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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. 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 what's up everybody? Welcome back to the show. It's just me, you and the mic for this episode and we are continuing along the Questions to live a better Life. I put together this document a little while ago, 25 questions that allow you to live a better life. Because I believe that the quality of the questions you ask can determine the quality of a life that you can live. We went through the first four of them on the previous episode. You can go check that out. When was the last time I risked embarrassment? When was the last time I got something I want wanted? It happened now what and no, what would it take? As I was on the last episode? We're gonna pick up right where we left off on this list of 25 and the next one is when was the last time I changed my mind about a belief? When was the last time I changed my mind about a belief? This is also a question that I really enjoy asking other people. It makes for some good, you know, dinner party banter or good podcast line of questioning. When the last time I changed my mind about a belief? If the answer is never, I think that's a problem. If you have never changed your mind about a core belief, something that you previously held dear, that you have now changed your mind on, I think it signals a lack of rethinking. There's an amazing book on this written by one of my favorite authors, Adam Grant, and it's called Think Again. And I highly recommend anybody picking up a copy of that book because it shows you the opportunity cost the things that you're missing out on by not being willing to engage some of those beliefs that you've held dear for a long period of time. And the sort of litmus test for me to tell whether or not you should start questioning or at least being willing to question some of your beliefs is if the if all of the core beliefs that you hold dear, the core values that you Have. If those were passed down to you and you cannot articulate why you believe those things, then odds are they're not your belief. They are a belief that somebody else had that you borrowed from them. And it eliminates the. The joy, the process of discovering your own beliefs. And I've had multiple scenarios with this where I've questioned a belief and I sort of not necessarily abandoned it, but held it in this position of, like, I'm not sure about this one. And then I lived enough life to where I came back to the same belief that I originally had, and now that belief is so much more concrete than it used to be because I have real life experience. And. And I know that internally is like, man, I don't know if I believe this, and I do some research and I read this book and I hear this other person and I experience something that happens in my life, and then it's like, man, that is a belief that I still hold dear, and it is something that I actually cling to. But now it feels so much more solidified. I can actually back out of that belief and provide some reasoning for anybody that would ask or inquire about that, whether it's me or somebody else. So it. It can solidify the beliefs that you currently hold, but then it can also introduce you to new beliefs that you potentially might have looked at as, that was crazy or something like that. I also think that it's really important to do this if you feel that you have beliefs that you want other people to adopt. I think it's sort of the height of hypocrisy to expect everybody else. Everybody else around you to throw all the things that they've believed their entire lives to the side to believe the thing that you believe because you think that it's the right thing. When you are never, ever willing to take off your own lenses through which you see the world and decide whether or not you might believe something that they believe. So when was the last time I changed my mind about a belief? Next one. This sucks. But what's the alternative? I ask this question a lot. If you listen to the podcast, you might have heard me say this a bunch of times, is like, yeah, but what's the alternative? You know, so anytime that I'm. I'm going through, like, it's a worthy question, because sometimes there is an alternative. Imagine that sometimes you might be, you know, forcing yourself to do something, and you never take the time to step back and go, is there an alternative? And you. You might be stepping over $100 bills to pick up pennies. And you might actually realize there is an alternative that's actually a strong alternative and maybe I should do that instead of this. But oftentimes what you're going to find is that the alternative is so terrible that the, the, the suck is worth waiting through. The embracing the suck of the thing that you're attacking right now is probably the better path compared to the alternative of not having tried this thing or compared to the, of not building this skill. So it's like, for example, let's say you, you're making 50,000. This episode of the show is brought to you by Wayfair. Look, it is time for that spring cleaning part of the year. 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Head to Wayfair.com right now to shop all things home. That's W a y F Wayfair. Every style, every home. Close your eyes. Exhale. Feel your body relax and let go of whatever you're carrying today. Well, I'm letting go of the worry that I wouldn't get my new contacts in time for this class. I got them delivered free from 1-800-contacts. Oh my gosh, they're so fast. And breathe. Oh, sorry. I almost couldn't breathe when I saw the discount they gave me on my first order. Oh, sorry. Namaste. Visit 1-800-contacts.com today to save on your first order. 