Insight with Chris Van Vliet - I’m Still Figuring It Out - Chris Van Vliet Is Interviewed By Travis Chappell

Episode Date: May 5, 2022

On this episode of Insight, the tables have turned and I am on the other side of the mic as a guest on Travis Chappell's podcast called "Figuring It Out". I talk about growing up in Pickering, Ontario, Canada and how I fell in love with broadcasting at 4-years old. I also talks about why I decided to study Communication Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University, how I landed my first radio job, my favorite interview moments, what I've learned from my parents and much more! For more information about Chris and INSIGHT go to: https://chrisvanvliet.com If you enjoyed this episode, could I ask you to please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcast/iTunes? It takes less than a minute and makes a huge difference in helping to spread the word about the show and also to convince some hard-to-get guests. Follow CVV on social media: Instagram: instagram.com/ChrisVanVliet Twitter: twitter.com/ChrisVanVliet Facebook: facebook.com/ChrisVanVliet YouTube: youtube.com/ChrisVanVliet CVV CLIPS: youtube.com/CVVCLIPS Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

All systems are gathered. Ladies and gentlemen, Chris Van Blurley. Oh, there you are, my friends. Welcome back to another audio adventure here on Insight. I'm CVV, Chris Van Fleet, and we're turning the tables a little on this episode. That phrase always makes you think of that line in the office, where Michael Scott says, well, well, well, how the turn tables. Any office fans?

You guys with me? but this was an interview where I was the one getting asked the questions. I was a guest on Travis Chappell's podcast called Figuring It Out, and I really love this conversation. I talked about a lot of things here that I've never talked about publicly, and I think it really dives deep into what makes me tick. And when you're done with this episode, go check out figuring it out on the podcast app that you're listening on right now.

He's had some amazing, guests. Shaquille O'Neill, Rob Deerick, Ed Milette, who's actually going to be a guest on my show in the next few weeks. So that's just a sampling of some of the amazing guests that he's had. And give Travis a follow on social media. He's at Travis Chapel on Instagram, at Travis C. Chapel on Twitter. And if you're not following me, at Chris Van Fleet. Also, take a screenshot. Let us know what really hit home for you from this conversation and tag us so we can share it as well. our fan of the week, Theo Kling, who says, awesome podcast. Love the tips on this podcast.

Just thank you so much. Well, no, Theo. Thank you so much. Appreciate you reading or leaving a review on Apple Podcasts. I read one on every episode. It's my way to say thank you for being on this journey with me. And it's my like small token of appreciation for you being with me on this. And if you're listening on Spotify, they have ratings.

So it'd be awesome if you could go in there. and leave a rating on Spotify. Okay, let's get to this with the turn tables here. The table's being turned. It's my interview with Travis Chappell on his podcast, figuring it out. What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to another episode of Figuring It Out. Today, I'm joined in studio by my man, Chris Van Fleet.

What's up, bro? Thanks so much for joining me. Dude, thank you so much for having me. Great setup here, too. Hey, thanks. You know, it's not too shabby. It's not too shabby for the spare bedroom in home studio. Nobody would know that unless you said it.

Yeah, that's true. This is your studio. Yeah. This is your Las Vegas studio right here. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. So, so, dude, when we first connected, I started following your stuff and I was like, man, how if I'm not seen this guy before?

And so now big fan of, you know, insight with what you're doing and likewise. Personal brand and everything that you got going on. I want to rewind the clock and talk with you a little bit about how you got to where you are. And it's always fascinating to me whenever I'm talking to somebody like yourself that picked that picked a different path in life, right? You didn't go down the traditional path. You probably wouldn't be, you know, where you are right now. So let's rewind the clock. Talk to me about growing up, you know, six, seven, eight year old Chris Van Vleet, you know, well, set the scene for us. What was your family like, you know, religious? Did you like school? You know, give us the whole kind of background.

So I grew up just outside of Toronto. So I'm Canadian. I grew up in a town called Pick. occurring Ontario population like 92,000, have an older sister. And my parents are the greatest example of companionship and friendship and love. They're celebrating their 47th wedding anniversary this year. Wow. So I grew up in a family just full of love and I felt like I had endless possibilities. I could do whatever I want. My parents would just open the door and say, yeah, sure, whatever you want to do, you can do it. I played a lot of sports growing up. T-ball was the first one. Okay. Growing up in Canada, of course you play. hockey. Yeah, got to. The only sports I had in my elementary school were track and field,

cross-country, volleyball, and basketball. I did them all. Then I got into high school. I played baseball there. I got on the wrestling team there. And sports was always a really big part of my life. Yeah. But I remember being four years old and I was given a Fisher Price radio, like a tape recorder, with like a microphone attached to it. Yeah, yeah. And I would pretend to be a radio broadcaster. And that's like where my, at four years old, just, you know, I loved listening to the Blue Jays on the radio. What year was this? 1987. I love listening to Blue Jays on the radio. So I would pretend to be the radio announcers and I would like record these little, you know, tapes of that. That's my first memory of it.

And I remember just being like so passionate about that and so like drawn into the idea of people that were on TV or on radio. I was in some plays growing up. I was just, I loved the idea of presenting to people. Yeah, did that persist throughout high school and that too? I was the vice president of my student council. Okay. Mostly because the vice president got to do the morning announcements. So I'm like, oh, if I get to be the vice president, I'm the guy who gets to do the morning announcements.

Right. We did like, it was like, good morning, Pine Ridge. Every morning. You kind of like, good morning, Vietnam. Yeah. We also had a communication studies class in my high school. And we basically made TV every single week. Really?

We had a little TV studio inside my high school. And you would rotate through the different roles. So you were the VTR operations. the audio guy, the camera operator. That's so cool. This is in high school. This is in high school. And that's when I learned what communication studies was.

