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I was recently on whatnot the other day, just shopping around, looking frankly, because I was just blown away that this is something that people are doing with their time. And so I was like, I got to go see if this thing is real before I talk about it on the show. And so I'm browsing whatnot, looking around, finding things, and it's crazy to see the volume of people that are just having fun in the chat. They're watching people do live shopping. It's like, it's like, you know, QVC directly on your phone. It's something you need to try, I'm telling you. Not just buying, but the selling piece too, where these people are just starting up pop up shops and businesses, selling whatever product, finding their people, building community, getting repeat customers that come back to see your face as the seller. Not just a logo or a brand, anyone can sell. Whether your business is big, small, or yet to exist, people selling on whatnot sell 10 times more than on any other major marketplaces. And that's because you're not just listing products, you're building real connections with buyers across whatnot. The number of sellers making over $1 million a year has now doubled. The consistency pays off for those sellers. It's not just side hustle, it's a real path to building something that lasts. Because whatnot buyers spend more than an hour a day in the app, they're not just browsing around, they're engaged, they're buying, they're coming back. You go live, show off your products in real time and turn what you love into real income. So search whatnot whnot in the app store, download it today and get started selling right away. You're listening to the Travis Makes Money podcast presented by GoHighLevel.com for a free
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30 day trial of the best all in one digital marketing software tool on
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the planet, just go to gohighlevel.com travis.
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What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to the Travis Makes Money podcast where it's a mission to help you make more money on this episode of the show. My producer Eric is here with me in studio. What's up, man?
C
Hey, what's going on, Travis? Good to be here.
B
You just have a different voice for every intro.
C
I'm smoking a cigarette right now, people. Actually, it's funny I just said that because I was watching.
B
It's funny I said that thing in my own life.
C
I was, I was. I'm fascinated sometimes by like, like old media.
B
I know. I mean, yeah, if we're talking our Top three. My cousin asked me if an alien came to Earth and you were going to show them three movies to give them a glimpse of like, oh, God,
C
what did you say?
B
What would you. What would you say? And, and so like begged the question of like, okay, but how far back are we going? We need to include things from like, early days of film. Are we telling a story with this? Is it your top three favorite films?
C
I don't see how this doesn't become a full episode. And, and this is not relevant to.
B
But then, but then I was like, see? Yeah, because like, I wouldn't put any of like the older films in mind. But I know I was like, my producer Eric would be like, yeah. Oh, those Buster Keaton silent film from 1932 would be definitely in there.
C
Okay. Honestly, Minions and Monsters is in my top five movies of the year so far. Really, seriously, really good. It's actually very good and funny. But Buster Keaton's in it. They show him. They have Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd and Charlie Chaplin all in this sequence where the Minions show up in la. But I've trained my daughter enough that she looked at me, really showed him she knew him. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And then when we got back, I was like, you have a lot more you need to see right now. But yeah, they. Yeah. So seeing Buster Keaton in there was great. And the end of Jackass had a special thanks to Buster Keaton.
B
Oh, yeah, thanks for the invite.
C
Yeah, I've seen it twice too. Wow. Thanks for the invite. And neither time have you been there.
B
Thanks a lot.
C
Sorry. Just tell me when those Jackass card collectibles back. Just tell me when you want to go. I'll go anytime. But anyway, all this to say smoking, the smoker voice thing is funny to me because I think in older media I always laugh when you can tell in a cartoon or something that they're just sitting there drinking coffee and smoking. Yeah. And they're doing their voiceover. And that's no more clear than in the Ewoks cartoon theme song. I'm just gonna play a second of it, but I was like, I can smell the cigarette smoke that they're like, let's just finish this up. We have 10 minutes left today. And yeah, this is. No, wait. Oh, it's on. They're doing it fast because they had to cut down. Have you ever heard this?
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No.
C
You can smell like cigarette smoke through this clip. Okay, 1985. Here we go. Star Wars Media.
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Somebody's 87 year old grandma.
C
People complain about Star Wars Media now, but they had the Ewok show used to be peak back in the day. Anyway, well, speaking of consuming content, which by the way, I'm having a hard time moving on from what I would show Alias, just so you know.
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So my top three favorite movies.
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I'm having a really hard time with knowing what to show. Let's talk about Gary Vaynerchuk.
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Vaynerchuk is that.
C
He said Gary Vaynerchuk. Gary Vaynerchuk. Because he did a video about creating versus consuming. And I think it was very good. And it's something that, honestly, if I've had something very bad happen mentally to me in January. In January, in 2026, if I had
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something, let's say it was in January, on the 12th.
