The Personal Finance Podcast - How to Develop Skills to Make More Money! With Travis Chappell

Episode Date: February 4, 2026

Join the community built to help you master your money, stay accountable, and reach financial freedom.  👉 Join Master Money Academy today! In this episode of The Personal Finance Podcast, Andrew sits down with Travis to explore income growth mindset and skills—revealing what triggers breakthrough moments, the most common sales mistakes entrepreneurs make and whether sales is learnable, the connection between relationships and earning potential, what makes someone memorable, plus rapid-fire insights on money habits and financial decisions that changed everything. Listen to The Business Show here. Join The Master Money Newsletter where you will become smarter with your money in 5 minutes or less per week Here! Partner Deals Indeed: Start hiring NOW with a SEVENTY-FIVE DOLLAR SPONSORED JOB CREDIT to upgrade your job post at http://Indeed.com/personalfinance Join the loyalty program for renters at joinbilt.com/PFP  Go to http://policygenius.com to get your free life insurance quote. Thanks to Fundrise for Sponsoring the show! Invest in real estate going to http://fundrise.com/pfp   Get 50% Off Monarch, the all-in-one financial tool at http://www.monarch.com/PFP  Find your next dream home, start searching now. Download the http://Realtor.com app today DeleteMe: Go to https://joindeleteme.com/PFP20/ and Use Promo Code PFP for 20% off!   Connect with Travis: Podcast Website Facebook Instagram Youtube Linkedin X Connect With Andrew on Social Media: Instagram TikTok Twitter Master Money Website Master Money Youtube Channel Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Find your advisor at IG Private Wealth.com. I was sort of between a rock and a hard place because I got married before I finished college and bought a house right after I finished college. So now I have a mortgage to pay. I have a wife and I have an unaccredited Bible degree. And if I'm doing this for this like and not focusing on like being a happy, fulfilled person, then you know what's all this other stuff for? The people who have seen the most outsized success in life, like the really, really successful people, wealthy people tend to be the ones who had a rock bottom moment. Something happens, some external circumstance happened that took away all levels of comfort in their life and they

all of a sudden had to do something. You don't have to be working 80, 90 hours a week for 70 years to make a lot of money. You work more than most people for a decade and you'll live the life than most people can't for the rest of your life. What's up everybody and welcome to the personal finance podcast. I'm your host, Andrew founder of Mastermoney.com. And today on the personal finance podcast, we have Travis who's going to be talking to us about how to increase our income. If you guys have any questions, make sure you join the Master Money newsletter by going to Mastermoney.com slash newsletter. And don't forget to follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or whatever podcast player

you love listening to this podcast on it. If you want to help out the show, consider leaving a five-star rating and review on Apple podcast, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player. Now today, we're going to be talking to Travis Chappelle, where most people think increasing their income. starts with a new job. They think it starts with a side hustle or some secret strategy that they have not found yet. But in reality, income growth usually starts somewhere else entirely. It starts with how you communicate value, how you communicate whether you realize you're selling or not,

and who you build relationships with over time. Now, in today's episode, Travis and I are going to talk about the real drivers of income growth and how they don't show up on a paycheck right away, but quietly compound into massive opportunities. My guest today is Travis Chappelle, host of the podcast Travis makes money. And Travis has spent years studying high earners, entrepreneurs, and operators, not just how to see how they make money, but why some people break through while others stay stuck. And if you've ever felt capped in your income, unsure what skill you need to build next. We're confused about how relationships actually turn into opportunity. This conversation is for you. So let's welcome Travis to the personal finance podcast.

So Travis, welcome to the personal finance podcast. Andrew, what's up, dude? Thanks for having me. We are really excited to have you here today because today we're going to go through a bunch of different things that can help people increase their income. Now, one of the big things that we truly believe here is that increasing your income is the biggest lever that you can pull when it comes to building wealth. And you have interviewed a ton of different people about increasing your income.

You have increased your own income in a bunch of different various ways. And so today in this episode, I want to dive deeper into, you know, increasing your income, the skills that are going to help you do this, things like sales. In addition, going into networking and how to build relationships so that you can help increase your income as well. So before we dive into this, can you tell us more about yourself and your background? Sure, man. Yeah, I just a 30,000 foot view here.

I grew up, thought it was going to be in ministry. I grew up in sort of like a religious bubble cultish type thing. Anyway, I ended up graduating. Bible college with an unaccredited degree in Bible and church ministries. And by the time I got that, realized I didn't really want to do that. And so I was sort of between a rock and a hard place because I got married before I finished college and bought a house right after I finished college. So now I have a mortgage to pay. I have a wife and I have an unaccredited Bible degree, which doesn't necessarily line up the employers. You know what I mean? They're not actively looking for like the next

undercredited Bible degree guy to bring on to their team. So I did the only thing I knew how to do, which was Dorador sales. I did some door to door in college and got pretty good at it. So I just went right back into doing Dorado door. And I ended up doing 100% commissioned door to door sales for probably four or five years right outside of college. And then after like a year and a half of doing it though, I basically realized I didn't want to continue doing that either. So it was like I'm good at this thing that I don't want to do. And I'm qualified with a degree to do this thing, but I don't want to do that either. So now I'm just kind of back to square one doing the work of like what a 14 year old should be doing, but I was doing it at 23 with a wife and a mortgage. So I dove into personal

development. That was what that was what it was. It was just like I got to figure out what's out there, what's available. I don't know anybody that's successful, let alone like a millionaire. I should probably go meet some of those people if I want to be successful myself. And so I started listening to podcasts for the first time, reading books, listening to audio books. I was just desperate for information. And that eventually turned into me starting a podcast, which then turned into me doing podcast consulting, coaching courses, communities, masterminds. We did international retreats. We did a software company, a couple different agency plays. And the whole time I've kept my podcast going, I started another podcast. And now we've done over 1,500 podcast episodes in the last

eight years and then held every sort of like job that you could hold in terms of consulting or coaching or something like that within that industry as well. So yeah, all. all things podcasting now for the past few years. Now, the cool thing about your story is that you kind of made a decision and at a certain point in time where you started to kind of work in the real world in quotations and you started to kind of get the ball rolling there. But you made a decision, hey, I don't want to do door-to-door sales anymore. And I'm sure, honestly, that door-to-door sales job was probably a great experience,

just overall learning those skills and getting, you know, doors slammed in your face, those types of things. And I think, you know, going forward, you made a decision. Well, I'm first going to change my mindset. and so I'm going to start listening to podcasts, reading books, those types of things, which is something that I did as well very early on. What do you think is the most important for someone who wants to increase their income when they're just starting out? Is it kind of shifting their mindset? Is it developing a skill?

Is it doing both? What do you think is the most important there? Yeah, I think it's got to start with mindset because a lot of people just don't think it's possible for them. They're from this place of finances tend to be hereditary. You know, so credit seems to be hereditary. savings seem to be hereditary unless you are somebody who just got so sick

of never having any money and not understanding why we didn't have any money growing up and then you take to and then those people are the ones who like go become a financial planner you know what I mean because everything was so unstable with finances but for the most part on average finances are hereditary and so

I think a lot of people just have a bad relationship with money that stems from generational poor relationships with money and it's nobody's fault it's just a matter of do you want to continue the cycle or do you want to have money? And if you want to have money, you're going to have to fix the very first thing in that sequence, which is the mindset around money, the relationship that you have with money. So that was the first thing I did. I was just like started reading books about money, started listening to books about money, started listening to

podcasts about money. It was all a reframe to try to figure out what do I currently believe about this and what is standing in my way of making sure that I can live the life that I really want to live. And then you have to follow it up at some point with massive action, right? Like the action, you can't separate the action from the mindset. But I think it's, I think it's, it's sort of like shooting yourself in the foot to see if you can walk if you go directly to action without mindset, because you'll find that your action can sometimes be limited by your own mind. So if you don't focus and try to fix that at least a little bit, you're going to probably run into some obstacles in terms of just setting your pricing if you have a side hustle or knowing how to sell something or feeling

confident in your ability to do that when you are starting this new project on the side to make some more money. Like whatever that looks like, you're probably going to struggle a little bit if you don't do some sort of work internally around how you think about money or what your relationship to money is. Exactly. And our upbringing really does have a huge impact on how we think about money early on in life. And so shifting some of those preconceived notions that we have about money is really important. And so getting that financial education and learning different ways that you can make money, earn money, and see that there's so much more out there. There's so much more potential that you have to build wealth. You just have to learn how to unlock that kind of stuff.

