THE ED MYLETT SHOW - THIS Is Your FASTEST Path To Escape Your 9-to-5 Job With Less Risk with Codie Sanchez

Episode Date: July 2, 2024

Ever wonder what it takes to leap from passion to profit?  This episode is a treasure trove of wisdom and entrepreneurial strategy as I sit down with Codie Sanchez, a powerhouse in business acquisition and an expert in turning the mundane into millions.  Codie, known for her savvy in navigating the often overlooked opportunities in 'boring' businesses, shares her incredible journey and the strategies that anyone can use to find financial freedom and business success. Combined with my own experiences of building an entrepreneurial empire, this episode will redefine your approach to business and success. This approach to business is not just about making money; it’s about creating value and learning the art of the deal. In our conversation, we delve deep into the nuts and bolts of acquiring businesses—a path less traveled but brimming with potential. Here’s what you’ll gain from tuning in: Learn strategies to identify undervalued businesses and how to spot and seize opportunities in the least glamorous but most lucrative corners of the market. Learn secret negotiation tactics to secure deals that can transform your financial landscape. Discover why sometimes the most ordinary businesses could be your ticket to extraordinary wealth. Codie opens up about the challenges and triumphs along her journey, providing you with the roadmap to pursue your own path. This is the episode that can help you make the leap from being INTERESTED in entrepreneurship to LIVING it. Codie and I are here to empower you with the knowledge and inspiration to take control of your destiny, one deal at a time. Prepare to be inspired, educated, and transformed. Whether you’re a seasoned entrepreneur or just starting out, this is an episode you cannot afford to miss. Join us as we uncover the secrets to building wealth through business acquisitions and share the tools you need to succeed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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in store and online. Condition supply, see in store for details. ["This Is the Admiration Show"] This is the Admiration Show. Welcome back to the show everybody. So this lady that's on today, I actually sought her out after seeing her content. I think she makes some of the best content

on all social media as it comes to business. She's got a background at Goldman. She's been in the VC business before. She's done all kinds of different things in business. And I love watching people online that I know have actually done the things that they talk about. And she's done that.

So from Wall Street to Main Street to your living room today. I'm super happy to have her here today. She's the co-founder of Contrarian Thinking. She's brilliant. You're going to take a ton of notes. Cody Sanchez, welcome to the show. I'm excited to be here. I've been a fan of yours for years, Ed. I think it's really cool what you do online. Thank you. Well, likewise. All right, we're gonna start something unique and rare. We share a brain on a lot of things. So I watched a piece of content here the other day and you're like, I think you can tell

if someone's gonna be successful in business by how they order off of a menu in a restaurant. This may not seem like deep content everybody, but there's a huge lesson behind this. I so believe this to be true about decisiveness. So I'll let you kind of take the floor on it, but this is real stuff here. Yeah, we call it speed to urgency.

So I think that if you want to hire somebody, you shouldn't go and see if you could have a beer with them at the airport. That's what everybody says. Can I enjoy a beer with them at the airport? You don't need to be friends. In fact, I think what you could do is you could watch them order at a coffee shop that has a lot of options

for breakfast. And the thing that is really important to me is that they know what they want and they don't wanna waste anybody else's time. Even better if there's a line. I was at the coffee shop the other day, it was in La Jolla and it was like a young-ish woman and she must have taken five minutes, what's that?

What's that? And there's two problems with it. One, how many times have you ordered coffee and you don't know what you want yet? Come on, you're in your 30s. Second is, look at this line that you have behind you. You have no situational awareness that you don't want to make these other people wait. And so it sounds silly, but I think the way that we do anything is the way that we do everything. So I try to be really thoughtful on the things that I can control,

at least, when I'm getting out of control. It was funny when I watched it. It's super legit. So like most people that have to come work for me, I actually go to lunch with them. And one of the things that drives me nuts is indecisive people. There's nothing wrong with that, maybe if you're really deliberate, but I'm watching you and I'm like, hey, the thing you said about self-awareness is big. I know before I go to a restaurant what I'm going to get. You know what I mean? Like there's only so many things on a menu. It's like I'm going to have the steak.

Let's just go. to a restaurant what I'm going to get. You know what I mean? Like, there's only so many things on a menu. It's like, I'm going to have the steak. Let's just go. Like, anyway. Or the person who like orders a million different micro details when they do it drives me up the wall. Anyway. I lost to your accountant. No, thanks.

No, thank you. So this may sound funny that I started with it, but I'm like, one, it's a good piece. I like content I can remember the way people teach things. So the one, I'm like, everyone's behind that person at Starbucks. And if you haven't, you're that person. By the way. But the other thing you say in business that is not talked about almost anywhere other than you. It's a lot of things online about starting businesses.

Real estate is a real big topic online. Almost everybody's sort of a real estate guru. Almost nobody talks about buying businesses other than you as a way to get into business. So let's just start there because to be honest with you, my kids are at that age now where they're going into business. And there's this huge part of me

that doesn't think they should just start from scratch, or they don't have to go buy multi units like everybody's doing, but there's this entire other wide open lane that's almost a secret. So let's just start by laying the foundation for that. Yeah, well, first of all, business is hard and sufferable, uncivilized and brutal.

And so anytime I talk about buying businesses, I get really careful to not have people think that there's some get rich quick, buy this guy's business, it's making a million bucks tomorrow, that's not gonna happen. And I get really specific too, if you go and buy a business, know one thing for sure, that the person who ran the business for the past 30 years in a specific trade knows more than you do. So a lot of young guns come in and they go, ah, 30 year HVAC company, they got a backs machine in here. I'm going to take

this company, I'm going to seven exit. Assume you're going to do 30% worse to start. And then in three to five years, you might 10 or 20 exit, but give yourself that 12 to 18 month period. So those are my disclaimers. But the thought overall is simply this, that if you just look at the math, most startups lose money for the first year. You pay for the potential ability one day to make money in your startup, more than 70% of startups die from lack of product market fit, which basically means you came up with an idea, your friend said, that's awesome. You should totally do that business, but those friends never gave you a dollar for that business. And so startups, I think should be done when you cannot sleep for the want of the thing. It has to exist in the world. But if all you want is money,

there is money that exists all around in these small businesses. And in fact, what a waste that, you know, we're here in Florida, right? The average age in Florida is 25% older than most of the country, which means that a lot of these people are right in the prime time business owner, 65 plus range,

and who's going to take over their businesses? My belief is that maybe you don't even go in and buy it day one if you're a brand new young guy. Maybe you go work for them a little bit, learn the business, and then earn the right to take over the business. We used to do that. Yes. And now people just shut our businesses. What if someone's listening, they go, that sounds great. I don people just shut our businesses. What would somebody what if someone's listening? Oh, that sounds great. I don't have a ton of capital. You have the saying I don't remember what it is. I'll let you say it. But the fact is most businesses stay for sale for a long time and aren't

acquired at all. And I think sometimes people might be surprised how easy the barrier of entry is to getting into buying or acquiring somebody's business. Yeah, 100%. I mean go into any room anywhere. I always play this game when I speak. I go, okay, business owners raise your hand, keep it up, they keep it up. I go, how many of you guys would sell your business

at the right price and the right terms? How many hands do you think stay up? Everyone. Everyone. Including me. Including me, right? And at varying times, you own multiple businesses, I own multiple businesses, I sell businesses all the time. And by the way, I've even given businesses back to the operator of the business,

because I made great money on it, and that operator, that was material to them, and it wasn't material to me anymore, and it wasn't worth my time. So I just transitioned the business back to them, no problem, very normal. And I think the ratio basically goes like this. Provide outsized returns and help to those who have ownership in return for future ownership. And all you have to do is start talking to the people who own these small businesses about this.