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If I've had something bad mentally happen to me in 2026, it's that I've been over even before watching this video that he released two days ago. I've been overthinking this so much. And I have multiple times, because I have the unlimited movie pass and I've booked. This has happened at least 10 times. I've booked a movie and I'm walking distance from the theater. I start walking over and then I go, what am I doing? I could be working on stuff. And then I've turned around and went home and wrote or recorded something. And it's because I keep thinking about the consuming versus creating. And I heard somebody say recently, like, get addicted to your phone. Posting content, not watching reels. And like, all that stuff has like ruined my brain where it's like, I have to force myself. I got on the phone with Tara. Cause I was like, I'm just gonna come back. And she's like, no, go do something. So anyway, so here's Gary Vee talking about this. All hail Gary Vee.
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Maybe you are not communicating. You don't exist. I believe that if you are not communicating, you do not exist. More importantly, communicate about what you love. What scares me about the long tail of the Internet is I know there's somebody sitting in here who's watched every
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episode of Friends will never be me, bro. Actually, I have seen every episode of Friends, but I saw it because my brother loved Friends. So we. So whenever it's like his turn to choose what we watch, like, I'm watch Friends.
B
That's probably.
C
I haven't spoken to him in two years. Actually. That's true. But not because of Friends and not for any reason.
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Just cuz.
C
Just cuz. Not cuz I talked to my cuz, but have you seen every episode of Friends? Yes, of course you have a millennial. Millennial cringe.
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You can't call me a millennial for watching Friends when you've watched Seinfeld.
C
That's great. Anyway, let's watch it.
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Doesn't make it not great.
C
Anyway, here we go.
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Also millennial.
C
Here it is.
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Of the Internet is. I know there's somebody sitting in.
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I can almost. I can almost hear our editor groaning every time. Like, just play the clip, finish the episode. Just do talk about something. All right, here we go.
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Who's watched every episode of Friends?
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Okay.
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Deeply loves Friends. Can't get enough in their own mind of debating Rachel and Ross.
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By the way, side note, I'm sorry to the editing team, Arriva Durci. You have to watch. I watched a pure comedy in theaters the other day. You need to watch Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass.
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That's a movie?
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Yes, you have to watch it. It's very funny.
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Is it in theaters right now?
C
Yeah, yeah, I think it's about to be interesting. It's very, very funny. I saw it because it was the mystery movie and that happened to be it. It's hilarious. But I think of it because Jennifer Aniston is in it. She's one of the celebrities. What's the sex passes in that movie? But here we go.
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Loved the show. Watch it every night to go to sleep too. And I know they make 49, 62, 88, $103,000 a year doing something they don't like. And I know that if they started a podcast about friends every day when they went home, instead of consuming content to escape the fact that they don't like their job, if they created content around the thing they love, that after 24, 36, 48 months, that along could have came Netflix and been a sponsor of that podcast that would allow them to actually leave that job they hate and now be a full time Friends podcaster. You don't believe that. I understand that that seems like a far fetched story to you. The problem is you don't live my life because I wrote a book in 2009 called Crush it that laid this out. And I get to live the best life now where I get three to six emails a day of people that tell me this exact story.
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Quick.
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jobs if you are not committed.
C
I was so mad because when I started watching through Star Trek, I realized there was like a thousand episodes. I forget how many episodes there are. Let me look.
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There's a lot.
C
It's important.
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We were watching the Chris Pine ones recently and I was like, well, there's a lot. And Jackie said something like, well, what are the, what are the other Star Treks? And I was like, which ones? Yeah, there's like, well, there's 18 search results.
C
There's 960 episodes of Star Trek across 13 distinct Star Trek television series spanning over 50 seasons. I'm still working through. It's a. It's a. But I was. But I started watching it and my brain so quickly was like, I got to make some money out of this, you know. And so I was like, I was like, oh, I got to do on this.
B
I was like, we need that in the soundboard, bro. We do Tim Robinson click.
C
But it's just too good. But I was like, I got to do. I should do a Podcast, like just going through the episodes and I could do a quick review of each one and then there's. And I follow them on social media. Cause it's pretty good. But there's a podcast called Newbie Star Trek and it's people watching through Star Trek for the first time.
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I was like, ah, yeah, but you could do better.
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But it's two seasoned Star trek fans and 2 non star. I was like, such a good idea. It is a good idea. So now I have to do a friend's podcast.
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That's the only other option.