And so I think people have these limiting money beliefs. They have these beliefs that, you know, maybe I can't, you know, increase my income enough or I'm not going to be able to to kind of do some of the stuff that I see other people do out there on Instagram or TikTok or wherever else. So do you think that there are beliefs that keep people stuck? And what are all the other? are the biggest money beliefs that keep people stuck in the same place, especially at the same income level for years. Yeah, I think people just, people write their own stories and then buy into them.

They tell themselves that this particular thing is true about people who make money. Therefore, it is impossible for me to make money, right? So they'll tell themselves that rich people are bad, that they're bad people, that all they did was step on people in society, and they've stepped on toes in the success ladder, and that's why they're so high up there. type of a thing. And then they create this entire narrative that says that rich people are bad. Therefore, I do not want to be rich because if I make money, I will be bad.

None of that's true. It's just a story that you've made up because you have been distanced from the wealthy class from rich people for your entire life. Again, not your fault. Not anybody's fault. It's just a thing that happened. Right. That's kind of how I was growing up. It was just like, I don't, I've never met a millionaire, let alone like have access to be able to text one or call one or something like that. So you don't know what you don't know because you never got into those circles. And what I've found is getting in touch with all the people I've got in touch with now over the past few years is that the wealthy people that I know tend to be counterintuitively some of the most generous people that I've ever met. And it's really taught me a really important lesson about money, which is that money is just a tool. It's a neutral tool.

It is not good or bad. It is only a tool to be used by the person who has the money. And so if you're a bad person, it's going to amplify the bad qualities. you're probably going to be a little bit worse if you have a bunch of money. If you're a good person, it's probably going to amplify those qualities and you're probably going to be a little bit better

if you have a lot of money. You'd be more generous. You can take care of more people. You can help more people around you. You can take care of society. You can graduate from taking care of personal problems and move into helping people with societal problems. There's a lot of really great things that happen with money,

but some people have told themselves a story that rich people are bad. Therefore, I should not try to get rich because then I will not be a good person, and that's just not true. And then you have other things about, about class or social status or a college degree or the absence of a college degree. There's so many of these stories that people start telling themselves, well, I can't get rich

because I didn't go to college or I can't get rich because I'm not a natural salesperson or I can't get rich because fill in the blank. And all it is is just people trying to justify their lack of income rather than taking control or ownership and asking themselves, if it were possible, what would it take and how do I go make that happen. So it's a rewiring, a reframing, a retelling of stories, if you will, that are going on in the mind of the person who's self-sabotaging. Exactly. And I think that's why it's so important to have that rewiring like you're talking about, because you really have to figure out exactly where you're going to be going. And then you have to take that massive action that we're talking

about here where I see so many people are stuck in the same spot. They say they want to earn more money and they say they want to go out and do some of these things, but they never actually do it. So I see people that. I see people that. I talk to all the time and they stay at the same income level. They keep talking about, oh, I'm going to, I want to earn more, but I just can't do it. Or I want to earn more, but I don't have the time, those types of things. And so we see people at the same income level for long periods of time. Why do you think most people get stuck at that income level?

There's no urgency. Yeah. What happens is you get too comfortable making what you make and you know that you can survive making what you make. And you're not necessarily getting ahead, but you're not necessarily getting behind. and maybe you have a few thousand dollars in credit card debt every now and again because you had to put new tires on the car and maybe you know maybe you can't quite afford to eat at that restaurant but you do it anyway because you know hey yolo and may as well just go do what i want so you're just in this constant state of barely surviving uh and it's just comfortable enough to not kick your butt into gear to go do something in your free time or to create free time to do something in uh and then you again again start telling yourself a new story, which is that I don't have enough time to go make more money, or I'm limited because my job does not allow me to get a raise except for once a year,

and it's only an inflation raise. Or, like, again, you start telling yourself these lies that are just, they're, that's what they are, they're lies, they're not true. But you tell yourself these things to make yourself feel better about the fact that you're not actually doing the action of somebody who says they want to make a lot of money. And we all want to act in consistency with our identity. So if your identity is somebody who says, I want to go make more money, and then you're not doing it, then you're looking for ways to justify why you're not doing it so that you don't clash with that internal identity instead of just sitting there and going like, what am I doing that I actually could not be doing that I could be replacing with money-making activities? And is it possible for me to go do that? So that's why I think a lot of times, man, like I don't know about you, but some of the people who I've talked to on my show who have seen the most outsized success in life, like the really, really successful people, wealthy people. tend to be the ones who had a rock bottom moment

because they weren't comfortable. Something happened, some external circumstance happened, something completely outside of their control that took away all levels of comfort in their life and they all of a sudden had to do something. There was no path forward. The only two options were like bankruptcy and drug addiction or like figure this thing the F out

and take some action and move forward in life and something, this, this, this, this, this, you know, alchemist mixture of events just sort of like happened in their life. And then they took this massive action and they saw this huge result. There's so many people. They're just like, they're comfy. They're comfy at 85,000 a year. You know, it's like, yeah, is it always comfy?

No. And are the holidays a bit of a stretch? Yeah. And would I like to go on that trip? Sure. But we can't really afford to bring the whole family on the plane. So like, we're just going to do this one in the car. So everything's good.

Everything's okay. You know what I mean? It's just like, you have to engineer some sort of like rock bottom moment or brick wall or some sort of struggle. You have to almost engineer that in your life to force you out of this milieu of complacency and push you into this world of urgency that says like, look, life is short. You know, I only got X number of years left Lord willing. And during that time, I'm going to make the best of my time here. and then just say like, I'm going to sprint for a little while. You know what I mean?

That's what I always tell people is like, the dedication to trying to make more money now does not mean that you have to do this for the next 50 years. You don't have to be working 80, 90 hours a week for 70 years to make a lot of money. You work more than most people for a decade, and you'll live the life than most people can't for the rest of your life. I promise you. If you work on the right things, the right way, like build the right skill sets,

and then bust your tail for a decade, maybe even five years, the results that you'll see in that period of time will be enough to be able to set you up to live a life than nobody else can for the rest of your life or you can just take the next 40 years like everybody else and just do the bare minimum and see where that gets you. It's so true and I think the financial foundation that you set up over the course of just that specific decade

will just change your life forever if you understand the compounding effects of that. And you mentioned a lot of people have to hit rock bottom. It's like a lot of longtime listeners know from my story alone that I had to hit rock bottom. I hit rock bottom early on where I didn't even have enough money to fill up my tank of gas in my car. And that's where I said, I was so mad and I was so frustrated. And I said, I'm going to change this forever.

This is never, ever going to happen again to me. And that's where I made the drastic changes and kind of made a huge, huge shift in my life. And that's where everything started. And so you can see this over and over and over again. You have to have some sort of friction in your life to make it happen. If you don't, I have so many friends out there, for example, who have lived with their parents well into their 30s. and then they'll say, I'm going to be here one more year, and then I'm going to go out on my own.

