How to Stay Happy Even After Making It!

Hello everyone. Welcome to the Entheos Optimal Living Academy. My name is Travis Thomas, and I am excited as always. I'm always excited to be here. I don't know if you guys picked that up through my presentation, but I'm excited once again to share another talk with you today. Today's talk is entitled You made it, now what? For today's event, it's something that I'm really passionate about. Now, one of the things that I get to do on a daily basis as a life coach and a leadership coach is I work at an academy here in Florida that trains kids who want to be professional athletes, who want to be Division I college athletes, professionals who are already playing professionally, as well as every kind of skill level in between. I get to work with kids and adults on a daily basis about really achieving the goals that they want to achieve. If you're like me, you probably have some big goals out there that you're aspiring to as well. I think most of us do. I think the temptation is that we can become so transfixed on the goals that we want to achieve that we forget about the journey. We don't connect the dots from why we actually want a goal to why is that so important to us and how do we actually bring a sense of purpose and joy and peace to where we are right now while we try to achieve the goal. I think I was most inspired to do this talk a few years ago. I had a chance to sit down and talk to a very professional, former professional baseball player. He was a pitcher and he'd been very successful and he had a great career. If you were a kid growing up wanting to play baseball, you'd look at his career and say, I would take that career in a heartbeat. He was a couple years removed from being a player and I had dinner with him one night He just very openly and authentically said to me, he's like, you know what? I'm in my 30s. I did the thing that I wanted to do, but I don't know what to do with the rest of my life. I think that happens so often that we become so addicted or obsessed with these goals that we want to achieve. Let's say that we actually achieve them. Now what? Who are you when you achieve that goal? And so what I want today's talk to be about is how do we have this sense of who we are today is really no different than who we're going to be when we achieve those goals? And how can we look at goals in a way that is sustainable to our joy, peace, and happiness? And so if you ever catch yourself in this mindset, here's a quick way to notice it. If you catch yourself playing the game of Thoughts like when I or if only. If only is living in the past. If only that had happened, I'd be so much happier. Or when I achieve this goal, or when I get this, or when I get into this school, or when I get this job, or when I get this promotion, or when I get this paycheck, or when I get this spouse, or when I get the— you guys get it, right? I'm guilty of it too. And we get caught in this, well, when I get that, then I'll be healthy. But what about right now? What about right now? So, whether you get to that mountaintop Or you don't, how do you live with a sense of purpose and joy and peace and authenticity? That's what we're going to talk about today. My big idea number 1 is you always have to define your purpose. Define your purpose. If we get so distracted by the goal that we don't have a clear sense of why we're trying to achieve something, when we get to that goal it's just going to be empty. There's been so many examples out there whether it's been CEOs or leaders or athletes. Todd Marinovich in his ESPN 30 for 30 film talked about once he became a successful NFL quarterback he had no motivation to continue and then his whole game fell apart because he had achieved his goal but there was nothing deep. There was no intrinsic ties connected to that. It was just this goal that really wasn't connected to a sustainable sense of peace and purpose. And so we have to look at our goals and go, why do I really want to achieve that goal? Which always comes back to what is my purpose? What is my purpose? What inspires me? What excites me? And how is my purpose connected to the goal? And if you can't make that connection of why you do things to the goal that you're trying to achieve, that's worth looking at. There's probably a disconnect there, and we'll talk more about that as we go on. Big idea number 2 is something that I'm super passionate about, and that's our rites of passage. Now in Western society, when you think about our culture in Western society, we don't have from child to adolescent to adult, there's not a real clear process of what it means to mature and become an adult. So if I were to ask you, when did you know that you were an adult? What might you say? And there's no clear— unless you're in a specific religious system or a background where that ceremony exists, most of us are never asking that question. We get into the school pipeline and it goes from school to you need to get into this college and then you need to get this job so you can have this kind of lifestyle, but we're never asking the question why. So, when you think about it, I think in our society we're really missing this opportunity for what does it mean to have a sense of purpose or a sense of contribution. So, if you were to ask yourself what is the gifts, what are the talents that you are contributing to the world or you're contributing to your family or you're contributing to your community? What would you say and how are you using them? Or have you just been so distracted with these extrinsic goals that really aren't connected to the contribution that you're making? So I think we need to go back and look deeper at how are we raising ourselves, how are we raising our children, how are we raising a generation to think about what are the bigger questions of what are we ultimately trying to achieve? And what's our contribution, me individually, that I'm making for the greater whole, to the community? And if I can align my gifts and talents of contribution with the things that I'm good at and the things that I'm excited