Look at guys like Steve Jobs, a lot of people are impressed. I'm not impressed. If your kids don't think you were a great dad, who cares if you made your dent in the universe? Right? Mastery comes through frequency. We did a lot of small deals. We didn't start out doing $1,000,000 deals. Some people will listen today and go, sure. Sure. Yeah. Like, heard that before. But then they don't they don't actually do it differently, or they don't set a target. Almost anything will work.
If you lock yourself in a box and you commit to that one thing. The reality is Chaz you start to meet your mentors and your heroes, you start to recognize that very few of any of them are fearless. They feel that fear, right, and then they're courageous, and they move forward anyway. What's up everybody? I'm Chaz Wolfe, gathering the king's podcast. Coming back to you here with not only just a king here today, but the land king. Travis King himself.
You got the last Chaz as part of your title, my man, Travis King. Welcome to the King stage. How are you? Yes, sir. That's I appreciate your brand too. Gathering the Kings, and I heard it. I'm like, what you got the crown. You got everything. I've been living in my whole life. So, yeah, ever since I was a little kid, they're handing out report cards for King Travis. So, yeah, I love your branding and your community and everything too. Can appreciate that.
It would be too good to be true if my last name was King. And so it's probably a good thing that is not But for you, I think it's super cool because you get to be on the outside and go, dude. Yeah. Of course. Gathering the Kings, I gotta call everybody with the last name King, have him on the show. No. I'm just kidding. Travis, you are a king, and that's why you're here, but you like to play in a sandbox of land and investing. And so tell us what kind of have.
Kind of the asset class or business I'm in, it was pretty contrarian, right? Like, there's it's not often you bump into people real familiar, right, with land. The houses, multi family, commercial, right, it's really common, but you're not at a cocktail party and other people in the room are familiar with land investing. Right? Our business, what it is, it's started for me about a decade ago, like, as a side hustle, outside of work, just trying to get into real estate investing.
And it had some traction with houses and house investing, and then 1008 recession kind of humbled me along with I didn't feel too bad about it because it also humbled a lot of billionaires. Right? So the 8 recession kind of Chaz us rethinking what asset class in real estate we wanted to be in. So kinda when I was ready to get back into things, I had researched land and land investing and felt like there was a lot lower barriers to entry with it.
Just a lot of potential to do much smaller bite size deals. Without kind of betting the farm, right, and over leveraging yourself. Yeah. So, yeah, we got into land about 10 years ago, and my wife and I kinda started the side hustle together and were able to grow it to a point that it, you know, far exceeded my salary. So Chaz allowed me to go full time, right, which was a big deal. It's easy to quickly say in 10, 20 second clip, right?
But, like, to build a side income that allows you to leave your job, I think, There's a lot of people. Right? That that's, I mean, that's a absolute, a huge goal. Right? So for us, we we did Chaz, and then we continue to scale the business. I I started helping other people along the way, right, which kind of led into, like, informally coaching people. I mean, just in forums, not like a business, right, just coaching people, and then we would help them get deals.
Yeah. And then they would say, hey. Thanks for helping me get this property in a contract, but I don't have the money. You know, any chance you wanna partner on this deal, so just through being a good dude and helping others and kind of that were earlier in their journey where I Chaz been, We have found a lot of opportunity on partnering on deals. Fast forward, long story longer. We ended up formalizing like a education and consulting company. Where I would coach and teach people.
And then that later led us needing to stand up a a capital company where we would bring in this out money and fund and partner with students on the deals we help them get. So rather than just selling them, like, informational courses, right, or rather than just Hawking courses, We were really in alignment. And if we got them deals, that meant we could partner with them. So we stayed operating our, like, our land investing company, our land flipping company is really what it is.
And then we started a educational company, a funding company, and then our 4th company that we just started is actually, like, a tech company, a CRM. For real estate investors and initially for land investors. So we've got 4 businesses. I kinda call them micro businesses. Because they all have 7 or less employees. Everybody's remote. Everybody's virtual. Yeah. They're all symbiotic. They're all centered around real estate investing and land investing. I love the focus, man.
One thing that you said there that really caught my attention, it was just so you just said it because just truly who you are, but he said just through being a good dude and helping people x x fill in the blank. And I was like, man, I think so many people in this game of success and business and trying to win an achievement, miss, yeah, the simplicity of what you just said, which is being a good dude and helping people.
Now I think in the last probably 5 or 10 years Chaz this helping people has become more popular, if that's even a thing. But tell me about Chaz being a good dude and helping people, where does that come from? Why are you like that? Was that something that you had to learn? Well, I I think whether I was in the corporate Wolfe or what, I always kind of enjoyed training people, right, or helping the new guy. You know what I mean?
I've had some tear absolute terrible trainers and and mentors, and then I've had a couple good ones. Right. And there was a big difference in how quickly it accelerated and advanced based on how bad the mentor a trainer was and how good they were So I always felt when whether it was in our my profession or whatever. Somebody new came in. I enjoyed trading it, right, and shortening that learning curve and helping get them to where they need to be as quickly as possible.
