In this solo episode of the Yes And podcast, host Travis Thomas introduces Season 4 and frames the episode around the theme “Surrender or Suffer.” He reflects on the past three months—a period of intense travel for his Live Yes And business—detailing over 20 different beds, 30+ presentations, 3,500 road miles and 10,000 flight miles. Through these experiences he identifies travel as a “master course” in patience, resilience, and the need to surrender control when faced with airport delays, cancellations, and other unpredictable events. Thomas then shifts to Hurricane Dorian, describing its rapid evolution from a tropical storm to a Category 5 threat that ultimately spared his Florida community but devastated the Bahamas. He contrasts preparedness (shutters, supplies) with panic‑driven over‑preparation, emphasizing that while the storm’s path is uncontrollable, our response is not. Throughout, he weaves a philosophical thread: surrendering to “what is” (drawing on Byron Katie and Stoic ideas) allows us to respond purposefully—embodied in his “Yes And” framework of acceptance (yes) plus intentional action (and). He calls listeners to support Bahamas relief efforts, invites feedback on personal experiences of surrender or suffering, and closes with a warm sign‑off.
Chapters
And hello everyone, welcome to episode 118 of the weekly Yes And podcast. I'm your host, Travis Thomas. This podcast is also in partnership with our friends at Inspired to Give. Make sure you check out Inspired to Give, @inspiredtogive on social media. InspiredToGive.org on the World Wide Web. So I recognize it's not the weekly yap, but I'm getting on board, right? Everyone else has done this cool season approach, right? This is season 1, season 2, season 3. Hey, how about we call this season 4? How does that work? Does it work for you? Works for me. So let's call it season 4. Episode one, which is really episode 118 of the weekly Yes and podcast. Episode 118 is called Surrender or Suffer. So here we are. It is the beginning of September here in Southeast Florida, Jupiter, Florida. Many of you know that Hurricane Dorian is currently on its way up the East Coast, but staying out to sea. For those of us here in Jupiter, Florida, we were on the path for a Category 5 hurricane that was at one point scheduled to come ashore right on top of us here in Jupiter, Florida. But hurricanes are unpredictable. The path changed. It has now taken a path that is going to be least detrimental to the United States, which is great. The unfortunate part of that is the storm Completely decimated the Bahamas. And so for anyone who is looking to support or help the Bahamas, I am looking into and getting more research on different charities. I may post a few of those in my links to this podcast, ways that you can help the Bahamas. That's where our attention goes right now. But this podcast is all about Surrender or suffer. We're going to talk about Hurricane Dorian. We're going to talk about travel, which is— that's me dropping my pen. If you look back at the last 3 months, this has been the busiest 3 months of my professional career for Live Yes And. And so for the last 3 months, I've been on the road. I've been traveling. It's been great because it's, again, the more I travel, the more I work. That means I'm getting paid, which is is crucial for, for raising a family and having a career. But in the scope of living my purpose, this has been the busiest 3 months for getting a chance to express my authentic passion for helping individuals, teams, and companies discover their inner brilliance. And that's really been what this last 3 months has been all about with Live Yes and and growing, hopefully growing my business and growing my company. Through getting a chance to share the Live Yes And message. So that's where we are. I'm going to talk about that a little bit because surrender or suffer. As a result of being the busiest I've ever been, it meant that for the last 3 months I have slept in over 20 beds. I have slept in airport terminals. I have slept in rental cars. And I've given over 30 different presentations and workshops, traveled over 3,500 miles in my car, as well as flown over 10,000 miles in airplanes. So with that comes airplanes, comes airports, comes flight delays, comes cancellations. And if you follow my, my Yes Daily, Your Excellent Self Daily that I post on Instagram, on Facebook, if you don't follow those, follow me on Instagram and Facebook. @LiveYesAnd. I post a daily inspiration where I've been talking a lot about the different things that have come up through my travel, from cancellations, flight delays, and navigating emotionally and mentally, how that messes with you emotionally, dealing with that adversity, staying in a— staying calm and staying patient, staying tolerant. Because as we know, Once you step foot into an airport, you have to surrender any control you have or think that you have. You have none. As soon as you step in that airport, you can't, you can't control when that flight is going to land, when it's going to take off, if it's going to be delayed, if it's going to be canceled. And so your ability to remain calm, to be resilient and patient even though you can't control anything. And isn't that the true test of sort of mental toughness and peace, is not being able to control anything, but being able to be resilient and adaptable when things start to go wrong? I had a few of those situations, more than I would have liked, but that's what you get. I had a few of those situations where not knowing how flights were gonna be made, how connections were gonna be made, how I was going to get from one side of the state to the other side of the state, In just the right amount of time driving when that wasn't taken into consideration, traffic, or not taken into consideration, uh, weather, and dealing with both. And still, despite all of the adversity that handled— that happened this summer, there wasn't a single event or performance or talk that I was— that I missed. And so super grateful for that. But all of this was A master course in patience and surrender. Having to know that I can only do as much as I can do. I can, I can make sure that I am doing my