about, well, it's going to be impossible for you to have huge success if you're doing that. But if you're trying to force yourself to like something or be passionate about something that doesn't reflect your purpose, your passion, or your talents, there's going to be that emptiness. There's going to be that emptiness when we actually achieve that goal. It's actually going to feel empty. Big idea number 3, the intrinsic versus the extrinsic. Now, some of you may have heard there's a new term out there. It's about 10 years old now. We all know about the midlife crisis, but now we have what's the quarter-life crisis for young adults in their mid-20s to later 20s, 30s, where they're already realizing that they have played the game right. They did well in school. They went to the right colleges and universities. They got the right corporate job. They got up the ladder. They're making the money, but they're reflecting and going, this isn't— this is all there is to it? There's got to be more to life. And so, they're having these quarter-life crises. You may be able to relate. You may have experienced the same thing. And so, we've got to be really clear with the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic goals. We have to start with the intrinsic. We have to start with the roots. When I say roots, I mean what are those things, those couple of things, those couple of qualities, those couple of things in your life that are most important to you. Those are the roots. Everything grows out of the roots. The extrinsic goals that we create for ourselves, well, those help create the fruit, but we just can't focus on the fruit. If we're only focusing on the fruits, we're not nurturing the roots. You can never change the fruit without first tending to the roots. There's a great book out there right now. It's one of the best books that I've read, especially on leadership. And it's called Legacy. And the book is about the New Zealand All Blacks rugby team, their rugby culture. And for those of you who don't know about the, the All Blacks, New Zealand All Blacks, it is the most successful sports franchise in the world. If you look at statistics at their winning percentage, they are the most successful of any other sports organization. And the book talks about how they went back to their roots of how they created the culture And it's about faith and family, and, and that's what they tend to— they don't tend to championships and achievements. Everything that they're cultivating in the culture of that team is built on these simple roots, and then the winning and the fruit comes out of that. So we need to be clear that our intrinsic goals are most important. The extrinsic goals should be a reflection of our intrinsic goals. Does that make sense? I hope so. Yeah, nod with me. Okay, if you're nodding, you should feel silly because this is probably a recording. So anyways, big idea number 4, stay in your lane. And I know I've talked about this in previous talks. Stay in your lane. Right, it's so difficult when we're, when we're doing what we think is best and we're, we're working hard, we're staying connected to our intrinsic goals, and then we look over to the right, we look over to the left, we see how well someone else is doing. or the achievements that they got. We start to doubt ourselves and we start to second-guess whether we're doing things right. I love in yoga they use the expression, stay on your mat, right? Don't focus on how limber someone else is or how klutzy someone else is. I'd be the klutzy one, right? Stay on your mat. Stay in your own lane. Focus on what you can focus on. Your experience is your experience. It's no one else's. There's no reason for you to compare yourself to anyone else. Can you emulate? Others? Absolutely. Can you learn from others? Absolutely. But if you're comparing yourself as far as, I should be that successful, or why aren't I more successful, and you're comparing yourself to them, you're doing yourself a disservice. You're taking away— you're discrediting your own authenticity. And at the end of the day, stay in your lane. And this idea I really love is don't mistake common with normal. You hear people say, well, that's just not normal. I think often we mistake commonality with being normal. Just because a billion other people on the planet are doing something doesn't mean that that's normal. It just means it's common. Don't mistake a great number of people doing something for that's the way that you should be doing it. Do what feels right and authentic and true to your purpose. That's big idea number 4, stay in your lane. Big idea number 5 is, again, focus on the roots, not on the fruit. I put that in here again because it's that constant reminder. You can be like, okay, I'm focusing on the roots, the roots, the roots, the roots. Why isn't the fruit growing? Am I doing it wrong? What's going on? I must be doing it wrong. I must be an idiot. No. Tend to the roots. The fruit will take care of itself. There's the great analogy of bamboo. Bamboo, and I didn't know about this until recently, bamboo grows forever. The longest amount of growth that bamboo goes through, the longest time period, is under the surface. Because it's such a strong plant, it's under the surface where the roots are. That's where all the growth is taking place, but it's under there forever. If you planted bamboo, you would look at the ground and go, I'm a horrible gardener. I'm not doing a good job. It's not breaking through. But the cool thing about bamboo is once it breaks through the surface of the ground, it just takes off, right? The learning, the growth just goes through the roof like that. But it's tending to the roots. It's tending to the foundation and the structure that is where all the basis is being created. And once we've established that, The sky is the limit. We need to see our intrinsic goals and our roots like that bamboo. We need to keep tending to them and not get distracted by the fruits. The fruits will come when we tend to the roots. It reminds me of an experience I had when I started off in improvisation back