Bedros Keuilian Podcast Show - Cody Sperber: Your Idea of Money is Wrong - 108

Episode Date: July 22, 2019

In this episode of Inside Look, Cody Sperber comes back to Empire for his “1st” time and tells us about his journey to become a real estate guru. Cody has been through hell and back but has undoubtedly found his reigns! He explains creative real estate investing and how he has leveraged his social media along the way.  Cody and Bedros also connect on taking their armor off at the end of the day.   “Financial literacy is at an all time low.“ “Revenue feeds the ego. Profits feed the family.” - Bedros Keuilian   Here’s what you’ll discover: 02:53 - How Cody kickstarted his million dollar career 06:00 - What got Cody so fired up about real estate 09:19 - Cody breaks down and illustrates for us what creative real estate investing really is 16:04 - Why Cody wasn’t seeing the results he thought he deserved 18:43 - What the last straw was for Cody and what made him turn his life around 23:25 - The real reasons why Cody teaches about money instead of real estate 35:28 - Cody’s top secret model for crushing it on youtube 50:54 - What being truly successful actually means to Cody   “We are rigged to think traditionally.” “Just because you’re an entrepreneur does not mean you are good with money.” “You have to meet people where they are.” “Cash flow management before anything else.” -Cody Sperber   Follow us on Instagram: @bedroskeuilian / @cleverinvestor   Buy Man Up and get Bedros’s High Performance Leadership Course for FREE: https://manup.com/ Make sure to review us on iTunes: http://bit.ly/theempireshow

Do entrepreneurs have balance? Fuck no. Welcome to the Empire Show. My name is Bedros Kulian, and this is an inside look where we bring in an entrepreneur who's crushing it in business and in life, and he's going to share the secrets to his success, Mr. Cody Sperber. Welcome to the Empire Show. I'm excited to be here.

Dude, so... First time here. First time here. Really excited to be here. Right. He's never been on the show before. He's never been on the show before. However...

You know, good friends allow you some flexibility. That was a warm-up. That was a warm-up. Do you mind if we talk about that for a moment? I think you should bring... I mean, we might as well as lay out all the cards on the table. So check this out. I met you in person, because I was following you.

Clever Investor, by the way. I was following you on Instagram. Now, what gives you an idea that I'm the clever investor? It's the good look. It's, yeah, okay. All right. It's dashing good looks. But I met you at Billy Jeans event.

We both spoke there. And you were so fast. and witty and charming, and you delivered the goods. And I was like, I want this guy on my podcast. So I'm like, hey, what do you say? You come out to Southern California, do my podcast. You show up, and it's like you left your fucking personality in Arizona. You know.

What happened? You have your off days. It was just an off day. I've had plenty of off days, so I can relate. And thank God I have a good friend that allows me to redo. But here's the thing. Not only did I have an off day, but we missed our flight on the way home. I had no baggage.

I had nothing. I wore what I wore. And so I slept in my suit, thank you very much. Really? Oh yeah, yeah. It was a great time. So the good news is you're the only one who's ever been back because here's really what happened. You're such a passionate person. You were like, hey, B, I don't think I deliver the goods like I know I can. Can I get another opportunity to wow your audience? And I think that's a really big statement. And so I'm glad you did that. Like I honestly saw a lot of value in your talk, but clearly you felt you could do better, so here you are, and you're such a wealth of knowledge. I'm really passionate about helping people shift their mindset about building wealth and, you know, their relationship with money and real estate and all that stuff.

And I just felt like I was off. I was a little. I was off of the conversation. But I'm here. But we're here, and we're going to rock and roll. Now, where you got your start was in real estate. Is that right? Yeah, 14 years ago.

Yeah. And I think, you know, sometimes when people go into their story, it can be a little inspirational, but at the same time it's like, all right, get to the point, you know? And so I want to keep this short, but when I was a little kid, I wanted to be either a history teacher or a marine biologist, right? That was the dream. And when you're a kid, you don't know what either one of those, you know, you're not thinking money, you're not thinking any of that stuff.

And so. I could see marine biologist. How did the potential of history teacher come about? You know, my second grade teacher made a big impact on me. I was a shithead as a little kid. You know, I had ADD, I was bouncing off the walls. I was always the rule breaker. I was really little, so I was always trying to prove myself to everybody.

So I was like the wannabe funny kid. Sure. You know, just pushing boundaries. Teachers hated me. And now my son's just like me, but they have schools designed. They call them gifted schools, right? For somebody who's really fast from a processing standpoint, but emotionally behind the curve.

Yeah, and so it's really hard. When you have that imbalance, it really serves you as an adult, especially as an entrepreneur, but when you're a kid, teachers don't know how to handle that. And so my second grade teacher really made a big impact on me. His name was Mr. Saffransky. Only teacher's name, I remember. Name five teacher names.

All I can think is Ms. Pepper. Why? She actually had a big impact on me, too. Fourth grade, and she was one who actually, cared about the fact that I was an immigrant and took her time to teach me slower. Yeah. The rest were like, hey, fit in or move on? Conform?

Yeah. Or go to the principal's office. Yeah. Yeah. It'd be awesome if we can remember all our teacher's names because we love them so much. Yeah, and it's, and Mr. Sophransky made a big impact. And one of the things he would give me is these history books, right? And he would, you know, reward me for, you know, learning about history and stuff.

And so I just always remember that. And I like history. and it's just something I thought, oh, people go do what they're passionate about. Right? I like history, so that's what I'm going to go and do. So when I was coming out of high school, I wasn't ready to go to college. My dad wanted me to go, but I wasn't ready to go to college. I wasn't emotionally ready, and I didn't even know what I wanted to do with my life.

And so I decided to follow my father's footsteps and join the Navy. I'm from Arizona, so I didn't realize how seasick I get. Oh. So you can't be a marine biologist and be some of the Navy. who gets seasick all the time. So marine biology went out the window. Right after the Navy, I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do. And as I was getting ready to process out, I went and talked to a history professor at San Diego State University, and I said, hey, I just got to ask you, how much money do you make? Because I'm thinking about becoming a history teacher.

