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Travis
You're listening to the Travis Makes Money podcast presented by gohighlevel.com for a free 30 day trial of the best all in one digital marketing software tool on the planet, just go to gohighlevel.com travis. What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to the Travis Makes Money podcast, where it's a mission to help
Eric
you make more money on this episode of the show. My producer Eric's in studio. What's up, Eric?
Co-host/Guest
Hey, Travis.
Eric
Hey, Eric.
Co-host/Guest
Hey, there. How you doing there, partner?
Eric
Pretty good.
Co-host/Guest
Well, I was in Nashville in January.
Eric
Nice.
Co-host/Guest
And I was at the Country Music hall of Fame, which is the opposite
Eric
of the place that I would assume I would find you.
Co-host/Guest
Yeah. I was excited about precisely two things at the Country Music hall of Fame. And I want you to take a wild guess as to what those two things were.
Travis
Dolly Parton.
Co-host/Guest
Wow. How'd you know that?
Eric
Because that seems like a cultural thing that you'd be interested in.
Co-host/Guest
Why?
Eric
I don't know. You like that kind of stuff.
Co-host/Guest
What?
Eric
Boobs.
Co-host/Guest
Travis, I can't do this.
Eric
What's the second one?
Co-host/Guest
Okay, the two things I was excited about was Dolly Parton, and those are both the things. So I was excited for two things.
Eric
Yeah.
Co-host/Guest
One, I was excited for Dolly Parton. Two, I was excited. This is probably the most dad thing ever. I was so excited because the car from smoking the Bandit 2 was there. And I didn't take many.
Eric
That was a boomer, bro.
Co-host/Guest
I didn't take many pictures in Nashville, but I did take my picture by the car from Smoking the Bandit, too, by myself.
Travis
Why is that in the Country Music hall of Fame?
Co-host/Guest
Because, you silly goose, Smokey and the Bandit has. And I'm. Oh, my God. I'm blanking out his name. Smokey and the Bandit. His name's Joey or Jerry. Jerry Reed. Country music fans, I go crazy. No, Inez, you've seen Smoking the Bandit.
Eric
No.
Co-host/Guest
Okay, so Smoking the Bandit. Burt Reynolds is obviously the Bandit. And then there's a trucker that rides with him. And that's Jerry Reid, who's a famous country singer.
Travis
I see.
Co-host/Guest
And so they have the car. Cause it was from the movie. And they also have. In Dolly Parton, it was two. Burt Reynolds. Burt Reynolds was what brought me through the Country Music hall of Fame. Burt Reynolds was in a lot of
Travis
things,
Eric
a lot of productions.
Co-host/Guest
Burt Reynolds was in a film with Dolly Parton.
Eric
Okay.
Co-host/Guest
Called, I don't know, the Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.
Eric
Okay.
Co-host/Guest
You never seen that?
Eric
Nope.
Co-host/Guest
That's a great movie.
Travis
Stop acting surprised. Like anybody from our generation has seen
Eric
those movies except for you.
Co-host/Guest
I've seen them.
Eric
That's why I.
Co-host/Guest
My spouse has seen them.
Travis
That's only because you watch them.
Co-host/Guest
Best Little Whorehouse in Texas is like a very famous movie.
Eric
Okay.
Co-host/Guest
And it's great. Great musical. Do you like musicals?
Eric
Depends on the musical.
Co-host/Guest
This one's good. Okay, let's check it out. Anyway, so I went to go see the Dolly Parton exhibit. I was very excited. Great stuff. Thrilled. I'm still confused why you called that when I was like, oh, I love, you know. You know, like there's like you're making me guess. Yeah. And you were like,
Travis
It's off the rails.
Co-host/Guest
I was confused. No, I was confused why You've seen
Travis
you wear a Dolly Parton shirt.
Co-host/Guest
That's true. I do.
Travis
You have a bunch of memories.
Co-host/Guest
Not really. I only own two now.
Eric
Is that true?
Co-host/Guest
3.
Travis
You just wear them all the time.
