Gear Up 2 Lead 2015: Travis Thomas

Yes! Look at that guy, huh? Yeah. I was hoping they could make my ad-lib yes hand a little bigger, but I think we got it. I think we got it. Yeah, I wake up that way every day. Yeah. What you see is what you get, people. That's it right there. Yeah, that's me. Jesus. Yeah, yeah. Why you laughing? Why you laughing? What's so funny? What's so funny? Good, good, good. I am so excited to be here, guys. Last year, I live in Florida now, so last year I was in Florida and my brother called me. He's like, dude, I'm on the way to this really cool conference. You need to turn it on your computer. It was streaming live. And I was home and I brought it up on my computer and here I was watching the Flint Whiting Auditorium live on my computer and seeing all these amazing speakers come in. And I was like, oh man, I need to be a part of that. I need to be a part of that. And here a year later, I'm honored to be a speaker here. So I'm just so excited. I'm so excited. So all the schools, let me hear you on the count of 3 yell out your school if you guys are still here. I know some schools had to go. On the count of 3, I want to hear your school. 1, 2, 3. I heard, I heard one school. I heard Southwestern. I heard Southwest in there. Good, good, good. Excellent. So, Aaron, a previous speaker— Paul! Aaron, the previous speaker said that this is really about you guys, and I loved how he said, you know, kids these days, and that is an idea, that's an expression that's always bothered me as well. Kids these days. Because guess what? I was a kids these days about 20 years ago, right? And it's the same stuff. You guys just have this to go around and do all the time, which I didn't have 20 years ago. Same issues, same stuff, but when you become old and crusty, like most of us do, you reflect back and go, I would have never done something like that. And the truth is, you absolutely would have. And so— so I'm an improvisational actor-comedian. That started back in 1998, '99. And just to tell you a little bit about myself, the reason I'm so excited to be here is because when we think of heroes, and we think about people that do amazing things, it's really easy to put them up on a pedestal and go, I could never do that, or, I don't have that gift, or, I don't have that talent. And I remember growing up most of my life and feeling really average, just feeling average. Not that I had low self-esteem. I always kind of thought, like, I'm a good guy. Like, I'm kind of like, I'm the nice guy, right? I'm gonna do the right thing most of the time. I'm a nice guy. I'm polite. And I'm just, I'm a good guy, you know? But I'm like, I'm not exceptional in anything. I love sports. I wasn't an exceptional athlete. I hated school. I was a B student. They didn't really give awards to B students. What do they say? A students work for C students? Isn't that the expression? I guess B students are unemployed. Which is actually true. I found that out. So I'm not a great student. I don't have a musical bone in my body. And so I'm like, well, what about me? What about people like me? And so most of my childhood, I just felt average. And so I'm like, I'm not gonna be worthy to stand on any stage and say anything inspiring to anybody. And so what I want you to do really quick, what I want you to do really quick, I'm gonna give you 30 seconds. I just want you to turn to the person or persons next to you. And I just want you to talk to them for a second. Just go back and forth really quick, 30 seconds. And I want you guys to share with each other what— you're talking, I didn't even tell you what to talk about yet. We're just happy to talk. He said talk. All right. I want you to share with each other what excites you. Like, what excites you? Just share really quick, 30 seconds, as many things as possible that excites you. I've got a clock. Go. All right, time, time, time. Whoo! Good, good. Close. Hand goes up, mouth goes shut. Yeah, good. So before, before we get distracted, what we tend to do, we live backwards in society most of the time. We look at people that have done great things and we see the success that comes with it and we say, I want to be like that, I want to be famous, or I want to have the material things that come with success. But what we forget about is it's not about It's not about the success, it's not about what they do or what they did, it's about what excited them to get to that point of success. And so with anything that we do, and you guys are the generation, right, and this is all about you, I want you to think about what excites you. Not what's gonna make me money, not what's gonna make me look cool, not what's gonna impress somebody, but what excites you. You wake out of bed in the morning and you're like, oh, I can't wait to do this. Or at some point, I really want to do that. What excites you? Is it hanging with your friends? Is it playing a sport? Is it an instrument? But it's really not that as much as— it's not what you do, it's who you love to be. That's what your purpose is. And Live Yes And, my brand, is all about helping people find their brilliance, live their brilliance through a commitment to purpose, authenticity, and life-transforming collaboration. That's what inspires me to get out of bed in the morning. That's why I'm here. But you have to start with purpose. You can't just say, I want to be rich, I want to be successful. You got to start with what excites me, what jazzes me, what would I do for free, and better yet, what would I pay to do? What would I pay someone else to let me do? I would pay people to let me stand on a stage. Now don't get any bad ideas, schools, right? I need a little cash to make some money, right? I need to put some food on the table for my 3 kids. But I spoke for free yesterday. Why? Because I love it. And what I love is I've gone into 3 schools since I've been in town on Wednesday. I've been to Spruce Creek Middle School, Montrose Middle School, and Carmen Ainsworth Middle School. Yeah, what I love! So here's what I love. With every school, and you guys can do it now, and I say, raise your hand if you're courageous. And for this auditorium, raise your hand if you're courageous. Raise your hand if you are a leader. Go ahead and put your hands down. Now, adults, if this was an auditorium full of adults and I said, raise your hand if you're courageous, or raise your hand if you're a leader, there would be maybe 2 or 3 hands up in the auditorium. So we don't need to figure out how to get you guys excited and to how to light a fire and give you guys purpose. The problem isn't giving purpose to our kids. The problem is allowing you guys to keep your purpose as you get older. 