How Trav Lubinsky is Revolutionizing Brand Experiences
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it was a two-year deal and not an episode deal, they made two, three times what they would have made. Do you think it changed their business model going forward with how they work with brands? I think it changed a lot of people's business models, including the network's.

I think they were like, what just happened? And we did case studies on it and we started talking about it. And it wasn't until Bethany Frankel did her deal that there was that clause. And then Mark Cuban was Shark Tank and they stopped taking percentages. But the networks and everyone and Apprentice. Yeah, that's why that show ended. The networks and the brands are all fighting on who's going to get it. The production company is making the show and they're getting the brand sponsors. The network is airing the show and they're not being paid. They're not getting it.

And now, Escaping the Drift, the show designed to get you from where you are to where you want to be. I'm Jon Gafford, and I have a knack for getting extraordinary achievers to drop their secrets to help you on a path to greatness. So stop drifting along, escape the drift, and it's time to start.

right now. Back again, back again for another episode of Escaping the Drift. The show like the opening says, man, that gets you from where you are to where you want to be. And today in studio, dude, I got somebody, I've been trying to get this cat in here forever. I've known him for like probably, I don't know, two years now. At least. And it's been like, hey, come in. Yeah, I'll do it. He's in Vegas all the time, but he's in Vegas like, it's like a Navy SEAL mission. It's like I get in, I take a meeting, I get on JetSuiteX and I'm out.

But I caught him last night. I'm surfing Instagram last night and I catch him. I see him at the Cosmo, the chandelier bar. I'm like, oh, I got your ass now. So I hit him up and I'm like, hey, why don't you do the podcast? And finally, he begrudgingly, after a year of trying to get this done, he came in. Anyway, if you are someone that appreciates branding, and I'm not talking about

I'm not talking about the, hey, come to this title company this weekend and we're going to do a seminar on personal branding. I'm talking about legitimate understanding how to build a brand from a product. This dude is an absolute genius.

expert. He has taken some brands from dead flat zero to ginormous exits. His new system he's got that's out for right now for Airbnb is mind-blowing. In the two minutes I just heard about it when he walked in the door, I was blown away. But guys, he's

Seriously, listen to this whole thing. Welcome to the show, Mr. Travis Zbinski. Travis! Thanks for having me. Or Trav, as he's known on the gram. Whatever you want. Trav, what's up, man? I'm happy to be here. How are you? I'm good. So, dude, for those of you that don't know you, you are most known probably in the general lexicon of business for Flex Watches. That's probably your claim to fame. Yeah.

And if you don't know Flex watches, explain those Flex watches, how that was born. I think that's pretty much your backstory. It really gets it going because that was number one, right? Yeah. Flex watches, the watch company I started in 2010, so 14 years ago. And each watch represents a different charity that we partnered with to give back. So we started around the time that Tom started and we saw that he was doing a one for one model.

We wanted to create our own unique brand. And we saw the Livestrong bracelet with yellow for testicular cancer. So we were like, how can we create a brand that does that? Various different products. And then a friend came to me with a watch that was interchangeable. And the face popped out of the band. And we're like, it's flexible.

right so we came up with this concept we had these flexible interchangeable watches and we wanted to give back to charity so we came up with flex watches and time to make a difference and that was kind of the beginning time to make a difference that was the tagline so

I love the story of how you got this thing that like the angle you use to kind of really get this moving. Cause much like myself, who is probably sitting where I am today as a result of reality television. I mean, I am not ashamed to say that the apprentice launched me into the stratosphere from where I was. I mean, look, I'll just, and I was on a reality TV show when I started. So yeah, it catapulted us to the forefront of that watch space at a price point. And that's it. And what reality show was that? The real world. So you were on the real world. Which episode was that? Uh,

Or which season, not episode. And it's a unique, I can tell that story. Yeah, absolutely. It's a unique approach. In 2011, the real world came to San Diego. You know how it is. The kids have to find a job.

so me and my business partner are just coming back from a missions trip in mexico we walked into a bar to get some food for lunch we looked up and there was a boom mic and lights and cameras like what's going on turns out it was like the opening shot of the real world san diego he started talking to one of the kids and he was affected by suicide and people in his family had taken their lives and he wanted to raise awareness for it so he immediately started talking he's like dude what you're doing super cool have you ever thought about suicide

And he's talking to my business partner. I looked up and I saw the other castmates and one of them had a Livestrong bracelet and had a watch on. So I was like, yo, check this out. Took the watch off. I was like, look, the face pops out of the band.

He's like, wow, let me have one. We start talking, my business partner starts talking. The next thing I know, we're walking to the real world house in La Jolla. The whole thing is activated with brands. My mind is going, whoa, this is crazy. How can I get Flex watches integrated into this house, into this? This is insane. In real time. In real time. In real time with the cameras running. Fast forward 40 days. We filmed every single day. We built him a charity for suicide awareness. Me and my business partner got integrated into the real world.

They worked at us as the job. So I was like the boss and we got to do really cool stuff. Like we created this watch collab with him to raise awareness for suicide. We filmed television commercials with MTV to raise awareness for suicide. We got a suicide hotline behind it.

And, you know, through that, we got to go do a fashion show, a live event and film it on TV. So it all aired in season 26 as like an integrated storyline. Dude, that does not happen. That was crazy. Like that does not. I mean, OK, look, as somebody that was on a reality show. Yes, yes.

They let reality take its course and they let kind of things happen among the castmates. But it's still very much guided. And like the brand partners are pretty much selected before. Well, before with hours of meetings and tons of pitches. Yeah. Right. So we did that. And Benjamin Murray was the production company. They sell the show to Viacom who owns MTV. When the vice president of Viacom got this across his desk, it was too late.

And he called me. My phone's ringing. I'm like, who is this? Like, what's going on? He's like, hey, man, this is Lee from Viacom. What you've done is like a multimillion dollar product integration. And we need to talk. I'm like, well, what's going on? He's like, we're going to cut you out. You can't be in any of this. Like, this is not allowed. We have to figure something out. I'm like, where are you? I'm in Las Vegas. I said, cool. How long are you going to be there? He lives in LA. He's like, I'll be here for two days. I'm at Magic. I'm like, what?

which is a fashion show. I said, oh, cool. I'm going to, but I wasn't. Flew in, met with him for lunch and we came up with an agreement at the table and he wanted to charge us millions of dollars. And I said, I want to do partnership and integrate us. And obviously there were some ads, Ben was some television advertising, other things, but

we did a rev share and they were incentivized. So our deal ended up being a two-year deal with Viacom and they put us on multiple shows and they put our watches into multiple different episodes. And then they started running our Flex watches commercials with me in them on Teen Mom, Beavis and Butthead. You remember how those shows were? And like when you open on demand, remember like TiVo became on demand. People were like, oh my gosh, it forced you to watch a commercial for 30 seconds. Flex commercial because

because Viacom wanted that revenue. Because, yeah, I mean, that just goes to show that it's always better. I love RevDeals. I love RevShare. I love affiliate links. I love all of that stuff because I think it's always better to say, let's monetize together rather than let me tax you. Yeah, or just, I can't afford it. You're going to kick me out. This is an amazing storyline. Well,