And you see them five years later, they're still living with their parents because they don't have to make it happen. They don't have to go out and do something to make it happen. There's so many people out there in these situations that really just don't have this friction, this economic friction that needs to happen in order for you to actually get on top of your money,

get on top of your income levels, and actually go out and do something. And so this is something where a lot of people out there who may be struggling right now, maybe you're on your own and you're struggling. This is a good thing, because what's going to happen is that you're going to find ways to actually, you know, increase your income. You're going to find ways to actually go out

and save a little more or invests more of your money so you can have financial freedom. So you can have freedom against, you know, this life that you are, you know, pursuing right now. And so I think that's really, really important for most people out there to understand is that this is the moment where you can make a change. You can make a change today and make that decision. And it's all about shifting that mindset. What was the first income level break through for you? Was it early on when you started that sales job or was it when you started some of your businesses? Yeah, it was the sales job early on. It was six figures in the sales was like my first big financial goal and did that when I was like 22, 23, something like that, doing 100% commission door to door sales. And it was the best thing that could have happened to me, bro, because for two reasons. Number one, it taught me, first of all, that I had already kind of hit a ceiling at the place that I was working. Like, if I knew that if I went and worked twice the number of hours, I would not have had twice the amount of results. And that sort of like scared me and started making me think about, like, okay, well, what does this look like in 10 years from now?

Am I just going to keep knocking doors and making $100,000 a year? Because that's not a good situation either. And then the second thing that happened is I realized that $100,000 is not that much money. I was like, you know, I was living in California at the time. And it was Central California, so not as bad as SoCal or NorCal, but still California pricing and all that stuff. And it was just like, it was me and my wife, you know, I wasn't single, but we didn't have kids.

And super low mortgage payment and lifted my head up at the end of the end of the the year was just like, I mean, we have some money in the bank, but like, I thought we made, like, growing up, dude, you know, six figures was like the golden goose, you know, it was like, I made it six figures, you know, and then I made it for the first time. And I was like, this is not that much. Like, if you want to, if you want to travel a little bit, if you want to drive a nice car and live in a decent house, and you want to save for retirement, and you want to invest a little bit, and you want to start a business, and you want to have kids in the future.

It's like, you start adding all these things up. And it's like, oh, my gosh, dude. Like, we are not making enough money here. And I think that was like one of the reasons we ended up rebranding the show to Travis Makes Money was like, I just think not enough people have done the math. I think everybody's got this magic number in their mind, usually some multiple of what they're currently making.

If you're making 30 grand, you're probably thinking if I could make 90 grand. If you're making 90 grand, you're probably thinking if I can make a quarter million. Like if at every income level, you have some sort of like, if I could make this, all things would be taking care of type of a thing. But you've never actually done the math to figure out what that number means. Like what life can I actually afford here? Is this what is this the house that we're trying to raise our kids in?

Well, how much is that house and what does that payment look like? Are these the cars we want to be able to drive? Well, how much is that car and what does that payment look like? Are these the vacations that we want to take? Okay, well, that vacation's $10,000. Okay, so that means that there's an extra thousand bucks a month that I have to make in order to be able to pay for that vacation on top of all the things that I'm paying for. Then you have life emergencies.

You have medical bills. You have replacing the transmission in your car. You have like your roof goes bad. You have an H-FAC problem in the summertime in the middle of the heat and you got to get that taken care of. Like we're not doing the math right. It's like even if you have taken a step further than most people and budgeted all your things and figured out your expenses and your income and you have, you're telling your dollars to go

different places. You've done all of that. But then you forgot the emergency stuff. It's like, oh, damn, dude, well, it may not be that much over the course of a given year. But now that I've lived enough life, man, like, you know, my wife and I've been married for almost 12 years now, it's like, well, a decade, though, if you add up all of the emergency expenses that have had to take place over the course of a decade and then you average it out across that 10 years, it's not insignificant. You know what I mean? And then you add a, in kids and then you add in education and preschool and school and all these other things like well if I want my daughter to go to preschool like I want to put her in one that's going to educate her and

not just have her sit around and watch movies all day so got to pay for that and we got to pay for this and got this other thing that we want to move so we got to save up money here so I think it's like people people just don't do the math man and and so making that first six figures that young to me was a really big blessing because it taught me that it was just like wow I am not going to be able to both live the life that I want to now and the life that I want to later by making this amount of money. I have to increase that. Exactly. I think that's where most people need to understand what their living expenses are and their living costs are. And you need to recalculate that on a yearly basis, at least is kind of one of the beliefs that we talk about a lot here. And it comes down

to how much you're spending every single year, but life is going to change that over time. You're going to get married and your expenses are going to go up. Then you're going to have kids. And when you're when you have kids, most people know, like daycare costs, for example, are going to be one of their biggest expenses that they have. It's crazy, dude. It really is. I mean, it's one of those things that, you know, I have three kids, seven and under. And like, it's just, it's one of those things where each time that they enter, you know, that daycare stage, it is one of those high costs that is just absolutely insane. And for most people out there, they need to recalculate how much they're spending on a yearly basis and then understand those numbers. That's one of the biggest numbers that you need to

note is just what your burn rate is because if you don't know that number and you just start to frivolously spend on random things, you're going to get yourself into trouble and you're going to slowly start to fall behind. And so this is a really important note that you're making here is I think is really just knowing where you stand and then learning to increase your income based on how life is going to change what you need. And I think overall that's a huge, huge thing. So you mentioned that you were in door to door sales. I think that's probably one of the best kind of ways to learn sales out there because it's one of the hardest ways to learn sales. And so can you kind of talk about it? I want to get into the sales process because I think sales is one of the most valuable skills that

people can acquire. And for most people, even if you're bad at sales, you can kind of do this based on practice and based on understanding and learning. And so this is something where, especially even in the age of AI, sales is going to reign true. And I think for most people, once they start to learn this skill, you can sell yourself at your job. You can sell yourself in every single situation in life. This is going to help you dramatically. So what do you think is the most common sales mistakes that people make? Yeah, so sales 100%, just to echo you real quick, it has been the bedrock, it's been the foundation that I've been able to build everything else off of

because I know one thing is true. I know that I can sell. And the confidence in my ability to sell has brought me through so many sort of like down cycles in my entrepreneurship journey where it's like sometimes things are going really well. Sometimes things are not going really well. And it's really nice to know that when things are not going really well, that if worse comes to worse, I know that I can go just work a sales gig for a few months, store some cash, and get right back at it. You know what I'm saying? So it's been like your ability to take risk is directly correlated to your confidence in making back the money that you're risking 100% of the time.

Like if you knew that you could go make 100 grand next month in your business. in your business and profit and like put a hundred k back in your bank account then you're probably more likely to take that $75,000 risk but if it takes you two years to make $100k in profit you're probably less likely to take that $75,000 risk like and if you can risk more than you can have better access to speed which success loves speed money loves momentum and so you can start seeing that cycle compound a lot quicker if you can increase your confidence in your ability to go generate more cash quickly. And sales is one of those skill sets that's just like it's the, it's the, you know, contract killer hire, contract killer for hire type thing, which is like there's always going

to be work. You know what I mean? Like everybody's going to, like at some point, every business needs somebody to sell something. So if you can work on that as a skill set, it will help, like you said, take you through each aspect of your career, whether you're in sales or not sales, or especially if you're an entrepreneurship, every entrepreneur has some version of sales. You know, salesmanship afforded to them or they partner with somebody who does, right? There's no version of successful business that's never had somebody who was really good at sales in some sort of position in leadership in the company itself. So it's absolutely one of those things they should be working on. Door to door is a great way to cut your teeth just because it's volume. So whenever,

whenever I'm trying to tell somebody who's younger who's coming up or somebody who just wants to learn sales, go somewhere where there's a strong system where there are already high performers in a proven system and where you get excess volume because the more volume you get the better you get the faster so you you if there's a lull a large lull in between the time that you see success you're less likely to make it doing that thing so that's why i say like you want to see you want to be in a system that works you don't just want to like go start randomly selling stuff on your own unless you're already really good because it's difficult to keep a good mindset during those rejection, those high rejection times, because you don't see a result happening on a

daily basis for other people. So if you get involved in an organization where they have good systems, they have good setup and they have good processes, and then you can see other salespeople and you can see what their numbers are and visualize how much money they're making, that will kick you into high gear and go like, look, it's possible for so-and-so, it's possible for so-and-so, it's possible for so-and-so. They're doing it out here every single day with the same leads or the same process, the same list, or the same neighborhood or whatever it is where you're cold calling, knocking doors, whatever, and they're making it happen.

