Transcript of Codie Sanchez: How to Make Money if You Don’t Have Money (4 Step Process to Make Money Today)

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70% of millionaires are self made. If you wanna make money, you gotta follow the math. People that have money have 1 thing. Entrepreneur, investor.

She's bought over 26 businesses. Cody Sanchez. I have no money. I don't really know too much about money. Where do I start?

What do I do? Most often we're told things like follow our passion.

I think that's pretty bad advice. If you don't have ownership, you're probably never going to be free financially.

You're literally opening up a whole new doorway for people. The number 1 health and wellness podcast.

Jay Shetty. Jay Shetty.

The 1, the only Jay Shetty.

Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose. The place you come to become happier, healthier and more healed. I'm fascinated by our relationships with things that we grew up with. How they've changed, how they've evolved or how they've stayed the same. I believe that our relationship with money is probably 1 of the most underestimated relationships that we have, and it's probably 1 of the relationships that we pay the least attention to.

We don't treat it like a relationship, we don't think of it like a relationship, and therefore it falls into the binary category of I'm either good at it or I'm bad at it. Today's guest has some incredible insights for each and every 1 of us. Wherever you are in your financial journey this episode is for you. Today's guest is Cody Sanchez.

Thank you. I'm blushing. I'm excited to be here.

I wanna start with a question that I know you probably get a million times and I get all the time. Jay, I have no money. I don't really know too much about money. Where do I start? What do I do?

There's 2 things in life that I wish we were told earlier. And 1 is if you wanna make money, you gotta follow the math. And I think most often, we're told things like follow our passion. You know, do what I did to make money. I made real estate, money.

You should make real estate money, and I think that's pretty bad advice. I think instead we should look to where are most people rich? What makes most people rich? So I kinda go to the data. I came from really middle class, kind of we didn't have money all the time.

I remember what it was like to not have money. I remember what it was like when my debit card you know, I was a little worried stuff wouldn't go through at the grocery store, and, I didn't like that feeling. And so I, like, kinda started looking around. I was like, wait a second. Where do people have money?

And after being in finance for whatever it is, 15 years, I'm gonna give away my age. I realized people that have money have 1 thing, ownership. So the the data is really clear on this. 70% of millionaires are self made, which is interesting. I used to think maybe you just inherit it.

Did they just get lucky? And then 68% of millionaires have some form of form of ownership. They have actually bought a business or have equity in a business or built a business. And so when I realized that, I was like, the problem is I don't have a brilliant idea. Like, I don't know how to make money.

I don't have any money to make money. But at least you have step 1, which is if you don't have ownership, you're probably never going to be free financially. You gotta get some skin in the game. That doesn't mean that you have to become an entrepreneur. It's really hard to do that.

It sucks many days. You know this very well. There's Fridays when you're never gonna make payroll, and that is like a deep, terrible, dark hurt, actually. But if you realize ownership is the name of the game, then you should probably obsess on 1 thing more than anything else, which is learn the language of money. And, back when I was young, I was a journalist originally, made $0.

And and I realized that I had no idea why I had opportunities and ability to make some money. And let's say the women I was covering at the time in Juarez, who are they call it, La Ciudad de Muerte, right, the city of death, which is where, women are mutilated and raped and brutalized and and, found murdered all over the city every single day, thousands of women a year. There were many that had the last name Sanchez. My last name happens to be Sanchez. I was like, what's the difference between us?

Is it that I'm American? No. That's not it alone. I think it's also that I had some financial tools. And, like, money is a pushback against other people's architecture of your life, and it makes people care about you 1 way or the other, which is sad.

But the truth of the matter is, if you are poor, you have no power. And anybody who's been poor before knows that is true. You gotta go where the game is played. So the first thing I tell you is if you don't have any cash, you need to find a way to figure out how to speak the language of money. And that probably means you maybe go work in finance like I did.

You get with a company that has smart leaders like Jay, where you can actually go and learn from them and you obsess on, can I become fluent in the thing that nobody talks about in the US? Because money is supposed to be the root of all evil.

Yeah. You shared a statistic with me that I thought was mind blowing that 62% of Americans don't wanna talk about money. Yeah. That is so scary but it's also not surprising because like you just said, we've created this narrative that money is the root of all evil. And it was so fascinating because someone actually said this to me where if you look up the actual reference, it says love of money is the root of all evil.

I never knew that. Yeah.

How did we I mean, I do wonder sometimes how do we get programmed these ways? Because if you think about it, it's like, what are the 3 things you're not supposed to talk about? Politics, religion, money. Now politics and religion, maybe I could understand. You could offend somebody.

I believe this religion. You believe this political slant. And if if we could go ahead, that could be bad. But when it comes to money, who who's like, no. I wish you everybody was poor.

Like, why wouldn't we be able to talk about it? Then the only thing that I can determine from that is that every time we get a little bit more ownership, a little bit more money, we become harder to control. And, when you're harder to control, big institutions and largely our governments, they don't like that. You know, you want a controllable populace by and large, and and I think that is a big reason why people don't talk about money. It's actually that we have been programmed to be more malleable sheep in many ways, not because people are evil at the top, but because once we get power, we humans are a little funny.

We don't like to give it up. No matter who we are, I would probably be the same. And so that centralization of power, we start to think, I know better. You poor person, let me give you some charity. You can't figure it out.

And instead, we should be saying, you are just as capable as I am, and I would probably be you if I lived your life. And so instead, why don't I transfer some knowledge because that's where money starts.

Yeah. What about people right now who are looking at the situation and just like the economy is in a bad place, we're super worried. Paint us a picture of Yeah. Where America is right now.

Well, I mean, well, let's talk first. We'll talk about how it's tough, and I'll be honest. And then we can talk about solutions. So I promise I won't leave you in a doom scroll. But, here's the truth of what's happening in the world right now.

If you're young, young people today are upset about what's happening in the world around them, and I understand why. You have wage stagnation. So we basically have not made any more money. And in fact, this generation, Gen Z, is the 1st generation where at their same age as their parents, they're making less money, not more. Problem is their university degrees are 3 to 4 x more expensive.

Oh, by the way, so is housing. Wait a second. Inflation is at a degree in which my dollar today is worth even substantially less than even 5 years ago. On top of that, yeah, we have all these jobs open. You know, 7,000,000 working age men supposedly are unemployed at this moment right now, even though the jobs report says that there's so many jobs.

Are the jobs real? Well, largely not. They're private sec they're not private sector. They're public sector. They're government jobs.

And so young people are like, wait a second. I can't live. I can't eat. You know, grocery's more expensive. And that's real, actually.

And so the people that are making fun of young people in TikToks, you know, when they cry about their job being difficult, I don't I don't really vibe with that because the math says it's hard right now and not just for young people, but I think it's important to talk about them. And the truth of the matter is, though, that in any market, we can make money. And so although it's really difficult out there, there's, like, 1 silver lining that I've kind of been screaming from the rooftops for the past 3 years, and people, I think, are starting to see it, which is that we are, thankfully, I think, going to have a marriage between baby boomers and young people that would be very unexpected. So right now and historically, young people have said, okay, boomer. You messed our up up our economy, boomer.

You're not employing me, boomer. You don't understand my life. You listen to the music that young people like. They don't like that generation in a lot of ways. Then the baby boomers are like, you guys are quiet quitting.

You're not working very hard. Get out of my basement. And so these 2 generations have been at war in some ways, like a quiet war. And now I think with the transfer of ownership that we're seeing, and we can talk about the the great wealth transfer, I think we have an opportunity where the baby boomer generation, the richest generation that we have ever seen in the US, which has mimicked in all other countries around the world, by the way, that are developed countries. This generation is about to sunset.

They're getting ready to retire. They're ready to move on, but they own $68,000,000,000,000 in wealth in just the US. The interesting part is the young people think, well, that money must get transferred somehow. Right? Does that mean I get a house?

Does that mean I get a car? Does that mean I get inheritance? The problem is that money is not tied up in just assets. It's not tied up in houses and bank accounts. It, by and large, is tied up in small businesses because baby boomers own 60% of all small businesses.

And so I think we gotta find a way for the young people to take over these baby boomer businesses because otherwise, then we're in a really bad spot. Then we're Japan.

Yeah. What are some of the mistakes that you think we think about what makes money? Like, what what are we thinking makes money right now where we're being distracted? We're actually small businesses where you're pointing the spotlight. Yeah.

But but what are we distracted by?

I think a lot of young people today chase the shiny object. Right? And and think about this for a second. I remember, like, many years ago, I had an opportunity to invest in Robinhood, and I could kick myself financially because I didn't. But at the time, why I didn't is I was, like, day trading stocks as amateurs, and then gamifying it.

So we get, like, adrenal response every time a balloon pops because we placed a trade might be a bad idea. Like, I don't think we should probably gamify our finances that way. And I think that's what's happened to young people. They're being told I mean, put in the stock market and day trade. They're being told NFTs and playing with crypto monkeys.

They're being told price speculation on crypto or even Bitcoin. They're taking margin calls out on their stock portfolios. Then with the little amount of money that they have, they're trying for this get rich scheme speculation. And the shitty part is that just never works. You know, the 1 sure thing I know about money is that you're never going to make it if your solution is, hey, I'm going to win at money because that guy is going to lose.

If you think that there is a lose win scenario and you are the 1 that's gonna win, I hate to tell you, you're the 1 holding the bag.

Well said.

Yeah. And I wish people told us that more that, actually, making money doesn't have to be lose win. It could be win win. And that is when you know you've actually found a good opportunity is when you go, okay. Why would I make money on this deal?

Oh, because I am solving a pain point that adds value to another human's life, and I've properly valued what my own skill set is. The problem is most of us don't even know what we're good at or how you'd value that skill. And we can play around with some exercises so that any human could figure out, okay. I, Cody, know how to market something. How do I figure out how much is that is worth, and how could I transfer some of that to get a percentage of equity in somebody's company just for the skill that I have?