Co-host/Guest
Yeah. 4. I owe a lot of. I actually don't have that many. I've been trying to do more.
Travis
Just Godzilla and Friday the 13th.
Co-host/Guest
I have one Godzilla shirt. I have one Godzilla shirt. I have one.
Travis
That was the main reason is I sweater. I could have sworn I've seen you
Eric
in a Dolly Parton shirt.
Co-host/Guest
Anyway, whatever. So I was just going to bring.
Eric
Wasn't because of the reason that I
Co-host/Guest
said I was just going to bring to the table.
Travis
You're not a misogynist, Eric. Bring what to the table?
Co-host/Guest
Anyway, there's a story about Dolly Parton I was going to share.
Eric
Okay.
Co-host/Guest
Financial. Whatever the show is, we're going to talk about money and stuff. So I saw this post and I thought it was interesting. A little fun fact about Dolly. I like to bring those fun facts to you. Dolly Parton said no to Elvis Presley in 1974. And that single decision is paying her. Fifty years later is paying her. Paying her.
Eric
Okay, what was.
Co-host/Guest
Here's some backstory. According to the Carousel, Dolly Parton was born in 1946 in a one room cabin tucked into the Smoky Mountains. With no electricity and no running water, her family caught fireflies in mason jars to read by at night. Her father couldn't read or write, and on the night she was born, he paid the doctor who delivered her with a sack of cornmeal. I'm going to try that next time that I you have a child. Because cornmeal was all the family had to offer that winter. She graduated high school on a Friday and was on a bus to Nashville by Saturday morning. At 18 years old with Study and
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Co-host/Guest
nothing but a suitcase and a plan to Become a singer. Oh, at 20, before she was famous, she filed the paperwork to open her own publishing company, the kind of unsexy infrastructure most artists never buy bother with. In 1973, she wrote both Jolene and I Will Always Love youe in a single Day. You know these songs?
Eric
I do.
Co-host/Guest
They're two songs that became standards in country music. A year after the song hit number one, the call came in that Elvis Presley, her hero, the most famous man in music, wanted to record it himself. And she was so excited. I will always love you. And she was so excited she told everyone she knew.
Travis
I guess that makes more sense than Jolene, Jolene, Jolene. Have you ever heard of Elvis saying Jole?
Co-host/Guest
You know, it is a great cover. Jolene, Miley Cyrus, Jolene.
Travis
Yeah, I've heard that actually.
Co-host/Guest
It's a great cover.
Eric
She's a great artist.
Co-host/Guest
The afternoon before the recording session, Elvis's manager, Colonel Tom Parker. Boo. Right?
Eric
I don't know.
Co-host/Guest
Called her with one non negotiable condition. Half the publishing rights forever. Where there was no deal. What are you doing if you're her
Travis
Half the publishing rights of all of her music. Half or just that song?
Co-host/Guest
I think just that song. What are you doing?
Eric
I mean, it's really hard to know
Co-host/Guest
without any context of what it became.
Travis
Without any context what it became, but also without any context of how well
Eric
off she was financially at that time as well.
Co-host/Guest
Probably not incredibly.
Travis
I mean, two number one hits, but I mean, probably.
Co-host/Guest
But like, who knows if that stays?
Travis
Who knows?
Co-host/Guest
You know what I mean?
Eric
Yeah, yeah, sure.
Travis
I don't know, dude. I feel like. I feel like I probably would have taken the deal if it was that one song and not the entire catalog
Eric
of music just because Elvis is freaking Elvis.
Co-host/Guest
So everyone around her said, take it, it's Elvis Presley. And she sat quiet on the phone for a long minute before telling him no. Her exact words that night. I had to keep that copyright in my pocket. These are my songs. They're like my children. I expect them to support me when I'm old. She cried all night wondering what Elvis would have done with it. Priscilla Presley told her years later that Elvis ended up singing the song to the courthouse steps the day they divorced. Chad Move and Dolly Parton sued Elvis for using the song. No, I'm just kidding. That would be so crazy. So 18 years later in 1992, isn't that crazy? At 1974 is 18 years before 1992. No, that feels so long.