1-800-contacts. Thousand dollars a year. There's more month at the end of your money. You're wanting to have a kid, but you can't because financial constraints. So you are looking at maybe jumping into a coaching program or doing some sort of additional certification or something like that, but it's going to require some financial investment and it's going to require a lot of time to learn and hone this new skill set. That sucks. Okay, it sucks. Process of learning that new thing might be fun at the beginning, but eventually it's going to suck. There's going to be a period of time where you move, you get, you move past the novelty of the situation and you get into the shitty part of it. And, and then, and in that time, yes, it is going to suck. But what's the alternative? Because chances are the alternative sucks worse than the, than the waiting period that you're in right now? Like, does it suck worse to invest 10 grand into a coaching program and learn a new skill set that could potentially allow you to make 200 grand a year instead of 50 grand a year? Or does it suck worse to just admit that you're always and forever going to be a $50,000 a year earner and that you know, you can't have two kids, you can only have one kid because you can't financially support a family of four. You can only support financially a family of three. And you're like derailing your life because of your limitations in your ability to earn income. Like, which one of those sucks worse? Yeah, the latter, obviously. So this sucks. But what's the alternative? Is a really great, a really great question to ask yourself next. What is the worst case scenario? And is it really that bad? Man, I don't. It feels like, it feels like life kind of speaks to you in phases. And this is one thing that maybe because I know I'm taking A big risk soon. And for those of you who are listening to the show, you're like, well, what is this big risk? What is he gonna tell us about this? I'll tell you about it soon, I promise. But there's this big risk that I was looking at taking, and this was the exercise that I went through. And it's funny because I've listened to a few podcast episodes in the last couple of days where it seems like everything that I'm hearing is more preaching about this exact concept, which means that I'm probably on the right path and doing the right thing. Because the worst case scenario is just usually never as bad as you think that it is. And I forget exactly who. Who it was that. That said this. Jeff Bezos, I think, might have said this. Yeah, I think it was Jeff Bezos that said human beings, 10 to underestimate, tend. Tend to underestimate the upside and overestimate the downside. Meaning that when you're looking at a specific opportunity and you're trying to weigh whether or not you should do this thing or not do this thing, if you look at the best case scenario, you're undervaluing how awesome the best case scenario is going to be. And then you're over valuing what the worst case scenario is going to be. And then it prevents you from being able to take action to get yourself into the best case scenario. So that's why I say, is it really that bad? Allow yourself to go there for a long time. I think I avoided the worst case scenario. Cause I was like, I don't even want it entering my mental space. I don't even want to think about it, you know, from that perspective at all. And that is not very valuable either. Because then you're just making decisions out of a, like, wild optimism. And you don't have any sort of plans for how to tackle potential problems that might come your way along the journey to achieving this thing that you want to achieve. So allowing yourself to really get into the weeds of really, what is the worst case scenario here? And if the answer is anything other than death, it's probably not that bad of a scenario. And obviously this is going to vary widely for a lot of people that are listening. Because most of us are very blessed in this life. We are very, very blessed. Meaning that the worst case scenario of this big financial risk that you're looking at taking is like, okay, worse, worse, worst case, I lose the house, I have to move back in with my parents, with my kids, you know, and. Or I have to sleep on my friend's couch for a few weeks or something like that. And it's like, does that suck? Like it's not. Yeah, it's not going to be a fun thing to fail to that degree or to that extent. But you're still alive. You still have the opportunity to go create more. You still have the opportunity to go make that money back. You still have time on this planet. You still have people you care about, people who love you. You still have. There's so many other things that you have to be grateful for. And your internal state is not going to change that much in regards to what your external state provides for you. Meaning that your level of happiness is not going to increase or decrease in direct proportion to the situation that you have in life. The law of familiarity means that even if you hit the best case scenario and you're living large and you're in this blissful state of this future version of you that you think is the ultimate achievement in life, and that's when I'll finally be happy, probably is not going to get you into that final state of being ultimately happy. Because the more familiar that you get with this new version of, of life, the more you start to take it for granted. And