← Travis Makes Money
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- [00:00]
A
You're listening to the Travis Makes Money podcast. 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, I have a new friend, Bill Hoogterp. He's the founder and CEO of lifehikes, a global experiential, learning and human performance company. Helping people and organizations unlock greater confidence, communication and leadership. Lifehikes has trained more than 1 million people now across over 1200 organizations in 47 countries through immersive leadership and communication experiences. Before founding Life Ikes, Bill co founded the youth movement Do Something and later co founded what became Raptive, now one of the largest digital publishing platforms in the US he's coached executives, athletes, entre, entertainers, entrepreneurs, leaders From Meta, Google, LinkedIn, OpenAI, McKinsey, and is a Fortune leadership columnist. So he's knows a thing or two about high performance and how to make a little bit more money in this world. Billy, what's up, man? Welcome to the show.
- [00:58]
B
Hey, Travis. Thanks for having me, man.
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A
So let's go back in time. First off, tell me the first time, Bill, that you ever made a dollar that shocked you? That surprised you? That was like, I can't believe that somebody just paid me money to do this.
- [01:11]
B
Well, I'm uniquely qualified to think about this because I went from one extreme to the other. You know, from the first job as a paper route at 11 to after college. My goal was to make $0. I wanted to live a keyless, cashless life. I didn't really tell anybody, but I wanted to live like St. Francis. And I took no salary for 10 years and worked. I had my clothes, my basketball, and organized nonprofits with friends that ended up getting over a million college kids involved in volunteering. But I really was going that exact opposite way. Then I was accidentally successful in Internet, went to the other end of the spectrum. So I'm uniquely qualified to think about making money, I think. So when we're coaching the top executives, I have two very unique angles on it.
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A
No kidding. Yeah. Tom, what was that? Where did that decision come from? That is obviously the opposite of what most men's, most young men's desire is. Where did that come from?
- [02:09]
B
It wasn't particularly intelligent or informed. But growing up, I found out much later in life I had been raised in a functional family and how rare that was in rural Michigan. First one to go to college out of 60. Some cousins, aunts, uncles, and no one really to guide. So everybody's good people, factory Folks, farming folks and. But their whole idea was you. Somebody broke down the side of the road, you, you helped them. And in fact you talked about the first dollar. What comes to my mind is when I was a kid, we went to McDonald's maybe once or twice a year. But my dad got there and he was so good at math, even though I worked at factory. He gets home, looks at the receipt and realized they gave him $1 too much change. Talk about unusual. We drove back to the McDonald's for him to give them the dollar. So that tells you how I was raised. And then I get out in the world and say, wow, there's all these problems. How can I help? But I just kind of took it to an extreme.
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A
What did you go to school for?
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B
I studied. I was pretty good at math, so they thought I should be an engineer. Using math for useful purposes eluded me. But I fell in love with languages, international studies, things that I'd never gotten growing up. There was no watching the news or talking politics. And I fell in love with global. I fell in love with entrepreneurialism, marketing,
- [03:31]
A
everything that's so interesting to then leave and then go, how can I not make any money? How did you, like, live and survive?
- [03:40]
B
I was very creative. So I had a pickup truck and we drove around the country. I spoke at hundreds of colleges, we organized conferen, amazing group network of leaders. And I didn't have an apartment and I put a cap on the back and framed a little thing with a mattress and the expenses would cover my gas money. And I was super happy. And then in Newark, New Jersey, where I was working with inner city kids, most people don't even know any of this. I can't believe I'm even saying any of this. So we had a neighborhood, a really pretty rough neighborhood. Let's just say I stood out in our neighborhood a little bit. I played basketball and the guys protected me. I'm not any good, but they said I'm the only one that would pass the ball. So they put out the word don't mess with Billy and they gave me a little closet and in exchange for helping take care of the three home property. But I kind of lived on barter and then I got engaged and that was the end of that lifestyle. Travis Maria is one of those unusual women that thinks heat and hot water is a good idea. Yeah. What? And then. And two friends. Andrew Hsu was an actor on a show called Melrose Place. And Michael Sanchez was the top chess playing kid in the world when he was five and the three of us were close, and we had. They found to do something. I helped out a little bit with mtv, but we were all getting married, starting to have kids at the same time, and we went into the business world and started Club Mom, Cafe mom, et cetera, which then became Raptive, which just passed Apple and Page Views.