So I think it's something I've always done way before we became, I guess, like, entrepreneurs and started businesses. It's just something I felt comfortable with. Sure. Right? And then I always also was kind of on enjoyed documenting processes and systems and figuring out Chaz is system here so that we can streamline this. So what kind of the 2 things you pair together well, right, where you're training somebody and you're kind of building, like, almost a syllabus or a system for them.
So what happened is I would just see people post questions in forums, real estate forums, and specifically land investing, and they'd have the same questions I right, a year or 2 or 3 years ago. So it became a situation where you'd see these. And we had built a pretty pretty good business where I was at first. There was just 2, 3 years of tons of hustle, right, like an insane amount of man hours into the business.
And then we built it to a point where I was probably working 12 or 15 hours a week on the business Right? And it was I mean, it was everything was going great. So I had some free time. So I found myself kinda like in the forums, grabbing questions and answering and helping people helping out and just recognizing, hey. They could, like, struggle or stumble on this question. Per month, and I could end 10 minutes. You know what I mean?
Answer it or send him a Loom video or jump on the phone with him. So I started doing Chaz, and that led to some joint venture and some deals. And then that led to people kind of referring their buddies, right, their friends. Okay. Work with this guy. Like, he he knows what he's doing. He'll help you get deals. Then you'll even partner with you. So it was just one by one, kinda like you said, like, helping people has gotten popular. Right?
For me, it kind of just it just started with one person at a time. Right? And then it just organically, really organically grew through word-of-mouth and written, like, no paid ads, nothing. Right? It just grew through referrals. Really is how our education business started. I wanna go back to kinda just the initial baby of investing and even how you got burned a little in 2008, why is real estate? Do you think just in general Chaz a as an industry is important? Why do you hang your hat there?
Why someone listening here today, maybe they're already in in real estate. We've had hundreds a couple 100 in real estate investors here on the show, but many entrepreneurs who are interested in real estate know the value there, but they don't know how to bridge the gap. Obviously, someone like you helps them bridge the gap, but why should they be thinking about adding real estate as a side hustle like you did and or potentially thinking about doing it full time like you.
There's kind of a level playing field. Right? Again, there there's lower barriers to entry not if you wanna be a surgeon. Right? Like, you you can't fast track that through the hustle and aptitude. You know what I mean? You know what I mean? You can't just hustle and get So there's credentials. You know what I mean? Like, you gotta get degrees and credentials and. Right? So residencies and things like that.
So I feel like with real estate, The reality is after you're kinda oriented in whatever asset class you're getting into, right, it could be Airbnb. It could be land flipping. Right? After you get oriented, it kind of quickly educated, it becomes more about hustle. I think there's a lot of people that fall in that camp, especially early on where they've got more time and hustle than they do money. K. And I I think real estate investing really suits itself well for those people.
Right. And then I think just standing back to looking bigger picture, like mega wealthy people, a large percentage of them either got that way through real estate or now hold real estate. You know what I mean? So you can't really ignore, right, ignore real estate and wealth and kind of the correlation. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
What do you think go back to that relationship that you just described around, or maybe getting the information or developing the skill versus hustle and how there's you know, they obviously go back and forth. You can't just hustle with no skill. I mean, you probably get some results, but it's a it's better to hustle once you have a skill. And even if you have a skill, if you don't hustle, then good luck. Right? So talk about this in your journey.
Like, when did you see the tip of, okay, I was a hustler, then I added a skill to it. You can be a hustler without focus. And spend decades jumping from one thing to the next hustling. Right? So it there's some other things that come in there, right, where you gotta lock in on one thing. And focus on it. For me, that was kind of a struggle. That was kind of a problem because I just felt like within 3 months, any anything I got into should work. Right? And it did it.
And then I later learned that almost anything, if you give it 12 to 18 months and you're just all in on that one thing, almost anything will work. If you lock yourself in a box and you commit to that one thing. K. I think it just happened to be timing for me. I had done a lot of the hop from one thing to the next, and I was ready. To really commit to one thing and give it a go. And then, yeah, I think the there's another piece there.
The mindset part of it, right, where you go if you enter something skeptical, right, if you enter something real skeptical and question yourself, you're probably not gonna be successful. You know what I mean? That's another piece of it. Chaz mindset's constantly, like, battling you. Right? Every time something goes bad or you take a step backwards, you start to rethink things because Early in your entrepreneurial journey, you're fragile. Right? You're really fragile. You don't have this resolve.
You haven't forged your armor yet. K. So your second guessing yourself a lot in the beginning. K. So I think mindset plays a a big role as you're building the skill set, but I'm a big fan of, like, frequency, like, mastery comes through frequency. So I would say for us, like, we did a lot of small deals. We didn't start out doing $1,000,000 deals. I mean, we literally did some deals where we only made $2000. So, like, I what I built it on was like, hey.
Let's do a high number of really low risk deals. Or even though I'm only making 2 to $5000 a deal, it's a given. I know I'm gonna make it. Right? And I and after I got through 20, 30, 40 deals, you start to feel this confidence you start to feel proficient at what you're doing. Right? And as you start to feel more proficient, you feel more competent. So for me, I think that was the thing, like, the the skill set, like, some of it is, like, you you learn while you go. You know what I mean?
