Transcript

Agron Bajraktari: [00:00:00] There we go. 

Travis Bader: [00:00:02] We’re live. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:00:03] We’re live. Okay. We’re here with Travis Bader. Just a quick intro just to give people a.

Travis Bader: [00:00:11] Oh you’re making me intro myself?

Agron Bajraktari: [00:00:12] Yeah. Intro yourself. Like a lot of, cause I don’t like to tell people like, Oh, this is what he does. 

Travis Bader: [00:00:17] So you take a person into your house, into a party and you’re like, Hey, introduce yourself to the rest of the group?

Agron Bajraktari: [00:00:22] Yeah.

Travis Bader: [00:00:22] That’s how you do it. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:00:23] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:00:23] Got it. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:00:23] It’s classic, I like it, I like it makes, puts people on the spot too and then lets people share what they want to share. Like who are you? What do you do? What, what’s Travis Bader about? 

Travis Bader: [00:00:32] So right now we’re sitting down doing a podcast. What is this?The Agron Show? 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:00:37] Yeah, the Agron Show. 

Travis Bader: [00:00:38] The Agron Show, I love it. And we’re going to be talking about business. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:00:43] Ugh, business, life.

Travis Bader: [00:00:44] Life. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:00:45] Business and life. That’s pretty much what we’re going into. 

Travis Bader: [00:00:48] So we just had a pretty lengthy conversation about sort of life experience that bled into business. And maybe at a later date, we’ll talk about that. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:00:55] Yes, correct.

Travis Bader: [00:00:56] So I own a couple of different companies. I am not a business man per se, but I happen to own businesses. One of them Silvercore Training. And I’ve done that since well, 2003 I incorporated Silvercore as a sole proprietorship. Before that, 94 I started offering the core services. So I was still in high school when I started doing the training.

[00:01:21] And we do firearms training predominantly. We do gunsmithing work for law enforcement and private security and government groups, we do use of force firearms, safety type training. We do work with the general public for a general licensing, and it’s something that has bled off into other businesses as well.

[00:01:45] So through the, through the years has got interested more and more in different areas. And the gunsmithing side, we do it all across Canada for armour car groups and for government organizations. And the training side, doing, dealing with instructors and students and organizations actually built a, another company that deals with training management resources. So a general interest, a lot of ADHD, and sort of built it out from there. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:02:20] That’s what I figure out most, most, most anybody that ends up working for themselves, especially if they stay in the long haul post like three, five years, three to five years and they keep doing it. They all have like ADD and just do a bunch of things.

[00:02:34] And they just like have a bunch of dishes in there and they’re like juggling all these things and just cause they love the busy-ness. The like hecticness of business and being, like having all these things at the go, it’s like it’s thriving for them. If they didn’t, if they just had one thing where like they would just go in four or five hours and then go home and that’s it, they would, they would hate their lives.

Travis Bader: [00:02:56] I think it’s difficult for a lot of people who have a bunch of different interests, is in order to be successful, you really have to find one area and double down on it. One area that you find interesting that you can bring value to other people and in turn, bring value to yourself or your business. 

[00:03:19] Having that ADHD can and all the different avenues that you can kind of go into, it’s like an octopus with a bunch of different arms. It’s really difficult to double down in the one area that’s working well. I think the, the mindset of an entrepreneur has always gotta be thinking of different things. 

[00:03:38] Looking at all these different angles, but having either A, the ability themselves to be able to really focus on one area or be surround themselves with people who can make up for that deficiency in them who can really help and focus in that one area in a way that’s going to be productive.

Agron Bajraktari: [00:03:55] Yeah, I agree. I think in my perspective, just in my world, I realized that being true to yourself on what you’re good at. Like, so for me, it’s not so much just like finding a business or finding a niche that you’re good at and that you, like, I think it’s like more generic. It’s like, I’m, I’m a macro picture guy.

[00:04:16] Like I like the macro analysis of things, seeing the big picture doing like that’s, that’s what I’m good at. And then realizing what you’re not good at, and then, and then delegating all the stuff that you’re not good at. Like I’m not a marketing guy, like I’m not the guy to be out there on social media, on posting all this stuff and having all these marketing ideas, that’s not me.

[00:04:36] I’m way more the macro and the systems and see how things connect and how they’re going to work down the road and, and the big picture ideas rather than the small picture ideas. So I think it’s, a lot has to do with figuring what you’re good at. Like where are your niches. And then getting other people to help you with the other stuff like accounting or math or whatever it may be that you’re not good at right. 

Travis Bader: [00:04:58] You know, that’s really easy to say. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:05:00] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:05:00] But I think for a lot of people out there, especially if they’re just starting their business, it’s the micro that’s going to win you the day. You have to have that macro and goal and idea of where it’s going to go. And really entrepreneurs are optimists at heart, right? If they weren’t, people wouldn’t be getting the businesses off the ground. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:05:18] Exactly.

Travis Bader: [00:05:19] I can tell you the number of times that I’ve had people, and I still hear it, you can’t do that, it’s, there’s no, there’s no business model there that really makes sense to me. Well, that’s to them, perhaps. I remember when it came time to hire my first employee and we had a bookkeeper and the bookkeeper says you can’t afford to do that.

[00:05:39] And within one week of hiring that person I realized I couldn’t afford not to have that person, the amount of revenue that they were bringing in that I just wasn’t able to do because I was pulled in so many different directions. But when you’re starting, it’s all about the micro. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:05:55] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:05:56] You’re the person answering the emails, you’re the person answering the phone. You’re the person who’s delivering the product, who’s delivering the service, creating all of the, of the different areas of revenue streams. And if you don’t mind that micro, then you have nothing. And the hard thing is, is finding people to bring on who either A, can share in that vision to help bring it forward or B, be of a mindset to be able to manage the people that you bring on.

[00:06:30] They don’t necessarily need to understand or share the vision, but you have to be able to manage them so that they can effectively do what you need to do. And sometimes you go through a lot of, a lot of people who just won’t meet, won’t pass muster right?

Agron Bajraktari: [00:06:45] Hiring’s very difficult. 

Travis Bader: [00:06:47] That can be discouraging. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:06:49] When do you know? I would say there’s a, there’s a moment in time I think when everybody that either works with them, like I, I don’t like that, I don’t like the term self-employed because I always feel like you’re, you’re, you’re you do work for yourself, but you’re always working. You have a customer you’re working for the customer.

[00:07:05] Like, I feel like you’re always working for somebody, everyone’s working for somebody, there’s no like real self-employed, you know what I mean? So, but when, when did you realize you’re not going to have the traditional job? Like when you realized like, nah, I can’t do that. 