If I come in, I help you operationalize the business, I take away some of your pain points in the business, can I get a percentage of it, which is called sweat equity or expertise to equity. You could also have the seller finance the deal for you. Seller financing. Happens all the time in real estate. 60% of all businesses are sold with some percentage of seller financing. And so this is actually just a normalized thing

that is not easy, but is common. Bathwater method, that's what it is, right? So bathwater method, I found this to be true too. Like I always like to say, well, I bought a lot of these businesses. To be candid, a lot of them that I've ended up acquiring required zero capital because the person was just so fatigued.

They didn't get it sold. I'll let you talk to it because you're better than I am. But this is really important for a lot of you that are going, I'd like a second lane. Maybe I'd like, it might even be a side hustle, small business, but also a transition out is a lot of people have their business for sale for a while. I love how you term this.

So I'll let you say it, not me, but I have waited on people long enough where they're just like, look, I'm selling it because I don't want to do it anymore. I thought I could get some capital for it. I can't now. Could we work something out where I can just stop please? Right? Right. What's the bath water method? Yeah, so the bath water method is basically this. As a business

owner, a lot of times you get to a point where you can't take it anymore. A lot of pain in the business. What do you do in that point? You throw the baby out with the bath water, right? And so there's still there is bath water, it's hot, you don't want to sit in it anymore, there's also kind of something precious in there. And this happens all the time with businesses. And so the idea is, how do you connect those bath water owners with potential bath water sellers? And I haven't figured that out yet, except talking about it. We're going to work on that. Yeah, they're all around.

And so for instance, there's this one, actually I've never told this one. It's a very particular story. There was a company called StrikeFire Productions and it was a small podcast production company. Like what might produce yours if we weren't in your own studio, right? Somebody's got to shoot it. Somebody's got to edit it. Somebody's got to upload it. I use one of these for my podcast. We use two too, yeah. Yeah. Anyway, so I pay them, I don't know, let's call it 5K a month. That's what I used to pay back in the day when one of our portfolio companies had a podcast. This guy, Jonathan, who ran it was operationally great. He loved all the particulars of it. I remember one day he looked kind of stressed and I was like, Jonathan, what's going on, man? How are doing? He's like, ah, I hate sales.

I hate selling these people. I hate falling up with them so much. I'm like, hmm, do you need more sales? Do you have more capacity, but you need more sales? He's like, yes, I do. I'm like, perfect. Why don't you let me earn in to like 49% of the company just through me bringing you referrals?

And if I bring you enough referrals to cover double the revenue of what you have right now, you basically give me 49% of the company, but you make double what you're making right now. And he was like, that sounds great. And then I took the company. And in that instance, you wouldn't even have to do it. I think I gave him 10k, like just as like a, hey, I'm here.

I'm in it with you. It was a small company making a couple hundred K. So we doubled the company. And then I just cash flows off of it because it's recurring revenue. Yes. So that exists all around. It does. See, this is why there's a unique podcast today because, you know, a lot of times you get this now too, because of your brand and what you know and your connections, your

relationships, you and I get offered to get equity in companies we don't have to give capital to because we bring a value add. The value add. And I wish somebody would whisper to me when I was younger and said, you know, you have value ads as well. Younger get equity for that value add, as opposed to just compensation. Not enough of you are thinking right now about the thing you could bring to a small business that could let you get equity. Maybe you don't end up with all of it.

Maybe you're up with 49 percent of it or 25% of it. But I now to the point, even athletes that I work with, you and I were talking about some of the athletes that I work with and the principle overall that I wanna get across before we keep shifting today is, you need to start to think like owners everybody and equity and things and not just being paid for services. This is the shift that I think you could bring

to the world that you've started to bring, but overall more ownership, more equity for the value you bring everyone. So like a lot of the athletes I work with, they'll get an endorsement with Monster Energy or so and so, or a tequila company. And I've told the right ones early, I said, listen, take less cash from them and ask for a piece of it.

Because if these things hit, you're wealthy, end up with a portfolio of it because if these things hit, you're wealthy. End up with a portfolio of a few of these things. All you need is one of them to happen. And not enough of you that are in midlife that have skills and talents or young people that have something you've graduated with, look for equity for the value that you bring. Now, in terms of the type of businesses, I like this like, she has all these sayings that you remember. So tell them what the sexy boring matrix means. This is really, really good. Yeah. Well, essentially, if you think about it, it's a graph where on the left-hand side of the graph, you have what I call boring businesses. How do I define a boring business? A boring business

has no mode around it, no particular technology, no words proprietary. It's things like landscaping, roofing, et cetera. On the right-hand side, you have sexy businesses. This might be like SaaS companies or I want to be a celebrity. There are the things that actually, if you look at the average income in a sexy industry, it's about two-thirds less than a boring industry. So the average income, for instance, I'm sorry, median, not average. The median income in a sexy business, aka marketing for Hollywood celebrities is like $37,000 a year. And the median income for a welder is like $78,000 per year. right? And then on the upper hand,

you're looking at the return of not just a salary, but the total valuation you can get in the industry. And so the long story short is, the sexier the business, the less money you make on average. Yeah. The more boring the business, the more money you make on average.

And so, you know, when I was looking at things to do. So good. I think you can have sexy surrounding boring, right? People consider what we're doing right now sexy. Right. Cool, you get on stages, you do that, that's sexy. Yeah, but that's not where most of our wealth is made. Most of our wealth is made from taking those ideas

and applying them to boring businesses. I'm looking right now, I should be careful, this will probably come out after I've decided, but I'm looking right now at acquiring a plumbing company. Oh, yeah, well, I'm looking right now, I should be careful, this will probably come out after I've decided, but I'm looking right now at acquiring a plumbing company. Oh yeah, well, I'm here for you, tell me. I hope it's a big one. It is relatively big, and where I got the idea from was, this is interesting, I was talking to somebody

at a restaurant, they followed my content, we ended up talking, this guy's like, he changed my life. I was in the construction business, I was a roofer, which made me think about what you were saying. I was a roofer, and I started think about what you're saying. I was a roofer. And I started following your stuff, ended up acquiring a plumbing company. I said, Well, you don't have any background in plumbing. He said, No, but I do in construction. So I sort of

affiliated knowledge. And I think that's important when we're talking today that you don't think too linear, everybody that you have to have a specific background in a business. I do think don't you think some correlated knowledge, though, like, this guy was in construction, he knows about subs, he knows about contract, he's got a general understanding of plumbing, but he's not a plumber by trade.