in '99, back in Boston. I'd worked my way up through the ranks a little bit. I was in the cast just below the mainstage cast. The mainstage cast, that was my fruit. That's where I wanted to be. I got so obsessed with how am I doing? Am I getting there? Am I getting there? Was that a good show? Was that a good rehearsal? Am I getting there? Did they see that? Did the director see me? I got so obsessed with wanting to progress to that level of fruit that my consistency in shows was so up and down. It was a roller coaster. I remember having a one-on-one with the director and she's like, sometimes you're great and sometimes I don't know where you are. That was really hard feedback to get because I'm like, wow. Sometimes I stink. I'm like, what is it? What is it? I realized— I was sitting on the subway and I realized I've taken the joy out of this thing. I love improvisation. I do it because I'm passionate about it and I love it, but I've taken the joy out of it by focusing on getting to the next level. I remember having this moment and I'm not someone who swears a lot, although my daughter says I do. I don't know why she does. I remember just thinking to myself, you know what? I'm going back to why I started improv in the first place. Because it's fun. And I can't control how far I get, and I can't control what happens, but you know what? Eff it. All right, you know, I probably said the real word, but for this sake, eff it. I just remember, eff it. I'm just going to show up each week, each rehearsal, each show, and just have the best time I can have. Just have a good time and just have fun. The crazy thing is that that kind of became my mantra. Like, all right, just eff it. Go out and have fun. Just have fun. 6 months later, I get called into the offices by the 2 gentlemen that owned the theater, owned the club. I thought, you know what, they're letting me go because my performance clearly— they sat me down. It was really awkward. They're sitting in 2 chairs. I'm sitting in one. They're like, Travis, we've been noticing you a lot recently. I was like, okay. They're like, you've been really, really strong these last 6 months. Are you interested in moving up to the main stage? I was like, I thought you guys were going to can me, and here I was getting promoted to that goal that I wanted to achieve all along, but I quit thinking about it and I just went back to the roots. The roots for me was just having a good time, playing and having a good time, going back to my roots and letting the fruits take care of itself. If you need to eff it a little bit with some of your extrinsic goals and fruit, go back to your roots. Big idea number 6 is actually a 2-parter. Big idea number 6 is expression, not profession. Your purpose is not what you do. It's not your title. It's not the achievements. It's why you do what you do. Your purpose is intrinsic. It cannot be taken away. It can't be touched. Your job, your title, your achievement, those are extrinsic, but they're not your purpose. It's why you do what you do. I love, Deepak talks about we're human beings, not human doings. Your purpose is your beingness, why you do what you do, and it's untouchable. Yeah. Getting attached to something that— if you can be attached to it, it can be taken away from you, which leads us to big idea number 6.2, which is if it can be taken away, it's not your purpose. If that thing that you are so attached to can be taken from you, it's not your purpose. It's not your purpose to be a parent. It's not your purpose to be a CEO. It's not your purpose to get on Saturday Night Live. It's not your purpose to be a professional athlete. Those are extrinsic goals that you might have that tie back to your heart, your soul, your intrinsic goals. Those are untouchable. The desire to be a parent can be expressed in many, many ways beyond just being a parent to this child or that child. Wanting to be on Saturday Night Live can be expressed in lots of different ways back to the intrinsic, not just the extrinsic expression of it. And if you're just doing a job for the promotion or the title, no matter how successful you are at the end, it's just going to feel empty. So your purpose is untouchable. So you have to ask yourself, how do you define your purpose right now? What are you most passionate about? And always going back, always going back to the intrinsic goals, focusing on the roots, not on the fruit. Big idea number 7 is who are you on fire for? If you really want to get a clear sense of what your purpose is, think about who are you when you're on fire, when you're in the zone, when you're just loving life. And you might say, well, that's, that's, that's, you know, I can't make a job out of it. Well, don't go there yet. Think about who you are when you're most alive, most passionate, most on fire, when time stands still or just breezes by. Who are you and what are you doing and how are you expressing yourself? If you can articulate that and identify that, that's going to get so much closer to your purpose than trying to find it in something outside of ourselves. For me, standing on a stage and improvising, doing this, is on fire. I love it. I have found work and I found all these crazy different opportunities that allow me to do this, but I never know how it's going to get done and I never know And what title it's going to be called, but I know I get the chance over and over again to express my purpose and to live my purpose and to do things that I'm passionate about. So think for yourself, who are you when you're on fire? Big idea number 8: Palm trees bend but don't break. I just realized that that rhymes. Big idea number 8: Palm trees bend but don't break. Wow, I'm kind of a white freestyle rapper. No, I'm not. So anyway, big idea number 8: Palm trees. Wayne Dyer uses this analogy about the palm tree. The palm tree can weather the storm, weather the hurricanes, bend all the way back down to the ground, but not break. A big oak tree is not the same thing. The rigidity— or actually, the flexibility of the palm tree compared to the rigidity of, let's say, an oak tree in a