You kinda build an airplane while you're flying it. So some of it is on the fly, and it's just developed with time. But I think for me, I was a little slow. I was pretty deliberate when I was at getting educated and learning The main thing is I didn't wanna shell out a whole bunch of money on something that I was a little skeptical about. So I spent some time researching it And then since I felt like it was validated, I just took small risks.
And then for us, it was just a lot of small transactions to kind of to build up confidence and to build up proficiency. Yeah. That confidence that you're talking about, I had Brad Lee on the show probably or 4 weeks ago. I asked him. He'd obviously had a ton of just incredible people on a show. Like, what's the one thing the it fact in successful people, and he said, certainty, confidence. Like, they, you know, he named off 3 or 4 or 5 people. Are is that person uncertain?
No. So far from uncertainty, just super clear, super certain. So I can appreciate what you're saying there around the confidence. And then even you gave some really tactical things. Sometimes it's not about swinging for the fences at the beginning. It's about just pieces upon pieces upon pieces.
Now the cool thing about what she said there also, this for the listener, is that he didn't stay there He kept doing small deals to get the proficiency so that he could do better and bigger deals, which is part of the story that he didn't share there, but obviously is true because you've continued to even build further businesses. One thing that you said at the beginning of all Chaz, I wanna dig into either.
You said, I finally felt like I was ready to focus on one thing because before I was a problem, this is an entrepreneurial epidemic. So when you said I was finally ready, describe that moment in time, the overwhelm, the stress, or was it just like tired of trying things and not what was that moment? And it's hard to read the label when you're inside the jar. K. Right? And that's kind of the thing it a little bit of introspection, a little bit of self awareness.
And when I started to kinda look at the things behind me that I'd tried, I started to go were they all bad picks? Or what happened here, and then I realized, like, some of them were 3 to 6 month long, little efforts or attempts, and I started to go, okay. So you know what I mean? Maybe, like, I'm switching too quickly from one thing to the next.
So so Chaz you kinda have to have a hard conversation with yourself where you go a lot of people just walk through life with a bias they go, well, that didn't work. Drop shipping doesn't work. Real estate investing doesn't work. That's, well, come on. Yeah. It's working for a lot of people. It didn't work for you. So sometimes you you kinda have to take accountability and recognize like, alright. Did I not give it enough? Did I not put enough money into it? Did I not put enough time?
So for me, it w it came kinda came through self inventory of going. Why is this stuff not working? Because there's a tendency to just go, maybe I'm not cut out to be an entrepreneur. Right? But the reality is there's probably something that you can put your finger on of why it's not working. And for me, I think it just came from that, like, kinda making self inventory and saying, why did these other things not work? And owning up to that and then saying, okay.
Going forward, next venture, right, We're not doing any of that. And that's how I'd say to people is you and even for me, I follow a lot of influencers. I follow a lot of authors, and a lot of these people can feel like bigger than life, and they just come across as, like, fearless. And what you start to learn, like, as your business grows and you get more revenue and you start more businesses.
And then the reality is Chaz you start to, like, meet your mentors and your heroes and people, like, you start to recognize Chaz, like, Very few, if any, of them are fearless. Like, there's a lot of people that are courageous. I mean, it takes courage. Like, yeah, people are courageous, meaning, do something that they're fearful too. They're scared. They're gonna lose money or disappoint their family, or this won't work, or they're gonna be a public embarrassment. Right? So they're fearful too.
But they feel that fear, right, and then they're courageous and they move forward anyway. I think for me, early on, I just assume, like, these people Chaz this fearless gene that I didn't have, Right? And it's not a fearless gene. It's just like a courageous act more than being fearless. I so appreciate that. Courage is a big word. And I think that people, when they understand it, truly, you gave a great definition there. Doing it anyway, even though you fear. In fact, if you have fear good.
That means you're alive. You can feel. Growth. That's how growth feels. But don't hold back. That's right. That's right. Okay. So there's a lot of pieces there just so good. In fact, I wanna just encourage the listener to maybe hit the pause button, go, you know, hit the minus or reverse 30 seconds a couple times and listen to you again. What would you say Chaz person who's, you know, kind of bouncing around and the loss for lack of better terms? Right? It's a sticking point or persistence.
I'm hearing you in your story. I also heard you gave a timeline. And I'm gonna speak to the time on here in a second, but I wanna give you another opportunity to really kinda flush this out. Is there anything else that goes in that of persistence, maybe a little bit of timeline, commitment, you know, what what else is in that formula that you use? Well, for me, I think it I mean, you could get generic and go, you have to have a y. Right?
But, like, for me, it's more Chaz, like, oh, y. It's you have to have defined goals. Like, where are you going? So for me, it would started for us. My wife and I was like, okay. Let's build this side hustle with we want 10 k a month of recurring revenue. That's a very measurable, quantifiable thing. Right? You either get there or you don't, or you're getting there or you're not. Right? It's not, hey, I wanna, like, right, live freely. Know what I mean? What does that mean?