So what about that? Like if you're, give someone counsel about the lane they should go in. Should they have some sort of correlated background or knowledge do you think, or that doesn't matter at all, if the business cash flows and you know how to run a business who cares what industry it's in? Well I would take grit and competency in continuing past the point of comfort over just about anything because I think most business are a widget business so like every single business has

marketing you know sales product finance admin operations yes every single business has marketing, sales, product, finance, admin, operations. Every single business. Now I run some HVAC businesses. I have a franchise business. Do I actually know how to do the painting? Do I know how to do the fixing of air conditioners? Absolutely not. But I do have a core competency to be

able to find humans who can solve problems for me. So I guess, is it easier if I was going to acquire a plumbing company if I knew plumbing? Maybe. But I think the core thing might be, do you actually understand the six main competencies of business? Which are?

That is the finance sales marketing admin operations and product. And if you understand those, then I think you could apply that to almost any business plus like a willingness to do it past the point of, of comfort. So, Hey guys, as you know, I've partnered up with my good friend, Brennan Bruchardt, who's created the greatest personal development system that has ever been designed called growth day. There's everything from journaling to accountability programs,

live messages every Monday from myself and other influencers. There's an opportunity for you to get courses that would cost thousands of dollars completely for free. It's incredible. Go to growthday.com forward slash ed and check it out. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp and I'm grateful that it is. I gotta tell you, you know, I get asked all the time, what's the one thing that most of the guests that have been on this show have in common? I can tell you, they're all from different backgrounds. Some of them are tall, some of them are short, some of them are from the US, some of them are from abroad, different ethnic backgrounds, religious backgrounds, you name it.

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Plus, at these prices prices you're burning rubber not cash. Keep your ride or die alive at ebaymotors.com. Eligible items only, exclusions apply, see ebaymotors.com. Well that's, let's go there because you're going where I wanted to go. So theoretical business sounds really, really good. Day-to-day business, if we're really being candid, we sort of share, I'll call it like a misery amongst company almost to some extent.

Like when you meet another real business owner, I think the stuff online is really good or kind of, you know, you hear certain conversations. But most of my conversations with real operators or real business owners is most of the time dealing with the emotional burden of the stress of it. And I don't think that part of it's, Andy and I talk about that a lot, for Sola and I. What about that?

The real of business, how much of it day to day, even today, the last week for you, is like, woo, this is bliss and joy. And we're making deals, and I'm closing, and I'm a deal maker, and we're growing, and top line's awesome, and the bottom line's good too. What is it really like? Really, really.

Yeah, well, I think, there was a line from Michael Jordan that I loved, where he said, there is no I in team, but there is in win. And that always resonates with me, because when you are in charge of a business, when it's yours, there is an I in team because the only person at the end of the day that is on the line is you.

And so you have to work harder than everybody else, you have to work longer than everybody else for a period past which you want to, at least in the beginning. At some point, you get people that are more competent than you, but that really takes, that takes a long time. Long time. And so I do think, you know people that are more competent than you, but that really takes a long time. A long time. And so I do think that there will be a point in every business owner's life where you're

like, what am I doing with my life? And would you like to hire me, Ed? Yes. Yes. For sure. And if you want to know if this is true or not, go talk to a business owner. And if you want to cuddle up to them pretty quickly, say, I'm running a business right now, but it's definitely hard.

There are days when I might ask you for a job. How about you? And I guarantee you, no matter if they're a billionaire or not, they're going to say, oh yeah, I thought about that before. Never seriously, but that little twinkle. And so- And that's, by the way, why most businesses are buyable. Because you catch an entrepreneur on the right day or the wrong day. They may want to take an exit from it. I just, I always want people, like I'll ask you this, like who do you think should be an entrepreneur? Like if you were described the woman or the man that should be an entrepreneur, there's certain characteristics

that are invisible. They're not visible to people typically. What are some of those things, like for the real, real thing, what is it? Because by the way, one thing about you that I've noticed, I don't think it's talked about enough. Because then people think, well, then I can't do it. You're a very smart woman. You're very well read. So I'm not naturally intellectually bright, I'm not. But I've overcompensated for that

with really being well read. I read a lot. I've updated my knowledge base about a lot of different things so that I can have conversations and dialogue my knowledge base about a lot of different things so that I can have conversations and dialogue with people that do a lot of different things so that I'm valuable to them. And that's one trait, no one,

you have to have grit and resilience. Okay, yep, you do. I think that's been covered. What about like knowledge? Like real knowledge about business? Like I surround myself with attorneys and accountants, boring people, because I learn a lot from them and you're going to need them as an entrepreneur. So

what are your thoughts on all that? Well, that one, you know, for sure. I think if you want to make money, surround yourself with the people who understand money and people who understand money are attorneys, accountants, bankers, investment bankers, people who understand real estate like financial and financial advisors. Those are the people. If you hang out with enough of them, it's wild how contagious money can be. True.

I do think, though, that you're right on the well-read part. I was at a friend's ranch this weekend. Her name's Wink. And Wink. Wink. She's 85. She runs a ranch that is 30,000 acres. Some of it is government leased land in Arizona.

She had this line that was so incredible to me. I was talking to her, I'm like, Wink, you're like 85, you're on this horse, you're running this land. What's going on? I was talking about the fact that business was tough. She goes, well, at some point, it's that bootstrapping thing, right? I'm like, oh, yeah, it's that bootstrapping thing. And she goes, but, you know, we have a saying, because wolves are a problem here, where they are, they eat their cows. She's like, we got a saying about wolves. And I'm like, well, you're not allowed to shoot wolves,

Wink. Like, what do you mean you got a saying about wolves? And she goes, well, yeah, we know you're not allowed to shoot wolves. So we got the three S's. And I said, what are these three S's? And she goes, well, you, we know you're not allowed to shoot wolves. So we got the three S's. And I said, what are these three S's? And she goes, well, you shoot, you shovel, and you shut up. And she goes, and that's business. You shoot, you shovel, all the bullshit, all the nonsense, all the difficulty, and you shut up and you keep going. And so sometimes I remember those three S's and I think real business owners know that that's there. The last thing I'll say though is I think too many people tell other people that they can't be entrepreneurs and that actually bothers me because there are a bunch of people online like

Cody must be nice for you and Ed, you know, and like, you know, all these people aren't actually doing it. And I think, show me somebody who tells you that you shouldn't go become an entrepreneur because it's too hard for you. Fine, but watch what they do, not what they say. Are they an entrepreneur, but they think you can't do it? And I think for most people, there is an ability to have some ownership.

It does just suck sometimes, and you gotta deal with that. I do too. I'm amazed by how many people will take advice from somebody who's not successful in the area you're seeking the advice. Right. Meaning it doesn't mean they're a bad person or that they're unsuccessful.

They may be an incredible father or mother, but they're not an entrepreneur. They shouldn't be giving you advice on that. Or they're like an amazing person of faith, but they've never made any money. Why are you taking money advice from them? Or vice vice versa? Taking faith advice from someone who's got no faith just because they have a bunch of money. So I think the area, I think it'd be very rare, at least in my opinion, like I think most people can be an entrepreneur on some level if they find

the lane they want to be in. Do you think part of it is, maybe you don't because I think you look at these businesses as these kind of objects, the E-Myth, Michael Gerber has this great line in the E-Myth. You read the E-Myth before? Where he says, picture your business as if it's a product sitting on a shelf by itself. That's almost the way I look at your approach to things. These are different products that you can acquire.

