Travis Thomas has experience in a wide spectrum of careers from improv comedy, to writing, to coaching professional athletes on the U.S. Men's National Team. As a driven performance and culture coach, Thomas published his first book "3 Words for Getting Unstuck: Live Yes, And!" in 2016. He is passionate about inspiring others, and believes that anyone can discover their brilliance by committing to purpose, authenticity, and life-transforming collaboration.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION
Brett Gilliland  00:00
Welcome to the Circuit of Success. I'm your host, Brett Gilliland, and today I'm fired up, man, I've got Travis Thomas with me, Travis, how you doing?
Travis Thomas  00:06
I'm doing well. Thanks for having me.
Brett Gilliland  00:07
It's good to have you.
Travis Thomas  00:07
Yeah, let's let's let's jump in the for those of you who can't see if you're listening, right, we're in an amazing office slash studio so, so I'm super impressed.
Brett Gilliland  00:08
Yeah. Well, thanks so excited to have you over here in our O'Fallon, Illinois Visionary Wealth Advisors office and but Travis is a performance coach. He's the creator of Live Yes And
Travis Thomas  00:28
Yeah.
Brett Gilliland  00:28
Which I can't wait to talk about, Live Yes And. You're, you're also a comedian. So hopefully you make me laugh today.
Travis Thomas  00:34
Doubtful, doubtful.
Brett Gilliland  00:36
But also comedian, you're an author, man, you've you've worked with the, I'm going to say this word? I don't normally say it. But the Chicago Cubs.
Travis Thomas  00:42
Yeah. You know, you know, we're here in St. Louis country.
Brett Gilliland  00:45
Yeah.
Travis Thomas  00:46
So I'm, I'm a mercenary. So Chicago paid me.
Brett Gilliland  00:50
Exactly. You got a show? Well, yeah, we'll get the guys over there and see if they can get you but the Chicago Cubs, Boston Red Sox, Toronto Blue Jays, Georgia football, do a lot of personal coaching workshops, online programs, man and but the biggest role you kind of have right now is to the United States men's national team for World Cup coming up?
Travis Thomas  01:10
Yeah, really exciting. So I've been on staff with them since January 2020, the head coach brought me and Greg Burkhalter. And so I'm a contracted worker, but on staff, I'm the Leadership and Team Dynamics coach. So that's kind of the title we came up with which which carries a lot of, a lot of things but working with the team from leadership skills to mental skills. The way I like to think of it Brett, is I'm the guy that does, is always thinking about the culture. Right? So kind of the torch carrier for the culture or so many staff members are doing so many important things. I'm always thinking about all right, how are we continuing to, to make sure we're in alignment with with our overall culture as a team.
Brett Gilliland  01:52
And that's huge, which we'll talk about in a little bit. But but if you can, Travis, give us a little lay of the land on what's made you the man you are today. It's a question I asked on every episode. And I think there's there's always a backstory that maybe I don't know, through my research, and maybe some people that we want to give credit to too but what what has made you the man that you are today?