And they're making $250,000 a year. And so if they can do it, I can do it. And I just got to figure out what they're doing. So like my M.O., dude, anytime I got into some new sales gig, it was study the top producer and then do more volume than that person's doing. That's it. That's the equation.

That's the magic formula. Like you don't have to, you do not have to reinvent the wheel. You don't have to make it your own. You don't have to do a whole brand new pitch and insert this thing here and put this story over here. I did my dead level best impression of the top set. And the impression is important because it's not just about the words on the script. It's not the words on the page.

It's tonality. It's body language. It's all those things. So I would watch them pitch. And then I would mirror exactly what they were doing. The same hand motions, the same tonality, the same look of concern in my eyes, the same like facial structure. when they would ask this question, I would do my best impression of that person, and then I would do more volume than anybody else in the company. And I would do that for the first 30, 60, 90 days. And I start taking my volume down. And then I would start sort of making it my own and having it more through my personality over time. But that was like the formula that I used to become like top sales guy and multiple organizations throughout the course of the time that I was selling. And that's just a great formula overall, just to exceed in anything out there. And I think for most people, that's one of the things that I did when I was in the corporate world is I would look at the people above me. And I would say, okay, what's skills that they have and what are they doing in order to get that level? And then I would try to

acquire all of those skills and try to go from there. So when you started at a new sales job, for example, and you saw those top performers, did you just ask them, hey, can I shout of you or watch you kind of pitch to other people? Yes. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Or like, you know, some of them, if you're doing something online or Zoom call or something like that, they'll have recordings. You know, everybody, everybody's calls get recorded and they just have a library of recording. So I just sit there and watch recordings. But yeah, yeah, a lot of times it would be like my, my manager or the person who owns the company who wrote the pitch or whatever. It's just like, okay, well, show me exactly what you do. And I just video them. And then I just study the video. It was really,

like, it's really that simple. You know what I mean? Like, it's not, it's the, it's the whole, it's simple, not easy type of a thing. You know, it's not easy to do door to door sales. But it was very simple to learn the process and just do exactly. It blew my mind, dude, because I would have, I would be doing this exact process and it would work for me. And I would go recruit other people and I'd hire them and I'd train them and I'd manage them. And then we'd do. And then we'd be doing like a recap of the day, like a debrief at the end of the day as to like why they didn't sell anything. And they would be like, okay, well, I talked to this person. I was like, okay, what did they say? And they said, and then they go, well, they said this. And I go like, well,

next time when they say that, say this, and they'd be like, well, I said something like, you know, that was sort of like this. But like, I just don't think that would have worked for this person. And it's just like, bro, I'm telling you that if you do this more times than you don't do this, it will work more times than what you're saying currently will work. Like, it blew my mind. Just people are just not teachable. They have big egos and they don't want to admit that they need help on the pitch. So for me, it was just like, dude, be as teachable as I possibly can. Listen to the people who are getting the results have every right to tell me that I'm doing something wrong.

Because if they're getting results and I'm not, clearly it's something that they're doing well that I'm not doing well. So I should be open to hearing what they have to say as much as I possibly can be. It doesn't mean that I can't help other people if I see something that they're doing that might be helpful for them. but it does mean that I got to earn my stripes here. Like this happened recently, dude. I sold the company. I started doing some sales on the side. And I've done sales for a long time.

I've had a lot of experience. I've managed teams of 20 plus people. Like I've done this for a while. I've sold lots of different products, lots of different services from, you know, something that's 50 bucks a month to 15,000 bucks a month. And when I come into that organization, I didn't say a word to anybody for like two months.

I didn't say anything until people started realizing like, oh, that guy's actually pretty good. And they started watching my calls. And then I became number one within a month and a half of being there by watching everybody else's closes again. And then I started helping people when they started asking me. But like, I'm not just going to come in and be like, look, everybody, I know what I'm doing. You're all dumb. I've been doing this longer than all of you. And I'm going to school you now. It's like, look, they knew exactly what they were doing. Why would I try to come in and re-adment everything just because I have a past or a history of selling? I'm just going to do exactly what the top producer is doing. I'm going to do more. of it and then eventually the numbers will pan out and I'll end up somewhere near the top and I'll make good money and that's it you know what I mean it's a pretty simple equation to follow for the most part I agree and I think you know so many times we have you know folks in our lives maybe it's a mentor or someone else who is telling us to do something and internally we're like that's never

going to work that's not something that will actually work or I won't be able to do that but if you just fight that and you fight against that and actually try out the thing that they're actually asking you to do every single time I've done that it typically will work or it'll go way better than I ever thought it would. And really, for a lot of us, we just have these internal convictions that we just have to overcome. And it goes all the way back to what we talked about the top of the show, where we just have these preconceived notions about money or about how things work. Instead, if you can just fight back on those, it'll absolutely change the way that you, you know, operate in everyday life. And it's, it's been one of the most helpful things for me overall, for sure.

If there's someone out there who wants to get better at sales, their number one goal is to get better at sales, but they feel like, I'm an introvert. I don't know how to sell. I don't don't even know what I'm really doing here. Is it something like repetition? You just got to get out there and start doing it. Or do you have any tips for someone like that? Yeah, first of all, perfect if you're an introvert. I think introverts make better salespeople, to be honest.

It's counterintuitive, but I'm an introvert. I'm an introvert by nature. I tend to be very not anti people. I love people, but it's more like people suck the energy out of me. I don't get refueled by being around people unless it's like really, really, really close friends and we're doing nothing. You know what I mean? But for the most part, if I'm out an event or something like that, I burn out pretty quickly. And so I think introverts actually tend to make better salespeople

and better networkers counterintuitively. So don't, first of all, get yourself out of that story. If you're telling yourself that story that you can't be good at it because you're an introvert, I would argue that you would actually tend to be better at. Because what introverts tend to go a mile deep and an inch wide, whereas extroverts tend to go a mile wide and an inch deep. And in sales, for really good salespeople, you got to go deep with the prospect and you got to you got to like so besides beyond just like repetition and training and running scripts which are all really important if you do that every single day there's no chance that you're not going to get better at this thing and then it's just a matter of how much rejection can

you withstand before you earn the skill set in order to be able to earn the big paycheck because once you get the paycheck bro like i'd tell you i used to tell people all the time when i was on doors was like all you need is a taste of blood just get that first taste of blood man like when you when you're bust in your tail knocking doors. It sucks and it's hard work and people slam the door in your face and cuss you out on their porch and you go three days without selling anything while you're training and it's just like this is the longest work days. I don't want to knock any more doors. It's 100% commission so I don't get paid anything unless I bring a deal home. You know what I mean? But then you get that first deal, you get those first two, three deals and you see that first paycheck and you're like,

I made 10 times as much money doing this this last week than I did in. two weeks of working at Starbucks or whatever it was. You know, it's like, it's pretty hard to go back to minimum wage hourly work or not even just minimum wage, but like, you know, anything under than 50 bucks, anything under 50 bucks an hour or something like that is really difficult to do because if you learn to be competent at a 100% commission sales gig, you'll still make more than 90% of the population doing whatever it is that they were doing. So you get that first taste of blood, you know, I think some people are just like,

man, they taste that blood and they're like, phew, okay, I'm good. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, I'll get rejected a little bit, but whatever. You know, I know payday is coming around the corner, and I know it's only a matter of time before somebody else says yes. So beyond just like the normal, like stay in the game, be consistent, run your scripts, train and you'll get better type of a thing. Probably the best thing that I can say is just learn to get better at the game of people,

learn to get better at understanding people. Like the pitch, the pitch is going to come. The objection overcoming, that's going to come. Like all of those things, they'll come with training, they'll come with practice and scripting and role playing and things like that before you get started selling for the day. But understanding people having genuine empathy, genuine curiosity, authentic questioning or line of questioning at the beginning, that that's something that I think that people often overlook in that space that to me is probably the most important skill set that you can develop,

not only in sales, but also it translates into everything else that you do. So learn to ask really good questions and learn to try to try to understand people at their core from a place of just genuine curiosity about that person. And people will pick up on that energy, man. That's why I say that tonality and body language, those things are arguably much more important than the words that you're saying for the most part, because you want to portray to this person that they are a person and you are a person, not that this is a transaction. It's not that I'm going to win and you're going to lose.