Do you think that you, is there one particular characteristic though that you go, that's the thing for an entrepreneur. They got to have that or chances are they're going to lose. Yeah. Well, I think the high level entrepreneurs, they have one thing and that's if you go to hire them. For instance, we started a company called Biz Scout and I bought, I bought the company and I'm scaling it. We put a bunch of money into it, we raised some money for it. And I had to go find a CEO for this company. And I interviewed all

these people. And the thing that always tells me if the person is going to be an entrepreneur, eventually, is will somebody follow you. And so when I interviewed him, he was great, said all the right things, former athlete kind of check, check, check, I like former high performance athletes. I like people have been sales and marketing before because they eat a lot of shit. I like people that have led technical teams and done sales and marketing because it means they can do both sides of the business. He had all of that. But when I said, hey, Bobby, I don't know how much

money we're going to have in order to run this thing to start. So I don't know if we're going to be able to bring all your people. So I'm negative framing. I don't know if we're going to be able to bring all your people. So I'm negative framing. I don't know if we're going to be able to bring all your people. Like what people would you absolutely need to bring, you know, or not. So I'm not doing a leading question like, well, who would you bring along with you? Which if they're smart at all, they're going to go, Oh yeah, I got a few people. I'm negative framing saying maybe you can bring nobody. And he's like, we have to bring Danielle. She'll follow me. We have to bring this guy and this guy. I'll take a salary decrease. And I go, Oh, that guy's going

to win because other people who already to bring this guy and this guy. I'll take a salary decrease and I go, oh, that guy's gonna win. Because other people who already have worked with him will follow him. Very good. And so I think that's like, can you lead people? Will they follow you? And if so, I think you might be able to be a high level entrepreneur.

That's really good. What about fatigue? Do you suffer with that? And if you do, I'm talking about, for me, it is more mental than physical most of the time. Do you suffer from that? And is there anything you do to recharge or ward it off before it hits you? Yeah. I don't get tired so much. I can work a lot and very late. I get mad and annoyed at how much I'm getting mad about something and that can fatigue me a little bit.

It's almost like emotional annoyance fatigue. Yeah. And he's gonna hate that I say this, but I've kind of become friends with Tim Grover. Yeah. And so I just hope he never watches this, but. He will. Oh no.

He will, actually. Oh no. But you know, but I listened to winning and relentless. Okay, like I go back. Why would you not want him to know that? Because I think winners shouldn't have to listen to that shit. Actually. That's what he's gonna tell me is gonna be like, become so hard, you don't have to listen to my shit anymore. I don't say yet, Tim, you're right. But I listened to it because if the greats struggled, then it's totally normal to struggle. And what's not normal is to expect that I wouldn't struggle if all of these others did too.

And so there was, I remember one of our best managers at one of the other companies that I had, he said he was struggling, he was fatiguing, the team wasn't doing what he wanted them to do. And he said, listen, some people just, some people hope that things happen. Some people wish that things happen. And some people, some very few people actually make it happen. And he's like, you have to fill a team with more make it happeners. Those are the special people. They will things to happen. That's exactly right. There are just certain people that when you get around them, you have a sense my life's gonna change,

we're gonna win, everything's gonna be okay. I can actually picture the very handful of people in my entire career. Maybe it's two hands where they will things to happen. Like legitimately, I'm talking about leaders of businesses I've been in. I know what you're referring to is people in your team that can make things happen. You give them something, they run, it's even better than you think. But you're a million percent right. There are just certain people that will things to happen. Where should someone be looking to buy a business? Are there places that they should go? If someone's listening, they go, okay, I wasn't interested at all. Now I'm going to start looking. Where would they look? Yeah. Well, the two things. One, we're launching something,

so stay tuned. I'll have to tell you about it. But this is my billion dollar bet. We'll see what happens. But there's so many places now. There's BizBuySell, there's LoopNet, there's Flipa, there's e-commerce flippers. Online sites for buying businesses are sort of like going into Ikea without a list, right? You're just like, whoa, there's a lot of stuff in here and a lot of it's trash. And it turns out the second that you buy the thing, you realize that you also bought a secondary job because you ever tried to put anything together from IKEA, it's a nightmare. And so we're trying to figure out how to make that a little bit easier. I think the real way to buy businesses right now though is what I call your center of influence

or your personal P&L review, which is probably how you've bought them before. You're like, huh, I have a big expense at this business. Plus I'm driving these people millions or hundreds of thousands, or if you're smaller, thousands of dollars a year or month. What if I just like asked to acquire part of that business or what if I acquired that business

and turned that cost center into a profit center? Is there a lane you'd avoid? Are there businesses you just, this is just not a lane I'd go into? And is there one or two where you're like, you should be looking there? There are many businesses I hate. Couple businesses I hate off the top of my head.

Restaurants. Me too. Huge failure rate. Yeah, terrible. I mean, have you guys ever been employed by a restaurant? Remember what an idiot you were? I was an idiot when I worked at a restaurant. Yeah. Whole enchilada.

Yeah. Not great. Hotels. 24-7 service. Really hard to do. I would invest in an entity that invested in a ton of hotels. Never just one individual hotel. It's also real estate masquerading as a business.

Third, or drop shipping, Amazon, FBA, anything a 22-year-old is trying to sell you online, I stay out of those. And that's because at the drop of a hat, Bezos can compete with you. They have all your data, and so does China probably. And so I don't want to have to compete with a bunch of dupe knockoffs. Number four, for me in particular, I don't buy anything that has a single point of failure in a person.

So oftentimes consulting businesses, really tough to buy. And then probably the last type of business that I wouldn't buy overall is I don't like businesses that have, I don't like businesses that have platform risk, not dissimilar to Amazon FBA, but if you sell only on Instagram, if you sell only through some third party site like Shopify, I'm really careful about that. Now, don't get me wrong. People have made billions on this. And the Hyatt and Hilton family and all of that

would laugh me out of the room. But it's just harder for the average person. This is such a good interview. I mean, this is stuff, I don't know, we've never covered 99% of this on the show before. The other thing is you talk a lot about, this is just so good, I wanna keep going through your brain. You talk a lot about setting goals are okay,

but you want people to set what instead? Sacrifices. Tell me, don't tell me what you want, tell me what you're willing to do to get it. And that's something I hold myself to as well. Just, I don't write goal lists. I literally, my husband and I, we do it quarterly and annually is the big one where we basically sit down and we say, here's all the things we want. What are all the things we're

going to have to give up to get it? And so, you know, this quarter we had one business with a lot of issues in it. And so we had a big plan that every year we go to Bonnaroo, which is where we met and where I got engaged. And I was like, this year, I'm like, babe, nope, we're not doing it. Now, could I go to, of course, can I afford it? Can I have the time? And I said, no, we're sacrificing this. Cause I do think that the universe like signals.

And when you say, I'm serious, I'm going to fix this. And I am focused on it as opposed to, you know, a beautiful set of distractions, things change. Travel Credit. Squeezing every drop out of the last day? How about a 4 p.m. late checkout? Just need a nice place to settle in? Enjoy your room upgrade. Wherever you go, we'll go together. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash ymx.