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That's the only other option. It was either that or friends podcast. But I. But I. All that. All jokes aside, though, I do think that with a lot of stuff is like, how do I take the things that I like and talk about them in a way that benefits my, like, I don't know, business goals. Let's just watch a little bit of Gary Vee. Your business goals. I know. You know, bleeding. That's fine. That's fine. I love how Gary Vee can say, be like, almost a little condescending.
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Right.
C
But also in a way that's like. You're like, he's right. Yeah. He's like, I know you don't believe that, but that's why I live my life. And you paid to see me exactly. Like, this guy shake his head like, I'm not doing a friend's podcast. He's like, that's fine. I made four. I do them all. I make four podcasts. I bought mics at a yard sale. It just goes into it.
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Yeah, exactly.
C
But anyway, what's your take on the. Okay. What's your take on the consuming versus creating? And how do you balance Just like, I'm gonna unplug and just enjoy this thing I like, versus, like, I'm gonna make content about this or I'm gonna talk about this or I'm gonna make this. I have to make money out of this somehow.
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I think it depends on how much you hate what you do. Because if you like your job, if it's like, you know, it's not something that you're like, oh, I'm passionate about, whatever.
C
Pretend I pretend I hate my job.
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Being an electrician or something.
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Pretend I really hate my job. What advice would you give to me? I'm just kidding. Yeah, I like this.
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No, this is.
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I like this clip. And I said, let's make a video about it.
B
Yeah. So I feel. I feel like if you. If you're in that position where you hate your job, then it's absolutely better to just start creating about something that you genuinely care about, just for the prospect. And even if you don't, you know, even if you don't ever make millions doing whatever the Friends podcast or something, it's like, maybe it leads to, you know, being on stage at a convention, leading a panel, and you get to talk to Jennifer Aniston, or you can get the producer on your show or something like that. Like, it can lead to really cool stuff, even if it doesn't. Even if it's not completely measured monetarily. But, yeah, if you like. If you like your job, but it's not something that you're crazy passionate about, then I would say maybe it doesn't make as much sense, because there is a factor to the job, to the idea that when you start doing something that you love and you try to monetize it, it starts slowly becoming a thing that you hate. There is some degree of that that will happen.
C
Yeah.
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Which you obviously don't want to set all of your hobbies on fire in an effort to make them monetizable. But not everybody has that luxury because there's a lot of people out there doing something that they hate every single day of their life. And like you said, creating. If you love watching Friends, creating a Friends podcast would still be that leisure activity. The only thing that you'd have to learn is, like, editing the show. But again, with AI tools, it's so much easier than it used to be. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, Joanna edits all of our stuff now, and she was never an editor or videographer or podcast producer or any of those things. It's like you spent, what, like an hour with her on a call, and then she does. She edits, like, 90 episodes a month now. Like, it's not that difficult to be fair, though.
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You know, they always say, like, AI is going to take our jobs.
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Yeah.
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I feel like Joanna is the only person I know of that could take AI's job.
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Yeah.
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Like, AI is kind of shaking its boots.
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She is capable. Yeah. It's like she's capable and competent and can learn quickly.
C
AI say they're like, we have to unionize. Joanna's going to take our jobs. She's too good. She's just too good.
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It's just too good.
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We love each other and we wish
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you'd come back, but, yeah. The. The.
C
Do you ever put out, like, a little food and treats out by your door to try to, like, lure her back from Italy? That's just missing.
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Where you're like, anything's going to pull her away from the food in Italy.
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I'm going to put spaghetti on my doorstep every night.
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Yeah, you gotta be do something that's like fully American.
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Oh, I gotta tell you this later too.
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Like a, like a bratwurst or a bacon wrapped hot dog or something.
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Dude, if you put a bacon wrapped hot dog out on your porch, I'd be here every, every second of the day just looking for more. What are we talking about?
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Pigeon at the park? Yeah, yeah, that's my thought is more. It's. There's a spectrum of how much one hates their job. You know what I mean? Like, you could be at one, meaning you love what you do, in which case you might have already solved for the problem. Or you could be a 10 and absolutely hate everything about your job and hate your boss and you don't get paid well and you have to go to this place you don't like and everything about it sucks. And so, like, somewhere in the middle, like somewhere along that, that scale is there comes a point where it's like, yeah, you should be taking your free time to do something else and not just do something else that you're also going to hate, but do something else based around what you enjoy doing. And then, like, the, the big thing is what Gary said in that clip is that 24, 36, 48 months later, you have to think about it like that, because you can't, you can't just be like, all right, for the next 90 days, I'm gonna put out a weekly podcast for Friends fans.
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Yeah.