It's that I have a product or a service that I genuinely 100% feel can solve this particular problem for you. What I want to know from you is what is the problem that you're experiencing? How has that played out in your life? What issues is that causing inside of your business or your home or whatever it is? My product service helps them, you know, solve. And then how can this product or service potentially fit into solving the problems that you have available right now. And the more that you try to understand what people's problems are, the

easier you'll find the sales process to be later on in the conversation. The people who spend almost no time in discovery will spend all their time overcoming objections. And vice versa is also true. The people who spend the most time in discovery will spend the least time having to overcome objections. And I found that it's much easier mentally to be able to help people through the discovery process and spend more time there than it is to spend time in an overcome. objections because that's a very taxing mental process. It's like almost like structured debate with a with a cost at the end of it. So I try to like I'm, you know, all overcome objections. I'm not saying I won't, but I'm saying if I can make it easier on myself and the prospect by just asking

better questions at the beginning and actually just caring a little bit. It's not that hard, guys. Like it's really not that hard. Just care. Try to think about your, try to think about your grandma sitting across the table from you, trying to get a deal on a car. And actually, help her get the thing that she's looking for. Like, don't be that douche who's just in it to maximize every commission and then brag about it to your buddies after you're done about how you raked them over the coals. It's never going to work long term. It's going to do damage, I think, to your psyche, to your ego over time. And then you're never going to get referral business, return business, because people are going to realize you screwed them over later. Just do your

best to take care of people and actually try to solve problems. Because if you can, like, if you can state the problem better than the prospect can state the problem, they'll automatically assume that you have the solution. And they'll trust you to provide that solution. It is such a powerful lesson for most people. And you see these people all across, even when you come across just like friends or family or new people that you meet is you go up and you meet somebody and then you're asking them questions and they never ask you any questions back. And it's one of those things that they just genuinely do not care or they do not get to know you more. There's a great book out there for people who haven't read it yet. it's a class. They call it How to Win Friends and Influence People that kind of helps you develop

some of these skills that Travis is talking about here. And I think it's a really, really great way to kind of learn this skill. You got to think more so, you know, how can I ask questions and get a deeper understanding of what these folks want or what they need is so that we can kind of develop this relationship. And it's truly what they need. Again, we do not want to be ripping people off. We do not want to kind of give them something they don't need and they regret it later on in the line. Instead, we want to make sure this is a genuine sale of something that someone actually needs. And I think that's just such a powerful lesson for most people out there as they get started. Now, this also, understanding this concept helps you in relationships.

It helps you network. It helps you develop these relationships that I think most people really need to understand how powerful these can be. So how have relationships helps you with your income over time? And why are they so important for you to go out and network? I mean, it's like everything, dude. I mean, I think you might have known the answer to that question prior to asking it. But the name of the show used to be called Build Your Network. So it was all about networking, building relationships with people.

And it stemmed from the idea that like when I left that kind of culture that I grew up in, I didn't know anybody. And so I was sort of starting from scratch in terms of like a professional network. I didn't know anybody that did anything of any significance. I was just sort of in a silo by myself trying to figure out how to make money in business. So I started this podcast about networking because I was like, I figured if I asked people about networking, there's no way I can't get better at it, right? And I should probably learn how to do this thing.

And then it sort of was this like Trojan horse that evolved into its own beast because I started realizing that the best networking tool that I ever had at my disposal was the podcast itself. So it was sort of like I was learning from people on the podcast about how network better. And then I was using those principles to reach out to better and better people to bring them on the podcast so I could learn from them. And it was sort of just kind of like self-fulfilling prophecy type of thing, you know. And so over time, it really just evolved into this thing where it was like I started looking around. It was like everything that I've ever done is a direct result. of some relationship that I had along the way. And it's one of those, we call it engineering serendipity,

because you can't really place your finger exactly on it. It's not the same as running Facebook ads. You know what I mean? It's so linear. It's like we spend X, we're bidding this much for this CPM, and we expect that we can get this CPC and this CPL and this CPA. And if we can get those numbers, then we can back out. It's like, relationships aren't like that.

So I think a lot of people just don't spend any time doing them, especially the more analytical type. people because they're like, oh, it's just not worth the time. You know, show me the, show me the impact this has on the P&L. And it's like, well, I can't necessarily show you that ahead of time. But if I look back over the last decade, I could probably show you that to some degree over the, you know, the money that I'm doing what I've been doing so far. So, yeah, the relationships to me have been, have been everything. And then frankly, it's, it's sort of been this realization. So, like, I tend to go through like study phases, you know, so like if, if, if I'm wanting to learn about persuasion or whatever, it's like a deep dive. It's

like however many Robert Chieldini books I could fit into my brain at a given time, right? And then, you know, Wynn Bigley from Scott Adams and whatever else, other psychology of persuasion books that I can pick up or just genuine or general psychology. And then I'll switch over to like philosophy and read about like Buddhism and stoicism and all other stuff. And then I'll switch over to something else. So a little while back, I did a deep dive into relationships. and happiness and really figured out that at the end of the day,

all studies on human happiness stem back to strong relationships. I've ever seen one of them. The most famous one is the Harvard study on happiness, which has took place over the course of these entire people's, the entire lives of these people was like a 90-year study. I think they're still doing it to this day with generational, you know, people of those people's linear. that they're continuing to study with.

But anyway, started this study with these people that were in college at the time and started making guesses about what was going to make them happy over the course of their life. And it was something about character and it was something about, you know, aptitude and skill set. And did they get a degree?

Did they not get a degree? Did they, you know, then they started tracking all these things. What they found over the course of long period of their lives is that by far the number one indicator of happiness over the course of people's lives were their relationships, the quality of the close relationship. that they had in their life. And so to me, studying happiness

and then studying the relationship side was like, not only do I believe the relationships are gonna help in my professional life to a really significant degree, but it also seems to be that if you have strong relationships, that's the best indicator of whether or not you're gonna have a happy life. And if I'm doing this for this, like,

and not focusing on like being a happy, fulfilled person, then what's all this other stuff for? So it's sort of, it's sort of just reconfirmed my thought process that like relationships are really the key to life. They're the key to everything. It's what's going to bring you more professional success in your career, but it's also what's going to bring you more personal happiness in your life as well.

So you can't neglect relationships if you want success and happiness. And I think most people would say that they want both of those things. And I just read a study recently that said that people are spending 60% less time with other people and building some of those relationships. And I think this is something where if you develop this skill in the age of AI and a lot of things that are coming going forward. This is one of the most valuable things that you can develop over time because 100%.

You know, having this network and having this system and these relationships, you know, are just so incredibly powerful and something that really, really can help people. So if someone wanted to start doing this, they wanted to start networking, they want to start building relationships. Maybe they wanted to do a couple of things. Maybe they wanted to start building relationships with folks out there who are, you know, in business or more successful than them. Maybe they wanted to start networking with people who are in their industry.

what would you tell them to do? How would they start doing that? Be a host. This is the hack, bro. Like if you want to, if you want to shortcut the line of relationships, be a host. I don't care what you host.