Benefits vary by card, terms apply. Also distractions, by the way, I'm the same way. One thing about entrepreneurs that does surprise me, and I don't mean to sound joyless in doing it, I'm amazed by how many vacations they take compared to the ones that I know. In other words, the ones that I know, that you and I both know mutually,

I vacation, but it's hard to get me to do it. And I feel like, I just don't like leaving for too long because I lose momentum. I certainly haven't taken a lot of long vacations in my life. I like two or three type day ones just because I just the distance in the momentum or whatever it is and maybe you go, well, that's because you haven't hired great people around you. Potentially that's true, but I'm amazed by the long breaks I see so many successful entrepreneurs take and I'm like, I don't know many personally

that are that successful, that are on vacation every other month. Now I know a lot of people listen to this and go, that's cause you haven't figured it out, man. You gotta have systems, you gotta have people in place. I got systems, I got people in place. I'm also a business owner and I know what that's like. I'm just curious.

And by the way, completely feel free to disagree with me on that if you disagree. But what are your thoughts on that? I think it's, you know, everything is about what you want out of life. And a lot of people are okay with, not that a lot of people are OK, a lot of people are thrilled with hanging out at every softball game with the kids,

like my dad did, which is incredible, in being around family and in not being a billionaire. Totally agree with that. Which is beautiful. I'm on board for it. I am a psychopath that wants to be a multi-multi-billionaire. Why? I'm not really sure. I think it's fun right now. Maybe at some point I'll change that. And it's not really for ego. I don't really buy anything fancy. I'm not like, I have a nice watch.

I kind of like clothes, but I just like the game. I like the game. And so I think for those people, how I see them is like, oh, okay, you're just, you're at this level. Like you want to stay a level four? That's awesome. But now I know you're just, you're at this level. Like you want to stay a level four. That's awesome. But now I know you're a level four entrepreneur. Yeah. And I don't partner with level four entrepreneurs. I help level four entrepreneurs.

I support you. I, I, you know, I hope you find joy and help in the things that we do, but I don't partner with you and every time I've broken that rule and haven't dug deep enough, it's where I fucked up and I've gotten into a bad partnership. Yeah. You know, I want to make sure that my audience knows I completely agree with that, by the way. And I've changed.

As I've gotten older, I'm probably less that intense person in the sense that I am now more appreciative of the time. And I have such admiration for people who whatever it is you want in your life, you get that. To me, a happy life is show, whatever it is you want in your life, you get that. To me, a happy life is, show me your blueprint for your life and if you're living it, you're successful. Whatever that is. And as I've gotten older, my blueprint has changed

where I want more time, I want more of those other things. I think your audience knows that. I hope so, I wanna make sure that I'm clear on that. Having said that, a lot of you that are early stage entrepreneurs, which is what I meant earlier, taking off as trying to get the plane off the ground, is it takes a lot of force to get it in the air. Once it's in the air, it's much easier to be at a cruising altitude to some extent.

But I just see so many that I think they think it's at cruising altitude, and it's still in the liftoff phase, I guess is the best way to say it. And it's like, man, you're letting off the accelerator an awful lot in the takeoff phase. Whereas you gotta be careful because that's what you see on social media. It looks like everyone's in Barbados, everyone's in Cannes,

everyone's in St. Barts. That's not where I was when this thing was in the liftoff phase. And the truth is, I'm not even there now most of the time. One little hack, because you're here today, for those of you like, yeah, but I want to have a great life. I would say to you, and I know this is contrary to what they say online, but at some point,

have a home that feels like you're on vacation when you're an entrepreneur. 100%. So that my homes are where I feel like I'm living on vacation so that I don't have to go somewhere all the time. So I kind of live on vacation and yet work on that vacation all the time. So I kind of like live on vacation and yet work on that vacation all the time.

That's sort of the medium place for those of you that want to live a dream anyway. Actually, it's brilliant because we do the same thing. We'll go for, you know, we have a place in another state and we go and stay there for like two or three months. But I got everything set up. Yes. No different from my office and my other place.

And I think that's really, really powerful. Yeah. And so there's a power of place. There's a power of routine. And I think that's really, really powerful. So there's a power of place, there's a power of routine, and I think as often as you can stay inside of that is your higher likelihood to succeed. But I also think it's, I mean, people don't really need more people telling them that you're OK, you're perfect the way you are, you

don't need to change anything, you can go slower. There's enough of that online. You think so? Yeah, I think like go on Instagram and have people tell you that working's bad, capitalism's awful, money's bad, and you don't need to work that hard to achieve what you want. And universal basic income is around the corner.

I think there's plenty of that. I think actually more people need, hey, it sucks. It's worth it. It's not going to be easy. But then after you have achieved what you wanted out of life, other people can't assert their will as easily on you. That's a fact. It's interesting. I've had this philosophical discussion because I wasn't, I was at most games, but I wasn't the dad who coached the teams. And there was a part of me as I was coming up and even in like when, you know, I wish I had done that. Ironically, I'm now at

this age now where the guys who coach the teams, they are grateful they did it, but there's a part of them that's like, now I'm 55 and I'm scared because I'm not financially equipped. I am at risk. I can't care for my parents like they need right now and my family. And so you have to be careful with those choices that you make all the time.

I mean, it is great to applaud the person who's there all the time and that's a great life. Every sacrifice has a choice. To go back to the sacrifice thing, don't you think it's important what you said? I want to just build off of it and have you elaborate on it. I think you need to decide that sacrifice thing in advance. I think what most entrepreneurs do or just humans, they don't negotiate the price tag in advance and then while they're going through the effort of doing it, they're expanding and expending all this energy on the internal negotiation. Is it worth it? Oh my gosh, it's costing me this. I didn't know it was going to be that. I think there's brilliance in what you said about on the front end deciding as a family,

as a couple or as an individual, this is the price I'm willing to pay so that you don't spend all this mental gymnastics negotiating it constantly. That's actually, I love that line. You should negotiate the price tag of your sacrifice ahead of time. Brilliant. I learned this from my husband in a lot of ways. He is former military ex-Navy SEAL. And so watching him is really interesting because he's so regimented on so many things, because he understands that the most important thing you do as an AVCL is not shoot or, you know, fight people, it's it's you make decisions. Your most important weapon is your brain

and your ability for that to not fatigue. And so decision fatigue is the biggest enemy in warfare. It's I have to make so many rapid decisions, that I need to have a lot of capacity for the important ones and the understanding of when it is important and when is it not. So what does he do? He just doesn't negotiate normalcy. So every single day he gets up, he eats the same thing. He does his workout the same way every single day. Workouts are a habit.

They are not an option. As many times as possible, he makes the normal things habitual. And then he gets to have lots of fun and spontaneity around it, but he doesn't allow for decision fatigue. And so I've learned a lot from him on that. What I've learned from you is a lot about the market, particularly like understanding the trends.

Like you talk a lot lately about kind of the baby boomer. So there's this big wealth transition with them as well, but there's a career transition. There's a knee. You trend, you look at business I've found, like you look at the explosion of Harley Davidson, for example, when it exploded. Why?