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A
Wow. First off, just a quick aside. Did you ever play him at chess?
- [05:16]
B
I did not. In fact, we were at a party, Name Drop Coming, since we're on podcast, and Sting and Madonna and other people were there, and we were talking with Sting, and I told him Michael's chess story. And I could tell you Michael's chess story. And that'll be the most interesting thing that comes out of this podcast. So he turns to Michael. He's like, michael, fancy a game? And Michael's like, no. He's like. I was like, it's Sting. Just Sting.
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A
Yeah, you have to play.
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B
Yeah, I don't play anymore. I'm retired. That's crazy.
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A
So he turned down Sting for a game of chess.
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B
Turned down Sting. Tell me a little bit more about Colin Powell. And he hired him on the spot to run this huge network. They had an event where all five of the living presidents came to Philadelphia to do things that help kids. Wow. And Michael ended up running the whole thing, so. And Michael's the reason Raptiv is just past Apple and Page Views. It's the biggest publishing blogging platform in the world now. But Michael is. He's very humble. But it's really an amazing story.
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A
Yeah. Tell me about. Do something. Where did this organization come from and what was your involvement there?
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B
So Andrew had been on the show, but he was an activist at heart. He was on Melrose, and we just had. And Michael had finished law school, but we all had this idea of young people are capable of much more, but we're not necessarily the protesting type of the 60s. So we got into the idea that whatever the problem is, whatever the issue is, we're all drawn to different things. We're going to map 36 issues out on a circle. And pretty much every one of your listeners, Travis, I can tell you, at least one of those issues pulls them in a way they don't even completely understand. Maybe it's helping the elderly, helping kids, AIDS education, who knows, environment. But most of us don't act on what we care about. You know, we're upset by this issue, but we don't really do much. So we created an organization that helped you get started, whatever it is you want to make a difference. On if everybody picks up a shovel and helps a little bit on something, the world's going to be a better place. And we created formulas and ended up getting over a million young people involved in different things. MTV was our host. They gave us free office space. I remember they had a free soda dispenser. I was so happy. On West 57th. Yeah.
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A
Free soda dispenser, when you're living on $0 a year is like, you know, a gold mine. Every young person's dream. So. So the entrepreneurial career, did you find. Did you find any difficulty in moving from this sort of altruistic, almost masochistic style of living where, like, I'm trying to keep my income as low as possible in an effort to help other people? Was there any sort of internal b. When you went to. We have a business now. It is our goal to make a lot of money. Was there any sort of internal struggle there?
- [08:07]
B
Not as much as you would think. One, because it's 80% the same thing. So if you're the seven nonprofits that we created, some of which are still going today, it's pretty much the same approach. How do you get hundreds of thousands or millions of people to do something, to act in a certain way? So you're creating scalable behavior change. Whether you get paid or don't get paid, nobody really cares. And then how do you do that in a more of a business world? There was huge learning lessons going from nonprofits to for profit. But the fundamental thing was very gradual. Kind of a frog in the pan. It just kind of. It's all a game. You know, scaling stuff is a game. It's happiness doesn't link to more money. But the challenge of building things is what gives you happiness. Yeah.
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A
Tell me a little bit more about that in terms of, like, the happiness versus money conversation.
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B
Well, there's a couple studies that came out. A lot of your listeners will have an inkling, oh, I've heard of that. Is there any correlation between money and happiness? Is there any connection? And they found out there is that the people that made 20,000 a year were happier than the people who made 10. They kind of proved it scientifically. Thirty is happier than 20, 40 is happier than 30. And at 60,000, it stops. People that made 90 the same as 60. One hundred and eighty, same as 67, 20, same as 60. At a million, it drops just a little bit and comes back, but it never really goes higher than 60.