Travis Bader: [00:07:18] That was in elementary school.

Agron Bajraktari: [00:07:19] Yeah, what was the moment? 

Travis Bader: [00:07:21] Honestly, it was, well, you know, growing up, difficult, difficult upbringing, difficult home life, difficult school life, school was never easy. I think it was in grade three when my family is like, you know, you don’t seem happy here, tell you what we’re going to ship you off.

[00:07:40] We’re going to, we’re going to find a place that maybe someone else can, can take care of you. And at the same time was brought into a, a child psychologist and they said, huh? I think he’s got ADHD and a few other things, and they figured, tell you what, we’re going to put you on the highest doses of Ridalin in the province.

[00:08:00] And we’re on a, I was on an experimental run at that time and I, because they could only prescribe so much. And so the doctor says, well, just take eight in the morning and another six in the afternoon, because this is a highest strength we can prescribe. So from a very early age, I always realized that I look at things differently.

[00:08:21] And whether I had ADHD, ADHD or not is arguable I would say. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:08:26] Yeah.

Travis Bader: [00:08:27] But I think it was grade 4 when I started, the teacher is just like, I don’t know how to teach this guy. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:08:35] Like, yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:08:36] He says, tell you what, Travis you’re into chemistry, you want to set a chemistry set up at the back of the class and you can, you can do your chemistry stuff and tell you what, at lunch and recess you can, you can teach other kids chemistry, right?

Agron Bajraktari: [00:08:49] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:08:49] And he went and printed me off big periodic table of elements. And I had no idea what that was about and I’m like what I need this thing for, I just want, I like making things blow up or making invisible ink right. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:09:01] Cool stuff. 

Travis Bader: [00:09:02] Right. That’s what chemistry was to me. And at, around that same time, I started looking at ways that I could make money. And I remember it was, think it was Jack O’s Magic in Vancouver. And I thought, well, that’s kind of neat, I can learn how to do magic and maybe I can start performing magic acts. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:09:21] You were a magician!

Travis Bader: [00:09:22] There you go! Perform magic at kids’ birthday parties while I was a kid, I was in grade 4 right. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:09:28] Imagine hiring, like the business conversation with an adult and kid who’s in grade 4. So my retainers $60, then I charge $40 an hour. This is.

Travis Bader: [00:09:38] Oh no, it’s 10 bucks a party and I thought it was rolling. I’d use all of that money and I go buy another magic trick. And I reached a point where I had a regular spot at ABC restaurant in White Rock, where in their upstairs area where I could do magic for kids’ parties. So that was. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:09:59] That’s awesome. 

Travis Bader: [00:10:00] That was the first kind of job that I had. And I went on to washing cars and mowing lawns. I remember, I don’t know if I should mention the guy’s name, but it was a real estate agent who hired me to mow lawns for houses that he was going to be selling and kind of clean it up.

[00:10:17] And anyways, did that for a little bit and kept wondering when my money was going to come in and he came back and said, well I thought you were just doin it cause you wanted to do work. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:10:26] Oh he’s just using child labor!

Travis Bader: [00:10:29] He was. Totally was, I was in grade five or six at the time when I was doing that. And what the hell?

Agron Bajraktari: [00:10:34] That’s crazy. You’re like, where’s my paycheck. 

Travis Bader: [00:10:37] But every single job that I’ve had, I think when I was actually old enough to be employed properly, I think it was A&W that I was working for, I think it was 15 years old at the time. And I hated it. I hated, I was the, put me at the fry station and I’m like, man, this sucks.

[00:10:55] But it was a brand new restaurant out in Surrey there and the needed locks installed and they needed alarm systems installed, passive infrared motion sensors and I learned how to pick locks in grade four, and it’s always an interest of mine and they needed shelves made downstairs. And so I just got paid for fry rate and did everything but doing frying.

[00:11:17] And I just look for other avenues that I could do something that interests me. By the time I, let’s see it was 18, well, I was working, working at a gym for a while, similar situation, find other areas that I can do things. 18, I was the youngest person at the time hired by an armoured car company. Now they hire 18 year olds all the time.

Agron Bajraktari: [00:11:42] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:11:43] And I thought, well, this was kind of neat. I get to carry a gun and trust with millions of dollars worth of money and.

Agron Bajraktari: [00:11:49] It’s got definitely a cool factor to it. 

Travis Bader: [00:11:51] Well, at 18 years old, this is a –

Agron Bajraktari: [00:11:53] Course.

Travis Bader: [00:11:53] This is a respectable job, but it didn’t take long in that one to start looking around. And I saw their aluminum hand trucks and big pile of them that were all destroyed. And I thought, well, what do you guys do with them? Well, I don’t know, at some point maybe we’re going to try and repair them. Do you mind if I try repairing them? 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:12:12] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:12:12] Have you ever welded aluminum? Mmmm, yeah. I had no idea. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:12:18] I love that somebody gave you that piece of advice. Somebody is like, whenever anybody asks you, like, if you know how to do something for a job, just say yes and figure it out. Like you can always find somebody that knows how to do it. Like you could hire them. You can tell, they can teach you use, like I always say yup. 

Travis Bader: [00:12:33] Yep, yep. Not a problem. So, figured it out, brought them back to give it to them. They wanted to inspect the welds they look at them up and down. Hands it to the next guy, he looks it up and down. Both of them look at each other and they say, we, we don’t know what we’re looking for in welds. It looks good to us, right. 

[00:12:50] You got it, right. And so there I am welding up their aluminum hand trucks and making a couple of bucks. I thought this was neat. And I thought, well, man, you got a lot of guns here. You service your vehicles, how often do you service your guns? What do you mean? 

[00:13:06] Well, you want to make sure that they go bang when they’re supposed to go bang and they don’t go bang when they’re not supposed to go bang right? Well, yeah. Well, how do you, you have service records? Hmm. Can you service them? Yup. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:13:23] Yes. 

Travis Bader: [00:13:25] Yup. Yes I can. So from there, I ended up down in Springfield, Massachusetts doing armourer school with Smith and Wesson. Get myself trained up and started doing gunsmithing work for most of the armourer car companies in the province, moving it over to other provinces. Well, this is kind of neat that, but they need training to all these people that are coming in, they need to know how to use them properly. 

[00:13:50] And I’ve always enjoyed training. As a youngster, I was in the army cadet program. They teach a man management and method of instruction. I thought, well, maybe I can look at the training side too and I was already doing some basic training for the, just the government safety course.