And I wanted to do ninth grade history. I don't know why, but that was what I decided I wanted to do. And he let out the biggest laugh right in front of me. Like he couldn't, it was a reaction. I said, how much money do you make? And he just went, oh, God. Kid, I have to have a second. job. And it made a big impact on me because I was like, whoa, what are we talking about? $40,000, $50,000 a year and he goes, just leave it at, I have to have two jobs in order to pay my bills. And so I started second guessing the whole concept of do I want to be a history teacher? Am I that passionate where I'm going to sacrifice my lifestyle wants that I want to, I want a nice things? And that's plenty of noble for all the teachers who want to do that, but you knew that there was a greater lifestyle that you want.

and probably even a bigger level of impact. When I was a little kid, we didn't have a lot of money. And I used to walk. My parents worked really, really hard, so I was alone a lot. You know, from probably sixth grade on. My dad worked two jobs. My mom was working. So I would walk myself to school every single day and walk myself home.

And in Mesa, Arizona, where I lived, as I would walk to school, there was one building in our entire city that had a guy's name on the side of a building. And I would walk by it every single day, and I would look up at that building, and it said Polack Investments, Michael Polack Investments. And I always, it made a big impression on me because I always looked at it. And I was like, what do you got to do in life to get your name on a building? Right? That was a big deal. And he always drove limousines, and he had his huge RV.

And so one day I finally got the courage to stop in. I said, hey, what do you guys do? And they said, well, we're in real estate investing business. We own commercial real estate. We own, you know, street corners. we do some residential investing. And that seed was planted at that time. Like the wealthiest guy in my town did real estate.

And how old were you at that time? I was probably maybe 11-ish, something like that. 10, 10, 11. That's a lot of foresight that at the age of 10, 11, let's say even 12, that you're interested in what one must do to get their name on a building. I just had that. Like I was burning G.I. Joe's at that age. I wasn't thinking about how do I make money.

Well, I was always, I always had a little bit of hustle, but I wasn't passionate about anything, and I definitely wasn't acting upon it at that time. So anyway, that was one big pivot point in my life that made a big impression, and the other one was while I was in the military, getting ready to ship out to sea, my dad gave me a book. And I think it was around 2002 or 2003-ish. That book was Rich Dad Poor Dad. And I threw it in my rack, and I ignored it for probably four months, and then you're bored at sea, you're going around in a circle. I was in the Middle East, going around in a circle,

and I pulled the book out, and I read, I started reading. I read the whole thing in one reading, and that book was another pivot point in my life. So, and as I'm reading it, I'm flashing back to being a little kid walking by, looking at the building, going, there's got to be something here. So that's kind of how the real estate sea was planted. Now, fast forward, I'm getting out of the Navy. I don't know what I want to do. So I go. and enroll in college because I had the MGI bill so now college is free for me so I trying to figure out what major to pick and I asked my friend Jeremy to go to lunch with me who I used to party with and Jeremy shows up in a brand new Mercedes

this is the third pivot point in my life and I go dude how did you get the new Mercedes and he goes oh this is so cool I flipped a house and I made 80,000 dollars have you ever had heard the term flipping a house not really not really and no I I mean, when I thought of real estate, I thought of it either very traditionally, like you became a real estate agent. You did real estate. Or I thought about it as landlord. You buy real estate when you can afford it. You go to a bank.

You get a loan. You have to have a good job. But what he was talking about was creative real estate investing. And this was a brand new concept to me. And he said, I flipped a house. I made $80,000, paid off all my debt. I bought this car. And I did it with none of my own money.

out of my pocket. So at this point you're like, tell me more. Yeah, I'm like, I'm leaning. I'm doing the lean and I'm like, you're full of shit. Like this, this doesn't make sense. Like, you can't buy real estate or invest in real estate without money. What are you talking about? So he got out a napkin and he actually penciled out the whole process of what's called wholesaling real estate. So this was my first introduction to create a real estate investing. And the concept's really simple. And I'll just explain it really fast. Right now, if you walk down the average American neighborhood and you just look down the street. 95% of the people, they're not in any financial pain. They're not motivated in any way. If they want to sell their house, they're going to

hire a real estate agent, they're going to list it on the MLS, they're going to clean it up, do open houses, wait whatever time it takes to get full price or the best price they can. But at any given time, about 5% are in a situation where either the house is in distress or they financially are in distress, lost a job, going through a divorce, being relocated, inherited unwanted property, maybe the house is old and ugly and outdated, maybe it's fire damage. There's a million reasons that you can think of why somebody would turn that corner. And it happens because life happens like that. And so what Jeremy was explaining was, hey, if you can get good at marketing, you can go

and get people that are in that 5% bucket that have to sell quickly. and they're trying to get the cash out of their house, that's all the money that they have, and it's locked in this equity in their real estate, you can get them to raise their hand, and you could talk to them about buying their house for cash. And then the way our real estate laws work is when you show up and you work out a deal

and you put their house under contract, the second you fill out that paperwork, they sign and you sign, you now have what's called equitable interest in their property. So even though I haven't bought it yet, I have certain rights, No different than if I rent the property from you, I have certain rights. Wow, sure.

So I fill that paperwork out, and now I, let's say I negotiate a good deal. Let's say the house is worth 150,000, but it needs some work. And you say, hey, I need 120. And I say, man, it needs too much work. We go back and forth. You finally say, I'll take 100. I say, I'm more comfortable 90,000. And you say, fine, can you pay me by next Friday?

I say, yeah, sure. So we signed the contract. No money is the exchange hand, but we signed. I can now take that contract of a house that's worth 150, but it needs a bunch of work. I have it under control for 90, and I can hold it up above my head and literally go around town and shop the contract and say, who wants this? And I'm talking to landlords and rehabbers. I'm talking to the Michael Pollack, the guy with his name on a building.

And I'm basically deal sourcing for him. Because people with money that have lots of cash and deep pockets, they normally have more money than time. So they love a guy like me that has more time than money that will go out and put in the work and I'll source the deal. I'll get control over it and then I'll go serve it up to him on a silver platter. Let's say I give it to him for 100,000 and they can step into my shoes. Right. And the seller gets their 90. Well, that means you just made 10 grand in a week.