You gotta define like that. So I think knowing knowing why you're doing it is really important, but also, like, knowing what would be a success when you get there? Like, what Yeah. A lot of times people's idea of success is something they an image they've seen or somebody else's I would just say spend a minute for you. What is successful? Is that like being able to, like, go out to lunch with your wife or walk the dog?
Couple times a day and do what you want when you want work a couple hours a day. Is that success to you, or is it like like owning a a business that makes a 100,000,000 a year? Like, kind of define for you what you're working towards. What does success look like? What's the perfect day look like? Right? And work towards Chaz? So for us, we just kinda started with something we felt was achievable. We felt like it was achievable. Replace my salary. And I was like, okay.
Let's start with going trying to build a business on the side that's 10 k a month recurring revenue. And then when you get there, you start to, again, like I said, along the way, you build confidence in yourself. Right? And then you start to even go, well, why did we pick that number? And that seems like really small thinking now But at the time, it felt like this really big thing. So it it's interesting.
You're on this journey of building a business or becoming an entrepreneur, and you have all these financial goals, these revenue goals, but the it's more about, like, the the development, the self development that happens along the journey, is like this positive byproduct. Right, that you don't plan on, the confidence you build along the way. So but I think for me, it's just kinda when I start with people like when I'm coaching, I don't coach everybody's same. I kinda go, what are to do here?
What are we trying to build? Do you are you a single guy who doesn't mind working 60 hours a week and you wanna build this massive business? You know what I mean? Or or do you got 4 kids? You're committed to your wife and you guys love to spend time together. So we've gotta build a really efficient business where you have some team underneath you. Right. Right? You know what I mean? Where you're getting the revenue you need, but you're not as actively involved. So it it's very individual. Right?
You just gotta sit down and go, what am I trying to accomplish? What am I trying to build? And it's just more like having a plan versus Yeah. I talked about hustle, but, like, we gotta have a plan to get us there, not just best effort every day in hustle and grind, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, thinking grow rich is pouring out of you right now. I mean, you're talking about desire. You're talking about a specialized knowledge inside of your plan with your skills.
I mean, the everything is just I mean, they're all skill set or all success principles, and it's just flown out of you, which I think is just super valuable. The cliche in this is that a lot is a lot of pod Probably even you've spoken on other podcasts about these topics. I know I have, but some people will listen today and go, for sure. Yeah. I've heard that before. But they don't actually do it differently, or they don't set a target, a clear, defined target, and then create a plan.
And then left how you said it. You even used it with your hand. You said, moving toward it. It doesn't mean that it has to be done today. I just need to move toward it. It's not the result that I'm actually after. It's what did I do today to move toward what I'm saying that I want? Because if I'm not moving toward it today, then I'm not I don't actually want I think for people, there are a lot of people that are unhappy in jobs or in their profession and stuff.
That's like a lot of times when we measure things on as humans, right, is what's our purpose? And then are we progressing? So I think a lot of people, like, you feel like in your occupation, maybe you feel like you're not progressing. Right? So that's really the sticking point where a lot of people either they don't feel purpose in that role or they don't feel like they're progressing.
So if either one of those things are happening or both, or worst case, right, Like, you're unhappy, and that's the reality of it. So I even think, like, when you're building something, business on the side or an entrepreneur, you have to progress. You know what I mean? You don't wanna feel like you're repeating the same year over and over. And as boring as it may sound, those, like, those goals, those metrics, all of those things. You gotta run it like a business. Right?
And that's how you, like, can measure instead of just feeling like you're having a better year this year than last year. You gotta have something to to make sure that. Yeah. I gotta have a scorecard, some or some sort of scoreboard. I don't know if you're winning. The time frame, the piece that you gave earlier, that 12 to 18 month, kinda almost like minimum commit I just love that piece.
I wanna hit that just again here real quick because there's been times where, of course, I'm, you know, I'm in different industries. I got different businesses, and so I feel oftentimes where I'm, you know, the attention and that epidemic of Yeah. Going all over the place as entrepreneurs. I I've felt that many, many times, but when I look back because I've had a couple people really try to dive into that with me, in particular, my story. I did one business.
Now I grew that business with multiple locations. I did that one lane for 7 years where I didn't touch anything else. And then I'd stepped into real estate, and I've done real estate for not quite a decade now. And so it's okay. When you look back after, let's just call it 7 years, 10 years, 15 years, like I have in a couple of different industry now. You look back, you're like, oh my goodness. I just been head down working. Not really counting, oh, the cost of my effort.
Yes. Trying to be efficient. Trying to grow on my skill sets. I'm obviously personal development. I help people develop personally now. But it's if you can just do it like you're talking about long enough 12 to 18 months at a minimum. Oh, really 5 years, 10 years, you look up, and you're like, dude. We've got some stuff kinda work Like, things are really starting to come to fruition. Like, the crop is not only come up, but Yeah. There's a harvest here.