[00:14:06] And I was like I say, around 94, I in high school at the time when I started just helping out doing that. And realize that, at the same time as doing the gunsmithing for the armour car companies, as well as I had a company, Silvercore Gun Works. I would just take in every type of firearm that somebody had, hunters would come in, precision rifle shooters, or competitive pistol shooters.

[00:14:35] And they’d bring firearms in. And can you fix this one? Always the same thing. Yup. Yup, I’ll figure it out. Right. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:14:42] I love that.

Travis Bader: [00:14:43] And I realized after a little bit, that the government agencies operate on a uniform platform, you buy one set of tooling and equipment and they pay their bills, dealing with the general public, every Joe blow that comes in, it’s always a brand new thing, you’re always starting again from scratch. 

[00:15:02] And although I love the challenge, I really enjoy dealing with the public and I enjoy dealing with all the different challenges that came up. You’re never going to be able to feed the family in a, in a way that is meaningful so.

Agron Bajraktari: [00:15:15] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:15:16] Ended up doing the private thing for a while and, you know, bluing and parkerizing, cutting, crowning, chambering, threading, machining.

Agron Bajraktari: [00:15:25] The whole nine. 

Travis Bader: [00:15:26] The whole nine. And then I really started at the same time, leaning on the training and realized, you know what, there’s a formula here. Let’s let’s push it forward, I think I can make a positive change. I can bring something in that the market doesn’t have. Build something new, essentially. Building it off of a platform that’s, I mean, there there’s a framework kind of already even placed. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:15:50] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:15:51] And what I built it off of, it was, it was essentially leaned a bit on a government framework and the government agents keep coming back and say, you know, Travis, this was never designed, never designed to be a business for people, but you’ve built a framework and there’s other people in the country who have now done a similar thing. But that’s through the years kind of led me to where I am now and every little thing has just been a learning process from the last. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:16:19] It seems that you make things so natural. Like, I feel like you were, you didn’t really, like, I think a lot of people nowadays, especially because entrepreneurship, that’s a hot button topic.  They go out searching for these businesses to do or whatever. And I feel like from hearing what you’ve done, it seems like you just kind of looked around, saw what interests you and went, I could do that. 

Travis Bader: [00:16:45] Business is easy, from a certain perspective, right? I’ve only really dealt in bricks and mortar business and just kind of built based off of providing a service. Generally, a service or product that’s a value to somebody, and that part is easy. The difficult part is, is the, I think for a lot of people, everybody wants a roadmap. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:17:13] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:17:13] How do you do it? You just do it. Right? I, there’s been some work long, long time ago in my late, late teens, early twenties that I got that you needed special certification for cause everybody wants to have certificates. And I got to say, photoshop helped with that one, but we figured it out later on. Would I do that again? No.

Agron Bajraktari: [00:17:36] No, not a chance.

Travis Bader: [00:17:37] Definitely not, but, but being able to, to turn around and do a job doesn’t necessarily mean that you have, you don’t have to have a university education in order to be able to do something.

Agron Bajraktari: [00:17:52] A hundred percent. Like that’s, that’s hon, I agree with that 100%. I think that a lot of people are scared, but it never seemed like you were scared. Did you, do you ever had that? Did you ever have that fear of like, Oh, okay, like I see all these things that they need done.

[00:18:07] Okay they need ar, like aluminum, like welded. They need, like their firearm service. Did you ever like think like, Oh shit, like I’m in over my head. Like, was there ever any of those moments? Cause that, that’s what I think that stops 90% of people, because I think a lot of people have actual good ideas, but they go, Oh, I’m scared, like. 

Travis Bader: [00:18:31] Well, why would somebody be in over their head?

Agron Bajraktari: [00:18:34] Like, what if it goes sideways? Like what if it goes sideways? What if like, I don’t, again, I’m not the, I’m not the type of person to be worried about that. Like, I kind of am like you, I just go and do it. But the, I’ve had conversations with friends and colleagues that have ideas and they go, Oh, um, I have this idea. I want to do this, but I got to do, like, I got to put like, like $9,000 in debt and then like, then I got like. 

[00:18:58] They always have this fear. Like you ever, it seemed like you never had that fear. I feel like you just always had that, let’s do this and let’s figure it out. 

Travis Bader: [00:19:08] Well, everyone’s got their strengths and weaknesses. Being well, I don’t know how you want to put it, but pig headed. Right? Dogged determination, having tenacity, whatever you want to say. I can see from point A to point B and I can make it work. I think anybody can. It all depends, once you get to point B, if you turn around and say, was it worth it? Right. 

[00:19:35] And I think a lot of people at point A might be maybe smarter and look at it and say, I could get to B, but I don’t think it’s worth it, I’m going to try something else. But the only way you can get to C, a lot of times ,is if you go to B and to get to D is if you go to C. And so sometimes having, having that dogged determination just to push through and get the job done, keeping in mind that you’re bringing value to the client and you’re doing a quality job.

[00:20:03] Cause it’s your reputation, right? It’s the one thing that’s going to be carrying you through from, on and on is your reputation more than anything. Now, areas where I was never great at, and I’m still not, is in valuing my work, right? So I will surround myself with people who do a better job of valuing my work and my time, because I’m more than happy to do the job.

[00:20:29] I enjoy the challenge, I can deliver a quality product. And maybe at the end of it, I realized, man, I’m only making pennies on the dollar or somebody else points out that you’re making pennies on the dollar. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:20:40] You’re like, Oh shit. 

Travis Bader: [00:20:41] Right. But sometimes you got to put that time in, in order to get from B to C or C to D. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:20:45] You do. And like, I like that analogy of that going from A to B and B to C. Cause some people, like you said might be too smart and they can see, but like you ultimately can’t tell if it’s going to be worthwhile until you get to B, you can just guess.

Travis Bader: [00:21:01] Most people are smart. Most people can look at it and say, man, that’s a lot of work. I can make more money flipping burgers in that time period than what you’re doing there. What a lot of people can’t see is the next few steps down the road and yeah, you probably could make more money flipping burgers, but once that person gets B, C, D, and they keep going, all of a sudden the other person is still flipping burgers cause they never tried, they never pushed. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:21:34] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:21:35] And I remember one time when a very early on and hiring in some people to help out with the training and they had no experience, they had no background, but I’d train them up. I’d get them up to speed, show them how to do it, show them the ropes, essentially. And then the program that I put forth. 

[00:21:53] And then we come in and we teach a course over the weekend and I would say, well, tell you what, I’ll just deduct costs for rental and all the different things and then whatever’s left, we’ll split. Right. And because, you know, I want to make sure I’m bringing value to the other person.