It could be a newsletter. It could be a podcast, which is obviously mine and Andrews vehicle of choice here. It could be local meetups, national events, international retreats, a blog, a YouTube channel, be a host.

host something and have an excuse to reach out to the people that you want to build the best relationships with. That's really what it is because most people are going to say no to a, you know, the worst verbage you could possibly use is let me pick your brain. Worst thing you could say to somebody, it does not sound like a fun activity for either party. Like picking my brain, that sounds terrible. Like absolutely not. I have a bunch of other demands on my calendar. And if I'm going to let anybody pick my brain, it's going to be my six-year-old son, meaning that I'm going to spend my free time hanging out with him,

not going to coffee with some rando that sent me a DM on Instagram. You know what I mean? So don't use the verbiage of, let me pick your brain, or like buy you a virtual cup of coffee or things like that. People just don't have, there's no time block in the calendar for just like random BS calls for people who are super busy, right? You might be able to do that for people who are on a similar level who are just getting started and you want to like try to, you know,

go together and you're, and you're just trying to get around other people, that might work for that. That might be fine. But if you're reaching out to anybody who's had any sort of success, they all know one thing to be true, which is that time is our most important and only non-renewable asset that we have at our disposal. And they will take their time very seriously. So asking for stuff like that isn't going to get you anywhere. However, a podcast interview, a Q&A at a local meetup, or speaking on your stage, or commenting, on a YouTube video so that you can run traffic back to them or something like that, you'll be surprised at the volume of people who will say yes, even if you just got started.

That was one of the biggest realizations I ever had starting my show, bro. It was like very beginning days. I reached out to a couple of people who were on my list as like sort of influencer type people. And one of them was deemed the father of modern networking by CNN. And I was like, I'm starting to show on networking. I should probably go get this guy, right? Reach out to him, shoot him an email,

and I just say, hey, do you have, I think I said, do you have three minutes on a quick phone call where I can just ask you a question? And he replied back and said, no, you can't have three minutes of my time on a home call. But he was like,

but if you want to shoot your question here, I'll find time at some point and shoot you an email back. And I was like, okay, great, cool, whatever. Shoot him a question back. I mentioned that I had a podcast, like somewhere in that question. And he replies back, answers the question, and goes, I'm happy to do an episode on your podcast sometime.

And I was like, what? The only reason that I asked for the three-minute phone call was that I thought the podcast interview was a huge ask and that the phone call would be much easier to say yes to. But he literally saw it and offered to come on the show without me even saying anything about it. And that was like a huge unlock for me. Because it was still at the very beginning of my show.

Like I don't know, 60 downloads an episode or something like that. Like nobody's listening to my show minus my dad. You know what I mean? And like a couple of friends who I was asking for critique from. Other than that, like nobody listened. But he saw that at a podcast and offered it come on. I was like, that is, it's the Trojan horse. It gets you past the gatekeepers inside of the gates where you can get out

and then actually ask the questions that you really want to ask. So we did like a full 30 minute conversation. He gave me a great. a snippet to use on my website. He made an introduction to Jack Canfield to get him on my show, the author of Chicken Soup for the Soul that sold like half a billion copies worldwide,

one of the best self-help guys of all time, made an intro to that guy for me, and it all came from just he realized that a podcast. Did it with another guy at the same time, right around the same time, asked him for the same thing, three-minute phone call. He replies back.

He goes, well, people join my mastermind for $30,000 a year to have like one-on-one access to coaching with me so I can't do the phone call. But he saw in my email signature that had a podcast. And he was like, but I see you have a podcast. I'm happy to come on the show sometime.

I was like, this is insane. It was two people within like a week time frame that both offered to me to come on to my podcast because I saw I had one after they turned down a three-minute phone call that nobody would have ever had to know even took place. But now I can like get them for 45 minutes, ask them whatever questions I want to, publish it as an interview and like use their credibility to go get even better. guests and bring in more listeners from my show. This is insane. So yeah, it was, it was like, be a host, man, like I said, local meetup, podcast, something that enables you to have an excuse to

reach out to people you respect, admire, want to get in touch with, and then offer some piece of value to them, which is essentially like, come share your story with my audience. And will it work 100% of the time? Obviously not. I got rejected more. I've been rejected more times than I've been accepted for guests to come on my show, but we've also done 1,500 episodes. That tells you how many people have said yes. And then if 800 people have said yes, probably 1,500 have said no. But people are going to say yes. And you'll be surprised at the quality of the people who do. It's such a valuable tip because I think for most people out there, they'll say, for example, here's one that we've talked about in the past. I say, hey, if you want to invest in real estate,

go to your local real estate meetup. And people will come back to me and say, well, we don't have a local real estate meetup in my area. And the key to this is, okay, that's great. Because now you can host the local real estate meetup in your area. And guess what? The person who hosts, every single person that comes to that meetup is going to know who that person is, they're going to bring you deals all the time. They're going to bring you real estate deals and you're going to be able to do transactions. And so there's so many cool things that can happen when you host events like that. And I just think it's such a valuable way to meet more people. So that is a great tip, I think, for most is if you can leave, it doesn't have to be this big thing.

You can start, you know, opening up with, you know, just things where other people are going to interact with you and interact with the meeting and it'll be a lot easier than you actually think it is and you will get so much value out of that just from that specifically even if i was dropped in a new city that's the first thing i would do is try to host some sort of meet up because you get to meet all these different people and have different ways to kind of market that that meetup and i think that's just such a powerful thing and those people will sorry sorry to cut chavre really really quick those people will look at that as such a valuable thing that the value the value will come from the people that are there does not have to come from you so get out of your head if you're thinking like

well i've never done a real estate deal why would anybody come to my meetup doesn't matter doesn't matter Like, host a podcast, interview the best investor in that area that you can find, and then have them come out to be the guest speaker of honor at the meetup, and then you'll have 50 people show up to hear from that guy, and then you'll be the one that connected all those people to that guy and all those people to each other. And then if you do that, if you do that month after month after month after month, the first month, you might have four people that come to meetup, three people. The next month might be six. Then it might be 15. Then it might be four. And then three years down the road, you'll have 400. You know what I mean?

Like you'll, it will continue to stack over time because the value, it's impossible to not get value from that because the people who are there are the value. So if people show up, there will be value to be had and there will be value to be shared and people will continue to show up and it'll only get bigger over time because people will start telling other people about the value that they got from this six-person meetup that they went to two and a half years ago. So the point is just start something because it's not going to just happen on its own. And here's a great example of this is I have a friend who kind of, he wanted to become an

entrepreneur, he wanted to get into buying businesses and buying small businesses and doing those types of things. So he would start a local business meetup of business owners, and it'd be early in the morning. It'd be seven o'clock in the morning because he knew that they had, you know, the slot available on their calendar to do that. And so they would come. He provides breakfast for him and everything else. He has done three deals in three years just from having that meetup there alone, where now he owns three different businesses that each do over a million dollars in revenue, just from having that specific meetup. That's how valuable these can be if you actually set these up. Maybe you want to be someone in your industry and you're in the, you're in the medical industry and you want to be able to

go out there and meet other professionals in that area and kind of bounce ideas off each other, those types of things. Set up a meetup for that specific industry. And you can really expand your network by doing that. A lot of people are having a trouble, for example, finding jobs right now. And if you have a network already set up before you are out looking for a job within your career, that is going to be one of the most powerful things that you can do. People will go up to back for you. They will help you out. They will help you find a job within their company. And that is just another way that you can look at this. So I think pretty much everybody listening to this right now, if you don't go to a local meetup, at least attend one. If you don't attend one,

start one of your own. Start one of your own locally in that area because it's really, really important that we have these local meetups and these networking events in areas. There's not enough of them whatsoever. And especially now in today's day and age, you need to have relationships more than ever, I think is just one of the most important things. I remember when I needed to hire someone fast, but finding the right person quickly felt impossible. And if you've ever been there, you know how stressful this can be. That's where indeed comes in. When it comes to hiring, Indeed is all you need. Instead of struggling to get your job post noticed, Indeed's sponsor jobs

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The refined Tiguan, you deserve more style. Visit vw.ca to learn more. SUV, German engineered for all. What is the best question that someone can ask someone to build a genuine connection? I think a lot of people, and we talked about this and alluded to this slightly earlier on the sales process, but is there something or is there a way that they can approach people or it doesn't look like they're trying to get a transaction, but that they're trying to build this genuine connection? Yeah, it's less of like a scripted question that I would say because it's really hard to be genuine with a scripted question. I would say it's more sort of like a line of questioning rather than rather. So along the way of the show Builder Network, we ended up, so long.

