Maverick Author
TRAVIS FLATEAU
30+ Year Entrepreneur, Founder of TBT Racing Global & Off-Road Racing Champion
"Your language as a leader doesn't just describe reality—it creates it."
About Travis Flateau
Travis Flateau is a 30+ year entrepreneur, founder of TBT Racing Global, and off-road racing champion who has built his reputation in the crucible of extreme competition and business innovation. At age 17, Travis founded TBT Racing, pioneering a franchise model that has expanded to multiple locations across the United States and Brazil, transforming how motorcycle suspension service and performance tuning operates worldwide.
Travis's unique perspective on leadership comes from decades of racing through brutal desert conditions—where split-second decisions determine whether you finish or fail—and building businesses from scratch where language patterns determine whether teams thrive or collapse. His leadership philosophy was forged in pit stops where temperature gauges were buried in the red, engines were seconds from catastrophic failure, and the only thing standing between defeat and breakthrough was the words he chose in that moment. From those crucibles of pressure, Travis developed an understanding that most leaders never grasp: casualness causes casualties, and your language as a leader doesn't just describe reality—it creates it.
Chapter: "Shift Your Words, Shift Your Team"
"Your language as a leader doesn't just describe reality—it creates it."
In his transformative chapter for Maverick Leadership, Travis Flateau reveals the hidden force that determines whether teams rise or fall: the language patterns leaders use every single day. Through raw stories from the racing circuit and three decades of entrepreneurship, Travis exposes how most leaders unknowingly program their teams for failure through casual, careless words—and provides the exact framework to shift from victim language to maverick leadership.
Travis opens with a pit stop where everything was going wrong. Temperature gauge buried in the red. Engine seconds from catastrophic failure. His crew stood frozen. "We're done," one muttered. That's when Travis realized he'd been speaking defeat into his team without even knowing it. With thirty seconds to turn it around, he shifted his language. Same circumstances. Different words. The team got back in the race.
"You're not reporting on your team. You're programming them."
Through his signature tool called "The Flip," Travis provides five actionable principles that maverick leaders use to speak life into their organizations: responsibility language over victim language, casting vision through declarations, "we" language that creates partnership, speaking about people like they're present, and abundance language that opens possibilities. The chapter culminates with a challenge: "You can have the fastest bike, the best crew, perfect conditions—but if you're speaking defeat, you won't finish." Maverick leaders don't wait for circumstances to change. They speak new circumstances into existence.
What You'll Learn
The Three Fatal Language Patterns: How victim language, gossip culture, and scarcity speak are destroying your organization from the inside out—and how to identify when you're using them
The Programming Principle: Why every word you speak is either building your team's future or tearing it down, with no neutral ground between them
The Flip Framework: Travis's signature tool for catching your default language pattern and flipping it to responsibility, possibility, or partnership in real time
From "Can't" to Questions: How to transform scarcity statements that close doors into abundance questions that find solutions when everyone else has given up
The Present Person Rule: The practice of speaking about people like they're standing next to you—and how this single shift protects culture and builds unstoppable loyalty
Three Transformative Takeaways:
1. Casualness Causes Casualties
Your language patterns aren't just commentary—they're programming. Every throwaway comment, every frustrated vent, every moment of linguistic laziness compounds into organizational culture. Maverick leaders treat their words like mission-critical decisions, because in the pit stop of leadership, they are.
2. You Cannot Lead Where Your Language Won't Go
The leader who says "my team never takes initiative" has just guaranteed they won't. The leader who says "these clients are impossible" has just created impossibility. Your language sets the ceiling for your organization's reality. Shift your language, and you shift what's possible.
3. Every Word is Either Building or Destroying
There is no neutral ground. You're either speaking life or death, success or failure, possibility or limitation into your team. Maverick leaders choose to create something extraordinary with every sentence that comes out of their mouth—because they understand their teams are listening, believing, and becoming exactly what they hear.
Travis’s Impact
Travis's leadership extends beyond the racing circuit to building and scaling TBT Racing Global, a franchise organization with locations across the United States and Brazil. His expertise in high-pressure decision-making, team development through extreme conditions, and business innovation has made him a sought-after voice for entrepreneurs and leaders who refuse to settle for mediocrity. He lives in Southern California, where he continues to race, build businesses, and speak life into everyone around him.
Connect with Travis Flateau
Website: www.TBTRacing.com
Instagram: @travisflatteau
Company: TBT Racing Global
