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Travis Makes Money
INTERVIEW | Make Money By Mastering One Skill (Then Buying Back Your Freedom) with Ian Stanley
00:37:37
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New Year, new me.
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Cute.
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Experian.
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You are 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. Today on the show I'm talking to a good friend of mine actually his name is Ian Stanley. Ian has been an online business owner for quite some time. Made her name himself in the copywriting space and now built himself a amazing business. Allows him to travel the world. Pursue is really the finer things in life like stand up comedy which is somebody's beginning into a lot recently and a commonality that we share at least an interest form. I have not had the balls yet to actually stand up on stage and deliver anything but Ian has and actually filmed a special about it. So I'm excited to have him on the show. Ian, what's up dude?
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B
Yo man. Happy to be here. And of course my dog would start barking the second we start recording but.
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C
Well, that's understandable. You, you know, he saw you getting all the spotl and wanted more of it on him.
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B
So I think it's more that he thought it was walking time and it's not yet. He's going to have to wait.
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C
Sorely disappointed. Well, let's go. Let's start this off, man. Back in time. Tell me how you got started in the entrepreneurship space. What was the first dollar you ever made when you realized that this was actually a potential path for you?
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B
So all right, the first dollar I ever made would have been to senior year of college. I had started buying the first real dollar I made online. So I learned about sort of making money online and stuff. When I was a sophomore in college I had this little transfer quarter between switching from SMU to Santa Cruz. I was playing tennis in college so I had this little Quarter where I lived in this weird little mobile home and was going to class, like, twice a week and basically just spent all my time clicking on shit on the Internet. And so I ended. I'd buy all these, like, really bad clickbank products and different things and thinking I was gonna be, you know, rich very quickly. And so kind of just like, dabbled as. As much as you could have. Shiny object syndrome. I had that. That's like sophomore and then junior year, actually. You know Jordan Hall?
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C
No.
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B
Jordan Hall. He does. Oh, God. What's his mastermind thing called? But he's. He's awesome. He was selling a product called Project Fast Cash. And I was like, I like cash, and I would like it fast. And I bought that. And his upsell was like a $200 coaching thing. I bought that, and he basically told me to buy Andre Chaperone's autoresponder Madness. And so I bought that, and I was like, oh, this is what I like. Like, email copywriting. This is what's interesting. So then I wrote a dating book on how to pick up women. And I think, technically I sold a couple for $7. I will say that the two guys who went through my system were virgins. And within 30 days, they both had lost their virginity. Wow. To a willing woman. Not.
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C
Important. Caveat in a lot of recent events.
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B
Yeah. And so I don't really count that, because that didn't feel that real yet. But I'd started writing, and I enjoyed writing. And then senior year, I. We were trying to sell my own thing. We maybe sold a couple, but we ended up running Bing ads to a. Actually, no. We started out with the affiliate thing. So we basically. It was the Dow Badass, if you remember that. It was like the hottest offer on ClickBank back. You know, this would have been 2012, 2011. And I was taking a final, and it came out of the final. I checked my phone, and I had $118, and 34 cents was the commission because they bought all the upsells. And I was like, dude, these fucking losers at school are gonna go get jobs, and I'm gonna be riding around in a helicopter. Made a few more set, maybe made like a thousand dollars, barely, you know, broke even. But that was the moment. I've always remembered that moment. It was like, this is real. Like, I'm going to. Actually, no. The first sale, I was at home. Cause I remember I ran around pretending to be on a fake horse. I was so excited. It was really bizarre. And then the second sale, I was taking a Final. And that was like, okay, I'm not gonna ever have a real job. And then still didn't really. But that was like the real moment. I was like, okay, this is real. So it was basically as an affiliate and then I tried to sell my own stuff. And then basically from there just realized that everybody online was trying to do everything. Like this is back in the forum days and everybody was poor and everybody was like, I have a product in. I have this and this and that. And I was like, I'm just gonna get really good at copywriting. So I spent. I went through Copy Hour, Derek Johansson's course, and basically spent an hour a day handwriting out copy. So on pads, writing out by hand, copying sales letters, like old school famous sales letters, copying those out by hand. I did that every single day for 90 days and spent an hour each morning doing that Monday to Friday. And so that was when I really took things seriously. And then I ended up getting a job, not like a normal job, but writing email copy for a guy. And then since then, I've basically owned my own stuff.