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And then be like, all right, well, 90 days in, I still have, you know, 24 downloads an episode. So I guess that didn't work. Yeah, like, no, you gotta just do it for a long period of time. But that's exactly why he's saying, pick something that you really already enjoy doing, because theoretically you'll continue enjoy doing that thing for a year, two years, three years, four years, until you can pick up enough steam to turn it into something that's potentially full time.
C
Right.
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But yeah, there's definitely a balance there. And probably the people who hate their jobs are the ones who need to take action sooner rather than later.
C
Yeah, I feel like I'm being diseased with it. Like my. Like, I. Like I was saying, I feel like, I feel like I constantly will, like, start doing some hobby and then I'm like, how do I make this into a show or content?
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Yeah, like, just like film schooled.
C
Yeah, like. Or like, yeah, like everything Like, I'm just like, how do I. How do I turn this into content? Yeah, but I don't know if that's bad. If I like doing that, you know?
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Well, but you also like creating content.
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That's what I'm saying. It's like, I don't know if it's
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like you're a videographer by trade, but
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it's like, it's like video games. Like, I do plan. When I finish my book, I'm buying an Xbox or PlayStation, whatever the new best one is, and I'm playing through the James Bond game. I've been itching to do that, but, like, even that, it's gonna be so hard for me to not be like, I should just be like the James Vaughn video game podcast a year after it came out, you know? So I don't know. I don't know if that's bad, but I do think it's like, I wish more people thought more that way. But it's also can be frustrating where it's like we were sitting watching 90 Day Fiance the other night, and it's like I was sitting there editing clips as I was watching, and I was like, is this bad? Should I be able to turn it off? But Gary would say, no, do more. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know.
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I think as long as you're enjoying it, I don't think that's a bad thing.
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Yeah.
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You know what I mean? Like, if you feel like you're burning out, then you might need to unplug and enjoy some other things. But I don't know. That's what I like about some of the people in the hustle culture that are like Gary Vee, who have that ability to step back and be like, look, what I want out of life, I recognize is so far greater than what most people want out of life. And if this version of life is not what you want, then you probably don't have to match my crazy, insane work ethic. You know what I mean? Like, you can do it another way. You're not going to build what I've built, but you can also not build what I've built and live an amazing life.
C
Yeah.
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It does not have to be the way that I've done it in order to be able to see some success. So I think a lot of it's going to be, you know, largely subjective. But if the main.
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I think.
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I think to me, like, the main point is if. If the number one obstacle that you see in your path to doing that thing is just the fact that you do not believe that it's possible, then that's wrong. That's where I'm like, okay, dispel that. Get that out of your head. Because like Gary said, it happens to people all the time about the most random crazy thing. Like you brought up Pat Flynn on another episode. He started a Pokemon channel on YouTube, which was wildly outside of what he was in the business space. He started the smart passive income blog back in like 2010 or something and was talking about making passive income online, Started the smart passive income podcast. And everything he did was talking making money online, how to make money online. It's sort of like business opportunity type stuff. Like, here's how to blog, here's how to podcast, here's how to make money doing this, doing that. And he had a great, successful business teaching those things for over a decade, I would say, because I don't think he started the Pokemon thing till 2021 maybe. And then I think it was his kid got really interested in Pokemon and so he was like, well, what if we do this together and we start doing Pokemon card breaks? And now that is his most successful thing that he's ever touched is his Pokemon channel.
C
No crazier. What? Crazier than what you just said? I was listening to him do an interview the other day. So he started this Pokemon channel in 2020. Okay. And that has 2.3, 2.31 million subscribers.
B
That's crazy. Just on YouTube.
C
No, no, no, that's not crazy. That's nothing for Pat Flynn.
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Okay.
C
Okay. He started just a short form channel, and he started that in 2024, and that has almost 3 million subscribers. That's crazy.
B
So it's the, like, it's same videos that he's posting. The other one just short form.
C
Yeah. Basically it's his, like, TikTok newer channel
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is outperforming Short Pocket Monster and Deep Pocket Monster.
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So now he needs to start another channel and do that even faster than this channel.
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Yeah.
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The secret is he should just 2x pocket monsters keep doing what he's doing anyway. Yeah, it's. It's crazy.
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Yeah.
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And my.
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My point is to say that, like, he was already a really successful creator before he did this.
C
Yeah. And what's funny is this is the
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most successful by a long shot.
C
Well, he said in that interview he's like, most people don't even know what else I do.
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Right.
C
They just know me for that.
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Exactly. That's the crazy part. And it was faceless.
C
Yeah.
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You know, he was.
C
Yeah.