Agron Bajraktari: [00:22:08] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:22:08] And going back to not properly valuing my own self. And I did this for a while and after a while, these people are, you know, you bring them on and I say, I know you don’t know what you’re doing. I know you don’t have the ability, but tell you what I’ll pay you at a higher rate right now. And so when you’re up to speed, then, then you’ll be able to make that money back. 

[00:22:28] Well, it never seemed to fail once people are up to speed, they’re saying, Oh geez, I made X amount of money before, and now I’m able to do all this extra work. I should be making more. Right?

Agron Bajraktari: [00:22:40] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:22:40] Then the money conversations come in. And I remember one time my wife turned around and she says, you know, for the last month I’ve made a spreadsheet and I track the hours that you worked. Right. And I said, well, over this course you want to split revenue with this person? Well, you know, it makes sense, we got X amount of students and I cover my costs and we’re both working. 

[00:23:02] Said, well, how many people are teaching at the same time? I said, well, you know, one person’s at the front of the class teaching, the other person will sit at the back. And then on the breaks, we’ll both work at the same time. And so, you know, 50% of the time, right. Said okay, so you’re paying them this amount to basically sit on their butt for 50% of the time, over X amount of hours.

[00:23:27] Over the last month, here’s how many hours you put in answering emails, answering phone calls and dealing with banks, dealing with merchant providers, dealing with marketing, going to different places, and put it all out. And I looked at the amount of hours in and the remuneration from that I was making pennies. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:23:44] That’s huge, that’s huge because I think a lot of entrepreneurs and a lot of people that work for themselves battle with that. They don’t know what they value, their hourly, like the hour at. And they’re willing to put in so much more extra time and so much more extra effort.

[00:24:02] And like, you, you think that in, on the front side, it looks like it makes sense. Oh, whatever, we’d split the revenue. Like, but you, cause you don’t actually count the hour of work when you’re like, I know myself, like I be, I’ll be working all day and then I’ll put in an extra four or so hours doing more work.

[00:24:22] But I don’t really, I’m like, that’s not really work. I’m like, you know what I mean? Like, it’s this like a weird addiction that we have with our businesses and keeping them going. And we don’t really see it as like the hours that we put in and we try to like, like, how do you work with that? Like, how do you, how do you, how’d you fig past that barrier?

[00:24:41] How’d you pass that barrier to understand like, okay, this is where my, was it your wife at that point? Or what, like what, what made you go? Okay, my hour should be X amount of dollars. Like I should be making X amount of dollars an hour. I need to value edit that. And I shouldn’t be getting taken advantage of, or I’m at, the wool pulled over my eyes. It’s ,not in that sense, bad choice of words, but you know what I mean? 

Travis Bader: [00:25:04] It’s a difficult thing because if you want to grow the business, if you want to bring people on to help with that growth, you can’t expect them to do it for nothing. You have to make sure their time is properly valued ,otherwise they’re gone. You’re never going to be able to find good people. There’s that saying? You pay peanuts, you get monkeys, right? 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:25:25] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:25:27] But in the same breath, if you’re bringing people on and you’ve got a new business and you want to share the dream with them and have them, you better have a properly laid out plan so that if they are putting blood, sweat, and tears into it as well, and they’re not being properly remunerated, that there’s a plan in place for them later on. When it comes down to the valuation of myself personally, I don’t care really one bit for money.

[00:25:56] And now don’t get me wrong, I enjoy nice things, I enjoy kit. I enjoy the proceeds that money brings in. But if you make money, your motivator, if you chase the dollar, you’re always going to be behind it and you’re always going to be chasing it. So what I try to do is I concentrate on what it is that gets me excited.

[00:26:19] And I like creating new things. I like building processes. I like doing things that other people haven’t done and that’s building a business and an area that other people thought was wasn’t possible. I enjoy that. Once I’ve got to that point, I always looking for what’s the next thing that I can build or create.

[00:26:39] And if I make that my motivator, money is a natural byproduct of the hard work and effort that you put into it. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:26:48] Yeah. I think Ray Dalio said I never worked for money. He’s like, I just got really good at a game and they paid me a lot of money to play that game. 

Travis Bader: [00:26:58] There you go. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:26:58] And I was like, that makes so much, like, if you think about anybody that makes a lot of money in whatever field that they’re in, they just get really good at that game. Like if you think about it in sports. Like, they got really good at basketball on somebody paid them a lot of money to play basketball. 

[00:27:15] And Jay Z got really good at music and somebody paid him a lot of money to be good at music. He always says like, he, Ray Dalio, hedge fund guy, he’s like, I did it cause it excited me.

[00:27:24] Travis Bader: [00:27:24] Right. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:27:24] That was exciting, and I was fun. And then the number was, that money just came because I was good at it. So I, that’s definitely, definitely very important. But on top of that, like, what is your, what is your hiring process like if you know, you said, how do you tell between somebody that’s gonna put blood, sweat, and tears going to help you move that business forward.

[00:27:47] And how do you tell if they’re just going to get in there and, and how do you differentiate? Who do you hire? Do you hire both? Do you like, wait, where’s that? 

Travis Bader: [00:27:57] That’s a good question. So we’ll chat about that one in a second, but I’m just going to circle back on what you said about Ray there. And it emphasizes a point which is a little bit contradictory to where we started talking about the ADHD and having all of these different things.

[00:28:11] And it’s something that I believe firmly. And if you want to get good at something, you have to kind of look, if you really want to be truly, truly good at it, you kind of have to delve down and specialize in that one thing. So it’s good to have the branches, it’s good to have the different ideas. It’s good to have all these other things that you can look at, but if you expect to be successful in an area, you really, really do need to delve in deep and specialize in that one area.

[00:28:38] And I think that’s an area of business for a lot of people, when they look at it, they can say, well, jeez there’s so many coffee places out there, how can I compete? Or there’s so many, whatever else it might be out there, we’ll find one thing in that, that you think you can do better than everybody else. And really specialize on it.

[00:28:56] If that’s customer service, maybe, maybe decide, well, they don’t do coffee and treats for dogs at the same time right. And I’m going to have the place that has people, all the dog walkers will come in and they’ll get my coffee because I’ve got this.

Agron Bajraktari: [00:29:07] The setup. 

Travis Bader: [00:29:08] Whatever right. There’s always room for people, if they’re willing to use a little bit of lateral thinking essentially, and then really double down on what’s working.