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C
So sort of basically just jumping in to be a part of the gig economy was sort of the first dollars was instead of like, instead of like, I'm going to go build my own company, it was more like, I'm going to get really good at this one thing. And if I get good enough at this one thing, there's probably going to be a bunch of people who are willing to pay me for that thing.
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B
Yeah, it was like I'm. I was trying to do it myself, right? And I had a little tiny email list, 30 people, whatever, and then was like, oh, this is, you know, this is what I'll do. And I just noticed like, everybody who was trying to do it all was failing. And so, yeah, it was basically like, let me get really good at one thing, copywriting, and then even more specifically email copy. And then when I went and worked at the, with the credit solution programs, me and one other guy and the owner, and we had a list of 1.2 million people. So I was just getting crazy data and split test results and so spent a year and a half there. Then I went to Crisis Education doing 9 million a year, and then went to 18 million the next year. And I wrote all the copy and was the director of marketing to that. But during that time I'd set up my own list sort of teaching about email. So. But the big thing was by developing that skill, going into someone else's company, seeing all of the data, all of the ad spend and we were spending like three or four grand a day getting just a ton of leads. And it was all email. The whole business was based on email. So I got to see all that. And then when I went to crisis, you know, VSL is an email basically. And so, you know, I just got to learn on other people's dollars. And then when I started my own thing, it worked right away.
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C
Yeah, that's, I mean, whenever we talk, especially to the younger crowd, that's sort of the advice that I give them is anymore is like in your early 20s, just go find a vehicle that allows you to earn while you learn. Where you're not necessarily having to pay to learn everything. You actually get paid from somebody who's doing something that theoretically you would ideally like to be doing at some point. And then you get to learn while you're on the job, like they're actually going to pay you a real paycheck and teach you all of the things that you really want to learn. That's, that's actually something that's possible.
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B
See the real numbers and everything. And like I was making 70 an hour to a hundred dollars an hour as a tennis coach at the time at 22, which is a lot of money to a 22 year old. Yeah. And to plenty of people. But I took the job writing copy for $20 an hour because I knew that the ceiling on tennis was if you weren't on the court, you weren't getting paid. All the guys who were 35, 40, 50 were making the same money as me already. And so it was like I just, I was willing to take that cut in order to learn that skill. And I still coached on the side and you know, made extra money. But it was that willingness to learn a skill, get paid for the skill and then, But I knew it was a skill that would let me build my own businesses and everything. And actually I want to go on a quick rant about being in your early 20s because some of these famous entrepreneur people are telling all these dudes in their 20s to grind and to not drink and to not party and to work. And I just want to say fuck that. That is such stupid advice. If you are in your 20s, you should be able to drink until 4am, wake up at 7, write for two hours, work the whole, do whatever. Like if you are unable to, like that is the time to do it all, to have it's the both. And yeah, you don't have to because you can't drink till 4 and get good work done. The next day at 35, I can do one or the other. It's, you know, I've got to. And I don't like 4:00am anyway. Two AMs, you know, good enough for me. But, like, I really think the problem is, is that you lose the skill of having fun. And people say, well, in my 20s, I'm going to grind, and then in my 30s, I'll have fun. You will not. You will become a boring, miserable C word. I don't know if I can say that word here, but you will be, because you will literally forget the skill of fun and you'll turn into all of these douchebags on the Internet who think that they're pretending to be happy and talking about working all the time, and they can't even celebrate a birthday without feeling guilty. They can't have fun. And it's like, you should be able to do both. If you can't manage yourself well enough in your 20s. Like, you're going to miss out on your 20s. You're going to miss out on the experience of what fun you could be having and literally lose the skill of fun and replace it with being a miserable, potentially possibly rich bastard. Or you can be rich and have fun.
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C
Yeah, exactly. That's the whole point, is, like, you don't have to choose one or the other. You can do a little bit of both, as long as you're doing a little bit of both and you're not completely wasting all of your 20s because you're too drunk to remember anything. But also, you're not completely wasting this, this, like, free zone that you get where mistakes don't mean as much. You know what I mean? And obviously there are some mistakes that will follow you through the rest of your life, so don't do those ones. Yeah, but there's also a lot of other ones where, like, the stakes are wildly low and you only get this one little phase of life where you get sort of a free pass for those types of mistakes.