The end buyer gets a good deal, right? And I made 10 Gs. Right? I love that. That's what Jeremy did. And he penciled out on this napkin. I took the napkin home. I stared at it and I was like, I started getting pissed.

And I started getting pissed because I never heard of this before. And I think this is the reason I'm back here today. Unfortunately, our system, our culture, the way we're taught, we are rigged and conditioned to think very traditionally. And we're not turned on to this idea of creative real estate investing for a reason, right? We're not trained to have a good relationship with the money, most of us. I wasn't. Yeah, I wasn't. When I went to ask my dad for money,

my dad would naturally say, what am I made of money? Same here. What does money grow on trees around here? Like, I wanted a new bike. What does money grow on trees? Now when I talk to my son, now coming full circle,

I don't ever say that stuff. I reprogrammed my language patterns to talk positively about money because I want to set him up for success. But most of us were not conditioned that way. And I blame our teachers. I blame our school. I blame my parents.

because they weren't taught, we weren't taught, and that's why a lot of people are financially in a bad spot. And so I was getting pissed because I'm like, why didn't I know this? And what else don't I know about money? Because if I can go create money like that, and real estate is one of the most proven wealth-building platforms and industries in the world. A lot of people make money in real estate and park money in real estate. And so I had that napkin for about two weeks before I called Jeremy back up. and I said, this is either a scam or complete bullshit, or you need to show me exactly how to do this.

Right? And he said, let's go back to lunch. And it was, you know, that's literally how I got my start in real estate. So it was like all these pivot points started funneling me towards this concept of getting into real estate. Now I focused on residential real estate because I could wrap my arms around it. It was, it was easy for me to internalize. And I went off and I thought, okay, I'm going to become a real estate investor. I'm going to go make millions of dollars. and for nine months, I tried to do one wholesale deal. The first month, I'm so enthusiastic.

I think I'm going to become a millionaire. It's going to be awesome. By the second month, I'm starting to justify to my friends and family, why I was bragging to them, how I was going to become a millionaire. By the third month, I'm starting to run out of steam. By the sixth month, now I'm starting to sound crazy. By the ninth month, I'm like throwing in the towel because my self-limiting beliefs were eating me alive.

And I'm like, how in the fuck? Did Jeremy do it? Right? And I was going to all these seminars, all these workshops, all these boot camps, because back then there was no internet. Right. There was no YouTube University. Now people have, I don't have my phone, but like in their hand, have the most powerful technology ever created in the history of mankind. And I'm flying all over the country going into debt using my credit card, which I didn't even have a job.

So I'm just going into debt trying to put all this stuff together. And I couldn't do it. And at the ninth month I quit. I quit trying. I put in a resume and I went and got a job because I was that broke. Wow. So let me stop you right there and ask you a question. In hindsight, what was missing?

I'm sure you're going to tell us, but what was missing in those nine months? Yep. So, and I think a lot of people can relate to this, and this is eventually why I got into the education side of things, is real estate investing, while it can seem complicated, it's actually actually, quite simple. If you have somebody that's been there, done that, show you what to do. Sure. Answer your questions. Help give you the formula or the recipe. And I think this is true in a lot of industries and a lot of niches, but what was missing for me is I was winging it during those nine months. I would lay out all those courses and they have these, they'd have lots of

information, but I was getting information overload. And I was trying to piece like page one of this course and page two of this course with page three and four of this course and this book over here. And then I'd go to a meeting and they would say, no, no, no, you don't want to do it like that. Here locally, this is how we do it. And then I would try to do that and one work and I'd go to a different meeting. They go, oh, that person doesn't know what they're talking about. So everybody was giving me advice. And I was jumping from ship to ship or from like driver seat to driver seat to driver seat of all these

different vehicles trying to figure out which one works. And I just ran out of steam. At the nine month mark, I went and got a job as a bookkeeper. And that lasted about three months before I hated my life. Every day I woke up negative, I was pissed off that I gave up all my dreams. And that's when a good friend of mine, that was another pivot point, invited me to go to another seminar. And I was hesitant at first, but he's like, one, I'll pay for you. And two, just think of it as like an opportunity to go party with me.

And it was a real estate seminar in San Francisco. And so reluctantly I went. And when I showed up in that room, there was an old timer there. He was, it was his seminar. His name is Jack Miller. And unfortunately, Jack passed away. But he was one of the greatest real estate gurus in the history of the world. He was so charismatic, such a great storyteller. And I walked into that room and my arm hair stood up. I instantly, like instantly felt that this was different than anything else I've ever been to. And it changed my life because while I was there, not only were all the people that were in the audience that were frantically taking notes. I bought a course from that guy and that guy and that guy and that guy. All the gurus were studying what Jack was doing. Wow.

That impressed me. What a sight to see. But it was like four, he wasn't, it wasn't a pitch fest, he wasn't trying to sell me anything. It was the first time I felt like a community. And I think that was the difference for me is I got to plug into something bigger than myself. And masterminds and events like that changed my life because it was there where I met my first mentor and his His name was Lyle, and I met him at the bar, and we were just chopping it up, and he's probably 78 years old now, but this was 14 years ago.

And so he had a wrinkly, you know, those polo shirts that you could tell like somebody washed too many times, they dried too many, like it's all like wrinkled and all nasty, tucked into Adidas sweatpants that are like pulled up to his nipples and these, you know, the old people's shoes with the Velcro, the cloppy ones. Is that a word? I think it is. Cloppy is a word. And he had those shoes on, and he would shuffle around, right?

You know, he did this shuffle. And I loved it because just such a great memory of mine. But he would shuffle around. And I convinced him while we were at the bar. I said, I will give you whatever money necessary. I will do whatever it takes. I have to be a student of yours. I have to, like you're the master.

This guy had about, I'm only saying this because he says it a lot of times to people. He had probably $16 to $18 million in his self-directed Roth, all tax-free environment, cutting deals. He was one of the most aggressive deal makers I've ever met. And I would listen to him talk, and I would watch him build relationship with people. And he was just, the things that you can't learn in books, he knew. And so I knew proximity is power.

