Finding Joy and Peace in Times of Chaos - Travis Sago

Hi everyone. Welcome to capitalism.com. i am chatting with my longest standing mentor today. His name is Travis Sago. You might have met him because I talk about him a lot. I talk about him in my book. I've had him on the podcast here several times. I have always found peace in my conversations with Travis. In fact, several times in therapy or doing personal work, when I need to find a safe place or a calm place, I think about my cats with Travis and I just decided to have one with him and record it. So this is not a fast paced podcast interview. This is a coffee chat with my mentor, Travis. And the reason I wanted to do this is because I know a lot of my peers and my colleagues are going through hard times right now. In fact, it seems like everybody that I know is going through some sort of unique challenge that is really messing up their life. And time with Travis seems to put it in perspective for me and for a lot of people. And I wanted to record an episode with him in the midst of all the chaos that's going on in the world just to get his perspective on how we can find peace, joy, meaning, during times of chaos. So this is probably not the podcast for you to listen to when you're in grind mode or when you are looking for content. This would be a good conversation to listen to while you're on a walk, while you're on a long drive and looking for some peace in the moment. I even found my stress levels coming down just while hearing Travis talk. So I hope you find some solace and some peace in the midst of everything that's going on in the world as a result of hearing this coffee chat with my mentor and dear friend, Travis Sako.

Enjoy.

Travis, the reason I wanted to have you on is because everyone that I know seems to be going through a very unique and hard time. I gave a class in front of my students and I asked, it was in the middle of January. I said, has anybody had just the worst January? And all the hands went up. And everybody seems to have a unique reason as to why some people have gone through health problems, financial problems, uncertainty about the world relationship. It just, it feels like there's chaos in everyone's life. And without divulging too much, I know you've had your share of difficult times in the last two years too, and your set of challenges has been unique compared to everybody else's. The thing that I've always noticed and appreciated about you is, is if you're having a great day or you're having a Bad day? I can't tell. You just seem to have a high level of peace in midst all of the chaos. And so, to be honest with you, the reason I reached out and said I want to have you on the podcast is I just feel like a lot of people need a dose of optimism and positivity right now from somebody who has not just had it all great for the last two years. You've been happy and at peace, it seems, and profitable, et cetera, despite going through a lot of crap the last couple years.

Yeah, I won't say I don't go in the bathroom and shit my pants.

You know, but I think we kind of all do that. But I think it's there. There's a place.

You know, I don't really want to call it happiness because everybody's got their idea of happiness or whatever, but I think for me it's more just a place of.

Okayness, calmness, a sense of well being, regardless of what's happening out there. And I probably shared this with you before, but I wasn't always like this. Like in my, in my 20s and early 30s, you know, I had hives all over my. Literally had nerve hives all over my arms. I smoked two packs of cigarettes a day. I drank way, way too much. You know, all those kind of things. Right.

And I think that the main flip there was kind of counterintuitive and opposite of what a lot of the personal development books teach around beliefs and thinking. And I mean, I don't want to beat up on any particular kind of thing because I'm very unique and other people are very unique. So if it works for them, that's awesome. But I was never more fucking miserable than when I studied, like Law of Attraction and tried to make my beliefs about myself even more concrete. And beliefs on what other things meant about stuff, like, and trying to be right about a certain thing or not having any peace until I made everybody else think the same way that I did.

So these are kind of like all symptoms of that.

Previous paradigm or that lens.

I think. I think that's all we have was perspective and lenses. Right. And what do you, what do you.

Mean, that previous lens? The previous perspective of what?

Yeah, so looking out through the eyes of Travis Sago as a.

Story that I believe in an ego that I manufacture. And the problem with the manufactured story or manufactured ego is that it consumes like half of your energy resources trying to hold that up. And then not only that, but the implications of every. All the mistakes that are made trying to do that.

It's like, oh, you know, I, I. What's called a. I'm probably gonna go all over the place. I have what's called wrong tool theory. So I think most of the inefficiencies in our lives, in the world even, and where all of our energy drains, which is our calmness and peaceness. Like when our energy's way, way down, like you think of a battery, it's down to 20%. All of a sudden the phone starts shutting shit off, right?

And so very much our okayness and peacefulness and calmness has to do with where's our battery charged there, right? And if you a bad app, a bad quote, unquote bad app on your phone, all of a sudden, like, the battery just like, just. Right. Like, what the hell? What just happened? Right? Well, a lot of us are just running around. Me previously just running around with this app that continually sucks down our energy, right? And no matter what we eat, how fit we are.

We still feel drained or unfulfilled all the time because we have this app running that is sucking it down. That app is our manufacturer itself. I've been saying lately, when I broke up with Travis Sega, when I broke up with him, my life started blossoming, right? I still have the story, but it's more of a empty shell of a story than this thing that I need to infuse it with energy, right? So I can look at my sales, right? I can see where my sales are. It doesn't matter what they are. Doesn't matter if I'm having a, you know, a world record breaking day for me, right? Or a world's breaking day for me.

Right?

It doesn't mean anything about me. And that's easier to let go of because I understand that my story about myself is just that it's a story. It's a manufactured self.

That, and I'm just pulling a number out of my butt here. That Lily is responsible for depleting half of my energy budget, right? Right. Like, energy is just like money, right? First thing, we got to plug the leaks. Like, where is it leaking? Where's the money draining at? Where is the destructive expenses.

Right? It's our story about ourselves, right? That as soon as I manufacture Travis Sago, like, oh, boy, now, Now I've got like 50 more things on my to do list every day.

Well, Travis, the way I'm hearing that when you say the story of Travis saga or the story of Ryan Moran, this is a difficult concept for a lot of people to understand. So the way that I'm hearing you say it is when you let go of the shoulds and the have to bes that we put on ourselves based on who we think we're supposed to be from the context that we come from. Is that an accurate summary of what you're trying to describe as the story of ourselves?

Yeah, and I want to go deeper, right, Because I think there's a deeper cause there. And this is what I call the wrong tool theory.

I see this prevalent, and I just hang out with a lot of smart people, so maybe this is just prevalent everywhere, but I see this hit a lot of smart people, is that we use our intellectual as a tool to do shit it's not supposed to fucking do.