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B
I think I feel bad for all these kids in their 20s now because when I was in my early 20s, like, I didn't use Instagram, I had it. I didn't use Facebook. I didn't care about any of those things. So I just, like, cared about my life, and I wasn't comparing to anyone. And around me, my friends had shitty jobs. They hated their jobs. I was, you know, working a few hours a day, loving my life. The problem was I had too much free time. Actually, I ended up with more free time than I had. And My friends all had jobs, but it was like that. We didn't have the same comparison. Whereas now you have all these 20 year olds thinking, oh, I'm only making five grand a month, I'm a loser. This guy's making 2 million a month. It's like first off, no, he's probably not.
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C
Yeah, exactly.
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B
It doesn't matter. Like, you're on your own path and like, because you're. How old are you?
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C
33.
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B
You're 33. I'm 35. Right. So like our generation, you didn't have that, like, I'm a. I must be a loser if I'm doing this. It was like it barely. You didn't even know if making money online was real.
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C
Yeah, right.
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B
It was an idea. But it wasn't like people were like, you're crazy. When are you going to get a real job? And it was like, I'm not, but exactly, you know, you. Most people are lying on the Internet. Most? The 22 year olds who say they're rich as maybe they are, but they're probably doing something scammy and shitty to do that.
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C
Yep.
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B
Just live your life, develop skills, you'll be fine. But don't miss out on this. The twenties only happen once.
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C
Yeah, yeah. It's sort of just reverse engineering the life that you want. And a lot of times though, like, I don't know if you found this to be the case, man, but like I've found that it is actually more difficult to figure out what you want than it is to go get it once you've figured it out.
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B
I might be the opposite. I'm in a weird. I've known what I've wanted for a long time. Even in college I thought I was going to go into special Forces. And then that was it. That's all I cared about. And then I got are when I was 21 when you say, you know, certain mistakes do. I wasn't speeding, wasn't swerving. I was.09. But that changed the course of my life. And so I knew what I wanted then. But I always. I knew I was either going to work for the government or for myself. There was no in between. There was no like normal job for me. And then I've known since I was 24 that standup was going to be the thing at some point. So now it's so it's kind of. I think a lot of people fit more into what you're talking about, but for me it's been the opposite. It's been knowing exactly what I Want and finding ways to sabotage myself from doing that thing by distracting myself with very good alternatives like making money online or doing things that nobody would point to and say, well, you're an idiot. That's sabotage. But I would know that.
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C
Do you think though that if, if you only pursued the standup route that like the money that you make currently is sort of what allows you to pursue this unapologetically in the form that you're currently doing it? No.
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B
Yeah. So I think is one of the few things where having your back against the wall is not necessarily beneficial because desperation doesn't necessarily create the best earth and stand up. You either make almost no money or you make a lot. There's really no like person making 50 grand a year or a hundred grand a year doing standup. It's kind of like nothing or low six figures to seven figures. Yeah. So like there's not a lot of that.
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C
It's almost a zero sum game.
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B
Yeah. It's like you either make it or you don't. And so it's given me the freedom to in this sort of in between time as it's been, as my audience has been growing and everything, definitely given me the freedom to do way more than most people. But then it's also, you know, I've had enough money where I could just say what if I just quit everything else? But I mean this has been my own internal debate for a long time. So now I'm down to two day work week as of this year and every other day I'm not allowed to work on the business other than on those two days, which is hopefully going to go to one day. But it's more. I have plenty of time. It's the bandwidth of your brain still having this business and these things and these people who rely on you and stuff. I don't know, it's hard to say. I think if I had gone all in a few years back, I can't like. And that was really. And I treated it with the same seriousness as business and posted every day and was doing that. I think it, it would have worked. But it could have put you in me in a weird in between at a certain point. Yeah, I mean it's a genuine, it's a, it's like a deeper longer conversation of just like what is the right worth pursuing?
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C
Yeah, yeah.
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B
Because like better to have the safety and the ability to, you know, spend money. I, you know, I filmed my own TV show last year and spent $50,000 on that. I can't do that. If I don't have money.
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C
Yeah, right. The, the freedom to pursue that which actually excites you. It comes from the fact that you are not worried about where your next meal is coming from.
