Life In Balance – Travis Chambers
SUMMARY
On this episode, we are here with Travis Chambers. He is the founder of Chamber Media that has already driven over 40 million dollars in trackable sales, 250 million views and 3 million shares. He used to work in Hollywood, but when he became a parent, his life changed.
Travis talks about how him having kids destroyed his career but saved his life. He also shares some useful tips on how you can make a living while spending quality time with your kids.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Having kids can destroy your career, but it can save your life.Having kids allows you to stop, reconsider, and reset your direction.
The conventional wisdom is not always true.
Develop your skills and offer a service with those skills.
According to James Altucher, if you don’t have a capital, start with a service.
When starting a business, you can start selling your services. Developing an agency is another option.
One huge element of living a balanced life is living where you want to live.
Have some support structure in place.
Find a way not to be a desk every day.
Treat family affairs like clients meetings.
The job is just another element of your life, not the center of everything.
TRANSCRIPTION: LIFE IN BALANCE – TRAVIS CHAMBERS
Luis Congdon
Hey Thriving Launchers, how do we create a life in balance, especially when we have little kids or new kids or kids on the way?
On today’s episode, we have Travis Chambers to talk about that.
Today’s guest is Travis Chambers. He used to work in Hollywood. He had kids, and his life changed. Now, he’s gone on to create his own company, Chamber Media. They’ve driven over 40 million dollars in trackable sales, over 250 million views, 3 million social shares. It is nuts! They’ve been in AdWeek, Forbes, NextWeb, Times, and many other places.
The most significant thing I’m proud of is today’s guest is very balanced. He wants you to understand how to make money and make a living but also have balance.
Without further ado, let’s get Travis Chambers on the show.
What’s up Thriving Launchers? We’ve got Travis Chambers. We’re in debate whether or not he and Kamala are related, but we’ll have that in another episode.
Without further ado, Travis, welcome to the show! Are you ready to launch?
Travis Chambers
I’m ready to launch.
Luis Congdon
All right, Travis.
Having Kids And Still Keeping A Life In Balance
Luis Congdon
You’re a busy man, and all of a sudden you have kids, your life changes. What does that do to your life and how do you handle that shift? How you keep your life in balance despite those changes?
I know you’ve been successful and been up to a lot of things, but having kids does change a lot.
Travis Chambers
Yeah, it destroyed my career, but it saved my life. That’s the thing I always say, and it’s true.
Stop And Reconsider How To Live A Life In Balance
Travis Chambers
It just completely reprioritized my whole outlook on my life and my career. It made me stop, rethink, and reconsider. I was on that path to climb the corporate ladder for 30 years or so, and I just stopped, completely reconsidered, and reset my direction.
Kamala Chambers
When you say they destroyed your life, do you want to tell us a little bit more about that? How did it let you live a life in balance?
Travis Chambers
They destroyed the career path I was on. They saved my life, and I learned how to live a life in balance. Ruined my career is the thing I always say.
Kamala Chambers
Didn’t you feel like they came hand in hand?
Because your career was over, you didn’t feel like that was a problem at that point. You found something better.
Security In Living A Life In Balance
Travis Chambers
Yeah.
I was set on an entrepreneurial streak, but I always wanted security more than anything. I always wanted a family, and I underestimated the challenge of having a fast-paced in a high profile job and being able to pursue that role as a parent and to be genuinely involved in my kids’ lives. It just changed everything around and gave me an entirely new perspective.
I hate to say resistance or obstacles, but let’s be honest. When you’re working 70 hours a week, and you’re also trying to spend time with your children and your family, it’s excruciating. It’s emotionally turning you apart knowing that you’re feeling it both.
I think women probably go through this even more than men do during maternity like career women. What it did is that obstacle was the way to create a business that would allow me to fulfill those more critical priorities, and I don’t think that ever would have happened otherwise.
Travis Chambers
Yeah.
I was set on an entrepreneurial streak, but I always wanted security more than anything. I always wanted a family, and I underestimated the challenge of having a fast-paced in a high profile job and being able to pursue that role as a parent and to be genuinely involved in my kids’ lives. It just changed everything around and gave me an entirely new perspective.
I hate to say resistance or obstacles, but let’s be honest. When you’re working 70 hours a week, and you’re also trying to spend time with your children and your family, it’s excruciating. It’s emotionally turning you apart knowing that you’re feeling it both.
I think women probably go through this even more than men do during maternity like career women. What it did is that obstacle was the way to create a business that would allow me to fulfill those more critical priorities, and I don’t think that ever would have happened otherwise.
Know What Works For You To Create A Life In Balance
Kamala Chambers
What are some of the most important lessons you would want to tell new parents or people who are trying to break away from their careers to spend more time with their kids?
What would you say to them?
Travis Chambers
We were raised as ‘Gen X-ers’ I think a lot of us, and by baby boomers, and so we buy into that idea that things have to be a certain way, but it’s just not true, especially not now.
There are millions of ways to make a good income and to have more freedom and autonomy. I think too often, we all get caught up in this notion that the world can’t go round unless we are like cogs in the wheel, and chained to the desk and showing up every day.
Why Not You Live A Life In Balance?
Travis Chambers
The fact is there are millions of people who have done what I have done, and that proves that it’s possible, and why not you?
Why not you?
There’s no reason you can’t have that freedom, and it’s just the process of figuring out this type of lifestyle, how you can make money and have this kind of autonomy.
Luis Congdon
Yeah, definitely.