Long story short, we ended up rebranding it to Travis Makes Friends. And then we rebranded it again to Travis Makes Money, and then we moved Travis makes friends to its own feed because it sort of kind of became like its own sort of thing. So now we have Travis Makes Friends podcast. We have Travis Makes Friends podcast. But Travis Makes Friends sort of branched off of Builder Network. And the reason that we rebranded it was because I realized that over time, the people who were quote unquote networking the best were people who just collected friendships.

They were not engaging in the activity of networking, so to speak. Like they weren't this. People who quote unquote network, they're treating it like an in-person cold calling opportunity, where they're just going person to person, spitting out an elevator pitch, throwing a business card in their face, and then moving on to the next potential buyer of their product or service. And if you do that, you will see success. I'm not saying it won't work. Like it's a numbers game. You talk to enough people, you know, you'll be able to do some business with somebody.

But the majority of the people are going to leave with a bad taste in their mouth. And that is how you guarantee that you have to stay on that hamster wheel of throwing business cards. on people's faces for the next 40 years. If you want to eventually get off of that and have some sort of success beyond just your ability to go shake hands with people at a networking cocktail mixer, then you have to learn how to actually build

genuine relationships with people. Because then when you leave that one, you have a collection of relationships rather than just like one person you did business with. And even if zero of them do business with you, if you're collecting relationships and friendships, over the course of a decade, you will win to a much, much, much higher degree

than the person who is just burning and turn in and trying to get short-term cash other people they're shaking hands with at the cocktail mixer. So don't be networking Ned, be the person who's actually out there looking to add value to somebody and try to see how you can reframe it from.

What can I take from this conversation? What can I take from this event? What can I take to make sure my time was worth it tonight? It's what can I give? How can I offer something? How can I make somebody else feel good about themselves? How can I leave a situation better than I found.

That's why we sign off, Travis makes friends. Every episode, we sign off with the phrase, leave every relationship better than you found it. Because it's like, even if you only have a teeny tiny interaction with somebody, you have an opportunity. Every interaction is an opportunity to impact somebody. So if you can use that interaction as a positive opportunity to impact somebody, whether it's just a smile,

whether it's just asking them about their life and genuinely caring, or it's making an introduction to somebody you just met earlier that night who you think might be a really good conversation for these people. Or it's an introduction to somebody in your Rolodex. Or it's like an article that you read the other day that you want to send over to them. Or you're going to send them a copy of a book that you both like. It's just thinking about other people, man.

It's like it's the opposite of what older generations taught networking to be, but it's also the thing that works. And especially in 2025, it's like people are moving away from automation. They're trying to get out of AI if they're at in-person meetups. They don't want everything to be automated. They don't want this. broad connection with a thousand people. They want to actually meet people

and build genuine friendship. So that's why I say it's not necessarily like a single question. It's a line of questioning. And think of the line of questioning to be similar to a line of questioning that you would have with mutual friends at a bar. Like you go out with a childhood friend

and a college buddy and they don't know each other. And then your college buddy brought two of his coworkers and your childhood friend brought a friend that he made at his work. And now there's like six people in a bar. and there's some common thread between everybody, but you don't know three of those people. What are the questions you're going to ask those people?

It's not going to be like, so tell me what you do. Oh, yeah, you work there? Okay, cool. Like, how much business do you have to, how much business do you have to share around? Like, are you the decision maker? You know what I mean? Like, we're not talking about stuff like that.

It's just like, hey, where are you from? Okay, cool. How long you've been there? Oh, just a couple of years. Where'd you move from? Oh, no way. I used to live out like somewhere around there actually myself. My cousin actually lives over in this area.

Yeah, he does this other thing, but yeah, that's, you know, like, see, like, play a game with yourself and see how long you can go in that line of questioning without asking them what they do for a living. You know what I mean? Like, it's like, don't try to make it immediately about numbers and money and sales and, like, try to make it actually about the other person because this is 100% true, bro. People will never remember what you say, but they will always remember how you make them feel. So your goal in every relationship that you're, quote, unquote, collecting is just to leave that

person feeling better about themselves and they felt coming into the conversation. And you can't do that if you're word vomiting all over the person, the entire interaction. Everybody likes talking about themselves. So just get really good at asking questions, man. Like the best interactions that I have at events are when I'm talking like 15, 20% of the time, I'm just asking questions. And it's not from a place of like, you know, I want, I'm trying to psychologically manipulate you into being my friends that we can do business in seven years from now. You know what I mean? It's not that.

It's just I get genuinely curious, which is another reason to have a podcast because it makes me more. naturally genuinely curious and I get much, much better at asking questions and formulating a line of questioning because I have a podcast and that translates directly to in-person meeting opportunities. So that's why I say like maybe don't think of it like I want to ask this particular question, but think of it more like I want to stick on this line of questioning like I would with a friend at a bar who introduced me to his buddy from work, not like I'm here to get business and if I don't get business, my company's going to go under tomorrow. You know what I mean? Like that feeling, that air of Desperation is just so gross and disgusting that people can smell it from a mile away,

and then you're going to be the person that leaves early after you talked to every person to maximize your time, and then every person in that room is just going to be talking about how annoying you were the whole time. You know what I mean? It's not going to lead to anything good for you. So just be about people, man. We're all in the people business. No matter what business you're in, you're in the people business, and that's the long term of it, regardless of what AI does.

I personally think we're going to see regression, especially in this next generation. I personally think in the next couple of decades, there'll be a, a yearning, a psychological longing for in-person style connection and events and things like that. So it is not going to be a skill set that you can leave on the table. In fact, I think it's going to be the superpower for the next generation. I think you should double down on it. I completely agree. I think is there's something that you do, because I think this is what a lot of people struggle with too is there's always those people,

and we can all think of this right now. There's those folks in our lives that we say, man, I wish I spent more time with them or I wish I hung out with them more often or had more conversations with them. is there anything you do to maintain relationships with people? Is there either a tactic where you kind of reach out to them every couple of months or how do you kind of maintain those relationships? I know I just have a lot of people in the back of my head I always think about where like I like to golf and I don't get out to golf a lot. But there's a lot of people that I always say, hey, let's go golfing sometime. And there are, you know, maybe some sort of relationship that I have. And I never call it. It's just one of those things that I just, every single time I go, I feel like I go with the similar or same people. And I never, you know, have time to actually or I never spend a time to actually reach out and call them.

And I need to kind of create a system in order to fix that a little bit. I know this systematically doesn't feel like a relationship thing. But at the same time, sometimes for, for me specifically, I have to do stuff like that. So is there anything you do to help maintain with those relationships or just keep in contact? Yeah, well, like you said, we don't rise to the level of our ambition. We follow the level of our systems, right? So just because the relationships doesn't mean you can't have systems to make sure that you stay in touch with them. There's a couple of things that I do.

First off, and I don't do as good of a job at this as I used to do, frankly. Like when I was like in the weeds of my business every day that I just sold a few months ago, it was much easier because it was just like at the end of every workday I would do this. I would basically go to my phone. You can do your email if you want, just for me texting, I think it's a little bit better. And I would scroll all the way that I pot, like all the way down to the bottom of my messages,

you know, where you're moving like six, seven years in the past. And I'll see a conversation with somebody who I haven't talked to in a long time. I'll just stop there, tap on it, and send them a quick message. And usually a video message is like, hey, what's up, dude?