And the last thing I wanna say there is, like, more than anything, I think, 1, we think money's bad. And then, 2, money's scary. Like, I don't really know why, but I think we're we're scared of it, And we're scared that we might not be able to make it, and we're scared what if we lose it, and what if our self worth is tied up in it, and should we actually ask for it? So we have all these fears surrounding money, which is probably why we don't talk about it too. And we gotta kinda work through that because money is just a tool.

So it's just like if you wanna build a house, do you wanna use, you know, a bunch of tiny little nails and your own hammer, or do you wanna have a screw gun? And, like, in this instance, I wanna have the bigger gun.

Yeah. I wanna look at 3 scenarios of our audience and where they sit and look at what your advice would be for them at that point. So let's say we have a listener who just graduated from college. What should they be doing first? What should they be thinking about right now?

Yeah. Well, here's how I think about making money. We have a 4 step process that I think if you don't have money now, here is how you make it consistently over time, and you have your money go out and bring back friends with it. The first is you've got to learn. We've got to obsess in the beginning about 1 thing only.

It's not what your salary is. It's how can I cram as much information as humanly possible in my brain in order for me to then do the next thing, which is increase my skill stack? After I learn, can I increase my skills so that my skills are more valuable today than they were yesterday? And the third is, how can I increase my income? So before you go thinking about investing in things overall, how can I just make more money currently with what I'm doing?

And then finally, we can get to invest. So after we do these 3 steps, the final 1 is how do I take my money and make my money work for me? But in the beginning, you don't have money. You know? You don't really have skills.

You probably don't have a ton of connections. And so what you actually wanna do is use your sweat equity and your experience and time as a really maybe hungry individual to get money to eventually be able to invest the money. And I think that's the other thing young people were told that's a lie is that you can go out as a young person and, you know, you know, Fendi, Gucci, Prada, Lamborghini on the internet make a bunch of fast cash and Airbnb arbitrage or whatever. Man, I wish somebody had told me earlier on that's a terrible thing to do.

Yeah. And I think what's really interesting though is when you're talking about improving of skills. I think when we graduate college you think that that was the skill. Like that your degree was the investment in the skill but really what you're talking about are high value skills, talents, abilities that actually make an impact in a workplace and those are really different. And so I'd meet a lot of young people who sadly have spent so much money on their degree, are really smart academically.

Yeah. But then that skill doesn't translate into knowing how to make their company more money, knowing how to lead people really well, knowing how to build functions, systems, processes. And therefore, it's like, well, wait a minute. I just studied all these years, but it doesn't translate.

Yeah. I think you're exactly right. I mean, for a long time, we employed people from the top universities and financial firms. We would go out, and we would hand select them because that would be an indicator of their grit, perseverance, and potentially their their intellect, their IQ. Now, by and large, you're starting to see a lot of the top institutions bypass that.

You know, Google doesn't mandate that you have a college degree if you're going into an engineering degree, actually. And I think that should be really liberating for us. It's basically breaking down this barrier that's a 6 figure barrier that allowed for the few, the elites, to stair step over everybody else. And now it's actually saying, how bad do you want it? And don't tell me what you learned.

Show me what you can do, or even better, show me what you did. And so I think the resume of the future is actually if somebody came to you, Jay, and they were like, I just graduated from Wharton. I am very smart. You know? I also did my undergraduate degree at Harvard.

I now want to come work for you. You'd be like, what do you know how to do? Do you know how to market? Do you know how to grow a a beverage company? Do you know how to increase our, investment return?

Oh, you kind of, like, theoretically have looked about how to do that in a case study? That's probably less interesting to you than somebody that goes, you know what? I was part of the beverage team at Erewhon and Whole Foods, and I figured out, sort of across the country how they buy different pieces of, inventory. Yeah.

You got my attention already. Right.

Exactly. And and maybe because I want to help you grow this individual business, which I know you care about because I see it on your socials, I put together this little spreadsheet for you. Here's the things they care about. Could I come work for you for free for 3 or 6 months? And if that works out, could we do something better and bigger?

The problem that people usually have on the Internet when I throw out the word work for free is young people are like, remember that part where you told us that we were broke and we don't have any money? So I'm not trying to dismiss that at all, but I do think we have to be honest about the fact that when we're young, you're gonna have to work harder than you think, longer than you think, doing stuff you don't like with people you probably don't like until eventually you get the right to do something really interesting.

Mhmm.

But, like, you don't die in your first job from it being really hard and challenging. You die from the absolute monotony and the low level tasks you have to do for basically pennies on the dollar.

Yeah. Definitely. Definitely. Absolutely. I fully agree.

Let's say someone's 30 years old. Yeah. They've or 30 to 35. They worked 10, 15 years after graduating. They've been at the same company.

Maybe they've moved once. Yeah. I was actually talking to someone like this yesterday. She's been at this 1 company for 6 years. It's a great company.

Great on her resume but she's like, I don't really wanna be here. I don't think this is where I see my future.

Mhmm.

But I'm so scared of quitting. I don't know how to invest. I probably didn't save that much anyway. Now I feel bad about it. I'm probably feeling a bit of shame and guilt that I didn't save that much over the last 10 years.

Yeah. What would I do, Cody? Okay. I am so excited about this because we've got the first ever merch drop for On Purpose. It's finally here.

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Well, 1, I would say these days, you do not have to have money to make money, which is incredibly powerful. So when I think about it, if I'm 30 and I am at a company like that, what would I do today? Well, I would actually probably sit down and figure out what am I actually skilled at that somebody else would pay me for. Once you know what somebody else would pay you for, which is really just like, do people ask for opinion on this? Could you actually get jobs in this space?

If it was me because I'm kind of unemployable, like, you don't want me to work for you. I like, I got my own ideas. I wanna do things this way. If she's like that, then what you wanna do is you wanna try to partner with somebody where you can be the solution to their problem. And because you understand what I call deal making, which is really the language of money, you can negotiate an ability for you to own part of a thing in order for you to have 1 of 3 outcomes.

If she can figure out if she can help a business grow its revenue, make more money, if she can help a business cut its costs, or if she can help decrease the pain of a business owner, you can negotiate your way into a business and have equity in it and upside. And I wish somebody had taught me that earlier because this is what consultants do. This is what private equity firms do. This is what some of the largest institutions in the world do. I call it expertise to equity.

But if I was her, I'd say, don't go find another job. And if you don't have a brilliant idea that you're like, I would die for the want of creating this thing in the world. If you have that, please go do it. But if you're like, I don't have that. I just want to make money, and I wanna feel respected, and I wanna feel like my skills fit somewhere, and I'm able to have an outsized income.

If that's you, then I think you should try to value your skill set, then you should try to negotiate for an upside deal with somebody, and you should try your hand at this game called ownership, which is where you say, hey, small business. I know how to market. Can I help you market at the side while I'm working on this company? And because I help you grow your revenue by 50%, could I keep 10% of the 50% I grow? Do you think a small business owner would say yes to that?

Of course, they would because there's no downside. And I think more often than not, we think that the only risk you can take in making money in business is putting your own cash down, that's a risk, or starting a business, aka dedicating your life to something. The last part I'll get a little statistic on us is 90% of startups fail inside any rolling 10 year period. We know that statistic. Most startups make $0 for the 1st 3 years.

After that, the average entrepreneur makes about $46,000 a year, which is great, but not when you've been making 0 for 3 years. And then on top of that, we've got this nation of of people who have all these bills to pay, and they are betting on hopes and dreams as opposed to realities. And so my my commentary is, can you figure out how to value your skills so you can negotiate a little bit more upside for that day where you can't work anymore?

Yeah. Definitely. I I'm so happy to hear such, like, smart, honest advice because I do think you're so right. For so long, we keep telling everyone, like, follow your passion, like, just quit your job, like, jump over and, you know, it's it's hard because like you said that business may not work, your skills may be better off here. You might not be an entrepreneur.

You might be someone who's gonna work with an entrepreneur and build. I wanted to address something though. I do find a lot of leaders and a lot of founders of small businesses or up and coming businesses to also be quite resistant to recognizing the value of sharing. So I'll give an example of what I mean by this. Like when I was starting out, I remember speaking to people who are who are much more established than I was.

And I said, hey. I've got a person I'm gonna work with. I'm gonna split things 75, 25. And and they're gonna get 25% of profits. I'm gonna keep 75 because they have a skill set I don't have and it will be complimentary.

And I remember everyone telling me it was a really bad idea because I'm like, Jay, like, no. You you're building a platform. You should earn a 100% of it. And I was like, but no. They're gonna manage stress for me.

They're gonna manage teams. I want to see them grow. I want them to feel like they've got skin in the game. And now, you know, 8 years later since that decision I'm so much happier and I have a great relationship with my 1 of my business partners. We have a great relationship.

He's as invested as he is as he was then. Yeah. Things have grown really well. And I'm like the people that were trying to hold on to that last 5 to 10 percent Yeah. Actually haven't grown.

And so it was really interesting to me though that I see that again and again and again where even founders and new leaders are actually scared of parting with something. How would you encourage them to think about that differently?

Well, I actually would say be scared of partnerships.

Oh, great.

Because 50% of marriages end divorce, but a 100% of business marriages typically end. Because no business lasts forever. Right? And so at some point, you're going to have a rift with your business partner

Yep.

By and large. And probably you'll have a few rifts with them. So I would actually say it's cool to be scared about that. You should be. The the thing that I I want people to think about is, like, I want to make risk a non 4 letter word because I think that the key to wealth is actually risk, taking some of it.

The question is, if you're like me, I'm kind of a wuss. Like, I stayed in a corporate job for 12 years because I was too scared to do things by myself. Even though I was, like, pretty highly skilled, I had a decent amount of cash. I was, like, definitely not gonna make it. I don't think I'm I don't think I'm capable.

Like, it took me a long time to get there. And so what I did is I'm all about risk mitigation, which is like a fancy, you know, finance y word to say, how can I just make the outcome so in my favor that even if I'm not as smart as I think I am, it's almost like a a win win no matter what? And so in that instance, I would probably say, tell the make the founder a deal so good that they would feel dumb saying no to it. And so if if I was coming to you, Jay, and Jay was just starting out, I wouldn't do this to somebody who has a big platform. They have way too much too many resources.

