Latest / Travel Agency in a Year / DAY 288 | Why Celebrating Wins Helps Travel Advisors Stay Motivated
Transcript
- Rachel: Welcome to the Travel Agency in a Year podcast. I'm your host, Rachel Kay. We are on day 288. If you don't know who I am, I am a travel agency owner just like you. And I scaled mine from goose eggs slash negative revenues when I started, like we all start out, to multiple six figures in 18 months. And so this podcast is helping you get there to. If you would like additional help from yours truly, head over to elevate with rachelk.com. I offer mentoring and a group coaching program. Okay? All right, day 288. The brain science behind celebrating the wins, the neuroscience of winning, what actually happens in your brain. So we've spent the last several episodes just talking about celebrating the team wins, and we're gonna look at what's in personal wins, and we're gonna look at today what's actually happening in your brain. When you or someone else achieves something, hopefully good things, because the science here is genuinely relevant to how you handle both your own success and someone else's. The dopamine response. So, research on competitive achievement, why can't I talk? has found that winning does trigger real measurable surges of dopamine. If you've recently gone viral. Which I know some of you have listening because you're telling me you are. You're getting dopamine hit after dopamine hit. Every time you open up your social apps and you're like, my gosh, look at all these people who love me. The neurotransmit that's just like one that's one win, right? But then if you're getting trips from it on top, you're like, my God, I'm I am God. I'm unstoppable. It's because the like dopamine, which is, if you don't know anything about neuroscience, it is the neurotransmitter associated with motivation and reward. but that dopamine hit is reinforcing all the behaviors that led to that success, and it creates a real feedback loop. I hope you know what a feedback loop is, but it just like you get the dopamine, you're like, I gotta do more. And then you do more, and then you get it again, and then you gotta do more and more and more and more. And secretly this is how addictions develop as well. Anyway, but we're not getting addicted, okay? We're just talking about dopamine and rewards. Anyway, it makes future real like effort feel more worthwhile. So this is an like an excellent example would be a travel agent who has been riding these struggle bus financially and getting the bookings, and then finally it hits and you start getting those consultations or people filling out your form. However, you have your business set up and you're like, I'm the best. And people maybe you have on your form or during your consultation, how did you hear about me? Or us, whatever. and they keep putting the same thing down, whether it's like TikTok or YouTube or Instagram or Reddit or f referrals, then you're like, I need to do more of whatever that is, right? So that's awesome because that just means you're going to continue scaling and also be careful of the burnout. So make sure you're scaling smartly. Is that a word? I mean. Anyway, some studies in competitive context have found dopamine increases of a striking magnitude following a win like that, along with a rise in testosterone that researchers sometimes call the winner effect, which is associated with increased confidence. confidence and assertiveness carrying forward into the future challenges. And so a way that you could think of this as like you've got to go through the hard shit, basically. Like you've if you want to really see success, you've got to go through the hard stuff. And it's so difficult. And this is why we're talking about celebrating personal wins in this episode. It's so difficult when you start out as an entrepreneur because all all you've got is like this pen. This is a marker, but this pen and maybe a laptop or a desktop. And service-based businesses like travel are very, very low barrier to entry, easy to get into. And so you don't have to have a whole lot to get started. And you also probably don't understand how small your challenges are when you first get started. So let's say we could liken it to like going out on a hike in woods in nature, and you just have your walking stick and you're like, look how beautiful this is. I'm so glad I took this trip on this little walkie-poo. And you come across a bear. And all you have to fight the bear is you and this stick. And so it seems insurmountable. And once you get that bear, you're gonna get the dopamine hit and be like, I'm unstoppable. And then you're gonna keep on going on your hike, maybe. Some of you might be like, nope, going back home. Especially if you're like, I almost lost to that bear. And this is the same, like, think of this in terms of building your travel agency. You start walking on this path, and you're like, this is gonna be great. All I need is this walking stick, and then you're like, there's a big bear. That's gonna be your first challenge. As you grow your business, you're gonna be fighting. More and more difficult challenges, but you've developed that confidence from the initial dopamine surge from fighting off that bear in your business. And you'll be more assertive. So you may come along like a weird gnome. I'm thinking of Rapunzel. So next you see a gnome. So they are far more intelligent than a bear. And that's gonna be a different type of challenge. And do you have the tools? And once you fight that bear off or that gnome off, you're gonna continue getting more