SOLO | Make Money Asking Yourself Better Questions, part 3

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What's going on everybody?

Welcome back to another episode of the show.

Today, it is me, you and the Mike, and we are coming up on St. Patrick's Day here in

2026, so I have to have my St. Patrick's Day hat on the little leprechaun and a pipe

for those listening.

It's pretty sweet hat.

Thank you, Brandon Bills, for actually giving me another hat.

There's another one.

There's a little blue one, a little guy on there.

Anyway, you'll have to forgive my voice the past week or so.

I've been trying to get over this cold, whatever this season is.

I don't know what it is, but my voice has been shaky at best, and it happened to be on

one of my heavy content recording weeks, so I am at the end of my rope.

I guess my voice is anyway, so, but we're here and we're pushing through because life

happens, and sometimes you just got to show up anyway.

So today on the show, we're going to continue working through the 25 questions to ask yourself

to live a better life.

I think on the last one, we ended on the, what are our cigarettes question?

What do we view as normal now that will vilify in 200 years?

Just kind of allow yourself to give yourself more grace and understand that we're

using society or continuing to learn over time, and that's okay.

So let's go ahead and jump into the next question.

We're on number 11 now, so this might turn into several episodes now, I guess.

Next question.

What could I change about my environment that would make it easier to be the person that

I want to be?

This one thing is probably more responsible for directly changing areas of my life than

anything else, because I fully bought into this back when I started this show, because

it was called Build Your Network, and I sort of just was forced into doing a bunch more

research on networking and environmental relationships and all that stuff, and how it plays

into success, or if it plays into success, and surprise, surprise, it ends up playing

into your success.

And so it's sort of this concept of you will be the same person in five years from now

minus the content you consume and the people that you hang out with.

So the books you read, the movies or shows you watch, the music you consume, write all

the content, all the inputs that you have, but then also all the people that you surround

yourself with.

And we do not often, or frequently enough, in my opinion, ask ourselves a question, what

can I change about my environment?

We're too worried about the goal, rather than engineering an environment that allows us

to become the type of person that's capable of reaching the goal, we focus too much on

the goal itself, and then we don't remove all obstacles to accomplishing the mission,

I guess is really what I'm trying to say, because if you have a goal, or you have a mission,

you have a vision for your life, you're trying to fulfill.

You can do it wherever you are.

It is possible to make it work, no matter if you're in the middle of nowhere and have

a bunch of friends who don't care about, you know, entrepreneurship or big goals or dreams,

maybe they are totally fine with living, you know, average life, which is fine, if that's

what they want to do, but maybe you don't want to do that.

And it's like, well, you can stay in that normal environment and potentially get the results

that you're looking for, it's just that it's going to be way more difficult than if you

put yourself in an environment where everybody would have big goals and dreams and you could

all learn from each other and help each other and grow together, you're putting yourself

in a situation that is much more likely to turn you into the person that's capable of

reaching your goals.

And it sort of came down to this one core concept that I've been talking about for a long

time, which is that nobody disagrees that your environment is what shapes you to become

the person who you ultimately become, yet very few people are willing to take a look at

their environment and change it so that that environment can then produce them and turn

them into the type of person that they want to become.

So instead of thinking about, you know, well, what do I do to accomplish my goal?

That's more like, who do I become in order to be able to accomplish this goal?

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What do I craft an environment that allows me to more easily become that version of myself?

Again, it's not like it's just required, but you're sort of shooting yourself in the

foot to see if you can walk, which doesn't really make much sense.

So what is the environment?

What could I change about my environment?

Is it the relationships that I have, the people I spend the most time with?

Is it that I consume too much politics and I find myself being negative all the time

because of that?

Can I change the books that I'm reading?

Can I start reading books if that's not something that you're doing?

Listening to audio books, is there a podcast that will help me become a better version

of myself?

What can I do in my immediate environment to what could I change about my immediate environment

to make accomplishing my goals or to make becoming the person I want to become just easier

overall?