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B
Right. But at the same time, for an extended period of time.
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C
Yeah.
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B
And keep kind of doing the one thing in convincing yourself that it's, you know, you can't go all in because of this other thing. So I think it's a, it's a fine line between self deception and then the reality of actually making a smart decision and having income and time freedom and all these things while pursuing something like that.
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C
But the beautiful thing though about the, the business game in general too, which is why even though I, even though I tend to push back against the glorification of entrepreneurship, I do believe that most people should gain more of an entrepreneurial mindset, regardless of if they're going to go start their own business or not. And it's because business is not a zero sum game. There's plenty of examples where like, even if you didn't build a $10 million, $20 million, $100 million business, you can still live a great life and out earn everybody in your peer group at your age group, even if the business doesn't go this idealistic version. Whereas like we mentioned before, art is one of those things where it's like, you can be really, really good, but there's almost just this like impossible mixture of like alchemy and luck and timing that sort of gives you permission to then step into this next version of your career. And plenty of people, as talented as they may be, will never experience that thing happening, even though they do that thing for 20, 30, 40 years. Now you can argue whether or not they're happy in pursuit of that thing regardless of if they achieved it or not. But that's kind of the cool thing about the business world to me is that, you know, it's still a smashing success that you can make $112,000 a year working for yourself, going, going to all your kids baseball games or whatever, rather than making 62,000 working for somebody else that forces you to work on nights and weekends and you miss family.
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B
Vacation altogether or even making 112 instead of 200 while doing whatever you want. You know, there's a big. Yeah, I think with business, like you said, it's, I've never viewed it as competition. It's all collaboration to me. And there's so much money out there that, you know, to get yourself, for most people, if you can get to like 30 grand a month, you can do pretty much anything you want in the world outside of really absurd things. Yeah, that's not that crazy. That's where, like, then the next step is being, I think, like tens of millions and having a jet.
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C
Yeah, right.
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B
And live in a super nice place. And you can do. And so, yeah, I mean, if you're. Is it mainly younger people who listen to this or where, or do we not know?
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C
30S? 30, like 20. 30 to 35.
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B
Very. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that no matter what, like, I would encourage everybody to learn how to, I mean, really write copy and do marketing on some level, because any business, anything you ever want to do, you will have to market that thing and sell something. And so it's like, what I got to learn in my early 20s and be around all that was just like, now I can literally start any type of business. We just started making a board game that I am just like, now, if I want to go and make that board game a reality, I can turn that into a legitimate business if that's what I want, because of all the other skills I have. And it's like, those are the foundational skills of any business, getting people to. To know it exists. Yeah. And use whatever the thing is you have.
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C
Let's talk about the marketing side here for a second. It's a little bit of a different landscape than when you started back in 2011, 2012. There's plenty of speculation as to whether or not copywriting will be as valuable of a skill in the next. Obviously, right now you still, you know, you can tell when copy was written by AI or when it was written by a talented, actually good copywriter. But that probably will not always be the case. Right. Like maybe another five years, seven years, years, whatever. Let's call it 10 years. Just to be fair about it. At some point, that may not be as valuable of a skill. How do you view all of that now? If you were just getting started now, would you still work on that as the primary skill? Would there be other things that you'd be thinking about? Or what's your advice for somebody who's like, yeah, I think I should learn marketing, but what vehicle should I choose first?
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B
Yeah, I would say so. I. I kind of see it. What I've been saying for the past year or so is whatever you do should either use AI or be impervious to it. And so, you know, that's the beautiful thing about stand upright is I think that'll be just about the last thing to ever go yeah, because watching for a single individual's point of view and the way that they think and see.
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C
The world and how that interacts with the audience that happens to be in.