You need to go with somebody that's more accessible to you that doesn't have a lot of resources. It's more on your level. But when you find that person, you go, hey. Win win deal. Don't give me a cent unless I provide x value, like, literally nothing.

Don't give me a percentage of the company right away. I never give a percentage of my companies right away anymore. I did once. It cost me a $1,000,000. I was pissed.

I didn't do it again. So, you can do what's called an earn in or milestone based deliverables, which I know sounds like a little maybe boring if people are listening.

Right way to do it. I'm so glad you're giving this advice. It's great.

Yeah. I mean, what you wanna do is say, hey. I love you. You love me. We're gonna be together forever.

In the off chance that you see a hot little side piece and you run off with them, I want an ability to get the business back. Right? And so in that way, I am going to instead say, hey. I'm taking all the risk in this business for the most part. I'm putting in the capital.

Unless you're gonna put in money that is equal to me, you only get the equity in the business or the upside in the business if you it's either duration or it's execution. So either you're here for 1, 2, 3 years, which is called cliff based investing, or you're here for the 1st million that you helped me get in, and then the second second million and the third million. And if you help me hit those milestones, you get the equity. If you don't, I wish you well. You wish me well, but we've already signed a prenup, and this is how it works.

And so I think we need to start thinking like that. And it's very non American. We're not so used to negotiating, probably non British too. Actually, Indians, incredible at negotiation. Same with a lot of people in the Middle East, but British and American people not so good at negotiating.

We think that it's, like a low level signal on average. So, like, when I was young, my mom, we call her the pitbull. She's amazing. And she would all always negotiate everything. My dad's an incredible businessman, like, totally pulled himself up by his own bootstraps, but my mom would go negotiate.

And I don't know if you ever felt like this, but I remember sometimes, you know, my mom would be, like, negotiating for a different price. I'd be like, mom.

Oh, all

the time. Like, please stop. You just pay it. And she would look at me, and she would say, like, once it's your money, you pay it. But it's my money, so, like, get out of here if you don't wanna deal with this.

And I used to think it was so embarrassing. And now I realize, oh, that's very smart, and it's actually the thing the wealthy do more than anything else that the poor do not, which is the wealthy negotiate everything, and the poor take price while the rich set price.

Well, I've never thought about it like that. Set price versus taking a price. Mhmm. And and I love your mindful habits on mitigating risk in a business relationship, both sides. I think it's I'm glad that you laid it out that way because I completely agree with you the amount of business relationships that have challenges and issues and everything.

I wanna go back a few moments to when you were saying you were stuck for 12 years. And the reason I wanna talk about that is because now when I see you and whether someone sees you online or writing your book or, you know, you're on all these awesome podcasts and you're talking so confidently and you're so clear. But to hear that you had doubt and it took you a long time to get over it, Walk me through what was going on in your mind during that 24 month period, 12 month period before you actually managed to quit. What was going inside Cody's head?

Oh, yeah. I think I would have stayed an employee forever, Jay.

Me too. That's why I'm asking.

I like and and I also think if you're listening right now and you ever feel less than for being an employee, you tell that person to pound sand because I guarantee you, Sheryl Sandberg is worth a lot more than many entrepreneurs, and she was an entrepreneur. She worked inside of a business and amassed massive wealth, prestige, status, and impact from it. And so I I I don't like when people make employees feel less than. You and I couldn't do what we do if we didn't have people who also wanted to build a vision with a team as opposed to an individual. So 1, you can make a ton of money whether you're an employee or whether you are the founder of the business.

You just gotta get a little skin in the game and upside, and you get skin in the game and upside when you have more value. You don't just ask for it. You've gotta be able to earn it. And so when I was when I was, you know, thinking those last 2 years in the business, I was, running a business in Latin America. I had taken the business from 0 to a $1,000,000,000 in assets under management.

I had done it in a place that I had never lived, Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Peru. I didn't have contacts there, but I'd, like, built something from nothing. And I was really proud of that, but I wasn't very good at doing deals back then. And I maybe that's why I'm obsessed with it now because I did a shitty deal with a guy that I respect a lot, but he was just better than me. And he ran the company, and I built up this huge thing.

But, basically, I had no way to take the assets of the business with me. The only thing that I could do is stay at that business and continue to get partnership until they eventually sold. I was like, gosh. I don't wanna be here for 30 years. And at the time, again, I I respected the CEO a lot, but we didn't believe in the same world.

Like, I believe in a world in which we can all get rich together. He believed in a world in which he told me we get rich quietly. And he believed that if you told people that you were rich, they came after you, which sometimes they do. Mhmm. And because of that, he wanted to protect himself and be quiet.

And I said, I don't wanna live in that world. And so we fought about that. I thought we should run the business this way. He thought we should run the business that way. And so for those last 2 years, if he hadn't finally taken me on a beach for a walk, him and I went.

He runs a multi 100, 100, 100 of 1,000,000,000 of dollar company. We're still friends to this day. But he essentially gave me an ultimatum. He said, listen. I wanna row left.

You wanna row right. The problem is you need to get your own ships. You gotta get your own boat. You're on my boat, and you're trying to row this way, and we're going this way. So you gotta make a decision.

And at the time, I was so mad. I was like, I built this from nothing. You guys can't even speak Spanish. I'm down here. Do it.

Like, I was mad. I was super entitled. But I realized, Cody, did you put any of the money on the table to build this business? No. You know?

Did did did you take the risk? No. Besides coming here, like, that was his. And so he was right. And, and I couldn't take anything with me.

I did put my old number 2, in charge of that business, which is cool. She still runs it to this day. But I was really, like, mad at myself and sad. And so before I left there, I had done a lot of little investments. I called them throwing out my chips.

So, you know, once you start to make a little money, I think it's really helpful to start investing in the things that you wanna eventually earn from. So I knew I wanted to get into some venture capital like things, so I started investing in some venture capital firms. And so when he finally gave me that ultimatum, I jumped ship, went to another company, and I didn't even have the balls to do it by myself then. I was partnered up with a few other people. And, man, like, a lot of terrible things can happen to you when you don't believe in yourself.

And I think the universe like, it it will tell you kinda what you need to do. And then if you don't listen, it'll annoy you for a while. And then at some point, it'll just kick you in

the face.

And, like, that's my experience. You probably have a nicer experience with the universe, but it's kind of like, come on. We should do this. We should do this, and it just pushes you off the cliff. And so with me, I raised a ton of money for this company.

I had these couple of partners, and at the end, like, it didn't work out between us. And, again, unemployable. I wanted to go left. They wanted to go right, and I didn't really do that good of a deal. And so twice this happened.

But that last time, I did a better deal. And so I said, you guys have to pay me out for what I did, and I'm going to go do this new business, and I wanna take some of our investors. And so if somebody hadn't pushed me out of a company and if somebody else hadn't also said, no, we don't wanna do this with you, I never would have done it by myself.

Mhmm.

And so I think it's it's okay if somebody's listening and you're stuck in a corporate job, quote, unquote, stuck for a long time. That's okay. And it's also okay if it takes you a few tries. And I don't think that the only way to make money is to go be a entrepreneur and founder and do it all by yourself and never work in corporate America. I'm very grateful for the money that they spent on me for decades.

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Yeah. Absolutely. And I think there's plenty of good examples, as you said, of intrepreneurs. And I think that's it's it's more a mindset thing. What I'm hearing from you is it's getting skin in the game.

It's negotiating well. It's being an owner. Right? Like, that that's really what I'm hearing. And I think if people take those 3 things away from what we've talked about so far, that's what you wanna put your attention to rather than this idea of, oh, I've got to start a business.

I've got to become an entrepreneur. I've got to learn how to invest. It's like, no. No. No.

This this is it. This is what it is.

You're right. Yeah. Lots of people focus on the tactics. They don't focus on the foundation. The foundation is, do you believe that you have ownership and responsibility for the things you spend more time doing than anything besides sleeping, which is working?

And if you have what we call an owner's mindset, so the type of human that's like, I'm I'm putting, like, respect and dignity into what I do every day to the point that I start to value my own worth and I understand why I'm valued, then you will finally be able to negotiate for the only thing that nobody can take from you. Somebody can take a job. Somebody can take a salary. Nobody can take contractual ownership in a business. And I think that's really important in today's world because it really allows you.

Then when somebody you work for does something you don't like, you just go, Yeah, I'm not doing that, you know, and you become it's what I call my my you fund and my ladylike fashion, which is like, Hey, I have a certain amount of money. And because I have it, I will never compromise on a few things. But the owner's mindset is kind of rare. You know? And so I think for young people today, so often, and I was 1, it's like my boss is bad.

My job sucks. You know, I don't have upward mobility. And if I could tell young Cody 1 thing differently, it would be like, what would the opposite side of that story say, and which 1 do you think would make you more money? And it'd be like, probably the 1 in which you're like, hey. This is all kind of in my control.

And if I make some serious changes in my life, I bet I could be richer than I am today. And And I wish more people thought that way.

Yeah. How do you have that conversation with your boss?

I remember once, I was at an event, and, I was just listening in the crowd, and it was actually a finance event for women. So it was a bunch of, like, kind of well off ladies. And we're in the audience, and the the person in front asked everybody to close their eyes, so we all close their eyes. And then they said, nobody's looking. I want you to have your body have a physical representation of what you feel when you think of money.

So I was like, this is weird hippie. It's like, what are we doing? So I was like, I don't know, you know, and you can't see me. But like, I was like throwing up my hands and like, okay, money. I like it.

Like, give it to me. Keep it going. You know, these are like my internal monologs. Right? Yeah.

Like, I'll take some. And so, anyway, I'm chilling. I'm like this. Like, nobody's looking. And then they're like, now don't move, but open your eyes.