Agron Bajraktari: [00:29:20] They said I, I forgot who said this too, but somebody said nobody pays for general knowledge, they pay for a specific knowledge.

Travis Bader: [00:29:27] Sure. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:29:27] So then I was like, wait, that kind of, that also makes sense. That makes a lot of sense.

Travis Bader: [00:29:31] Like that goofy story about the nuclear power plant that’s melting down and they bring all the experts in and they can’t fix it right. They finally, they’re like, Oh, you know the old guy, the old guy who helped designed the place, I think we can get ahold of him. They call him up and he comes on in and all the experts have been coming in with all of their special equipment, checking everything out. 

[00:29:52] And this guy comes in with a tiny little ball-pean hammer, crawls into a corner, does a couple of taps and all the alarms start shutting off. Nuclear power plants clean starts to cool down like, Oh my God, you fixed it, that’s great hey. And he’s like, yeah, not a problem. Oh, well, what do we owe you? Right. And he says, Oh, it’s million bucks, right? 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:30:12] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:30:12] Million dollars, just crawled in under there and tapped with a ball-pean hammer for two seconds, how do you arrive at that bill? Right. And he says, well, ball-pean hammer cost $10 and the rest is knowing where to hit.

Agron Bajraktari: [00:30:28] That’s so true. 

Travis Bader: [00:30:29] That’s your specialized knowledge. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:30:30] That’s like, they say, I saw this on Instagram and stuff and when it’s like, when people pay for something and it’s like, Oh, why do I have to pay you a thousand bucks? You did it in 20 minutes. You don’t pay me for my time. You pay me for my expertise.

[00:30:47] Like that ability to do it in 20 minutes is why you pay me because I’m the expert. I know exactly, I know where to hit. 

Travis Bader: [00:30:53] Now, the other side to that is, is a lot of people overvalue their time.

Agron Bajraktari: [00:30:56] Yes.

Travis Bader: [00:30:57] Right? And they say, Hey, I’m the expert, you got to pay me X amount and that will fly for a bit, but man, you better be able to produce. So you can look at the game and say, I want to make a lot of money off of a few people, or I can make a little bit of money off of a lot of people. And if you’re delivering a quality product that’s, or service, that’s of great value to the person, maybe it’s not a bad idea to have whole bunch of punters out there that you’ve collected market data from that you’ve, you’ve got their contact information.

[00:31:32] You can show them your other services and you’ve got a much bigger pool to work from. So maybe we don’t always have to charge top dollar for everything that we have because we figure that we’re worth it. Sure we are, but you kind of have to eat a lot of dirt too sometimes. It’s a difficult balance and it all comes down to personality type because some people just aren’t willing to, they’re not willing to do that. They want the proceeds of the hard work. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:31:54] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:31:55] But they’re not willing to put in what’s actually required. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:31:59] There’s, there’s all sorts of different business models out there right. There’s McDonald’s and there’s high steakhouse right? So. 

Travis Bader: [00:32:06] Sure. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:32:06] Depends on, depends on how you, how you, how you cut it right. And what you want to do, but they all take different, different levels, like, I think in my business as well, like, there comes a lot. Like in my business, you can either go for the quick buck where you sell people and you start selling, selling, selling, and that’s what you do. You’re just like a salesman you get on there, you market, and you just sell like crazy, but then five years down the road, you’re doing the same thing.

[00:32:36] You don’t build a base that continually comes to you and you can continually do business for, and you have trusted clients of like, let’s say 50 clients in my business. You need 50 trustee clients that buy real estate every couple of, every year or two. You know what I mean? And if you can build that book now, you don’t have to go marketing.

[00:32:56] You don’t have to do any, you’re you’re literally now just pretty much doing the transaction, right? There’s no more going out there selling, selling, selling, selling, but you, that takes a long time to build. Long time to build. So you won’t get the money right away.

Travis Bader: [00:33:14] Sure.

Agron Bajraktari: [00:33:14] So people choose between the two, but I think there’s like a perfect marriage where you can have that 50, 50, where you can have that salesy type. So you can feed your family today and also build a sustainable business that you can always count on to be there kind of.

Travis Bader: [00:33:31] Sure you offer quality product and those people who are your clients will refer their friends and they become your salespeople. And that’s your biggest, your biggest source of advertising out there is going to be word of mouth and that’s going to beat your billboards.

[00:33:48] It’s going to beat your prints. That’s going to beat your Google ad words and Facebook. And all though you can get really targeted with a lot of those things, the positive word of mouth that you’re getting is far are going to exceed that so.

Agron Bajraktari: [00:34:03] Yeah nothing beats that. 

Travis Bader: [00:34:03] Right. So just make sure you take care of the people, surround yourself with clients, you’re training your clients, right? So you train them how you want to be treated. If all you’re attracting is all the losers out there, then you’re going to continue. They’re going to refer their loser friends. Right so.

Agron Bajraktari: [00:34:19] Hey, you’re gonna have a client base of losers. 

Travis Bader: [00:34:21] So sometimes it’s okay to turn around and say, no, I know there’s money at the end of the tunnel here with you, but it’s not worth it because I don’t want to associate myself with, with what you’re doing.

Agron Bajraktari: [00:34:32] The people, how do you do that? Cause people, like I know in my business too, like I’ve had a very hard time learning to say no to certain people. Like, how do you, how do you, how do you do that? Because it’s very difficult. 

Travis Bader: [00:34:46] You know what, for a lot of people, it is some people it’s, it’s super easy. Now I’ve always been type of personality that wants to say yes, wants to give a positive impression, wants to have, have a quality product and always saying, yes. Experience helps with that right?

[00:35:06] After a while you start seeing the telltale signs of a, of something that’s going sideways. A lot of times with that experience, what you find is you can start setting ground rules quickly and at, at the front end. So I mean that age old book getting to yes. Negotiating agreement without giving in, right?

[00:35:30] Sure not a problem. You want it for this? I can do that, but you’re now not going to get that, right? Or if you want all of that, then it’s going to cost more of this. So setting those ground rules, very quick and easy, from the onset will help train your customer.  Here’s the process, here’s how we’re going to get from point A to point B.

[00:35:55] Here’s how I’m going to help you. Does that make sense? Is that something that lines up with you? Oh yeah, yeah, that’s what I want. Great. Are there any changes that you want to make in there? No, no, no. Here’s a price that it’s going to look like for that. Does that make sense? Yes or no? Great. Now we’ve got the ground rules, then you can proceed.