- Well, I think you probably caused them a lot of grief with the footage that you were in. I mean, it would have been a major lift for them. Did you know it would have been a major lift for them to cut you out? - I didn't understand how it worked. I was just doing what we were doing. And I think that came off on camera and we weren't actually there to film the show. We were there to help the kid build his charity. And we had a real business and they came into our real place of business and came to our events

And I had a dozen employees. So I think they looked at us like, these guys are trying to build their business. - Yeah. - And they're actually trying to help this kid. They're not charging him for branding, websites, merch. Like I'm doing all this stuff for this castmate. So I helped make a storyline and arc that character. So I was like, how are they gonna remove us? - No. - At a certain point, I was like, I wonder if they even watched it because what they're telling me is they're gonna kick me out of something which is the main character story arc. - Yeah. - So when I started understanding it all, I was like,

I have a little more leverage here than I think. Why don't we play into it though? Like I had to convince him. I'm like, no, no, this is going to be huge. It's not something you can cut. This is something that literally lays the foundation for cause-based marketing and raising awareness for suicide. This is me talking to him. Yeah. Like this is an opportunity for kids who are 25 years old to be able to get a multimillion dollar deal with Viacom and you get to do a new business model and show people how you can sell directly from TV. He's like, no one's going to buy this stuff. It's

It's TV. There's no way to click. There's no way to watch. When it aired, we did over a million dollars in sales. They were like, whoa. So, you know, I'm just curious on the rev share deal to them. Did they end up making, if coming out, don't give me a number, give me a multiple, give me a multiple. What do you think it was? Two X, three X. What that would have been over the ad spend. First of all, I would have spent $0. I understand that. But let's say your company, a, that comes in and writes them a check. What do you think? So I think on the road, because it was a two year deal and not an episode deal, they made $1,000.

two, three times what they would have made. Do you think it changed their business model going forward with how they work with brands? I think it changed a lot of people's business models, including the networks.

I think they were like, what just happened? And we did case studies on it and we started talking about it. And it wasn't until Bethany Frankel did her deal that there was that clause. And then Mark Cuban was Shark Tank and they stopped taking percentages. But the networks and everyone and Apprentice, that's why that show ended. The networks and the brands are all fighting on who's going to get it. The production company is making the show and they're getting the brand sponsors. The network is airing the show and they're not being paid. They're not getting it.

they want the advertiser. So it's a push and pull and it always has been. I believe that's probably what ended up happening with The Apprentice because there were such big brand deals and so much money being made. Those guys were making millions of dollars. Oh, for sure. By the way, same production company. Oh yeah. So they were making millions of dollars, Joey Carson helping produce the show, right? Yup. And brands and talent and

Trump and everyone. Were you dealing with Joey when you were doing that? No. Did you come back around to the back end or what happened? Joey was already moved on from Bono Marie and created that show. Yeah. And created the whole format. So when I had met Joey, he's like, yeah, I know who you are. And we started talking, cut it off. And then obviously we put two and two together and it's,

It went back even further because I was doing printing before I started the watch company. I was in manufacturing and Paris Hilton was my client and he made simple life. So we were like, Whoa, no way. Paris Hilton. He's like, you were the guy making those shirts. I said, I party with Paris Hilton and that's hot. I'm like, yeah, her manager is my friend, Jamie Freed.

So it was just like this weird, like we were trying to go before and after. Yeah. Joey, Joey Carson does a lot of business with our friend. Dan Fleischman now runs his elevator studio. And it was funny. The first time I met Joey, we were talking and said something about reality. Tim is like, I just got, I got a little bit of history in reality television. And I was like,

Oh, see here, dumb ass me, right? Oh, so do I. I was a contestant on the third season of The Apprentice and blah, blah, blah. And he's like, yeah, I created the real world. And I'm like, well, that's better than what I just said. That's so much better than what I just said. What network was The Apprentice on? NBC. Okay, yeah.

I think he was still producing stuff, had something to do with that too. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, that was Mark Burnett, so I don't know. Yeah, I don't know how much. It's just all very connected. And Joey was the CFO at Fox for 10 years. So yeah, he did like shows like Making the Band and Work with Diddy. I mean, he's done so many shows like the poker show. What was that one?

A series of poker. Yeah. That TV show about it. Yeah. Um, this way you get a love, but you can, so I get to love a guy like him. Like, this is how, you know, if somebody is a baller, right. I mean like a true baller, if they just casually throw something out, like I got a pass in reality, reality television and that's it. Like,

you might want to be careful how you follow something like that up because you just got to assume that that dude's probably a giant it what's crazy and i don't make this all about joey but what's crazy is like he was telling me that at the time he was pushing viacom and them to do the after shows on mobile and on the internet so that people would leave the tv and be on the internet and shop for stuff so he saw the vision and he was trying to do that he did deals with like i was team mobile or verizon but the carriers to watch the official after show

for the reality show on the phone. So he created the after show. It's seeing what's next. How is Flex doing now? I mean, it's good. So good. I mean, we've been through ups and downs. Sure. Everything has been crazy. Right. And after we had that run, the Viacom, I ended up partnering with a hip hop artist moving to L.A., had some financial struggles, ran into some trademark issues, went on the show, The Prophet with Marcus Limonis. I casted for that show. He saw what we did. And that day he wrote us a check and said, why don't you come work for me?

few months later, bought the company. So I became part of the Marcus Limonis group and I started helping other e-commerce brands and I was on the show until the pandemic. So that was actually the last episode we did the inside look of Flex watches where we announced that I bought the company back and I'm going home. So I started a portfolio in 2020 and that's when the real estate journey and the restaurant and all that began because I was like, I've been doing e-commerce for a long time. At that point, I guess it had been

10, 11 years. And everyone knew me as a flex watches guy, but I had a lot of other things going on and I wanted to kind of put that at the forefront because I was part of a shoe company with Marcus. Yeah. I was part of all these different brands and most of them took precedence over my brand because they grew larger than

So when I had the opportunity to take my company back and like build the infrastructure, I was really excited because I had this vision for licensing and private label manufacturing. And that's what I really am focused on is. Well, here's an interesting question, because I always I always try to tell people, don't let what you do become who you are.

Because who you are or what you do will probably change several times. And especially if it's a situation where maybe the rug gets pulled up underneath you as to what you do. Or three times. Yeah, but it damages your ego and your psyche. Did you find yourself when Marcus bought the company?