When I looked out, I was like, woah. Because the rest of the audience, not the rest, but let's call it 80%, were like this. They're like they were tight to the chest. They were like kind of, like, maybe small arms to the side. In some instances, I was like, it looked like they had been hit.

They had been harmed. And and I thought that was so fascinating, and then they let us shake it off. And I was like, oh, man. If your representation of money that you feel in your body is closed off, you know, kinda scared, whatever, I don't know. It might be hard for you to earn it.

So I think for some reason, being in finance helped me realize, hey. You guys, if you met some of the guys who were worth a $100,000,000 that I did in finance, you'd go, I could do that too. Like, that guy did it. Really? And so I think once you meet a bunch of those people, you go, oh, like, this isn't this isn't as impossible as people say it is.

And so I learn a lot from not seeing people achieve it and going, how could they? How could they? It's instead going, wow. That guy didn't wanna think if he could do it, I could do it too. And that taught me to keep going.

Okay. He did it. He did it. And it's like arms would raise. Arms would raise.

Arms would raise. And so maybe that's what I would try to to tell people. It's like every time you see somebody that has a lot of money and you see the humanity in them, just remember, like, we're all kind of the same.

Yeah.

Definitely. You you can now don't get me wrong. Intelligence levels, network, how you're born, where you're born, real things. But if you're living in a first world country, in today's day and age with the Internet and what we have at our fingertips, I think you're in a better position than you've ever been in order to make a lot of money today. And I promise you only 1 thing, which is you'll make less money if you think you will.

Yeah. I I wanted you to talk about the difference between what you just said and how we cultivate that mindset because you're so right. I know a lot of people, a lot of friends as well, they'll look at someone who's doing well for themselves. They'll be like, that guy's so dumb. Like, I could do that.

I could do that with my eyes closed. But it's actually in a condescending way to that person rather than like, that guy can do it. Oh, great. Okay. Well, I've got this go.

I went to I can do it. You know? And so what is that mindset shift? Because I think we're we're good at looking at other people. Yeah.

But often we either fall prey to being envious Yeah. Instead of studious of them. Like, instead of envy instead of studying them, we envy them. Or we end up being condescending of them of, like, oh, well, you know, he's not even that smart, or they're not even it's not even that great. Right?

We kinda justify that. So how do you shift that? Because I think that's at the core of what you're saying.

Yeah. And don't get me wrong. I fall prey to all of these things too. I still, to this day, play the game of comparison. Like, oh, they're doing that?

Could I come on, team. Where are we going? You know, I do it too. Me too.

Yeah. Yeah.

And I wish I didn't, but I still do. But, I do think cash loves curiosity. If you remember anything else, it's that money is really attracted to the type of human that keeps asking questions. You don't actually have to know the answers often to make money. You need to ask the right questions.

So I kinda trained myself every time I saw somebody with money or I got to know somebody with money. I didn't need to know anything else besides, like, can I just ask them a lot of questions continuously? And it was funny because I was talking to, I think, another mutual friend of ours, Jesse Eitzler, the other day. And Jesse talks about how he used to go to a a hotel here, and he would just ask questions in the lobby or at the lunch table. He was, like, living not in a nice place.

He had no cash whatsoever. But when he saw people that he thought looked rich or interesting, he would just ask them questions. And I think with the Internet sometimes, we we think that questions don't matter anymore, and we go to the Internet to get answers. And if instead you can make a human connection and get curious about them, they'll give things to you. Yeah.

And so 1 of my I played a game when I was really young, which is I kind of started collecting mentors who never knew they were my mentor. And, and I think this is a really clever thing to do. And, I remember 1 in particular, Bob Kendall, and BK is what we call him. He was super high up at, I don't know if it was Goldman or Credit Suisse at the time, 1 of 1 of the companies. And he was so, like, out of my range, like, you know, when somebody else is in a company.

And I was basically the intern, and he was the big dog. But I got a couple chances to interact with him. And I would just ask him questions, like, very simple ones. Like, oh, you just took over this area of the business. Like, why what did you see there as opposed to this other area where a lot of people are going?

I would just kinda be curious. And then I would do a thing that I think probably helped me make more mentors than anything else, which is I would get their contact information. I would never ask them for anything. I would largely just say, hey. That piece of advice that you gave me the other day, that was really useful, and I applied it this way.

Thank you for doing that. Or I'd see if you his name was written somewhere. He had done a research paper or something. I might send it to him, like, with a couple highlighted things. Like, these lines were incredible.

Thank you for doing that. Then after I had done that a few times, I might give them 1 question. Like, hey. You know, I'm thinking about going into marketing or sales, and I'm trying to figure out how do you decide which career path is more interesting to you. Do you have just, like, a 1 sentence about it, or do you have 1 book that you'd like to read, like, really short?

And I remember I sat down with BK years later, and he was like, you know what funny thing about you? And I was like, oh, what? You know? And he was like, you, like, somehow made me your mentor, but you never asked. And then I started caring about what happened to your career, but I kinda never meant to, which is like a very Asperger's y finance thing to do.

Yeah.

And he's like, did you do that on purpose? And I was like, I you know, I don't know. I was young then, so I don't know. But maybe that tiny transfer of, hey. I have advice, and somebody actually takes it, uses it continuously, wants nothing from me for it, and then gives me a positive feedback loop that I'm making change on their life is so rare.

So smart.

Right?

That's genius. That's actually the best mentorship advice I think I've ever heard. Because I think so many of us, when we want somebody to be our mentor, the first mistake is we ask them to be our mentor.

Do that. That also makes me die on the inside. If somebody asks me that, I'm like, that's such a huge responsibility. What if I you up? Exactly.

Or what

if I don't have time? What if I can't respond? Like, that's that's the natural reaction. Right. And same with me.

I've always had mentors that don't know they're my mentors. It's the only way. But what I love about your advice, which I've never ever heard before, is also how you asked for advice. I think the second mistake so the first mistake we say is can you be my mentor? Yeah.

The second mistake we make is we send our whole life story with 1 like really big profound question. So it's like I went from this then I did this then I dropped out then I did this then I did this. How do I discover my purpose? And it's like

and it's

like the person on the other side has no idea how to compute all of that algorithmically and give you a really profound answer back that they genuinely believe will help you which means they probably won't respond or if they don't respond it will be extremely short and then you feel disgruntled and upset that they didn't value your whole life story. And then now you probably lose touch. Whereas your advice was just so perfect because the idea that you're sending them their own work with a couple of highlights, 1 sentence question, 1 piece of insight and then that person like you said becomes invested in your life. That is such great advice, Cody. I really you.

Really mean that. I've never heard mentorship advice better than that.

Yeah. I think it it worked for me, and I I also think the other piece of advice that was useful, I never went for, like, the top dog. Yeah. You know, I would never go to the president of Goldman, Lloyd Blankfei, back in the day and be like, Lloyd, the thing is talk to me. Can I have your email?

Of course not. I would go to, like, 1 or 2 levels past what was comfortable for me. Right? So it was like, I could still get to the person. Yes.

And then you can use it as like a a a leapfrog. And the last thing I'll say is I totally disagree with the advice today that a lot of, like, kinda well known people give, which is, once you outgrow people, leave them behind you. You know? And a lot of people say, like, well, they were my mentor, but I've superseded all my mentors.

Oh, no. Oh.

Yeah. And I hear that often from, like, the business community. You know? It's like, you're the average of the 5 people you surround yourself with, so make sure they're awesome. And it's like, yeah.

But also, don't forget how you got there. Mhmm. Because you never know. Mentorship has, like, multi layers to it. You can get mentored from above, but also below.

I mean, your team was teaching us beforehand how to not sound like boomers. Right? So, like, there's that. You know, you can also have somebody that's a higher that like, for instance, I think a lot about the idea that, like, Peter Thiel, whether you like him or not, really rich guy, gives money to Mark Zuckerberg. Right?

Whether you like him or not, Mark Zuckerberg then goes to become richer than Peter Thiel. Now is Peter mad because Mark made more money than him? I highly doubt it because Mark made Peter a ton of money. And at 1 point, you know, the imbalance was Peter was way up here, and Mark was down here, and now it's probably flipped. And how cool is that?

That, like, somebody who used to be sort of below you, you've helped in some way get above you.

Yeah.

And then you get to, like, value transfer the other way. So I will say, like, maybe if I gave 1 other piece of advice on mentorship, it would be collect and keep with you the people even after you've superseded them.

That's beautiful advice. Yeah.

And and try to be their best mentor.

Absolutely.

Like, I mean, mentee. I always try to, like, have them I want them to be able to brag about me.

Yeah.

Like, no matter what you teach me, I wanna be the best mentee to the point that they're like, hey, look how smart I am because of that. Yes. And I wanna give them all the credit on it. Yeah. And when you do that, then they introduce you to their really successful friends too.

So it's a 2fer.

Yeah. Definitely. And I wanna add what you were saying earlier as well. This idea of you have to act on the advice and I think there's a lot of requesting of advice. Yeah.

There's a lot of looking for answers but being a great mentee is taking the advice putting it into action and then reporting the result and saying, hey, I took your advice. This is as you were saying. And I think that's so core to what was different about mentorship where like you're saying now in this TikTok, Instagram world, I think there's just so much advice everywhere that we're not really getting the opportunity to digest it, put it into practice, and then report on it as well. And and I love your idea of gratitude. I mean, I I remember when I joined the company as an intern years ago and I was only there for like a summer internship, but they put up the pictures of the founders of the company.

And then they were like, yeah, but we don't care about them. They're old guys anyway. And I remember real like, I was just like, wow, that's really ungrateful. Yep. Because none of us would be here right now if it wasn't for them.

And yes they're not alive anymore and yes that was a long time ago. But I fully agree with you that and also you just don't know when you're on the way up, when you're on the way down. Your mentors generally if they're older than you in the beginning, even if you become more successful than them materially, I believe they have so much more spiritual wisdom to give you over time. Like I've got mentors same way who helped me out when I was in my late 20s. And today they're so much more helpful when they talk to me about what it feels like being a dad.