I can't relate at all to this draft, right?

Like brain or mind or whoever we're talking to. Like, I want you to figure out how to always make me safe.

How to make me always the most valuable person in any room, how never to make me look bad, how, you know, um, they always have the most.

Abdominal muscles, like, showing away, like, brain. You need to figure this out, right? Like, teach me how.

Show me how.

The intellect is a wonderful, wonderful thing, right? For doing things that the intellect's supposed to do. But it's almost as ridiculous as going to Google and saying, google, what business should I be in?

And expecting to get a valid answer.

Back out from that, right? So I probably shared this story with you before, but too bad for you, you got to hear it again, right? But my wrong tool theory, like, applies in a lot of areas, but this particular one. But.

The man I call my father, right, he was my stepfather. He lived across the street. He came into my life. I was about nine years old. He's passed away now, right? But he lived across the street. And I was the oldest of four and I loved repairing my bicycle, but oldest of four, my mom, right? No man in the house. And I had like, I had like a Phillips screwdriver, a straight screwdriver, and a pair of pliers. Well, I don't know if you were into BMX when you were a kid or like. But like, you. You want to change the parts out on those things, right? Like, you wanted to, like, get new handlebars, the new gooseneck, right? And so when I use the pliers, like on a brand new bolt, like, it wasn't too bad, right? Like, you could kind of do it right, if you gripped hard enough, right? And. But it would eventually kind of strip out that bolt until, like, if you did it enough, right, then you Just like, I don't care how determined you are, like, you got a round nut, right?

It's hard to get that damn thing out of there, right? And so my whole life changed when my dad came over and kind of saw what I was doing. Said all saw my rounded out nuts on my bike, right? He's like. And he introduced me to something, to a freaking miracle at the time was called a socket set. I was like, whoa. Right? So we replaced all the. The.

Bolts that I rounded out with that. He was big C look like Mr. Clean, right? He's big, strong. I just took those old stripped out bolts, we put the new bolts on and new nuts on, right? But that socket set, boy, like, bicycle maintenance was a heck of a lot easier. I think the same thing, you know, with life, right? I'm not saying you never have to replace. You never get a flat tire, you never, you know, have something go wrong. But when you have the right tools.

Life maintenance is a lot easier. I see this in business too. I don't want to take this too far business path, but we use, like most even business, I don't know the difference between marketing and sales. So they use a marketing tool, like webinars for a sales tool, and they use a phone, which is actually a sales tool, as a marketing tool, right? And they use a product to make sales and to create money from. And that's not the mo. That's not the most useful thing of a product is to develop a relationship with somebody, get them a result and turn them into a customer, right? So all these, all these things are ego created, right? We want to get the money now because our ego, our story of ourselves says, well, I got to make the sales higher, so I'll be the whatever, right? So I can hire more employees. And then when I'm at my next conference and they say, well, how many employees do you have? Well, I can have this big number and hopefully their number will be lower than mine.

Right? So it becomes this.

Thing, this tool that we're using just rounds out all the nuts in our life, right?

And it works for a little while. That's the diabolical part, right? It works for a little while.

Right? Until it doesn't work anymore.

How. How does that apply into kind of this state of the world that we're in right now? And there's somebody listening who has lost everything as a result of stock market crash or because of layoffs or because of inflation, can't afford their employees anymore. How does a real life scenario play into that philosophical Example.

Well, I'm not Buddha, and I probably never will be. So again, I don't know.

You call yourself the bum marketer. I think you should be the bum zooter, the bum Buddhist.

So I think it's about, you know, how fast you clean your pants up after you. Not that you don't shit your pants, right? Like, at some point, right? But I think there's this point where you have an event. This is a. This is a. Again, this is where our. We use our thinking as a tool. We have an event. And humans have this habit of attaching meaning to an event or attaching meaning to a thing, right?

The more we think that whatever has happened really means this thing. Like, the. The longer it's going to change. Take us to change our underpants, right?

The more meaning we have attached to the event. Yeah. The longer it takes for us to clean ourselves up or dictate the thought pattern.

Yeah. You know, so that rings true. Yeah. So it's going to take longer. Like, you know, so, you know, if all of a sudden, like, I've got all my money.

Riding in the stock market, right? And I take a 50%, 70% hit, right? I'm like, sheesh. Like.

I can have all this story going on, right? But, like, if a Martian came down and looked at my screen, he would just see, like, lines. He'd be like, what's the problem? Like, no, I just lost money. Okay, so what does that mean? Right? Like, I'm not being ridiculous with this, right? But that's kind of the thing, right? And then. But we get to choose a more useful focal point. I call this Muff P. More useful focal point is how can I use what just happened? How can I use that, right, for my future stuff, right? So, like, even me, like, when I was nine years old, rounding out the nuts on those things, right? And I couldn't get that damn thing off. Like, I thought it was the end of the damn world. I just wanted to throw my. My bike. But now, 40 some odd years later, I'm still using that as a template, right? And a thing to tell a story from and using that thing, right? So Jeannie, back in 2011, had to have extensive dental work done, right? And we had a hard time finding the right people for her, right? And going through it was like, holy crap. Like, because we didn't know. We didn't know.

What comes next from that, right? But.

What I did know is, like, whatever happened, we're going to turn this into a.

Thing, a tool that will help us in The. In the future. Right. And this is not like. This is not like, oh, everything happens for a reason. Because things happen.

Right.

There's not necessarily a reason for them, but we can take those things and use them as a tool to be useful for what happens. Right. I don't know if you saw this.

YouTube, you can turn the. Into a tool, essentially.

That's right. You know, 50 cent causes turning into sugar, which is one of my favorite thing. It's still right. But how do you. If you take shit and fertilize it, use it for fertilizer out in a cane field, right? Like, sugar cane field, all of a sudden you're gonna turn that. The sugar. Right? Like I. I see. Yeah.

You've got shit, but you can use it for fertilizer. Still shit, but you can at least use it for something.

Yeah.

Travis, would you give an example of how that has played out for you in the last couple of years? And you don't need to give personal details about everything that has happened unless you want to, but just the perspective of being able to use everything that has happened as fuel to get you to this point. Would you give an example of that?