[00:36:10] So if you don’t go through that process and you’re just like, yep, we’ll get there right? And we don’t talk about price or you just talk about price, but you don’t talk about what all of that entails. Then you’ll find yourself in a situation and it’s human nature. People like to push right? And they’ll push more and more and more.

Agron Bajraktari: [00:36:28] Yes.

Travis Bader: [00:36:29] So once you’ve got the ground rule set, you can turn around and say, not a problem, I’m happy to help you with that. You can still say yes, you’re not saying no, but in order for me to be able to do that, it’s going to take this right. Or if it’s something that’s totally offside, you’re just going to say, I’m sorry that wasn’t a part of the original ground rules. It’s not something I feel comfortable with. You don’t even have to give a reason why. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:36:52] Yeah. So just set it from the beginning, from the onset, set your ground rules, set your standards and say,  X Y and Z, we’re getting to do it. 

Travis Bader: [00:36:59] Right. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:37:00] This is what you’re paying for. And then everything else you can say no easily.

Travis Bader: [00:37:04] Right. And that can take the form of a simple conversation and just say, okay, just so I understand things correctly, I’m going to send this over to you in an email afterwards, and you can look through it. If everything looks good, just let me know back right? It doesn’t have to be a formal contract or anything else.

[00:37:20] And really, when you think about it, what’s a contract do? Really, all it does is it gives you the ability to go to court and argue it. If you look at a contract from that standpoint, the real value in a contractual relationship is the fact that all the ground rules are set ahead of time. So you don’t have to end up in court at a later date.

[00:37:38] Everybody knows what the rules are and if they forget they can look back. And so you don’t have to be super firm on the contract, but you can turn around and say, well, based on the email that we sent forth, based on our conversation in the email recap that we have, you did agree to this. And I did agree to deliver that.

[00:37:55] And you better make damn sure you deliver at or above of what you say you’re going to do. If you want those positive.

Agron Bajraktari: [00:38:02] The age old email, as per below, when your, re-forward the email.

Travis Bader: [00:38:08] Right. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:38:08] How do you deal with the stress of being the fire, put-er out-er? The guy that like the buck stops with you? That’s in all your businesses, buck stops you. H, how do you deal with that stress? Where, what do you, what do you do? What did your kind of methods to one, put it in a frame that makes sense, because I think a lot of people put stress and blow up their stress to proportion that is far greater than they should.

[00:38:43] And two, how do you mitigate it? Where, where, where does, how does that, what does that system look like for you? 

Travis Bader: [00:38:50] So, stress is a pretty funny thing, and some people can eat stress for breakfast, but stress is cumulative. At some point you have to find a way to allow that stress to drain. It’s like a bucket of water.

[00:39:04] It can accept so much water, if you got a little hole at the bottom, it can drain out and it can keep pouring water in and it keeps pouring out. But you get too much water in, you’re going to have an issue. It’s all gonna overflow. You either A, put more holes in that one, or B you slow down the flow of that water.

[00:39:21] So you touched on a few different things in there. Stress is a huge blanket term, and it comes in a bunch of different forms. And people will talk about healthy lifestyle, right? Choosing what you eat, choosing exercise, getting out and exercising, having an outlet for your, your emotional, your mental side.

[00:39:42] These are all very, very important things. But they’re not always practicable. I mean, there’s not always times when you’re going to be able to get out to the gym when you’re in the thick of it. And you’re like, Holy Crow, we have so much work, I just don’t have the time. I just don’t have a, B, C, and D. 

[00:39:59] And I think the, there are a few tips I can give, but before I get into that, the biggest thing that people have to be able to look at, and it’s a challenge for everybody, myself included, is the mental mindset or the framework that you deal with these things in. 

[00:40:17] Because I remember reading a study and they were talking about survival rate of soldiers, and they did this during world war 2, and they were looking at different age groups and these soldiers that were in similar situations and they figured these young bucks out there were going to be, surviving at a much greater rate. And it turned out to be the opposite where the older guys were doing better. 

[00:40:46] And essentially what the study that they’re looking at, and this is an older one, was these older guys had already been through a war before right? They had some experience and they had a framework in their mind of what they’re dealing with, the young guys getting into it. Holy crow, this is the worst thing we’ve ever seen right? The older guys are looking at it, nah, my second divorce is worse than this right.

Agron Bajraktari: [00:41:07] Been through it before.

Travis Bader: [00:41:10] Right. Been there, done that. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. So, so having the framework in your head as to, how important is this problem that I’m looking at currently, like in the grand scheme of things? Right. I’m feeling stressed because, I’m feeling stressed because I don’t have money coming in.

[00:41:28] I’m feeling stressed because there’s a deadline and there’s a service or product that needs to be out and I don’t know if I’m going to be able to fulfill it. I’m feeling stressed because, and you take a look at all of these different things that may be bringing stress in and then grade it. Okay. Scale of 1 to 10, how important is this one?

[00:41:47] Right? Like if I just didn’t do this one thing, or if I didn’t deliver to the client by today and I got it to them tomorrow, like, would it be that bad? If I gave him a phone call and said, it’s going to take one more day right? Having a proper mental framework will absolutely change how you perceive that stress. Right. 

[00:42:10] There is not good or bad, but thinking makes it so, right? Shakespeare. So how you think about the actual problem is how you’re going to interpret it. So that’s, I think, and it’s tough because when you’re in the middle of it, it’s hard to see the forest through the trees. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:42:25] Oh yeah. When you’re in the middle of it, but when you look back, like, I always say in anything like, in any venture, anything I did when I, once you look back on it, you go, like, I figured it out. It was fine. It worked out like, I was, I’ve been there that worked out. 

Travis Bader: [00:42:42] Sure. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:42:42] And it’s like, now you look forward and you see things and you go, yeah, it’s going to suck, but I’m going to make it, I’ll do, I’m going to make it.

Travis Bader: [00:42:51] Right.

Agron Bajraktari: [00:42:51] You know what I mean? So I guess that, that experience of kind of being through it.

Travis Bader: [00:42:56] And if you keep that mindset now, I remember when I was first starting out and actually a fellow, we both know, he comes up and he says, you need a computer. I can’t afford a computer right. In my early twenties, I was just making enough money at the time to be able to pay my portion of the rent and my portion of food bill and I can’t afford a computer. 

[00:43:19] And he turns around and says, look it, I built you this computer out of spare parts of other computers, you need a computer to get rolling. Holy Crow, right? Or you need to incorporate, I can’t afford to incorporate, I don’t know how to do these things. If I turn around now I could recreate my business in a heartbeat because I know that roadmap, it’s easy.