So when it came time to pick a college major, I'm like, that communication studies class was pretty fun. Yeah. Let's do that. I mean, it seemed like a crazy long shot to even think about the idea of possibly being on TV. Yeah. But I was like, I don't know, you're 17 or 18 years old when you're picking your

college major. Yeah, right? Which is crazy, right? Dude. Yeah, talk about that for a second. We could talk about that for an hour. The idea of like, what do you want to do with the rest of your life? That's how you feel.

Decide. Decide now. And then you realize. Stick to it. Never, never waver from that. Yeah. And I think you realize in your 20s and your 30s that you're like, oh, that's not actually how it is. Right.

Or how many people do you know and I know that went to school for one thing? And they're doing something completely different for their career. So many. Like almost everybody. Almost everybody. You know, like you saying that you went to school for that and then actually ended up doing it. Like, I don't know, I don't remember the last time. The only somebody told me that that actually happened to them. Like, yeah, I knew I was a kid and I liked this thing in high school and I did

in college and that's what I do. Yeah, that's so rare. Very, very rare. The only reason, one of the main reasons I pick communication studies is because, yes, it is broadcasting, but it's also marketing and it's a little bit of sales and it's PR. And I'm like, oh, if broadcasting doesn't work out, I could work in publicity or something like that. There's adjacent careers. Yeah. In college, I worked out. at a sports store, like I was selling like skis and snowboards and skates. And like once a month, we'd have a product rep come in and tell us about the new lineup for the year. And I'm like, oh, I could be that guy. Like standing in front of the group being like, check out these new

CCM hockey skates. Yeah. Push these to your customers. Exactly. And I'm like, if this TV thing doesn't work out, that could be a really cool path. Sure. Yeah. It's amazing what, what paths are open from learning how to communicate with people. Oh, it's everything. Yeah. It is, especially an age where technology takes over most things. Yeah. You know, where technology is automating so many other people's jobs, I still just don't think we're ever going to get away from, you know, having to have a person to communicate with. Yeah.

Especially, you know, if you're spending anything over 20 bucks or whatever. Human communication, I think it's just so important. Yeah. Human connection. Like my friend wrote a book called Every Conversation counts. And when you really start to think about it, everything that you have in your life or don't have in your life is a direct resolve of a conversation. conversation you've either had or haven't had.

Right. And when you start to think about it that way, you're like, well, I guess we're kind of all in the communication business. Sure. Yeah. Definitely something that probably helped throughout the rest of your career. Yeah. Where'd you go to college?

I went to school just outside of Toronto, Wilford Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario. So if you ever go to Canada, he is the guy on the $5 bill. Okay. He's the $5 bill in Canada is blue, by the way. The money is all different colors there. Yeah. Like when people talk about green money, when I was growing up, I'm like, well, the green one is the $20 bill. I don't know what you guys are talking about. All the money here is green. All of it. Yeah. So coming out of

college, what was the path? So I was pretty dead set on I was going to give it my best shot to try to be on TV. And I had an epiphany, Travis, in my final year of college. I woke up one morning. I was having the best time in college. Like, college is a lot of fun, right? You're meeting a lot of people. You're experiencing a lot of new things. You know, beer is a big part of your life. It's a great time. It is. It's a pastime. Minor and beer.

Yeah, mine am majored in it. I don't know. I was living with four of my best friends. And I woke up one morning and we were going to graduate at the end of that year. So like seven months from now. And I woke up and I went, oh, my God. When I graduate, that's it. Yeah.

I got to go to the real world and work for the rest of my life. and you're 21 years old having this realization. Yeah, yeah. And in that exact moment, I went, I just want to make sure that I don't hate my job. I saw too many people that couldn't enjoy Sunday because Monday was the next day. And I was so aware of the fact that you work for half of the time that you're awake.

Right. You spend more time with your colleagues. Right, right. You spend more time with your colleagues than you do with your husband or your wife. Yet so many people put so much time into date, and who they're going to marry and all that and put very little time or thought into the job they're going to have.

So in that exact moment, I had that epiphany. It hit me like a ton of bricks. I reached out to every radio station in my college town, every TV station in my college town, and just said, I want to do this.

Can I just come in and see how it's done in the real world? Yeah. And one radio station said, sure, come in. He reached out, literally just like sent an email or a letter. Yes, cold email. Cold email. Just, hi, I'm a fourth year,

communication studies major, super passion about broadcast. Can I come in and volunteer? Yeah. Radio station said, come be part of our street team. So I handed out like stickers at events. A TV station in town was run by volunteers. It was like a community run TV station, like public access.

Interesting. Okay. They were like, absolutely. Do you pick the days? Come on in. And like I got to like learn in the real world. And this other radio station said, we don't take on volunteers, but how would you like a job? And I went, okay, sure.

That's like volunteering, but I get paid for it. They said, yeah, we can't really do volunteers because, like, our insurance, but this only pays $8 an hour. Is that okay? I'm like, that is $8 more than I thought I was going to make. And I was a board operator running a board kind of like that board that you have there, like a soundboard for all these different talk shows. And that's how I really got started.

And then fast forward a little bit. It was time to graduate. I knew I needed an internship to hopefully possibly set up a job, reached out to a a bunch of TV stations. Nobody got back to me. I found this one TV station that was about 60 miles from my hometown. And there was a really small TV station. And I sent an email to them and I said, hey, it's spring break next week. I'm actually going to be in Peterborough. It'd be great if I could just come into you and talk about a possible internship. This is a total lie. I had no plans on being there. I hadn't been in this town in 10 or 15 years. But I had scoured the internet to find the email address for

the general manager of the TV station, just hoping he might respond. And he did. He said, well, if you're going to be in town, sure, come on by. And I came in. He looked at my resume. He goes, oh, you've actually done quite a bit of stuff. Like, that looks good. We don't normally do this, but sure, I'll take a chance on you. It can be an intern. Nice. My first day of interning was like me following out a reporter. And when you're at a small station, they're doing everything. Shooting, writing, reporting, everything. Yeah, yeah. And I was following them around. doing the whole thing. Two weeks into my internship, the news director, no, the assignment planner goes, here's your story for the day. I said, oh, cool, like, which who am I following today?

