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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 our mission to help you make more money on this episode of the show. My producer is in studio. What's up, Eric?
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Hey, dude, I am so sore today. Are you sore?
A
I am sore, actually. Why? Are you sore from working out?
B
Oh, I'm sore from carrying this podcast on my back. I. Just kidding. We're both sore from leg day, actually, which is why we're sitting down. Unlike normally when we record and we're
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standing up, typically we record these standing up.
B
Travis, I wanted to do a little game with you today.
A
Ooh.
B
It's called this or that. Okay, this or that.
A
Let's do it. Do we have a jingle?
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Let's hit one of these pads at random and see what we get. This or that? Very loud, deafening applause. That was cranked up. Okay, so I'm going to ask you some money related this or that questions, and you simply pick this or that.
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Okay.
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Okay. All right. This. Rent long term. That. Buy as soon as humanly possible.
A
I hate these.
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Realtors love to say one of these and then Grant Cardone likes to say another, and everybody's way is wrong.
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Very tough. I'm gonna go that on this one.
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Buy as soon as possible.
A
Yeah, but that's why, obviously you'd ask that for a reason, because you know that I hate giving absolutes.
B
You're gonna hate this episode.
A
But the nuance in between these is that, like, I still believe that it's better to own long term than it is to rent forever. But there's lots of other factors that can go into whether or not you should be doing well.
B
I'll tell you this, Travis. A couple years ago, two years ago, our upstairs tub was leaking. And I looked up from downstairs and there was a big pool of water on our ceiling. And they came out and they cut a big hole and they patched the pipe. And I thought, thank God I'm a runner.
A
Yeah, that's true. I can't argue with that.
B
I also have to ask permission to paint. So there's downsize.
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I have to ask my freaking hoa.
B
I literally thought you were about to say, I gotta ask my freaking wife. I literally. Cause I was trying to. Because I immediately was like, what's he gonna Say, who does he have to ask permission? And I literally only thought, well, your significant other. And then you said freaking. I was like, holy smokes. Blowing off some steam today on leg
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day, we've been fighting the HOA to keep our stupid basketball hoop in the front yard.
B
Is that.
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It's already Vegas, where they don't you. Any backyard space, any house you buy.
B
So you literally have a backyard.
A
Yeah, but it's like.
B
It's huge.
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It's an excuse for a backyard. It's not a real backyard. And then some built condos, like, directly behind our house, so there's people with balconies.
B
He's probably been on Travis. Some guy's like, hey, what the hell, man?
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Yeah, we'll screw that guy.
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Sorry.
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But, yeah, so, like, we've. So the only version of play for our kids is like, let's go to the front yard. You ride around your scooters, and I got my son a basketball hoop for Christmas, and we put it up there, and then it's like, well, you have to take the bath. You. Like, they literally say, you have to move the basketball hoop out into your backyard every time. Like, every night into your.
B
Oh. Like, put it away in your backyard,
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right to where it's not visible from the street. Because for all I was like, all right, I'll just. I'll roll it up to, like, the side gate where it's completely off the street and it doesn't affect it whatever. But they have inspectors that drive by, and they're like, well, like, it's still visible on the street, so you have to move it. I just. It's everything within me to not go, like, punch people in the face about it, because. And we even. We even got our neighbors to sign off on it, to say that they were cool with it and then presented that to the HOA and had to pay a fee to do that. And then they still said no, and it was like, we are on a cul de sac. We don't care.
B
Nobody's driving by your house unless they
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are going to your house and it's a freaking basketball. Like, nobody's driving by the house and being like, well, the neighborhood's gone to shit. The kids are acting like, yeah, like that. Like that bullshit is. I cannot stand for that reason. But, yeah. So even though I own my home, I still have people telling me what to do with it.
B
You know what? My assistant youth pastor used to always. How he pronounced cul de sac. He would say we'd be. Go out passing out flyers for her chain. Like you guys get the cul de sac. And it literally would infuriate me. I'd be like, it's cul de sac. He'd be like, cul de sac. You guys want to do the cul de sac?
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That sounds like a treat.
B
Yeah, I'm going to eat a cul de sac. Okay. Anyway, all right.