Yeah, well, like, I kind of am already, like, what area do you want it in? Do you want it in health? Or, like, you have it. Let's.

Let's do it in business just to make this super relatable.

Yeah. So.

You know, I've always, at one point, like, I'm pretty good at sales, right? And so I would get on. This is like back in 2012, 2013. So, like, the big model, and it still is. The model is like, get people to show up on a phone call and you close them and all that kind of stuff, right? So hired two sales guys to come in so I could teach them how to do the sales thing.

Man.

And then I just hated fricking managing salespeople and the herd, right? So I'm like, how can I do this? Right? So here's the thing. It's shit. Like, I don't want to like, ugh. Right? So I've got two salespeople, right? You got a salesperson now you gotta drive them leads all the time, right? Or they end up leaving you, right? Right. There's all kinds of drama and headaches with that, right? It's just like, okay, well, like, how am I going to do this? Right? So I'm like, well, what if we figured out how to do it without the salespeople? How do. What if we started by just making their conversations shorter this is where I really started learning the difference between marketing and sales, right? Because at first, like the first sales calls they would do, they came off of my list, right? And they were closing like nine out of ten, right? Like, oh, we're the best salespeople ever, right? Then we start buying colder traffic and they're like, oh, these leads suck, right? Like all these kind of things, right? Like, these are terrible, right? And it really got me to see the difference between marketing and sales, right? I'm like, okay, what, what steps I have to have them to go through. So we can move this from a 60 minute strategy session to a 6 minute strategy session, right? And then when I got that down, I'm like, okay, well how can we just get rid of this at all, right? That's what I figured out how to.

Sell through chat or text or email, all the way things up to where like 60 grand is my top thing I've done outside of real estate.

Right, but you sold a $60,000 item without a phone sale.

Yeah, lots of phone call. Yeah, lots of them. Okay. Yeah. Again, that's understanding what tools they use, where, right? And where they're at. So I don't get too deeply involved in that, right? But I took a shit situation just like, oh, it was terrible. I mean, we just kind of sharing that little bit, right? Sales guys weren't happy. Like I'm, oh, just a shit leads right now and all these kind of things, right? Okay, so if I'm not attaching my ego to this, what do I really want, right? Well, really what I want is no salespeople, right? And the income, you know, how can I blank without blank or how can I make all these sales without blank, right? So everything for me is this bay I look at as a opportunity to innovate or create something which I think in my perspective is what humans are here for. That's my perspective that we're the only species that has any concept of the future, right? So I, in my experience, right? In my, again, I wouldn't want to bet on this, right? But it seems to me that we're here to create or produce tools.

That helps make life easier on some level. Now, that might be painting a picture or playing in a ball game or something like that, right? We're here to create art or create something that adds more joy into somebody's life or makes life a little bit less energy taxing, right? Gives them more time or those kind of things, right? So everything that comes up, I'm like, okay, well how can I Use this to create a tool or create something new or create a better relationship. Like, most relationships are forged. Not on the good times. You know, they're forged. And like when the shit again is attaching meaning to whatever event pops up right there, let's say a less useful thing pops up, right? And then we figure out how to collaborate on it together to get us over that challenge which strengthens the relationship.

Yet the last two years were a whirlwind for most of us. For me personally.

I really had a lot of story tied up to my investment portfolio as where my nest egg is. And I had it very heavily exposed to growth in tech stocks. Got just absolutely crushed in the last six months. And I remember going for a walk with a friend of mine, his name is Tom, here in town. And as he was sharing kind of something similar about the story and the meaning that I had attached to this, and I looked up at him and I said, it just occurred to me now for the first time in this moment that I am upset about numbers on a computer screen.

I am not worried about selling a house or a car or feeding my children or clothing children or my kids going to a great school or.

Any of that. I'm upset because the number on the screen is different than my expectation or what I had normalized and the thoughts that I had created around that change. And there's this quote from Byron, Katie, that I like a lot where she just asked the question, besides your thoughts, are you okay?

Yeah, that's it.

That's where all of our feeling comes from, is it's not really the thought itself. It's how much energy we put into thought. Because we can have all kinds of thoughts that we don't have. Doesn't bother us. It's the ones we put energy into. Right.

Would you say more about what you mean about putting your energy into the thoughts?

Yeah. So we say it. Usually it means we attach meaning to it. It means something about our identity. That's the energy that we put there. Right. But we've had this discussion before, right? Like if somebody says, hey, you know, you've got purple hair. Right? It's like, what the you talking about? I don't got purple hair. Right. Doesn't mean anything, Valley. But like they say, oh, man, it looks like your hairline's receded, you know, two inch. Like, what the. You know, like if that means something. Right. Like, right. So those kind of things. But, you know, people say, oh, social media is quote, unquote, bad for your. For you or your brain. Or whatever. Well, social media, is this a thing? Right? I think what makes social media draining for us is because it makes us, it doesn't make us do anything we like, oh, now I've got to. Who am I? And I've got to like bolster my identity and attach more energy into that meaning about who I am. I'm a libertarian, I'm a conservative, I'm a this, I believe this, I'm for that, I'm against this. And.

It just. Yeah, so I was the most miserable with Law of Attraction. It says your thoughts are things, right? So you should put a lot of energy in there, right? And that shouldn't work for me, man. Like it worked really great to give me hives and make me smoke a lot and you know, you know, and then even worse because like I wasn't getting the things right. So I thought, everybody tell me I was doing it wrong, right?

But adding more energy into a thought.

Right? It was backwards for me, understanding how thought works and understanding that all your feelings come from thoughts regardless of what's going on. Like I always say, Ron, you crack me up, you make me laugh. But what's really happening is my story. You tell me something. My story about you, right? Is making me laugh. Like if that makes sense, right? It's like there's other people that no matter what they say, I tell a story about it and it pisses me off, but it's not them pissing me off. And that's, that's the distinction, I think that keeps you with the well being and the okayness and.

You know, if you want to attach a label to happy with just that sense of well being, I believe.

And not strongly, but it appears to me that kids are naturally in a calm well being state. Yes, they shit their pants and they have tantrums, right? But they go back to that, you know, they go back to that place until they learn about identity.