I had to get near this dude. I had to learn from the master. And that was another pivot point in my life is he took me on. He became my first mentor. And the lessons that he taught me changed my entire life. So all of that led up to me sitting here right now talking to you because I went off to do over 1,000 deals, right? Like that's no joke. That is a substantial number because during your 1,000 deals, you've probably learned lessons that you could create courses on that most people wouldn't know until they fell into those pitfalls.

I didn't know where real estate was going to take me, but it took me from, you know, living in an apartment, always having more month at the end of the money, driving a beat up. piece of shit Nissan pickup truck and it wasn't easy like I I sacrificed a tremendous amount for a decade before I started you know buying nice stuff people see my Instagram now and they're like oh Lamborghinis Roles Royces mansions you know beautiful wife amazing family and they think my life my life and my lifestyle was like they can't they can't read into like you the decade of sacrifice the living below your means the people don't see that part of the of the come-up they just see that the lifestyle you live because the Lamborghini, the Rolls Royce, the lifestyle, the private jet, the mansions get the attention.

What doesn't get the attention is when I was literally sitting in my gym shorts, two in the morning on my laptop, wasn't even a MacBooks that could afford a MacBook, literally trying to figure out how I'm going to sell coaching to more personal trainers and gym owners. Yeah. But that's not sexy. No one's going to take that picture. Well, think about this, and I'm sure you've experienced this. I feel a certain way when I see, because everybody's an invoice. influencer now on Instagram. They all have entrepreneur. Right.

Right. And to me... Does that bother you, by the way? That's what I was going to get at because it doesn't, doesn't. It bothers me because I'm like, if you think you're an entrepreneur, that's a good thing, because that means you're already thinking different. So I like that side of it. But it bothers me because I'm like, when you've been in business for 10 years and for two or three of those 10 years, you're living on the edge and you're about to sell everything to make payroll or make that, you know,

that payment that's due, then you can call yourself an entrepreneur to me. To me, being an entrepreneur is like a badge of honor. Yeah, it is. And so I kind of feel two ways about it. But I went on, just to kind of regress a little bit, you know, now eight, nine years I was investing before I made the decision because of what real estate's done for me and my family, a lot of people started coming to me and saying, well, how do you do what you do? And it was like I've come full Now, I was the Lyle to a lot of people. Right. And I love working with our youth.

And I'm a member of the Chandler Compadres, which is a local men's group that we raise money for underprivileged kids in Chandler, Arizona. We raise over a million dollars a year. And so I just have that passion to serve our youth. Sure. And so I had a lot of like, now they call them, I don't know, what do they call them, Gen Ziers? I think so. What's the next? After millennials, I think they're Gen Zers now.

Gen Zers. So I've worked with a lot of 15, 16, 17-year-olds. teaching them how to master the money game. And so I started... Now, why specifically the money game and not the real estate game? Because I think this is a really good pivot for this show. Yeah. Why the money game?

Well, like I was saying earlier, we're conditioned to... From school, to think and act a certain way. And what I'm about to say is potentially going to piss off some of my team members because they watch a lot of the things that I do. and I call my employees team members. Sure. You know, I have a big organization now, just like you. And when you're young, you go through schooling,

and they teach you memorization. They teach you, you know, how to follow the rules. They keep you in the box. They want you to go off. And the people with money, the Rockefellers, that created the schooling system, the people, I don't want to call it. The Rockefellers, it was the Vanderbiltz.

The wealthy elitist. Yeah. Right? They want good workers. Yeah. Right? So people with money, the banks and people with a lot of money, they don't want every single person that's working for them to go off and become a competitor, start their own business.

So we're conditioned to memorize, follow the rules, show up, put in your nine to five, get your little gold watch, put in 30 years, and good luck. But here's some statistics that is probably going to shock you about money. The average American annual income is $52,250 a year. That's it. That's the average American. On average, the average American only saves about $1,000 a year. By the time they get to retirement age, the average American only saves about $60,000.

Super Savers save a little over $95,000, right? So think of some of those numbers. Most people are living right on the edge, and they're reliant on the government through Social Security, which, by the way, is set to run dry by 2035. Love that. So, you know, they're trying to rely on the government or they're becoming a burden on their family because they've been conditioned since they were kids to think and have a relationship about money a certain way based on the language patterns of their parents, the lack of money or the excess of money. And so I can always go to an adult and I don't think there's an age to get into real estate that's too late.

You could be 50, 65 years old. Get into real estate right now. And it's still not too late. But I have to work really hard to undo some of those old tricks. All right? What's the saying? You can't teach you an old dog new tricks. Something like that.

It's harder to, you know. It's actually exactly that. Not something like that. It's exactly that. Cody. It's actually vodka, folks, not water, what we're drinking here. No, but dude, can I tell you something? You get what I'm saying there?

So if I can get to it early, I can build the foundation strong right from the get-go. Yeah. Versus trying to undo belief systems, habits, experiences that were negative with money, which is going to be a cluster fuck to undo. Yeah. And think about this. Right now, according to a recent Forbes article, they put out an article that said, in order to comfortably retire, you need at least $1.8 million. That's a shocking number to a lot of people. And I bet, and the reason I wanted to come back, I think, is for this, because you have a lot of entrepreneurs that watch your show. And I love that because just because you're an entrepreneur

does not mean you're good with money. Trust me, how do I know? I went off. I became very successful in real estate. I became a millionaire by age 28, a multimillionaire by age 30. I woke up one day. I had an $800,000 tax bill and $0 in my bank.

There you go. And you know that... Which camera do I look at right now? Because imagine that moment where you're fucking panicking. And your wife is looking at you like, what are you going to do? And it's like, what do you mean? What am I going to do? Sell your purse?

Like, we got to sell everything. Like, we're going to be fucked. Or she's thinking, just go make more money, right? Because I always created money. And so I'm panicking, staring at my tax bill, $800,000 I owed one year. And I'm mortified because I'm like, holy shit. I was already on track the next year to make as much or more than what I did last year. So you have a partner, whether you like it or not, as an entrepreneur.

Yep. Uncle Sam. And so now I'm falling behind. And this is why a lot of people can't break through is the devaluing of the dollar and the fact that you have to pay taxes on all this stuff. And so $1.8 million is a significant amount of money for somebody to save. Where can you create that kind of money? What industry or niche can you do it in?