hurricane storm. The palm tree succeeds and overcomes because it's so flexible. It can be bent all the way back, but it doesn't break. When it comes to us and our purpose and what we're attaching ourselves to, we need to have that same flexibility. Again, when we set an accomplishment and we don't get it, we ask ourselves, who are we now? Who am I if I don't accomplish that? Instead of understanding that your purpose and your expression is with you wherever you go, no matter what you do. So, it's not just contained in a title or achievement. It's actually inside of you and it can never ever be taken away. So, that flexibility when it comes to expressing your purpose is unlimited, which leads us to big idea number 9, which is use your compass, not your map. I know I've shared this idea before. It's one of my favorite analogies. When it comes to expressing your purpose, you've got to have a compass mentality, not a map mentality. When we get so fixated on goals and I will be happy once I get to that goal, and we often go, to get to that goal, I have to go here, then I have to go here, and then this happens and this has to happen. If this doesn't happen, I'm screwed. I'm off the map. I'm failing. Compared to when we rely on our purpose as a compass, we might get taken over here. We might get taken over here. We might get taken over here, but as long as we're expressing that authenticity, that purpose of who we are, it doesn't matter where we are. It doesn't matter where we go. The fruit will be less important because we know that we're just living from our roots. We're living from our intrinsic goals. And again, the deeper our roots are planted, the more flexible our palm tree is going to be. But if we've got shallow roots and we're fixated, we're fixed on what the results have to be and what the results have to look like and what my life has to happen. When we face some adversity, when we face some strong winds or some storms, we're not going to have the structure, the roots, the foundation to hold up. We're going to be rigid. We're going to snap and we're going to break. We'll be back asking ourselves, well, who am I? What do I do now? Again, even if I achieved the goal, what's on the other end of that goal? You've made it. You achieved it. Now what? Was your life goal to achieve that thing? And if so, why? Who are you now? So who are you even if you achieve that goal? And who are you if you don't achieve that goal? As long as you've got those intrinsic roots planted and you're firm and you're clear on what they are, you get to the top of the mountain, it's like, sweet, let's go climb another mountain. Or if you never quite get to that mountain, you're like, sweet, I'm over here now, but I'm still climbing my way up that mountain. Remember, it's the journey, not the destination. Which brings us to big idea number 10. What is your contribution? And I know I referred to it earlier, especially with our rites of passage, but what is the contribution? What is the contribution that you can make to the world? When you look back, right, when you look back over the last 5 years or 10 years of your life where you're sitting now, what contribution have you made to others? How have you taken care of yourself and how have you contributed to others, friends, family members, where you work, the community? Has it been all about you? And if it is all about you, I'm going to make an assumption that there's a certain hollowness that goes with that success. But when you're making a contribution and see that you're having an impact on people's lives, that connects intrinsically. to your purpose. To me, a purpose can never be complete unless there is an external contribution to how we express it and how we live it and how we share our talents. So you have to ask yourself, what are your gifts? How do you share your talents, your love, your passion, your joy with others? What does it look like? Is it creative? Is it analytical? Is it physical? With your labor, what— how do you share your gifts? And if you can figure out a way to build a career of expression around your gifts, you're going to be really happy. And if you can find a way to bless others with your gifts, you're even going to be that much more full and satisfied because you're really just fully expressing your purpose and your authenticity to its highest. And so Now what? That brings us to the end. Now what? As you can see, when we get to the end, it's irrelevant. So whether you made it or not, now what? Who are you? What are you trying to achieve? And again, the what you're trying to achieve becomes so less important than how am I nurturing my intrinsic roots? How am I nurturing my purpose? and living it in a bigger way because that is acknowledging that we are constantly evolving, that our passions are constantly evolving and changing. And when we see it as a journey, there are always new opportunities to share our gifts. But if we've put our blinders on around one goal and we get there, well, now what? So, it's got to be deeply connected. It's got to be deeply connected to your purpose and your authenticity. And asking yourself if you're climbing up that ladder right now, you got to look up and you got to look down. You have to say, am I on the right ladder? Am I on the ladder that connects with, with my passion and purpose? And if not, it could be painful, but it might be time to get off that ladder and get on one that you can keep climbing forever. So I could keep talking, but my little tiny pink Post-it notes are done. So, and I'm looking at the time and I think I'm right about there as far as a good time for this talk. I'm excited. I'm excited for you. I'm inspired to hear what you come up with. If you get a chance, drop me a message in the Entheos community. I would love to know how you're doing, what your roots look like. If you need any help helping to articulate or identify that purpose, I would love to help with that as well. Thank you once again. Thank you if you made it this far in the video. You're very patient. I appreciate it. Thank you. And have a wonderful, wonderful day.