215: Travis Thomas - Speaking with a Yes, And Mindset

Hey everybody, and welcome to This Moved Me, a podcast about creating talks that move the world. With me, your host, Sally Koering Zimney. Together with some fabulous guests, we will have a casual conversation about the art of public speaking, because a good talk can move the world and it'll be fun. Yeah, I would think making alien cows meaningful. That's not a small task. I love your giggle. Wow. Oh my gosh, so waiting for everybody to figure out the alphabet.

Hey everybody, it is Sally Koering Zimney Zimney, and I am super excited to introduce this week's episode to you. Uh, now you can probably hear I am not sitting at home in my quiet little studio. I am sitting at my local community center, but I wanted to take a moment and introduce this week's show for you. But this week's episode is a conversation with Travis Thomas, and I think he's got a really wide array of experience that he brings to this conversation. He's an improviser, he's an entrepreneur, He's a consultant around leadership development, and he brings all of those pieces together in this conversation. And I found it to be really helpful, really interesting, and some great reminders for all of us in terms of how we can show up in the day-to-day, how we can leverage our role as leaders and entrepreneurs and how we can make the most of the moments that we have up front by digging into our life experience, our leadership experience, and our point of view. So I'm super excited about sharing this episode with you. Take a listen. Here he is, Travis Thomas.

Yeah. So actually, just about a year ago, I gave a talk for Creative Mornings. Are you familiar with Creative Mornings?

I love Creative Mornings.

Yes, yes, a big fan of Creative Mornings. So I gave a talk at our local chapter for Creative Mornings down here in Palm Beach, and after the talk, I'm just meeting different people, and a woman came up, a young woman came up and said, "Hey, really enjoyed your talk. I am affiliated with this group called the Watson Institute. We have a new program at Lynn University." And she says, "I'm not sure what everything is going to be yet, but I would love to bring you in in some capacity." And so just keeping that dialogue open with her, she brought me in this fall to do a, just kind of, it's called a master course workshop where they bring in outside people to talk to the students. So they brought me in to do like a little 2.5, 3-hour workshop with their students. The students really enjoyed it, and so we stayed in touch. And so they— fast forward to the, you know, the winter break, they had a teacher have to step away and not be able to teach the second semester. And they're like, "All right, who can we get to teach the second semester?" And they're like, "Oh, hey, how about Travis? We all liked Travis." So they reached out and I went through the interview process. And so, yeah, it's kind of a fun— it was a fun sort of process from her hearing me speak at a public event and then bringing me in to do a talk with her students and then having that lead into a teaching position. So it was really kind of neat how that came about.

So what was your master course workshop on?

My master course workshop was on kind of my sweet spot, which is, my company is called Live Yes Anne. My sweet spot is taking the principles of personal development, the principles of leadership, principles of mental conditioning, and the principles of improvisation. Improvisation is sort of my— what I've been doing for 20 years. As I've gotten into the personal development space and the leadership space, and the high-performance sort of mindset space, I've seen these principles of improvisation as being a great tool and a great foundation to help teach these other ideas in an experiential and interactive and relevant way. So when I went in to work with them as socially conscious entrepreneurs, we talked about everything from purpose, you know, how do we let our sense of purpose sort of guide us? To collaboration, which is what improvisation is all about. But then how do we not only collaborate with life and sort of what kind of life throws our way, and as entrepreneurs how things are going to rarely go as planned. And so how well do we collaborate with that or yes and that? How do we yes and all the uncertainty and all the twists and turns? And how do we develop relationships and environments where people want to collaborate with us and we are good collaborators with others as we kind of grow our mission. And so, yeah, the 3 things I really focused on was the purpose side of things, the relationship side of things, and the collaboration side of things.

I love it.

Yeah, and then so now with the college course that I teach, they have a curriculum already for me.. But then it's a 3-hour class every Wednesday night, and so there's kind of the curriculum they want me to get through, but then it's, you know, it's left to my discretion as far as what other things I incorporate into that time and how I present it. So it's a real fun opportunity to kind of continue to sort of weave a lot of the ideas and work that I do into sort of their curriculum.