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A
It drops.
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B
And when I'm with groups or if I'm coaching somebody, one on one, I'll ask them, why, what's your thinking? Why is this true? If what's your theory? And everybody has slightly different ideas. Jump in if you have anything. But I would say go ahead.
- [09:47]
A
Yeah, I've, we talked about this a fair amount on the show. I think that that's why I sign off every show. I sign off the same way, which is money only solves your money problems, but it's easier to solve the rest of your problems of money in the bank. And that's sort of the, the ethos behind this show is that if, if money is neutral beyond a meager salary of $60,000 or I guess that would be like sort of an average salary, not necessarily meager, but if, if it's inconsequential in terms of your happiness meter at that point, then it still makes sense to me to go get more of it just because it helps solve other problems that you have. But there's, but to your point though, we're very clear that on, even on a show where we exclusively talk about making more money, that it's not going to solve all your problems. It's not going to, it's not going to fix things that are happening internally. It's not going to wave a magic wand on the struggles of your interpersonal relationships. It still requires, you still have to do all the work to solve the other problems. It's just that when you have money in the bank, it gives you the option to focus on solving those problems. And when you don't have money in the bank, it's really hard to think about any other problem other than the fact that you have a money problem.
- [11:01]
B
I think your wisdom is brilliant in its reverse engineering aspect because you've kind of captured the right philosophy that, and there is a lot of happiness connected to the money, not identified with the money. When you get a raise or a promotion, the glow lasts a month and a half. So you, you want these things and you can do more good things with the money. So it's the growth that is associated with, you can have more impact. You have this much potential if you're only using this much, you want to grow. And that involves having more impact and more resources and to do more with it. But don't connect the, the complete money to your identity. That's where people get in trouble. In fact, I'll give homework to all of your, your listeners. The sometimes people say, oh, you know, my net worth is up to 2 million or 5 million or 10 million, but they still act like they haven't made it. Everybody has this Travis 13 year old CRO Magnon mindset. I don't have enough meat for the cave. Don't know if I'm gonna make it through the winter. Might not make it. Even when you have more meat than you can consume in a lifetime. And I don't, I want everybody to keep working, making money and get even better and creative at it. But so the homework is to, once you pass 1.6 million, you're kind of set for life if you think about it. Because that, that can throw off 60,000. You don't really have to work anymore if you don't want to keep doing it for all the right reasons. But once you hit that goal or net nut, goal for yourselves. Every listener decide what that nut is for you. But the homework is take your significant elder out to a nice dinner and make a toast and say we did it. Because everybody carries around. Having coached so many powerful people, we're carrying around this pressure that we haven't made it. And when you let yourself say, you know what? We have made it, let's take a deep breath and enjoy it. And then work hard at making the next thing. You're going to enjoy life a little bit more.
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A
At least gain a little bit of clarity from the exercise. You know, to see like, do you want that? That was my, that was my problem to begin with, man, is like I, I sort of realized along the way that I didn't even want the massive amounts of money that I told myself that I said I wanted when I first got started in the entrepreneurship game. It was just that that was what everybody else told me I should want. And so if you, you know, if you don't want this, then you are not a real entrepreneur or you don't have the same ethos as the rest of us type of a thing. And then the more I started talking to people, especially on this show, cause now we've done, I've probably done over a thousand interviews in the past eight, nine years. And I've just started to realize that that self awareness piece is much more critical to the game than I originally gave it credit for. Because it, it really, you get to define on your own terms, what does that mean? Like, you know, to your point, somebody listening that's going like, oh, well, you know, I want, I want more than $60,000 a year. Okay, well then 1.6 million is not going to cut it for you. But somebody else is listening. They go like, I actually am totally fine with keeping my lifestyle expenses really low. And I like driving these paid off vehicles, and I like having safety and security. And then it's like, well, maybe I don't even need 1.6 million. You know, it's sort of like this, this journey to figure out what type of lifestyle do you really want to live, Reverse engineer the math to figure out what that number is going to be, and then work relentless, you know, relentlessly toward that. Toward that goal and that vision, and then be willing to have some honest conversations along the way to make sure that that is still the goal that you're going be accomplishing. Because if you're not careful, you can lift your head up in 20 years from now, have all the money in the world, and then forgot to live life. And then you're just like, man, I wish I would have just taken my money and gone and done this thing with my kids. And I wish we would have taken that Europe trip when we. When the kids were in age, when we could actually go spend time with them. And so just don't pursue anything, especially not money, for the sake of what other people have told you is important. Really try to figure out what that means for you.