And you went from, this is my thing. And I'm the flex watch guy too. I'm part of the law market. So did you find yourself almost having a crisis in confidence, if you will, or your ego took a hit or anything like that? I was just, were you detached from it? It's just a business. I think I was, first of all, I was on reality TV again. So I was excited. Oh, that's true. Yeah. And I was filming. And at first I was the guy on TV, struggling, crying. And I was a little depressed and a little overweight and

and my business partner's mom had passed away. Our business wasn't doing too well. We had dealt with a lawsuit. So like I was just looking to be part of something where I didn't have to be the guy that bared the burden. And after 10 years and losing close people, I was like, this is just a lot. So that release

of just becoming unemployed for a little while and being part of the portfolio i actually got to absorb and by being in close proximity to marcus how he was and i realized like the dude doesn't drink he wakes up early he walks in the room has frame control he has 200 companies but he has processes and systems he knows how to buy back his time and put other people in place

And so when I started seeing that in an infrastructure, I would really just learn like what would piss him off. And then I'd be like, oh, okay, don't do that. Don't do that. But then I started realizing like, because it's inefficient or because it's a waste of time. So I started learning how to run a portfolio, build a personal brand and attach that personal brand to multiple companies.

which is what I do now for myself. - Yeah, without having operational headaches. - And one day I was like, please go speak at this mansion event. My friend Dan Fleischman is having this hundred million mastermind. This would be insane. - Oh, I remember this. - He's like, I don't wanna do public speaking. I don't wanna build my brand. You build your brand. I'm like, no, no, it'll be cool. He's like, no. I do the show with him, the inside look. I bring him a Trav hat. BTS, he puts on the Trav hat. We're just messing with each other, you know, like,

We, me and him banter a lot and he has patience, but not for me. He says, so me and him have this, like this thing. Right. And he essentially was like, you go do Trav.

And I don't want Flex to die because I want Trav to be able to point back and say, I built Flex watches like I'm doing right now and use that as credibility and leverage and saying, now that I'm building Airbnbs with brands in them, I have this experience of integrating products and brands on TV for 10 years on reality shows and in showrooms because our office was a set and a showroom. And now, you know, my new business model, which we'll get, we're going to get to like kind of took me on that path

of like building a portfolio, getting into private equity. And mind you, I had never sold a company. And in the time that I did that, I started and sold another one and then bought this company back. So I was just learning. And now I have the agreements from legal, the templates for asset purchase agreements. Like I know how to do this stuff. So that's now where I can like launch a company, raise funds.

structure it the right way, do a safe, convert it over to corporation, get everyone their shares. Like I learned all this stuff from him. Well, that's again, let's talk about that because when you sold Flex to him, did it ever even occur to you that you were, you weren't selling your company, you were getting a mentor? Did that even, like in the moment, did that occur to you?

Not really. It was like, I'm going to go try and see where this goes. And then like, yeah, after a while, after like a year, I was like, this is insane because Marcus is teaching me indirectly even just by having me run the portfolio. And what we did, he had the ML fashion group, but like what we were doing was servicing all his brands, including mine. So the ML fashion group bought my company, but we didn't

We didn't have any e-commerce. We didn't have any social media. We didn't have any digital at all. No email, nothing, no copywriters, no designers, no developers. So I said,

let's create our own internal creative agency. I became the president of ML Creative. So it was no longer Trav. I have the Trav brand now. But the funny joke is he texts me, Marcus, and I'm like, oh, let's keep doing ML Creative. Like, let's start an agency, incubate brands, help people outside the show. And he was down for it for a little while. But then he texted me, said, just build the Trav brand. And I went online. I'm like, Travbrand.com. Yeah, it's there.

That's it. And then I was like, I'm just going to do that. I'm just going to do that. And I built a creative agency and started attaching myself to other brands. Yeah. I always talk about, and again, because here, this show is, I always think that the best way to get ahead quickly and the best way to shrink time is to find a good mentor. And I'm always interested, especially when you hear somebody like I've had, I had a

on your R.A. Segar, who's Oracle of Austin, they call him. The guy's got an $8 billion portfolio he built in seven years. Baller. And after having him on, he's like, man, you should have, he's like, I've mentored one guy.

and I had him on his name was shy a nice guy and because I just want to know what did you do to have this guy take an interest in you when he's got kids at home I mean he's got family he's got life what do you think it was I know what it was that made Marcus take an interest in you I I didn't do it for the mentor I actually did it so that he would invest in flex but I he identified it in five minutes I had a whiteboard on the wall and I drew a sales funnel and I put

Facebook, Instagram, Google as traffic sources and social media and I drew big arrows to a website. And then I drew down email automation and all the flows. And I wanted to tell him that we could take TV

push traffic to a website and I've done it before. Yeah. And if he puts me on his show, we'll make millions. I just wanted to tell him that. Yeah. I didn't give a fuck. I was like, I just wanted him to see that. And he walked in and goes, you know, Russell Brunson, like, like click funnels. He's like, yeah, I just spoke at his event. Hold on. Yeah.

Russell, I want to do a scene with you. I want you to build these guys a funnel. You dropped like a million dollars or something on 10 funnels for each charity, for each thing. And they were like full automation with like 50 flows, upsells, downsells. Never done a funnel in my life. I just drew it on a whiteboard because I watched Russell on YouTube. And I was like, I want to build these. Like I know what to do because I did get traffic, you know, and we did capture emails and we did

millions of dollars in revenue through email marketing. So you had an idea of what to do. But I just didn't know like, you know, squeeze page, pop up, automation, abandoned cart, browser abandonment, all the things that Russell does, you know, post-purchase nurturing, how to win back customers, sunset flows. And like when I started learning all that, I was the person telling Marcus that he didn't want to take the time to learn that stuff. He's like, you do it.

Yeah. That was, that was it. And then like literally the first night he's like, I'll invest, but you guys are a salesman. He said this on TV, your sales and marketing company, you don't make watches. You took me to some other manufacturer and you have a warehouse space in and they make your watches.

I'm like, kind of, they make them in China, ship them here. They store them, fulfill them. Yeah. We don't make watches. You don't make watches. We don't make watches. I don't live in China. I make watches bro. And so when it came down to it, he's like your sales and marketing guys. And then a couple of weeks later he came in and he's like, Travis, what do you want to do? Go downtown, find a place where we could film a TV show, build an office and you can hire like 20 people to build that e-comm team. Are you serious? He's like, yeah. And a couple of days later he called me and said, I can't do any of that.

Unless I own your business, a hundred percent. You work for me. So we're like, okay, let's figure that out. That's when we did that deal. We got acquired. I had another investor and a business partner. Everyone got bought out. I stayed. Yeah. Me and my brother stayed and we ended up just helping brands for four or five years, but no one else wanted to be involved in like potentially have, you

themselves look bad on TV. Sure. Because it's like you're swimming in a shark tank as long as you don't get scathed, you're good. But I ended up having a good relationship with Marcus. We became friends. My brother worked with them for years after I left. Just up until recently when I did my new venture, I actually had my brother become the president of FlexWatches.

Nice. That's kind of like younger brother. I'm assuming older, older brother. Okay. No, no, no. He's, he's been with me since the jump and he was actually running the printing company when I started doing the watch company. Now I'm doing the real estate and he's on the watches, but we've always worked on everything together. Yeah. I have a sibling that way too. Yeah. It's just about someone has to be the day-to-day decision maker and take responsibility. You know, it's not like me or him are more talented at the one thing we have our people in place that do the things we need to do. Hmm.