You think what happens, like, you think of all the things you switch at, let's say I did 4 or 5 different side hustles and I did each one for 6 months. You know what I mean? There I am two and a half years into trying to do side hustles. If I just picked 1 and said, alright. For the next two and a half years, I'm gonna focus on getting better at this thing and making it profitable.
There's a way higher chance it'll work because each time you switch from one thing to the next, you're starting over. Right? So sticking to that one thing, yeah, it's kind of it's I think there's a lot of times you just you're impatient in the beginning, especially, like, if you're unhappy to job, you're just, like, looking for this thing to save you to get out. Right? So you try to rush things in. That's right. And, unfortunately, there's accelerators. I would say there's accelerators like you.
There's mentorship. There's things like that are accelerators, but there's not shortcuts. And that's hard to hear, and you don't wanna hear that when you're in the spot you're in, but there are no shortcuts, but there's you just gotta look for leverage points and accelerators to get you somewhere, but you can't try to shortcut the process, right, or you're just gonna keep repeating, and that's where kinda where I was at. Was moving from one thing to the next.
Looking for the quick fix, the shortcut versus, like you said, putting head down committing to something. Hey, Kings and Queens. Jazz Wolfe. I wanna talk to you about something that's super important to me. We put a lot of time and effort. We, meaning myself and my team, into this podcast, into the content that goes out every single day. And if you have been getting any sort of value or insight from this, we want it to be able to reach other business owners too.
So we would love if you would like, comment, share, leave a review, post, share again, all of the things on social media, on all the different platforms, or even on the podcast mediums of Apple and Spotify, we would love to be able to get our content into more hands, more entrepreneurs so they can grow their business as quick as Together, we are building a community of like minded entrepreneurs who are committed to growing their businesses to new heights. So let's do this. Let's help each other.
Let's hope each other grow. What is the difference you used shortcutting and accelerating? And you kinda gave a little bit of an example there, but To me, I see a pretty staunch mindset difference. What does that mean to you? 1, you can either, like, on your own, if you're trying to accelerate your progress.
Rather means that just showing up each day and doing the thing and just kinda seeing what happens, you could look at somebody else Chaz been successful doing exactly what you're trying to do. And you could kinda reverse engineer it, and you could go, how did they get to where they are and follow those steps, and you could replicate that on your own.
That would be one method of accelerating your success versus just just making all the mistakes yourself and then learning what they've learned in 10 or 20 years of doing it. Right? So making all those mistakes is just a you can get there. It just takes a lot of time. Right? But so you could learn from somebody else's and kinda reverse engineer them. Or you could find somebody like you. Let's say I wanna start a podcast next week.
Should I just start 1 and hit go, or should I reach out to you and say, if you started a podcast again, What would you do differently? And can I cut you a check? Can we sit down for a couple sessions, couple hours or a day? And you could line me out on this right, or, hey, I wanna start a mastermind Chaz. I started a mastermind, or should I just go do that on my own? No. An accelerator would be to, like, reach out you and say, what did you do right? What did you do wrong?
What would you do differently? And then I'm gonna cut you a a check for that time and that wisdom, and that's gonna collapse. Right? My learning curve, and therefore, accelerate me getting to be successful at that thing. So I think that's why I say when I say shortcut, like, we're trying to kind of cheat the process without putting in the work. Right? We're trying to cheat the process, and you really can't.
So I find that the accelerator is usually identifying somebody who's Been where you are, done what you wanna do, and then whether get coaching, consulting, or mentorship from them, or if you can't afford it, just reverse engineer them as much as you can from afar, k, and try to replicate their path. Alright. That's a free way to do it. It's gonna take more time. But it it sure beats just going at it on your own, you know, and just kind of seeing how it goes.
Because I didn't have the money for a mentor, a coach, or a mastermind, was I just replicated broke down other people in their past. So that's why I'm presenting that as an option. Yeah. Yeah. It's good. Yeah. It's good. It see, the caveat or not the caveat, but opposite of that would be, like you said, doing it yourself or what I find oftentimes the word is isolation. It's kind of a weird word, but we do it to ourselves.
Right, as entrepreneurs, sometimes even as I can go dad's husband's, I could kinda create a lot of lanes here, but as, let's just say, highly successful people, or people who want to be highly successful. We we just kinda get in the groove, maybe even with good intentions putting my head down and just doing the work. I'm being told to do here on this podcast.
But if I'm not reverse engineering, seeking help, or even just trying to get around somebody via at least a pod cast or getting in a community or paying for a coach like all of these things that can accelerate. If I'm not doing those things, what I'm truly choosing is, like, self isolation, and it's like I'm cutting myself off from anybody else that could influence or agitate my thought, which is what Napoleon Hill And Think of Roche says a mastermind is anyway.
It's not a big group coaching program. It's me and you talking together and me going, wow. That was that was a really interesting way Chaz he said that. I am gonna go change something because of that. And so, again, that can happen on podcast. And so I think that everything that you've given to the listener, super powerful. If you were listening to this show, back then, what do you think You'd be thinking right now. Listening to you going am I like, are you fired up? Are you ready to go?