Travis Thomas  02:09
Are we working with a company doing that, are you on your own the whole time? Yeah, well, it's, it's been quite a, it's been a quite an interesting journey. I would love to say that I've had a plan. And when when I talk about purpose, right, I talk about, you know, purpose is not a it's not a it's not a map. It's it's a compass. And so if I, if I were to look back and connect the dots in reverse to how I got to doin the work that I'm that I'm doing today it, it was scary. It's been terrifying. It's been uncertain, but it's always been purpose forward, purpose driven. And so you know, the skinny of it is I, you know, I'm from Flint, Michigan, for those of you who know Flint, Michigan, most people don't tend to know Flint, Michigan in a positive light, they tend to think of the water or they think of "Roger and Me" and the documentary and General Motors pulling out, but I come from Flint with pride, you know, hard working town, we had a family business there. And so I definitely have those kinds of those Midwestern roots. But I loved sports growing up, I played soccer in college, the Division Three level, got out of college, got married right away, my wife and I we're celebrating year 26 next month, we got married young and I figured it was time to kind of get into the professional world, whatever that meant. And so we moved to Boston and I was working in marketing, she was working in publishing. First weekend in town, we went to an improv theater that had just opened a few months previous saw an improv comedy show, and for anyone who's never seen an improv comedy show, it's a lot like "Whose Line Is It Anyway", on TV. Second City is a big improv theater that a lot of people have heard of, went to a show five or six people on stage, creating stories out of nothing out of audience suggestions. And I saw that show and I was blown away. I was like, how do they do that? You know, that's magic. How did they do that? So they have a lot of courage takes a lot of courage and a lot of just I'm like, what's the what's the formula there? And so I signed up at a training center. So I took a level one class, level one turned into six levels of training. And a year and a half later, I was graduating from the training center. And then I was auditioning for their touring company and I made their touring company and then I made their development cast. And then I finally after a couple of years, made it to the mainstage cast and so kind of felt like a superhero. I had a real day job, you know, Clark Kent, you know, with a suit during the day and at night, I was on stage, hopefully making people laugh and, and I did the improv comedy thing for a few years moved to Florida, started a group of two guys down there in 2003-2004. We still perform together when we can it's more of a glorified hobby. But then, you know, I was working for a website, a spirituality website that came to an end it was the big question kind of around 2005, which what do I really want to do with my life? And I wanted to do coaching and I wanted to do speaking, and I really, I love working with groups and teams and people on and the corporate level and sports and but that started to do Deep Dive into personal development for myself and then to get certified in personal development, which led into organizational development, which led led into corporate training and executive coaching–– I was on my own, which, which meant, I didn't have a lot of work. You know, we had our third child, and I'm like, you know, family of five, and I'm not making any money, and we go into debt, and we go into a lot of debt. And then it was scary. And it was this idea of sort of following your purpose. Like, man, I really felt like I had a sense of what I wanted to do. But it was tough, and not really knowing what that path was going to look like. And so just kind of in survival mode, I would say, you know, survival mode for about 10 years of just trying to make ends meet and, and being really scary, but always having a clear sense of who I was and what I wanted to do.
Brett Gilliland  05:55
Let's dissect that if we can. So I mean, I'm, that is fascinating to me. So for one, you had a very patient and understanding and supportive wife at home.
Travis Thomas  06:03
Hard stop there, right? Yes, yeah. Yes.
Brett Gilliland  06:05
Yeah. Shout out to Hollister.
Travis Thomas  06:08
Shout to Hollister. My wife, because in lots of different, you know, and I've seen it, we've seen it in other marriages where financial hardship comes and there's not enough there to hold the relationship together. So God bless her.
Brett Gilliland  06:20
Yeah. So so that 10 years. So now you're you're fighting through odd jobs, and you get this gig. That's exciting. You get this gig. That's exciting. Yeah, make it a little bit here. How does a guy from Flint, Michigan go to Boston, we go on stage, we're making people laugh. We go down here and we decide I want to be a coach. Because, in my opinion, what I struggle with sometimes as coaches out there, just in full transparency, is there a "coach," but they haven't had the grind.
Travis Thomas  06:46
No.
Brett Gilliland  06:46
Right? And now you did the grind. But how did you do the grind and end up on the United States men's national team for soccer? I mean, that's mind blowing.
Travis Thomas  06:54
Well, there were, and that's the thing like that, that 10, 10 plus years, really, you know, it's all the steps in between. And so, you know, I, you know, I ended up moving up to St. Louis 2007. And I took a job with my alma mater as an assistant soccer coach, just to stop the bleeding.
Brett Gilliland  07:13
Which was SLU.
Travis Thomas  07:13
Which was not SLU, was actually Principia College.
Brett Gilliland  07:14
Okay, for sure.
Travis Thomas  07:14
And even though I'm working at SLU, now, it wasn't my alma mater, and took a job there thinking that there was going to be a job on the other end, either as a resident counselor at the college or, well, that turned into being a resident counselor at the high school at the boarding school. So for three years, Brett, with my children, seven, four, and one, were living in a boy's dormitory in an apartment in the boys dormitory, making nothing. But but just it was stopping the debt. And but here I was, but you look back, and like what what was the work that I was doing on a day to day basis, right? I was mentoring young high school men from around the world. And then when I wasn't doing that I was coaching sports at the same time. And so I was doing the work that was allowing, it was laying the groundwork, it was planting the seeds. And then after doing that for three years, we put the kids into a minivan.

Ver todos los episodios