousand, two thousand people across the country. You know, he's, he's actively getting pr, is actively getting booked on stages, actively getting booked on podcasts. And I sat down with him just like, look, man, I, I don't think any of these things are what you are, what we should be doing for you. It looks like to me you got a pretty good system for this. You guys at least have a bunch of inbound opportunities. I was like, what I think you need is your own podcast. I think that you need to have a vehicle to build your own audience once people discover you from the podcasts and stages that you're, that you're doing. And so he said, okay, well what would, you know, what would that look like? And I was like, oh, well, you know, we don't really, we don't really do that very often just because frankly it's, it's pretty expensive. You know, I've have a pretty good system dialed in with my team now. We do a lot of content, we do all of our own stuff really well. We do this for one or two other people. But you know, if you're an H
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It would be, it'd be pretty expensive. And this is where the reaction management comes in, because younger me would have been word vomiting and jumping for joy. When he expressed that this being expensive was not an obstacle for him. He was, he was basically just like, okay, cool. Well, like, define expensive, like how much, you know. And I was like, I was like, I don't know, off the top of my head, you know, I'd have to come up with sort of like a customer proposal based on what we're looking at. But like off the top of my head, you know, it would be, it'd be, you know, 15, 20 grand a month, something like that, for us to be able to do something like this. And he was like, okay, yeah, it's not a problem. Just put a proposal together and we'll talk about it. And again, the inside I was sort of jumping for joy. I was like, oh, wow, okay, well if we're actually going to put something together like this, then we're talking about, you know, a 12 month contract that, you know, five figures a month, we're talking about a six figure contract on an annual basis. This is like realized revenue right now is the end of the year. And, and so instead of assigning my own values in terms of what pricing was expensive and you know, what the outcome was going to be, I basically let him lead that portion of the conversation. And the way that he expressed it was like, well this, I mean, it's not a big deal. Just as long as we make sure that we're getting what we're going to, what we want to get from you, then sure, whatever, send it over. So I met with my team that night and then I shot over a proposal later that night. And the next day he got back to me, was like, yeah, yeah, looks good. And then I even took another shot and was like, hey, I don't know if you need a write off at the end of the year. It was like November, December or something like that. It was about to be the end of a year. And I was like, but if you want to, if you want there, you can do it on a monthly basis. We can just work together monthly or you can just pay the whole thing if you're looking for a write off, whatever. He was like, oh yeah, let's just do that. So I, and I'm not 100 and I can't say whether or not that this deal would have happened or would not have happened one way or the other. But I, but I know that it probably would not have been as easy of a psychological yes for him if he saw in my eyes the excitement that I was feeling on the inside to say, like, oh, this is going to be a, like an actually solid good contract with a high degree of cash collected, you know, before we even execute anything. And if I had given that off, it sort of gives this energy of desperation that says like, that says like, this person's getting a little too excited about this. Like, is this the first time you've ever done this? What's, what's the deal here? It sort of prompts the desire to ask more questions about the situation rather than just engaging into the business discussion a little bit more. So I kept calm, kept cool and collected, sent it over and then it ended up being the single, The. The. The single biggest wire we've ever had as a business because they sent us 150k all at 1 time to produce a podcast for him over the course of the next 12 months. Now, of had expenses associated with that, so it was an all profit. But my point is to say that if I had reacted with this, like, again, giddy school girl. Oh, you, that. That's not a big deal for you. And then sort of showcased the excitement on my face, then it might have raised more red flags in his mind. And there's been several times this has happened across the course of my career where people throw out a number and inside I'm like, jumping for joy and I'm like, wow, that's awesome. But also, this is the first number they threw out, which means. It probably means they're willing to go a little bit higher as long as the value's there. So it gives me, it gives me the ability to play the hand that I've been dealt. And in terms of, like, if you want to liken this to a poker setting, rather than, you know, signaling to everybody at the table, the cards that I have because I'm just so excited, I got Delta, pair of, you know, pocket aces or whatever. So you, you, your reaction matters. And this goes for personal life, professional life. Any. Any situation where you are there, there's. There's social Dyn play and you're trying to come out on top and you're trying to make sure that you set you, yourself, your company up for success. Try to mitigate any initial reaction that you feel and get more of the information and then move forward with this sense of calm. Like, this is, you know, this is like clockwork for us. 150 grand, whatever. You know what I mean? Like, we do this all the time. Like, if you can give away this energy of, like, it's all good. Yeah, that's totally normal for us. Or, you know, somebody throw again. Somebody throws out a number that you're like, wow, that's like double what I've ever gotten paid. Before you start showing those types of emotions on those types of calls, it's going to raise more red flags. And that person might be like, oh, did I just. Did I just, like, shoot myself here by, by getting in touch with this person? Can they even do the thing that they're claiming that they can do for me? So reaction management will help you More than any other soft skill, the calm people are going to be the ones that are going to win long term because you have to, you have to separate, you have to separate the panic from your mind. You know, whether it's good news or it's bad news. It's like, I don't want, I don't want to give the other party any indication of how I'm feeling about it until I can decide what I'm actually feeling about it. You know, even when it's bad news, I've gotten bad news before where like an employee or team member will come to me with something that they're like, this is really terrible news. This is, this is really bad. And it's like, as a leader, you can't just engage into that immediate mode of desperation and panic. It's just they, they present the information to me. The information should not be deemed as bad or good immediately. Your react is not what makes the information good or bad. It's what you do with the information that makes it good or bad. So if somebody's giving you this quote unquote, bad news, or at least news that in their mind is bad, and you react like it's nothing, then you can give this sense that, like, okay, as a leader, as a leader, these things are not going to shake me. These things are not going to make me question everything that we're doing. I'm not going to react with this like, you know, the way that they're expecting