- [14:55]
B
You are very wise for one so young. Travis, like the Chinese proverb, if we're not careful where we're headed, we're liable to end up where we're going. So just having a plan, hey, our goal's this or nut great, we reach it, go for the next ones. This whole show is partly based off of Warren Buffett's or in harmony with Warren Buffett's philosophy. If you want to make money, make other people money. His other view is stat, I love to quote from him is, and I lost him a half a million dollars on a deal once, so I'm married. Not an impressive guess because of that. But his other one, he said 99% of all the money he's made in his life is after the age of 50. And most people have this kind of view that you kind of have fun in your 20s, peak in your 30s and 40s, and then you're on the downslope, retire somewhere in your 60s, try to do something fun for 10 years before you kick the bucket. And that model's a little bit out the window. My latest column in Fortune is, we may make it to 130. And if the science of that and the breakthroughs they say are coming not in the next 10 years, but the 10 years after that. So the top scientist told me that thing that might take you out in 21 years could be invented in 14 to prevent it. So the next 10 years, just take really good care of yourself is the advice.
- [16:20]
A
Yeah, make it to the inflection.
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B
But either way, you know, why can't we reinvent ourselves to make the next fortune and the next fortune and do really good things with it and have some fun along the way taking care of, like you said, the people that are most important to us in our lives.
- [16:35]
A
Bill, tell me a little bit about life hikes. What exactly do you do? Life hikes? Where did this idea come from?
- [16:42]
B
Well, the personal training, not in the physical sense, but just life. Your skills, your mindsets for career really doesn't exist. So there's trainings on pretty much every subject, but there was no comprehensive system. And having coached 130,000 people one on one, our hundred coaches, we began to see the patterns. And the first one, Travis, was not a single person has a plan for their learning and growth. Not one. Wow. So all of your listeners are pretty much following the societal model, which is kindergarten through school. There's a lot of structure. Learn this, learn this, learn this, and then off into the wild you go. We're going to focus on the next batch. So we all just kind of ride the river in life. But if you just like planning for retirement, the 401k and planning for retirement kind of gave a structure, a frame that everybody could use or not use in riff off. So life hikes is the same thing. Give me 30 hours a year, and I can double the growth of every employee of every company for 20% less just by having skills, coaching, content. What's the right plan to get them to helping the company reach its goals and help them. And like you said, reevaluating is key because when you're 22, you have certain goals in life. And of course, at 32, they'll change and 42 and 52, as they should. But something that's constantly adapting to you. Yeah, yeah, that.
- [18:06]
A
That grows with you as you continue to grow. I had a wealthy friend of mine one time, he said he was at the park with his kids, and the other parent was commenting on how often their kid was changing. And he was like. And I said it. He was like. And I probably shouldn't have said it, but it just kind of came out just because it's what I do for a living. But he was like, I just phrased the question to them like, well, when did that stop for you? When did that, you know, that desire to change, to grow, to learn, to get better. When did that when did that stop? You know what I mean? And, and like you said, to most people's credit, we live in a culture that promotes this idea that you. You graduate, you're done. You know what I mean? You're. You're. You're finished learning now. You know what I mean? You've. You've accomplished this thing, but this is just a construct that we've come up with that says that you are now qualified to make your way in the world. It doesn't by suggest that this is when you stop learning. And if it is when you stop learning, then you've. You've plateaued yourself. You have put a. Put a ceiling on yourself that nobody made you put. Just because you're unwilling to engage with the idea that I should have this continued curriculum that I'm going through that makes me a better father, a better husband, better earner, better fill in the blank. So that having. Having some sort of a system that helps make sure that you do not deny yourself the pleasure of continued, purposeful personal growth is really helpful for a lot of these companies.