He goes, you're going to be following Terry, but this is your story. You're going to shoot it. You're going to write it. You're going to edit it. You're going to be on the news tonight. Two weeks. Two weeks into my internship. Wow. So you're 21, 22. It was my 22nd birthday. Wow. Yeah. What a birthday present, right? Yeah. And then from that day on, my internship was basically like free labor for them like a free like reporter on TV. And then, and by the way, I was working my old high school job at the mall in the fish department of a pet store to pay for the gas so I could drive the 60 miles to go to my internship. So like think about the juxtaposition of you're on TV one day. The next day you're scooping like dead goldfish out of bowls. Yeah. But see, this is the part of success that

nobody likes to talk about because any more, I call it a disease. I think there's this disease of entitlement that's taken over, running rampant. And maybe that, and maybe that, frankly, is just an American thing. Maybe that's just an American privilege to be entitled to thinking that you deserve something for the sake of being alive or whatever, because you could have been in that position easily. And I'm sure there's a bunch of other people that you went to school with that probably were in that position and got the same degree. And, you know, and then those are the people that get jealous of success and want you to fail and stuff like that because they never figured it out. And at the end of the day, like, you didn't just graduate and somebody called you and went,

hey, we want you to be on TV and we want you to be on interviewing A-list celebrities on the red carpet. Like, that didn't happen. You know, it was very much like, I have to make something happen for myself. And I'm willing to do it for free. And which brings up another. great point, which is why it's so important to your point earlier about being, having some sort of passion about what it is that you're doing. Because if you're, like, if you're not, especially when you're that young, if you're not willing to come in and work for free, then you're thinking about things the wrong way. Yeah. Somebody asked me in an interview, I think, yesterday, you know, what I would tell my younger self, one of those, you know, boilerplate

questions everybody asks. And, and I think what, what I ended up saying was something along the lines of I wish I would have prioritized learning rather than trying to go earn because I think that I would have taken a little bit of a different path. And obviously, you know, I'm not a big believer in regret and I'm happy with where I've ended up. But that being said, like if I'm giving advice to somebody else, like I would like exactly what you did is the path that I would recommend people take rather than like I just did door door sales and tried to make money. I was like, hey, how can I make six figures, six figures, six figures, you know, not thinking about like the future. I'm going like, oh, six figures is not that much. You know what I mean? But you took a different.

and said, I'll work for free. I just know that this is what I want to do. And because I know this is what I want to do, like, it doesn't matter to me if you pay me $0, $1,000, maybe $5, I got a commutes for an hour, hour and a half, keep my other job working in the fish department. It doesn't matter. I'm going to do it, and I'll be there. And I'll show up with a great attitude. I don't make the best of the situation. And I learned so much. Yeah. Like the fact that, and I was editing tape to tape back in the day. So it was like one DVC Pro tape to another DVC Pro tape before like we were doing this yeah with non-linear editing on a computer so like I learned a ton I'm also super grateful that I had the opportunity to live at my parents house and I also had the

opportunity to have you know to drive a car like that we had a second car that I could drive there like I think a lot of things lined up for that to work and a lot of things lined up for me to be able to do that too sure sure yeah and it's obviously yeah good to recognize some of those things as well. So at what point in that did you feel like not only am I currently, you know, hosting some TV stuff, but like I think I could turn this into a real living, like a real career. Yeah. So the internship ended up turning into a job when I went into my general manager's office

and basically said, like, thank you so much for this opportunity. I just can't keep afford. I can't afford to do this. And he's like, oh, Chris, been meaning to talk to you. You're right. You're not going to be an intern anymore. We don't have a position, but I just created one for you. Congratulations.

You're now part of the news team. Okay. Well, this went extraordinarily well. That's amazing. Thank you. Can I quit the job of the pet store? He's like, sure, I don't care. Do whatever you want.

I'm like, this is amazing. Yeah, yeah. So I was at that job for about a year and a half. Did it come with a little bit of a pay raise? Yeah. From $0 to, I think, 14, 7. 78 an hour, which, you know, way more than the $8 I was making the other place. Sure.

Yeah. And what is this? What year is this? This is 2005. Okay. So, decent. Went a little bit further back then for sure. Yeah, a little bit.

Yeah. Certainly paid for my gas, which was important. So I was reporting on news stories. And when you're at a local TV station, it's a bit of a stretch sometimes for what is considered news. Yeah. And I was there for about a year and a half. And I was just like, this is good. Just like reporting on the local bakeoff.

fur or something like that. Oh, my, all that stuff. Do you remember any, like, interesting ones that, like, oh, I remember being pitched a story that it was like, there's a cat that lives in a retirement home. And I was like, okay, so what's the story? They're like, no, that is the story. That's the whole story.

I went, hold on. So the stories that there's a cat. And they're like, yeah, but he makes people feel good. I'm like, okay. That's what cats do. I remember a. I remember a story that there was a new stop sign. No way.

Yeah. I mean, this is like cottage country. This is like... Yeah, right, right. Yeah. The local, local. Yeah. Right.

Which I'm so grateful for the opportunity. And I was on TV every day and I was actually anchoring the news on Sundays, which was really cool. Wow. Yeah. I should dig up those terrible, terrible tapes of that. Oh, dude. Those would be golden. It'd be so bad.

I've got to find a way to take DVC Pro and digitize it. I don't think anyone. uses that anymore. But I was kind of like, this is great, but I don't think that at 22, I want to be a news reporter or I want to be a news anchor. I just saw this as a way to like learn about television. Sure. Yeah. So I was sending my stuff out to any television show that I could ever find. I was just submitting my stuff. The thing is, when you work at a local TV station, all of the footage that you have is you reporting on local news. Right. So I would go out after my shift was done because we had access to all the cameras and mics. And I would go out and fake that I was reporting on

like much cooler stories. So I would set up the camera in a field and be like, oh, yeah, like the new, I remember Rocky Balboa, the movie had just come out. And I'm like, oh, Rocky Balboa hits theaters this weekend. You know we're talking to Sylvester Stallone. No, we're not. But I would fake this stuff like we were. You know he's coming through Peterborough. So I was applying for all these things and, like, no one was taking my stuff very seriously. And then there was a job opening in Vancouver, which is the other side of the country. It's like where Seattle is. And I submitted my stuff.