Cool. I love it. I always love to hear about what we as speakers and our message that we're passionate about, how all the different ways that we bring that out into the world. It's not just standing up and doing a talk, but it's also finding these smaller avenues of audience and connection and the cross-section of the world that we get to interact with You know, you're working with young, socially engaged entrepreneurs, right? Socially conscious people who are—

Yeah, socially conscious. Yep, exactly.

I love that it's not just the conference talk, but it's also all the different ways that we repurpose our material and our message and our work and find different avenues of engagement and interest. That audience in particular, I'm sure, is just eating this up.

Yes, and you know, it's great. Yesterday was this really, really kind of neat day from the standpoint of, you know, I was actually reflecting on it this morning that, you know, when I made the decision almost 4 years ago, I was working at a sports academy as a leadership coach, a high-profile sports academy, but I was just ready to kind of go and do my own thing. But it was a position that I was leaving and there was, it wasn't like I had a client book or anything that I was taking with me. It was just kind of taking that leap and like, "All right, I think I can make this work." And so it was a big leap of faith. And so this morning I was reflecting and yesterday was a great example. Yesterday I started my day off. Doing an hour leadership class with a group of about 10 high school students who are in a soccer academy. So these are kids who are high-level soccer players, and so I work with them every 2 weeks and we talk about leadership and mental training. So I started my day off with them, so high school soccer players, and then I quickly drove, you know, about half an hour to get to the Miami Marlins baseball spring training facility here in Florida where I did an hour leadership session with 12 of their minor league professional baseball players. Cool. For the third time in the last week and a half, I've done 3 sessions with these guys. And so I went and worked with some youth athletes, worked with some professional athletes, and then at the end of the day I got to drive down to Boca University and sit and be with 12 socially conscious entrepreneur students, 10 of which were international. And I just got to do these 3 different things that got to incorporate the work that I'm really passionate about. And 2 of those opportunities didn't even exist 2 months ago. They just kind of came out of nowhere. And then the other one was, it didn't exist when I decided to kind of go off on my own. And so it was just kind of fun to go, okay, in this one day I had 3 different opportunities that, you know, when I, as a speaker and as a trainer, when I made that leap of faith, they didn't exist. But trusting, sort of trusting the process and trusting the work, and it was just kind of fun to see the diversity of those 3 opportunities yesterday.

So I'm sure as you're talking, and I feel like you know you're in the right line of work when your life is like this meta example of what you're talking about. And as you're talking, I'm thinking about improv. And this is—

it's a big improv, right?

And of course, life is this— is absolutely improv scene. And we forget that sometimes, which is why there's so many amazing lessons as a trainer and a speaker that you can pull out about leadership. And just to draw the parallel, when I'm working with the speakers, it— the trans— like, as we try and create big change for our audience, we ourselves as speakers have to go through the same sort of big change, that it is a personal development process as much as it is a content development process. And so as you're talking, you're talking about all these same parallels that we as human beings, as we personally develop, we are going through the process of change and transformation, the same lessons and the same challenges that on a meta level that you see as an improviser. I love that sort of the layers of lessons that we bring our expertise to our audience packaged in these other ideas. And so, right, for you to make those connections for me, and I see some, but I'd love to hear your perspective on that. What's the connection between leadership and improv? How do we— how do you package those ideas in improv?

Yeah, absolutely. Uh, so yeah, the connection between leadership and improv, it's interesting. Uh, When I was working for this sports academy, the sports academy is called IMG Sports Academy. It's in Sarasota, Florida. It's seen as probably the top sports training facility in the world. It's a boarding school. It's a K-12 boarding school for athletes as well as a training hub for college teams and professional teams and athletes from all around the world. I was— when I took that job, a friend of mine sent me the job description, and the job description was improvisation and leadership coach. I was like, what? Is this a joke? You know, I didn't know that those two would exist outside of me thinking that there was a connection. And so I got the opportunity to go, and I got the job. So what I was doing was we were using improvisation as a tool to help kids and athletes feel these leadership qualities. Because it's one thing to stand in front of a group of an audience and say, "Hey, you need to be a good teammate. Hey, you need to get out of your comfort zone. Hey, you need to be a good communicator. You need to have all these leadership ideas." And you know, most people would sit there and nod their head or nod off, right, if you're just talking about these ideas. It's one thing to say, "Hey, we're going to talk about how great leaders are really great communicators. So let's do a communication activity." And so a lot of the improv and leadership connection is taking a lot of the activities that we do in improvisation as a training tool and as a performance tool and then doing it in a way where obviously improvisationally the outcome is all about entertainment.. But as a training tool, the outcome is using it as a way for people to be able to notice and reflect on what kind of communicator they are. And so, how good are you at giving details? How well were you listening during that activity? And so, were you demonstrating empathy? Were you trying to understand your partner's perspective of where they were coming from? Or were you just trying to steamroll your agenda? Down their throat. So it's really just an idea whether it's improvisation or whether it's just sort of games. It's let's take a game, let's take an activity, have you do the activity, and now let's reflect on what leadership qualities you expressed or didn't express during that activity. And so it makes the activity kinesthetic. It makes it interactive and it makes it relevant because instead of just talking about the quality, they get an opportunity to feel it and experience it and demonstrate it.