Man, this makes so much sense right now because Philip pooped his pants in public a few days ago and he came over to me and said, daddy, I pooped and I took him home and we changed him and it was over. And until he has learned to attach shame to that, until he has learned that was such a good analogy, Travis, for me, because it's so fresh in my mind. He doesn't care. He hasn't thought about it since. He hasn't learned that that's weird. He hasn't learned that that's shameful. He hasn't learned that that's gross. Despite the fact that Both myself, his older sister, and the friends that we were out with were all going, woo hoo. That is rough. Oh, Philip. Ooh, that's a no shame because he doesn't know to attach it. And I just understood what you meant when you said that you became happier or freer when you broke up with Travis Sako. And now what I am hearing from you is that the analogies come to mind is I'm fascinated by my Republican friends who think the world suddenly changed when Joe Biden became president and I tend to lean Republican. But I'm just fascinated that so many of my friends thought the world was great and the country was great two years ago and it has somehow massively changed. And what I'm hearing you say is that that is the identification of both myself as Republican and the world with how it should be. And then finding the thoughts that counteract that or that go against that to be very stressful because of what that means. But if you break up with that story, if you don't have that meaning, those thoughts don't bother you anymore.

If you could look in the mirror.

And say, dude, I'm gonna give you a break, man, for the next week, you don't have to worry about if you're successful, you don't have to worry about if you got the right political party. If you, you don't have to worry about like, if you look good, like, how freeing would that, like all that stuff, like, I'm just going to handle that. Whoever's in the mirror, I'm just going to handle that for you. Right. You go on vacation for the next week and just do what comes to you. Right. The fear is like, oh, we'll just be lazy slobs and, you know.

Evil or whatever those things are. Like, we, we need all these, we need that, we need all of that programming. It's really just program. We need all that programming in order to be good, productive humans. Right. And it has like we always say, kids, oh, they're so innocent. Right. And there's. It's programming that them up. That's right. You know, and I'm using that as a attaching meaning to it. Right. But just using it in a way that we would talk here. Right. You know, I don't want to get deep into all the current events. Right. But everything going on. Right.

Isn't coming from a place of innocence. It's coming from a place of. I believe this.

So strongly that I'm willing to kill for it. Right? Yeah.

You know, it's like, holy Crap. Right. Like, and somewhere that's coming out of an identity, whether it's an identity for the person, identity for the tribe, identity for whatever it is like there. It's based off of that, Right.

In a variety of different areas. I mean, that is. I think that is tribal thinking at its core is I believe, something so strongly about someone's identity, my own or someone else's, that I'm willing to kill for it. But, Travis, someone might say that there is something very useful about that, too. If you genuinely believe that you're correct or that another person is dangerous or that Bill Gates is trying to kill us all. My goodness.

Yeah.

Shout out to all you Bill Gates conspiracy nuts.

I'm gonna get some hate for that one. There are people who genuinely believe that there is a dangerous group of people out there, of them out there, that is a threat to what I call myself. And so what would you say to.

Those who think it is, who would say it's useful to have a degree of that mentality?

Yeah. So now here's where you're going to get me in trouble. Right.

I went first.

So this is. This is a human lens now. We're all humans, right? At least, hopefully people listening to this that are understanding it are human. Right. So I don't know of a way to.

Not have thoughts. Right. But it is the kind of. The meaning that we attach to that. But if we can understand this, right? Like the higher power, the higher consciousness or the infinite wisdom or whatever you want to call it out there doesn't have a problem with death. It's not. They're not labeling to a problem we have. We label all this stuff good, bad, evil, terrible. And I know it's, you know, whatever's going on, whatever that thing is, Right? Yes. You can look at it from a human perspective and say, wow, like, there's people.

Xyz, right? That's still a human lens that we're looking through, Right. I don't want to use the word God so much. I'm trying not to use that word, Right? Because it means so many different things, right? But like, Mother Nature doesn't weep when an apple falls from the tree, right? And it hits the ground and we go eat it. Or Mother Nature doesn't weep when a lion eats a gazelle, Right? And I understand this makes me seem very callous and insensitive, like, I don't have feelings, right? I do. I have those same thoughts and those same feelings, but I have a different perspective on it now because I'm. I'VE broken free a lot of the habit of attaching deep, deep meaning to that and not trying to be right about it. Like, my, my life changed a lot when I'm like, you know what? When it changed from, dude, you're probably right from about 99% of shit, and you're only wrong about 1%. My life was a fucking wreck.

When that switch just said, I don't know shit. There's probably only 1% of the things I need to know, right? And the rest of it I don't know. And I'm completely okay with that, right? But where can I focus that's most useful, right?

Like there's a saying like, if every man was at peace with himself, there would be no war, right? So I think that to me, that's the most awesome thing I can do is to find peace for myself, maybe help somebody else find peace. Yes, right? Part of reason why I wanted to come on here and do this, right? For the one person that's not steaming mad at me now because like, I'm not outraged, right? And I do. Like if I had a magic wand, I'd change it, right? Like, I'm not saying I wouldn't put peace in everybody's heart and stop all the, the ego and the identity from clubbing one each another or whatever is going on, whatever that, that club thing is, right? But.

I think that we're more useful with a calm and peaceful heart. Like, who do you want to operate on you? Like if somebody's doing surgery on you and something goes wrong, do you really want them to freak the fuck out? Oh my God, we cut the wrong thing, right?

Like, this is terrible. No, you want somebody, that's.

Okay. Forceps, please, right?

And gonna come clear headed, level headed, right? Maybe point something out that would be useful from this, right?

If our stocks are crashing, right? And our family is depending on us, right? Do we really want to freak the fuck out? We're like, okay, why don't we get out of the market? Do we know which way it's going to go? No, we don't know which way it's going to go. And maybe even after the math say, why did I lose that money to begin with? Is this really the most useful tool for me? Do I really understand how to mitigate my risk? And do I really understand how I can maximize my payoff? Can I get an infinite ROI out of, out of this? Or just, you know, those kind of things, right? Because again, like my just my Travis Sago theory, wrong tool theory, right? Creates Most of the inefficiencies like.