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But yeah, I still think buying is ultimately going to be better long term for the average American. Like entrepreneurial people who want to be flexible move around a lot. There's some other chops Chime is changing the way that people bank. They offer the most rewarding fee free banking that's built just for you, not the 1%. Chime members can benefit from up to $1150 in annual rewards fee free. It's rated five stars by USA Today for customer service because you get real humans 24. 7. You're not just switching banks, you're upgrading to America's number one choice for banking with a Chime checking account. Plus, you can get up to 5% cash back on a Chime card. In your category of choice like gas or groceries, you get savings that grow faster with 3.75% APY, which is nine times higher than the national average. Plus you get premium travel perks like airport lounge access and 24. 7 travel concierge included with your Chime card. You can even get up to 500 of your pay when you save with MyPay. They also have Spotme which lets you overdraft up to $200 fee free. I know my younger self would have benefited from this. Chime is not just smarter banking. It is the most rewarding way to bank. So join the millions who are already bank fee free today. Head to chime.com travis that's chime.com travis only takes a few minutes to sign up right now.
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ultimately the thing is it's always good to buy if it's a good deal. Yeah, so don't buy bad deals, only buy good deals. Which is again sort of the danger of buying real estate is that if you are somebody who has no knowledge of that world at all and you're only trusting a real estate agent like that better be a really good real estate agent and you better trust them for. Because they obviously are financially gaining from this decision and have a reason to tell you to do it. So, yeah, it's a little bit nuanced, but ultimately I still think it's going to be better to buy, take on
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a business partner or stay solo and hire contractors.
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I'm going to go this on that one again, difficult to choose one or the other in all instances because business partnership does introduce a lot of complexity.
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Yeah, obviously.
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But that's. They always say, if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. There's never.
B
I've, I, I always heard if you want to go, go far, be a tortoise.
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I mean similar. And go slow.
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I was out for my walk, doing my 10,000 steps and there was a metal. You know how they do a lot of metal artwork on the side of a lot of these roads? And it was a tortoise and a hare and I wanted to take a picture and be like, look, it's you and me. You're the tortoise. I'm fast. Oh, wait, no, that's the wrong story though.
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Yeah, good one.
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Whatever. I knew I was going to say,
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you want to lose the race.
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I was just going to say you're slow, but I didn't even do it.
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Thanks for bringing it up now.
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Anyway, that was worth it. Okay, well, sorry, what were you doing?
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Yeah, but the business partnership thing, I have yet to. Well, I guess I shouldn't say that because if I have, I'm not remembering it currently, but any of the big businesses that I have seen from people that I've talked to on the show, almost all of them, I'll say because I, I can't think of any examples, but I'm sure there's a couple. Almost all of them have a co founder or multiple co founders or business partner or something like that. So like if, if you are like sort of just building a lifestyle business that you want to get up to a half a million to two and a half million with strong margins and whatever. It's like, okay, well if you have a business partner on that, you're splitting profit down the middle, 50, 50 or whatever. Like it's going to be more difficult to build this sort of like sustainable lifestyle business that pays you what you want to, to stay at that revenue level. But if you're trying to get to if you want to build an eight figure business or nine figure business. Almost like I said, almost all of them that I have seen have had some sort of a co founder or partner or relationship like that. So kind of, kind of proves out that point a little bit. So again, it sort of depends on what you want to do. But I do think that there's a lot of value to having a good business partner. But good is that that's sort of also one of the cons of having business partners is like you, you can really screw yourself. It's like getting into a bad marriage. You know what it's like? It could be the best thing ever, but it also could be the worst thing ever. So you just want to be careful.
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High ticket, low volume offers or low ticket, high volume offers.