I love that. And it wasn't just— I like you framing it as we want you to feel what it is that we're talking about. Yes. Like to feel what risk really is like and to feel the idea of not really knowing how things are going to end but starting anyway, you know, like, um, yeah, I think that's really important distinction. It's not just we're going to practice it, but I want you to feel it because there's something about what happens in the body, right?

Exactly. That's that, yeah, it's that visceral, um, feeling that we get when, when something really resonates with us, you know, as speakers Right, that's what we're trying to do, we're trying to create, you know, we're trying to create, we want, we're trying to shift thoughts, right, we're trying to shift thoughts, and the best way to shift thoughts is to create that feeling, create that connection, create that emotional connection with someone. One of my favorite things, speaking in the framework of feeling, one of my favorite things I love to do is I'll often do, a focus where we're talking about from a mental standpoint, you know, the difference between having quote-unquote a victim mindset and having a victor mindset or fixed growth mindset in the world of Professor Dr. Carol Dweck. And so it's this, it can come across as this is sort of very intellectual activity where I sort of walk everyone through, hey, you know, your beliefs create your perspective, your perspective is the reason that when something happens, you either respond as a victim or you respond as a victor. When you respond as a victim, you're in blaming, complaining, making excuses. When you respond as a victor, you're all about accountability, responsibility, being adaptive, and finding a way. So it's just, you know, everyone looks at it and goes, yeah, it's common sense, I get it, I get it, I get it. Victim, victor, I get it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. If you want to switch from a victim to a victor, you need to change your beliefs, not what's happening. And everyone's nodding their head like, yeah, yeah, yeah, Travis, I get it, I get it. We walk through the whole thing and I'm like, "All right, so I want to segue. So what we're going to do now is we're going to have a singing contest." And all of a sudden, you see bodies squirm. And you see people checking the exits like, "Um, I need to get out of here." And if it's a big group, I say, "All right, I'm going to randomly walk around and choose 5 people." who are going to come up on stage and you're going to have to sing for 30 seconds, song of your choice, it doesn't matter, you get to choose, I don't care what song you choose, and then I'm going to record it on my phone, no big deal, we don't have the same Facebook friends, don't worry about it, and I'm going to post it to my Facebook page and by the end of the talk we're just going to see which of my friends thought the person had the best song. So don't worry about the relevance. So I'm just teeing it up, I'm just talking, singing contest, singing contest, singing contest, and people are probably tinkling their pants, right? There's this sense of terror.

Totally.

And so I drag it on for a little bit, and then I eventually say, "Okay, who's ready to go first?" And you know, the crazy thing is, the awesome thing is, there's sometimes people will volunteer and go, "I want to do it." Yeah. And then, you know, there's been a few times where I've actually let them because I want to honor that courage.

Yeah.

But I usually go, "Okay, everyone freeze." We're not really having a singing contest. And you feel this collective sigh that leaves the room. And I say, all right, hold on, freeze, hold on a second. While this feeling is still raw, while you are still feeling this, let's go back, let's go back to what we just talked about. And I'm usually writing it down. I was like, when I said we're going to have a singing contest, Where did your thoughts go? Did they go to the victor or did they go to the victim? Because we just talked about this really common sense intellectual idea for 10 or 15 minutes and everyone nods, "Yeah, Travis, I get it, I get it, I get it, I get it." And then there's a difference between intellectually getting something and then really being able to feel and understand, "Oh, wow." You're right, I probably do that dozens of times a day. How many times I am met with a stimulus or I'm met with an idea and how quickly my thought shifts to a victim response. And so it's all about, but yeah, like you said, long story, it's all about creating that feeling instead of just sharing content.