then on the opposite side, your internal state is probably not gonna be that much worse when you're put into this sort of like a rock bottom scenario. And so like the, the, the worst case scenario is almost never as bad as it seems. So allow yourself to go there, allow yourself to picture what that might look like, and it might give you a little bit more freedom to attack the things that you're looking to attack or at least take some bigger risks that maybe you were preventing yourself from taking in the past. So what is the worst case scenario? And is it really that bad? Next. Why am I feeling this emotion, man, when, when you're in the middle, in the midst of feeling it. I hate asking this question, especially when it's like something that I'm like angry about or I'm bitter about. I'm resentful about LifeLock. How can I help? The IRS said I filed my return, but I haven't. One in four tax paying Americans has paid the price of identity fraud. What do I do? My refund though. I'm freaking out. Don't worry, I can fix this. LifeLock fixes identity theft guaranteed and gets your money back with up to $3 million in coverage. I'm so relieved. No problem. I'll be with you every step of the way. One in four was a fraud. 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Allergic reactions can occur that can be severe. Eye problems can occur. Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening eye problems. You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with Eglis before starting ebglis, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. Ask your doctor about ebglis and visit eglis.lilly.com or call 1-800-LilyRx or 1-800-545-5979. I'm spiteful about like sort of these more like quote unquote negative type of emotions that come into play when, when you know, let's say your, your significant other does something and you start feeling yourself getting like boiling up inside. You get angry and you get irritated in the middle of that. The last thing that you want to do is try to understand why you're feeling that way. But it's also the most powerful thing that you can do because or like if you're in a sad state or you're in an anxious state, you're, you're in a happy state, you're in a joyful state. It's really useful to take a second while you're feeling that and go why am I feeling like this? Is there a reason that I'm feeling like this? Is it because of what that other person did? Or is it because of the meaning that I'm extracting from the thing that that person did, which is probably more likely the scenario? And then is it Useful to continue to allowing this state to happen when this trigger puts me into this state? Or is it more useful to try to discipline myself and learn how to overlay a better state so that my neurology or my, the, the. My neural pathways are more easily forged into this other state of, more of, of blissfulness, of happiness, of joy, of peace, whatever. You know, the more quote unquote positive emotions would be like, like I said, really difficult to do in the moment. But I found a lot of value in this. A little bit easier to do in the moment when you're feeling really joyful. And sometimes, sometimes I don't like to do it that much when I'm feeling joyful because I don't want to take myself out of the moment too much. But I do like asking myself the question, like, man, I feel really good right now. Why do I feel really good right now? And then you can sort of look to the things that might. To that state. Things like, oh, I'm actually caught up on sleep. Oh, I'm properly hydrated. Oh, I got my workout in this morning. Maybe all those things are good for me and maybe they actually help me achieve this state of happiness or bliss more often. And then they're on the opposite side. It's like, well, why am I feeling this emotion? Is it because my spouse did this thing? Is it because my kids were disrespectful to me or they talked back or to their teacher? Like, is it because of the event that happened or is it because of all this other, you know, amalgam of different scenarios and circumstances that have happened that day and then the previous seven days leading up to it? Like, oh, I drank too much over the weekend and I just feel like shit. Or I got really terrible sleep quality. I didn't get my workout in. I haven't drank enough water. I'm not fully hydrated. I just feel bad. It's really helpful if you can pull yourself out like a floating version of you to view the situation from a third party objective perspective and then label the emotion and then discover why you're feeling that emotion because it can allow you to have some sort of agency or control around the emotional state that you get into, rather than just allowing yourself to be in this constant state of reactivity rather than proactivity. So why am I feeling this emotion? Next is, who do I know that has the results that I want? Who do I know that has the results that I want? This was basically the entire premise of what this show used to be called, which was build your network. Because I found basically when I was starting the podcast, it was like I knew everybody that I learned from in this space was like, you got an itch down, you got an niche down, you got a niche down. And the only thing that I was confident in my ability to portray at that time was sales, because I was door to our sales guy. So I was like, I could talk about sales, but the whole reason that I was starting an online business was to pull myself out of the door to door sales world. So I was like, I'm not going to start a podcast about sales or door to door