So yeah, it's good. It's fun to work with my brother again. It's awesome. Cause we started working together and then we stopped after I left Marcus. He stayed for three years. Cause he was like, I need the paycheck. I'm going crazy. I'm like, I gotta be the man again. I mean, it's the pandemic. Like what's going to happen? Like, I don't know. And then crypto was going nuts and the NFT shit was booming. So I was like, I have to get into this right now. And I would rather launch an NFT flex watch than do this. And I did.

How'd that go? It was awesome. First ever NFT watch minted on the blockchain. There was 10 color bands, faces, and cases, and it automatically spun it. So you got one unique, and you were able to take your NFT. Your NFT was a full-on watch. And they take it to the store. You could claim it on my vault, and then you get your watch shipped to you, and we made it one-off. And then the box has a QR code, and it scans the open space. Do you understand this is the first tangible asset I have ever heard come out of an NFT? It was there. That is the first...

actual tangible use of an NFT that I ever heard got actually executed. And it was point to check this out. The floor is still 0.2 ETH. It was 0.2 ETH and it comes with the NFT watch. And then since they're interchangeable faces of bands, we give you either solid black or white, which match best. So one watch makes four color combos, or you can just wear the one that's not an NFT. And then on top of that, the digital NFT is still, you don't burn it, keep it. And now that we had, I mean, we had a flex event,

event at Coachella last year, 2022. And if you're an NFT holder, you can come. Yeah, we did it. We did two events where you could come. And then at that, God bless you for actually, for actually servicing people after the fact. It was a PO app and then everyone painted it. And then we all got to paint. And then we turned that into an NFT and airdropped everyone. And so everyone who got the event and has the NFT, this was like 2021, 2022.

People were like, what's going on? This is like alien talk. I heard yesterday. It's coming back. It is. And I always was in it. I speak on stages about this stuff, but I was always like, guys, like,

careful you know what's a utility yeah but that's a utility that's a practical utility use authentication verification the reason is is no one counterfeits more anything than watches like it is a necessity and i was just doing it because i was like i never gonna make this watch again i want to know where these components are i'm really i want to know who's going to own this watch with the last black face right last so aren't you surprised like ap or like flip hasn't got there i mean

I think a couple of jewelry companies like CryptoPunks and Tiffany's did one with jewelry. But even like Rolex, just minting your shit to make sure it's legit. No, I know. I think what is happening is proof of origin with a lot of stuff. Like obviously I was reading pretty deeply into Nike's patents. They pretty much have the patent on what I just explained, but it's different. It's more so where did the materials come from? So you sourced this material from where? Yeah.

It went where from there it gets scanned in, then it gets manufactured. And then the shoe left the factory. What date it landed in the U S where, at what time. And now it's scanned in. So if I buy shoes on the aftermarket, there's no more stock X. There's no Nike's. I have the NFT for the Nike. That's it is my shoe. And you will have a digital wallet. And that's why they launched swoosh.com to give everyone wallets, but they don't know what's coming. I just read into the patents because I was really interested. You should too. It's cool. Yeah. And it's just, it's,

it's basically authentication and verification of the entire supply chain and the ownership so that when you resell your sneakers, they know if they came from you, they landed at this store and they came from this factory and they were made on this date. Yeah. Yeah. Cause cause right now the authentication and Nike seems to be some dude at a show that smells them, puts his hand in it, flips them around. It's insane, dude. They have so much counterfeit now. Like there are obviously counterfeit flex watches. Okay. I mean, they're sold on Amazon. You know, there are large companies. How do you shut that down?

Very difficult. Amazon will allow you to if they're using counterfeit and you can stop them, but they can start again. And then the worst part about it is I own the word flex, trademark flex, four letters, jewelry accessories, specifically watches, chronological instruments. People use that word all the time. The twist-o-flex, the Rolex has like a flex something, like a certain type of link. I'm not going to go after all these people, but some people,

we'll go literally make a Flex watch or a Flex smartwatch or, you know what I mean? Or a Flex tracker watch. And it's like, then I have to deal with billion dollar companies going and putting Flex on products that are in huge retail. And that was an issue when I went on the profit. It's still an issue today. And it's such a good trademark that it's expensive to defend. When you defend it, you

You win. You win. But I have to go the distance. And right now I'm dealing with that. So I'm like turning flex from an e-commerce, you know, recycled watch. This is a ocean plastics is recycled ocean plastic watch. And it's also interchangeable face and band. And we plant a tree with each purchase. So we have this whole eco collection going right now, but instead of continuing to do that and sell one watch at a time,

at a time to customer on Amazon and all this stuff. I'm like, you know what? People are gonna infringe on us. Let's go to the biggest companies in the world and reverse license this out. 'Cause I've licensed Disney, Star Wars, Minions, all these IPs. And so now I'm like, at this point, let's just go play nice. And so if you're listening and you're using my trademark, we have a licensing. - Just pay the fiddler and let's call it a day. - We have a licensing program now. And so they can continue selling. And there are people who sell Flex watches right now to major retailers like Target and Nordstrom's. And they have my,

and I'm talking to them and they're going to have to participate. And they're just going to pay you a, they're just going to pay you a license fee. I mean, we're going to, or stop. I mean, a lot, that's the problem is that like when you see some system and they can just stop and they're like, Oh, we're good. And then it's like, well, I want to know what the damages are. I want to know what all this stuff is. How much did you ship? Yeah. Now all of a sudden you got to start like subpoenaing. Yeah.

Do you have attorneys on retainer for this kind of stuff or do you hire them on staff or do you hire them? I feel like their staff, but we are specialists for this. You know, I have two, one that's a contract litigation that's going over like the licensing and stuff like that. And then one that's specifically trademark and on the infringement side, we finally, either of those are courtroom lawyers, by the way. Well, we finally got to a point where we had, we had to hire an attorney as an, as an employee. And it's,

It's his salary is covers everything except walking in the courtroom. I mean, and I don't blame him. And I needed that. And so part of my recent deal that I did, I joined a private equity group and I,

contributed some of my assets, like a percentage of some of my assets. - Make that work. - And flex. And now I do have an additional council, additional bookkeeping, additional finance and funding. 'Cause that's important. - Yeah. - You know? 'Cause like at a certain point it's just draining. Like I've been self-funding this since I left the show and it's like, okay, like I've been self-funding the houses, the watches. - I have a good month, I have a bad month. - Yeah, it's just cashflow, man. And the cash is tight right now. And then all of a sudden it's like, oh wait,

crypto halving is coming and I want to put all this money into Bitcoin five, six months ago, which we all knew and started dollar cost averaging as much as I could, you know? So I was liquidating houses. I literally did. I sold the property to buy more Bitcoin. Literally. I was telling my wife this the other day, you can always tell exactly how, how much money I'm making at any given time by how angry I get when people order from Grubhub. Yeah.