All these baby boomers wanted that kind of wild lifestyle. You look at the explosion of fast food or diapers. They were all having babies at that time, then their kids needed to have fast food. So if you trend this group of people, even though there's these other markets, but kind of booming industries follow these folks. So what are your thoughts about that generation in terms of looking at businesses or any of the other generations? And is that a is

that something you look at? Oh, yeah. I mean, it's the wealth transfer that we're happening right now is something that I have never seen numerically before. Never happened before. The only time we have seen such a massive shift in wealth was one we couldn't predict, which was the industrial revolution. We couldn't actually predict what that was mean because we were creating it. What's the difference between then and now? Well, now we can predict what that wealth is worth because it exists. Here's the problem. There's something like $68 trillion worth of wealth to be transferred. And yet of that $60 plus trillion, we think, well, what does that mean? Grandma's going to pass me down some cash. Uh-uh. Because the assets are actually sitting inside of businesses.

And so the wealth transfer, they'll only be about somewhere from numbers very five to 10% of the wealth will transfer down to most people. Five to 10%, the rest of it eviscerates. And why? Because people are living longer, because people are rolling down their businesses, not passing the business forward, because people are reverse mortgaging into their houses

in order to deal with the fact that the cost of living for getting older is increasing and their savings haven't increased. The average business owner has 90% of their wealth tied up in their business. You know you're right, keep going. That's right. In their business. So what does that mean?

That means, and the numbers track, right? 90% of wealth in the business, five to 10% of the wealth gets transferred outside of the business. So if we don't transfer the 90% by buying these businesses, it eviscerates. Totally different than the industrial revolution, which just allowed for more innovation. And so, you know, I think that it is the most important time ever to learn to become a dealmaker in some way, shape or form, Because when else are you going to have this sort of waterfall cascade effect?

Not easy, but numerically very likely. Oh my gosh. Of all the discussions I've had on that wealth transfer, I've never heard that statistic of the 5% or 10%. And I've never. I'll send you the link afterwards. Yeah. And I never even thought about the fact

that how much of their wealth is tied up in the businesses. Because that's totally true. Yeah. Wow. You said something about innovation earlier. I'm curious. It's such a wide ranging, cool conversation. But what are your thoughts about AI

and what's going to happen to all of us because of it or with it or nothing? Well, what's interesting is my husband co-runs the Defense Innovation Units, which is a part of the Department of Defense's commercial AIits, which is a part of the Department of Defense's commercial AI portfolio, which basically means that he looks at how all of the AI companies that exist could apply to the defense of the United States. And so he's ran two AI companies, has another one right now called Nomadic that helps determine where refugee and homeless encampments are in order to properly track them.

And so when it comes to AI, I always usually revert to him because I know a lot about automats and car washes and nothing about robots. But one thing I do find fascinating about AI is look what it's done, which makes all the sense in the world. It has capitalized on non-government entrenched, non-super lobbyist intensive, non-regulated industries first. Why? Is that because AI is better off drawing and writing

than doing anything else? No, it's because the attorneys and the financiers are going to fight AI coming in and taking away their jobs first, right? But who's not? The fucking artists. And so they've, you know, so what I see that, what I see is we need to change the way that we think about labor. We thought the robots would take over plumbing.

And in fact, that's very hard to do. They're gonna take over copywriting because all that is is data analysis. And so I think that boring businesses actually have an even bigger place when it comes to AI because it's very hard to create real life hardware robots to re-roof your house. It's not hard to write a great tweet.

Wow. Wow. What do you OK? OK, I'm processing that because that is exactly how it's happened. It also gives you kind of a point of direction of where to go in terms of businesses you would acquire. I'm gonna ask you certain demos, just advice you would give.

What advice would you give to a 25-year-old right now or your 25-year-old self? Just overall business life advice. I'm gonna go through three or four demos with you. Yeah, one would be, I think success is contagious. So you want to get around people whose dream day is your Tuesday. So because then it's just more likely that you will succeed if you are around other people who succeed, which is there's all these studies that show if you hang around other people

who are fat, you have a higher likelihood to be fat. If you hang around with other people who have a six pack, you have a higher likelihood to get a six pack, you have a higher likelihood to get a six pack, which is wild. And that's just because behavior is habitual and humans learn from mimicry or imitation. And so I think the most important thing you could do is that old, you are the average of the five people

you surround yourself with from, I think that's Jim Rohn, right? I think so too. So I would say first it's Cody, stop getting in the wrong rooms. Like get into a room like Arate. Get into a room with other people who are winning. That's one.

The easiest thing to change in life, I always think you have a who issue, not a how issue. I rarely know the how. I often can find the right who to solve my problems. That's easy to say, really hard to do, nobody takes that advice. And then the second thing I would say is I want to learn. I'm obsessed with freedom. I just don't like to be told what to do. I'm like unemployable. I don't want to have to do something I don't want to have to do. And so how do you protect yourself best against other people's

pushback? In this world, it's money. Money allows you to have more freedom and more optionality. So if I like freedom and I don't like to be told what to do, I wanna figure out how could I have more money because money is just optionality. And so if that's me, I think that if you want more money, you better understand money. How do you understand money?

You go and learn investing, you learn deal making, you learn finance, because unless you can speak the language of money, she's not going to talk to you. And so that's what I would obsess on. Even though young Cody was told that I was terrible at math and that my math professor at the time, God, I can still picture his face. I remember him in high school saying that I would have Helen Keller would have a better shot at winning an archery contest than I would killing into finance. I hope he's watching. That's awesome.

And he wasn't wrong. I'm not great at it. But I just wanted to understand it. 18-year-old, should they go to college? So they go work for somebody? Should they start a business? I know. I don't think you should start a business at 18 typically.

Like you can barely handle like normal decisions like, you know, should I drink and drive? At least if you're anything like me. So I probably wouldn't start a business immediately, but man, college is fun, but I'm not sure the ROI is there anymore. I think if you want to go learn business, the best business school is business.

So go and work for other people if you are willing to do the gritty, hard, impossible thing of entrepreneurship. It's still true in our society that people are looked down upon by not having a college degree. And the more prestigious your college degree, the more educated people think you are. So if you can get into Harvard or Stanford or wherever,

I can see why you would still want to do that. But in my opinion, your ROI is not going to be there as much as you're credentializing and trying to get other people to feel like you're worthy. So asking yourself that question. I think some of those, that's the hardest one. And I don't know the answer. My answer has been landing lately, similarly to yours.

Some of that Stanford-Harvard thing, you do inherit an alumni of relationships and connections. And to your point earlier about who you know more than the what, you are going to end up being connected at some of these really exclusive places, potentially. But they become kind of a breeding ground for non-capitalistic thinking and some other things as well. So it's really a difficult.

Did you go to a fancy college? I didn't. I went to college. I went to college. I went to play baseball, really. And I'm glad that I, in my case, to be honest with you, I don't even know where my degree is, and I didn't even go to graduation. I didn't even walk.