- [19:42]
B
I love that park story, and it sparks for me. I was coaching the chancellor of the University of California system, all the universities there. Wow. And he was kind of told to do it. He showed up and we did a session, and he called me the next day. He said, I want to apologize. He said, I came into the session and I didn't really want to be there, and you were asking me such cheesy questions. There's almost no question too cheesy for me. He said, but the one that caught his mind, he thought about it all night. Because I had asked him, charlie, if your career was a mountain, do you feel like you're on the way up or on the way down? And he said, I gave you a flippant answer at the time, and I thought about all night. He said, that's not the answer I want. And just reinventing ourselves. I was. I get a lot of calls from people unretiring, but also people in their mid-50s, and they're like, oh, man, I'm trying to get my. I got laid off in the last position. I was SVP at this big company, and I'm just trying to find that last job. And I keep getting interviews, but I don't get the job. And I'll say, well, talk me through. What do you usually do? And they'll say, oh, I just show up. I know the industry so well. I just have to. I said, oh, well, how would you approach it if you were 24 and oh, well, if I was 24, I would research, I would do the things. I would call their cousin that used to work there. He said, I got your point. And they called me afterwards, said, I got the next job. And I said, just be 24 again. There's nothing stopping you except in your own head.
- [21:09]
A
I'm a big believer that the quality of your life is largely determined by the quality of the questions that you ask yourself and others. And some of those questions are really powerful ones to consider. Are there any other ones that you found to be helpful when you're in some of these coaching sessions?
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B
There's a few magic questions. One is, what is the exact opposite way I could look at this? You know, any situation that's going to flip you, you know, and speaking of flip, somebody driving along and flips you off in traffic, you're going to have a natural human reaction. But if you say, what's the exact opposite way I could look at this, you have a completely different reaction. Yeah. So just another one is, how can I be more resourceful about this? Most of us try to do things alone. I was in China. We have a small office in Shanghai and our team there took me out to. Let's go to the movies. Do you want to see this movie? That movie? And one of our engineers said something I never considered before. He said, most movies in America are about the hero's journey. It's about the individual going through something. Everything's the Rocky movie. Things are bad and good outcome. He said, in China, every single movie is about the community's journey and the community is the one that wins in the end. And we potentially fashion life hikes to be a bit the best of both because you do need that individual get up and go, make sure it didn't go. Got up and went. You got to have that individual mindset. At the same time, nobody makes it alone. And almost all of our failures are because we think we should. Trying to get in shape, trying to make that next million, it's just stop trying to do it alone. Get over yourself. Think of who else is trying to do it. Work together and you're far more likely to be successful in whatever it is.
- [22:55]
A
Bill, I appreciate you taking the time and a fantastic conversation. Where can people get more from you? Where can people go?
- [23:02]
B
Lifehikes.com or social media, LinkedIn, Fortune, fortunately, apparently couldn't find anybody better and asked me to write their leadership column. And. But if anything, you know, and I can see why everybody's so impressed with you. Travis, but I do have the opportunity to work with and meet with some of the most powerful wise people. So anything that comes out of my mouth that sounds remotely intelligent, I guarantee you I'm parroting one of them. The dumb stuff is the stuff I thought of myself. Yeah.
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A
Are we all, are we all
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B
happy to be of help in our small way and look forward to following you more?
- [23:38]
A
Billy Hoogterp, thank you so much for taking the time to join me on the show. Go check out life hikes and some of the things that Billy's up to. I know you will not regret that. Thank you so much for taking the time, sir. I appreciate your time. I know you're got a lot of demands on that time, so I appreciate you taking some of it with us here today. For everybody else tuning in, 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 you guys next time. Peace.