Are you a little uncertain still? What does the younger Travis say listening to this show. I always have to recalibrate now where we're at, right, where we're at with our businesses, right, is that it kind of felt like a dream. To have to build a side hustle that would just to escape that would replace the job and come to escape the job. That was like a major goal. Never would have thought, like, that we would go on to start. 3 or 4 other companies. You know what I mean? And run businesses.
So I think there's like this Grand Canyon type, like Chaz or gap So I think sometimes as entrepreneurs and as business owners Chaz people grow, there's a disconnect between you and the guy or gal that's still commuting to work and just trying to achieve that initial thing. So I think that's what I'd say is you don't don't measure yourself based on somebody else is. Right? Like, they were in different chapters. Right? So you know what I mean? Let's go back to that chapter for me.
What might resonate more is what might resonate more for people is like my journey going from commuting to work, listening to podcasts, working on self development, trying to grow, like, focusing on a side hustle, painfully having 2 or 3 years of overlap between job and side hustle to be able to step out of Chaz. I think that's kind of the things you start with. Instead of looking at where somebody's at now, you kinda go if you really follow somebody or attract somebody, You kinda see it.
None of it's overnight. None of it's overnight. There's a ton of work and time that went into it. So if you kind of back up and go far enough back, Bring them to a point where they're relatable to you or closer to where you were or are. And for me, I think that's a lot of the time Chaz when, like, when I was an employee, right, and I was in a w 2 job. And that's the two things I joke about.
They say that's the only two things I miss about having a job are, like, having the commute because I love listening to podcasts. I truly right? So I I don't have that commute time now. Right? I'm at home. And the other thing is a nice really nice to have an IT department. Right? Who come fix the printer, come work on the computer. You know what I mean? All that technical stuff. So those are the only two things I miss from having a job. But I think I think, yeah, that's probably more relatable.
If we were in a mastermind amongst other business owners, right, it might relate more to them about running or owning multiple businesses and the challenges, but, like, for a listener, right, who's maybe trying to find their lane, that would probably be more relatable. Yeah. Big on family. I've watched a lot of your content. You've got your boys and some of your stuff, and your family is big for you. And so I wanna I wanna go down the family lane for a second.
What just kinda keeping this lane of you talking to the younger Travis and maybe what was relatable. How are you explaining what we were just talking about to your sons where it's like there's persistence, but then there's, like, this time of things gonna happen over the course of time. But maybe you see that dad has been sick but they haven't seen that long history of long nights and working inside hustle and and miss it opportunities, and they didn't see any of that.
And so How are you showing them? Well, this all started because of of that because having to travel for work for me, it was like, I would I'd have to leave our 2 little boys, and then my wife would stay home and do the heavy lifting, and I would miss them. They would miss weed. That wasn't any fun. Right? Like, traveling. So for me, it was like, I've gotta get to a point where I don't have to travel word. You know what I mean? It's my decision to finally go anywhere.
And if I do, we're bringing the whole family. So for me, that was a hard thing. Happy to travel with little ones. Didn't bother other people. Some colleagues I added didn't bother in one bit. They liked getting away from home. Right? For me, it was tough on me. It was really hard on me. It was probably even harder on the family when I left them. So that was the purpose. For me, that was, like, the driving force of, right? This has to work. It wasn't really about, like, money. It was like, okay.
How do I build a life where I get to be, like, involved and not like a spectator. You know what I mean? I get to be a husband, a dad who's present. Right? And I'm there versus our dad's out of town. Maybe he'll bring us a cool toy or when he comes back. Right? So for me, it all started with that. And, yeah, the boys, they're fun because they're getting older.
Now I've a, a fifteen year old, a thirteen year old, and a nine year old, and we've been at this kind of entrepreneur thing about a decade. So they've seen, right? They've seen it And they even joke now. We've got a we've got a 4th boy on the way. So boy number 4 coming here in May, and and they kinda joke because that's what they say is, well, he's gonna have it easy from the start He never had to move houses. He never had to do all you know what I mean?
We're just joking, right, because the kids were like, yeah. They were part of the process. Right? They grew with us. They saw, like, Yeah. The work we put in, the hours we put in, they also saw us, like, go from smaller starter home to a bigger home, right, with the backyard, a basketball court, like, some of the that, like, they were vested in too. Right? So it wasn't just, hey. We want a bigger house. It was like, we want a house with the basketball court. Right?
So As as the older boys have seen Chaz, yeah, they they kind of even teasing about the new baby coming. They're like, they're baby's not even gonna know it's like to struggle or have to order waters when we go out to eat. Right? So they're part of it, but we actually had a funny situation in Chaz. My oldest when he's in 8th grade, we got a call from the principal because he was selling prime at school.
Okay. So When a couple like, a year ago, when this prime energy drink was really, like, at its peak, our son, he had us buying him cases of this prime energy drink at the get it wherever. And then he would take we'd buy it for, like, a buck 80, and then he'd bring it to school and sell it for 5 or 6 bucks a bottle. So he did this for about 3 weeks. And the principles, hey. Like, she was great about it. She's like, hey. I really I really do, like, respect the entrepreneurship here.