And, like, I looked at what they were looking for. It was like, two years experience. I'm like, I've got that. And it was like, know how to like, like, I think it was know how to operate a camera. I'm like, I do that right now. And I'm like, this is my job. Right. I've got to get this job.

So I submitted. my stuff didn't hear anything from them. But on the application was the name of the person that was doing the hiring. So I'm like, I'm going to give her a call. So I called the TV station and asked for her by name. And they were like, one moment, please. And I'm like, oh, my God, this is working. I can't believe it. They put me through to her desk. I left a voicemail. She ended up emailing me back and said, like, we're going through like the tapes right now. We'll let you know if, you know, we want to talk to you further. In the email signature was her direct phone line. And I'm like, I will be calling you in a few days.

Right, right. And sure enough, a few days later, I called her. She picked up. And I said, oh, hey, you know, I just wanted to make sure you saw my stuff. I'm actually going to be in Vancouver next week. And since I'm going to be there, it'd just be great to talk to you about the job. And she's like, oh, well, if you're going to be here, sure, how about next Thursday? Again, like a total last, the five-hour flight now, yeah.

Yeah, as soon as I hung up the phone, I'm like, Dad, can I fly to Vancouver? My dad worked for an airline for many, well, this whole career. Okay. So we made it happen. I flew out there and five minutes in they started talking about salary and I'm like, I think I got this job. This is crazy. That's awesome. So that was kind of where things started to get going for me. That's when I started to go, okay. Well, it turned into a real job. Yes. Where you got like real pay. Yeah. Moved to across the country. Moved my entire life in a 1995 Toyota Corolla. Yeah, nice. A 47 hour drive. Yeah. So that was kind of where it switched for me and that was where I went from doing local news stories about, you know, the cat in the retirement home, to my first day on the job was following the rapper Chingi around for the entire day. So my first day was like thrown to the wolves like, hey, you're going to spend the day with Chingi, make a story out of it. I was like, okay. He's the right thar guy for everybody

watching at home. Right thar, right thar. Yeah, yeah. So that was kind of where it really shifted. And then from there, that's when I started doing a lot of celebrity interviews with actors, directors, comedians, musicians. For the same... That was MTV2, Canada. MTV2 Canada in Vancouver. And that's when things really started to take off for me.

This is mid-20s? This is 2006 and 7. Okay. And that's also when I did my first... I'm a big wrestling fan. I did my first interview with a wrestler there, Bobby Lashley, and started to kind of realize

that when you were interviewing celebrities, you could also, sometimes, kind of put your other interest into there. Like, I was a UFC fan. Well, all of a sudden, I have a great platform where I can interview UFC athletes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I can interview WWE superstars. The people that you, like, looked up to. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So there's been a lot of really cool opportunities like that. The United States Soccer Federation present the U.S. soccer podcast. My name is David Goss, and I'm joined by my co-host, Megan Klanber.

And now we're giving people an inside look at the World Cup. Times ticking. I think you can feel the intensity. All the guys are wanting to really stick their claimant, and they want to be on that World Cup roster. There's no doubt about it. Hosting the World Cup on the home soil comes with its pressures, but we're just really excited just as the people are.

The U.S. Soccer podcast, presented by Henko. Follow and listen on your favorite platform. During that time that you were there, was there anything that really popped out to you in terms of skills that you were consciously working on refining in order to be able to take it next level? Did you look at people doing something else and go, like, that's the next step, but I'm not quite there. need of work on these couple of things. Yeah. So again, this is 2006-7. And I remember much music was the

main TV station that we were kind of working under. It's kind of like MTV in the U.S. or like Fuse. Okay. And they were uploading raw interviews with like, like uncut interviews, 15, 20 minute interviews with these like big name musicians. And I was like at the time going, man, my full interviews are not good. My full, if you took the full 20 minutes, you'd be like, yeah, that part was good and that part was good. Yeah. As a whole, not great. I really. started to work on turning my interviews into conversations and trying to make them flow a little bit more. Isn't it crazy how difficult that is? So difficult. Dude, like the weirdest part to me about starting the podcast was how difficult it was to interview. It was the last thing in my mind. I had so many

other things in my mind like, you got to figure out a launch. You got to get a microphone. Got to do all this other stuff. And it's like, the interview is like, oh, whatever. I'll write down some questions. That'll be fine. Yeah. I talk all the time. Yeah, yeah, right. Yeah, exactly. And then I sit down and I was like, this was this was dreadful this is horrible nobody's gonna listen to this I'm just like just nervously going from question to question zero idea how to transition

you know what I mean like you just do that awkward like okay yeah okay cool and also you're not listening at all yeah right you're just trying to focus on your next question yeah like that person could give you the biggest reveal every you're just like okay so why is your album called this I'm laughing this hard because, man, God bless them, because I was the same way,

but I just had a few interviews this past week where I was on some people's shows, and it was that way. And I was just like, I do not miss those days, man. Yeah, and I think that the problem is we don't use the word interview in our everyday life. Sure. Like, if you're a normal person, the only time you're being interviewed is for a job. Exactly. And maybe if the police are bringing you in for something.