Like I'm not a dad right now but he's been a dad and his kids are in their mid twenties and he has a great relationship with them. I'm like I'm not there at that level. So mentorship also takes across not just financial but relationships, you know, emotionally, mentally. There's so many other areas. Oh, yeah.

So leaving someone behind is terrible advice.

Yeah. I agree. And, you know, it's 1 thing if somebody's negative or they're unhelpful, which I still believe very much so, like Arthur Brooks, who I just think so highly of, and I remember back before I knew him as a friend, and I was just a fan. Last time I was in New York with him, he I was having, like, you know when somebody's mean to you online? Does that ever happen to you?

Probably sometimes. All

the time. Of course. Well, there was 1 person that was, like, really mean, and I don't know why. It got to me somehow. It bothered me.

And, you know, this was a while ago, and I remember telling him for some reason. And often, it only bothers me if I feel like there's a kernel of truth to it. So if they, like, really nail my imposter syndrome, or they really nail, like, you know, is she as smart as she thinks she like, something that I'm, like, that I worry about too. If they get that, I'm like, dang it. I'm paying attention now.

That's not good. But I remember I said to him, like, you know, I'm just bothered, and I wanna do something about it. And he was like, are you gonna listen to me? And I was like, maybe. What are we what are you gonna tell me to do?

And he's like, I want you to picture this guy having all the success in the world. I want you to wish him so much well. It becomes, like, a bit bizarre, and I want you to actually feel it. And, again, I'm not that touchy feely. I'm pretty spreadsheety.

So when he told me that, I'm like, fine. But, like, I don't think there's gonna be an outcome here like that. And he's a wonky, very smart guy. So it's not anyway, so I did it, and I, like, really thought about it. I was, like, walking in New York, and I was like, you know what?

I do wish this guy well because I bet it is sad if you are, like, if you're in a place where all you're doing is hating on somebody online all the time, I bet you are kinda sad. So I started, like, empathizing with him and thinking about it. Anyway, not 2 weeks later, the guy does a public apology for, like no. And and does this long DM to me. You know, my husband has, like, a long memory, so he's like, no.

You know, let's get that guy. But I was like, I just learned such a lesson. And maybe it doesn't always work like that, and maybe there's still me and you later. But I really think sometimes you learn just as much from your haters as you do from your mentors. And so don't underestimate not only the saying where we kinda get all hot and bothered, like, you know, if you don't got hate, you're not doing anything, maybe.

But, also, wow, you can learn a lot from the type of feelings you get when people doubt you, and I think that's just as important. And I wouldn't be where I was today if I didn't have some big haters that I felt like I needed to prove wrong.

Yeah. Well said. Yeah. I wanna dive into the heart of this book because what made it so unique for me is I don't think I've ever heard anyone really talk about buying ordinary businesses. And that's the crux of so much of your work and why it's different and how you're getting people to think differently about ownership.

You had this video that I remember watching that got like 11,000,000 views talking about this vending machine business.

Oh yeah.

Like what are some of the most unusual businesses you've seen people make money from? Because I think it goes back to what we were speaking about earlier. We're all after this sexy, shiny money, and most people are making loads of money through really unsexy random things, vending machines being a case in point. Walk us through some of the most unusual businesses you've discovered people making money.

Yes. Let's do it. And, also, realize first, like, most of the people who are really shiny on the Internet, don't actually make much money. In fact, a lot of celebrities make no money, and you know this all too well-being here. There's a lot of show, and it's actually quite hard to make money in the shiny things.

The richest guy you know probably started a landscaping or sprinkler head company. In fact, that was the case for my family. When I was growing up, I meant I interned for a woman who was my brother's friend's mom, and they were worth what I thought was a bajillion dollars back then, and it was from an equipment rental company. So this guy was worth somewhere near $50,000,000 from 1 idea. I buy some, like, landscaping equipment, some tractors, etcetera, And not I don't sell them.

I don't flip them. But I realized that construction companies only wanna use them part time, so I actually rent them out. And so this guy would make the cost of a piece of equipment back inside of 90 days. And so instead of getting whatever differences between him buying the equipment and selling it for a little bit more, he would make the entire purchase price over every 90 day cycle. And I remember, like, thinking back in the day when I saw that, you can make money doing anything.

And in fact, you probably make it more often in the things that nobody thinks about because you have less competition, because it also sounds really boring.

Yeah.

And, you know, the Mark Zuckerbergs and brilliant minds of the world, they don't wanna mess around with equipment rental. But people like me who are maybe, like, kinda smart but not that smart could make a lot of money doing it. And so there are 3 types of businesses that I obsess about. I call them overarchingly Main Street businesses. So the idea is basically, what if all the money is actually made in community businesses that we use every single day?

Your roofing company, your podcast production company you send outsourced editing clips to, you know, the cobbler, that actually cleans up shoes on the corner store. All of these businesses, when you see that they've been in business for 30 years, it's not because they were making money and or because they were losing money, and it's not because they got venture capital, because they didn't. So these things actually are profitable, which is kind of rare. So Main Street Businesses, and then underneath it, I call them 3 different types. The first 1 is the gateway drug business, which basically I use that as a little bit of a joke, but it's like a vending machine.

Well, everybody understands how a vending machine works. Right? You get the machine, you take the cash out, you input the things. It's a straightforward business. It doesn't need a lot of people, and I think it's a great place for, like, young people to start because you learn the game of business.

A similar 1 might be what I call a people light business, which might be like a laundromat. So a laundromat is, like, in some ways, a slightly bigger vending machine. Right? You put clothes in, the clothes get washed, you take the clothes out, you put coins in and return. Right?

And that doesn't have a lot of employees, and they're not super, super expensive on the scale of it. And so you go, okay. We got gateway drug businesses. We got, as we've got people like businesses. And then finally, we get into what I call the trades businesses overall or boring businesses.

And these are things like we own a company called Resi Brands that has a window cleaning company called Pinks, a roofing company, a painting company called That 1 Painter. And what's wild is with these businesses, if you were to look right now, Jay, at, like, the Forbes 100 list of the richest people in the world and you were to see what they made their money from, they're not celebrities. They're not singing songs. They're not doing YouTube. Like, we're not even touching the amount of wealth they have.

What do most of them have in common more than anything else? Finance and business ownership. And the businesses they own are largely boring businesses. Richest woman in the world, Kim Kardashian? No.

Roofing magnet. Literally, the richest woman in the world. This was as of 2022, so we we should see if the numbers are updated, but, is a woman who started a very large roofing company. And so, you know, I I wish somebody told us this when we were younger because instead, you know who knows this? The private equity guys.

And and I don't mean to villainize anybody. I know I was in private equity. I know plenty of good people in that industry. But, again, centralization of power, private equity companies in 2000 owned 4% of the companies in the US. Now they own 20%.

That's almost 1 out of every 4 companies in the US is owned by private equity. You know what they're buying like crazy? The trades, the service businesses, the boring businesses that print money, that service our community. And I think this is our chance to take those things back.

What's up, y'all? This is Questlove. And, you know, at QLS, I get to hang out with my friends. So did Steve, Laia, Fonsecolo, unpaid bill. And we, you know, at Questlove Supreme like to nerd out and do deep dives with musicians and actors and politicians and journalists.

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Hey. I'm Gianna Prentente.

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You're literally opening up a whole new doorway for people. Like I don't think I've ever even thought about it. Like it's it's so far off from what I think we were all trained to believe would make a successful, safe, stable, wealthy like, you're not you're not thinking about these areas. And therefore, like you said, they're not very competitive. There's there's not a lot of, new entrants in there.

When when I hear you say that, the thing that comes to my mind is what skills and talents do people need to be able to run those businesses? How much industry knowledge do they need? What business skills are core and important? Because I think the mistake is again with the kind of world we live in right now, it's someone goes I love what Cody's saying, I get it, I'm gonna go buy vending machines. And then all of a sudden you got a garage full of like 20 vending machines, and you don't know what to do with them because you don't understand business.

So what business core business skills are needed and what should we be developing in order to run any of these businesses? How much industry knowledge do we need?

Yeah. It's a great question. Well, first of all, what I would think about is there's 2 different things we need to know in, buying businesses or growing businesses. And the first thing is you've got to learn how to do deal making and how to actually speak the language of money, which is what we talk about in the book, before you buy a business. So please don't just hear me and go buy a business.

Read the book or go to our free newsletter online, but spend a decent amount of upfront time learning. I promise you'll make more money that way. You know, I kind of think about sometimes people go, well, why don't I use x amount of dollars I have instead of learning just buying the business? And I go, does that ever work out well where we, like, don't know what we're doing, but we plow a bunch of money into it because we wanna just go do the thing? It doesn't work out.

So spend your time learning how to execute first. Now that said, I really think there's just 3 key skills that we need to learn to grow a business. The first 1 is deal making. We gotta understand how to do a deal. The the second 1 is really a mixture of grit and endurance.

So it's actually not tactics. It's how hard am I willing to work, what am I willing to sacrifice for the things that I want, and for how long am I willing to do that? And so Angela Duckworth, famously University of Pennsylvania, popularized grit is the most important thing to measure success. So it's basically like, how much pain can you tolerate? And if you can tolerate a lot of pain, turns out you have a higher likelihood of making money.

Business is really just like elongated periods of low level pain. Sometimes you have, like, what's called an acute or like a big jump in pain. But for the most part, you know this. It's like, what is what is running a business or starting a business? It's like, well, you're looking at your statements pretty much often.

You're, like, messing around with marketing. It's kinda like low level pain. Mhmm. And, and so that's the second point. And the third point is actually maybe a little rare too, which is just a lot of people obsess on how.

So what skills do I have to have exactly? How do I start a business? How do I tax structure structure the business? How do I get my first customers? All all important and good questions.

But the real pros know you don't ask how, you ask who. Who can I go to who already has 10000 hours where I can steal their homework? So now in business, if I go, hey, I don't know how to do our taxes. I go find somebody else who has done taxes for us. And it doesn't mean you have to pay for them.