But we want to have those. That clear headedness, yes, right. You know, to me is a better place to come from.

It's funny you say this because it was the exact advice that someone gave me, someone I look up to said, the first thing we got to do, Ryan, before we fix this problem is get you into a good mental state. And the best way to fix your mental state is not to fix the problem, it's to maybe stop the bleeding and reassess. Which in the moment I didn't really want to hear, like, no, tell me how to fix the problem. Thought you were my friend. And the way you fix the problem is to fix yourself or to adjust your perspective on the situation, which for me was walking away from it for a little bit, taking a month off from checking my stock portfolio every day to catch my breath and come back and reassess this. But Travis.

In the example of there being these groups of people who seem to be at each other's throats.

I agree with you. I have said publicly I don't want to be part of the resistance. I want to be a bridge builder.

I don't want to put up a fight. I don't want to fight the other side. I want to walk across a bridge to the other side, understand them and mend bridges. That's the role I want to play. It's just who I am and the role I want to play in this world. And there are those who have communicated to me and their opinion that if you are not standing for one side, preferably their side, that you are part of the problem, that it's bridge builders that are the problem in this world. It's not bridge builders we need. It's more people on our side that is the problem. Or that would change things. How would you respond to that?

I don't know that I would.

I would just be like, I understand your perspective, right. And I have to adopt it.

I think.

That our focus, our perspective gets too narrowed down sometimes, right. And we especially because we live in a world that looks through screenshot, it's going to be on video or not. I'm holding up my iPhone, right?

We look through a screen and then we use our intellect again, that tool to say, oh, this is what's really going on in the world. And forgetting that I've got somewhere, probably this is from the part west, probably came from China. Like, how many people did it take to bring me the shirt that I'm wearing? Right? And we're talking to you're in Texas and I'm in Arkansas talking on zoom, right? I'm sitting at a chair that's super comfortable. Like.

The male person's gonna bring me mail here. And I mean, like, all the support that I have, right? All of this amazing stuff that's going on right now, I'm not saying not to, like, just totally ignore any of the quote, unquote, bad stuff and just look at quote unquote good stuff, right? But it helps if we take it all in, all at the same time to get a more valid.

Feedback of what's really happening in the world. I can't remember who said this. I think it was Byron, Katie. But she's like, you're always okay. Even on your deathbed, you're okay, right? Like, what's the worst that's going to happen? You're going to go to sleep, right? And we don't know what's going to happen then is my personal.

Thought. We don't know what's going to happen then. And to me, if we're not supposed to know what happened, if we were supposed to know what happened, we would know what happened. So I'm not. It's not useful for me.

Right? And again, this is me. I'm not saying for somebody else, like, if you're a theologian or study, maybe that's useful for you, but it's not useful for me in my life to spend time wondering what's going to happen because the lights go out, right? Somebody throws dirt on my face, right? It's just not a useful part of my life, right? Like, it's not good, bad. I just look at it. What's the most useful focal point for me, right?

And Travis, I have to highlight, I think the reason why you can be okay with that comes back to what you started with, which is that you don't identify with being Travis Saka. You're you more.

I'm like, all my good days, for sure.

You have, you have, you have, you have learned that the story that you have of yourself being this physical, mental, emotional representation of who you are is not the full story or it is part of the story and not the full story thing. And, and therefore you can be okay with even the idea of this story dying.

Because you don't have meaning or you at least don't have all of your meaning attached to that one event.

I don't have a lot of energy anymore, right? Like, you know, it's interesting. Look at extremes on both sides, right? The most extreme people that put so much energy into their thoughts, right? Are usually in prison or an insane asylum, right? Oh, they cut me off in traffic, disrespected me, and now I'm gonna go shoot them, right? And I know I'm taking it, again, extreme right.

On that, right? Or they're crazy. Like, I did this because voices told me to do it, and I believe those voices. So that's a very, very extreme. Yeah, right? Then on the other side, like, we have.

You know, the Buddha, right?

You know, so we're probably somewhere in between there, right? But I think the more we can detach from this story of ourselves, I really think half of our energy drains now because we have this manufactured self that we always got to defend. We've always got to offend, right? As well as defend, right? And we always get. We're always like, where does it stack up in the status game, right? Rather than playing a creation game, we play a status game, right? Where do we stack up? And there's no winning that game, right? Like, even when you. Even if you're very, very on the top now. Now you're like, oh, who's gunning for me if you're the king right? Now you got to, like, worry about who's. He was trying to dethrone me, right?

You know, so you got all those things, and there is no peace, right? You're not gonna have any peace if you got to make everybody think like, you too, right? I can't have any peace until everybody.

Believes this thing, right? And maybe that's something for you to shoot for. But just don't expect any peace on this planet, right?

You know, I think it's a more powerful position to come from, right? Like, I get shit done.

Unbelievable shit. Then I'd be like, how the you do that, right? Well, my ego's not in the way, and I'm okay to fail at stuff, too, right? It's like, I've got this no pitch. I'm really hopped up on this right now, but I'm really hopped up on this no pitch. Ask me anything. There's no pitch in there at all. No pitch.

And when I put up the replay, we're at $50 per view by me just putting a few paragraphs down underneath.

The. The thing, right? This is just the right tool. Like, I'm not. I'm not against pitches either, right? But do we. What I was testing is we really need to have the pitch. Like, how much is the pitch really account for the sales? Not very. I mean, could. It could have made some More sales. Yeah. Right. But how much faster can we do AMAs, how much more focus we be on getting result if we didn't have to worry about the pitch. Right. Those kind of things. Right. So I always run it back to business. That's kind of where my. My mind is focused. Right.

So, you know, what you said earlier reminded me of a quote that you often bring up from Michael. Michael Singer, which is that you won't be okay or everything won't be okay until you are okay with everything.

Yeah. And that drives people crazy sometimes, right?

Yes.

You know, so either you get to be one extreme, the other. Like, that's such. Right. And the first time I read, I tried to read that Untethered Soul, like, I thought it was all.

What the F. Right? And it was like, I don't remember how many years later. But some years later, maybe five or. I don't remember, but I was like, man, this is the best book ever written. When I was. I get overly hyped up on books. I'm. Right. But it's like, it's a top ten for me. Right.