Because every time you trade your time for money, even if you're a doctor or you're kicking ass and you're making a lot of money per hour, you stop working. You're still fucked. Right? Yeah. That's why when I read that book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and he talked about assets. That was the first time I ever heard that word. I never knew what an asset was. My dad never said, this is an asset.

My dad said, our house that we live in is our savings account. That's our asset. Right. Not realizing that, by the way, so many Americans, the house that they live in is where they have their money. But unless you sell that house, which means now you have no place to live, you don't have access to that money. And the definition of an asset is something that produces you income and that holds its value and can increase value over time. The house you live in doesn't produce you income. You just use it. And yes, could it go up, but it can also go down.

And I promise you real estate goes up and down. So depends on when you need to cash out. We'll determine whether or not you're going to make money from your house. So $1.8 million is a lot of money. money. And so I worked with a lot of people. I got, I started a clever investor in 2010, having no idea where the education world was going to take me. I just had a passion for teaching. Yeah. And it took off like a jet engine. Do you think the market wanted that level of information, or did you have good marketing skills to get after and find the audience? I think I identified

a couple things that I wanted to do different than the old time gurus. Now, I was around, and building my business right when social media was starting to come out. So, like, I was able to use a marketing platform that never before was able to be used, and the old-timers didn't understand it, right? Kids nowadays, they're crushing it with social media. But, like, when Facebook first came out, LinkedIn first came out, I was already trying to gamify the system, hack it, and that's how I ended up doing really well on social media.

So that helped. But I also made video a core competency. think about how we communicate in today's world. Video. You have to learn how to pitch on video. That's why I love guys like you and Billy Jean, and I'm attracted to that type of person because you understand what it means to be omnipresent. You understand what it means to be able to communicate

in a very short amount of time. And I was naturally not a good pitch man. I had to work really hard at learning. In fact, my first couple times ever going live on video, I was shaking, like, crazy. like crazy shaking because I was so scared. I was going to sound stupid, say something goofy, have people not like me,

like all my little kid issues were coming up. All the insecurities come up when you do something brand new that's going to be put out there to get judged. Yeah. Right? So I made video of core competency. And then I also took a look at the way education was taught. And I said, fuck this.

This is so boring. I hate PowerPoint presentations and people talking just like at a chalkboard. board and real estate is even though it can seem complicated, like I said earlier, it can be simplified. People overcomplicated. The technical process isn't all that difficult. I can teach you wholesaling in four hours and we could be out trying to do a deal within the next two weeks and I could probably get you a deal, you know, because like I know how to uncomplicated. But so I took to this industry that was like kind of aging and boring and I made it fun. I created skits. I brought in content writers and script writers and I said let's make it like Hollywoodish. Let's blow shit up.

Huh. You know let's make real estate training fun and engaging to the point where they can't not watch it twice. That was like kind of my mission. Let's force people to want to watch it twice and so our first big course that we put out took off. Yeah. And the business started to scale and we started dominating social and then I got into buying ads on Facebook, which was another pivot point of my life because my first year, I had no idea what I was doing. By my second year, I was spending about three to four million dollars a year on Facebook ads. How nuts is that? And just cranking, you know, people love and hate Cody Sperber because they love the energy and if they're into real estate, like I'm their dude. But if you are trapped in my web, I am.

am omnipresent in your life. I camp out in your mind. Because you can't get away. You can't go to a platform. I don't care if it's Pinterest. I'm going to follow you there and I'm going to serve you ads because I'm so passionate about what real estate's done for me and my family that I have to change your perception of what's reality when it comes to making money. Dude, I love that. And I think that's the mindset that every entrepreneur should have that I've got this obligation and duty to take my message or my product and feed it to people, even if they don't want to eat it right now because it's good for them. That's the bottom line. Because we see that financial literacy is struggling. It's an all-time low. And you're saying, look, I figured out how to break through and tell

people how to how money works. That's it. And so you owe it to those people. And so when people come to work with me and I mentor a lot of people now, you know, they think they're just going to come and learn some real estate tactics. And then they discover I'm all about business systems, changing your mindset, changing your language patterns, creating healthy habits, like all of this goes into making the real estate thing work. And without this part of it, when you hit the challenging times, when it's painful, when it's taking longer than expected, you will quit. It's easier to quit. Right. And so I'm just constantly blending that stuff together. Now, when I was at Billy Jeanne's event and you were speaking, you were talking about all about

Instagram and you were giving away so many great Instagram hacks. But then backstage, you were telling me that, hey, my next move is to go onto YouTube and really own that platform as well. What I love about what you do is once you go OCD on something, and I think that's probably as an entrepreneur, that's the best way to approach things, is to go OCD and relentless. So what is it that you're doing on YouTube right now that's getting so much traffic? What are some secrets you can share? Yeah, well, first off, I love Instagram and, you know, people that follow me on Instagram, you know, I write really engaging captions and I try to be fun and playful with the way I aggregate content and put it out there. But the thing with Instagram is people follow and unfollow people on Instagram constantly. And it's getting, like people are starting to get numb to how much motivation's going on and content's going like, it's like, oh my God, I can't deal with another, you know, motivational meme.

Right. YouTube's a different animal. YouTube, if they subscribe to you, they rarely unsubscribe and they go down the rabbit hole. You can create, even if you're newer at something or to the industry, even if you're, you don't have a big brand or a big name, you can create influence with somebody very, very quickly on YouTube because they binge watch all of your stuff, which automatically puts you up on a pedestal and if they like the way you communicate, they're going to subscribe.

And so for me, YouTube, the model is real simple. Eight to 12 minute videos. You don't want to really go longer. Sometimes it's hard for me to get things out. So I ramble a little bit. So I go longer. But I think that if you can stick to eight to 12 minutes, that's about, my average watch time is about seven and a half to eight and a half minutes.

You don't want to go longer than your average watch time. Right. I think another thing that makes it really easy is the way I do it is I do like a cold open and then I do a small sizzle reel and then I do about an eight minute training or a nine minute training. So give us an example of a cold open. So like what you want to do, the way YouTube's algorithm works and when you talk about hacking systems, I geek out on all the, I study everything and I try to figure out how the system works.