So that's a question that's been super helpful for me.

Next one.

Did I form the aspirations I'm currently pursuing and how have I changed since then?

This is just a re-engagement of clarity because sometimes what can happen is you, you know,

if you never adjust what your goals are, then you could sometimes be chasing the version

of yourself you wanted to be when you were 19.

And maybe that version has changed over the years.

But I know it absolutely has for me when I was that age, I was thinking mostly about

money, pursuing success or, you know, starting business or really, I was doing door

door sales and time.

So it was more just like become the best sales guy that I could be and earn six figures

for the first time.

That was sort of what was top of mind for me.

Now life looks completely different.

You know, along the way I started a software company that I wanted to turn into this,

you know, unicorn type of thing.

And then since then, and after all the people I've talked to on the show and all the other

things that I've done, and then my kids being five and six, a lot of that has changed.

The goals that I have for my life have been adjusted along the way.

But that's because I've become a different person and I've gotten older.

So I've gotten more clarity around, well, that's not necessarily a mountain that I care

to climb.

I'm not necessarily somebody who's eager to climb the billionaire mountain.

That's not something that I really want to do.

I look around and see the sacrifice that it takes to build that type of value and organization

to create that type of wealth.

And frankly, I look at the trade-off for it and I go, it's not really a trade-off that

I'm willing to make.

But if you'd have asked me when I was younger, I might have said yes.

And so if you're not careful, you might be continuing to pursue a goal that you set for

yourself when you were just a different version of you.

And that doesn't make it bad or good.

It could be something neutral, but it's still worth continuing to ask the question every

once in a while.

Like, when did I actually set this goal and who was I then and have I changed since then

should I adjust this goal?

Should I be climbing a different mountain?

So next, have I reached a learning plateau in my role or workplace and is it time to consider

a pivot?

There are many plateaus that can come across your career, whether you're an entrepreneur

or your team member somewhere.

One of them that I don't think is talked about enough is a learning plateau.

Most people think of it in terms of like an earning plateau, which is most of the time

where it's like, well, I'm stuck here.

I've sort of hit the glass ceiling of what I can earn in this role or this position or

this company.

And maybe I need to adjust and move somewhere else.

But rarely do we think a bit from a learning plateau because your ability to earn will

be directly related to the skills or the knowledge that you bring to any specific role,

even in entrepreneurship.

So if you reach a plateau of learning and you don't purposefully shift in order to continue

to be learning, then that is the day that you have solidified your earning power.

The day that you commit to not learning anymore is the day that you say, I think I'm good

making this for the rest of my life.

And if you know, we talk about on the show, that is the opposite of what we're trying

to do here.

So, yeah, if you're at up, if you feel like everything's like kind of good and it's kind

of, you know, like pretty happy with my job, pretty happy with my salary, pretty happy

with my business, whatever, it's meeting all my needs and expectations and, you know,

we're just kind of moving forward.

But you're at a plateau, you're not learning anything new and you're not making

yourself a sharper version of you, then that could be a problem because there's a lagging

effect that happens where you will be outskilled in the workplace and then you will become significantly

less valuable in a new landscape that's ever changing, especially now as quickly as it's

changing with things like AI and other technological innovations.

So you can't ever just stop learning.

And if you do, again, you may as well just commit to yourself on the day that you say

that you're going to stop learning, may as well commit to yourself and say like, well,

this means that I will also be stopping in my earning power and I'll be just tapered

off with this ability to earn now.

So time to get back in the learning chair.

So have I reached a learning plateau in my role or my workplace and is it time to consider

it pivot?

Next question.

Ooh, this one's a good one.

I've thought a lot about this one.

Would I be okay if my kids ended up like me?

Habits, same self-talk, same friends, same lifestyle?

Would I be okay if my kids ended up like me?

I've thought a lot about this one.