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B
That particular a robot was doing Ricky Gervais material, that's not going to hit the same as watching a human and the reality of that moment and the complete chaos of, you know, any sort of improper things that can happen. But when it comes to like the copy world, as I, you know, I have my own AI software tool called Email Game Changers. And I will tell you first off that I can tell when something's chatgpt within a fucking second and it's the worst and I hate it. And everybody on Instagram's using it and every time it's not this, it's this, it's not. It's so annoying to see and it's becoming. And I know that I'm hyper aware of it compared to normal people. But what I would still say is, even with like my tool, where I believe it's about 10 times better than, let's say, ChatGPT, you still should have the skill of knowing what good marketing is and what good copy is. So, like Education was the second company I worked with. The owner was, I mean, barely, I don't even know if he could, he could barely read. It seemed his IQ was super high. He was an engineer, he could barely write at all. But he knew what great copy was and he knew how to give great ideas. So I'd write a piece of copy, he'd look at it and go, that's not good, that's good. He couldn't write it himself, but he could read copy and go, this is great. Or this is not. And so what I tell people now is like, and even same with the skill of email, if you want to go manage other people's email lists, there's understanding the strategy, there's knowing what to send, when to send it, the overarching, you know, relationship building and those things. But you don't have to be able to write from scratch anymore. You can literally go into my tool for, I mean, in 10 seconds you can have a piece of an email written. That's better than 90% of people. Like, and it doesn't feel like AI. That doesn't mean that, you know, it's like, okay, just because you have a gun, you need to, you need to know where to aim it, right? Just because you can pull the trigger doesn't mean you're effective with that weapon. So it's that understanding of what makes things good and the why behind it, I think is the biggest thing to understand now for people who want to make money because you are right and it's only the writing is only going to get better, right? And there's stop being so many clear tells that this is AI copy or chat, GPT or Claude or whatever. But I think that. So it's like you don't have to spend 90 days hand copying sales letters like I did. You don't have to spend years becoming world class at the skill anymore. You can get good at that theoretically in minutes now by having something write it for you. But to know when it should be sent or even with copy for a sales page, understanding what about even AI written copy is good or is not good. And being able to go back to it and say, hey, this is not right. This isn't who we're going after. This is not the, you know, the thing, I think the danger of so many people right now is they outsource all of their thinking to ChatGPT or to AI and to the point where like I have these yellow legal pads in my backpack still. I've been writing a print newsletter again by hand, and then I type it out, but I force everything to be off. And I got this brick thing, by the way, dude, this thing, have you seen these?
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C
Yeah, I have.
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B
Yeah, affiliated with them. Let me tell you, this thing is a fucking game changer really. You just brick all your social media apps because like the only thing I check, I'll check Instagram, but I'll just like flick it on and then suddenly four minutes have gone by and my thinking is distracted. Fifteen minutes, whatever it might be, you just get that. You brick it, leave it at your house or put it in your truck when I go to a coffee shop or whatever. But it's that I think the danger is becoming so reliant on AI that you don't have your own thoughts anymore and you don't know what's good or bad. You go, hey, ChatGPT, is this good or bad? And it's like you need to maintain it's going to still be using the AI that's going to do the best. It's knowing what to do with those tools. So it's kind of a cheap answer in a way, but I think, you.
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C
Know, it's probably correct though. You know, like especially the. That's why whenever I write stuff and then use an AI tool, it's mostly like I, I've found it. I've found that it's more useful when I use it as a. As a writing coach than as a generative AI to write all my shit for me. So, like, I'll write something out and then upload it to it and then basically say, like, find the holes in this or what? Is there something I could be doing better here? And I found that that's actually, that that's been more useful to me because of what you just said. Because these, the practice of writing is essentially written thoughts. It's. It's your process by which you are thinking through the solution to a problem. And if you outsource that entire process, that's why it sucks, by the way. Like, that's what, that's what makes it difficult is that you have to tackle all these problems in the middle of doing the thing. But if you get rid of that now, you're just. Your, your, your brain is gonna, you know, atrophy. It's not. It's gonna stop thinking the right way.