'Cause when you get older, you've had society telling you for so long that you can't do that, or you need to get a real job, or you need to be realistic. Quit being a dreamer. You're not born that way. You're ingrained to think that way, but that's not who you are. If you want to break out of this shell, break out of this cocoon, if you want to be successful in life, you've got to say, what excites me? And I am committed to doing that. I'm not going to outline how I get there. I'm not going to outline what my experience looks like. I'm going to think about what excites me, and I'm going to commit myself to it. That's right. I'm gonna be passionate about it. One of my favorite improv expressions is leap and the net will appear. You guys ready? I'm jumping. 1, 2, now. Leap. It's an old Zen proverb. Leap and the net will appear. But here's the thing. It's not an excuse to be irresponsible. When you have a sense of purpose and authenticity, you know who you are. You can leap and the net will appear. Why will the net appear? Because you know who you are. And when you know who you are, there is no place I can put you and you won't figure out how to get it done. Now, I can't tell you what that's gonna look like, and we don't know what that's gonna look like, but when you know who you are, when you're on fire, there is nothing you can't do. Leap and the net will appear. You will figure it out. Some of the most difficult times in my life, and I've had a very easy life, I'll be honest with you, compared to probably a lot of you guys, I've had an easy life. But the difficult times for me helped me become who I am today in a positive way. We tend to be afraid of failure and obstacles because we think it will define us. Our setbacks and our vulnerability and our failures don't define us. They reveal the divine us. Because it's only in struggle and obstacles that we find out who we really are. It's not by playing it safe. Gear, the G, growth mindset, is all about Looking at the storm and running at the storm because my goal is on the other side of the storm. I heard this great analogy. In a— when a storm is coming, cows, cows wait for the storm to get there and then they try to outrun the storm and they're slow so they get pounded for a long time. You wanna be the bull. The bull sees the storm coming and it starts running directly at the storm. And guess what? It gets through the storm a lot quicker by running at the storm, not running away from it. The biggest fears you have, the things that you are afraid of, they're just— they're behind you just waiting for you to turn around. And you can keep running away from them, or you can turn around and you can embrace them and you can conquer them and go, yeah, I did that, and it was hard and I failed. But failing doesn't make you a failure. It makes you a learner. Quitting makes you a failure. Failing is just a part of the learning process, and the more you fail, the faster you learn. I've had to learn that the hard way a lot, but what I've found is at my most vulnerable states in life is when something has cracked open and it reveals a side of me that I didn't know was there. I love to think about the analogy of the caterpillar. Imagine what the caterpillar must feel like as its body starts to fall apart and it starts to weave this tomb called a cocoon. And then what I didn't know about the caterpillar, it goes into its cocoon. Do you know what happens to its body in the cocoon? Its body dissolves into black goo. It dissolves into black goo. It doesn't just grow wings. It dissolves into black goo, and then from the goo, it's rich with nutrients and potential, the goo, that's what they call it. From the goo, the caterpillar transforms completely into a new idea. It transforms into the butterfly, and it breaks out of that shell, and it's a new idea, a powerful idea, an idea that can fly and leave the old behind. What is your goo experiences? What is knocking you down? What is holding you back? And what are you afraid of? Be the bull and run at it. And when you find that thing that excites you and you start to live it and people start to be excited for you and with you and they want to collaborate with you, which is all about living yes and, they want to collaborate with that. That's when you accomplish wonderful things. Your education is not a competition. You are not competing against anyone else in this auditorium or your school or your classroom for education. You're not competing with anyone else for a job. You're not in competition. We need to collaborate with one another to all find our own unique greatness. And the coolest thing I've done on the collaboration standpoint recently was about a year ago, So, we all know, we're Americans, so we know what Black Friday is. Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving, the largest shopping day of the year. Well, Black Friday used to be the day after Thanksgiving. It was like, whatever, okay. Now, it's like you're eating your turkey and the deals are coming in and you're like, I gotta leave the dinner, I'm sorry, I gotta get to Walmart, right? And so now it's on Thanksgiving and we all know about the horrible things that happen at stores and people get crushed and the traffic jams and the anger and the rage. Amen. And so I'm like, I'm not anti-commercialism, I'm just anti-chaos. I'm anti-selfishness. And so I thought last year, I'm a pun guy, I love puns, I'm like, wouldn't it be cool if instead of Black Friday we had Rak Friday, R-A-K, for random acts of kindness? Imagine if we took that day back. Instead of being all about what can I get, what can I get, what can I get, and made it about how can I bless someone else? How can I give? And so some friends and I, we started a Facebook page called Rack Friday 2014. We got the website rackfriday.com, and we're like, wouldn't it be cool if we could get as many people as possible to just commit a couple random acts of kindness on that day and then post it on the Facebook page? Share what you did. And then it got some momentum and some momentum and some momentum, and our goal is, let's put up 1,000 acts of kindness. 1,000 acts of reported kindness. And we almost got there. We had about 850 reported random acts of kindness from all over the country, world, people I didn't even know. So I'm like, this year, wow, 2,000. So what is it? There's almost 1,000 of us in this room, right? Can you commit one random act of kindness? And I'm not saying don't go out. Maybe you're at Walmart and you let the person in front of you go ahead of you, or you give them their parking spot, Or you see someone on the street and you buy 'em a cup of coffee. Or you go up to the Salvation Army worker and you thank them, and maybe you give them a gift card or a cup of coffee. Or you write thank you notes and put 'em on windshields all over the parking lot. Who cares? Do something. It's simple, but it's transforming. And when you allow yourself to let your purpose be attached to something bigger than you, well, that's how we change the world. It's living our bigger yes and. Yes and. So this year, 2,000 random acts of kindness. So all the schools who are represented, teachers, all the organizations are here. Let's do it. Let's see what we can do in our community. Let's see what we can do in our lives when we stop thinking about what can I get and start thinking about our bigger yes and is what can I give? Thank you. Thanks, everybody. Thanks.