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This is very careful and aware of negative self-talk and so when our kids start to engage

in this type of negative self-talk or you can tell that they're talking themselves down

or that they're giving into fear or they're basically repeating all the same normal human

tendencies that we all have, but you really see the ones that affected you.

You tend to be hyper aware of those ones and you're trying to make sure your kids don't

have to suffer the same way that you suffered.

The self-talk piece was one that I've thought about a lot because I won't let my kids talk

to themselves a certain way and I won't let other people talk to me a certain way.

Yet sometimes I allow myself to speak to myself in a way that I would never allow my kids

to speak to themselves and I would never allow anybody else to speak to me.

I have learned to try to adjust that as much as I can when I'm in these sort of like

negative self-talk spiral loops that I've just continuously thinking about my shortcomings

and the things that I've done incorrectly and I'm giving myself a hard time about something.

It's like, man, would I be okay if my kids were talking to themselves like this or would

I not be okay with that?

Would I be okay if my kids had friends like the ones that I have or if my kids had habits

the same type of habits that I had or the same type of mindset that I had, the beliefs

that I had, the values that I would I be okay?

Would that be a good case scenario if my kids ended up with all of the same things and

if somewhere in there you find that one of those does not align with the version of life

that you would want your kid to live, then it's up to you to change that and set the example

of what's possible for them to be able to live the life that you want them to live or at

least you want them to have access to be able to choose to live.

So you have to set the example.

You can't just tell them that they should talk to them so that they have to be nice to

themselves and then you're over there being a dick to yourself all the time.

So would I be okay if my kids ended up like me?

Next question.

Is this activity on my calendar getting me closer to my goals or further from them?

I wrote this actually on my whiteboard recently because when I saw my last company I was

sort of like in a in between phase and I wasn't really sure what I was doing and I was

doing some contract sales work for another company and it paid well and I am very lucky

to have the skill of sales in my back pocket because it comes in handy it has come in handy

multiple times in my career and but this last time I remember reading this this was actually

I believe in a newsletter that I subscribe to from Sharan Srivazzo's a friend of mentor

mine and one of the questions that he put in there was is this getting me closer to my goals

or further from my goals and at first the answer was it was getting me close to my goals because

it just sort of gave me some clarity got me back like you know putting in some reps of a skill set

that I was kind of you know dusty on it was like you know just just shaking the dust off the

shelf of a skill set that I that I had you know tabled for a little while working on some of the

projects and you know made some good money got to put some a big chunk down on an SBA loan for

our I say you ball store that we opened you know things like that it was helpful and useful but

like towards the end of it I I was asking myself that question is it's gonna be close to my goals

or further from my goals and the answer was really further it was getting me further from my goals

and so I ended up just calling it calling it on that venture sooner because I asked myself this

question and started to realize like I'm starting to get sucked down into the rabbit hole

just being a salesperson which is not a bad thing in general is just not what I want to do

so I I know I know the the version of the life that I'm trying to live and it was not

getting back into being comfortable working on somebody else's team and selling their stuff

just as a contracted salesperson so I stopped and that was a really helpful question for me and now

I had something that I that I consider pretty frequently because you can kind of lost in the sauce

sometimes you know doing something that you think is helpful or objectively valuable or good

but then when you really ask yourself like yes but is this getting me closer to where I want to go

or as a sort of a distraction along the way that could be a good distraction maybe sometimes a

healthy distraction might even be useful a distraction but distraction nonetheless and sometimes

you need to be willing to cut those things out of your life as well so I'll go ahead and end there

that's question number 15 we'll keep rolling through the rest of these 25 questions a little

of a better life in future episodes I appreciate you all for tuning in as always shoot me DM

at Travis Chappell over on Instagram shoot me an email Travis at Travischappell.com if you got any

questions we can answer on a future episode of the show whether it's about personal development

self help the podcast finances anything like that so appreciate for tuning in catch you guys

on the next episode peace