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SOLO | Make Money by Turning Setbacks into Lessons - Lessons from my Bernard Hopkins interview
00:15:01
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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 another episode of the show. On this episode, it is just me, you and the mic and we are talking about the lessons and takeaways that I've gotten from so many of the amazing past guests that I've had here on the show. And this episode today is about Bernard Hopkins. Bernard Hopkins is a world champion boxer fighter from back in the day. He. So the, the way this connection came about was basically this friend of mine has this charity event that he puts on, I want to say, annually, and happens to be really well connected in the sports world. And so it was me and then like two or three other podcasters basically who had podcast rooms at the charity event. And so every 30 minutes to an hour or so, he would walk another person into the room and just say, hey, go on this person's podcast. Go on this person's podcast. And so Bernard Hopkins walked in the room and I was just like, oh shit, that's Bernard Hopkins. And to be honest, I had to do a little bit of Googling on the spot there just to make sure I remembered everything about him. I'd known something about him, but not enough to be able to ask good enough questions. And so I googled it right there on the spot and ended up having a really great conversation with him. He's just a really interesting dude. High energy, fun personality. He's just a. He's a character. And so it turned into a really cool episode, I think. So here's a few of my takeaways from the the. The boxer Bernard Hopkins, number one, there's no loss, only lessons. This is the one line that he said that I, that I always come back to. He said it multiple times and he meant every word of it. It wasn't a loss, it was a lesson. Because he finally had an L on his professional fighting record. And he acknowledged it, didn't deny it, didn't rationalize it, but he refused to let it carry the weight of a loss. It became fuel for him. It didn't become a defining moment for him. And so living that out from somebody, like, genuinely from somebody who lived it out, I love that lesson. And it's. I literally talked to my kids about this the other day. I forget exactly what it was, but one of them lost something, and I tend. Oh, you know, it was. It was. It was Mario Party. So Mario Party has caused a lot of fights in our household. No, it's. It's really. Anytime we play, like, a game as a family, and Mario Party is a great game as a family. Honestly, it's a lot of fun. I used to play Mario Party as a kid, so it's cool now to be able to play it with my kids. And it's. If you don't know what it is, it's essentially like.
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It's.
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It's like a. It's like Mario, but in a board game kind of on the Nintendo Switch. So, like, you roll the dice and you move certain spaces and you get, you know, coins, and then the goal is to get stars or whatever. And at different points throughout playing the game, it takes, like, an hour and a half to get through a game. And at different points throughout the game, my. Both my son and my daughter were, like, throwing fits, you know, crying about something because they lost a mini game or something like that. And we talked a little bit about this. Like, sometimes you just pause it and just be like, hey, it's okay to be upset that you lost. Just understand that there's something to learn in the loss, that it's either you win or you learn. You don't win or you lose. The only thing that makes you a loser is deciding to never play the game again. So you win or you learn. There's no loss. There's only lessons. And I love that from. From Bernard Hopkins here, number two. Different is the word that separates legends from everyone else. He. He wore the word like a badge himself. And then during the conversation, he was just like, Michael Jordan different. Serena Williams different. Tom Brady different. He's like Bernard Hopkins different. What made them different was not just the talent, it was the ref to let an escape plan exist. He said, if you have a plan B waiting, then that's just your escape. That.
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That's.
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That's. That's why you failed. It's because you have this plan B. And the people who became legends burned the boats, which is the uncomfortable truth. This is one of those ones that I go back and forth on myself a lot. I, I love hearing it from people like this who have this sort of intense, singular focus, especially in something like athletics in the business world. I find that that advice is not always a hundred percent the best to follow. And I have talked to enough people on my shows now, interviewed over a thousand people now. I, I have seen it work both ways where there's some people who are like, I had this backup plan and in this particular scenario, the backup plan is actually what ended up becoming the thing that I built. And then I've heard from the other perspective where it's like, oh, I just, you know, the whole burn the boats thing, and I just attacked this thing, singular focus, 100%, gave it all in and then it became, you know, this amazing thing. So I've seen examples of both of them, but I think in this context, like when you're, when you're talking about the all time greats in any field, they, they definitely are not the people with backup plans. The, the, if you want to become the absolute best, you're not, you're probably not gonna have a backup plan. You're gonna be all in and you're gonna be in for 12 plus hours a day. So if you're going to be different than everybody else, then that's the mentality that you need to bring into it. It's the all in, burn the boats mentality.