[00:43:37] The hard thing for people is that next step, the unknown, how do I get there? And that’s where the stress I think comes in. You know, how to deal with stress that you’ve encountered in the past. You’ve got a roadmap. So if you can put yourself in a mindset, perhaps where you’ve already surpassed the issue and try and reframe that and say, now, how did I surpass that?

[00:43:58] And look back, that can be a useful tool. When you were, and then that’s for business, that’s for stress. I mean, so many people are limited by what they know. Everyone’s limited by what they know right? I never figured I’d be where I am right now. And when I was growing up, I would, I never in a million years imagined that I would have what I have, right.

Agron Bajraktari: [00:44:22] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:44:23] For me to put myself into the next position and say, let’s say, I want to have a hundred times more than this. I could do it. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:44:29] Yeah.

Travis Bader: [00:44:29] Is it worth it? Right. Like what brings me happiness and value? 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:44:32] Yeah. I think with my perspective too, I had a moment where, I used to be extremely stressed out about a lot of things like where I’m going to be, what I’m going to do. Like, how am I going to do it, blah, blah, blah, because I have this image in my head where I want to be and where I want to go right? And I, and I realized like I’ve had people that I know that are doing nothing about their like situation or their lives or anything like that.

Travis Bader: [00:44:59] And they’re happy.

Agron Bajraktari: [00:45:00] And they have no worry, at all.

Travis Bader: [00:45:02] Right. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:45:02] And I go. Why? Like, why am I, shouldn’t be the one that’s stressed out. If I’m doing X, Y, and Z. If I’m, if I’m my theory now is if I’m every day taking one step forward, just one, I could take 20, a 100, a 1,000, whatever it may be and whatever path, like I have the, the end goal. I see the, the light over there.

[00:45:23] I don’t know how I’m going to get there, but if every day I take one step forward on the path, it could, the path could look zig-zaggy, the path could be straight. The path can be backwards and then forwards, whatever it may be. But if I take one step forward every day, I shouldn’t worry about anything cause eventually I’ll get there.

[00:45:37] Like I, I try to now get rid of that stress because I’m like, I’m making progression. If I’m making progression, then I shouldn’t have stress. The only time I should have stress, if I’m standing still or if I’m negative, negative progression. But if I’m everyday making progression and taking a step forward, I know eventually, it might not be there like Jim, who was 21, started a YouTube channel and then became a millionaire. 

[00:46:05] But eventually my time, my path, my chapter, my book is different, but if I’m making a 1% progression one step every day, I shouldn’t be stressed. I should let it just happen you know? 

Travis Bader: [00:46:18] So what did Earl Nightingale say about success?

Agron Bajraktari: [00:46:21] No idea.

Travis Bader: [00:46:22] Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal, right? 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:46:26] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:46:26] It’s not, Hey, I’ve made this amount. It’s not, Hey, I’m at this summit right now, I’m successful. Because I guarantee you, what did Rockefeller  say how much is enough? He was asked, like how much do you really need to make? Right.

Agron Bajraktari: [00:46:38] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:46:38] Just $1 more. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:46:39] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:46:39] He says $1, always $1 more.

Agron Bajraktari: [00:46:42] That’s all he says.

Travis Bader: [00:46:43] So the progressive realization of a worthy ideal. What is success to you because what success is to somebody else and you chase that, you’re always going to be upset. You’re always, you’re never going to be there because it’s not what truly makes you happy, maybe success to you is being the best mother out there.

[00:47:00] Maybe success is, you know, I’m working at A&W, but I make the best burger out of anybody else, right? There’s nothing to be looked down upon on that. We all have our different stations, we all have different things we do. And being able to define what makes you happy is going to go leaps and bounds to help with where that stress is.

[00:47:22] And you can just start looking at weeding out anything in your life that doesn’t contribute to that happiness, then it should be something positive and replicatable right? 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:47:31] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:47:32] And it’s you, you’re talking about that everyday making that little bit of progression. And for me, I found that ever, everyone out there can be a business person, everybody out there can be successful in what they do.

Agron Bajraktari: [00:47:49] I agree.

Travis Bader: [00:47:50] The difficult thing is when you’re, let’s say you’re sitting in the bar with your buddies and having a few beers and everyone’s talking about their great ideas. You know what, tomorrow comes, who’s going to be the person who puts pen to paper and starts writing those ideas down and then sayin, step one, I think I’ll try this.

Agron Bajraktari: [00:48:07] Yup. 

Travis Bader: [00:48:07] And that’s where, that’s the huge changer. And these people go from nothing to a lot simply by taking that first step. And it’s so simple and all you have to do is one step, next step, next step. And some of those steps are going to be missteps. Like I thought I needed a business bank account to be a businessman when I was a teenager right?

Agron Bajraktari: [00:48:27] You go to the RBC, set me up right now.

Travis Bader: [00:48:29] And it was Royal Bank too. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:48:31] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:48:31] Right. I need a business credit card and I need a business bank account. Well, I took a few of those steps and that was a wrong direction, but it led to other steps. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:48:40] Yeah. I think that I’ve seen that a lot too in, in business. And in, in, like you said, like that, that whole idea you’re having beers have a great idea. And then who, who are the people that actually follow through on it. 

[00:48:53] And that’s huge because I’ve seen that happen multiple times where people have a good idea have, but they never end up following through. The first little bit of resistance where it’s like, ah, I’m going to have to buy a website.

Travis Bader: [00:49:05] Yep.

Agron Bajraktari: [00:49:05] And it’s like, not even like, it’s like setting up websites like 200 bucks now, not even that you go to WIX and set it up. 

Travis Bader: [00:49:11] Yep. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:49:11] Ugh, nah, I don’t, I’d rather spend the 200 bucks on a phone case or, or like a phone or whatever, you know what I mean? 

Travis Bader: [00:49:18] Yeah.

Agron Bajraktari: [00:49:19] It’s, it’s that first little bit of resistance they just kinda, and you see it all the time.

Travis Bader: [00:49:24] You know why?

Agron Bajraktari: [00:49:26] Yeah, why?

Travis Bader: [00:49:27] It’s because they don’t, they haven’t travel that road before. They don’t think they can actually do it. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:49:32] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:49:33] Right. It’s like me, I can’t afford a computer, it’s, it costs a thousand dollars for a computer, right? I don’t know, I don’t know how to make a thousand dollars that I can put down towards something other than buy food and my rent. That’s my station, it’s all I know. 