Yeah, right. God forbid. That's it. Yeah. That's it. Yeah. So I think that people hear the word interview and they think about it with a capital I and they're like, oh my God, it's an interview. It's like, no, no. This is grabbing a beer with your friend. This is bumping into somebody at the mall. Like, that's what this should be. Yeah, at least should feel that way. It should feel that way. The best ones are when you get done and you look at the clock and you're like, wow, that was that was an hour. I don't feel like that. When I at first, it just, dude, it was pulling teeth to get to like 18 minutes. I think one of the best things about podcast. podcasting now is it's one of the very few times when you're kind of like in this vacuum like

I'm not looking at my phone you're not looking at your phone right and that very rarely happens now yep in our life yeah very I think that people forget how to be bored now like that's true so they're not okay with being bored yeah yeah like because fidget right you're standing in line at the DMV as soon as you see there's three people in front of you the very first thing you do yeah so you reach for your phone the commercial comes on during the game the very first thing you do is reach for your phone. Yep. And I think that people have forgotten how to do this.

Yeah. You just play a game called How Many Screens. Sometimes I look around the living room, you know, and it's like, oh, we got the, you go, got the iPad up for the recipe, and then you got the TV on. I'm looking at my phone. My son's on his iPad and my wife's on her phone is like, how, what is happening right now, you know? Yeah. But, yeah, to get back to you, to get back to your point about interviewing. So that was the skill set that you realized needed some work.

And it was that. And it was also just becoming more comfortable on camera. Okay. I mean, I think now in 2022, we're a lot more comfortable on camera. We're used to like taking selfies. Yeah. We're used to like videoing ourselves. Everybody's on camera all the time.

Right. Yeah. And you do have that adjustment of like, oh, that's what I really sound like or that's what I really look like. Like I do that thing with my eyebrows when I talk, really? Always hate it. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, it's having that self-awareness. And I think in broadcasting, it takes a good two or three years. Yeah. to get used to the broadcasting version of yourself. To get used to that slightly amped up version of you, like the best version of you on your best day. Yeah. And it's a little bit more polished.

I think it takes a little bit of time to go, oh, that is me. Yeah, it's pretty weird when, because you don't want to overdo it, right? Yeah. Like, it's weird when people, when you can tell the people are overdoing it, when it's clearly just,

this is not you at all. Yeah. You're not an actor. You don't have to act like you're a good broadcast. or, you know, like, you've got to find your authentic self. Be a little bit bigger than what you are right now because that's what this demands. Yeah. And the camera flattens it, which is a really interesting thing.

I realize that really early. You think that you're giving it your all and you watch it back and you're like, this new album is coming out. And you're like, oh, okay, got to turn it up. So I was watching a lot of stuff back to just kind of try to find that balance. Yeah. Any advice for somebody listening who, you know, maybe they're a podcaster, maybe they're trying to get into real broadcasting or whatever,

and they're looking at it going like, man, I feel that, and I don't know how to get better at it. Yeah, I think it's just do it, like reps, like just do it. Because everyone always points to Joe Rogan when it comes to podcasting. He's on episode 1700 and something right now, which is unbelievable. And you're on episode 800 and something, like, amazing. People aren't remembering what episode 16 of the Joe Rogan experience looked like or sounded like. Or even episode 400 and something.

Right. So I think it's just get the reps in and be patient too. Yeah. I think that unfortunately, people will put out like three episodes. They'll see the numbers and they'll go, well, this is. What a waste of time. This is. It's like, no, it's a lot of time, right? It's booking the guests. It's researching it. It's actually doing it. It's producing and it's editing it. It's uploading it and it's promoting it. And if you don't love every aspect of that, you're probably not going to be that successful. Yeah, right. For me, it was always looking at the long term. It was always envisioning, like, yeah, some of this sucks. And yeah, it's not fun to like take my off hours and work on something that makes me zero dollars right now. You know what I mean? And sometimes that sucks.

And being consistent when nobody's listening, yeah, that sucks. And like going in the hole every month to pay for production because I don't want to do it myself, yeah, that sucks. You know, or learning production. If you can't afford to pay somebody, that also sucks. Yeah. Yeah. But to me, it's always a, it's, it's, I think people are undervaluing the attention aspect, meaning that, meaning that if you can do it once and you can do it really well, meaning like if you can earn people's attention, whether it takes two years or it takes 15 years, if you start early enough, then that end game is worth all of the years that you put into it

because of everything that it generates you for the rest of your life. Yeah, I think it's really, important to be clear on why you're getting into it. Yes. You need to figure that out on day one or day zero. You gotta figure out, are you doing this for a hobby? Are you doing this because you wanna make some money one day? Right. And that's a really important thing because they both are two very different

looking paths. And I was really fortunate early on that when I started uploading my videos to YouTube in 2011, I wasn't thinking about this as an income source. I don't even know the Google AdSense existed. Yeah. I was just taking the interviews I was doing for my TV station and going, Man, that was a really good interview with Oprah or Brad Pitt or Jennifer Lawrence. And unless you're watching TV at 417, that Thursday afternoon tuned into Channel 19, you didn't see it.

Right. So I just took those interviews, put them on YouTube as kind of like a digital library. And then like maybe six months later, I was talking to a colleague and he goes, oh, yeah, you're making some money from those, right? I'm like, hold on what? He goes, yeah, you go in like Google AdSense. You fill out a form. You click a couple buttons.

And then those ads you see on YouTube, you make some money from them. I said, this is insane. Are you serious? And then my goal was to make the threshold, which is $100 on Google AdSense. I'm like, if I could make $100 extra dollars a month, like $1,000 a year for doing nothing. It's amazing. And then the hundreds started turning into multiple hundreds. And then sometimes I'd have months where I was making $1,000.