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I'm going to go this, I'm going to go high ticket for most people again, again, obviously some sort of nuance like, like all of these. But for most people getting started in business, high ticket is just better because you just need such a lower volume of customers to be able to make good enough money. Like I do a lot of obviously coaching and stuff on the, on for, for podcasters and things and they're always talking about oh, we've got to, you know, do this Patreon thing or whatever. It's like, okay, sure, but also you were talking about six bucks a month, seven bucks a month. Like you have to have, you have to have a thousand subscribers to your Patreon to still not make six figures. You know what I'm saying? A thousand monthly subscribers and still you're not going to hit six figures at six bucks a month versus one $6,000 a month offer. That's a retainer for a marketing agency or something like that. It's like, well, you have one of those customers, it's the same as a thousand over here and it's just easier to get to that number. And it's also easier for advertising spend like in terms of cost to acquire that customer. If you're, you know, lifetime value is $84 over a 12 month period of time and then people leave, then it's like, well, you can only spend $84 to go acquire that customer to be in the black still. And that's after 12 months.
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Yeah.
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So like your cash cycles are just really, really extended and it's more difficult to, to map out that healthy CAC to LTV ratio versus going higher ticket, collecting more cash up front and then reinvesting that cash to go acquire more Customers now having a low ticket business, if you're running high ticket is a, is a good idea and that can scale alongside of the high ticket offer. But it's just more difficult unless you just have insane. Like if you're, if you're a big influencer and you have 3 million YouTube subs or something like that, then something low ticket might be super effective for you.
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Yeah.
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Because it requires probably less of your time. It's probably more scalable, probably can outsource a lot of it to VAs or AI or some combination of the two of them and keep a good amount of the money. But all of your traffic is free.
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Yeah.
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You know what I'm saying? So if you have, if you have unlimited, theoretically unlimited traffic, then low ticket might be great. But for most people, us mere mortals who are starting from scratch, it's like high ticket is going to be your fastest path to be able to like be a full time entrepreneur or be in this industry that you want to be in full time.
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Right, right. Well, you know Arnold Schwarzenegger, his secret to making money, right?
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What is that?
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Have you ever heard this?
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I don't know, maybe.
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Yeah. His easiest way to make money is. I always go back to this over and over again. It's very helpful.
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The easiest way to make money, the
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first, most important thing is, you know, everyone tells you that the first million is the hardest to make. So start with the second million.
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Right.
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Hello.
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It was supposed to be funny. Guys, come and wake up. I thought that we have a breakfast show here.
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They did not know whether he was being serious. I was like, right. I think what?
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Yeah, that's a pretty good one.
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It's hard to challenge Arnold Schwarzenegger.
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You know what I mean? I'd be, I'd be, sir. Yeah.
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Because if you laugh and he was being serious, then it's hard to recover from that.
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That's what I did. I started with my second million half assed Arnold impersonation there.
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It's no Will Sasso.
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Well, you know, I like, you know, I like also Patrick, but David's take on.
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I pay you $1,000. Can we double it in six months? No. How long? In 12 months. Okay, no problem. I'll do a double in a year. Here's $1,000. I get a double back. Right. So if you take 1000 and you double it every year, what happens? Ousand goes into 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 256, 5 12. A million. $1,000 is nine doubles away from a million.
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Wow.
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Now you take A million and see what happens if we double it. Nine times a million is ten doubles away from a billion.
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But how do you find the doubles?
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Well, that's the game.
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I pay you a thousand dollars.
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That's the part I can't tell you.
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No.
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How long.
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Okay. I'm a numbers guy. Okay. So, okay, here, here's one for you. You ready?
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Yeah.
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Double down on what's working or constantly test new ideas. Now, I know which one you like doing. It's. The answer is you've gotta.
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It's double down.
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You like to chase the dragon?
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I do like to test a bunch of new ideas because I'm an idea guy. I'm an idea guy. No, I, I, the, the correct answer, though, is double down on what's working. Which is one reason that we've been focusing on podcast content more than, like creating new offers or new services and stuff over the last year. Just like, oh, that seems to be working. Okay. Why, what happens if. What, what if we went from three a week to one a day and then two a day and then three a day and, well, what do we.
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Sometimes I'm like, I wish it would stop working. All right, here's one for you. Grow a personal brand. Build a faceless company brand.