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B
It's. So I have this thing I call the big money sentence. So, like, for any person, there's typically one to three things that when you're doing that thing, you know that money is going to follow that thing. So for me, it's when I'm writing, speaking, or filming, I'm making money. So if I'm on a stage, I'm going to be making money in some way, whether it's even that day or later from whatever. Same with filming a video or from writing. But writing is the precursor to both of those things. And to me, writing is how you organize your thoughts. It's how I become a. If I write, then my speaking and my videos will be better because it's slow and it's painful. And that's what forces you to organize your thoughts and especially if you force yourself to write by hand at times. So I'm. I literally just launched this print newsletter last month, and I haven't done that in a few years. And I'm writing by hand and I'm going, God, I could teach this in 15 minutes and just speak on a video. But it's taken me a couple of hours to write the same thing. But the difference is that even though that may be inefficient in a way, what it's doing is it's creating a significantly better thing for people to consume because it's. Writing forces you to slow down and organize your thoughts in a coherent way. Whereas when I'm speaking, I can go back, I can say, you know what? Actually, it's More like this. Or I can use tone, or I can use different things to convey a point. Whereas writing forces you to structurally organize those thoughts in a way that makes sense, which makes all of your communication better across the board. And if you force yourself, it's like you said, if you. Just because AI exists or just because cars exist doesn't mean I don't walk or run. There are people who don't walk or run. I don't understand them, but I have a car and I use that to go certain places. But I still walk and run because I don't want to let my muscles atrophy. Same with riding. There was a point where I was like, you can just get lazy and you can lose a skill that you've spent for me and, you know, a lifetime developing.
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C
Right.
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B
And so I think it's important still to force yourself, any person, just to think from scratch at times, because it's so easy to outsource it all to a fucking robot.
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C
Yeah, that's the truth, man. And marketing is one of those areas where, like, you will notice a significant improvement in your marketing efforts if you take the time to actually write out these things rather than just using, like, taking the easy way out and just like, well, but now I can just talk into my phone and then it'll transcribe it and then I can throw that in the chat. Like, anytime I see a video on Social that says something like that, it's like sensationalist content. I'm scrolling past this because I'm never going, like, the idea of, like, I can. I can get an AI clone that's going to talk like me, and then I can have AI write the script and then I can feed that script to the clone and I don't have to do anything. And it's like, yeah, but then I don't have to do anything. So what am I going to do? You know what I mean? Like, do something that actively rots my brain more.
- [27:56]
B
Yeah. And other results. Really what you think? Because that's the other thing is, like, when you have this thing that you're like, man, I don't know what to write or do. I can just go to this thing. Then you, you may be getting a result, but it might be 20%, 50%, 80% of the result. If somebody else could lift weights for you, that would be great. Yeah, right. What if every time they lifted, it was only half the results you could get? If you actually put in the effort yourself, that'd be better than nothing. And all the people who Are fucking fat and won't work out. Should use the 50%, you know, workout that, that gets you half the results, but it lifts the weight for you. But you'll never start from scratch. You'll never get a full result from what you're doing because you're never challenging yourself to have ideas. And I think then people, you know, you're going to have half the population are part of it. That does turn into Wally, you know.
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C
Right.
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B
They're becoming completely unable to create their own thoughts and stuff. And that's fine. Some people want to do that. Go ahead. That's just not going to be. Exactly.
- [28:54]
C
Well, you're never going to live an extraordinary life that way, that's for sure. No, you know, you're never like you. If you want more out of life, then life will demand more from you first. You don't, you don't, you don't get the reward without the trade off. You know what I mean? And I think ultimately that's what people are searching for. They're looking for, they're, they're looking for the, you know, the, the, the lap band in business, which is like, can I just get this surgery and shrink my stomach and lose £200? It's like, sure. But you never learned how to diet properly, so odds are you might put on some of that weight back. Or. I actually read this crazy stat recently that was talking about, we heard you.
- [29:32]
B
Nine years of bring back the snack wrap and you've won. But maybe you should have asked for more. Say hello to the hot honey snack wrap. Now you've really won. Go to McDonald's and get it while you can.
- [29:45]
C
Like the suicide rates of people post lap band surgery was significantly higher than it is pre. Because eating was the way that they coped with the world. And now they don't have a way to process their own emotions. And so like they end up going into this spiral of depression even though they've had the result that they desired, which was to lose weight. It's like, turns out it's the work that's required that makes you lose the weight. That's actually the thing that you're missing. It's not the end result that you're missing. It's the thing that gets you the end result. And it's going to be the same thing in using your brain to think through things.