It just means you have to talk to them and often people will help you. And so I find my who, second. And then the 3rd tier is buy. So the the really, really rich, when they have a problem, they don't think, how do I fix it? They don't think, who can fix it?

They think, how do I buy the solution to my problem? Mhmm. Because if I can buy the business, if I can buy the solution, then it's almost it's a higher guarantee of winning. And so that last 1 is really about your connections. And so I think if you understand deal making, you you are honest with yourself about how much work you're willing to do 1 way or the other, and you are willing to ask people for help, I think just about anybody can run a business.

Now can anybody run Amazon? No. Of course not. Could anybody run your businesses, which are quite big? No.

Of course not. It's really like the level of skill to the level you're at. But we don't say to people, you know, well, not anybody could buy a a an individual apartment apartment and live in them. We ask, like, what do you want, and how are you willing to work in order to get it? So I think the same thing with businesses.

It's like, okay. We have what's called the deal box, which is a little slightly technical, but, basically, the idea is Oracle of Delphi says know thyself. Right? Most important thing we can do. And, in business, you basically wanna have your little deal box of what you want.

So do you want income of x amount? Do you want it to be located in LA? Do you want it to scratch an artistic itch and make you money? And you sort of fill out this box. You know what you want.

And then, again, you know, the universe, I think, a lot of times wants to help us out, but we don't know what we want. So how is it gonna help us? Because we can't tell it 1 way or the other. And I think it's the same with business. Yeah.

You know, because we could go ways from sideways. I'm like, we have something called the 9 p's

Mhmm. Which

are like the 9 ways you scale a business to 9 figures. But I don't wanna stop people. I want them to start small and reasonable and know that the biggest thing in between you and the thing that you want is the knowledge on learning the language of money, on getting after it kind of intensely, and then on asking for help. Like, if you have those 3 things, you can at least start, and I don't want people to to stop because they don't have x y z leadership skill. Like, I believe in your ability to figure it out.

Yeah. Yeah. And you might make some mistakes along the way. You probably go yeah.

Exactly. Yeah. Just don't make mistakes. Like, the only rule that I really have is don't do a deal so big that it can wipe you out. Yeah.

Make sure your first deal is reasonable or you help other people bring on risk to level it out. So, like, if I'm young and I have no cash, should I go buy a $1,000,000 business? Of course not. What would I do? I might go and I might partner with a couple of friends and I might say, hey, do you want to pool our capital together?

Let's buy this little business together. If it doesn't work out, it's not gonna murder us. It's gonna hurt. But we're gonna learn a lot, and we're gonna diversify our risk amongst us, and we're gonna do it together. Or maybe you partner with your dad, or maybe you partner with your dad's friends or your mom's friends or whatever.

And so don't think that you have to do this game of entrepreneurship and acquisition by yourself. You don't. The big boys in private equity don't. You don't have to either.

How do you find someone who wants to sell a business? Because, yeah. I feel like that would be my next question of like how do I even know someone? How do I find someone? Because it must be going great for them.

Why would they sell it to me? Especially when I maybe know nothing about owning a hair salon or vending machines or whatever it may be.

Right. Well, you probably already know this. How many people offer you businesses or stakes in businesses now?

Yeah. A lot.

I bet a lot.

A lot. Yeah.

Why? Because you have a very high value skill stack that's very evident. People can directly attribute, if I partnered with Jay Shetty, then he's probably going to market my stuff. He's going to give me brand recognition. There's a high level of trust, so there's what's called a trust transference.

So the higher level of skill you have, the easier it is for you to find businesses. In fact, they'll often come to you. The thing is, though, when even when we have a higher level of skill, we often don't really know what to do when it comes to us. We don't know how to do 0 risk deals to us. And so I like learning deal making even if you have a ton of skills and a ton of money because you can do a deal that seems unfair, but because you recognize your value, the deal is incredibly fair.

In fact, the the richer you are and the more audience you have, money you have, which I call capital, the more coding ability you have, a k, like, tech, Jeff Bezos engineering capability or labor you have access to, so employees or people that will work with you, the better deals you can do. Yeah. And that's like the 202, 303 level. And anybody who's listening who actually has access to money and capital, you are crazy if you're not thinking about doing deals and learning it because it is the ultimate positive form of leverage. So I wish that we learned this earlier.

This is how so many celebrities get screwed, by the way. And, you know, they get screwed because they do a deal. They don't understand the terms they signed. Their agent understands the terms they signed. Their agent isn't actually incentive aligned with them long term, and so they end up getting screwed.

Like, it broke my heart when I watched that documentary with Val Kilmer. Like

I haven't seen it.

Oh, god. First of all, you would love it. It's beautiful. The documentary is beautiful. He wrote it, produced it, and directed it, and started it, and it's just a beautiful piece of art, but, also, he lost everything.

I mean, he has basically no money now.

No way. Uh-huh.

And the reason why is because of a series of deals that he did where other people made it and he didn't. Wow. And so even if you have a ton of money, you gotta be really careful about how you structure things in order to keep it. And the bigger that you get, the bigger target you have.

Mhmm.

And so it's important to think about that. And like the Russian proverb, trust but verify, which is like, trust nobody. I'm sorry. Trust everybody, but verify that they are actually on your best terms, which is why it always doesn't count unless you've signed on the line that is dotted in the words of Alec Baldwin. So if you don't have deals coming at you because you don't have massive, you know, fame or money or whatever, like a normal person, then the easiest way is to find deals.

It's called origination in private equity. So in private equity, if you think about what they do, they go around and they cold call small businesses. So they literally will cold call a plumbing company up all over the Midwest and ask, like, hey, you guys wanna sell? Or I get them all the time because I own these. So our small businesses, hey, can we buy your landscaping company?

So 1 1 way you find deals is called on off market deal searching. So you basically turn on what I call your reticular activating system, which is basically just a system inside of your brain that is trained from the African savannah to say, if I keep repeating this thing, brain, it means it's important, and I might die if I don't pay attention to it. And so in real life, what happens to you is once you play the game of business enough, then once you like deals like, have you ever gone into somebody else's podcast studio and because you probably are obsessed with podcasting, you walk in and you're like, that's an interesting way to do that setup? Yeah. Sure.

I don't think I would do that. Oh, I like that they did that. Let's steal that. Right? Mhmm.

Your reticular activating system is so turned on to podcast that you can't help but notice all around you things you would do differently or that you like. The same thing happens with business and deals. So now I when I go into, like, a corner store or when I go into a restaurant, I go, or gym. Gym's get me for some reason. It's like, you have me.

You have my credit card. You have recurring revenue. I come in here every single day. Sell me more shit. Why don't you sell me more things?

You definitely should. And so, 1, I will say, as you learn deal making, I can promise you only really 1 thing when it comes to you becoming a better deal maker. Your reticular reticular activating system comes on. So what's gonna happen in deal finding, yes, you could cold call just like private equity, but instead, kinda steep yourself in the type of deal you are looking for. Steep yourself in what skills you actually have, and then you're gonna see them all around.

You won't be able to turn it off. It'll be like when you buy a car, all of a sudden, the car's all over the place after you bought it. You're like, did everybody? Was it a was it a sale? No.

Your brain starts making you notice it. And so the best way to find deals is you start just having conversations with guys because, again, cash loves curiosity. Every time you go into a small business, you just go like, oh, amazing. You go I mean, LA is full of them. You walk into a cool retail shop.

Oh, that's cool, man. This is your store. Oh, it is. I mean, probably 50% of the time, it's theirs. And then you say to the guy, like, how long you been doing this?

A while? Do you wanna keep, you wanna keep doing this? Like, how's business going? You guys make a lot of money? How long you've been around?

Is a kid gonna take over? Are you gonna keep going? Oh, this is so cool. I love this. Maybe I buy a little something.

And then maybe I decide I wanna own 1 of these businesses with them. All of a sudden, I get to know the owner and I start getting into curiosity where I get them to maybe consider that a young hustler who is really aggressive might be good for their business.

Absolutely. Yeah. No. I had a really interesting experience of this last maybe a couple of years ago. I was in a store that curates beautiful sets of books.

Mhmm. And that's not what they do professionally. They sell clothes but they also have books in the store. And I walked in there and I was I love I really enjoy books and I enjoy collecting. And so I was looking around and these were all like new books.

They're all newly published. They're beautiful and I bought a ton. And they were just like and then 1 person at that store just said to me oh by the way like do you love books? I was like yeah. And I was like I'm really looking for vintage books though.

It'd be cool to own some like antique books and things like that. And she said well oh there's this random store around the corner and it's like a printing press, like an old school binding book, but I've seen books in there before. Why don't you go check it out? So I literally go walk into this books and and basic actually first of all I walk outside. It looks like no 1 operates it.

It looks completely rundown. You wouldn't walk past it and think, oh, cool shop. You'd walk past and not even you'd think no 1 no one's inside it. So I'm kind of looking around. I'm like knocking on the door just to see.

I do see some books. And this this lady opens the door and she's got, like, a old school binding press in there. An old school, you know, all all the old school tools that how books were bound in the past. And then she's got this bookshop and I said, oh, I heard you might sell books. Like, could I take a look?

And she was like, oh, no. I just have these books because I got divorced a few years back. My husband owned a bookstore. He left me with, like, 50,000 books or something crazy. And and she goes most of them are home but there's probably like I don't know a 1000 year whatever it is you can take whatever you want and I was like I'm happy to pay you but sure so I spent like 2 3 hours and I was like getting really you know I loved it it was like it was literally like being inside of a secret cave of books and I was like finding all this stuff so I got a stack of maybe like 20 books and I was like hey look I'd love to pay you for them like you know I'm good for it and I'm grateful that you've even allowed me in and I forced her a little bit she finally took some money and and then there was 1 book while she was going through and she's like I've been looking for this book for like 5 years and she goes I can't sell this 1 to you and I was like sure like I'm never gonna you know have it whatever.