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Three years ago, out of 100% personal brand. I am not as convinced about that anymore because I don't think it's necessary, but I do still believe that it's helpful ultimately. So I'm still going to go personal brand, but with a caveat to say that like, like, I had a, I had a friend on the show recently, Philip Stutz, who has a couple of great businesses. He's had an election market company, political marketing company. He spun it out into a business marketing company. And then he was doing a ton of personal brand stuff, books and podcasts, had his own podcast, podcast appearances, speaking all over the country. He's flying everywhere. He's doing all this stuff to eight figure marketing agencies, like, crushing. I talked to him recently. He was like, yeah, I stopped all of that. It's like I stopped my podcast, stopped doing podcasts. It's the first podcast I've done in three years and I'm only doing it because you're my friend. He's like, I stopped speaking. I shut down my business marketing agency because I didn't want to do it anymore. And he was just like, I just got back into what I like doing and I removed everything else from my plate. And I've never been happier. It was like, you don't have to have it, you know what I mean? Like I just talked to a guy on the podcast this past week, started a company called Home serve, exited for 4.1 billion euros which is or $3 in America, 4.1 billion pounds which is more like the pound is worth more than dollar and nobody's ever heard of the guy. Like he's fairly anonymous. He has like 40,000 or something followers on Instagram or something like that. So I asked him a little bit about that and it was just like my belief before was clouded by the idea that I was pushing people to build personal brands and that's how I made money. But at this point it's like I've talked to too many people that have been able to build an anonymity and build massively successful businesses and companies. I had Chris Hunter on the show again this past week who's the co founder of Four Loko and the co founder of Koya Protein, both multiple nine figure beverage brands. 5,000 followers on social. Something like that. Like just it just, it is, it is not clear that it must be done in order to be successful and it's actually completely untrue that it must be done. So it's more of a personal preference if like you want to do that. I do think that there's some like economic benefit long term.
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I think also like those are two people that like just crushed their space and can like like for me the reason I like the personal brand side is just if, even if a company fails and you spend three years, if you've also built up your name during that time it's easier to. Instead of being like who are you again? And they Google you and there's nothing,
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it's future proof business building.
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But if you've already done like I was saying that we were in north, we were in Tennessee and we were in like the middle of nowhere. And I was like not quite this middle of nowhere but I was like I could see being like six, seven books in or you know, doing less podcast and like having that. I'm kind of off the grid now and I've got enough money coming in from other things to just like not have to do the. But also I like doing that. So I don't know that but that's
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more what I leave it up to now. But I feel like you enjoy doing it. Yeah, like if you, if you hate like what Philip was saying is like I just, it, it sucked out all of my good energy and I didn't have anything left over for my family and I was realizing that I was neglecting time with my K. You're like,
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geez, you didn't have to do my show, bro. He's like, I hate this. It's actively sucking the life out of me. Welcome to the show, Philip Stutts.
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But then for some people, like, that's why I continue podcasting, because I just, I enjoy, I enjoy doing it. I like having interesting people on and talking to them about interesting stuff. It's just fun for me. So I'm going to keep doing it. And if so, like, to me, it's more of a factor of that now. It's not necessarily like, if you hate all of the activities of building a personal brand, then don't do it. Like, you don't have to do it in order to be able to make money. It is quite literally, like, not a necessity. I do think it makes everything easier. I think that you are saying no to a lot of potential inbound opportunity. I think that you are saying no to, like, you mentioned a future business that might have legs faster, that can save you multiple years of time if you already had an audience. Like, there's clearly some benefit to doing it and a good amount of benefit, which is why I still choose personal brand over just focusing on the business brand ultimately. But yeah, it's definitely, definitely not a necessity in order for your business to be successful and could be somewhat of a distraction. And I've seen some people where they've neglected. They've used like, they've ciphone. Like, there was actually a pretty big story about this with a company called Scribe. Yeah, Book. Like Book. It actually used to be called Book in the Box.
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They're still now restructuring.