YouTube behind the scenes is actually like transcribing your video and trying to, between the metadata that you put in and the title. and all that stuff and the keywords and what you say in the first minute really matter. So if I want my video, if I know that there's a trending topic, let's take Game of Thrones, right? Everybody's talking about Game of Thrones right now. So it's like, I just shot a video yesterday where I did something like, will the real estate market crash in 2019? Should people wait until the market hits the bottom before you dive in? Will Dragon or Dragon, or what's the guy's name?

Dragione? Drago? Drago? Drago? Drago? Drogon. Will Drogan, you know, attack Kalisi by the wall? Like, whatever, whoever knew about Game of Thrones,

scripted me like five Game of Thrones analogy things. And so we hit that really hard in the first, you know, probably 15 to 20 seconds of the video. So what I did there is I went to another one of my videos that took off and got a lot of views, which was about market crash. And whenever you get a video to hit, you want to follow it up with more content around that central topic, but then also pick some other trending topics. Right? And so that's what a cold open is, is it just tries to hack the YouTube algorithm a little bit so that way you can ride some waves.

And then I have my short little intro, and then I have about eight to ten minutes about my thoughts on whether you should wait or not for the market to crash. And how do you close a video up to get the most amount of outcome? Yeah, so there's two things. There's two little things that I do in almost every video. And if you start, if you subscribe, you'll start to see the patterns. First and foremost, I encourage engagement. So I'll actually take clips of people that comment and I'll mention them in the video. And I'll say, guys, I read every single comment.

And on the words, every single comment will be a comment, a comment, and a comment. And the third one will be a funny one. So it'll be like, love your stuff. You're awesome. you're a fucking douchebag. Right. And so it's like, guys, I read every single comment. And I do this because I don't really have a life.

And all I do is real estate and read comments. No, I do it because I want to know what you guys, what future content you guys want me to create. And there's one question that keeps coming up that I want to answer in today's video. Right? So by doing that kind of interaction with my audience, people start commenting more.

Because they want their comment to be up on the screen. They think now I'm going to engage with them. Right. And we do respond to every single comment. So that's a little trick. And then another thing, towards the end of the video, we're always asking them, obviously, what we want them to do, what the call to action is. So for me, at the beginning of my videos and at the end of my videos, I talk about my 30 days to a deal challenge, which is where I take this complicated concept of real estate. I distill it down into step-by-step things that I tell people on Monday do this, on Tuesday, do this, and I have a 30-day challenge. By the way, if you're in education, challenges work. Do they work in fitness? They work in education, yep. Right? Look at Russell Brunton.

He's doing a challenge now. Everybody's got a challenge. Well, the reason is, people can't visualize changing their life over 20 years, but they can visualize, I can give it everything I got for 30 days. Yeah. All right. And so at the beginning of the video, I'll talk about my 30 day challenge. At the end of the video, my call to action is, hey, guys, if you want more free training,

go watch this video. I'm going to show you how to get three of my best-selling courses. Absolutely free. And, you know, don't forget to subscribe. So your job is really to, one, get them to subscribe and build your audience there, but also to send them to a website where you can extract their contact info, name, email, phone number, whatever is you're looking for in exchange for free content. Every platform is, for me, I don't really advertise too much on the platforms.

I just try and get lots of engagement, lots of subscribers and followers, and then pull them off of the platform to actually pitch them. my products and services. And this is why people love and hate me is because the second they comment, like, subscribe, they touch anything in my world, they get pulled into my web. And now I'm omnipresent in their lives.

And they will see. I probably have 1,800 ads cut. 1,800. Wow. Think about the amount of conversations I'm going to have with somebody. And I actually, in this, is a whole other topic. We can go into another day. But my Facebook ad panel has five levels.

Right? So like level one is like the coldest of traffic and level five is somebody who already bought a product from me and now I'm going after him for mentoring and coaching services. You know, I call them L1, L2, L3, or four, or five. At each level has dozens and dozens of potential videos that I'm going to show them. And I either have sequences built to show you certain videos at certain points in your evolution. So if you think about all the levels, like by the time you're at level four, that's somebody who has subscribed but hasn't purchased one of my products yet. And the purpose of these videos are what? Why don't you explain that to our audience? Well, it's, you've got to meet people where they are. And what I found in the back in the day,

and people are too smart now on social media. Back in the day, it was just one pitch, one size fits all. You want to do real estate? I'll show you how. People are numb to that now. Everybody's a freaking guru. Everybody is selling education. And so I just had to evolve and go to the, I've always been a trendsetter in the real estate space. And most of my stuff now is mirrored and copied by everybody who's trying to do what I do. And I see that. So I've now moved on to the next level of Cody's Perber advertising.

In my mind, this is where I think things are going. So now there's two things happening. Not only do I have to have different conversations depending on where they are in their evolution with me, and what they've previously engaged with, but I have to get all of my advertising in sync in their journey. So now my email marketing, my promos, my retargeting ads, my email auto-responder, everything has to be in sync, which is very difficult to do,

and that's why not a lot of people have done it in the marketing world, is, you know, how do I get somebody that's already been with me for 60 days, but I'm now, let's say I want to promote Fit Body Boot Camp today, how do I get that promo in track with where they are in my auto responders? So that way I'm not confusing them with two marketing messages. Makes total sense. And that's where those videos leaked out, effectively walked them down the path of your most wanted action. That's it.

Yeah. I love that. So this... We went. We took a right turn on that. We did. Right into the marketing stuff. I wanted to give our audience some tactical stuff as well.

I want them to know that it's funny that you agree your wealth in real estate. but you also realized, man, I know how to generate money, but I don't know how to nurture money. And I ran into that same thing, which is why I wrote Man Up, and I was very open in the book when I talked about, and in a very brutal, honest way, that I built this organization, but then at some point I turned around and I see that I've got the employees that I had hated me, and I hated them. My spouse and I would argue, and we were $640,000 in debt, and I couldn't figure, and all I was doing was trying to generate more sales. Clearly there was a bigger problem, and it was money management and the nurturing of money.