part to get to the airport in time, to be prepared, to have backup plans in place, but I can't control what's actually going to happen. I have to surrender or suffer. I have to surrender or suffer. If I don't surrender, And I try to control, the suffering is all mine. And the suffering comes from mine trying to control, me trying to control an outcome, a desired outcome, which I can't control. I can influence by how I prepare and what I do, but I can't control that outcome. So if I'm attached to a specific outcome, I leave myself open to suffering because I just can't control it. I I can only deal with what is happening in the moment. I can always deal with what's happening in the moment, but I can't control it. I can't control what's happening around me. I can't control the other passengers. I can't control the weather, the flight crew. I can't control any of those intangibles, but I can, I can control how I'm going to respond. And I caught myself throughout the entire summer where I'm getting aggravated, I'm getting frustrated, I'm getting nervous. Because of the conditions around me. And it was such this great reminder, this red flag all summer, that when I would notice myself— and that's why noticing and awareness is so important, that's why mindfulness is so important, because it gives us the ability to notice, to catch ourselves when our emotional state is being aroused, right? When we're angry, frustrated, anxious, right? When we can notice that, now we can— Do something about it. We can take our deep breaths, we can meditate, we can focus on action instead of focusing on outcome. And there were so many opportunities to do that this summer, and it— and I just turned it into a master course, right? Even though maybe I vented to Hollister— Hollister, I'm sorry, right? We all need to vent to someone that loves us. So even though I may have vented to Hollister at times, internally I was constantly going, okay, this is my master course. This is my master course. I am learning from this. I'm growing from this. I'm getting better from this. And that, that included not only flight cancellations and delays, but getting thrown up on an airplane, right? Without, without being able to do anything about it. I couldn't get up. I couldn't leave. I couldn't go clean off. I had to sit, right? Yeah. If you follow my Yes Daily, I got into that. But that's just to say there were so many situations that I couldn't control. But I had to deal with and deal with my emotional reaction. So if you want to take a master course in patience and surrendering and letting go, travel. Do a lot of air travel. Which then brings us to Hurricane Dorian. Now, about a week out, if you live in Florida, every time there's a hurricane that pops up or tropical depression or a storm, anything that leaves the continent of Africa, we start tracking it. We're like, okay, could this become a hurricane? And so we were watching Dorian about a week out, tropical storm, no big deal. Then it gets closer, could become a hurricane. Now it's a hurricane. Oh, it's only a Category 1. And then day by day by day, these things change. It's the weather. Hello, things change, things advance, things develop. But again, just the cycle of that entire storm from tropical storm, no big deal, to Category 5. This is a behemoth that is going to destroy Southeast Florida, to, oh no, it's a storm that's not even going to get here. All of that happened in the span of a week. And again, I'm not discounting what happened in the Bahamas. I'm just showing the unpredictability of dealing with the weather, of dealing with a hurricane. And so again, how do we mentally prepare and respond to a situation that we can't control? Now everyone down here, you've got your hurricane shutters. You go to the store, you get what you need. But there's a difference in being prepared compared to being in a panic, right? We can be prepared and not be in a panic. We can overprepare, meaning we can go too far if we're doing it out of a sense of fear or panic. Or you can go, okay, we've got shutters. So you put them up. Why? Because you have them. And you do the safe thing. You get what needed supplies you need to get, but you can do it calm and being responsive and adaptable and responseable. But there doesn't need to be a sense of panic and fear that goes with it. And I think just like anything else, we can't control what the storm is going to do, but we can control how we respond to it. And again, this hurricane, another master course in having to respond to something that you can't control. But doing what you can do, right? All of us could do everything we could possibly do to be most prepared, and then you deal with what happens. You deal with what shows up. The storm doesn't come, you're grateful, you take your shutters down, you know, you— and you move on. And now for a lot of us, it's like, okay, but the Bahamas was impacted. So now what can we do to help them? to send them supplies, to send them relief and give them help. And so master courses in surrendering or suffering or both. Actually, if you're surrendering, you're probably not suffering. If you're surrendering, you're dealing with Byron Katie's What Is, or the Stoics, you're dealing with what is. And so that to me is, is what life is more often than not. Are we surrendering to what is happening and then choosing to respond from our sense of purpose and passion? And that is the yes and. The yes and is acceptance, which is really you're surrendering to what is by saying yes to it. Your and response is where you have power. You are choosing how to respond. And that's what living yes and is all about. It is the surrendering. And not suffering, but it's, it's overcoming. It's finding a way. It's being empowered because you're responding to what is, not being a victim to it. So there you have it. Episode 118, Surrender or Suffer. Please give me some feedback, some comments. How have you been surrendering recently? Or how have you been suffering recently? We can get into either one because either one, there's learning in both. There you have it, episode 118. Hey, the Weekly Yap, it's back. We'll call it season 4. Have a great day, everybody. Love you, Juju.