But I can't have parents call me saying, hey. My son paid 10 or 20 bucks for a bottle of prime. Right? So let's not he didn't get any trouble, but she's we can't keep doing this. I appreciated the hustle Yeah. And what he was trying to do had a little Oh, yeah. Notetaker, like, his inventory. Right? So, yeah, so I think it's good. I think some of it, they see how all of the hard work can pay off. They see it's hard work, but there's even things she has to kids at 13:15.
They understand what affiliate marketing is. And, I mean, they're not just watching YouTube videos they get when somebody says, hey. Click this link here. They understand what's going on. So I think that I feel like little things like that, like us just being able to teach them those are really important. Right, where they kind of understand how everything works and why things why things are the way they are. They're kinda learning a little bit of business along the way. They sell some sneaker.
They flip sneakers. They do all this stuff right. So they're like, I don't have no interest in land. I mean, but, but in their own interest. They're they're understand, like, arbitrage and flipping and yeah. Value. They're adding value. The prime at schools because they couldn't they couldn't get it anywhere else. And so, of course, they pay 5 or 6 or 20 bucks because you because you can't get it. My ten year old last year was 9. We homeschool now, but she took some items, some treats to school.
And it was the same day. He she didn't get away with it for 3 weeks. It was the same day we got a phone call. And I'm like, what is this? Is this America? I mean, come on. Anyway, it was funny because our kids school at that time had a It's it's a little private, Christian school, and they have a a, like, what they call it, llama lounge. It's their mascot. And this is pretty young kids. So she was like, the first problem is Chaz that there's peanut butter or something that's allergies.
We wanna be okay. Fine. But I know that this item is sold in your llama lounge. It sounds like you wanna run a monopoly here. It's fun to to be able to breathe that into our to our kids. What do you think has helped you guys along the way obsess both over that lifestyle that you just described of wanting to be a good dad, husband, business owner, good guy, like you said earlier? And not just be all in only on the business.
I think Chaz a lot of entrepreneurs are good at obsessing, but they're still trying to figure out how to obsess over all things at once. How do you how have you done Just really, like, spending a lot of time thinking, what's important? It's truly important to you. Right? And I look at guys like Steve Jobs, a lot of people are impressed. I'm not impressed. If your kids don't think you were a great dad. Who cares if you made your dent in the universe, right, to me that I'm not impressed with them.
Really not so to me. It's if you could have a strong marriage that lasts, right, that you can raise kids that are good humans and wanna be involved in your life and still wanna see you and spend time with you, right, Like, to me, these are the things that are, like, successful. You've gotta pay bills along the way. And at some point, you have to have some nest egg to retire into, a retired dignity and to be able to hopefully help your kids.
So you can't ignore money, right, like you you like you said, the scorecard, you you have to have money along the way. But for me, it was more like, Hey. How what's the cost? There's a cost here, so you'll notice imbalance when you spend too much time on one thing the other things suffer. So as you're starting businesses or or your hustling or you're doing this, you wanna make sure it's not at a cost of your family. Right?
So for me, it was like, my wife, from day 1, when we started talking about this, she said, yep. Let's do it together. Right? So I was fortunate that she had a background in in more in the mortgage industry. Right? And so she was perfectly suited for what we were doing. And that really helped because if it was just me doing this on my own, I think everybody you'd view it as, oh my gosh, like dad's obsessed, and it's robbing all this time.
But I think the fact that, like, we're talking about work together. Right? We're on the same page with things. She's vested in it. She's helping me build it. That's worked for it doesn't work for everybody. That's what that's what's worked for us as it were just completely it it want it's we're closer. Right? I have a respect for her because she's helped clean up a company. She's helped grow company. She's helped me from starting companies I shouldn't start or take on more than I should do.
Right? So, like, I I have a beyond just a wife, I have a respect for what the role she's played in the businesses, but it's also, like, just brought us to where we're on the exact same page. Not coming home talking about my day. Oh, as a rocket scientist, and she has no interest, right, in rocket science. Like, it's like, we're in the same game together. So I I for me, I feel like that makes it, you know, that's easier for us because we are. We're on that same page. Because it's really easy.
Yeah. To become consumed, everybody has a little ego in them. Right? So that ego will want you to just grow, like, just as everybody talks about, real estate. Right? Number of door zone, revenue, like, team size, all this stuff. You've kind of gotta understand. And it's probably easier for me now because I'm a little older. Right? So in my early twenties, I probably have a different opinion. That's how I would measure success. Right?
Yeah. But for me now being a dad and husband, I look at it as success a lot different. So for me, like, it's like the most important thing, right, is keeping the family together and the family staying close. So if the business is starting to cost some of that, then it's the business that's gotta, like, suffer or shrink or go away. So I think it's a very it's a very personal thing. Like I say, like, I'll coach guys in their early twenties. They're in a different spot in life.
