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Travis Makes Money
SOLO | Make Money Through Relationships, Respect, and Lifelong Learning- Lessons from my Shaquille O’Neal interview
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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 another episode of the show. On this episode, it's just me, you, and the mic, and we are recapping some of the amazing people that I've had on the show. And this episode is perhaps, I mean, it's the answer that I give to anybody whenever they ask me, what is your, you know, favorite episode you've ever done? Or who's your favorite guest you ever done? And frankly, before this guest, it was hard to pick because it's like, it's sort of like choosing one of your kids. It's like, I don't know, like, there's so many different people, there's so many different walks of life, there's so many different, like, we've talked about comedy, we talked about entertainment, we've talked about sports, we've talked about, you know, we've talked to billionaires about building businesses, we talked to best selling authors who sold millions of books. Like, I don't know, take your pick. Like, what are you most interested in? Like, I don't know how to answer that question a lot of times, but then I had this guy on the show and I was like, yeah, that's the easy, clear answer. Now at this point, and it's Shaquille o'. Neal. I, I don't really have to explain who this is, but for context of terms of like, why this was so important to me. So not only is it Shaq, but also because Shaq is like my childhood hero. I was grew up in LA area, I was a big Lakers fan, played a ton of basketball. And Shaq was all over my room. Like, Shaq bobbleheads and jerseys and basketball cards and, you know, you name it, I had it in there. I even had a mural of Shaq backing down Ben Wallace in the playoffs painted on the on my bedroom wall. So I was a die hard Shaq fan and remained that way even, even in his post career because he was somebody who obviously has had a very successful career post, having already a successful, like basketball career, which is not the norm, you know, especially for big men. He was kind of the first big man to like really own the post career world. Like that means even to this day, I don't, I don't know of any. Anybody else who has come through the league, played, then also had a phenomenal career afterwards. So there's a lot of things that I was interested in talking to him about. This connection with Shaq came from a friend of mine who has a cancer foundation who ran a bunch of AAU teams in Southern California. And so he's really well connected with a lot of professional athletes. Him and his brother been doing that for decades. And so he was, he had his charity foundation, they had some sort of a charity auction, and I donated to the charity and then got the connection through him to have Shaq on. But it was supposed to only be like a five minute FaceTime thing just to like, say, hey, say hello to my friend. He's a big fan. And then it. And then as soon as I got on the call, I was basically like, hey. When I started my podcast, you know, at the time, I think it was five years ago or whatever, I said, you were the first name that I wrote down in terms of dream guests. And I was like, and I know this isn't a podcast interview, but it's second best. And I appreciate your time. I appreciate you taking the time to have a chat. And he was like, well, if you want, just go ahead and record this. You have my permission to record this, and we'll just turn it into an episode. And so Instead of a five minute FaceTime call, he let me, you know, chat with him for a solid 20 minutes on the, on the podcast and turn it into a podcast episode, which was pretty cool. And then now it's cool because I was able to build some other relationships with some people in his. In his world. And then we just filmed a new episode for a new show called Dinner Party, and Shaq actually came out in person for over an hour, and we filmed together doing that too. So really it's been a. It's been a treat for me to be able to have those experiences with him. And it just goes to show, again, the value of continuing to build relationships over a long period of time. But here's a few of my takeaways from my first conversation with Shaq. I don't want to spoil any of the stuff that we got in the second one. So this is my first conversation with Shaq, and here's some of my. My biggest takeaways. Number one, respect is the foundation of every argument you'll ever have. Shaq's answer to what video would you make for the world? Because I asked him, basically, if you could. If you could guarantee that a video would go viral and everybody in the world would see it, what would be the message that you would want to put on that? And it wasn't about, you know, politics or money or fame or anything like that. It was just about respect. And he said if we. If we just went back to truly just respecting each other's thoughts and opinions, a lot of the vision that we see today would start to fade because we spend so much, you know, energy trying to win arguments that we forget the other person has just as much right to their view as we have to our view. And he was basically just. This was sort of like close to Covid time, I want to say. This was like 2021, maybe 2022. So it was like at the top of everybody' how divided the country was over so many different things. And so he was just like, man, I don't like that we've gotten away from. Just having respect for fellow human beings does not mean that you have to agree with everything that everybody does, and it doesn't mean you have to like everybody. And obviously, there are bad people in the world and there are people with nefarious intentions, and that is a little bit of a different conversation. But for the most part, the majority of us are just trying to do the best that we can with the information that we have. We're trying to live a good life. We're trying to love our family, to provide to. To just exist and have a good life and be at peace with most people. Yet we find so many reasons to attack other people, people who we would probably have way more in common than we don't have in common. But for some reason, we tend to choose. We tend to choose to focus on the things that we don't have in common and then highlight those, bring them out, and then use that to cause more division. Instead of, like Shaq said, lead with respect and just say, hey, you know, just because you hold a different opinion than mine does not mean that you do not deserve my respect as a human being. So respect was the. Was the first lesson from him. Number two, this was in terms of parenting I asked him parenting advice. He said, be firm with your boys, tender with your girls. And he said he learned this the hard way. He said he treated his daughter the same way that he'd address his sons. And then she cried for like four minutes. And so he was just like, yeah, just hard on the boys, soft on the girls. It sounds simple, but it also like, here's my thing. It's not even necessarily just like a boys, girls thing, in my opinion. What I took away from this mostly was like, understand that your child, that your children are gonna react differently, they're gonna have different personalities, they're going to learn differently, they're going to express themselves differently and so be intuitive enough as a