Seriously. How the hell does this guy order from Grubhub? He can't order from Grubhub. You see what I'm saying? Like, what do I do? Like, if I get really angry, it's probably not the best month, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why do I have these two Netflix descriptions? What is this? Who's the second house owner? That's what I got to write on my tax checks or whatever I got to write. That's what I'm like, how do you order from Grubhub? How do you pay those fees? It's insane. It's so true. It's so true, though. Well, let's talk about the new venture, dude, because this is super interesting. Thank you.

Who should be listening to this next part? If you are someone that is in the Airbnb game, thinking about getting the Airbnb game or know someone in the Airbnb game. So pretty much that covers everybody listening to this right now. You're going to want to hear this because this is dope. This is cool. Thank you. New business. Go ahead. What is it? All right. So experientials is what it's called. The experientials.com and add experientials on social media.

We integrate brands into high-end Airbnbs. So the first thing we did was get a house, turned it into a really cool themed out high-end Airbnb.

took really cool photos of it. We named it the Beach Barn down in San Diego. And then we started contacting brands. And we have over 30 brand partners now. And they provide everything from furniture and beds to pools and snacks and CPG brands. And we do activations. We have like the laundry sauce, laundry rooms. And brands pay a monthly activation fee to be in these high-end Airbnbs. That's

sleep 10 to 20 people and are rented out majority of the time. So instead of a brand going out and sampling and trying to hand out people that have the high net worth that can actually afford to buy their products,

Or a $7,000 couch or three, four. Well, here's the problem. Most of the people they're after don't take samples. That's the problem. Correct. And they don't go to Costco to lay on a bed. Yeah. Or wherever the bed is at sleep mattress place. So now you can come, you could sleep on a Thuma bed, Charles Roger mattress, spinal line pillow. You can hit the little QR code or the, um, there's NFC chips in some rooms and QR codes on Google homes and on screen. So when you're in a room, you can scan it. It'll pop up the little marketplace and you can buy the products that are in the room.

This is like the, what was the hotel with the bed? The wonder better. You know what I'm talking about? One of the hotel brands sells their bedding and it was like, it's the first thing I can think of. Hotel collection bed. Yeah. The hotel collection. Yeah. And in like a, whatever, whichever hotel that is. I mean, it's everywhere now. I know, but it was one of, it was one of the hotels sold their bedding, the dream bed or whatever it was. And it was the first place I can think of, of that type of a thing getting, but literally imagine walking into a house where like,

everything in there is just like, okay, if you like it, here's how you buy it. If you like it, here's how you buy it. It's not like...

- It looks very high end, right? - Oh yeah. - You're using a smart home features and tablets and like little placards with QR codes and stuff. And we're like making sure that it looks high end. And then there's stuff where like I said, the laundry sauce laundry room, you walk in and it says laundry is sexy and lights and their big logo and has a tree with laundry pods hanging, but they're paying for an activity. - Yeah. - And they come there once a month to do content and photo shoots. They're rented at a discount. So if they need to do another shoot or send an influencer somewhere, that's where they're gonna send them, right?

And now through this, they have other people coming there and they have samples. So they're taking the laundry pods home. They're like, I love the smell of this. And they're becoming customers. - So they're actually, but they're actually also a customer in the fact that even though it's a discount, they're still booking your place.

Oh yeah. It makes the Airbnb listing off the chain because people are coming there to experience these products and brands and they know they're about to get good coffee, good food. They can book a private chef, a driver, all this stuff is available. And it's, and it's in their interest. Let's say you have a, as somebody who has 8 million followers on Instagram, it is in their best interest to say, we will put you up there for the night. Just go in this room and go crazy about our stuff. Correct.

That's exact. I didn't want to say it yet, but yes. Now the brands we're talking to are asking if we know creators that would stay in the houses to make content. And half of our bookings are from agencies that are sending influencers and models to our houses to make content because they're so crazy.

And now like yesterday, I just had a call with one of our partners, Murphy door, you know, those hidden doors. I saw what I did in San Diego. He's like, wait, are you Trav? We got on the zoom. He's like, are you Trav? I'm like, yeah. He's like, oh my God, I didn't realize that you were part of that. We see you on social media, that house with that opens up. But it's one of the houses I have has a hidden door and it opens up to a rooftop deck and the whole stairwell is just like,

completely covered in greenery right and it's lit up with like sounds so what you feel like you're walking into paradise like the uh the what is it the atlanta airport between the a and b terminal back jungle walk yeah kind of my favorite walk at an airport but i gotta keep going like that and so they saw that and they're like not a lot of people create experiences behind the doors like how can we work together to create experiences i was like well we have a speakeasy we just did that

opens up, it's hidden from the living room. You push a bookshelf, opens up into a speakeasy and then has a punch out that goes into a movie theater. And that's in our house in Scottsdale we just finished, which is like, everyone's like, whoa, this place looks sick.

but we paid for the door. So now we're just gonna take the door out. Murphy's gonna put a door in and they wanna place a door a month, more houses than a half. - Yeah. - They're like, let's do this once a month. Let's come up with cool concepts where we could put a door and then let's send a creator out. We'll send the creator and we'll book the house. So now they're like providing everything.

Yeah. Right. And that's kind of what we're seeing is that people realize like they need these living showrooms, but they're not going to go get a house. So if you can be part of a living showroom where people are already marketing it, have a listing, creating content, you want to be part of it. Gordon Ramsay just sent us all his cookware. He wants us to use his pots, pans and knives. And we're an affiliate now so that when you come there, you're cooking with hex clad Gordon Ramsay's pots and pans and using these awesome knives. And you're like, I'm going to buy these. These are insane.

And then they just got a two, $3,000 purchase for a set of pots and pans and we get commission. I made two, $300. I was like, I can't stay in my house. And so those are the additional things that you can add monthly where say you could have 50 brands paying a hundred bucks from CPG products in the kitchen to the bathroom, all over the house. Right. And they're sending you bookings. Yeah. So, I mean, just, we'll use real numbers. So 20 brands at a hundred bucks, right. It's a couple of grand for a house. Right. Which, which,

It's good money. But then you get about three brands to pay you 500 bucks for a room for, you know, the Lazzoni living room or the laundry sauce. And now you added 1500 bucks. So now you extrapolate that outside my house. You go to all of our friends and go 10 doors, a hundred doors, thousand doors. You just add a zero every time. And I don't know if one,

One brand would want to be in a thousand doors, but most brands I talked to could pay a hundred bucks for a hundred doors and pay me 10 grand a month to do experiential marketing and have a hundred pieces of content from a month. They could do that and they would be stoked and they could stay in each house once a year. So they get a hundred bookings for free that costs two grand a night.

So like the math is- - Yeah, they're looking at like, makes it make sense. - They're like, wait, so I get a vacation there for free, shoot there for free, and you're gonna do my sampling for me, and you're gonna make content for me. So I think the end scale play is like having like 10 of each kind of brand to go to like a thousand, and then like 100 of each brand to go to like 10,000.

But this is a property tech platform where brands sign up for campaigns and hosts sign up to host brands so that you can just come on and say, hey, you know what? I want to put a Samsung TV in my house. I'll do that deliverable. I'll make that content. I'll do that post. And so we can then just go get networks of Airbnb hosts and brands and just connect the two and completely arbitrage it. Right.