Ironically, I grew up in my family as well, as a foreigner. Had we run out of money before we run out of month. We had to always pick the option between A and B because we can never have A and B. Right? And so those things, until I got rid of those patterns, I wasn't able to understand how money works. Yep. Yeah. And what happened is after I hit that wall with those taxes, that's when I finally just,

I knew what to do, but how many times do we know what to do, but we don't do it? I knew what to do, but that was the pivot point where it was like, okay, now I'm going to restructure my whole financial foundation to actually get not only out of this, but set myself up. So I can get to that $1.8 million. Now the number in my head is $25 million. That's my number for me, but $1.8 million is a great number. And there's a lot of people that are like, hey, if I can save $1.8 million, I can comfortably retire. I think it's more like 2.5 million at a base.

So if you write down where you're currently at right now and you write 2.5 million or 1.8 million, you might be shocked to see how far away you are from the reality. And you have to do something now because people are living in the retirement age for longer. Yeah. And so for me, when I look at my financial foundation, it starts with how I set my bank accounts up. It goes on to cash flow management. I used to be top line thoughts as an entrepreneur. I used to always think more sales, more revenue.

I'm good to go. Just make more sales. Everything will be okay. As a CEO, I've now evolved and matured to the point where I know that it's cash flow management first and foremost, right, before anything else. If I can manage cash flow like a boss, I'm good to go. Then it's, you know, I move over into profit and then I go to top line revenue. So I've reached, I completely shifted my...

Isn't that funny? Because you've matured as an entrepreneur, whereas whatever. everyone else was looking at when they first get in is how quickly can I lease a car so that I can take a picture of it, how quickly can I talk about my top line number? And my accountant who's also a family member, actually my wife's uncle, the dude was like the, he used to be the accountant for Under Armour and like he's literally like built and sold like so many businesses. So I was like, dude, you got to be our accountant here at FitBody. And he goes, when he started with us 10 years ago, he says, look, revenue feeds the ego, profits feed the

family. I like that. And I love that because like any young entrepreneur, I was all about revenue driven, top line number, but then the profit margins were oftentimes upside down. Oh, it feels good to hit the ink list. Right. Right? Yeah. It feels good to have that platform on the wall. But I feel good. When payroll is on Friday and you're looking at your bank account, you're like, what do I do? I'm screw. Yeah. Right. Yeah. That's exactly it. And I do think that you have to focus on sales your first year. And I do think that you've got to just be like the most aggressive. Like I wear the hat and the shirt today because my job of CEO is to be the loudest megaphone in my business. I should be always branding. I should all. I mean, that's like that made me my heart

happy when I saw that because I'm like, yeah, that's my dude. So I think it's important to make the sales and learn the psychology and how to powerfully influence people. But as you're doing that, I would read some books like the burn harness. Burn harness. Burn harness. Burn harness. It's called scale up or scaling up. If you're already in business and you're ready to go to the next level, that is the Bible, in my opinion, of business books. Because when I was hitting the wall with cash flow problems and all this stuff, even though we were, I scaled a $15 million in gross sales like in two years.

But I was really hitting a wall with cash flow management. I woke up. I had, you know, 85, 90 employees were blown. money at two offices. I don't even know why we had a second office. Just because what happens is you start, you hire your initial group, but then they hire the next group and then they hired the next group. And now your vision and your culture and everything starts shifting as it goes down line. We ended up with all this overhead. And I was freaking out. I felt like I was suffocating. Sure. Because I was like, my business sucks. Even though I love teaching and all that stuff,

like I hated that portion of it. And that book shifted me because it was like reading my entire story. Great recommendation there. So Vern Harnish's book Scaling Up and the first book that your dad gave you, which was Robert Kiyosaki's book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Great. Two good books. And Man Up, which by the way, and you gave me Man Up at Billy Jean's event. I went and I read the entire thing on the plane right on. Oh wow. Thanks for doing that. Absolutely phenomenal book. I, and I called you afterwards. I'm like, dude, this book is so much more than just for men. Right. Like, I gave it to my wife, and I'm like, you got to read this.

Like, this is one of those books that's like so on point. Yeah, I decided to be brutally honest and just share what almost caused my demise as an entrepreneur, which ultimately would have been my demise as a father and a husband, and wanted to talk to men and women. It's just man up because I knew it was a catchy title, but it's really human up to your highest potential of being an entrepreneur, a father, a spouse, someone who nurtures their money and takes. takes care of their community, right? We need to hum it up to a higher level. But appreciate the plug for man. You inspire me big time, man.

I walk around your organization. It's so spot on top notch. If I can grow up to be Bedro someday. I just want to grow up to be you, man. Where you'd walk into my office and eat donuts, you said. I love that. By the way, you look good. The first time you came, you're a little flubby.

You hired a personal trainer. Just got that personal trainer? No, no, seriously. I have, yeah. You work out three days a week. Three days a week. I'm trying really hard to, you know, get in alignment with, you know, we sit up there as influencers and we tell everybody, you got to create good habits, you got to do this, and then here I am. I can't even look at myself in the mirror because I'm just like derailing. And it started with an injury. I think that happens. There's normally a reason why people start falling off the bandwagon, but it's only up to you if you're going to stay there. Right. And so once I healed up, but I was still doing all the bad. shit. Yeah. I was like, look, I have to get back in alignment with what I say and what I do. And so I hired the trainer as, because, you know, just like hiring a mentor or a coach, if you get a trainer, you got to show up. Yeah. And you got to do the work and not just text. Right? When you're sitting on the workout benches. I mean, I walk into public gyms all the time. I see how people are actually using the chest press or the leg press machine as a chair to text off of. Oh, yeah. And it just- Right in killer tweets. Yeah, it makes me wonder what exactly is the benefit to your health from that.

And they're tweeting about being healthy, right? Yeah, that's how that works. So let me just ask you, as we're closing up here, a couple of questions. Question number one, how important is that balance to you? I mean, you're financially, you're successful. And we see you as a mentor and influencer, someone who understands money in real estate. We see that. But what is your definition of success?