and more challenges, but you're gonna be at the same time like growing your army and like growing your tools and your skills and abilities. Like maybe you fight off the gnome. Guys, I don't know why this turned into a weird RPG scenario. But maybe you fight off the gnome and that gives you more XP and you're like, I'm gonna put it towards spellcasting. Just the yeah, honestly, this episode went off the rails. But think of your travel agency as like Like I have the three C's framework, which is the client, the challenge, and the covenant. And the client is the hero in your story, and you are the sage guide. And so then you could go even further and be like, what's my dexterity? What's my magic spell casting ability? What's my strength? What's my speed? And as you go along, because it's kind of like a role-playing game, honestly, when you start a business and you're like, I have no freaking clue what I'm doing. It's just like starting a round of DD. You're just like, well, I'm gonna be this character and roll the dice, and here's what I got. But as you overcome those challenges in that role-playing game, you develop more skills, you develop more confidence and assertiveness in how your character looks and the decisions they will make. If you're into that kind of thing, apply that to your travel agency, okay? I I used to love I just went off completely off course with this episode. I used to love the video game Skyrim. It's one of my favorite, like of the Bethesda games, that was like hands down my favorite video game to play. I didn't like any of the Fallout ones. I loved me some Skyrim. And I was also terrified. If you don't know Skyrim, it's like this weird fantasy dragon, somewhat medieval world that you're running around in, and you can be like a cat person or an elf or a dwarf or some kind of I don't think they call them humans, but maybe they were just humans. and they have different attributes. And you can comment on this podcast and guess what I would be. It's not what you think it is. If you if you played that game. But I loved that game and I started applying that game. Actually, that was right around I was playing that game right around the same time that I started my cleaning business. and then I was like, I should just apply this to my life in general. I'm constantly leveling up different areas of my life. And I remember I was building a fire pit in my backyard, and then two doors down, there was no fence between our yards for like these three ho this stretch of three houses. And so two doors down, I'm like, you know, building this fire pit with bricks I found on the property, 'cause I had a very old home. And I was like moving these limestone walk walkway things that were buried underneath weeds. I dug them all up and I was making them into a patio and I was doing all this type of stuff. And my neighbor, two doors down, comes out with like a smithing anvil and like the apron, you just hear ting, ting, ting, and I look over and he's about the same age as me. We found out that we kinda ran in the same circles. He was friends with a lot of like my more creative friends. But then we would joke, I'd be like, leveling up your smithing, and he'd be like, You're leveling up your masonry? I'd be like, heck yeah, I'm level one right now, getting to level two. So you could totally treat your entire life like that if you want to, in terms of like Flipping the script on neuroscience and living your life out. And if you're into that kind of stuff, just do it. If you're like, what the heck are you talking about? I'm out. I'm sorry. I'm sorry you have to listen to all that. Okay. What I'm saying is every time you get over a challenge, you get a dopamine hit. The next time you have a difficult client and you can manage it without losing your temper or Maybe you lose your temper f temporarily, like the faster you can get back to baseline with your emotions, the more confidence, the more assertiveness, and the more challenges you can take on. And as you build your business, you will have the backing of your suppliers and the BDMs. Like because you're doing a higher volume of business, they're part of your army now. And you'll have like your loyal clients, they're part of your army. Eventually, the goal, hopefully, is you want to get Well into seven figures and gross revenue, so you'll have a solid team in place. and so then you just can take on more and more and more challenges. So anyway, back to the real actual neuroscience research, an important nuance. These biochemical boosts aren't indefinite. Which is why you have to level up. If a win isn't followed by continued meaningful challenge, which is why all the greatest stories that you read, regardless of the genre or TV shows, there's more and more challenges coming down the pipeline. The dopamine and the testosterone response tends to flatten out over time, which is part of why complacency can follow even like a genuinely significant achievement if nothing meaningful follows it. And this is a huge reason why in the success circle, I'm like, constantly talk about your goals. Do you want to change your goals? Do you want to make them harder? Because each month, each quarter, you may have overcome a challenge. You may have reached a certain goal. And if you don't have the next step in place for your big, big picture, you might be like, Well, I did it. I achieved that goal. Time to rest on my laurels. And things kind of go haywire. Or you just kind of. kind like stay I see a lot of travel advisors that are like I want to book over a million in sales and then once they