Which I love. Such a powerful strategy because we do want our audience to feel. That is step one of getting them to consider differently or to pay attention or whatever. Like, that's the breaking through that wall. We have to get them to feel and really having an intention around how and what we want our audience to feel. Right, right. Really can change your whole approach. I love that. I can absolutely see people going, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I have a Victor mindset. I mean, I know what you're talking about.

I got this. I get it. Yeah, I get it. I get it. Yeah, I got it. I got it. I got it. Okay, okay.

Okay, let's just go ahead and test that theory.

Right.

There are moments for all of us where we're like, Not managing our mind, which I want to get meta, meta, meta here.

Okay, yes, I'm all about getting meta, meta, meta. Let's do it.

I love the layers of you as a performer, as a speaker, talking about leadership to people using improv to athletes, which I think is interesting. How would that— and entrepreneurs, I know, but it sounds like the core of your audience are really athletes, which is a really beautifully aligned leadership concept, right? And one that people have connected forever, right? That you're— when we talk about performance, oftentimes we're when people talk about peak performance and it's really an easy connection to make in terms of your athletic performance, right? So I'm thinking about the audience listening in here and people who want to perform at a different level out in front, right? As leaders, I like to think of it from a leadership, uh, standpoint. But not all speakers even call themselves speakers, let alone leaders, because they're just like, um, it's this thing, this thing that I do, but I'm not really a speaker.

It's like, no, right, right, right, right.

If you're speaking, you're leading.

So you're leading. Yes.

Yeah.

Yes. And we can break it down even— yeah, I was going to say we can break it down a little bit, uh, more elemental than that, which is if you are breathing, you you are leading.

Ooh, yeah. I mean, people are watching you. What are you doing?

You— right. And that's funny working with athletes. Like you said, there's such a clear connection with leadership and athletics. And then even in the athletic world, though, it's really easy to go, oh, well, I'm not the leader. The captain is the leader. And so athletes can go like, oh, but I'm not the captain, so I don't have to be a leader. So one of the first things I would always do in one of my leadership classes is we would talk about this idea of leadership is not, leadership, the idea of leadership is not the person who is captain. Leadership to me, like my definition of leadership is simply how you show up day to day on a consistent basis defines what kind of leader you are. How you show up consistently on a day-to-day basis is Now it doesn't mean you're a good leader. We're all leading. So, you know, leadership can be really bad, right? There's a lot of bad leaders out there. So we're all leaders. The question is, what kind of leader are we? And some of us might be really mediocre leaders. Some of us might be fantastic leaders. Some of us might be horrible leaders. But at the end of the day, like you said, we're all leaders and we're all leading.. And that's based on how we are consistently showing up on a day-to-day basis, because that is creating the impact that we're having on the people around us, or it's influencing the impact of the people around us. And it's funny, I was just— I do a little daily Instagram Live TV, just sort of like a daily video called my Yes Daily, Your Excellent Self Daily. And the video I filmed this morning was on this idea of impact. And from this leadership standpoint, and you know, it's really easy for when we think about the legacy that we want to have, the legacy that we want to leave, you know, when you talk, you use that word legacy, a lot of people think like, oh, that's having a building named after me. It's like, well, let's not look at legacy from that standpoint. Let's look at legacy from the standpoint of what is the impact you want to have on the most important people in your life? Isn't that what leadership is? Leadership is the impact you want to have on the most important people in your life. And so if we take it from that macro level down to the micro level, the micro level is okay, if I'm really clear on, let's say my wife and my kids or my friends, if I'm really clear on at the end of the day whether the end of that day is today or the end of that day is 30 or 40 years from now, if I'm really clear on what would I want them to say the impact I had on them? If I'm really clear on that, well then that gives me a blueprint of how am I showing up today? Every time I have an interaction with one of my kids, I should be thinking to myself, how are they walking away from that interaction? Is it consistent with that quote-unquote legacy of an impact I want to have on them? If I'm a coworker or a manager, in a company, every time I have an interaction with a staff member, I should be asking myself, was that interaction consistent with the impact I want to have on them as a leader? Is it consistent with the culture and the values that this team and this company is built around? Because if it's not, you know, that is, that's where we have a leadership problem.