[00:49:46] Once you’ve taken that step and you look back like, Oh, that step wasn’t that difficult, I could do it again. I could rebuild everything I’ve done right now, give me a week, 2 max. Right? I can rebuild everything. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:49:58] You’ve done it. You’ve been there, done that. You have the playbook. 

Travis Bader: [00:50:00] Right. And you know it, and it’s simple. So if you’re sitting down at the bar with your buddy and your buddy says something really intelligent, that’s a great idea. I’ll say so are you going to do that? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. No, seriously, like if you don’t want to do it, I’ll do it. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:50:14] Exactly. I’ll take it. 

Travis Bader: [00:50:16] That’s right. Because I think I can run with this one, but you know, you’re my buddy. And it was your idea, like. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:50:22] You should do it.

Travis Bader: [00:50:23] But you should do it and I can help you do that. And you can show them the roadmap because in the end, you want to surround yourself with positive people and successful people. And you want to get there not by stepping on them, not by stealing their ideas to get there, which I see time and time and time again in any business.

[00:50:40] Oh, you’ve done it. Oh, you’ve shown me everything that I can do here, ohh maybe I can try and steal it all right?

Agron Bajraktari: [00:50:46] Yeah. There’s a Gary V says, says the same thing. He’s like, you can build the tallest building in the world by doing two things. By tearing every other building down or by actually building the tallest building.

Travis Bader: [00:50:56] That’s a good point. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:50:56] So there’s, and people have different philosophies. Some people are like, no, I’m going to build a 10 story building and anybody that gets close to 10, I’m going to try and tear down. 

Travis Bader: [00:51:04] Well, you’re talking about micro and macro. It’s the micro people who look at tearing down the macro people realize Holy crap if a tear down on all these other buildings around me and I’m this tallest building, is it really going to be a market for me, because there’s nobody else around me right? I don’t know, maybe that’s a poor analogy, but it’s.

Agron Bajraktari: [00:51:23] I know you mean, I know you mean, but it’s, it’s important to also understand like, like you said, like what makes you happy, where your success is and everything like that. And finding that happiness in the progression.

Travis Bader: [00:51:38] And it changes. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:51:39] Yeah, it does.

Travis Bader: [00:51:39] Your happiness will change and don’t keep pushing after something because it made you happy at one point, you think it’s always going to make you happy. Don’t keep pushing after something because it’s like, Oh man, the dollars are there. I’ve dumped things that I’ve done in the past where there’s good money there, but my passion isn’t there anymore and I don’t want to do it. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:51:55] Yeah. I agree. I agree. I’ve I’ve come across those bridges and I’ve made those decisions where I’ve been like, I’m doing X, Y, and Z, and I’m stopping this because I just don’t like it anymore.

Travis Bader: [00:52:10] Mmm. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:52:10] You know what I mean? And it, it, Gary Vaynerchuk also said another very important thing that made me realize what I kind of make sense in. And he goes, he doesn’t think laziness is, is just being lazy. He believes laziness is a sign of that you don’t like it, like you don’t like something. 

[00:52:30] And I use it like this, if I, like you said, when you, when your happiness changes in your perspective changes for anything, I go, okay. If I like doing something and then all of a sudden I got lazy, like, why did I get lazy after I liked doing this? Probably because I don’t like it, or I don’t like something in it. If I can’t change something in it to make me like it again, I probably shouldn’t do it anymore.

Travis Bader: [00:52:56] Sure. Or if I liked it at one point and it brought me happiness and it was a worthwhile endeavour, but it no longer brings me that happiness, I can dump it or I can maybe find somebody else who it would bring happiness to. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:53:13] Yeah.

Travis Bader: [00:53:13] There might be a way to either A monetize that, right. Or B just say, you know what, here’s something that could really help you out and here you go, because what goes around, comes around, tried old saying. But in by helping bring the other people around you up into a better place. At some point down the road, they’d turn around and say, you know what? You really helped me out in the past, I got this thing coming down the pipe, and I think it would be perfect for you.

Agron Bajraktari: [00:53:38] Let me just help, like helping people in general, like makes you just feel better. And like in general, like helping somebody start something and having everyone around you doing what they want and that whole happiness, like you could be.

Travis Bader: [00:53:51] You cannot predicate your happiness on that though. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:53:53] Yes. Yeah, for sure. But you can be the happiest guy around, but I think that like, and most successful guy around, but if you can’t share it with anybody or like help Jim start his whatever, or like give them the advice to do X, Y and Z. Like, I, I feel like a lot of it has to do with figuring it out yourself and then also handing it down to be like here.

Travis Bader: [00:54:17] But here’s the tough point in all of that too, which people as they become successful. And I don’t want to drag on here too long, the people that you are helping out, are they the type of person who’s worthwhile to help out? 

[00:54:32] Or are they the person who’s just a leach whose just taggin on because they see, Oh man, if I suck up to this person, I can get a few bucks or, you know, down the road, I’m really going to turn around and try and screw that person over. Right? 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:54:43] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:54:44] And there’s, there’s plenty of those people out there and there’s plenty of good people out there. And it’s about the more successful a person becomes, the more they’re going to find that the attract both of those personality types. And it’s about weeding out the ones who aren’t. The positive ones. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:55:02] Yeah. 

Travis Bader: [00:55:02] And that could be tough. That could be tough for a lot. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:55:04] We’ll give you the secret formula in episode two, but yeah, that is a tough,  that is a tough, for three payments of $29.99.

Travis Bader: [00:55:15] I love it. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:55:17] But yeah, no, I, I agree. A hundred percent. Figuring out who’s worthwhile to put energy into is definitely it’s hard, but we, we, we make some right choices. We make bad choices and we get burned to we learn and. So is life. 

Travis Bader: [00:55:33] So should we wrap this one up and do an episode 2? Cause I got a lot more to talk about.

Agron Bajraktari: [00:55:37] Yeah. We can wrap this one up and do a second episode. 

Travis Bader: [00:55:39] Who knows if you’re a, if your listeners appreciate any of this, great. If they find any value, great. If not, Hey, was, this was fun to be able to sit down and talk with you. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:55:49] Yeah, that was a blast for me too like, I was just sitting there and listening and like, trying to jot everything down and be like, okay, okay, okay. Write this down. Like, keep this in your head, don’t forget this.  But yeah, no, it was great. Great chatting with you.  lots of good tidbits, lots of good information. And I guess we’ll do another one eventually soon. 

Travis Bader: [00:56:06] There we go. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:56:07] There’s  no, no rush.

Travis Bader: [00:56:09] I love it. Well, thanks for having me on the show. 

Agron Bajraktari: [00:56:11] Anytime. Anytime.