In this inaugural short episode of the "Yes And for Kids" series, Travis Thomas greets viewers and explains that each Monday he will share a brief, powerful idea or inspiration. He uses the growth cycle of bamboo as a metaphor for personal development. He describes how bamboo seeds appear to show no progress for several years while an extensive root system develops underground, then suddenly shoot up to 90 feet in just six weeks once the roots are strong enough. Travis connects this to the experience of learning an instrument, sport, or any skill: progress may be invisible for a long time, but continued effort builds a hidden foundation that eventually enables rapid growth. He urges kids to stay committed, focus on what they are learning and how they feel (confidence, inspiration), rather than only on visible results, and to trust that growth will come. The video ends with a call to “be the bamboo” for the week, encouraging viewers to keep nurturing their practice.
Chapters
Good morning everyone, happy Monday! Travis here with Yes And for Kids. If you're watching, this is kind of like the first official Yes And for Kids, and if you're watching this and your parents made you watch it, I apologize. If you stumbled upon it, I apologize. Um, you can pretend that you're interested, whatever it is, but this is the first official one. Maybe you saw the video where we talk about Ego, the Magician. Yeah, you know, it's a longer one. These are gonna be much shorter. But each week, every Monday, I'm gonna try to release a video, give you an idea, a concept, or some inspiration to take with you throughout your week. Ideas that I think are powerful to me, and I think they'll be powerful to you as well. So let's jump into our first one, and it's all about bamboo. Yeah, do you know what bamboo is? Bamboo is, it's a plant. And it looks like wood, but it's actually a plant. And it's really strong. You can make like almost kind of like bamboo swords. You don't stab people, but they're really, really strong. You can make like fences out of them. They're amazingly strong. There are a lot in like Japan and Asia. There's tons of bamboo. So here's the cool thing about bamboo. Are you ready? So if I came to you and I said, hey, listen, I'm going to give you these bamboo seeds. Right? I've got a handful of seeds. I want you to take them, plant them in the ground, give them a little bit of water every day, and wait for them to grow. And you're like, yeah, Travis, I can do that totally, right? So I give you the seeds. Boom, there you go. You take the seeds, find a nice little spot in the backyard, plenty of sun, good soil, right? You plant the seeds, right? You dig it, plant the seeds, put them in there, cover it up, and then you start watering it. First couple months, nothing happens. You keep watering it, taking care of the soil. Guess what? After a year, guess how big your bamboo is? Nothing. Nothing has broken the surface. Not a single bud. Second year, you're watering, watering, taking care of the soil, plenty of sun, everything. Guess what happens after 2 years? Nothing. Nothing happens. Year 3, same thing. Oh, I can't believe Travis gave me bad seeds. Nothing. Happens. Year 4, at this point, you're kind of like, whatever, I'm just going to take care of the soil. Maybe, maybe I'll plant something else differently. But clearly those seeds, those bamboo seeds were bad seeds because nothing has happened after 4 years of Travis giving me seeds. So I want you to think about right now, what is something that you've been working on? An instrument, a sport, a topic, a subject? Have you worked on anything for like 4 years and felt like you haven't made Real progress. What about four days or four weeks or four months? I can relate. Here's the crazy thing: for five years, you take care of that soil. Guess what? After five years, breaking through the surface of the soil is a little bud, a little bamboo bud. You can see just a little bamboo bud. Guess what? Over the next six weeks. This bamboo plant, it's thick, right? Strong like wood. Can shoot up as high as 90 feet in 6 weeks. Once it breaks the surface, it can shoot up as high as 90 feet in 6 weeks. Now you have this amazing, huge bamboo plant. So the question is, how long did it take to grow 90 feet? 6 weeks. 5 years and 6 weeks or just 6 weeks? 6 weeks. Right? The answer is 5 years and 6 weeks because guess what? Those 5 years, while you could see nothing happening above the surface, underneath the surface, the roots of those bamboo seeds created this deep, deep and wide root system. Deep and wide root system. You couldn't see the progress because it was all happening underneath the surface. And once that root system was big enough and strong enough, now the bamboo could grow through the surface and just take off. Just take off. Huge growth. Huge progress. So what's that have to do with you? Are you working on anything right now, or have you worked on something you just didn't see the progress? You just didn't see the results? that you wanted and maybe you quit, or maybe you're thinking about quitting, or maybe you're like, ah, it just isn't worth it. Someone, someone else has been working at it and they've gotten so much better. Or maybe it's just you. Maybe you're just not good enough. Now, I can't tell you how good you're going to be at something that you love, but I will tell you this. If you continue to work at it and you genuinely enjoy it and you see the value in it and you continue to work at it, You are going to see tremendous growth. I don't know if it's going to be 5 years or 5 weeks or 5 months or 10 years, whatever it is, but the laws of progress say that the growth has to happen. We get stuck thinking that we need to see it happen on our timetable instead of the timetable it needs to happen on. So, I want you to think about that this week. Think about the things you're working on this week, and don't tell me how you're getting better at them. Tell me how you're staying committed to them. And ask yourself, oh, how— even if I'm not seeing the results, what am I learning, right? Am I, am I getting new inspiration? Am I, am I becoming more confident, more comfortable? That's what I want you to focus on. So this week Be the bamboo. Be the bamboo. Keep taking care of that soil. Keep watering it. Give it sun. And trust me, the growth is coming. Have an awesome, awesome Yes And week, everybody.