sales, especially because that's only going to pull me into that world more, rather than allow me to escape that world. And so I looked at some of the things that I'd done was like, of the things that I've seen success with, like, within the context of door to door sales, why was I able to see results faster and greater than all these other people who I worked with in whatever organization? Because whatever sales organization I jumped into, I always jumped to the top of the performers list very quickly. And I looked back on that and I said, what did I do in order to be able to come to become the top guy in that company in a shorter period of time than the people who've been doing it for four years? And the answer to the question was I was really good at identifying who was the best at the thing and then basically doing my best imitation of that person for as long as it took in order for me to finally make it my own version. Because I think, you know, the best salespeople are people who sort of like, touch over time, sort of fall into this milieu of the script and everything that they're supposed to say and do, and then they find their own sort of rhythm that. That works well for their personality and things like that. But when you first jump into a sales opportunity, if other people are already successful doing that thing, that's great news. That's great news. All it means is that all I gotta do is copy exactly what that person is doing, exactly what that person says. So whenever I jumped into a new sales organization, I wasn't trying to reinvent the wheel. I wasn't trying to make up my own pitch. I wasn't trying to buck back or ask questions about like, well, why would I say this? This doesn't sound natural. This doesn't sound like me. It's like, I don't care if it sounds like me or not. I'm basically just gonna be like, like, does that work? Yes or no? If it does, I'm going to do my dead level best impression of the person who knows how to do it the best. And I say best impression because it's not just about the words on the page, especially in sales. It's also about how you're showing up. It's your body language, it's your tonality. What are the things that that person is doing that I am not doing that is obviously clearly working for that person because they're at the top of the leaderboard every month. So that was where the build your network concept came from, because I was just like, I'm not gonna do the show about sales. But it seems like this networking thing has done fairly well for me. Like, I don't know that many people, but I do know that every time that I have seen a significant jump in my income, it's because I got around somebody who was really good at the thing that I was trying to be good at, and I learned as much as I possibly could from them. And I put in way more reps than anybody else was willing to put in, and then eventually got really good at that thing in a short period of time. So who do I know that has the results that I want? And then if you don't know anybody that has the results that you want, then you start looking outside of that, which is exactly what I did when I entered the podcasting space. So it's like in the podcasting online business world, I knew zero people, a total of zero people that were doing well in that space. So the answer to that question was, I don't know anybody who's. Who has the results that I want. I don't know anyone. But there are people who do have the results that I want. They do exist. Then it. Then it becomes. Then it became a question of how do I get in touch with those people and how do I learn from them the most? So that is the. One of the things that has benefited me most in my life is who do I know that has the results that I want? And how do I go spend more time with that person? Person? Next one. What are our cigarettes? What do we view as normal now that will vilify in 200 years? I find this just to be a helpful, like, philosophical conversation because every. Every present generation in the history of civilization has overvalued the knowledge that they have because it's more than the knowledge that the previous generation had. So I just watched this, this bio series, I guess, on Netflix on the Life of James Garfield. And it was. It was a limited series, like maybe three or four episodes or something like that. And it was a great. It was a great show. And in that they show James Garfield who ended up. Ended up dying because he. There was an assassin assassination attempt on his life, and they shot him. But that's actually not what killed him. What killed him was the infection from the wound. Because the. The leading doctor on his case that the number one thing to do at that time, the most important thing was to get the bullet out, and it was lodged in like, some other part of his body. When they did the autopsy, they realized that it was actually an infection that caused him to die, not the actual bullet itself. So the. It could have remained there and he could have been alive had they stopped trying to reopen the wound and get the bullet out. And it was sort of like a thing where it's like, man, this is the President of the United States at that time. He had the best, best care that was possible for him to have at that point in history. Yet they were so wrong. They're so wrong to the degree where they ended up killing him. And, you know, sort of the same thing when people would have an infection before, it's like, well, we got to get the bad blood out. And they would just put leeches on them and take all their blood away. I was like, oh, it turns out you can't