I agree. Me too.

Yeah.

Yeah. Would you explain why that quote specifically stands out to you? Because I think it captures a lot of the essence of what you are saying in this conversation.

Yeah.

But I'd like for you to explain what that means to you.

Well, because I can fix me. I can't fix the stock market.

I can't fix.

You know, maybe a low sales converter. They're not converting. They're not converting.

Right.

But I can fix me. I can go in. I can always go deeper and see what is it that I'm not seeing. Right? It's always about me, right. On some level. Right. Me not being Travis Saga. But it's about my. It's about where I'm putting my focus.

If I. If I'm not feeling okay, it can't be the event. Event is just an event, right? It's my thinking about the event. Right? And somewhere. It's not even the thinking. It's not having the thought. Right?

But attaching that energy, giving that energy, right? It's depleting our battery. Battery to that thought. Right? Which I don't have to do. I can just step back for it and say, what. What's happening? Right? What's the cause and effect? My favorite dead mentor is Eli Goldratt. What's the. What's what? Is this an effect? Or is it in a cause? Right? And then I can get down to the root cause, right? And say, oh, well, this is why. That's why that's happening for me, right? In our. We started as like calmness, okayness. How do we stay okay? Right. The reason we're not okay is not what's happening out there. It is our thought to take this back to my electronics background. You have a radar screen. You ever seen those on the movie? The radar screen swoops around. When it's working correctly, it only identifies actual, what they call contacts out there, ships, islands.

Something out there in the water. And it makes getting from point A to point B very efficient, Right? But. And that's like humans, right? But if we start adding noise, right? So my job was to make sure the signal to noise ratio was correct. And if you think there's a bunch of noise on there, one of two things going to happen. One, you're going to take a long way around, right? Because you don't know what's noise and what's actually a ship in front of you. Or you're going to say, oh, I think this is. I think this little squiggle right here is just noise, right? And if it's not, it turns out to be the iceberg, you know, like the Titanic, then you're screwed, right? Like so. But everything's okay, right? But if you add all that thought, all that noise, and you don't, then you lose your. Your centerness, right?

And life becomes confusing. You don't know how to get from point A to point B anymore. You don't know how to be useful, right? Because you've got all this noise. You got to go around where you just stay put because you don't know if it's a ship, right? Especially if it's all around you and everything looks like, oh my God, there's no way to go. There's nowhere to go, Right. Does that make sense?

It does. And the way that I'm processing that is.

If I'm working with a client and I tell them a million dollar business is just four products times 25 sales a day at a $30 price point.

That'S a thought, that's a lesson. And the practice is to plug in the four products, get them in 25 sales a day, and repeat over four products, right? It's like very linear, very straight to the point where my work comes in with that client is overcoming things like, well, Joe told me about TikTok ads and so and so told me about this and I even had a client say. I had a client say this very recently. Well, I'm worried that Valuations on businesses are going to go down as a result of Biden's tax plan and inflation. And I was like, dude, you haven't sold a product yet.

There's. Let me ask you, that's all the noise.

Was this person very intelligent?

Yes.

Yeah, I see that a lot. Because what they're trying to do is make everything safe before they put the car into drive and get it off the curve. I always. My saying is, you can't steer a parked car. And I also, I try to blame for people, but I drive super analytical people batshit crazy because I'm a very much just put it in the drive. Now, I always want to be weighing our risk and reward.

So I'm not saying like to go walk a tightrope 100 yards above with no safety net, right. But very often the only thing we're risking is our ego.

If we take a wrong turn, even if we have friends in the back of the car, the worst thing that's going to happen is we have to say, you know what? I went the wrong way. I need to make a U turn. Right. The only thing that's really happened is like, maybe we've spent a little bit of gas. Right. But we're mostly worried about what our friends in the back think. Travis don't know where the hell he's going.

Right, Right.

Right. But what will happen is we keep going the same path, even though we think, oh, I think I'm going the wrong way, but I'm going to say anything because, like, then I look bad, right?

But what I call this is, like, so. And I'm not trying to beat up on people. I have a son that has 160 IQ. He's super, super smart. But they have a tendency of sitting in the car and saying, you know what? One map is not good enough.

I need four maps. I need three GPSs. I need somebody to please call ahead for me, right. At every single, like, at every mile point and make sure there's nothing bad that's happened like, along the way.

Right before I start, right? And what's interesting is, like, humans already know how to. To operate. Right. If we. Again, that's using our intellect for the wrong tool. Right. When we're driving in the fog, we know what to do, right. We know the worst thing that we could do is to stop.

Right?

Then we're going to take it in the butt. Right? Like, that's the worst thing you can do. Like, you want to drive slow and you want to drive cautious. Right.

Make sure you get your low beams on, right? Like, it's like. It's like intellect. You turn the on too high, too far, like, then you see worser.

That's right.

It's really so bad, you just got to stop, right? But I see this with really smart, intelligent people that use their intellect because they have this tool right now. They want to use it for everything. And they're like me with a pair of pliers on the bike, right? Just rounding out the shit out of everything.

And that's what you're calling noise. The noise that distracts us from the focal point. And so the other side of this is to.

Practice the thoughts that serve us and take us to where we want to go. So how do you flip that script, Travis? It sure seems effortless for you. It sure seems effortless for you to show up calm.