Right.

Yeah, I think for each of us, yeah, yeah, I think for each of us it's, you know, it's that whole looking at yourself in the mirror. I call it the pillow test. When your head hits the pillow at night and there's no more distractions or stimulus to distract you from your own thoughts, it's you think back to your day and you reflect back on different interactions you had throughout the day and you either beat yourself up or you give yourself a mental pat on the back. And when you give yourself a mental pat on the back, it's usually a lot easier to fall asleep quicker compared to when you had a bad moment or a moment that you're not proud of and you spend, you know, time just ruminating and ruminating and ruminating over that.

Oh, Travis.

Yeah, yeah.

That's the work of this, of Developing ourselves as leaders and speakers is really, really hard. I mean, it should be deep work, challenging work, with work that is self-reflective in such a way that at the end of the day, you're asking yourselves those big questions. Because if we really want to have a tangible impact, We have to do the work. We've got to do the internal work to be able to make significant change and significant impact in people's lives. And so I love these conversations because they're, they're about speaking, but they're about something much more elemental and basic. And we don't talk about this side of speaking development very often.

Yeah, right, right, right, yes, yes, you know, I mean, and again, from a speaker's standpoint, I think what we're really talking about for me is, you know, one of my 3 pillars as far as the work that I do, one of my 3 pillars, so my 3 pillars are purpose, authenticity, and then collaboration, is that we have to be clear, we have to be clear about our individual and collective purpose first, and when we're clear about that purpose, now we've created a space for people to sort of get on the same page. But then in order for people to really get on the same page, there has to be authenticity. And there's got to be— we have to create a space for authenticity. And when you create that space for authenticity, that's where trust, respect, and value is created. And once you have trust, respect, and value, or psychological safety, once you have that piece, that's when kick-ass collaboration or life-transforming collaboration happens because people feel safe. And so for me as a speaker, like my number one goal anytime I'm presenting to a class, to a team, or on a big stage, my goal is, am I being authentic? Am I on stage as my authentic self? I feel like if I am out there authentically being me, which also means being vulnerable and being honest, I feel like that is— I'm leaving the door open for an authentic connection with someone in the audience because I'm not trying to present myself in an inauthentic way, but I'm trying to just offer up my authenticity as an invitation. Yeah, and saying, here's what I, here's what I have to offer, and this is who I am and what I'm about. And, you know, take it if you will, but if you don't, that's fine too.

Yeah. And so my question for you, because authenticity is a core belief of mine and a pillar, if you will, around how I've built my work and my approach with speakers, and I love talking about authenticity because it can be a little bit of a morass, you know, like you kind of can wind yourself around it a little bit. So my question for you is, from a speaker's point of view, when you say, um, you know, your goal is to be able to say, yes, I was my authentic self on there, how do you know that? What does it feel like from your perspective when you're standing on stage and you're saying, yes, I have offered my authentic self to these people?

That's a great question, Sally. It's a really, really great question. I think for me it's those times where while I was on stage I felt a, not in a scary way, but a really true sense of vulnerability. And it doesn't have to be breaking down and crying. But there have been those times where I'm not breaking down and crying, but I've been choked up. I've been choked up on stage at different times. But authentic to me is that there's a sense of vulnerability in my message. I think that authenticity comes from the standpoint, or that vulnerability comes from the standpoint of all I'm going to do is going to go out there and present the best I can and be okay with the outcome. So instead of trying to control an outcome or looking for evidence of a quote good talk or a bad talk, I'm simply like, it's the times where I finish and I've been at peace without needing to hear anyone coming back to me and saying that was good or that wasn't good. It's when I've been at peace with myself from the sense of, wow, that felt really honest.

Yeah.

And then whatever, I guess, the audience got out of that, like, I can live with it because I felt like I was being true with myself. Yeah.