take everybody's blood away or they die from blood loss. But that it's easy for us to look back on that and go like, what a bunch of silly dummies, you know what I mean? But even today, with all the knowledge, information that we have, we are still barely scratching the surface of the total volume of information and knowledge that exists in the universe because we're still this teeny, tiny planet called Earth. And the vastness of the universe is so much greater than what we can even physically comprehend with our minds. So we tend to overvalue the information that we currently have. And sort of thought experiment that I think about sometimes is like, what are the cigarettes of our generation? Because back in the day, everybody smoked, smoked, Everybody. Everybody smoked. Doctor smoked, the pastor smoked, you know, husband smoked, wives smoked, Everybody smoked indoors. They smoked on airplanes. Every. Everybody smoked. It was just ubiquitous. It was everywhere. Now, of course, it's like. It's like somebody smoking is. Is almost worse than seeing them, you know, have sex in public. It's like, put that cigarette out, you know what I mean? Then somebody's having sex in public. It's like you know, let them do what they're gonna do. It's. It's sort of turned into this thing where it's like, it's almost comically, you know, vilified in our society now. And it's easy for us to point the finger back and be like, I can't believe everybody used to smoke, but they just didn't have the information at that time. And now, inevitably, in a hundred years and 200 years, people will look back at us in 2020-2030, and they're going to be like, man, I can't believe they used to blank. They used to do whatever the thing is, right? Probably something about ultra processed foods, probably something about relying too heavily on pharmaceutical drugs and things like that. But there's something that we're doing now that in the future people are going to look back on. What I found that this does for me is that it just allows to have, you know, strong beliefs, but loosely held to be open to new information. To say that, like, you know what, we are constantly learning new things. There's always new things to learn. And assuming that you have all the information correct right now is probably the incorrect assumption. So what are our cigarettes? And in my opinion right now, I think one of them is loneliness, which is why we have the Travis Makes Friends podcast, my other podcast that's focused on helping solve the loneliness epidemic. Because loneliness is actually worse for your physical health than smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day. I think it was also five alcoholic beverages a day. Loneliness is worse than either one of those things, which is. Which is pretty wild. And I think that we've technologically built a moat around loneliness in a negative way, meaning that it's more difficult now for people to break out of loneliness than it used to be. Because we have things like social media that imply that it's a constant connection tool, when in reality it's more of a media tool and it's actually something that makes you more lonely. But you think that it doesn't make you lonely because, well, I'm connecting with other people. It's social media. It's like actually focus more on the media part, less on the social part. And that's probably more what social media is. And don't replace that with bad things. But anyway, the, the, overall, the overall thought here, though, the thought experiment is just to ask that question from time to time. Like, what are. What are. What. What are our cigarettes? Like, what are. What are the things that I'm thinking about that I'm just like, oh, this is I can't believe people used to do this. I'm doing it like this. This is obviously the right way. We have all the information that we need. Need. We're really smart now because of technology. All those past generations, they were just a bunch of dummies, you know, we know everything now. We got AI and we got Google and we got all these things. We know everything. There's like. No, we don't. There's gonna be a bunch of stuff in the future. Like whenever. Whenever somebody finally comes up with a cure for cancer, people are gonna look back on it. Like, we look at, you know, measles or, you know, whatever, some other tuberculos, some other big disease that used to just wipe out entire populations of people that we have cures for now. We have penicillin for now. You know what I mean? Like, we're gonna look back. People are gonna look back at. I can't believe that many people were dying from cancer back in the, you know, 2000 and 20s. Because now we have this thing where it's just like. It's a pill that you take, or it's a shot that you got, or, you know, it's this supplement that we found in the deep jungles of Africa that we didn't know existed that helps fight back against it. And now it's like a thing of the past, you know? So it's just a fun thought experiment to think through because it allows you to take life a little bit less seriously and know that in the future, man, we're going to be vilified for things that we're doing now. Just like we look back on and vilify other people from previous generations for the things that they just accepted as being normal. Normal at that time. So now we're. We're through. Question number 10. So I think we're just going to continue going through this doc here over the next couple of episodes, but I appreciate you all for tuning in. These are 25 questions to live a better life. We'll catch you on the next episode. Peace.