do they're like well now what? And then they just they want to get past that and p into two million and three and whatever a year. But once they hit that like that's my goal instead of it being the big like that's a really little goal. I mean it's a goal. It's a good goal. And it's a small goal in the grand scheme of any type of business because you're just making maybe two hundred thousand a year if you're lucky. but If you don't have a bigger goal to be like, okay, well I want seven employees and I want this team and I want to bring in five million dollars a year in commissions, like you're just like, I gotta get to this hundred and fifty K a year or book over a million in sales so I can be a part of some high earning group, whatever. So I'm in the top two percent in the industry. And you you're just gonna stay there, like because you aren't gonna be motivated for the next challenge because you haven't created your own challenge. And that's the beauty of entrepreneurship entrepreneurship. You create your own challenges and write your story, and you're gonna have more random side quests come up that are gonna distract you that are also challenges, but it's all part of your not only your business's development, but like your personal development as well. This is a weird episode. Thanks for listening. What I'm saying is, to be succinct, complacency sucks. And this goes back to day 250, which is the arrival fallacy that I've talked about on 250. The brain's reward system doesn't stay activated just because you achieved something once, it responds to ongoing engagement and progress. And also, if you tie in the feedback loop and the dopamine, let's say you implement a new marketing strategy and it brings in your dream high ticket client, and you're like, great success. You book that trip, but then you're like, you should be hungry for more. And so that also feeds into well, how do I get more of this? And you might have a little bit of an addictive personality or some kind of neurospiciness, I'm sorry. If you lean that way. Okay, so now we're gonna talk about celebrating others' wins. I might reference Final Fantasy VII in this, which I that's me. I wish I I need to get the little gavel. I think that's one of the best video games. I'm not a huge gamer, but when I play a game, it's like Mario, Final Fantasy, Skyrim. That's about it. Maybe Tetris. I love Tetris. Earthworm Gym. I have a Super Nintendo with a bunch of old games on it. Anyway. I might reference Final Fantasy VII. I'm sorry. I might try to stick this to Super Mario 2, maybe? Or no, Mario Party is cutthroat. Alright, anyway. Vicarious or empathic reward. Is celebrating someone else's wins. So there are a lot of studies using like brain imaging that have found that regions of the brain associated with reward processing can activate not just when you personally succeed, but when we you witness someone that you care about or even someone you respect, just simply respect, succeeds as well. So this is part of the neurological basis for why genuinely, authentically, sincerely celebrating someone. When a fellow fellow advisor's watch was a like popped off and they got all this business, a mentor's milestone, a colleague's growth, even if it's just their personal development. That kind of stuff can produce real positive responses that you feel in you, not just a polite social gesture. And I want to say this is not something I see too often in the travel industry. And please, if you're in the opposite boat where you struggle to understand celebrating wins, and maybe you get a little envious, that's okay. It's something for you to reflect upon. It's not okay to be a huge bitch all over social media about it, but it's okay for you to feel that way. And sometimes when you feel that little maybe it it could be envy or jealousy. I can't remember which one's which. One is like I can't remember. There's a difference between the two. But if you feel that little tinge of envy. That is also an indicator that what that person is doing, you are also capable and meant to be doing. And you might be like, well, they just get all this success and I don't understand why I'm not doing it. But that means you need to really look at what you're doing yourself compared to what that person's doing. And if you look at it honestly from like a completely objective perspective, you might see, they're doing so much better because my messaging is all over the place. and I wanna be highly specialized, but I'm not communicating that. And they're highly specialized and they are communicating that. And that's the only difference, right? but also don't hate on people. Don't be weird. Don't be a weirdo. I see it a lot. I've ha I've had people at award ceremonies tell me they've been stalking me online because they're mad that I'm coming up. And I'm like, ugh. I don't want to be at these things anymore. And then I've also met some really wonderful people. But just no, it's like both exists. And it's weird. It's weird when people don't really authentic like sincerely celebrate your wins. Anyway. So understanding the science. supports two practical habits for you. And now we're out of the whole crazy video game land. Real episode stuff. First off, don't rely on purely a single big win to sustain your motivation. Okay? You have got to build continued, build it in, continued challenges and progress. And this is from the Harvard Business School study, like the research from day 285 also kind of suggests suggests this. So you're that like your own reward system stays engaged rather than flattening out after