Travis
That's math. Isn't that crazy that 1974 plus 18?
Co-host/Guest
I mean it in the sense of like. It's crazy when you think about like. Like I want to go see Shrek in theaters the other day. That's something I would do. And like, I was like, oh, this movie is like 20 something years old. Yeah, that's crazy that 2002 is as close to us as like 20, 40 something. Cause I can't picture being in 2040, you know?
Eric
Yeah, I see what you're saying.
Co-host/Guest
Whatever, dude. Eighteen years later, 1992, Whitney Houston recorded the song for the Bodyguard.
Eric
And.
Co-host/Guest
And it spent 14 weeks at number one, becoming the best selling single ever recorded by a female artist. Have you ever heard Whitney Houston sing it?
Travis
I have. I think a lot of people think
Eric
that it's her song.
Co-host/Guest
They do, because Dolly still owned 100% of the publishing. Every time the song played anywhere on earth, every radio station, every wedding, every. I don't think weddings licensed music. I hate to break it to you. They're stealing that every karaoke night for the next three years. The royalties landed in one bank account, the one belonging to the girl from the one room cabin. All right, calm down with this writing of this story. What? That single note compounded to over the next 50 years, 3,000 songs, all owned by her. Dollywood, the theme park she built and still controls, the Imagination Library, which has now gifted over 300 million free books to children. That's pretty sick. And a $650 million net worth.
Eric
Damn.
Co-host/Guest
Years later, once all her songs had paid for everything, she bought back her childhood cabin and spent a fortune restoring it. Then famously joked that it cost her more money to make it look poor than it ever cost her family delivered it the first time around. And then. I'm going to skip. Well, I'll say. I'll read this. They got a little creative writing here. A little AI think in here, too. Dolly didn't get rich just on talent. She got rich because she built the structure that made the right answer obvious before the phone ever rang. Sovereignty isn't a feeling. It's a paperwork you filed at 20. That's relaxed money. That's AI that's definitely AI. That's not this. That's relaxed money. But anyway, I thought it was a really interesting story. And obviously, whenever there's stories like this, I always go back to. There's a version of this where you're like. You're sitting there, you've had your two hits, and you're like, I should have let Elvis do this song. But.
Travis
But also there's a version of this where she let Elvis do it.
Co-host/Guest
And it also worked out.
Eric
Exactly, exactly.
Travis
Cause it's still Elvis Presley. Like, who, if he would have recorded, like, who knows how much more popular
Eric
it would have been before 1992 if Elvis did a rendition of it back when it first came out.
Co-host/Guest
So that.
Travis
That one, to me, doesn't like that. That one doesn't hit as hard as the, like, Tony Hawk one where it
Eric
was like the decision between a half million dollars or having residuals on Tony Hawk Pro Skater.
Travis
Because that one, the alternative wasn't like, that great comparatively to.
Eric
I mean, they ended up getting.
Co-host/Guest
Because the game could have sold zero copies.
Travis
Yeah. But you know what I'm saying, Like, no, like Elvis Presley recording.
Co-host/Guest
Yeah.
Travis
A version of it would have not gone poorly, you know what I'm saying?
Co-host/Guest
Like.
Travis
Like, it would have still. And she wasn't giving up 100% of it.
Eric
She was giving up 50% of it.
Co-host/Guest
Yeah.
Travis
So I think, like, there's a version of it, like, the other version of
Eric
it could have worked out just as well.
Travis
Again, assuming that it was just the one song and not her entire catalog
Eric
of music that she had made up
Travis
to that point, then I feel like it probably was. It ended up working out really well. It would have ended up working out really well either way. Now it's clear that she made the right decision from our perspective now, because we never. Like, we don't know what would have
Eric
happened if Elvis recorded it.
Co-host/Guest
It would make it easier to make decisions. If we could know that, it would
Travis
make it a lot easier.