Anyway I come home and I started checking all these books out online. They were all worth like at least a $100 each. I probably paid like 5 to $10 each for them and it was just a really good example to me of like this random place that and and I wanted the books so I kept them but it was just this random place that was like this treasure trove of all of this great material and had someone wanted to go in and buy 50,000 books and sell them online or sell them anywhere. There was a real business there. And it was a smaller it's it's very simple example of just how easy it was to come across something that that I wouldn't even I wasn't even looking for it.

Well, yeah. And, you know, it's a funny thing I do sometimes. 1, it's so lovely. And, also, how happy was she probably at the value you founded it?

Yeah.

Like, did you feel like you were taking advantage of her, or did she feel like, wow. Are you sure? Like, I'm glad you're spending time with me.

Absolutely. Absolutely. She was so happy.

And I think this is something we don't realize because our generation is highly transactional. We're a highly transactional generation with immediate feedback loops, AKA social media, with a high status game that we play with a lot of attention on us because you get a lot of attention when you're young and hungry and moving. But as we get older, I mean, women will tell you this all the time. They'll warn you that as you get older, you become invisible. Like a middle aged woman will say, often, nobody sees me.

And, like, 1 of our our copywriters, she was so lovely. She said a thing to me. I was like, oh, she dyed her hair blue. And I was like, Marcel looks great. Like, she's an older woman, probably, like, mid fifties.

And I was like, it looks great. Like, you know, what was the impetus? And she's like, you know, as you get older, I realized that, like, nobody would talk to me, and I feel like they were looking through me. And she was like, so she's like, so I was with my 1 of my little nieces, and I we dyed our hair little strips of it pink together. And she was like and I was walking across the street, and this young man kinda yelled over to me.

And he's like, hey, mama. Like the hair? And she's like, I can't remember the last time a young man talked to me. She's like, so I anytime I now feel a little out of it, I dye my hair blue. And to be fair, like, in the past, sometimes when I saw people do that, I was like, really?

What's going on here? Like, what's what's the move? And then I realized, like, just because we value something 1 way doesn't mean that everybody else values it the other way. And so in order to break your frame and to see businesses all around you, don't assume that the same things you value other people do. It's like I've never really believed in the golden rule, which is treat others how you wanna be treated.

It's like, by and large, treat them how they wanna be treated, unless that breaks how you want to be treated. And I think that's the same with business owners. I mean, my uncle Ebb, which is 1 of the main reasons I started publicly about business talking about businesses online, he had a business, did a couple $1,000,000 a year in revenue, and you can it's called Ebb Homes Plumbing. It was in Phoenix, Arizona, and he got sick with cancer and decided he wanted to shut the business down. You know, he's in his seventies and was like, you know, I'm I'm ready to be done.

And what he didn't know at the time is that a business that is doing a couple 1,000,000 of dollars in revenue and a couple of 1,000,000 of dollars in profit profit is worth 1,000,000 of dollars. And so this man who spent his life building up a plumbing company that probably would have thought, honestly, like, if he was here, he would say, Cody, I couldn't have sold that thing. Like, that that wasn't really you know, it was it was sort of, and and this is what most baby boomer business owners think. They're like, who's gonna buy this? Because how many times have you had a business where you didn't wanna be in it before?

Have you ever had that before?

Yeah. Absolutely.

Of like Yeah. If you're in a room, sometimes I go out to speaking stages and just for shits and giggles because people will always go, if a business was profitable and it was gonna continue to be profitable, nobody would sell it. And I go, okay. Let's play a game. Business owners, raise their hand.

Everybody raises their hand that's business owner. I go, cool. Keep them up. If you would sell your business at the right price and the right terms, if it came along, keep your hand up. What happens?

Everyone goes down.

Everybody's up. Not 1. If you go down and I go liars and I laugh, because the truth of the matter is you haven't been in the game long enough if you put your hand down. But if you've been in the game long enough, you go, absolutely. Now I wouldn't sell every 1 of my businesses.

Of course.

But there is, at some 0.1 business. And if you caught me on the right day, maybe I would. So I think we have to, like, change our programming to realize all around us, every business has a value. That book selling business that shut down, I bet there was a value in the lease that they had. It might have been in California.

Sometimes they have leases that are locked in. There could have been value in just the lease contract to transfer it. There could have been value in the assets, the books. There could have been value in the employees, because you can do an acqui hire. There could have been value in the website listing.

What about the Yelp and Google reviews? There could have been value in the IP. What about the logos and the brand and the name? What if they had 1 of those old school original, you know, kodi.com websites before, like, we now have to have websites that are, like, 4 152 words. Right?

And so every single business has some value. And if you can find the business where the value to the owner is not as much as the value is to you, then you got a really good deal.

Get emotional with me, Radley Davlucchia, in my new podcast, A Really Good Cry. We're gonna talk about and go through all the things that are sometimes difficult to process alone. We're gonna go over how to regulate your emotions, diving deep into holistic personal development, and just building your mindset to have a happier, healthier life. We're gonna be talking with some of my best friends.

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I already believe in myself. I already see myself. And so when people give me an opportunity, I'm just like, oh, great. You see me too.

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Welcome to the Overcomfort podcast with Jennica Lopez. Yep, that's me. You may know my late mom, Jenny Rivera, my queen. She's been my guiding light as I bring you a new season of Overcomfort podcast. This season, I'll continue to discover and encourage you and me to get out of our comfort zones and choose our calling.

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So I said, Cody, I I'm just like, you know, I'm so happy that you're breaking this down for everyone because I think it's such a it's just not what I'm hearing. It's not what people are talking about. It's not the it's not the and and I'm glad because it's not the get rich quick solution either. It's not the, hey, you can be really rich in 12 months and not worry about anything and that kind of thing. I wish.

Yeah. Yeah. You wish. And and I think, I really appreciate you nailing it by just saying it's grit. Right?

That that's what's required. That's that's deeply required. What's a skill that you think you wish you'd known you had to develop at the beginning of this journey that you learned too late?

I wish that I didn't have stories to myself about me being bad at math and money. I think most people have a story when they're younger about how bad they are at math. I have 1 that I think really messed me up. I was in, middle no. No.

No. It was high school. I was at Arcadia High, and, I had a math teacher, and I I wasn't very good at math. Like, I I struggled. I think I might have a little bit of dyslexia.

I'm not sure. But I just, like, couldn't get the numbers to stay in my head correctly, and so I was sort of struggling. And I remember 1 day the teacher was getting really frustrated with me, and teaching is a hard job, so I get it. But he looked at me in front of the class, and he said, man, I think Helen Keller would have a better shot at winning an archery contest than you would at winning in finance. And at the time, I was, like, heartbroken about this and, like, embarrassed, you know, and did did it in the way teenagers do, which is, like, I don't care.

Whatever. But I was, like, very sad about it. And then I love my parents deeply, but my parents always used to say to my brother, you're so smart. You're so smart. You're so smart.

You're so smart. And to me, they would always say, you work so hard. You work so hard. You work so hard. And at the time, I was kinda mad.

I'm like, I'm also smart. What about me? And they would always be like, well, Cody's not very good at math in the same way that they would say, I'm not very good at singing. The singing is true. I am not good at that 1.

But but that math thing stuck with me for a long time, and so I always thought that it was big and hard and scary to be, quote, unquote, good at math. And when it comes to making money, the math is really simple, guys, and I'm bad at making math. So bad that Helen Keller would be better at archery than I am. And so if if any part of this skill is scaring you, I think it often starts with, like, oh my god. I look at a spreadsheet, and I panic.

Yeah. You know, I have to calculate something, and I panic. I look at a calculator, and I panic. And I would say just, like, lean into that slightly because I think in finance, we do a very sneaky thing, which is I think we try to make it seem really scary and hard for the average person to become rich. Why?

Because if it's scary and hard for you to do it, guess what I get to do? I get to charge a lot of money for it. And so that's why most of us take our money and, like, think about it for a second. We take our money and we give it to other people to take care of. Now when you give your kids to other people to take care of a 100%, like there are opinions about that.

People say, no, you got to you got to take care of your kids. You got to grow your kids. But with wealth, we can just say, no, no, I don't understand anything. I just give it to this guy over here and he figures it out. That's really not how we should treat money.

And so the main skill that I I think you should think about is 1 of my mentors said to me, money is a cruel mistress. She'll leave you if you don't pay attention to her. And I think about that a lot. Like, just give the money a little attention. Give the math a little attention.

You're more capable than you think you are, and it's really not possible to be bad at this type of math. So if in your head you think, I'm bad at math, I'm bad at spreadsheets, it's really not possible. I'm bad at calculus, but you can figure this stuff out.

Cody, you are awesome and I love that advice. Thank you. And I think everyone who's listened and watched this episode now has a game plan of how to negotiate something at their workplace, figure out how to invest in a company or a small business, Recognize if you're at that place of I just wanna get over the fear that I'm bad at math or that money is bad. And I can't wait for everyone to dive into Main Street Millionaire. This is the book that Cody's got out right now.

I want you to go grab a copy if you've enjoyed today's discussion. This is 1 of those books that I hope you read with your friends, share insights, maybe you'll invest in something together, build something together. It's a great book to pass on to a family member or friend who's been struggling with money thinking about it. Please do not hesitate with this because it's so easy to keep pushing money off and keep having it be a source of anxiety in your life. And I think Cody's broken it down and make it really simple based on how to overcome your fears and go create something brilliant.

So, Cody, thank you for putting your heart and soul into this work. And, we we end every episode of On Purpose with the final 5. These are a fast 5 where you have to answer each question in 1 word to 1 sentence maximum. So Cody Sanchez these are your final 5. The first question is, what is the best financial advice you've ever heard or received?

That other people's money is actually feasible. People think that passive income is a lie, that getting other people's money is a lie, but they tell you that because they are usually the ones on the other side of the coin. So if you wanna see about other people's money, look to private equity and mimic it.

Let's let's, go off piece for a second on that because I think we didn't touch on that. If you want to raise investment, for people who wanna gain investment, maybe you got a cool new idea, maybe you've been tinkering something, got a deck. What what what should you have if you're gonna go and ask for someone's money? Oh,

that's yeah. That's a really good point. It's really simple. Couple tactical things. 1, something called a tear sheet or a 1 sheet.