So for them, like, we're gonna try to grow their team as big as we can. We're gonna try to grow the revenue as big as they can, and they don't mind working 60, 80 hours a week. K. But I think it's just an individual path on you just gotta, like, inventory take self inventory and build it in a way that you're happy with what you've built. Right? Yep. And I couldn't agree more. I think it's all a defined. Goes back to what you said earlier. You have to clearly say what you want.
The y even and or for the burning desire. Desire. Yeah. Once that's clear, then it everything else just falls into line with that. So you're spot on love the answer. One last question here Chaz we wrap up. I had talked with you a few minutes ago about what the younger self would think about this podcast, but if you had the chance to chat with the younger, Travis, you tap him on the shoulder, and you just whispered him something quick. What would that be?
I promise you, don't be so hard on yourself. I think early on, I didn't look at failure when things went wrong or we had a failure, like I said, it was like, I'm a failure. It's a failure. It was just so, like, permanent of a mentality of thinking failure was permanent. And what you, like, realize along the way or along the journey is that failures like this failure. Like, you're knocked down. It doesn't mean, like, you stay down. Like, there's the option to get back up. Right?
It does yourself off. Right? And then that might happen several more times. So I think I think early on, I just assumed everybody that's successful Chaz got it right the first time the first effort, and I think that's what I'd kinda tell myself is that, hey. It's probably not gonna be easy, but it's gonna be worth it. Give yourself some grace, you know, be because along the way, there's a lot of failures along the way, and that's perfectly okay. Right? Yeah. Such a great message.
Poys, patience, kindness towards ourselves. I mean, especially as young drivers, like, bro, we just wanna go Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You really do it. You're just so hard on yourself. I think because you're always looking at others and measuring yourself. But others, right, towards them. And then assuming that they did it easier, more effortlessly than you have, right, and the reality is most people, like, But they're just keeping that private, right, that the struggles they had. Right?
But, yeah, everybody experiences them. Yeah. You gotta take your lumps. That's right. Okay. Travis, you've got content out there, the work they find you, if they wanna learn about investing in land, if they wanna be maybe a student, if they wanna get in on a deal with you. If they want to if they're already in land and they wanna check out your CRM, give us some information here. Travisking.com is probably the easiest place to go, and you're going to have an obnoxious relentless pop up.
Like, when you go to travisking.com, that's gonna say, hey. Because I wanna give you my book for free. K? So I think that's pretty fair. Right? Fill out your info, and I'll get you my book. If you're interested in land investing, that's probably a great spot to start. We have, when you go to troublesking.com, we've got a free challenge. Like, I did 7 day challenge. We recorded it in studio. Like, when I started, it was like I was on YouTube University getting all fragmented information.
And I probably spent 9 months trying to, like, piece together because there there weren't a bunch of, like, courses or as much education now. Keep in mind this is land. Right? This isn't duplexes or something. So there wasn't as much education 10 years ago. So for me, it took a long time to piece everything together. So we created a challenge. It's 7 days, a 100% free, right, that people it's a good starting point.
If you kinda go, I wanna get oriented with land Is this something I'm even interested? That's a good good thing to do without having to get your credit card out. Right? And then we've got one on 1 coaching, group coaching, and you've got a number of things. You got a course if the challenge in the book kinda resonate with you. And then really our approach has been, like, not just teach you this and and sell you courses or education, but I'd love to partner with students on deals. Right?
Like, maybe we do a subdivide project together. Right? Make some real not just sell a course, but make some real money, right, like, partnering on a deal. So that's a big part of what we do too, is really trying to train people up to be advanced investors and then partner with them. Right? It's not so much a it is an education company because we built all the education. Right? The whole value ladder's there.
But, honestly, we'd rather build this big network of investors that can do deals together. So that but travisking.com is probably the easy one stop shop for that. Well, Mister King, you have been a king here today. That's for sure. I just admire you from afar. Hopefully, our relationship From here, is not from afar, but up until now, it's been incredible getting to know you. Today, you've been an absolute blessing to any listener who took the time to be intentional about their listening.
You gave them so much gold. Thank you for being here. Blessings to you and your family. I appreciate your time. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you for listening to Gathering the Kings today. I hope that you were able to pull out a few nuggets to go apply into your business right away. More importantly, though, I hope that you're realizing that it takes more to be successful than just being by yourself doing it all on your own, carrying the weight all by yourself.
What I have realized, not only in my own journey from multiple businesses and multiple different industries, and now interviewing over 2 or 300 other very successful 7, 8, and 9 figure business owners is that it's tough to do it alone. And so gathering the Kings exists 2 bring together successful entrepreneurs. In fact, we are putting together 1000 kings, specifically who are grateful, but not done.
We're intentionally assembling kings who fight tooth and nail for their business, family, and communities, and here's what we believe. That in the pursuit of excellence in those areas, that it ignites within us the responsibility to govern power and forge a lasting legacy. So if that relates and and resonates with you and you know that you need people around you, sharp, qualified, other very successful business owners. I want you to go to gathering the king's dot com.
I want you to take a look at what we're doing and see if it makes sense for you to be part of our pursuit. To 1000 kings. Talk soon.