Yeah. There's a liberation, a sense of freedom that comes when we push ourselves enough that it's good scary is what I call it. It's like, it's good scary. We're on the edges and we're intentionally offering up our own edge on something to an audience. And when you know that you have done something that was challenging and courageous and good for you, like, this is, this is the process of doing that felt good, scary, then you, it's, it's easier to let go because you feel like, um, you're so darn proud of yourself.

Yeah, it's true. And that's, yeah, I mean, to go back to, you know, what you were saying earlier about as speakers, you know, we're all, we all need to do our own work and our internal work and our deep work. And man, what, what, what are we striving for if not for that sense of the freedom that comes with being authentic and that feeling that we have that just feels like, yes, that was pure, and regardless of what happens.

Yes, and part of what's pure about it, I like that word, because there is a purity about it where you feel this really sincere offering. Um, because ultimately, ultimately it is, you know, we know, we know those, um, speakers where you, you really don't feel like this is for us as an audience, right?

Right.

And yes, yes, that is often, uh, interpreted as inauthentic, you know.

Um, right, right.

They don't— they're not really about anything for me. This is about them. And, um, and so the purity of offer, the— this is— I'm, I'm, I'm giving something to you that was hard fought for, and I, I really hope that you like it. Like, that, that sort of internal, um, arrangement is so beautiful. Um, and it, it, it, what's ironic about that is an audience will love that and accept that regardless of how skilled or polished it is. They recognize it.

Yeah.

Brave.

Yeah. I could, yeah, I couldn't agree with you more. I mean, I, you know, the, the few times that I've gotten an opportunity to work with, with speakers and, um, The number one thing I say at the beginning to try to allay some of that fear is that you don't need, you don't need to come across as anyone else on stage. You don't need to be slick, you don't need to be charismatic, just find, and I always just, I say your authentic voice. What is your authentic voice? And it doesn't, whatever is authentic is what is going to connect with the audience. We've all seen speakers who are super polished, super slick, and they know their stuff, but we just don't feel a connection. And we've all seen speakers who maybe fumble their words, don't have great body language, seem to be nervous on stage, yet we connect, we connect with that truth and we connect with that honesty that they're offering up. And those are the ones that we walk away again going back to that word, those are the ones we walk away feeling something.

Right, because you know that they're challenging themselves.

Yes, yeah, and so I think for speakers it takes, I think it takes some of that baggage, some of that burden off of our shoulders of feeling like we have to, we've got to come across looking so slick. And it's not that as a speaker we're not constantly trying to be more effective and be better communicators and be more prepared. They're not talking about not doing that, but it's not the fear of unless I do that, I'm not going to be a good speaker.

Right. Or it has to be, I've got to do this just right. Right. There's one particular way that moves an audience in it, and it is about something else completely. Uh, so yeah, so cool. Oh my gosh, Travis, this is a fun conversation. So, um, we are at that time though where, where I want to hear from you what your "this moved me" moment is, something that has moved you recently. Because as speakers and leaders, we ourselves need to be really in touch with what is moving us so that we can bring that to our audiences. So I'm curious, what is something that has moved you recently?

Wow. All right, what is something?

Or I can go first if you want, so you can think.

Good. I'll— well, I'll let you go first. I, I'm, I'm racking my brain, but no, go first.

Well, um, I always have a few things in mind when I sit down to these conversations, and then I wait until there's something in the conversations that sparks me towards one thing or another. And you were talking about your Yes Daily Instagram video, right? Which I will check out because I'm trying to be more Instagrammy.

Yes, yes, excellent. It's a great example of me literally in my car every day doing a video. So when we talk about not being polished and not being slick, all right, this is me sitting in my car seat and being like, okay, this is It's about the message. It's not about the visual. Sorry to interrupt you though, go ahead.

No, that's okay. That's okay. It's related. And so I've been watching and kind of tuning into other people and how they're doing their Instagram presence because I think it's an opportunity to lead in a different way and to be present in a different way. And I find it really interesting. So there is, A man named, oh gosh, I'm not going to remember his last name, which is really bad. But his Instagram handle is Waking Up with Ryan. And he is a, I saw him on stage maybe 2 months ago at the Together Live events, which were really, it's all women on stage. And I think the core focus is really for women about women's empowerment. Some really incredible people have headlined it. Brené Brown was touring with them and Glennon Doyle and Abby Wambach.

Yeah.