And I was like, this is amazing. I was so fortunate, though, that that wasn't my main focus. Sure. It was just kind of an afterthought of like, oh, cool interview with The Rock. I'm just throwing on the YouTube channel. Right. And then it just started turning into something where those were getting way more views than what I was doing on TV. What, when did it shift? Like at what point were you like, man, YouTube's it. That's the game. It mean, it took a while for it to go, I'm making enough money here with the 20% of my free time. Real quick, how did the TV station feel about like you taking the content that they were basically facilitating your filming of and putting it

on a private channel that like was it just it was so early in the process they didn't really know about it. They didn't even think. Yeah, I think that that's a thing now. Like I think now that if you signed a TV contract now, I think they're saying, you know, this is all our content. Sure. Yeah. But I was also starting to realize when I had 20 or 30,000 subscribers in 2015, 16, like, oh, maybe I can shoot some stuff with my iPhone and do that on my own and put that up in my channel. Yeah. So that's kind of when I started going, oh, there's something here. Yeah. But it wasn't until like 2018. That's when I hit 100,000 subscribers. Okay. And that's when I really started gaining momentum. Yeah. I had some months where I was getting like 10,000 or sorry, 10 million views. Oh, wow.

And I was like, I think we're on to something here. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm doing this with 20, like the 20% of my free time. what if I were to flip that around? Sure. What if I was doing this with 80% of my time? What could it turn into then? Yeah. Let's talk relationships throughout this entire journey, career. You're able to build some amazing relationships that now have, you know, you've mentioned

a few people, but, you know, The Rock and John Cena and all these people you've been able to sit down and interview that you interviewed before on TV. But now, like, these are people that you still interview currently for your podcast or YouTube channel and things like that. I'll talk about maybe kind of the importance of those relationships and doing a good job. Like a TV station can get interviews with people when they're on press tours, right? All the time. All the time.

But if you're an independent podcaster or a YouTuber or something, which is obviously someone we talk about a lot, it's not easy to go get some of those people to say yes. And so for them to trust that you had the distribution that made it worth their time, you had to have done a good enough job with them when you were getting the opportunities originally. Yeah. And I think it just comes down to value. Like what kind of value are you going to be able to give? Because it's obvious what John Sino or the Rock or Oprah or whoever is giving to you. They're giving you their time and their expertise. What are you giving in exchange for that?

So I think the fact that like John Sino was a really big one. So when he was promoting Fast and Furious Nine, I was able to like get on that press tour, which was like, that was huge because everybody else in the press tour was an actual TV station or TV network. But for me to be on there. and to get like everybody else was getting four minutes. I got like 12 minutes with him. Like that said a lot. So I think that they realized a lot of my people that are watching my channel are wrestling

fans. John Cena still has a lot of fans who are wrestling fans. Like this is a no-brainer. I'm hoping that as we go into 2022 and beyond that more people will start to realize that. And we're seeing this, you know, with Hot Box and Mike Tyson's show. Yeah. Or with impulsive. Like that's a different situation.

because that's a celebrity that has a podcast. Sure. Or hot ones. Hot ones, yeah. But we're starting to see this where it's like, you're just a, just. You're just a podcast that gets, you know, millions of views. Or you're just a YouTube channel that gets millions of views. I think it's starting to shift where they go, oh, eyeballs or eyeballs.

Exactly. Whether they're on a TV screen or on a phone, they're still eyeballs. Yeah, because the point is for those types of people, they don't need the credibility of the TV station. Yeah. to make people, you know what I'm saying? Like, if it's somebody that you haven't heard of, like, they want to get on TV because TV brings it an air of credibility to the stage, right? But if you're talking to The Rock or John Cena, they're bringing the credibility to the TV

station. You know what I mean? Like, everybody knows what they are. So, like, the game for them is not credibility. The game is attention, eyeballs, how many people can we get exposed to this new movie release or this TV show that we've been working on or this new project or energy? And then, like, it goes, God, I want to start a podcast. And you know what I mean?

And it's starting to shift. You know, it's starting to shift a little bit where they're realizing that it's just a matter of how many people can you reach. So, yeah, I mean, hopefully, obviously, you know, we're positioning guestio in a way that hopefully that's going to be picking up on that trend. But I think that, you know, we're seeing a lot of that stuff happen continuously more and more celebrities are, you know, are seeing this as a, as a more verified, credible form of media and promotion. Oh, yeah. Matthew McConaughey did, I mean, I don't even know, 25, 30 podcasts. What he did was brilliant. Yeah, yeah, to sell his book.

And who's going to say no to Matthew McCona? Well, right. And it makes sense, too, because, like, a lot of people who listen to podcasts are, tend to be, if you look at the data, have higher degrees. Like, they're more educated. They're more looking for external education. They're, on average, have higher household income. You know, so, like, a lot of times, they're more qualified prospects,

especially for something like a book, rather than a movie or something like that. Like, if someone. really wants to get their message out right now. They're going to Joe Rogan. Yeah, right. And they're having a three-hour conversation with Joe Rogan. Instead of a five-minute, you know, quick interview from, name the host. Which, you know, there's nothing wrong with going on the Tonight Show or Ellen or something like that.

There's still a lot of prestige there. Oh, yeah. But three hours with Joe Rogan, it's basically like you're in the room with him. Yeah, and the thing that happens after that is that the people who still come to you after they listen to you for three hours, they're your people. Oh, yeah. You can't, you can fake

a five-minute interview on TV. And most of those are pretty scripted, too. Yeah, right. Tonight Show interviews are scripted. They talked about it in the green room and, you know, like Jay Leno was always so funny. He'd be talking about, like, I don't know, a car or something. And I don't know where he'd be like,

so, well, there was this time when you were a bouncer, I think, right? Yeah, I think. And you're like, yeah, like, that had nothing to do what we were talking about. This was clearly a bullet point on their press sheet. You know what I mean? Yeah, but yeah, but that's my point is that you can fake it on a five-minute spot or seven-minute spot, but on a three-hour conversation where, you know, someone like Joe is putting people's feet

to the fire a lot of times. So you can't, you can't fake that. You're like, yeah. The true you is coming out in that interview. And if people listen to it and go, I like that guy, they're going to really, really like you. And they're going to trust you. And they're going to buy your book or your show or whatever it is that you have to promote it. Yeah.