It's been a long time. I hope you're doing well. You know, here's what I'm up to. Shoot me a message back. Let me know what you're up to. and let me know if there's anything I can do for you. Hope you have a great rest of the day. Boom, send.

I do five of those at the end of every workday. So that you're always staying in touch with people who would normally be dormant relationships because there's a lot of, there's actually a lot of studies that say that the majority of opportunities come from dormant ties rather than strong ties or weak ties. There are ties that have been in the past

or maybe there are a connection removed away from you. And there's a lot of opportunities to be had from those in terms of career moves and business to be shared and things like that. So you still want to neglect those relationships. So that's the first thing is I try. I try as best as I can to as often as I can go down to the bottom of my messages and just shoot a few messages out.

And if you go for, like, I do this on my walks because I go for walks all the time. And it's really easy just to like, while I'm on a walk, shoot a quick message and then keep walking. So that's the first thing. Second thing, at the risk of sounding repetitive here, host, again, I sent out a bunch of messages because I was running low on episodes for my podcast. We do daily, we do actually now twice daily episodes on Travis Makes Money podcast. one of them is a solo show, but one of them is an interview. And I was running low on my interview, you know, batching schedule.

So I reached out to probably like 40 people who were friends, quasi friends, people I met an event type of a thing, was just like, hey, come on the show. And the way I phrased it to them was exactly that. It was like, hey, man, it's been a while. Let's catch up and call it work. Here's my link to my podcast. Let's do a show together. You know what I mean? So like we would just spend 25 minutes essentially catching up, but in a valuable way of the audience.

where I'm asking questions about what they're doing and what they're working on and how they got, you know, to see that success and this new venture type of a thing. But it enables me to stay on top of those relationships and have these 25-minute conversations, 30-minute conversations on that show where I get to talk to people I haven't talked to in four years, but they're people that are up to really cool things. So it's still a really valuable conversation just happens to also be a great way to maintain that relationship over time. And it, of course, shares my audience with that person, which is another big value ad for them. So I do that, and then I'll host dinners and events, things like that. So it's actually been a couple, probably been a year and a half since I've done one of these, so I need to do another one. But every once in a while we'll do a dinner and we'll send an email out to all of my past guests on the show and say,

hey, I'm hosting a dinner out here in Vegas. If you can get out for it, you know, I'm going to bring in a special friend. We had the CEO of Chipotle who took it from 12 stores to like, you know, a $14 billion company. We had him come in and do like a Q&A and stuff, and we just had everybody that was there. was either like an investor in my company or a client that had done work with us or they were a guest on my podcast in the past. I paid for everything. It was all free for them. It was just get to the, get to the dinner and meet a bunch of cool people. That's a really, really great way to stay in touch to people. So if you do those combination of things, we're just like have a gathering of all the people that you know once a year and then you just stay on top of it throughout the remainder of the year,

you're doing more than 95% of people are doing. And those people that you invite out to those things will definitely remember it. Awesome. I think those are some amazing tips. And for most people out, there, I highly encourage you to take action on some of this stuff because it'll absolutely change your life and the way that Travis has set all this stuff up. Those are just so, such great actionable tips that you can have and really get out there and get started. So Travis, I want to shift gears here to some quick rapid fire questions before we wrap this episode up just to get some of your answers on here because I love going through some of these. So what is the best money advice you've ever received?

Oh, don't try to beat the market. That's a great one. What are the biggest things you're going to do to level up your finances this year? For me, earning, for me, it's, it's all, it's all about earning power this year. So I'm going to, I'm going to go out and we're actually building a new offer inside of my podcast business. So we're going to, we're going to launch something, something, you know, January, probably time frame for helping podcasters and entrepreneurs get content created better. Oh, that's incredible. And I think that's always for me, too, is increasing income and, and utilizing that income on things that I value as a tool is just one of the biggest things for me.

What is one financial decision that you wish you made sooner? Again, repetitive, but probably the market thing, because I probably lost, I don't know, 150 grand in the last few years investing in other nonsense things. I mean, they weren't nonsense. They were strong businesses and good proposals from founders I trusted and things like that, but, you know, it's such a risky, risky, risky game to try to win in that sense.

So if I would have left, if I would just sort of like invest that money in the markets, at that same time, it'd probably be like a little bit over double what it is right now, if my math is correct, and now it's at zero. So that was a bummer financial lesson to have to learn. But yeah, I wish I would have learned that one a little bit sooner. What is one money habit that changed your life the most? Investing in myself.

Yeah, hands down. Yeah, I've probably put over $400,000 into like me, like my relationships, masterminds, events, coaching, consulting, relationships, like all those things in the last seven or eight years. And it's hands down the thing that's changed my life the most. Is there something that you stopped spending money on that made you happier? Eating out. We were spending a ton of money and eating out, bro.

I don't know how it happened. It just kind of like kept bloating and getting more and more and more. And frankly, to be fair, we were both super busy. At the time, my wife was working a full-time job. I had a full-time software startup, and we had two small kids, both under the, three at the time. And so things were really, really busy. And so we kind of almost had to go eat out, but we could have done it in a much smarter way. So I've found a lot of personal fulfillment

really oddly enough. I never thought I would do this. But like I cook probably like four, four nights a week now because I got I got pretty good at cooking steak, bro. You've ever come out to Vegas. You come over to the house. I'll cook you a steak. I've gotten pretty good at it over the last couple of years. So we actually, we get a, we at home for the most part now, and we don't, like, worry about it at all because I've gotten pretty good at a couple things. My wife's already a good cook. So between the two of us, it's like, we cook every day, basically. But it saved us a ton of money. It's made us much healthier. And I just feel better about it when I get to make something that people enjoy. So that steak sounds amazing. That's my favorite thing to eat. And then the last

one is, what is something you now spend more on that you think is worth it? Oh, probably my daughter's school. It's so, it's ridiculous, dude. Every time I see it, I'm like, this is so much, this is a mortgage payment to put her in preschool. This is insane. But also, it's like, I see how much she loves it and she's learning so much and she can focus so well. And like, what am I going to do, try to save 600 bucks a month and make her education not as good? I don't know. It just doesn't make sense. So, but it is, it is like, every time I see it, though, I'm like, oh, man, that's a, that's a hefty payment. But, you know, you know, it's going to be worth it. It is new parents. Get prepared for it. It is one of those things.

that it's definitely worth it, but it is one of those things that will creep up on you if you're not ready for it. No kidding. Well, Travis, this has been absolutely incredible. There are so many valuable things for people to take away on this episode. Can you tell people where they can find out more about you, your podcasts, and everything else? Yeah, easy way, man is just like, if you like if you like listen to podcasts, I got two of them. Travis makes money. We do, like I said, twice daily episodes on that. Solo shows are me and my producer. We talk mostly about sales, entrepreneurship, networking, things like what we talked about on the show today, podcast and content. And then the interviews. I interview, again, every day. All of them are successful entrepreneurs to some

degree. We interview anybody from just like people who had a side hustle that they're making a few thousand bucks a month extra on to, you know, people, I had a guy on a couple weeks ago who his team manages over $500 billion in assets under management. We had a couple of billionaires on recently. So we run the gamut. Like anybody who makes extra money doing something, we bring them the show, we talk about it. So then we have Travis Makes Friends, which is more of my scratching my curiosity itch through the lens of friendship is kind of how I say it because I can talk to whoever I want to talk to, psychologists, athletes, nutritionists, fitness people, entrepreneurs, comedians who had the impractical jokers on there. That's where I had

Shaq on the show. Rob Deirdek, entertainers, you know, lots of people like that. So Travis makes friends is sort of my do whatever I want show. And then Travis makes money is all about business entrepreneurship, how to increase that earning. So if you like to listen to podcasts, go check those out. That is absolutely incredible. So Travis, thank you so much for being on here again. and we truly appreciate it. Andrew, thanks for having me, man, but looking forward to this. Rosen lasagna, medium power, 15 minutes. Sounds like Ojo time.

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