Is there a balance that you're looking for to say, now I'm successful? Yeah, well, first off, I don't know if this is my own thing or if a lot of entrepreneurs feel this way, but I don't feel successful. I don't feel like I'm anywhere even near where I want to be right now. I feel like I'm really behind. Every day I wake up just feeling like, oh shit, I got to hustle harder now today than I ever have before in my past because there's some young buck trying to dethrone me right now, wanting to take my customers, wanting to take my influence away from. me and I think about it I think about you know kind of just you know rents-due everyday type of mentality so it's like and I just I'm about to turn 41 I feel like I have more energy now and I'm wiser now to go out there and crush it and it

would be a shame if I didn't play full out today I think that's I would admit I would be letting myself down and the other side of that is my son just is going into the fifth grade now my daughter's going into the third grade they're everything to me. My family is everything to me. And I want to set a new standard. Like I said earlier, I want to change the money game for my family. I want to, I tell him every day. Like leadership to me is setting a standard, even when nobody else is looking, always doing the right thing, always playing full out. And if I'm going to tell him that every day before he goes to school, I have to live it. I have to live it. And so, you know, balance. I don't know about balance, but I'm definitely...

Do entrepreneurs have balance? Fuck no. Hell no. That's the truth. And I had to sit my wife down and say, look, here's our upfront contract. I like you, but I want to be a billionaire. So we're either going to get in alignment or it's probably not going to work out for us. And, you know, thank God she's tough.

You know, she's definitely my rock and she's definitely like, I'm going to fuck this word up, consulari. Yeah. Is that the right how you say? I wouldn't know how, but I know what you mean. Yeah. Like the mob boss's right hand. need advice. She is so intuitive. And I think women have something called emotional intelligence,

which I fucking lack. They have high amounts. I go to her and I'm like, what do you think about this? She can read people's energy levels and like personalities. And she's like, nope, don't do business with him or her. Yes, go in that direction. And she's spot on almost every single time. So without her, I definitely wouldn't be where I am. But no such thing is balance. But I do think, instead of trying to achieve balance, why don't you try to achieve the ability to pivot when you're in front of somebody and make them a priority at that moment? Because I feel like what people really want is that connection and that feeling that they're important and that they're loved and that you're paying attention to what they're saying. And when your mind is over here because

you're stressed about money and what sale you're going to make next and what product you're going to put out next and what store you're going to open next, but your body, is physically here, that's the worst thing for a marriage. You're still not present. You're not present. So focus on being present and making that person a priority. So just the last trick, and I'll leave it at this. Every day when I come home and I pull into the garage, I park my business in the garage with my car. And so I spend about three to five minutes sitting in my garage, unloading everything for the day. That way, when I walk in the

house, I can be present. Because what I used to do is, I'm going to do is, I'm going to be present. Because I I was so thankful just to be home. I would pull into the garage. I'd pop out. I'd grab all my shit, and I'd walk into my wife's first thing was, how was your day? Fucking, so-and-so came into my office, dropped their monkeys on my back.

This other deal's starting to fall apart. I got cash flow. And you know, it's like I'm, I just unload all this negativity into my house. It was not good. Right. And I'm sure you can relate. And so the best thing that I ever did is I started parking my problems in my business in the garage. And then when I walked in, she asked me how my day, it was fucking great.

That food smells amazing. You look absolutely unbelievable. Kids are amazing. Life's amazing. Like, I'm just all positivity. And it's changed our relationship big time. And I put myself on away. I'm curious.

You said you kind of leave the business parked in the garage along with the car and you do a three to four minute process. What does that mean? I just go through the day and I just process all the things that happen. happened that day and I give myself a moment to reflect. And then when I'm done with that, I leave it there. I'm not going to walk in and keep talking about it. Like I have to pivot now and make my family. Can I tell you something?

All successful entrepreneurs are the same way. And we all discover strategies like this by first failing at a relationship or almost failing a relationship. A friend of mine and also my therapist, his name is Kevin. And I talk about it openly in my book. I was like, Kevin, I don't understand. So this is when I was sitting on his couch every Monday afternoon for 16 months. I sat on his couch to just work through my shit, right?

I was like, I don't understand why my fucking wife and my fucking kids are walking on eggshells when I come home. And he's like, well, you're 230 pounds and you're very intense right now on the couch. I'm on eggshells. I was like, but don't you understand what I do, Kevin? And he goes, I do. and they do, but you're walking in with your armor. And he goes, why don't you just take a few minutes once you park your car and take the armor off, drop the sword, take the helmet off, and walk in his dad and not the entrepreneur shark.

And I was like, Kevin, that's freaking brilliant. It was that little thing he told me just take a few minutes to take off the armor. Because as entrepreneurs, we're in battle all day long, right? Whether it's that deal fell through or cash flow problems or employee problems. And so we come in fists up, and I couldn't figure out what my... I was like, you've been home all day. Why are you on eggshells? But she's reading off my energy.

And soon as I dropped the armor and I walked in, happy go lucky, kids come and hug me. The wife's excited to see me. Even the dog's happy to see me, right? And that was one of the biggest lessons I've learned, big takeaway. So, Cody, I'm curious. If someone wants to find you, connect with you, what is the best platform they should reach out to to learn more about you and what you do? Yeah, I mean, I'm curious.

Obviously, Instagram at Clever Investor, YouTube at Clever Invest, pretty much all social platforms, at Clever Investor. I'm really putting a lot of energy into YouTube. And I think if you're into real estate and, you know, you want to learn how to master the money game, that's a great place to start. You could also go to Cody's Deal Challenge.com if you want me to actually show you over the next 30 days and tell you on Monday do this, on Tuesday do this, on Wednesday do this, you know, it's a step-by-step plan. I demystify wholesaling.

It's a wholesaling training. Sure. You know, it's a free video. You can go there and watch it. It'll show you how to get three of my bestselling courses, absolutely free. And Cody's Dealchallenge.com. Dude, you are awesome. You are legendary.

Thank you so much for being on the show, first and foremost. And ladies and gentlemen, watching this or listening to this, if you love this episode, and I know you did, do us a favor and take a screenshot, share it, post about it, leave a review, five stars. and as always, tell your mama. See you later. Hey, thanks so much for being here for today's Empire podcast show. We would love for you to do a quick little favor for us.

Just go to iTunes and give us a five-star rating, leave a comment, share it with your friends. And if you're interested in growing your business faster, go to bedroskulean.com forward slash empire, fill out the application to see if you're a good fit for our Empire Mastermind Group.