a single achievement. Okay. And there will be people that will like fully support you if you're like so in the success circle I talk about people's big delulu goals and then to set next year's goals. So let's say you hit next year's goals. That's not the big delulu. You aren't living that big delulu life yet. And you will be surrounded by a lot of people that will cheer you on for next year's goals because it's smaller. and it might be perceived by them as like they're still above you. These are the be very careful of who you spend your time with type of people. And then you hit that goal, and maybe you hit it far sooner than you thought. And so maybe like five months into next year, let's say you have a goal of $250,000 in gross revenues, but you grind hard between now and the rest of wave season. And you end up making $250,000 somehow between today and next June. And you are just killing it. And you keep going because that's that's not your big Dululu goal. If your big Dululu goal is like having your own private island, you ain't getting that on 250 grand. Like it ain't happening. You're not getting a house on 250 grand. Like calm down. You're not there yet. And also anyone who starts to see which will happen in your friends and family group, and though then you're gonna get stuck on the lonely path, welcome, welcome to it, brother andor sister. they will try to convince you to stay small. And that's where you're gonna end up in this weird situation as you become more and more successful. People don't want you to be more and more successful, and they don't want you above them. And you'll start to see people kind of like fade out of your life. And they might be like, Well, you changed and you just focused so much on this, and it's like Don't focus on stuff so much that it like kills your relationships. And also, if this is your career and you are building something so much more than simply a career, yeah, you have to put a lot of work in it. And so you end up on like a very lonely path for a while because you're not quite ready to be with the bigger players. like bigger than the top, I made a hundred thousand dollars whoop-d, you're not quite ready for like those above that. You might they might be like, I can mentor you kind of thing. But you're also breaking away from those people keeping you small. And so it's like a very isolated lonely lonely time period. And it's really It's fine. Just keep going. You get to build your own story. I did go off the rails again. Alright, so that was part one. Don't rely on your big success, like your big one motivator for next year, once you hit it. Don't be like, I don't have to do anything else for the rest of the year. Don't beat yourself up if you don't hit it either. but be very careful if anyone in your life is like, well, you did this thing, why do you have to do anything else? Like, be very careful of those people. Keep going for your big Delulu dream. If you feel this deep desire for that Delulu dream, there's a reason for it. All right. Secondly, you also want to celebrate someone else's success rather than comparing yourself against them or feeling threatened by it. It's not just being the going down the nice guy road. It's based on the neuroscience, it's likely to produce real positive experience in your own brain, not just performative ones. This was a weird episode, guys. Welcome to it. So, at the end of the day. Winning triggers a real measurable dopamine testosterone response, and it does fade without continued challenge. You are the author of your story. You are not the hero of your story. You are the author, and you are the sage guide, and you can create whatever challenges you want, and you can create whatever progress you want. So you could turn this in, okay, if you're a romanticy reader. You could turn this into that kind of a thing where you're like, this book has resolved. You know how when there's a whole book series in the first book it's like, the big challenge is resolved. No, it's just begun. You have no idea what's coming at you, and the character through the course of like four, five, six, seven, eight books, has to continuously develop and grow and amass their army. Same thing with your business. You can't just be like, and I got my brain's charming. End of story. You have to keep going, or things will fall apart, unfortunately. anyway, research on vicarious rewards shows the brain or empathic reward. Shh, your brain can respond positively to other people's success too, not just your own. So build in the continued challenge to sustain your own motivations and then celebrating someone else's win sincerely is not only just kinder, but it's neurologically rewarding. Like, think about like When your best friend like close like I love I wouldn't say that everyone in the success circle is my best friend. That would get real weird real fast. I love hearing the wins that people have. I love it when people are like, I got my first group, I got my first wedding, I got my first this, I can't believe this is happening. I love hearing it, even if it wasn't like necessarily from anything. mm explicitly from anything that I've like taught. Like if they are like, okay, well I'm gonna try this and they do it, like I just love hearing the wins because I just like seeing the confidence. And then the winning. Anyway, tomorrow we're going talk about how advisors treat each other in this industry, which is why I want a little rant, but it's kind of mean girly. And we don't, we're adults, people. Let's grow up. Anyway, have a wonderful day. I will see you tomorrow.