Right now we're doing the hands-on process of setting up the activation, designing it with renderings and making sure that it's like an amazing experience for our guests because there are homes. But when you tap into someone else's network, a property manager with a hundred doors,

It's one-to-one. We're talking to one property manager. So they need this kit. They need that, like, the liquor cabinet, the pantry, the bathroom, and then, like, the marketplace where you just get a little slide for a QR code and you put it on your TV or smart home. And that's it. And you're in. So you started this as just – was this started as a, I wonder how much free shit I can get from my Airbnb? Or did you start this understanding that you wanted to scale this right away? Yeah, I mean –

I didn't know we would scale without our houses. I thought we could make enough money having as many houses as we would need to buy from this model because

The CapEx savings were huge. Massive. 75 to 100K on furniture and a pool. Massive. They're already on up. Well, talk about that too because we're talking about the pool builder. Yeah. I mean, there's a couple, right? And the one we're working with now that we're out here to meet with, Biodesign, and they have these really cool pools that are essentially modular, but they dig a hole and then they just pour like this, almost like cement, but it's like, it's,

bio friendly material that you can literally cut and move. So, and I'll show you pictures later, but these pools look insane and they're like walk-ins and you can build swim up bars and chairs inside of them underwater. It's just insane. So for us, it's a showroom for them. They're allowed to come show it to people. We'll make content for them and our guests will experience it. And if someone buys one of these, we get a large commission. Yeah. I've actually already sold a couple. So yeah.

- Just from your pool in Scottsdale. - Yeah, and the one in San Diego. - And the one in San Diego. - Yeah, so now our other meeting that we just had was essentially like, how do we just create a showroom model where they cover the expenditure of the entire backyard essentially, and we could save up to $100,000 on building out this backyard with this pool, this swim up bar and all this stuff.

But for us, we would have spent that money. It increases the value of the property. It increases the rental. And it makes people want to send us pool toys and outdoor stuff. You just brought up an interesting question, though, on this model. Let's say you do a brain down with the pool. Are they going to put a covenant? Like, you can't sell this house for X amount of years? Because I'm playing devil's advocate. What would prevent me from getting a new pool and being like, ah, shit, didn't work out, sell the house. So we're not selling the house.

I know you're, I know. I'm just, I'm just, I know that deal that we do are like, it's a year.

For the showings, the stayings, the content. Okay. So that's a one-year deal on that. Yeah. And they're not paying because they're providing. Okay. But in that, we will also be an affiliate. And like through this showroom, we're incentivized to have as many of them as we can and do as many showings and events as we can. Because the more we sell, the more money we make. Selling one of those makes us more money than an Airbnb would in a month. One of those pools. Yeah.

And yeah. So now, but now, so you started this, you did your house in San Diego and your house in Scottsdale. So now you're turning this almost into an agency where you're repping out other Airbnbs. Yeah. And like, is that going yet or no? Yeah, it's going this morning. We just kind of started talking with the brands about that. A lot of my calls this morning were like, yeah, I know we're putting you in these houses, but we just got two more in Cabo.

a yacht that we can, we just signed and we'd love to send your stuff out there. But they're all asking, can we do this in a hundred homes? Like brew the, as a coffee partner of ours, coffee machines. And if you get them in your house, then someone's going to keep reordering. Even if they give us a 20, 30% discount, they're getting retention from whoever that hosts. Sure. Right. And that host is stoked because they're saving a bunch of money on a coffee machine and they're getting discounts on the coffee. So,

Well, even being able to retrofit some of your existing stuff, because I mean, the key to the, you know, obviously the key to the Airbnb is you've got to keep kind of updating a little bit when it's cool and you've got to keep changing a couple of things here and again. You know, you don't want it to get stale. Yeah, that's why we did a deal for a year. I mean, we had our first year, we had spin coffee, the machines you make on your phone. They ended up winning product of the year in Time Magazine. It was a huge success. Everyone loved it. But you have to have the app.

to use it. So people coming in, it was very difficult. It's not as easy, you know, um, we did our year deal and it was amazing and we're going to keep it in the house, but now we're also adding brewy is another coffee maker that we ended up investing into because it's so cool and it has touchscreen and it also has an app, but it gives you the ability to make your coffee wherever you're at in the house. And it's just, yeah,

They have flavored coffee and they have B cups, not like K cups, but C cups. And this is new startup that's out of Santa Monica in LA and they're killing it. And it's like, what do you go with D cups? That's me personally. That's what I would have gone with. It's just, well, they're called broovy. Okay. There you go. B cups. Okay. Fair. But like that idea is like, Hey, we want to grow our brand. We want to do experiential marketing. Like you guys, could you get this in a hundred homes?

let us know if other people would be interested. And so my brain starts going to like, of course people would be interested. If I even made just a post, who wants a free, who has an Airbnb that costs at least $2 million and wants free coffee? Most people would be like, yo, we're down.

And I would guesstimate that the fact that you have all this brand experience and all this... You have all this experience makes these conversations very easy. Like your average Airbnb guy could not reach out to a national brand and pull this shit off. I don't know anything about real estate. I didn't. When we started, it was...

- Hey, what's up? My name is Trav. I'm the founder of Flex Watches. I have this really cool concept I want to pilot with you guys. I love your brand. I always reach out to my Instagram first. Like I have an idea I want to talk to you guys. Who can I talk to? After I reached out on Instagram, they saw who I was already. They didn't think I was coming in and selling them. I was just like, I have this really cool concept and I can integrate your stuff just like I did when I was on the real world or just like I did when I was in the profit. And I literally would show them, I'd be like, oh, I'm gonna share my screen real quick.

Like this was the real world house and this is flex watches and this is me. And then they're like, Oh, so this guy can help me integrate my products. So like it was never, it was always that. And so now that we're growing the business, it's like we're credible because we did that with 30 people, 30 brands. And now you can look at it as a real business model. It's,

Real estate takes a while, you know, and we started this in 2020. We had a really hard time with like, even with the pool, with the first pool, we did plungy pools and they're out of Australia and they have prefabricated concrete pools. And they're like, yeah, just dig a hole and drop it in and like do this little water thing and you're good. Well, that's not what the city of San Diego thinks. And we like dug up the front. We brought a crane over the tree, dropped a pool in the ground and that shit sat there for a year.

So we went through those things and the same thing in Scottsdale. We're like ready to break ground on the biodesign pool because it's a different type of pool, but these guys are from Italy and it's different here. Yeah. So like we've had to deal with these like pretty extreme. No, no, no, no. We got to get permits done. No, no, no, no, no. Extreme delays. And even with permits and other things, like just delays, delays, delays, you know? So we had to finish our houses to literally prove the concept fully, um,

Then now it's like, okay, let's move on. And through this process, which is really exciting, we actually started a sister company called Ready Homes. Okay. Which locates real estate, represents owner's reps, designs the houses.

basically redoes the houses, brings the brands in, does the pools. - So wait, wait, wait, wait, okay. Let's talk about that. So Ready Houses does, so walk me through this process. - Yes, and this is my business partners starting it. Like I'm just partnering with them. - Sure. - 'Cause it makes sense. But as experientials, not me.