Co-host/Guest
I wish I knew what was going to happen. I just noticed this last slide. She's in our Cowboys. What? Cowboys.
Travis
Oh. Oh, yeah.
Co-host/Guest
She did the Cowboys halftime show, which I watched. I didn't watch the game, of course, but I did tune in for Dolly. I said, when is Dolly gonna be here? I felt like Trump is a small child. Yeah, that's Trump as a child. When is Dolly gonna be here? I don't know.
Travis
I don't know what that was.
Co-host/Guest
I don't think we released this episode. Huh? The last ones are always the best. So the person who wrote this post asked the question, what are some things that you structured early on or decisions you made early on that have guided you through this day that you're like, I'm glad I made that commitment early on. And I'm actually adding a little bit. She asked a kind of dumb question, but I'm asking kind of a better one.
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Travis
Yeah, the decision to start the podcast
Eric
was a good decision, I think.
Co-host/Guest
Now, let me ask you. If Dolly Parton said that she'll co host an episode, but she wants 50% of ongoing profit from the podcast, you taking that deal?
Eric
No.
Co-host/Guest
Okay.
Travis
Because that's the whole catalog of ip. No, just that episode and the one episode. Like, it would do really well, but
Eric
not enough to justify ownership.
Co-host/Guest
Oh, stop. It would. It would. It would.
Travis
It would. It would do well.
Eric
Oh, okay.
Travis
I didn't say it wouldn't. I said the episode would do great.
Co-host/Guest
It would. You're good.
Travis
But I've. I've interviewed enough celebrities at this point
Eric
to know that one. One hit does not make the career.
Co-host/Guest
What's. What's. Okay, let me ask you this. I've never asked you this. What celebrity that you've talked to has had the most noticeable benefit to you doing the interview? Doesn't have to be a celebrity, I guess any person you interviewed. Have you. Is there one interview where you're like, that Dramatically helped me that one thing.
Travis
Not an interview on my show, but
Eric
interview on another show.
Co-host/Guest
Which one?
Travis
Biggerpockets.
Eric
That one, like, dramatically affected my podcast audience.
Co-host/Guest
Reach downloads before, your pockets were pretty small.
Travis
Yeah, that's why I made them bigger on bigger pockets. In terms of people who've been on my show, it's always like. The thing is, it's always like a bump, but it's. I look at it more like hit
Eric
and then a plateau. It's just that hopefully the next plateau is a little bit higher than the former plateau, but there's.
Travis
There's been several people that I've had
Eric
where it's been like, oh, cool, a splash of attention, but then it just kind of, like, drops back down.
Co-host/Guest
I wonder if I'll ever hit a plateau if I'm just going to keep climbing. I've had six years of climbing. I'm, like, ready to take a breather, you know? It is true. I feel like it's like every. For a while, it was like every. The whole first year felt, like, slow. And then you plateau and you're like, I guess I maxed out. And then it feels like it's like every six months. It's like every three months. And then it's like every six months again. And I feel like you hit those. And then it feels like all of a sudden, not only is the plateau shorter and more frequent, but also I feel like the climbs are larger jumps. Like, what you just did with this potential show is, like, obviously a big jump from stuff you were working on, like, a year ago. You know what I mean? So, I don't know. Just a thought. You're kind of like the Dolly Parton of podcasting.
Travis
That's absolutely false.
Co-host/Guest
You're blonde.
Travis
I would say that's Alex Cooper.
Co-host/Guest
What?
Eric
Dolly Parton of podcasting?
Co-host/Guest
No, it's just way less likable. Don't corrupt the Dolly name.
Travis
Sorry, Alex.
Co-host/Guest
I don't think Alex is unlikable. Do you find her unlikable?
Eric
I don't think she's unlikable.
Co-host/Guest
You just said it.
Travis
I'm saying compared to Dolly Parton.
Co-host/Guest
Well, everybody's unlikable compared to Dolly Parton.
Eric
That's what I'm saying. There's nobody you can compare to her. Yeah, she's just so damn likable. Yeah, the best.
Co-host/Guest
Yep.
