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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 what's going on, everybody? Welcome back to the show. This episode is a continuation of my last solo show, talking about some of my failures. I think we counted 17 or 18 different things that I've tried since I started trying to make money, and the vast majority of them did not go the way that I wanted them to go. Now, I will say, I will say that the majority of them also didn't require a ton of capital or risk getting into them. So that's the nice thing about it is that a lot of them, you know, they, they were a failure in the fact that they did not get me the result that I wanted, but they were not a failure in the, in the fact that it, it was, it like wrecked me for a period of time, which I also think there's some lessons in there too, to sort of play in the fields that don't require a ton of irreversible. But for, you know, for the, for the most part, the majority of the things that I've tried have not worked the way that I wanted to work. And even the ones that were successful were not as successful as I wanted them to be. And so there's been a couple of times where I've had failures happen that were just big. I don't even know. There's not a better word than saying bummer. It's just they were just big bummers. Deals that I lost money on, investments that didn't go well, companies I started that, that didn't go well, where I lost a bunch of money. And there's a framework that I've sort of developed along the way that has helped me to be able to, I guess, deal with these on a psychological level. And in a lot of ways I'm still working through some of them, to be honest with you. And I'm sure that there's some subconscious, you know, I don't want to overuse this word because I think frankly, it's overused a lot, but subconscious trauma associated with some of those failures that prevent me from maybe doing exactly what I want to be doing. But I remember there was a conversation that I had with Grant Cardone, and regardless of what you think of the guy, I know he's obviously a very polarizing online figure, but there was one thing that I pulled from the interview that I did with him back in 2018 that I thought was extremely valuable. And he said, don't said never take advice from a quitter. And what he meant by that was that if you, you know, if you have people in your life, a parent or a. Somebody that you look up to, and they had this big dream for their life and they went after it and then they got smacked, life just smacked them in the face. There was these obstacles that. Impossible to overcome or, or something just didn't go according to plan. And they got smacked in a really big way. He was like, well, that person's going to probably tell you to just like, be happy with what you have and, and don't expand beyond this point. When, when I tried to expand and I got too, quote, unquote greedy, then everything came crashing down around me. And it's like, there, there's probably some value somewhere in the advice. But his overall, his overall point was to say that if you've, if you've experienced that, do not allow that setback to contain you. Don't allow that setback to inform the next decisions that you make or prevent you from going after your dreams, even if they are really big dreams and big goals. And so I've internalized that over the last few years while I've experienced some of these big failures. And so that was something that was. That was really helpful to me because I didn't want to get into this world where now I don't think that these things are possible, where I've lost my sense of optimism that life is going to go how I demand it to go, rather than allowing it to just happen to me. So beyond that, that's more of a belief thing. But beyond that, when I get into. When I'm in a situation where something didn't go the way that I wanted it to go, the very first thing that I do is I do a formal debrief of what just happened. I think it's really useful and valuable. Whether you're writing in a journal physically or you're typing it out in a Google Doc, or you're talking it through in a therapy session, or you're talking it through with a business partner that you were in the deal with. I think it's really valuable to go through and try to pull as many lessons as you can from that experience before it leave your mind, because obviously it's very fresh in your mind during that time and you don't want to wait to debrief on this two for two years afterwards until you can finally quote, unquote, deal with it. You want to do this as soon as possible. So as soon as you realize that things did not go as planned, debrief the plan, sit down with somebody or by yourself and actually write it out and ask yourself a few questions like what went wrong? Where did it go wrong? What could we have potentially done better? Did I put off a decision for too long? What was the core reason that this ended up going south? Did I not have enough information when I got started? Did I underestimate the value of the market that I was entering? Was there, was there a partner who I should not have taken on? Is there capital that I raised that I shouldn't have? Or maybe there's capital that I should have raised that would have been helpful during this time, but I told myself no because I didn't want to take on outside capital. Or, you know, what's the story that you're telling yourself? What could you have done better and how could you tackle that better the next time an opportunity like that is doorstep. So do a debrief immediately. Do it now. It's just like, you know, somebody gets back from a mission overseas. You know, the US Military doesn't.