So this is basically like think about it like a baseball card with all the stats on the baseball card, but for the deal that you're gonna put. So it's like, here's why I think it's good. Here's why I think we'll make money. Here's what that's based off of. Here's what a summary it is.

Here's why I'm good at it too, and you should invest in me. And here's why I think you should be the 1 to invest. That's called a 1 sheet or a tear sheet. The second 1 is a pitch deck. From Goldman, I learned something called the 3 p's, which is people, process, performance.

So So I do that in all my pitch decks, which basically is like, why us? Why should you bet on us? Because at the end of the day, if you're asking for somebody's money, it's about the opportunity for sure, but it's really like, do I wanna invest in Jay? Do I believe in Jay? And then second is process.

So, like, what is the opportunity? What is the way we're structuring this? What are we investing in? What is the process by which you're going to take our money and go bring it back with friends? And then lastly is performance.

So if I give you this, why do you think that I'm going to make money? How much money am I going to make? And why should I invest in you instead of all these other things? So if you have those 2 things, that is the, like, typical 1 on 1 for raising money.

Great answer. No. I think it's really important for people to know because I think so many times we just kinda turn up and hope.

A 100%. And I wish people would have told me that. It's like sometimes when you have those little easy tactics, you're like, okay. Now I feel good. You know, there's more to it than that, but at least, you know, like, hey.

If I wanna drive a car, I need the car and I need some gas. So now you guys got that.

Yeah. And I think sometimes we're so focused on convincing someone that we have the best idea and not focused on convincing someone we understand how to execute it. And I think anyone who's looking to give you money is looking to whether they think you can execute it. Because I hear good ideas all the time. The best investors in the world hear amazing ideas all the time and ideas are just not the thing that works.

Like, you know, you were talking about that Google was like the 21st search engine. Like, they weren't the first search engine. It wasn't a unique idea. It was just that they had a great way of executing and why they've evolved into this mega, mega, mega business now.

Yeah. Exactly. Best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. So if you can show them you have a history of winning Yeah. And even show them some instances where you didn't win, why, and how you're never gonna replicate that again, people are gonna bet on the hustler who is on a winning streak.

Yeah. You know, oftentimes, right, you know this, if you go to gamble on a game in sports, you don't gamble on the person that's have a losing streak. Why? Because it's actually quite hard to to break. And so I think also if you can show a history of winning, and that's a narrative you can frame, you're more likely to get cash too.

That's great. Second question, What is the worst financial advice you've ever heard or received?

That money is scarce and hard to get.

If

you think money's hard and scarce, then you're probably not going to get it. And I think people want you to think that, and that does not serve you at all.

Question number 3, the best $500 investment you ever made. Oh. Or to a 1000. 500, 2,000.

I think this is a little cliche, but, health and wealth are super tied. And, the best money I've ever spent are probably 2 things, a sauna and a cold plunge.

Mhmm. And I

know that sounds like super tech bro Twitter, but the truth of the matter is is that if I can get a little bit more energy in the beginning of the day, it seems to carry through the rest of my day and make me more money. So whatever your sauna and and cold plunges and I think I bought mine on Amazon for literally, like, a $1,000 each, then that's money well spent.

Great. Question number 4, the biggest waste of money you've ever spent. Not the amount, but, like, something that was all complete waste.

The biggest mistakes I've ever made are always not things I did or bought, but people I chose. It was it's always about the people, the good things and the best things. So be careful those you partner with, spend time with, and invest in, and know that those will often be the things that give you the most heartache or make you the most money.

Let's, side note on that too. How does we talked a bit about it before too, but for someone who's, like, thinking about finding the right business partner, knowing whether you can trust someone. Obviously, you never know anything. We talked about it. Like, how do you set yourself up for success beyond the negotiation that we discussed?

I have a couple different rules. 1 rule is, you don't get married on the 1st date. Don't do a deal or start a business on the 1st date, which means I have a 1 year rule. I do not get into a long term partnership with anybody that I haven't known for at least a year in business. A lot of times, there's this, you know, that rosy phase you have when you're first dating with somebody.

You're like, the thing is we're in love, and we were meant to be. And then about 6 months later, you're like, also no. And so same thing with business partners. Give yourself a nice 12 month window. It's hard to hide who you are for a year.

The second thing, when doing business deals is when you partner with somebody, you don't actually wanna partner with somebody that's just like you. It's the same with marriage. It's why dating apps are so tough. I mean, I was talking to Sean Rad about that, the founder of Tinder, the other day. I was like, the thing is you don't realize what you did, but you allowed people to self select for people that are just like them.

And it turns out that the statistics all show that we do not last in marriages as long or relationships as long when our person is just like us.

Mhmm.

They actually we actually have to have this, like, creative difference between the 2 of us. There's a yin to the yang in everything in the universe. And so the studies tell us you need 2 different types in order to succeed long term. You can some overlap is necessary, obviously, but you don't actually wanna date yourself. It's the same with a partner.

Make sure that if you're a great salesperson, they're not pairing it with another salesperson. You got a great operational person and a great salesperson, maybe that works. And the last thing about great partnerships is everything else is figureoutable if there is enough drive. And so my but my father says, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink. And so I always over optimize on this idea of desire.

Like, why do you want to partner with me? And do I believe that that why is so big that we can overcome anyhow? And if your why is like, I kinda wanna make a couple dollars on the side, but I might do this, but I might do this, but I might do this, I call you a toe tapper. You're actually not all the way in. You're not fully in with me.

And so at our company, we just had 1 of these people the other day, a young kid. He's a stud, but he came to us and he was like, yeah, I wanna do this job with you, but I also have these other things. And, you know, once you've interviewed I've interviewed thousands and thousands of people by now, so, you know, I can kinda get to the heart of it. And I remember Tanner was sitting in the interview with me, and Tanner's face was just falling as he was listening to it because I was kinda ferreting out a few things. And the young the young guy was like, well, I have this channel, and I wanna grow this, and I wanna do that.

And I was like, why do you wanna be here then? Like, if you wanna do all those other things, like, no. No. No. I wanna do this too, and we can do it all together.

And I said, the thing in life that I wish somebody had told me earlier is when you're starting out, you can never be excellent at multiple things at once. Eventually, you can have excellence in multiple things because you can attract top talent. But in the beginning, you're either all in or you are a barely concealed series of of distractions. And so a partnership, make sure they are all in and their why is super, super big. Otherwise, they should go find their why, and it's not you.

Yeah. Well said. 5th and final question. If you could create 1 law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be?

Oh, god. That's a hard 1. Just 1. 1 law in the world that everybody in the world had to follow.

Take your time.

How would we we'd have to think legally about some of the caveats to this. We'd wanna make sure we crafted the language correctly in order to not have perverse incentives for second and third order effects, but it would be something to the tune of, like, it would probably be it would probably be something about taxes. It'd be like, don't allow centralization of tax power above a certain amount. And the reason why is kind of technical, but but, basically, we want to give as much money as possible back to you, the builders. The only way that money and thus freedom is created is from individual humans who build things.

Governments cannot build things. Governments can take capital from somewhere else, and they can allocate it to other things and equalize. And that is great and wonderful and and necessary. But I would be really careful about what I see as, like, core to our society today, which is, are we allowing too few of people to control too much of us? And it starts with our money.

And I know there are lots of other things we could care about when it comes to politics, and that's very important too. But I was in Argentina when they closed my business and made it illegal overnight because they nationalized it. And I have seen countries fall apart at the floor of taxation and nationalization. And so I guess it would be a government is never allowed to nationalize, and a government is never allowed to overly tax. And every chance we get, let's believe in the builder and the individual and not the big huge entity.

Like, you guys can figure out. You don't need them all the time.

I love it. Cody Sanchez. The book's called Main Street Millionaire. Everyone, make sure you follow Cody on social media if you don't already. Subscribe on YouTube.

Follow on Instagram, TikTok. Get the book. Cody, I hope you'll come on many, many more times. It was amazing talking to you. Honestly, you've opened my mind.

I'm sure you've blown everyone else's mind. And, I wanna thank you for doing the work you do and really appreciate how practical, tactical, and accessible that you're making this world of money that's been so hidden and kept aside. So thank you so much.

Well, thank you. And maybe the only thing can I add 1 thing to the audience?

Of course.

The only thing I would add is, like, anybody who is out there building right now, I hope you know how important you are. You know, it is it is so critical to have builders in this world, and it is so hard, and you're never alone, and you are so necessary. And without you, the world literally stops. And so 3% of Americans own a business. 3%.

We need more of you builders out there in the world, and so everything we do is to to try to try to create more humans who have skin in the game, who are creating things with your beautiful brains and your hands, and, like, I'm in awe of you. So every time I meet, like, the laundromat owner, the car wash owner, the entrepreneur that's building something inside of a business, like, I just hope you know there's so much dignity in the world, and it's because of the work you do. And without you, you know, it's actually not good to go back to the stone age. Like, we have all the things we have today because of each of you, and that includes you in building this business. So thank you for having me.

I just wanna say that I've appreciated you so deeply offline.

Oh.

And your work online, of course, speaks for itself. It's been so successful and congratulations. And so to be able to dive into this theme with you that I think is so important for the world right now is, a real blessing. So thank you.

Well, thank you. I think, you know, you meet a lot of people in real life that you kinda know online. So at a certain point, I think you can kind of tell when the human is gonna match the human. And that's what I felt with you. So it's cool for the people listening too.

You gotta question everything. And sometimes you meet people that you look up to, and you're like, dang it. You know, not quite what I thought it was gonna be. And so, like, real respect too for that.

I love it. Thanks, Cody. Yay. That was awesome. Thank you so much for listening to this conversation.

If you enjoyed it, you'll love my chat with Adam Grant on why discomfort is the key to growth and the strategies for unlocking your hidden potential. If you know you wanna be more and achieve more this year, go check it out right now.

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