When you started to think outside the box like “Wait, I’ve got kids now. My priorities are shifting,”I just imagine the corporate gig you’re on. You’re like thinking, “Man, this isn’t working. I’m going to get a promotion which means a little bit more money, a bigger title, but needs a lot more work, and burdens.”
Stressful Situations Doesn’t Create A Life In Balance
Luis Congdon
I’ve been there myself and that promotion a lot of times made me be on call a lot more, and it meant that I had more stress, and just a lot way more demand. It was just out of balance. I wasn’t living a life in balance. You get paid a little more to take on a lot more.
I’m curious what was going through your head. What did you start thinking? “Well, I’m going to start an online business. I’m going to start doing this.” What was that ‘aha’ moment?
Travis Chambers
I was this director of social at 20th Century Fox. It’s directing all the social content for these theatrical film releases. On paper, that is a dream job. That’s literally what I wanted to do as a teenager, was to do marketing for movies.
Do What You Love To Live A Life In Balance
Travis Chambers
I was driving to Hollywood and rubbing elbows with this people, but I realized it was nothing that I wanted.
As you said, that promotion or that next dream job, it was tough. I was making significant money, but just with the hours, I said: “What is the point of this?” I ended that and I didn’t even know exactly what I was going to do.
What I decided is “I have a skill set. I have invested this amount of time in developing these certain skills. I’m going to offer a service with these skills, and I’ll do whatever for what anyone will pay me for in my skill set.”
Life In Balance – Starting A Business Without A Capital
Travis Chambers
The thing that inspired me to do that was a random Quora post by James Altucher. What he said is “If you don’t have capital, start with a service.” I think that’s my biggest advice to anyone. I think we get caught up that you have to have capital. You have to start Uber, and that’s just Ludacris. That’s just not for people that are working at a salary job. You’re not going to go out and start the next phase. It’s crazy.
I didn’t have access to funds. I didn’t have access to people like that, so I just started a service. The other thing that inspired me was The $100 Startup. It’s a great book, and the author goes through, and he just explores dozens of people that started companies with $100, and that’s what I did.
I got a business license, and I just started selling my services. I think it was two and a half or three months later I had one small side client, and we signed a client for $60,000 doing a whole suite of different advertising services that were in my wheelhouse. From there on, we were off to the races.
Different Ways To Create A Life In Balance
Travis Chambers
It literally can be as simple as just selling your services, and I chose to develop an agency because I wanted to build a platform or a brand that could grow, but you don’t have to do that. Most people become a one-person consultant, and they’re focused on their brand. There’s a lot of different ways that you can do it.
Kamala Chambers
Yeah, there are certainly are, and those are some good tips on how to live a life in balance.
This is kind of driven home by your children. How do manage being with your kids and now, running an agency?
Life In Balance – Live Where You Want To Live
Travis Chambers
One huge element has been living where we want to live.
We were living in LA with the high cost of living. We started the agency there, and it was tough. We were worried about every penny all the time with those living costs, and the business began to do well, and we realize that we wanted to live by family.
Life In Balance – Get Some Support Structure
Travis Chambers
We moved to Boise, Idaho and there’s almost nothing happening in my industry there. It was terrifying to do that, but now we live by family, so we have this whole support structure. That has been a huge help.
I think that would be one advice. Somehow get some support structure in place whether that’s friends at a yoga class or family or whatever it is. Having some support group, that has been a huge help.
Life In Balance – Prioritize Mornings
Travis Chambers
Other than that, I try to prioritize mornings. I get an hour or two or three hours with my kids in the mornings. Sometimes, I’ll have lunch with my family, which is great, and then we take trips together as well, and just with the nature of our work, I can work while we’re traveling in a lot of cases.
Travis Chambers
Because if you have to be at the desk and someone has to see you there every day, and you’re commuting, you may lose a couple of hours a day in your commute. You have to be seen in that desk, and it just gets this feeling that you can’t work around your family’s schedule in life.
That’s been incredible, and our whole team does that. If they need to take a couple of hours in the middle of the day, they do, and there’s not even a question about it. They just do it, and that has been a huge help to family life and to getting quality time with kids.
Life In Balance – Treat Family Affairs Like Client Meetings
Travis Chambers
If a dance recital is in the middle of the day, I’m going. I’m just treating that as a client meeting.
Treat family affairs like client meetings.
Luis Congdon
I love that and Thriving Launchers, that’s something we’re always promoting here. It is creating that lifestyle that supports your life. And it’s not just a job, and then, everything else goes around the job.
Create A Lifestyle That Supports You To Live A Life In Balance
Luis Congdon
It should be your life, and the job is just another element of your life, not the epicenter of everything, and I love how you phrased that.
As somebody who’s worked with over 200 married couples in a previous life, and been a director of a non-profit, I understand how much work can take over and how it can take over a couple’s life.
And having those supports systems, I love how you started with the natural support systems that you can create, the ones that you’re not always paying for. Because a lot of times when you talk to coaches, they say, “Hire a coach and get that support.”
While I think that’s great, we need those supports systems that are our friends or our family because they’re not on the clock with us. They’re people that are going to be there when we need them, and when we have kids, that’s just another layer.
I love that, and I love that you’re that with your team.
Kamala, any thoughts here before we wrap up or any last questions?
Kamala Chambers
Just want to say thank you so much for coming on the show, and I just encourage you all to go out and apply some of these terms of balance, these systems that we can implement into our daily lives, and keep thriving everyone.