It's a lot less effort when we're not labeling everything good, bad, evil, good should, shouldn't. We're breaking free from our programming, and we're just looking at what's the most useful focus. It doesn't matter if it's good or bad. What's the most useful, useful focus? Right here, Right. I'll give you a really great example. This comes up all the time. And the people that I help is we do a lot of deals, right? So I would say that's their focus, your focus, and the most useful focus, right? So we propose a deal. Kind of in the business that we have, we usually share a percentage. We share a revenue share percentage, right? But what's common for humans when you start talking about a number is all the focus goes on that number. All the focus goes on that percentage, Right? That's not. Anytime you're focusing on one number, it's probably not the most useful focal point. Right? So in any relationship, there's usually something that you want to do together, right? So if I'm trying to work a deal with you, right, and we're going to share a percentage, I want to pull back from that and take a bigger area view and say, ryan, let's not make this about a percentage. It's about a partnership. And what we really want to do is we want to grow this income stream as big as possible. Possible, right? Isn't that. Is that what we like? We want to grow the income stream for you, I want to go to the income stream for me at the same time, right? So I want to make sure that we. We get to a number that allows us to do that. Right. And I'm sure you'd much rather have 50% of a million than 80% of a hundred thousand. Right. The worst thing I could possibly do to you is take a percentage. It's two small. Because I won't be able to grow the incomes, our income stream. Conversely, like if I take one that's too big right. Then and I bleed you dry, that's not going to make for a good relationship either, right? So now I've just put the, the whole concept of the percentages right in there. Now what will happen? A lot of times they'll say, why don't we just split it 50, 50, right. And a lot of times I'll say, you know what, depending on the price and everything, like I'll have to lower my percentage. I'm like, you know what, I can actually do this for less. Right. And I want this to be profitable for you. Right. And work for you too. Right. But the most useful focal point is never a percentage when you're talking about a relationship. And what's the big thing that you're trying to accomplish? That's like a weird business example, but it's very. We get faced with these things every single day, right? But we like label good, bad, useful, not useful. We get our identity involved, right. It's like payment programs is another one for me. Right. Like if the purpose of a product is not to make a sale, especially a front end product, but to get somebody in as a customer and get them a result. So we developed a relationship. Why not make that hole? Like if we have a hole that's like golf ball size, right. It's gonna be hard to get that golf ball through the hole. But if we open up the manhole, right?

And let's let them, let's give them a big long payment program. Especially if we have a self milking cow situation, which means after they come in, they'll be generating some cash to pay us, right? Why not open that up? Right. It's more efficient. Does that make sense?

But it does.

We too focus on, oh, I'm going to lose. Here's the diabolical part about this. I'm going to lose money, right? If I don't get the payments up front. And here's what we figured out. We make more money cash collected up front. Because when we say, hey ryan, this is 10 payments of 590, right? You say, I'm in. I'm like, awesome. We have a paying full discount. Would you like to hear about that? Yes, I would. Great. We can save you a thousand bucks if you want to make one payment of 4900. I'll take that. Now, we've tested this over and over again with different split tests. We collect more money by doing that because we get so many more people to say, I'm in. Like, if they're going to pay full pay to begin with, right? They still pay full pay, but it's so much easier to say, I'm in after that. It's like the micro commitment going in. Right. And we're too focused on cash. Collecting the cash up front, Right. That's not the most useful focus point. Right. At least that I found.

So, Travis.

You work with us zany entrepreneurs every day. Your favorite thing.

You're my favorite peeps.

That's right. Mine too. We are a zany bunch.

And we have our own unique fears and perspectives. And you've dealt with just as many as I have over the last two years who are scared about their business, scared about their livelihood, scared about the market, scared about politics, scared about international relations.

I'm just curious overall, how you're coaching people through this time, overall, what are you telling them.

That is allowing them to find peace in the middle of the storm? And I ask this specifically because I don't know a single person in this world who comes out of a conversation with Travis Sago not feeling better.

My ego likes that very much.

The story of Travis Sago likes it. I've told you this privately, but when I'm feeling chaotic, my meditation is often putting myself in your coffee room.

Having a brew with Travis. So what are you saying in those conversations with those who are coming to you feeling chaotic?

Here's what I endeavor to do or try to do.

It's not.

Like nobody ever worries about oxygen.

Right? They don't ever worry about oxygen. It's like, oh, how much oxygen do I have today? Like, how much oxygen am I consuming? Do I need to start storing oxygen, like, in my garage?

What do I. What do I need to do, right? To get more oxygen, right? And something far worth less work with. Less worth is money, right? Let's use money.

But money has less worth than oxygen, is what you mean.

Yeah. Less worth than oxygen. Yeah. Like, you know.

But we'll put a lot of focus on that, right? Because we attach meaning to it, like, oh, it's our safety, it's our security, it's our. All these things, right? But, like, even oxygen, right, it's pretty much useless unless you know how to breathe.

If you have lung problems, right? Like, Jeanne's having some lung issues right now, right?

So she's not worried about the oxygen. She's worried about, like, how do I get my ability to breathe stronger? So this is the same thing that I tried to do. I try to point out that they already have these abilities, Right. They're just putting too much focus on the security. Right. When you know how to breathe, you're not going to worry about money anymore, Right. There's a woodshed down here. I walk by it all the time, right. It's my neighbor's house. I just have these little imaginary conversations that goes on in my head sometimes, which may qualify me for the insane asylum. Sometimes. His pile gets down low, but then all of a sudden it fills back up again. But I bet he doesn't put a lot of thought into to that, right? Like, his wife's not saying, oh, Mark, the wood pile is low again. He's not like, damn it. Like, you know, he's not worried about it. He's gonna get more wood and chop down more trees or just get the wood wherever it comes from, Right.

But, like, if she wants a new dress or a new car, damn, what do you think I made of money or something? Like, no. Like, so what we worry about is like our. What we're really worried about is our ability.

Yes.

Out there, Right. That's part of his. I never. It sounds braggadocious, but I really don't. Look, I know how to breathe. He could literally take everything away from me, Right. I mean, I'd have to beg, borrow, or steal a cell phone. But if I have a cell phone and a way to email somebody or a way to private message him, like, I'm going to put a deal together, I'll be back in business, right?

I'm a producer, right. There's a difference between creator and producer. I want to get into a lot of it, right? But I can just take what already is existing out there, put them together, right? So I'm just looking for the cards that make the royal flush. I don't need to have all the cards. So I'd look for the ace, the king, the queen, the jack and tin. I just put them all together, right? And next thing you know, money's gonna come out, Right.

I just want to give an example about this to highlight what you're saying. You used to call it the producer mindset.

That's right.

I call it the owner's model. Very similar concept. I'm doing a working on a deal right now where there is a company for sale that I see a lot of opportunity in.

Normally, I would say go raise Capital to do it. So you're not at risk. I'm not even doing that. I have a partner who is raising the capital.