And Sophia Bush was on there and like just some really incredible, powerful, thoughtful, courageous women. And Waking Up with Ryan Guy, they invited to the Minneapolis show. I live in— yeah, St. Paul. And, um, he was so delightful and so sweet and so deep, and he was really talking about the internal work. So as we are talking about the internal work that we need to do to bring our minds into a good place and our hearts into the right place and our belief that we have a role to play in this world, Uh, Ryan, his morning meditations have been really interesting and powerful. So he was doing the Course in Miracles, um, the, um, Mel Robbins Course in Miracles. And, uh, it, it was so cool. I hadn't, I hadn't connected to that very much, but, um, but Ryan was doing it and then sharing it with his viewers on Instagram, and he's just this really, um, wonderful combination of kind of quirky and sweet and, uh, shows up just as he is. And, and I really was moved by some of the, the exercises and the approach, and just, I felt like I was hanging out. I was in 5 Minutes with Ryan every day.

That's great. I love it. I love it.

So, you know, there's something about the power of Instagram, but also, yes, yeah, that he just shows up and he's just like, you know, he just woke up. It sounds, you know, not too dissimilar from what you do. We're just like, hi, this is, this is our assignment today. This is what we're going to be doing. We're gonna, yeah, we're gonna look around our room and let the message come to us in whatever way, you know, or whatever the assignment was, but I just— sure, really cool and great internal grounding for me as we talk about doing the internal work. So that's my—

that's great. Wait, why? And I can't— I can't wait to check them out now. I'm going to check out Ryan.

Check out 5 Minutes or Waking Up with Ryan.

Fantastic, I will. All right, well, thank you for sharing that. Yeah, um, well, okay, so here is— here's what came to me. Just opening up, here's what came to me. So I have a 16-year-old daughter and I have a 14-year-old son, an 11-year-old son. And you know, Dad is the Yes, And Leadership Guide. And so of course when it comes from Dad, there's lots of eye rolling in the house. And my kids, you know, I have been mocked repeatedly by my kids.

Yeah, sounds right.

And so I'm in the car, it's Taco Tuesday, I'm leaving Taco Tuesday and I've got my two sons. In the car with me, and my 11-year-old who's a big-time soccer player, and he gets a lot of my leadership stuff. And then my 14-year-old doesn't do as many sports. He's into taekwondo, but just tends to be a little bit more nervous than his brother, tends to stress out and really ruminates on things more. And so he has a For Taekwondo, he has a belt testing. Actually, it's tonight. He has a belt testing tonight. This will be the second time he's done it and he was terrified the first time. He got through it but he was terrified. So now he knows what it's going to be and he's terrified. So we've been talking a lot. I don't try to pound my kids with ideas because obviously I want them to have their own experiences but whenever I can offer up an idea here or there, I will.. And so I was talking with my son the other day on the way to class about, you know, hey, he's like, Dad, I'm so nervous. I was like, hey, that's okay, right? Nervous is fine. Nervous is good. And I was just sharing this idea of the only difference between nervous and excited, it's the same thing going on in our body, but the only difference between nervous and excited is when we're nervous, we're thinking about screwing up. When we're excited, we're thinking about doing well. So I was just sharing, hey, but when we're nervous we can just say awesome, but let's see if we can just shift our thoughts to thinking about doing well compared to thinking about how we might fail. So I shared that with him the other day. So Taco Tuesday, we're leaving, he's sitting in the back seat, my 11-year-old's in the front seat, and he says, Dad, I'm just really nervous about Thursday. And I didn't have to say anything, my 11-year-old turns around, and these are two boys, my 11-year-old kind of actually bullies the 14-year-old. So he turns around and he goes, "Holland," my 14-year-old son, he goes, "Holland," he's like, "You know that you don't need to be nervous. You can be excited." And he gives him like this 30-second coaching of how he can approach the situation. And I'm just sitting there going, "Oh, wow." Wow! They're listening. They're listening. And like, it was this really big— the two of them don't seem to have a lot of sweet moments. They have a lot of brotherly moments. They don't tend to have a lot of sweet moments. And so for me, it was like, ah, this sweet moment of little brother genuinely giving big brother some helpful ideas to make him feel better. And so I think for me that was like, oh, okay. Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, I, yeah, completely get that. Uh, just my kid, your kids are, um, slightly just a few years older than mine, but I also have 3.