How many times have you clicked on the name? for someone that you were like, I don't really know that much about them. And then you leave the episode when it's over, and you go, oh, a huge fan of that person. Look them up. Yeah, look them up. Go follow them by their book or whatever it is.

Yeah. I was actually, speaking of Matthew McConaughey, I really surprised that Will Smith didn't follow the same route with his book. I was hoping he was going to. He did it a little bit different. He did basically those, he did like shows.

Yeah. He went to, think, five cities and did like a book tour. Yeah. Which I thought was interesting. and like he interviewed people and was interviewed himself. But I was really surprised he didn't go on those top tier podcasts and copy the Matthew McConaughey model, which got him to the top.

Obviously, Will Smith was going to be a number one book. Yeah, he's going to sell no matter what, sure, yeah. But, you know, if he sold a million copies, making up numbers here, maybe he could have sold 1.2 million, one point five million. I don't know. Right. At least picking, you know, the cream of the crop, you know, maybe don't go on 50 shows, but 10 or 12, they're going to move some books.

Absolutely. You go on Tim Ferriss, you're going to sell a lot of books, no matter who you are. And you know, it's going to be a great conversation. Right. Yeah. And people are, yeah, it's only going to further people's relationship with you. That's the thing I love about podcast, man, is like, if somebody's been listening to this episode for as long as we've been talking, like, they're engaged and they're going to listen because they like what Chris has to say or they like what Travis has to say. Like, they're sticking around for a reason or else they would have already changed and listened to something else by now. Yeah, I love that podcasting is habitual. I love that if you listen to Travis all the time, you're going to listen no matter who the guest is. Because it's just a part of your daily

routine. Yeah. And I think a really big learning point for me early on when I started my podcast, which was 2019, was I didn't start my podcast for many years because I didn't want to take away from my YouTube audience. I was so worried because I was making money on YouTube and I didn't see a way to make money initially on the podcast. I was like, well, I don't want to take that money away. I don't, I don't want my podcast to cannibalize my YouTube views. So I didn't do it for a long time. I realized very quickly there are two completely different audiences. Totally different. And we were talking about this a little bit off camera that like the watch time on YouTube might be six, seven, eight minutes. What do you think the average listen time is for your podcast? So the average

listener listens to, this is not my podcast. This is all podcasts in general. This is real data. 80% of podcast listeners claim to listen to all or most of an episode after that's play. Crazy. Because what happens? Like when you're watching YouTube, you're sitting down most of the time and watching YouTube. If you're listening to a podcast, it's almost never just like, I'm just going to, I'm not just going to sit at my kitchen counter and put on a podcast with a cup of coffee and just, oh, yeah, this is great. You know, like, I'm doing stuff. Yeah, it's passive.

It's like, oh, I got to clean up the downstairs real quick. or I got to clean up my kids' playroom, or I got a, I'm driving to L.A. or whatever, and I got a couple of hours, you know, to kill. It's like, I'm doing something along the way. So, like, it's an obstacle to change from what I've selected. Because, like, this morning at the gym, I put on an episode, press play. My phone went back in my gym bag, and I worked out.

Like, it would be more difficult for me to be like, I would have to really not like the episode for me to go back to my gym back, open up my phone, and look through for another episode that seems interesting that I want to listen to. You know what I mean? Absolutely. The barrier to pausing it or stopping it is so much higher with the podcast. So if you have anything interesting to say, or the content's good quality, you're providing value. Then people are going to stick around.

They're going to listen to it. So even if you have 100 listeners, you know, I'd rather have a thousand podcast listeners than 10,000, you know, YouTube subscribers personally, you know, which is why I went real hard on podcasting. You know, it's what we're talking about earlier. We are going to be starting more of a YouTube strategy as well. The growth on YouTube is so slow. Yeah, that's what I hear. Like Jake Paul or someone.

Sure. Yeah. Right. The growth is, well, Jake Paul is actually not a great example, but unless you're someone who already has a name and you're coming into it. Will Smith actually would be a bunch better example. Sure. He started his YouTube channel and got like a million.

Immediately. Yeah, he's, he was like the OG Jake Paul anyway. That's true. Yeah. Seriously. He was like, but it's just like, he was a little bit of all. But this actually goes back to something I learned in my communication studies degree, active versus passive. And we were talking mostly about watching.

Like, TV is very passive. You can put TV on, and it's in the background while you're cleaning or you're texting on your phone. You can still kind of get a good grasp of what's going on. If it's a game, for example, you look up when they start cheering. Or if it's a comedy show, you look up when they start laughing. A movie, you got to be there actively watching the whole thing. And that's kind of the difference between YouTube and podcasting. Podcasting is very passive.

You can be walking the dog right now, going to the gym, cleaning your house, whatever. Can't really do that with YouTube. Yeah, yeah. Super interesting stuff, man. I'm curious just to hear before we move along, the show is called Figuring It Out. We like to talk people kind of about life philosophy. We talked a lot about your career, you know, where you started, how you've ended up where you are, all the hustle that went into like every single big point.

point in your career seemed like was preceded by you doing stuff that other people were willing to do, calling the person, flying out to the place, putting yourself in the position to be able to be successful, which is something to be applauded and celebrated in my opinion. Because like I said, that disease of entitlement, I think, corrupts too many people's minds in our culture these days. But what do you think to this point in your life you do have figured out? And what are a couple of things that you're still kind of like figuring out. Oh, my gosh. I feel like I'm figuring it out every single day.

That's a great question because it really makes you dig deep. I don't know. I don't know what I've figured out. I think personally I figured out a lot more of who I am versus I thought I knew who I was at 18 and 21 and 25 and all those other milestones along the way. I'm definitely still figuring that out a lot. But my self-awareness has grown a ton. So I think that that's just something that comes with time.