I know how to run the company, but I'm more of a visionary and I'm focused on capitalism.com right now. So I am bringing on a CEO. And interestingly enough, the CEO makes it easier to raise capital because he's got a network and experience.

And that CEO needs an operator. So we created a partnership with an operating team.

And I will say, I mean, call me if you need me, but you guys got this, right? And I'll have ownership and profit shares for putting the deal together. And it's one of those examples where I've realized, like you are saying, if you know how to produce.

That is always a profitable skill versus my attachment to being profitable this month, over last month.

Causes or your identity envelops your product. Now my product now, if my product stops selling, I'm fucked.

Exactly that.

Right? Because it's like, oh, you know, and that's too, again, that's too much hyper focus on the product. Right. Where really the real value is in your people and your distribution. Right. You know, that's what. So we talk about focus, right? You have a short term focus and a long term focus. Short term is always about your product. Right. That's not the most useful focus. Most useful focus is the network and your audience that you're building that you can. Right, right. I have. People are still buying. I'm sure you do too. For me, like back from 2005, they're still buying. Right. My products have changed significantly or they're still buying my recommendations. Right. But sometimes when the economy gets bad, your ability to produce is more valuable, that's less valuable. Right. Your ability to somebody who knows how to breathe.

Or has oxygen, breathing apparatus that help in a low oxygen environment. It's going to become very, very popular. Right. So to get back to your original, I try to coach my people. It's like focus on the long term and focus on your ability to produce under any economic circumstance. Right. Money is not like money is just a symbol of value. No more than can you eat a picture of a hamburger. Like money is not going to keep you safe. Right? Yeah.

I love that example.

Travis, you've had your own unique challenges these last couple years. Have you had freak out moments? Do you have moments in which your cage gets rattled and if so, how do you respond now? Differently than.

10 years ago?

I do, but.

This almost sounds unbelievable, but they probably don't last. Probably maximum an hour.

Right. And usually I can go for a walk or I have. I have my. My. My creative thing. Like, either. I think we're similar in this. Either journaling or going for a walk. Just getting that. Getting that perspective. Right. For me, it works for me better to have alone time. Right. Some people that. It helps to talk it out, I think. And I think that does help me on some levels. Right. But most time, it's just a matter of me remembering that it's not the world out there that's the problem. It's my thoughts about the world and what I'm attaching. It usually comes back. It almost always comes back to, where does Travis say go feel threatened? Right? Where.

Right. Right.

Where have I gotten back together? Where am I having a booty call with Travis, you know?

Yeah.

You know, back. Back together with that. Because usually anytime, like, I have those freak outs, like, I'm just worried about, like, how they're gonna view me, right. Or how my big things. I hate letting people down. Like, that's still. I hate letting people down. Right. Like, if I feel like I've let somebody down, right. That's. That can be. That can be triggering for me, right. If I feel like I've let somebody down, right. That's probably it. One of my trigger points. If something will come up, it'll probably be around the area of me letting them down like half the time. Like, because of the way I run my business and everything. Like, I always go into things as tests and it's mostly a story. Like, I'm like, look, dude, like, this campaign ain't gonna work out. Like, I thought it was. Like, that's okay, dude. Like.

Yeah, I really want to knock it out of the park for you. You know, it's like those kind of things, right? But.

You know, it's interesting you say that. I'm just observing something in you because that's your trigger and that's the thought, like, I might let somebody down. That would be your shit, as we called it on this conversation. The way that you've turned that into sugar is you are really, really good at low risk deals. Most of your deals that I've seen you structure, even with me, have been, I'll take the risk and we'll create a profit share agreement. I'll test really small. I consider myself an investor. So there's no skin off your back. If it goes well, I'll do more of it. If not. We had a nice test, and we've.

Had that happen before.

And I never thought anything of it didn't work so well. And we've had some do really well. And what I'm noticing about you is that's how you turn that shit into sugar.

That's it. I've kind of molded my business around me instead of me around the business, right? Beautiful. You know, I think, I think it's more. It's a more integral way to do business anyways. It's like, what's like, I don't want to beat up on Facebook ad agencies, but you know, they come in like, hey, give me five grand a month, right? Sign a six month contract. I super promise, pinky swear that you're gonna get these CPAs that you want, right?

You know, super problems pick. You swear like, you won't get your money back and there's no guarantees, right? And it's like, damn, that's like, that's like going from coffee to like a marriage, right? So I'm just kind of like, let's, let's have, hello, coffee date, first date, maybe we'll go steady and then have a marriage, right? That's worked way better for me because I don't. I don't want to say that I know this is going to work again. This is me going back to the. I don't know if shit's going to work anymore, right. I just put stuff out there, I look at the data, right? And then I turn based off of what the data gives me, right. I've done that enough times. I'm pretty good at maneuvering around the data, right. But I don't try to forecast it before I get involved in it.

Well, Travis, I wish more people knew about your work, which is why I like to think I might be your number one influencer.

Might be. Makes me proud when I see people in your Facebook groups and your masterminds and I'm like, hey, that's from my group.

I think you're correct about that. Yeah.

Yes. Yes. So I know you don't put out a ton of content publicly, but I think the one place people can follow you is in your Facebook group. Is there another place where people can get there?

Yeah, that's probably the best place. Again, this sounds braggadocious, but most of my programs are full up and. Except, listen, I'm running an experiment with people, so. But I'd like to talk about offers at million dollar offer mojo.com which will just redirect you over to the Facebook group.

But my thing is, like, I may have just made a post. Like, I'm not really trying to become popular, right. Like I would like to. I'm not trying to figure out how to. To blow people's minds, right. In a way that gives them a shorter path to a result that they want breakthroughs and those kind of things. So if I can provide that value.

That'S what I'm about now serendipitously, if any popularity comes out of that, like I'm, you know, I do have an ego. I am grateful for that. Right. But that's what I try to focus on. It's more useful focal point for me to do that. But yeah, and I like talking about offer. So that'd be probably the best place for them to mix their peanut butter with my jelly if we were do something like that.

Very good, Travis. It's always a joy to hang out with you, my friend.

Yeah.

Sharing your wisdom with the world.

Thanks, man.

Good to see you, my friend.