Travis
Did you ever see that video of
Eric
Post Malone with Dolly Parton before he performed at the Opry?
Co-host/Guest
No, that was.
Eric
I was just.
Co-host/Guest
Okay.
Travis
It was just like a cool reframing
Eric
to see what happened there.
Co-host/Guest
I don't know, but we're almost done.
Travis
It was a cool reframing to see somebody who's a legendary star themselves. And then meeting Dolly Parton, he was just like, all, yes, ma'.
Eric
Am. No, ma'. Am.
Co-host/Guest
Yeah, yeah.
Eric
Yes, ma'. Am. Of course. Of course, ma'. Am. Like, thank you so much. Like, you're amazing. And it was just like.
Travis
It's. I like seeing that type of reverence,
Eric
like, from generational stardom.
Co-host/Guest
I would be starstruck by Dolly Parton. I'm not gonna lie.
Travis
For sure.
Eric
Who wouldn't be?
Co-host/Guest
There's a really funny last thing I'll say. This episode's probably the worst episode. So we did seven episodes today.
Travis
Yeah, well, it's only that way because
Eric
you keep saying it.
Travis
I thought we started off. Anyway.
Co-host/Guest
We're doing seven episodes. We did seven episodes today. This is the worst one.
Eric
In your opinion?
Co-host/Guest
In my opinion. Oh. What I was going to say, I'm going to just close out with a random thing.
Eric
Okay.
Co-host/Guest
You know how I love the Duggars, right? That's a joke.
Eric
Big Duggar fan over here.
Co-host/Guest
So the Duggars. Have I showed you that Paul. Okay, side note. Have I showed you the Paul Chappell clip with the usernames for online? No, it has not age. Well, I got to show you this later. But, no, there's a great clip. So the Duggars go to Dollywood, which I was kind of surprised by. And the Duggars. I don't know if you know this. The Duggars have a thing where when a girl is inappropriately dressed in their mind, then they'll say, whoever notices will say, nike. That's like a code word. And all the kids look at the ground so as not to look at the bosoms. So they went to Dollywood.
Eric
That didn't work out very well.
Co-host/Guest
But anyway, so there's a clip in 19 Kids and Counting where they're going into Dollywood. And right before it cuts, you hear Michelle go, Nike.
Travis
That's basically that entire story, which is
Co-host/Guest
so funny because I'm like. Because I'm like, you're going to go see a place founded by Dolly Parton, known for her buxom bosom.
Eric
Yeah. You know, it's strange.
Co-host/Guest
Anyway, fun story. But you know what isn't strange? Ending this episode right now, because it was over before it even started.
Travis
Off the rails.
Eric
It's off the rails.
Co-host/Guest
It's off the rails.
Travis
Anyway, if you're tuning in, thanks so much for bearing with us through this episode. I don't even know if Eric's going to keep that joke in there.
Co-host/Guest
I am going to keep the joke in there. Was so funny.
Travis
Okay, thank you.
Co-host/Guest
It was funny.
Travis
All right. 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
Eric
money in the bank. So let's start there here on the Travis Makes Money podcast.
Travis
Thanks for tuning in.
Eric
Catch you guys next time. Peace.
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Host: Travis Chappell
Co-hosts/Guests: Eric (Producer) and Co-host
Release Date: May 27, 2026
In this lively episode, Travis Chappell and his producer Eric are joined in studio by a co-host to explore the theme of financial sovereignty, using Dolly Parton's career as an inspiring case study. The conversation centers on the power of owning your intellectual property and making strategic decisions early in your professional life—illustrated by Parton's refusal to give up publishing rights to "I Will Always Love You" to Elvis Presley. The team delivers their insights in an informal, humorous, and relatable tone, peppered with pop culture references and reflective banter on the financial, personal, and business lessons from Dolly's story.
Closing Message:
Money only solves money problems, but it’s easier to face life’s challenges when you’ve secured your financial foundation. Start by making wise choices about your work, your rights, and your business structures—just like Dolly did. (19:05)