Well, but that, I mean, that's an answer to and of itself, right? It's the value of self-awareness. Oh, my gosh, yes. Like, how do you expect to live a happy, fulfilled life if you don't know, if you don't know the variable that you're solving for because you don't even know what you want out of life? Yeah. You don't know yourself enough to know your strengths,

your weaknesses, what you want. How do you expect to get there? Yeah. You know? I've always been very driven. by, I'm very goal driven. And I always say like vague goals get vague results. So I've been very specific on like, I want to do this by this time. And then like, all right, well, how do I get there? How do I reverse engineer that back? Yep. And it's been very career driven for me. I've moved, like I talked

about Vancouver, then it was back to Toronto, then it was to Cleveland, then it was to Miami, then it was to Cincinnati, and then it was to L.A. And now I spend a lot of time in Vegas. So it's been a lot of just like picking up my life and moving it. And it's kind of realizing that I've been the same through all those different moves. My surroundings have changed a lot, but I've been the same. It's just kind of now I can reflect back and go, all right, well, but who am I? And who do I want to be? Sure. So I think that's been a really big part of the journey for me. What are a couple of things that you're kind of figuring out right now? You know, family life or, you know, religion, philosophy, any of those things. I'm in a relationship.

now with just the greatest person I've ever met. That's good. Rachel's amazing. Hi. She's awesome. And I've had lots of other relationships before with other amazing people. And it's not to discount the relationships that I had before. Sure.

But this is the right time with the right person. So figuring that out. Yeah. Figuring out some really big life changes there in the next 12 to 18 months of a whole bunch of adult stuff that's going to happen there. Yeah. So figuring that. out. Yeah. But I think... It's a big one, man. It's, I mean, you've done it all. So you've married,

house, kids, everything. It's a lot. Yeah. So I'm figuring that out. But I think in that I'm just really comfortable with like knowing that, I think it's, for me, it's just making the commitment of like, this person's great. I don't know what they're going to be like in the year 2051. Sure. Yeah. But I know that if I can keep showing up, yeah. And they can keep showing up, then we can keep showing up together. So that's a really big thing. And for me, it's just more. I want more in every situation. Yeah. So I've been coming out here every two weeks. We're recording at our amazing studio in the Win Hotel. Yeah. Like so fortunate to be part of Blue Wire and to be able to record in that studio. Yeah. So I just want more, growing the podcast, growing the YouTube channel and doing some more

stuff on TV. So I'm actually filming a show right now. Nice. Filming a show called My Dream Purchase. Okay. The idea is like, Travis has just come into the money. to buy the thing he's always wanted to buy. The boat of his dreams, the plane of his dreams, the car of his dreams. And I'm going to show you option one, two, and three of the classic portion that you want. Which one are you going to buy? So it's been a really fun show.

We've already recorded 10 episodes. Got a few more, and then we're going to... That's going to be on... It's going to be on the wealth channel. Okay. AWA, a wealth of entertainment. Nice. And it's just been so fun.

So I'm still so passionate about broadcasting. Yeah. And I know that that has shifted a lot. since I started in 2005. A ton. And I think that broadcasting now has an umbrella that includes what we're doing right now, podcasting and includes TikTok and includes YouTube. So I think it's just an amalgamation of all of those things coming together.

Yeah, yeah. And it's also me realizing that the TikTok audience is very different from the Instagram Reels audience, even though it might be the exact same piece of content. Yeah. That's crazy. And Facebook Reels are turning, like I got a Facebook Reel the other day. they got two million views. Really?

And I was just like, how'd that happen? Wow. So it's kind of just more. This is more is what I want. Yeah. Well, love it,

dude. Anything that you want to sign off with, anything you want to leave the audience with? Thank you for making this happen. Like, thank you for inviting me in your home. Sorry, you're in Las Vegas studio. Yeah,

this is my studio. No, thank you for bringing me in here. And it's just so good to be able to meet you in person. We connected over a year ago. Yeah. You were on my show, which is a great episode about,

like, if you want a podcast to make money from podcasting. Yeah, how you can do that. That was a lot of fun, man. I was a lot of fun. And I know we're going to chop it up again here. Yeah, I'd love to have you come by the studio.

Yeah, yeah. But just thank you for making this happen. Of course. Congrats on guest studio and congrats on everything else. And man, I can't wait to see what 2022 has in store for you. Yeah, appreciate it, man. And same to you. If you're watching this, listen to this,

consuming this at all right now. Go check out Chris Van Vleet. I think it's just at Chris Van Vleet on Instagram, TikTok and all the other social channels. and then whatever podcast app you're listening to right now, just open it up, search Insight, and subscribe to Chris's show. He's got amazing interviews with literally the best of the best,

playlist, celebrities, athletes, wrestlers, entrepreneurs, and things like that. So I know that if you like this show, you will definitely love that show. Go check that one out. And Chris, thanks for joining me. This is awesome. Thanks, man.

Appreciate it. All right, my friends, hope you enjoyed that chat. Travis is the man. That was one of my favorite. favorite interviews that I've ever done. Go check out some of his other incredible guests that he's had on figuring it out. And take a screenshot of this episode and let us know if there was anything that you learned from this conversation. Tag us so we can share it. Travis is at Travis Chappell

on Instagram. He's at Travis C. Chapel on Twitter. I'm at Chris Van Vleet. And since we talked about figuring it out, I'll leave you with a quote about figuring it out from bestselling author Tucker Max. No one has it all figured out, especially not the people who are acting like they do and judging you because of it. Pretending to be something you aren't because you're trying to please a bunch of judgmental hypocrites is not the way to be happy. Living the life that you want is. It really is that simple. Be great. Be grateful. We'll see you on the next one for some more Insight. Jim Rome takes on sports.

Why? Because I have a job to do. With rapid fire takes. So I don't want to hear from you lava pigs on this notion today. No idea what you're talking about. You're complaining more than you like to breathe air. It's like you get up in the morning only to complain and cry and moan

on social media about things that you don't even understand. He's the spitfire of sports smack. Take advantage of it. Get up in here. The Jim Rome Show podcast. What's your beef? Follow and listen on your favorite You've been warned.