Yeah.

And so the sibling, uh, connection there and even the personalities sound very, very similar to, to my household. And if my kids ever parroted my words to each other in that sort of wise, compassionate, empathetic way, I would, I would probably burst into tears.

I'd be like, oh my gosh. Well, if mine did it, trust me, there's hope. There's hope. There's hope.

Totally. Yes. And just to draw a line to all of us, um, as speakers and leaders, like, we don't know when our message is getting through. Most of the time. No, we don't.

No.

And it is so— it is such a, like, a relief and so empowering and just helps you keep doing the work that you're doing when you get those little bits of feedback, um, when you know, like, oh my gosh, yeah, I got through. It got through. It's because we just— it's really hard to tell. It's hard to know. And, um, yeah, yeah, it can feel like you're just talking out into the void.

Yep, you just trust that osmosis is kicking in at some point. But right, and that's staying true to who we are, right? Again, it's staying true to who we are and trusting, and trusting that what we have to share, when it's authentic, we can let go of controlling how it's received and just know that we're doing our best.

Yep, so true. Oh my gosh, Travis, this has been a really great conversation. I so appreciate you joining me on the show and offering your story and your insight and your authentic voice. It was a blast. I'm so thankful.

Thank you. Thank you. I had a blast too, Sally. I really, really appreciate it. It's not often that I get to talk on the meta level that we did. So this is really fun and refreshing for me as well.

Oh, good, good. So if people want to find out more about you, where, where can they, where can they find out more about you?

Yeah, yeah, really simple. My website is liveyesand.com, L-I-V-E-Y-E-S-A-N-D dot com. And then on social media, I'm basically @liveyesand on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. And like I said, I do my little Instagram TV Daily, yes, daily, your excellent self daily. I love hearing from people, so if anyone has a question or anything, I'm super responsive and I'm always happy to connect with people.

Cool. I love it. I'm totally going to check out your morning live. What is it?

Good. Please do. I just posted one this morning.

I'm totally going to do that and I'll share it out too.

Thank you.

All right, everybody, I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Travis. Travis, thanks so much for joining me on the show. I loved what you were reminding us of today and some of my favorite quotes. Oh my gosh, if you are breathing, you are leading. Oh yeah, good reminder for all of us that that is what we're doing as we are speaking. Now we are T-minus 1 week to this big leap that I've been talking with you about for weeks. I'm so excited. I really, I can't even wrap my head around it. And what that means is that over the next few days and over the next week, you're going to be seeing some more bonus content come out. And if you are subscribed to the podcast, you will automatically, obviously it'll show up wherever it is that you listen to your podcast. So. If you haven't yet subscribed, I want you to go do that now. If you're on my email list, then you'll be in the know that way as well. I'm not gonna send an email for every bonus episode that comes out as we count down to the launch a week from today. But, um, so that's too much. Nobody needs that many emails. And I don't do that. I don't do that. But, um, I do want I want you to know and be in the know on it. So if you are not yet subscribed, go ahead and do that now. If you're not on my email list, go visit thismoveme.com and join me over there so that you can be in the know on it. And if it is after March 2nd, 2020, then everything is about to change. Oh my gosh, my friends. I am super excited. The name of this podcast will remain This Moved Me. I will continue to bring you what I hope is interesting, authentic, engaging, deep dives into what it really means to be a speaker that moves their audience and how we can get better at this craft and this art. So that we can really serve our audiences, move them, and ultimately move the world. So none of that is changing, but I think the content's going to get even better and there's going to be a big shift coming. That's all I can say. That's all I can say, you guys. I'm super jazzed about it. I've been hinting at it and I don't know if you've caught on, to the hints, but know that it is a coming. So if you, if you're with me already, you follow me on social media, you'll start seeing it and you probably already have. I was super jazzed. I was so excited. So if you've stuck with me this long, thank you so much. I can't wait to meet with you. It has been quite a journey. And you know, you guys are the people I get to talk to about it because we really are going through this stuff together. So I feel grateful to be with you on the journey and grateful that you are walking with me. Okay, signing off. This moved me. What is moving you? Let's go be speakers that move the world. Check you later.