And I regret it because Maya Angelou actually gave the address and I wish I would have gone. I didn't know it was going to be here. Having said that though, I've never utilized my degree, but I took an entrepreneurial path. I have two kids that are both in college and when I add up the expenses and I put that in an account for them and they did go to work for me or an entrepreneur and then the return on that money, to your point, it's really a difficult decision. Then looking forward, the data more and more shows that on that money, to your point, it's really a difficult decision. And then looking forward, the data more and more shows that there's not a gigantic income disparity that income disparity is shrinking rather, between the college graduate and the non college graduate. So I just

don't know. And your point about being young, and not making decisions is a part of me that thinks that there's a breeding ground there to mature a little bit. I really don't know. It's why I asked. Yeah, I haven't asked that many people. But I wanted to ask you. I feel the same way. I'm conflicted about it still. I do think that apprenticeship is hugely underrated. And if all you do is go to college, that's probably a missed opportunity. I think there's a huge opportunity to learn, have fun, socialize, let your prefrontal cortex develop, and then simultaneously apprentice under somebody else. Even though, I know, I think

almost you can like follow the things the government makes illegal and that's how you know they might be good for you these days, which is like, you know, you're not allowed to have unpaid internships. And the truth of the matter is, interns really aren't worth much. They're a lot of work. It's like a charity. You're right. And so- That would be my number one advice for you, you just said. If you could find that Chinese proverb,

if you want to know the road ahead, ask those coming back. If when you're young, you can get a close association with a very successful person, potentially in an industry you want to be in, that is so valuable to be under their mentorship. And it is a lot of work for them. Yeah. It is a lot of work.

You're exactly right. It's a blessing if you get it. Okay, one more demo. I'll call it moms, but say single mom. She's 30 years old today. Or maybe she's, her husband's got a job, but we'll just take mom, a couple kids at home, and maybe potentially going, I wanna create something.

I wanna control my time and my destiny and my future. I wanna provide for my children in a way that potentially my current career isn't or won't. I know this is a really hard question, but they're sitting there, they're busy too, right? That mom is busy. She's got work, she's got a couple of kids. She's got a social life.

She's got the kids social life and their games and their sports. The same time, she doesn't want to wake up at 50 years old and regret not trying to do something in addition, if she so chooses to do something in addition, because that's a pretty damn full life in and of itself. But if there's a part of her listening to it going, I want something else or more, what would you say to her?

I would say, first of all, you're perfectly capable and you can do it. I think a lot of times when you get out of practice at a all, you're perfectly capable and you can do it. I think a lot of times when you get out of practice at a thing, you don't immediately think you can go back and run the marathon at the same speed that you used to. And so, let's be real. If you've been out of the game for a little bit and you're not working and you've been home with the kids, you got to train, which means that you're going to have to go work in a job that's probably not at the level that you want to and work harder at it than you think for a while. And that's one thing I've seen with people who get out of the workforce. I had a family member that got out of the workforce for a long time, your world shrinks. You know, you start focusing on on different things, you're not at the speed as everybody else at you're not at the same tech speed that everybody else adds. So that's the hard truth is it's going to be a little hard. The wild thing though is if you apply yourself for a year working pretty hard in a career again, I think you can turn it around. Goldman Sachs has a re-entrance program for moms who left the

workforce and want to come back. That's really good. The second thing that I would say for those working moms, so we have an institute where we teach people to buy small businesses. And we put 3,000 people through. And I'm pretty data-based, so I like to analyze who succeeds, who doesn't, what happens. One trend I've noticed, women don't negotiate as well as men. Categorically, they have a harder time negotiating. A lot of times when you go to buy a business, at the end, the seller's like, oh, well, this extra thing or like, let's throw this in or I didn't realize that. Women give a lot more on those. So if I was going to tell women to go learn one skill, it would be negotiation. Go try to figure out how to negotiate more salary in the job you have

right now. Go try to figure out how to get a higher paid job than you do right now. And you need to get that negotiation muscle going up. Because you guys learn from a young age how to do it as guys. You're always giving each other shit. You're kind of mean to each other. You get used to that. You get used to rejection because you're going up to women. And they're telling you to pound sand.

We don't have any of that as women. And so we have to build up that negotiation muscle. And that's one of the biggest weaknesses I've seen in a lot of women who go to buy businesses. So I would obsess on that. And then you can be exemplar at it. You just don't have as many reps as guys do typically. Your work's so brilliant. By the way, I want to say one thing. I don't think I would be here in my case if my mom wasn't a stay-at-home mom. I just want to make sure that I say that

because I came from somewhat of a dysfunctional family with my dad being an alcoholic. And so the most important thing my mother did for our family was be there for me, raise me, care for me. When I came home from school, it was my mom who got my report card. So those of you that are moms that are doing that and that fulfills you, that is the most awesome thing in the world.

I am the son of a stay at home mom. And I can tell you assuredly based on where my dad was at in my upbringing that if my mom wasn't home at least in my case I don't think I would be where I am today so that's one of the things that's really more difficult as you say for women than men is like are you am I supposed to want more and if I do should I feel guilty if I want more if I don't am I not striving to grow and be better and And whatever works for you and is right for you is the answer, by the way. Speaking of that.

Did she find something? One thing I see with my generation, I'm 37. I see a lot of my friends who stayed home with their kids. Now the kids are kind of growing up a little bit. They don't need them as much. And I've seen a trend where now they want, whether that's societally based or not, they want something that's theirs,

not necessarily work or otherwise. But did she have that? No. And by the way, I think I always wanted that for my mom after the kids were gone. Now, ironically, since my dad passed away, I think she's become a much more independent person. I think that generation, to some extent, know, it was a very traditional relationship.

You know, my dad was the man of the house he provided. And yet my mom was the stability in a very unstable environment. I have three sisters and a mom. I think it's why most of my best friends in this space are the women in the space. And I think it's because I had such a stabilizing factor with my mom in my life,

we would not have had a family without my mom. And so, but no, I wished that for my mom as we had left. I was looking for that for my mom, but my mom has actually since I think found it since my dad passed away, but that was awfully late in life. Great question. And it leads to my next one.

It's not really a business thing, it's just a life thing. But business is connected to it. Do you think you travel a lot? You're around a lot. And I do too. It just dawned on me this weekend, I was flying back and I was talking a bunch of different people. Do you think most people are happy? And if not, why not? No. And I have some unique insight into this lately, because I've become friends with a guy by the name Arthur Brooks. Do you know him? I do.

He wrote the book with Oprah, right? Yeah. You had him on your podcast? I think they were scheduled to be on, and I had to reschedule. OK. He's an incredible human. He's so good in polish.

You'll have to rattle him out of his polish a little bit. Shake him to get there. Because he's been doing this for so long. But I've known him for many years through the think tank. And what's fascinating is the studies tell us, no. But on average, in the US, we have two things happening to our happiness. We have what's like a climate effect, so 3% to 5%

decrease in happiness every single year. And then we have what is called a weather pattern effect in happiness, which would be like COVID, 15 percentage point drop in happiness during COVID that we have never recovered. And what's fascinating to me about the happiness epidemic is Arthur nails it. He talks about what drives happiness

because he runs the Happiness Institute at Harvard. And in his 30 years of research, it's basically very simple. It's faith, family, friends, and work that serves. Those four things in all of his research are what he has found leads to happiness. And yet what is under attack in this country? Faith, family, friends, and work that serves.