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Sit on that they basically go like, hey, get some sleep. And then as soon as you're well rested enough to have a good memory, we need to debrief the situation. Like, we need to know everything about it so that we can make better decisions and we can inform our processes and improve them over time. So debrief is the first thing. The next thing is connect. Connect. Do not suffer in loneliness. Do not sit by yourself and shield yourself from those around you who want to be there for you during that time. And it's hard because I know that there's a level of shame, There's a level of shame, there's a level of guilt you don't want to share. It's really, really easy to share your successes. It's not very easy to share your failures, especially when you're right in the midst of it. And so you want to be careful about it, right? You don't want to go shout it from the rooftops, because unfortunately, perception is still reality. And you don't want to prevent people from wanting to do business with you in the future by just, you know, going online and talking about your failure while you're still in the middle of it. But find people who are trusted sources in your life that you can share some of this experience with. Ideally, they're people who have experienced something similar. For me, having my podcast has been really helpful for that because you. You can kind of tell what I'm going through by the questions that I ask people on my show. But there was one bigger failure recently that I. That I had in my failure resume. And for a while, I asked people on the show, like, hey, tell me about a failure that you had in your journey and how you dealt with it. What was the extent of it? What did it do? What did it. What did it change? Something about your psyche? How long did it take you to recover? What did you do next? Like, I was. Became very curious about that because I would. And then I inevitably, inevitably realized that I was talking to people who had failures that were. That overshadowed mine completely in terms of, like, the, you know, financial repercussions or the overall loss. And it was really helpful for me to reframe that because it was almost like these mini therapy sessions with people, even though they are not licensed therapists, where it was helpful for me to hear, like, okay, this person figured it out. They hit this wall. They had this failure. They lost all this money, they raised a bunch of capital and lost it all, and they moved on to the next, next venture. And then this one did really, really well. And there's been several of those conversations that I've had the journey that have allowed me to have this sort of sense of community, even in the failures. And then make sure that. Make sure the people you're sharing with are people who want you to win. Because there, there's some, some people might just. They might just get off on hearing you talk about failing, and they're not actually there to help support you and, and encourage you and, you know, make you do better. So there was this one situation that happened recently where I, I lost other people's money as well. It wasn't just my money, which was way worse, way like a thousand times worse than losing my own money. And I death to talk to a couple of these people because I was just like, I was my tail between my legs and ashamed that I had lost their money. And I went back to them and I had the conversation and it just was a pleasant surprise to find out that the vast majority of those people that I talked to about this were basically like, hey man, you're young. It's a failure. I've had countless number. I've had a countless number of them, as have all the other people around me that have had any sort of success. They're like, just don't let this get you down. Like, get back on the horse. Everything's going to be okay. We're fine. Don't worry about me, worry about you and your family. Take some time, take a breather, and then jump back in, man. And I believe in you. And it was really helpful to have some of those conversations with some of those people, even though they were directly affected by my perceived failure at that time. So do not run from community. Do not try to get through this alone. Do not try to shoulder the burden on your own. There's no. You don't get a medal for doing that nonsense. And I know in Western culture, especially as men, we get this. We get this idea that that's just part of it and we have to shoulder all of this responsibility and that if we, if we appear vulnerable or, or, or have any sense that we're oversharing or that we need help, that we are less than for some reason or it's less masculine or something like that. And then all that does is further agitate the problem that you're experiencing, which is that you're lonely, you're in your own thoughts, you haven't shared this with anybody, you don't want to talk about it, you feel shame and guilt around it, and Then what happens is when you don't have all these other people, these other voices that are able to encourage you during that time, then you start listening to the inner critic, which is the worst one to listen to because it starts telling you that you're a piece of shit. And you're, you were just lazy. You should have just worked more. You should have done this, you should have done that. You made this mistake, you did this other thing. You shouldn't have done any of those things. You're just dumb and you're lazy and you're ignorant and you, and you get all this negative self talk and you have nobody around around you that's able to kind of shake you out of that and say, hey, stop talking to yourself like that. Don't. You wouldn't allow other people to talk to you like that. So you don't talk to yourself like that and just get back on the horseman. It's gonna, everything's going to be okay. It's going to work out. You just got to step back up to the plate and have another at bat. Do not take yourself out of this game. So debrief is the first thing so you can make sure that you, that there's value in the failure that there. That you know that. That's why I love the phrase you either win or you learn. It's not you win, you lose. It's you win or you learn. But the, the, you want to make sure that if you didn't win that you actually take the learning with you into the next thing. And the only way to make sure that you do that is to try to debrief as close to the situation as you were so that you can remember all of the things that potentially you could have done better and that you will do better given the opportunity again in the future. So debrief connect. Don't skip the part of connecting. You need to connect with others. Get back. For me, it even looked like, like I, I talked to a lot of people in the professional world, but it also looked like me reconnecting with childhood friends and reconnecting with my family, with my kids and spending more time with them and feeling, feeling utility elsewhere because I think that's one of the things that drives us crazy, especially as providers, whether you're a man or woman. But if you're the provider in the home, in the relationship, you feel like this, this sense of uselessness, which is like worse than, you know, heroin to me. Like it's, if you, if you feel useless, then your happiness Follows along with that. Your fulfillment, your meaning, all those things follow along with that. So getting contact contexts again where you feel useful, where you can help other people around you. Like, re engaging back with your friends and your community and re engaging with your spouse and your kids and, and feeling that sense that like, okay, I, I, I have purpose useful and I can actually help people. Put yourself back in those situations and connect with others. Lastly is act. So debrief, connect and act. The only thing that's gonna pull you out of a spiral is by taking a step. That's the only way to get out of the spiral is you have to do something. And I know that it sucks and I know that some and I know that this is the time in your life where you don't want to do anything and you feel like you want to just shrink back into yourself and you, you're, you're, you're the turtle getting back into its shell. You don't want people to see you. You don't want to have to answer uncomfortable questions about the nature of the failure that you just experienced. Especially, especially if it's a sort of a public failure. So you have to be willing to take some sort of action. And it's not even necessarily to say like start another business right now, today. It's just do action that's going to pull you in the direction of again, feeling useful, feeling like you're, you're able to help people, feeling like you have some value to offer to the world. This could be volunteering for the local food bank. This could be going to the gym, going for a run. It's just doing something to have a little bit of momentum and remind yourself that this was just, this was just a, a thing that happened and it does not define me unless I allow it to define me. So debrief the situation, connect with others and stop being alone and then act. Go do something. So hopefully this helps you. If you're going through something like this, be sure to email me travisavishapple.com I'll help as much as I can. Shoot me a dm Avishapple if there's something on this topic that you want me to dive into a little bit further on a few trips of the show, but that's it for this one. Thanks so much for tuning in. Catch you guys on the next one. Peace.