- [30:17]
B
And it's just not dealing with the root cause of the problem. Like you're, the reason you're eating is because of your feelings being this thing. Deal with those instead of the other thing. But, I mean, I agree, you know, we had it and, you know, I. It's not guaranteed hard work camp. Like, I'm not a lot of hours guy. Never happened. But it's like, there are certain things you should be willing to do yourself. And it's like, if it's. If making videos or producing content or writing is the most important thing in your business and you're going to outsource the most important thing, like, outsource everything else, right? Do the other. Let other people do the other stuff. But if there's only a few things that matter, and then, like you said, you're trying to outsource yourself from them, like, what is the purpose of that? Like, yeah. And what. And what are you creating? How good is that thing? If suddenly, you know, Joe Rogan started making all of his podcasts AI and he's like, well, now I have 100% free time. You know, the quality would drop. And like, so what? Or even if it was just as good, then what would he do? He'd be not having interesting conversations.
- [31:16]
C
Yeah, exactly. You wouldn't be stretching your brain. You wouldn't be learning anything. Like, that's not. It's just not a good alternative, you know, even if you take the results out of it, which are probably going to be worse as well. So just do the work. There's no, like, stop looking for all the shortcuts and stop saving all these damn AI videos that make you use 12 AI. Like, the hoops that people will jump through to avoid work blows my mind. It's like the volume of time that it took you to download these 19 software tools and AI and take this from here and connect it to that and put it over here and put this over here. You just could have done the work 10 times over and you'd be better at it and the result would be better. But you're so concerned with how can I avoid all of the work that you're actually shooting yourself in the foot just to see if you can keep walking.
- [32:07]
B
It just makes no sense, I think. Do you know Ron Lynch?
- [32:10]
C
No.
- [32:11]
B
He did, like, OxiClean and GoPro and all these things. And a, like, close friend and mentor of mine for a long time. And he said one of my favorite quotes ever, he said, you only get paid for the work you don't want to do. And so if you think about it that way, it's like, yeah, go use AI. These are things for the work you don't want to do. And. And also, if it's not the thing that you're going to be great at. Like, I mean, I'm sort of shooting myself in the foot by saying, don't go use AI. And I literally have a business with the AI tool. But it's like, use that if you're not trying to get great. If you want to be 80%. 80% is good enough in email to be better than most people.
- [32:44]
C
Right, right.
- [32:45]
B
But the thought that you only get paid for the work you don't want to do, it's like, okay, so only 10 to 20% of this is what's. And it's those hardest moments when you're writing and you don'. Want to write and you keep forcing yourself that you grow. But it's like, that's when I'm like, all right, I'm getting paid for this. When it's easy, I'm not getting paid. So then you look at hourly rate of just when it's the stuff you don't want to do, and you're like, oh, it's sky. It's. It's through the roof. Because it's only, you know, there's not much pretty not. I hate doing that anyone could do. That's what drives me insane in this world. Anything that it's just a random person could do it. I'm like, why would I do it? Yeah, exactly. I can do. And so why replace yourself for the one thing you're here for?
- [33:23]
C
Well, listen, dude, I appreciate you coming on. I know you're a busy guy. Tell people where they can go, get more from you and sort of next steps here.
- [33:28]
B
Yeah. If you want to. To see my standup and my comedic things. Ian Stanley comedy on Instagram is probably the best place to go. And then almost passive income on Instagram is. Is where you can see all the other stuff. But mainly get on my fucking list dot com. If you want to get on my email list, that would be the place to go. That just a domain because I wrote. I wrote a book, just fucking send it. And I had to get a domain for people to go. So get on my fucking list.com if you want to get my emails. I send an email almost every day and that's kind of what I'm best at.
- [34:03]
C
That is perfectly on brand. So go check out some of the stuff that he's working on.
- [34:07]
B
But check out his comedy chance where and this whole thing's just going to be bleeped.
- [34:11]
C
No, no, you're good, you're good. Get on my fucking list.com as well as at Ian Stanley comedy for some of the stuff he's putting out from the standup world and then, and then yeah, he's got some books out there. He's got some resources out there. Great. Dude. We've genuinely had a lot of fun hanging out a bunch of different places together and is somebody who I'd highly recommend especially if you're trying to get better at copywriting, trying to get better at emails, you're trying to build an online business from nothing. You don't know how to do it. This guy's one of those people that I recommend to go follow. So Ian, thanks for taking the time coming on the show. Appreciate you everybody else listening. Remember money only solves your money problems but it is easier to solve the rest of your problems when you got money in the bank. So let's solve that one first here on the Travis Makes Money podcast. Thanks for tuning in. Catch you guys next time.
- [34:51]
B
Peace.