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number three. Your worst moment can either break you or define you. It's your choice. So Bernard Hopkins was talking about this. He said his brother got shot while, while Bernard was in prison and he was talking about the grief, the overwhelming grief during that time period that just could have driven him to, to retaliation and, and more time in prison and a completely different ending to his life story. But instead, the transfer to a state prison far outside of Philadelphia cut him off from that world long enough for Something in his mind to shift. And he said it himself, if I, If I wouldn't have got out of there, what or how would I have become the oldest champion in boxing? How would I have 20 title defenses? The trauma didn't disappear, but he chose to let, to, to. To redirect himself rather than, Rather than going deeper into that world. And for somebody like that, looking back on a defining moment like that, I, like, I can't imagine something. I can't put myself in that scenario. It's not something I've ever, you know, being in prison and then having your brother killed. I mean, as a young man growing up like that, in that world, like, I can see 100. How easy it would be to just let yourself go down this other path. But I love, that's why I love this refrage that, this phrase that I once heard about revenge. It was something like, when on the road to revenge, be sure to dig two graves. And that always sat with me because I think it might be a dude thing. But, you know, you get these like revenge fantasies every once in a while where some, you know, somebody slights you, somebody does something to you, and in your, you like, you, you. You picture the perfect revenge plan, but the whole idea makes no sense because it only affects you, it only bothers you, it only makes you negative, it only, it only sucks the positive energy from your soul. And it's only you that suffers until you make the other person suffer. But on the path to making the other person suffer, you're also making yourself suffer. Which if that is the case, then aren't you just letting that other person maintain control over how you're choosing to live your life versus just letting it go and doing something that you know is. With is. Is like the actual mission that you're trying to accomplish, like getting derailed to follow these revenge fantasies. You know, it's like you're not, we're not, we're not, we're not Vikings. You know what I mean? Like, we don't have, we don't have a moral authority from the gods to go take out revenge on the people who killed our family. You know what I mean? To take over this village and become the, the king of this whatever. Like, you just, it, it's, it's completely different now. And you have the option, you have the choice. And if you choose the revenge path, like I said, be sure to dig two graves. One for the person you're getting revenge on, but one for yourself as well, because it will ultimately be the, your, Your demise. It will. It will lead to self destruction. So I was, I was thoroughly impressed with him being able to choose this at a time in his life where it would have been easy to justify, and he didn't do it. So your worst moment can either break you or it can define you. Number four, be in competition yourself, not with the guy in front of you. Hopkins articulated something that I've heard high performers talk about all the time. I always wanted to be in competition with myself, the place that I had in history. Not his opponent, not any, not the spectators, but himself. He was constantly asking, did I do more this year than I did last year? Did I become a better version of myself? And that internal measuring stakes would allowed him to keep going. At 45, 48, 51, when the whole world expected him to be done, he was still fighting because. Because he was still just in competition with himself. And I like this a lot for a couple of reasons. Number one, I think it. It allows you to be able to have more of a collaborative spirit with the people that are in your industry, rather than viewing everybody as just like a stark competitor. Like, in order for us to win, they have to lose, rather than looking at it from like. Rising Tide raises all ships if we all come together. There's a friend of mine, Aaron Walker, who talked about this. He had a big construction company out in the Tennessee area, and in. In that world at the time, he created this group of people that was basically a bu of his competitors. All the people in that, in that same market doing similar construction jobs. And they started getting together, you know, once a week, once a month, something like that, and sharing best practices, which, at the time when I first heard this was like one of my first ever podcast interviews. And it was like, wait, what? You guys, you guys did that? Or aren't you, like, you know, aren't you worried about them stealing this or taking that or taking your customers? And in his mind, he was just like, look, Rising Tide raises all ships. If we all get better at this, like, there's. There's plenty of business to go around. We just all want to get better at doing the things that we do, so why wouldn't I be willing to share this with somebody else? And then they're willing to share this with me, and then we can all get better together. We can all solve this problem together, and we all grow our businesses together. Like, there's not. It's not. I'm worried about them taking this client. They're worried about me taking that client. It's like, there's plenty of customers, plenty of clients around here. Let's get together, share best practices. So I like that it kind of gives you this mindset of thinking more collaboratively rather than always being in competition with all the other people around you. But also it's just a better measuring stick because you can sometimes get lost in the competition, like lost in the sauce when it comes to competition. Competition meaning that you can allow other people's agendas to start shaping your agenda. And if you're doing that, then you've already lost the game. You're already behind. Like, I, I never wanted to be the guy that was just like, oh, well, my competitor's doing this thing and this thing, so let's just do that. It's like, if you're letting somebody else in the industry that you're in dictate how you're going to do business, then you've already lost the game. Like, your job is to continue doing the thing that you can do better than anybody else and just focus on the things that you're doing really well, rather worrying about what all your competition is doing. So I really like that one. Be in competition with yourself, not with the guy in front of you. Number five. Having a plan before you need one is a discipline, not a luxury. Dig the well before you're thirsty. Hopkins was already partnered with Golden Boy Promotions while he was still fighting, which is Oscar De La Hoya's promotion company. He was planning the second half of his career before the first half even ended. And he said, I always had a plan. Even coming home from the penitentiary. Most people react, but he was always planned. They, they, they life happen them, and then they react to what happens versus having a plan, working the plan, and then constructing the life that you want. And that distinction separated him from a lot of other fighters and from people in general, obviously, who peak and then they scramble after the peak. They don't know what to do. They, they are, they've been doing this one thing for so long that afterwards they have no idea where to go or what to do. And then it obviously doesn't serve them in the next part of their career. And regardless of your, you're in sports or you're in business, you're probably going to come up against several pivots along the way. It's very rare for, like, one person to do the same thing for 50 years. There's probably gonna be pivots, there's probably gonna be restarts, there's probably gonna be some, some down times or some struggle times. And so it's not a luxury to have the plan, it's discipline to have the plan. And if you have the plan, it's always better than not having the plan. And the whole cliche of if you, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail, there you go. Fail a plan, you plan to fail. So you have to put some sort of a plan in. Like I said, even if you don't know how it's going to get there, what's exactly like how it's going to work out, you might pivot along the way. That doesn't matter. Just have the plan, work the plan and then adjust if and when you need to adjust. So that's it for this episode of the show. Go check out my full episode with Bernard Hopkins. Like I said, it was a really fun one. He was a, he's a character, brings a lot of energy and we had a lot of fun chatting. So go check out the full episode with Bernard Hopkins. But that's it for this one. Thanks for tuning in. Catch you guys on the next one. Peace.
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