Ready Homes would basically be an owner's rep for someone who wants to buy an Airbnb. And they identify the right market, find the right property. They design it all out with the brands we have. They save you a bunch of money. You pay me a percentage of your cost savings. They build out a house that's going to rent that would have rented for 700 for now, 1500, right? And then we put our marketing behind it. So this house is even better. Creators are staying in their influencers, whatever celebrities, whatever.

And then we have this like new business model where it's not our house and they just hired experientials after. - Yeah. - So Ready Homes comes in, saves them a bunch of money on pools and stuff. And then simultaneously, once that, I mean, when I say finished, I mean like the structure of the house. - Yeah. - Then I start bringing in furniture through experientials and placing all the products and brands.

And then once it's done ongoing basis, I can get you guys CPG products for your house, water, snacks. And what's, and what's, so what's your kick on, on free, they get free product. They get free product, but on the placement, what like a hundred bucks a brand, a hundred bucks a brand, unless it's a activation, but if it's a CPG product, I'm not going to have 25 in a pantry or it's easy. So you can easily. So, so if you can't, so how many brands do you think a house can have?

100. So you're looking for 100 times 100. You're looking for $10,000 a month in free revenue just for having somebody give you a bunch of shit in your house. Yeah. And I think there's the technology play with it. Oh my God. We've been doing this all wrong, kids. We've been doing this all wrong. Well, think about this, right? Web3 background, IoT type of thing. And I'm like, okay, NFTs are minting or scanning. When I saw NFT week, like the NFT, and then you scan the thing and you can mint it. I was like,

Why don't we do this in a house with artwork? That was what I first thought. And now I'm like, wait, you can do with products, physical products. Yeah. And they don't have to be NFTs. Well, you know, it's so funny because it's essentially everything comes back to having a brand. Because if you look at like my top agents here, like we have 585 agents that work for us here. And if you look at the top ones, the ones that are always consistently at the top,

And you put them into two distinct categories. There's ones that spend a tremendous amount of money on marketing. I mean, they spend a shitload of money on marketing. And then you have the other subsection, which is smaller, but does better normally, who have incredible brands on YouTube, Instagram, everything else. They are making $20,000 a month.

And generating leads from that source. So they get paid $20,000 a month. They pull people in. Yeah, they get paid $20,000 a month on their channels. And then that's where their lead source is. So not only did they not pay anything for it, they're getting paid for it. And this is kind of the same. It's like everything goes back to that value of that brand.

branding and you asked me earlier with marcus i just watched how he attached his personal brand to all these things and i was like we got to speak you got to do a course you got to do stuff he ended up speaking for dan and now he's an aspire speaker and he speaks on stages but i literally he was like i don't want to do that you never know you never know you like it until you do it now something like

I kind of like this. Yeah. And he's super impactful and he makes people cry. And I bet you that makes him feel good when he helps people break through and they get to share that emotional connection with him in front of thousands of people. It's a pretty crazy experience. It's like a live version of the prophet. I think it's sick. I see him speak. I'm like, this is so cool.

because I've seen him work a room before, but there was 10 people in there. And like, you see it on TV and you're like, it doesn't have the same impact. Yeah. You see here and people are having breakthroughs. People are suicidal. They're crying. And he's like, just point it out. And he's like, come here. You know what I mean? It's like, what's going on with you? And it just starts picking them apart. And it's just really cool to see. So for me,

he was able to take his trauma and what he had been through and help other people break through and he is known as that guy as like a personal brand yeah like i didn't realize what a great thing to be known for yeah i didn't realize that and then once i started seeing i was like that's what he is like he's been through so much he has so much experience so it isn't about money anymore for him

you know? And it's about his personal brand, his legacy and what he's leaving. I think that was my point. You know, it's just like, what legacy are you going to leave? Tanner Iskra: I think that's so funny. We get known or like we talked about ego attachment with what we do earlier and you get known for, you know, right now, I'm the simply Vegas guy, right? That's in this town. That's what I'm known for. Um, cause we're such a big company.

You're known for flex watches this and that and in won't it be a great point and isn't it something to strive for in your life when what you're known for is Nothing more than the impact you have on others. That's the fucking goal. That's the fucking goal That's the goal man, because you know, it's crazy people like all flex watches and ask those questions Not a lot of people ask about the charity side of it. Yeah, that's why we did it You know what? I mean? It was like the first ever

that I had was helping people. And the day we went to Mexico to donate the money is the day we ended up on the real world. It's like crazy. - Two things about that. I don't remember the kid's name. Maybe you remember who I'm talking about. There was a kid that was doing the speaking circuit. He was young, he was like 13.

I don't remember his name. He wrote a book, how to make money as a kid. I bought it for my kids. And he had a bunch of books like that. I mean, he was good, smart kid. And he said that, you know, whenever that time's really hard with him and his dad, his dad would always say the same thing, which was time to go give. Like if they had down to their last $3, it was like, well, let's go give. Cause it always comes back to you in spades. There's that. And then as far as the purpose driven business thing goes, I remember when I was first introduced to Cole Hatter, um,

And in his thrive community. And I think he's starting that back up when I was first exposed to that and the concept of the purpose driven business. And I told him, and he was sitting in this chair not too long ago. I said, man, it's not just about what you've done. And you know, his charity of his orphanage in Mexico, but all of the people that you've inspired to do purpose driven businesses and give money back as a, as a built-in mechanism of their business, which we, we are. I mean, it's what's it make money matter. Yeah. It makes money matter. It's so cool. It's so cool.

And everyone, they do those exact mission trips and they have their own orphanage. I just went and visited someone else's orphanage at the community center and started donating. He built his own. And now he's got all these different people out there doing missions trips and building their own. And now that what they're starting schools and all this stuff, it's really inspiring. And that,

that will be the legacy that Cole leaves. Well, I think, I think now it's kind of cool to see, but even within the, I call it the entrepreneur bro culture. Well, my wife coined that phrase, the entrepreneur bro. She's like, are you really going to black hoodie again today? Are you really going to wear a black hoodie and Nike? Cause you get to him like, I might wear black hoodie at Nike's. I don't know. But the entrepreneur bro deal is,

I think what you're starting to see is this also rush to kind of be the guy that gives the most. And I think Fleischman started some of that as well. I think you look at like Charlie with the dream factory and what he's doing there. And even today, you know, I just turn it on the gram and I saw a pace Morby who's, I think he was, he was in St. Louis, but they're going to try to do a million acts of kindness over the neck in one day or whatever it is through his community. It's awesome. They did it with Charlie.