People say these days, you shouldn't have to work. I hate my job, I'm quiet quitting. Okay. People have the lowest level of faith that we've seen since the founding of the country. People on average, there are more than three times more people today that say that they have never had a deep conversation with another human than at any point in history, never in their whole lives. And that there's 30% of people that say that nobody knows them well, not one person truly knows them. And then we have obviously the fact that we have people getting married later, decrease of family and belief that the nuclear family is actually a bad thing. And so the good news is it's pretty easy to fix. If you want to

be happier, be a better friend because then you'll get better friends. If you wanna be happier, be better to your family, whether self-made or otherwise. If you wanna be happier, believe in something, whatever your faith might be. And if you wanna be happier, do work that you think is meaningful. Very good.

That's it. Really, really good. Yeah, I have this theory, I'll attach something to that. Just curious what you think about it. I think each soul, each human is born with a desire to express their being, express who they are. So like we talked about my mom, in my mom's case, I believe my mom's form of expression was through her family and serving her family and contributing to her family. She expressed her giftedness and her nurturing that way. I think for someone like you or I, it's the expression of our being through business. For me, business is an expression of me.

It's an art form and a science. So is my speaking. So was doing a podcast. It's a form of expression. I think about, it may sound odd, but I think someone like your husband, that's a Navy SEAL, one of the ways he expressed himself

is in being a defender of the country and a masculine person and standing for certain principles and standards and living a particular way. He's expressing himself, right? And, or an artist expresses themselves, a carpenter expresses themselves through the work that they do. So I think that happy people have found that form

of expression to some extent as well and unhappy people have this internal conflict of knowing they're an unexpressed being still and I feel strongly about that. I'm curious with you and I don't know if you've ever been asked this before. One, am I crazy about that theory and are you happy? Yeah, that's a good question. I think you're right. You're a very serious person. I am serious. Yes. I think you're right.

That tracks for me. I think that that seems reasonable that, I have a saying that I stole from Emma Bomback, which is when I stand before God at the end of my days, I hope I can say to him that I have not one drop of what you gave me left. I have squeezed it all. And it's sort of like that Hemingwayism,

I wanna slide into the pearly gates, bruised, beaten, and trodden, right? And so when you hear those lines, if you're alive, you feel it. You feel it, you feel the life. And I think when you feel those lines, when you get that tingle, that's when you know that it's truth.

And so I think you're right. I've never heard it as their unexp truth. And so I think you're right. I've never heard it as their unexpressed beans, but I think that is it. And that is why I'm really glad that there are people like you on the internet and why even though many times people like you and I don't want to do it anymore, because there's a lot of downsides to it, I think it's really important because people need to hear the anti-message today, which is that it is okay to strive for things. In fact, that may be what you're placed here to do. Not the newest Gucci bag or whatever, but to strive for what are you capable of? I want to know.

I want to know. Not every day. Sometimes I'm tired, but most days. So do I. And you talk about faith earlier. One, prayer is a form of want to know. Not every day. Some days I'm tired, but most days. Yeah. So do I. And you talked about faith earlier. One, prayer is a form of expression to me. And also prayer is a way of getting divine information about how that expression should take form in your life. And so that's why that part of our lives, for those of us that have it, is the most

important part of our life because we are aware of our mortality. I've said at the end of my life, I just want to make sure I maxed out my life. I want the Lord to go well done, good and faithful servant, get in here. But at the same time, I also want him to, I have this weird theory that he introduces you to who you could have been. Oh, yeah. And you meet her and you, you want to end up landing their identical twins. If you end up being complete strangers, that's hell.

This who you could have been, what you could have accomplished, all those other things. And heaven, some form of heaven is meeting her someday and going, I know you. I've been chasing you all my life. And she looks back at you and goes, you caught me. You did it. You maxed out, right?

I just, and by the way, one of the things I admire about you so much is I see a human being in pursuit of that. And like, I think like, real in pursuit of that. And like I think like real recognizes real in that sense, right? Like like minded people gravitate to one another. By the way, this is one of the best conversations we've ever had on the show. I agree. I'm learning so much.

I well, I don't know about that. I'm just trying to contribute to what you're saying. But let me ask you last. If someone's listening to this, because you're just such a, like a treasure of information about diverse topics, someone's sitting there just overall and they're like, this is a general question, but I know you'll give a great answer. I want to change my life. I listen to shows, I listen to my lead, I'm now watching you on social media, which they should be if they're not. And I really feel this desire to like change my life.

I want to express my being bigger and better and more specifically. What, where do I begin? Like I haven't been for so long. You've been at full speed since college. Let's just be honest. Yeah. Okay. Some of us is that's not been.

Yeah. And they're like, I'm waking up right now. I'm awakened. I'm excited and inspired. Do I go buy a business right now? We're like, what do I go do? What would you recommend I do to begin that process of change in my life? Make one big physical, almost irreversible change. And the reason why is I think the easiest thing to do is what? Is move your body. The easiest thing to do is decide to not put something in your mouth that you wanted to put in your mouth before. It's actually the physical stuff that's easy. The mental stuff is really

hard. And we talked about this before too. And so if I wanted to change my life, I would pick something that felt uncomfortable, but I knew I needed to change physically. So that might be move. Move out of your city right now. Move to a city where the game you want to play is being played. If you want to be in real estate, move to the city where you think you can learn that. If you want to be in media, come to Austin. Everybody in media is in Austin. But move physically. I think we did a study actually looking at traditionally successful people at the highest level. So let's say eight figure plus in net worth, if that's how we're going to define it.

How many of them had never left their hometown even to go to college? I could find one. One. And so, okay, maybe that's step one. Physically move yourself because that's hard to do and maybe step two is You know you do this physically work out to the point which is totally uncomfortable Because I do think our our mind follows our body Tony Robbins you so many people have told us this again and again and again And there is no excuse for not doing it

And so that would be the first thing that I would say, just make a big, huge commitment. And that's why I'm such a big fan of Andy Frisella. I mean, I had a, I had a, she's, I call her my cousin, but she's just a very dear family friend. And she lost like, I don't know, 100 pounds on his stuff. And we were yelling at her for years to try to do it. And when she decided to like make that one big irreversible change that she couldn't go back on, then her life completed a change. Then she found somebody she loved, then she found a business she really liked.

And so I don't teach health or fitness or I don't have a moving company, but I might choose one of those things. And then I think the money gets figured out. I think you're extraordinary. Oh, thank you. Seated my expectations. Oh, yay.

You guys already know this. I mean, I sought her out, pursued her, wasn't easy at first. I think it took me three messages maybe. I'm terrible at DMs. No, but it was great. And then she was gracious enough to come here in person, which I'm really glad we did. I always like in person.

It's my new thing that I don't want to go on other people's podcasts if they're not in person. Because if I don't want to make a commitment to have that conversation, then I'm not a it's a conversation I need to have at that moment. I'm grateful you made the commitment this was extraordinary today. Thank you. Yeah and when the book comes out I'll have you back on. Yeah 100 I would love that. Oh that'd be amazing. No no we're going to do that. Okay. You guys this was Cody Sanchez today she's incredible. Go follow her on social media that way you can just get all of her information and when her books come out and different things she's offering. She has a,

I just call it like a contrarian true approach to business and life that resonates with me and I'm pretty sure that it resonated with all of you guys. Share today's episode everybody, people need to hear this. So much great information today. I told you I'd want to take notes, listen to it again and write it down. Alright everybody, God bless you. Max out!