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It was. Yeah, but he was just opening cards. And you. All you see is the video. In the video, it's him narrating, but all you see is his hands in the video. But now it's turned into, like, a movement inside of the Pokemon trading card space.
C
Crazy.
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And giving them a bunch of new opportunities and something to get to do with this kid, which is really cool.
C
Yeah.
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But, yeah, I mean, like. Like Gary said, like, this stuff happens all the time.
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So if there.
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If there's obstacles, like, you know, I don't know if I want to turn my hobby into something that's not a hobby anymore, because I think that might ruin it. If it's an obstacle. Like, well, I don't know if I have enough free time because I like spending time with my family when I'm outside of my job, and I actually kind of like my job, and I'm. I don't feel super motivated to get pulled away from that because I kind of like it and I like the people that I work with. It's like, okay, well, those are real obstacles or objections that we can kind of talk through and work out to see if it might be a good idea for you. But if the number one thing is, I just don't think it's going to work or that's impossible, there's no way it's going to happen. That is not a good reason to not get started. So. But, yeah, you can. 20, 26, man. You can create something out of nothing. And so I would. I would encourage a lot of people just start on something like TikTok with, like, a burner. Actually, Tony, who came on the show to talk about the health stuff at Train Bloom on Instagram, said this is how he started because he was like, I. I was so almost, like, ashamed that I was getting into the creation space. And, you know, I didn't want my friends to laugh at me or whatever.
C
Yeah.
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So he's like, I just started a TikTok account that was not his name. It was. I think it was Trane Bloom started a TikTok account and just started videos on a TikTok account that nobody knew about. And he was like, worst case scenario, this, you know, TikTok shows this thing to 82 people, and I get 82 views. None of them know me. There's no. There's no repercussions. There's no downside. It's just me on a new platform creating under a random name that nobody's going to know. And then on his, like, 16th video, it blew up and then started blowing up more and then that translated over to Instagram and it's what he does for a living now with millions of followers across all of his platforms. So it does not, it does not have to be you, like announcing to the world that you're going to become the Next number one YouTuber. If that's something that you're worried about, start a random TikTok account or YouTube shorts account or something and just start creating short form videos. Maybe that's an easier thing that you can, that you can bite off before thinking about a podcast. What do I do? How do I set up the cameras and what microphone equipment do I get? And you start thinking about all these other objections to work through. Well, don't start like that then and do 90 days in a row on TikTok. Do you like it? Is it fun? Are you enjoying talking about friends for 60 seconds at a time on TikTok? Are people finding it interesting? Do you get some comments flowing through? You know what I mean? Like you can, you can test it in the sandbox of something like TikTok or, or a random YouTube channel that's not under your name to see. I think the main metric is whether or not you enjoy it. Not necessarily the traction that you're gaining, because you may not gain traction in that short period of time. But the main metric should be like, do I like this? Do I find some enjoyment, some pleasure, like talking about these things. You know, I just watched this episode. Well, cool. Let me talk about that episode. You know what I mean? Like that, that is a much easier lift. It's like, well, just. You're gonna binge six episodes of Friends tonight before you fall asleep. Then after every episode, just pull out your phone and make a quick video about that episode, post it to this TikTok account that's like fans of Friends or whatever and see how it goes. And there's, like I said, there's almost zero downside to doing that min. Little tiny bit of time that it might take to put those videos together. So the only obstacle really is you. But that's it for this episode of the show. Remember, money only solves your money problems, but it's easier to solve the rest of your problems when you got some money in the bank. So let's start there here on the Travis Makes Money podcast. Thanks for tuning in. Catch next time.
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Peace.
Title: CO-HOST | Make Money by Creating Instead of Consuming
Host: Travis Chappell, joined by producer Eric
Date: July 16, 2026
Main Theme:
This episode explores the powerful mindset shift from simply consuming content to actively creating it—and how this change can lead to meaningful, even lucrative, side hustles and careers. Drawing inspiration from Gary Vaynerchuk’s philosophy, Travis and Eric discuss the modern creator economy, examine real-life examples, and offer practical entry points for listeners who want to turn their passions into income streams.
Core Message:
Stop waiting or doubting—move from being a passive consumer to an active creator in whatever you love. Start small, be consistent, and focus on joy before results. The creator economy is open to all, and success is possible in surprising places if you’re willing to play the long game.
Final Thought (25:31):
“Remember, money only solves your money problems, but it’s easier to solve the rest of your problems when you got some money in the bank. So let’s start there...” (Travis)
Catch the next episode for more inspiration and actionable money-making strategies.