parent to be able to sort of adjust the way that you work with each of your kids individually versus like, it's not necessarily, he's not, he's not saying that he like soft on his girls, like they're not going to have to learn how to do stuff in life or whatever. He's just saying, you know, she reacted differently. And I realized, oh, I can't use this parenting style that I've used with my boys with her. It's going to have to be different. And I appreciated that and especially at the time because I think my daughter, again, I'm, I'm blanking, I'm forgetting the exact date that this was. But I want to say like 2022. And so, you know, my daughter was like 2 at the time, maybe, maybe even less, Maybe even like 18 months, 20 months or something like that. So I really appreciated this advice and it stuck with me since I've, since my daughter's been getting a little bit older now. She's five and a half now. Number three, you have to be both the friend and the parent. When Shaq was growing up, his parents were not his friends, they were parents, full stop. But he acknowledged that the game has changed and his kids needed more from him. They, they, they, you know, got to hold the line as a parent and build the relationship. And that's much more difficult than just playing the one role. And a lot of parents aren't doing both of those things. They're, they're going from one thing to the other thing. And you know, they're either the, the, the drill sergeant, in his case literal drill sergeant, father that he had, or they're the friend who doesn't inject any sort of discipline or routine or, or anything like that into their kids lives. And his argument was that if you want to be a really good parent, you're going to want to do both. You're going to want to build some sort of a relationship with them, friendship with them, while also recognizing that your primary responsibility is to be the parent, is to, is to guide them and to turn them into a competent, respectful, con contributing human being rather than just raise your best friend who you never discipline. And then they're gonna just be living in your basement until they're 40 because you never taught them how to be a competent person in the world.
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so good, so good, so good.
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number four in business, who you know opens the door, but what you know is what keeps you in the room. I like the way that he phrased this because he, he mentioned the story about, about investing in Google and basically he was at some hotel lobby bar or something like that and a stranger's kids ran up to Shaq and he's great with the kids, spent some time with him. And speaking for personal experience as well, he took the time when he was like leaving after we filmed this last project with him and had something that he was leaving too. So he had to kind of like he came in, he spent the time with us, very patient, flexible, which I very much appreciated. But when it was time to go, it was time to go. And so he, when he was walking out, my kids ran up to me because my, my wife had them in another part of the venue. And so when he was walking out, he saw my kids run up to me and then he took an extra few minutes just to say what's up to my kids, to make them laugh, to play with them a little bit. Really, really great with kids. And so he, he's always kind of been like that and, and he was, he was, you know, giving These kids, the time of day when he was, you know, Shaq at bar, I think it was in San Francisco. And the father was so moved that he went up to Shaq, started talking, and he mentioned something about this startup called Google and was, you know, threw out a few things. And then Shaq was like, okay, well, I'll have my team check it out. And his team was like, oh, I think this is legit. This looks like, like a really legit company. And so he put some money in Google back in the startup days, and that investment ended up turning out really well for him. So he, he was talking about that. It's that. It's who you know, that. And I've sort of touched on this in previous episodes. The who, you know, brings the opportunity, it opens the door, it allows you to be able to step into these rooms. But the what you know is what keeps you there. And it's equally important. He can tell any NBA player how to reach, how to reach the level that he's been to, because he's been there. He has that level of competence. It's the what he knows. So, so both of those things matter. The who you know and the what they mat. They both matter, but they matter for different reasons. And neither one alone is enough for the majority of situations. Now, if you take, if you take the, the crazy examples like, you know, the, the, the Elon Musk or the Jeff Bezos or the Mark Zuckerbergs or things like that, they would probably tell you it's what you know, and they are obviously insanely good at the thing that they do. And, and, and Shaq was sort of this way, like his what, you know, brought the who you know. And a lot of times for, for us normal folks, it's probably going to be the opposite of that. The who, you know, is going to bring the what, you know. For Shaq, it was the what, you know, brought the who you know, because he became Shaq first and got really, really, really good at playing basketball and having this big personality and was dancing and making jokes and, and, and, and cracking up all the time. And that's sort of what attracted the volume of, of relationships into his life. To be in a position to even meet the founders of Google at some random hotel and invest in it. So in business, who, you know, opens the door, but what you know is what keeps you in the room. Number five. The three jobs of a man. To protect, to provide, and to love. He boiled it down to what it means to be a good man in the. In the relationship to three letters said ppl Protect, provide, love. And he said most men can give you two of the three, but the goal is to be able to do all three. And when conflict comes, and it will, the rule is simple. Have rules, agree to disagree on Thursday, leave it on Thursday, or schedule a date night, start over. And so, so he's basically just saying to move between these three roles, but master these three rules. And like that. He said that most men will give you two of the three. And I've seen that happen a lot too, where it's like, well, I'm a protector and a provider, but then they don't do much of the loving part. It's like, oh, I love and I protect, but they don't do much of the providing part. You know, so it's to be able to be a holistic man in. To be the father in a household, the husband in a household, to protect, to provide, and to love was how he boiled down the three jobs of a man. So, again, lots of really great stuff in this brief conversation with Shaq. And I'm always just grateful and genuinely shocked when, when I get the opportunity to be able to have conversations with people like him. But he's always been super gracious, really nice, really kind and respectful, which, you know, is the thing that he talked about a lot in this episode. So go check out the full episode with Shaq, but that's it for this one. And then be on the lookout for the new project that we have coming up with Shaq as well. That's it for this episode. We'll catch you guys on the next one. Peace.
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