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They did a big restructuring. Somebody else acquired the business and then installed a new CEO. It's actually Eric Jorgensen, who wrote the Naval. The Almanac of Naval Rav Kant. So he. That was one of their more successful books. It sold like 2, 3 million copies. But it's recovered now. But what happened, at least from my estimation, from what I've seen on the outside and from talking to Eric on the show, and most of this is public information, so I feel fine sharing it. But the guy that had taken over as CEO for Tucker Max, when he kind of quote unquote retired himself, basically started siphoning a ton of company funds into building his personal brand and became way more focused on becoming famous and increasing his status online than he was focused on building the actual business so it could actually become a. There, there are, there are instances where it can become A distraction and actually pull money away from the business brand, in which case that should be a no. So I think that it's is really helpful and important to do to. To do the personal branding side, but not at the expense of business growth, and then only if you actually really enjoy doing those things.
B
Yeah, I always go back and forth on that stuff because, like, I feel like, I guess it's all what you value too. But one of the things that's important for me too, is. And I don't know if this is because religion or the weird, pragmatic version of it we're in, but I feel such a need to have an impact. I've told you this before. One of my biggest fears, always, some of this is probably go to therapy. But one of my biggest fears is my funeral being empty. And, like, it's not soon, so. Rscp. No, I always picture, like, probably once a week, I picture, like, me in a coffin and, like, two or three people crying and then everyone else being like, whatever. You know, big deal. And so, like, I always, you know, I always have this thing of like, oh, I want my daughter to be like, oh, my dad did this thing that radically changed this thing. Or people to be like, oh, yeah, that guy left something there that wasn't there before. So I think there's an element of fame to that. That's like, it's legacy. It's fame. Yeah. And also it's like, fame is leveraged. Because I always love hearing stories like Shaq shares, where it's like, I went to the guy across the street that didn't have a house and I bought him a house. Or it's like. Or the less. Not everybody can do that, but like. Or the people that just go, I wanted to do xyz, so I picked up the phone and called so and so. Like, I did that yesterday. I did a podcast and someone said, oh, I'm a big fan of so and so. Who's got a really big podcast? I was like, oh, I text them every week. Let me connect you. And they were like, oh, my God. You know, it's like being able to do even stuff like that. It's just. That's neat. So I think there's a level of that where I'm like, I don't know. I'd give that up.
A
Sure.
B
To just be, like, anonymous, you know,
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But I agree with that, which is why I would still choose the personal branding over it. But. But yeah, I'm less, like, preachy about.
B
Sure.
D
Yeah.
B
I don't think it's for everybody. Yeah, yeah. Some people will have no impact and no positive impact on the world at all.
A
But, like, the people are building businesses, though, you know, like, you know, I mean, they have it in a different context. Like, everybody in their business knows who they are and they employ 300 people.
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Well, you need to fill up Stutz, that's analyzing things and sitting in a dark room and going, like, what's the data showing us? You know, and you also need the people that, like, communicate that data to the public and, like, they don't have to all be the same person, but. Yeah, well, that's. That's all the time we have. So here's the final this or that. Make this a six hour episode or close it out.
A
The six hour go.
B
No, close it out.
A
Oh, it wasn't a real option.
B
Yeah.
A
All right, well, remember, money only solves your money problems, but it's easier to solve the rest of your problems when you got money in the bank. So let's start there here on the Travis Makes Money podcast. Thanks for tuning in. Catch you next time. Peace.
Podcast: Travis Makes Money
Episode: CO-HOST | Make Money with This or That: Real Estate, Business Partners, Personal Brands & More
Date: May 21, 2026
Host: Travis Chappell with Producer Eric (co-hosting)
This episode of Travis Makes Money centers around a lively and insightful “This or That” game, where Travis and producer Eric break down nuanced choices about making more money. Discussion spans real estate decisions, business partnerships, offer strategies, personal branding, and more. The conversation is rich with personal anecdotes, real-world references, and nuanced perspectives, aimed at empowering listeners to find their own path to financial success.
[01:07 – 06:23]
[06:54 – 09:20]
[09:20 – 11:56]
[13:43 – 14:30]
[14:30 – 20:15]
The episode underscores that strategies for making more money—whether in real estate, business partnerships, offers, or branding—depend heavily on individual context, goals, and preferences. There are few universal answers; instead, Travis and Eric encourage listeners to deeply consider their own circumstances, pursue what aligns with their vision, and not to slavishly follow “success blueprints” without adaptation.