me to react, which is like, oh my gosh, well, well, what happened? Tell me what, you know, did they get what they were promised? Did they, did they make the payment on time? Like, what, what's going on? Like, you start engaging this desperation. All it does is further proliferate this idea that this is something that we should all be scared about or worried about. And again, there are no good or bad events. Only our perception makes them so. So start working on this as, as a skill. You know, like just train yourself to, to remain steady regardless of the news that was just delivered to you. And this can, again, this does not have to be with the most. You don't have. You don't have to start training on this with the most exaggerated examples. You can start with little things. You know, your kid gives you a piece of information or your spouse gives you a piece of information that they would normally think is good or bad rather than just, you know, engaging immediately. Whatever emotional reactions you have, take a second to think about it. Think about it, like floating out of your body. You Know what I mean? Like, think about it from like, if it was possible to separate you from your body, you could float up from your body and you could, and you could see this situation unfolding from as objective, effective of a third party stance as you possibly can. It's obviously impossible because you're not a third person or a third party. But if you can just get the information as if you are a third party, like you are a mediator almost between yourself and the person that's giving you this news, whether good or bad, and you can sort of see yourself floating outside of your body and looking at this situation objectively from somebody who has no stake in the matter. And then you can move forward with that level of calm. Then you'll probably find that the problems will be less of a problem and that the rewards will be less of a, less of a surprise. And then you'll probably attract more of those opportunities later on. So try not to react with whatever you're feeling in the moment. Try to take a beat, take a second step back and allow yourself to digest the information for a second before you just come in and overreact again. Overreact in a positive way or overreact in a negative way because maybe you don't even have all the information. This happened super recently. It was like a family situation where we got some bad news about a relative. And I did not allow myself to catastrophize the situation in my head until I got more information. I got more information within 30 minutes and turns out everything was totally fine. But I could have allowed myself to freak out and overreact and post on social and do all these other things. And when in reality I had no reason to be reacting like that because the information wasn't even good information when I got it. So don't just try not to react in your feelings, man, to pull yourself, try to separate your emotions from the situation as much as you possibly can and realize that, that there are no good or bad events and only your perception makes them good or bad. This is, by the way, what makes people lose a lot of money. Not even just in the context of negotiating deals or winning projects, but also in the context of investment portfolios. You see that the housing market is potentially going to crash or something, so you freak out and you sell all your properties or you see that the stock market market, you know, dipped by 40%. This massive corrections happening, so you take all your money out of the stocks. It's like the, the, the people, the only people who lost when it comes to their stock portfolio in the 2008 crash, which was objectively terrible. And a lot of people woke up with their net worth getting decimated. Decimated. And I understand that this is sort of an age group type of a thing, too. If you're 78 and you saw your portfolio get hammered by 40% or 60% or whatever the numbers were at that time, you're. You have a little bit more right to freak out than somebody who's, you know, 30 or 40 who saw this happen. However, for the people who remained calm and just let their money sit in the market even though it was down 30, 40%, those people experienced some of the best returns of the last century over the next. Over the course of the next five to 10 years. So the people who lost all of it are the people who freaked out, thought all this is going to zero. And then they sold everything. And then they. As soon as they sold, they locked in the loss. It's not a loss until you sell. If you get. If. Whether it's crypto or stocks, whatever it is, or real estate, it's not a loss. Like, it's not locked in as a loss until you actually sell. So for the people who just stuck in and held on and said, okay, whatever, just another day, you know, remained calm under that type of pressure again, they experienced some of the best returns of their life, and their portfolios are up way more than they were even in 2006, 2007, before that crash happened. So calm is a skill. Chaos is a choice. You can choose chaos if you want to, but ultimately it's pretty probably not a good path to stay on, which is, by the way, why I don't check, like, stock portfolios and crypto stuff all the time. Because I don't want to. I don't want to experience those emotions when things are. When things are down and things are going poorly. You know, I just had this, obviously, right now, for those that are listening right now, it's timely because crypto markets are down like crazy, and my portfolio is down like 50% over the last few months. And I had somebody asked me recently, like, what's going on with bitcoin? I'm thinking about selling on bitcoin. I think it's Michael to zero. It's like, okay, well, well, if you want to do that, that's fine. I'm not. This is not financial advice, however, because I personally believe that it's going to be worth more in five years than it's worth today. The downturns don't really shake me that much because it's just, I don't, I don't, I don't care. I'm. I'm removed from that as a result because I wasn't going to take that money out anyway. So the fact that it's down 50% doesn't really matter to me. It's still up overall, by the way, because bought in at a good enough time to where my portfolio is still up compared to what I've actually deposited into the account. But, but I just don't have this, like, emotional attachment to the result because I know that I'm just, I'm. I'm gonna have it for a while. So if it goes to zero. Goes to zero, I don't believe it's gonna go to zero. So therefore I'm just gonna hold onto it. And, and telling you, the people who right now are just like fire, selling all their crypto, all the big guys are waiting for people like you to sell it so they can go buy it. And then once all the big guys start buying it because of the, because it dipped 5, 6 months, 12 months, 14 months from now, whatever it is, at some point I believe it's going to be worth a lot more than it is right now. So if I have that as a personal belief, then there's no sense on worrying about what it looks like today versus tomorrow. It's more like what did it look like a year ago versus ten years from now. So do not allow external circumstances to govern how you feel on the inside, how you feel, how you react, Those are up to you. That's within your control. What happens outside of that is not within your control. And focusing on things that you, you can't control will only lead you to a more anxious, less happy, less fulfilled life. So calm is a skill. Chaos is a choice. Choose calm and get better at the skill of reaction management. That's it for today's episode. Thanks so much for tuning in. Catch you guys on the next one. Peace.