Oh, is that, that was it? That was, that was an old post. I think it was last Saturday. Okay. I didn't see that. That's awesome. Yeah. Or maybe he's doing it again, but you know, it's crazy. Charlie and I have a collab. Yeah. There's a dream watch for flex watches. And then obviously I'm just part of the dream machine. I volunteer. I love what he does. Yeah. It's great. And for me,

It is about ROI, return on impact. Me and him talk about return on impact all the time. Ooh, return on impact. That could be the first time that's ever been mentioned. I love it. I mean, just think about how even with Once Upon a Coconut, his new coconut water brand, how it's giving back to his foundation. I mean, it's going crazy right now. People love to support him.

The stores. It's hard not to want to support him. Yeah. And it's hard not to like personally, like he's like, hey, can you go buy this off the shelf? He's like there. I'm like, dude, I'm gonna do it. I go pull up and I just fill my cart up. I'm like, this is cool. Like I feel part of it, you know? And then I bought someone flowers and then I told some lady she was beautiful and I gave some dude a hug who was wearing a cape spinning around. I'm like, oh, come here, bro. He said like hug something on it. I'm like, come here.

I sure didn't say drugs. It was like the hug healer or something, but you know, it was just spreading kindness. So like I did my 10 acts of kindness and it was like, he had a thousand plus people doing that or 10,000 people. And you go and you click your button, you log in and see how much you're doing. And that,

that is a movement. Yeah. That is what people like. He had a birthday party the other night and it's like everyone there is sober. Everyone there is like trying to, they're doing fundraising, you know, kids in wheelchairs or cerebral palsy, you know, people with, this is what two, three, two weeks ago, three weeks ago this weekend.

Oh, this, this last week. Well, there was something he did because I was supposed to go with Josh Haven like three weeks ago to something at dream factor. I don't know what that was. I mean, so he's doing it all the time and he's, he's done a really good job of creating like a movement out of, out of a charity and his story is crazy too. I mean, he's got cancer, brain cancer.

So it's just like, he's just someone who found, um, like, I guess it was just like optimism in helping people and hope, you know, he's just got this optimism about him and like, you have what he's had and been through what he's been through. And you could share that with other people. Like I said, with Marcus, you went through these traumas and you can help uplift people. I think this is a actually really important part that you brought up.

When we started in that whole bro culture and entrepreneurs and influencers, it was always about look at me. I'm at the top of the pyramid and all my followers. There's a paradigm shift. Now it's about being at the bottom on the ground floor and holding up and lifting up. So if you want to make an impact or leave a legacy or do anything that people are going to talk about, you have to help them.

You can't just put your image on people as a personal brand and tell them how cool you are. And I'm guilty of it. Lifestyle photos, content, all that stuff. But the truth is we're all on social media for our own value. So if you're not providing value or lifting up other people, you're actually just adding to the problem. Yeah. No, no kidding. You know, somebody asked me one time, I don't remember where I was. I was speaking somewhere in a panel and somebody asked the panel, like what, what's the definition of leadership? Yeah.

And for me, that definition has always been striving forward with one hand while reaching back to pull others with. That's always been my definition of that. It doesn't matter how far you're striving forward if you're not pulling others along with you. 100%. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Because it's, I mean, yeah, it's all part of that journey. And I feel as though once you learn it, like part of the obligation is to like pass that knowledge on. Oh, for sure. Yeah.

You know, otherwise what, what's the point? What's the point? You know, what's the point? Cause you're still learning and you're here and your floor was your ceiling once. So you don't care about this no more.

but you want that other person to tell you how he got there. Yeah. So it's kind of like give and take. You know what I mean? You help these people and that's kind of just like how it is. And then you, people will help you along the way. Yeah. I've always found the most successful people that I'm around are the people that have the least secrets. Yeah. They don't know. I'll show you. I don't care. No, I, cause they know how hard it is and then how much discipline it's going to take. And they're like, cool, go ahead. Just do this. But I think it's more than that. Right? Like for example, when people join our company here, um,

I always like to say, and I say this in literally recruiting presentations with agents that are thinking to come to work at somebody Vegas when they ask like, what's the culture and what are the agents like here? And I always say our agents here have just the right amount of ego. And what I mean by that is this is you can walk into anybody's office and you can say, what are you doing?

And they will sit there and show you every single thing that they're doing to sell real estate. And do you know why they'll show it all to you? Because they think if they go head to head with you, even if you have their entire playbook, they'll still beat you.

That's why. That's just the right amount of ego. I have so much self-belief that I'm willing to tell you every single thing I'm going to do. That's true. Because I'm still going to be successful. That's kind of what I was trying to say. I'll tell you whatever because I know how hard it was and not how hard it was. Yeah, exactly. I know I can do it, but I don't know if you can do it. Well, I'm doing this. I don't know if you've seen it. I'm doing this thing right now on the gram where somebody bet me. They just asked me because I used to sell a lot of really big homes.

But just over the last several years, I've been very busy with building other companies and stuff. And I've kind of, you know, I give everything away to my team and just kind of let that business kind of run itself. And somebody said, you know, do you miss selling big homes? And I said, yeah, sometimes I do. Because it's honestly, that's the fun part of real estate. I go and show multiple homes. That's a fun part of what we do. And they said, how long do you think it would take to spend that business back up?

And I said, I bet I can do it in 90 days from pretty much now. Granted, I'm not going, I get it. I own a big company. I've been doing this for a long time. I'm not starting. I have a staff. I'm not starting from zero. I understand that, but I've been, you know, I've been documenting it every single day, every single thing I'm doing. I wonder why you're doing. Yeah. You've done this before though. Yeah. But I'm, but I'm documenting every, every company I use, every brand, like all the stuff I do. And my wife's like, how can you just give this away? I'm like, babe, because I can get this to a thousand people and, and,

Two of them will do it. You're providing value and you're lifting up the people who are watching you. You're very successful, especially in real estate, so you can help other people. I'm sure that's why you do this podcast. That is why I do this podcast. And that's why you're posting that stuff on social. Because trust me, I don't look good in HD. This is 4K. We have enough good clips of us, right? I miss my clips from the Apprentice days when the TV was so square and low def.

That would be great, this thing. Just hazy enough. Anyway, well, Trav, dude, thanks for coming by. I know you got a flight to catch. I don't want to make you late, but, dude, this was super interesting. If they want to find you more of you, dude, and, dude, if you're an Airbnb guy, you should be tracking him down like crazy right now. Just send me a message. It's T-R-A-V. It's on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook. So if you just send me a message, I'll answer. Absolutely.

At Trav. Hit them up. So, guys, we're going to wrap up another episode. Remember this, man. If you're out there and you are just drifting along with the currents of life, man, nobody's coming to help you. You've got to help yourself. So get up, stand up, start swimming, do something, make a move. See you next week. We'll be right back.

What's up, everybody? Thanks for joining us for another episode of Escaping the Drift. Hope you got a bunch out of it, or at least as much as I did out of it. Anyway, if you want to learn more about the show, you can always go over to escapingthedrift.com. You can join our mailing list. But do me a favor, if you wouldn't mind, throw up that five-star review, give us a share, do something, man. We're here for you. Hopefully, you'll be here for us. But anyway, in the meantime, we will see you at the next episode.