Speaker 1: If you don't understand money, you're never going to make
Speaker 1: more of it because understanding money is like speaking a language.
Speaker 1: How are you going to speak to somebody in Spanish
Speaker 1: and had communicate and win at that relationship if you
Speaker 1: guys don't speak the same language. So I want people
Speaker 1: to speak the language of money. Let me tell you,
Speaker 1: like one way to know if you're financially literate today,
Speaker 1: do you really understand the difference between debit and credit
Speaker 1: cards and why you should really never be using debit cards?
Speaker 2: The Number one Health and well Inness podcast.
Speaker 1: Jay Setti, Jay Shetty sly Set.
Speaker 2: Hey everyone, welcome back to on Purpose, the place you
Speaker 2: come to become the happier, healthier and more healed. Today's
Speaker 2: guest was one of your favorites of the last twelve months.
Speaker 2: Her episode blew up on audio, crushed it on video,
Speaker 2: and I'm so excited to have her back because the
Speaker 2: words you used to describe her were this is so practical,
Speaker 2: this is so simple, this is so easy. Thank you,
Speaker 2: thank you, thank you, thank you. That's all I saw
Speaker 2: in the comments. We had to bring her back, and
Speaker 2: we're so lucky that we could. I'm speaking about the one,
Speaker 2: the only Cody Sanchez, entrepreneur, investor, founder of Contrarian Thinking,
Speaker 2: a platform that helps people achieve financial freedom by acquiring
Speaker 2: overlooked cash flowing businesses. Formerly a journalist and Wall Street investor,
Speaker 2: Cody now leads a global community focused on ownership, unconventional investing,
Speaker 2: and thinking differently about money. Through her platforms, including the
Speaker 2: best selling book Main Street Millionaire. If you don't have
Speaker 2: a copy, go and grab one. Cody has built a
Speaker 2: community of over four million people, teaching them how to
Speaker 2: think critically, invest wisely, and own their financial future. Please
Speaker 2: welcome back to On Purpose, Cody Sanchez.
Speaker 1: I'm so excited to be here, Cody.
Speaker 2: It's great to have you back. And you know what's
Speaker 2: really fun is when you met someone, you hit it off,
Speaker 2: and then you're hanging out again. It just feels like
Speaker 2: normal and easy and how it I want to start
Speaker 2: with something that I think everything everyone's thinking about fascinated
Speaker 2: by it because a lot of us start to believe
Speaker 2: the media and we read articles, we see the news,
Speaker 2: we see headlines, and we assume that now is not
Speaker 2: a great time to make money, and we keep saying
Speaker 2: things like when the market's better, when the market shifts
Speaker 2: it's a terrible time to buy property. It's a terrible time.
Speaker 2: And the funny thing is that rhetoric just continues. So
Speaker 2: what should people think about right now when it comes
Speaker 2: to money.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, first I think you got to be honest
Speaker 1: about the fact there's heart out there and that it's real.
Speaker 1: Like all the things that you're feeling about money and
Speaker 1: finance right now are real. Wages have been the same
Speaker 1: really since you know, you and I were born. It
Speaker 1: hasn't really increased. Yeah, I mean, you know, if you
Speaker 1: go back and you go to let's say, back to
Speaker 1: Dave Ramsey's days, who is a friend and I think
Speaker 1: highly of. But if you go back to Dave Ramsey
Speaker 1: when Dave was working, he would tell you today that
Speaker 1: you should buy a house. That's the number one thing
Speaker 1: that you should do. You should own a house, you
Speaker 1: should own your property. Well, the problem with that today
Speaker 1: is that our wages have increased two x in his lifetime,
Speaker 1: but housing prices, well they've increased by nine x in
Speaker 1: his lifetime, and so you cannot really afford the same
Speaker 1: things that the previous generation thought of. Is totally normal,
Speaker 1: and so their construct might not work for our generation.
Speaker 1: So one I think it's important to realize that it
Speaker 1: is hard out there. Second though, is I think we
Speaker 1: got to go back to what Warren Buffett says, which
Speaker 1: is be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when
Speaker 1: others are fearful, and it's really hard to do. It
Speaker 1: hurts in our gut. But today, all around us, things
Speaker 1: are starting to go on sale, and what we have
Speaker 1: to try to do is figure out during this time period,
Speaker 1: how can I start to get a little piece of it.
Speaker 1: Housing prices in Austin are down thirty percent. This is
Speaker 1: really just since I bought a house a year ago,
Speaker 1: and so there is actually sales happening all around us,
Speaker 1: and I think we got to be prepared for it.
Speaker 1: But before we can buy things, we got to have
Speaker 1: enough money to do it, and we got we got
Speaker 1: to kind of know a little bit about money in
Speaker 1: order to make more of it. So I think we
Speaker 1: should talk about too. Yes it's hard right now, Yes
Speaker 1: things are in sale. You are not crazy, but you
Speaker 1: can make money in any market. And one of my
Speaker 1: favorite quotes from Baron Rothschild, one of the richest guys
Speaker 1: in the world, you know, creator of industry in the
Speaker 1: US is by when there's blood in the streets, even
Speaker 1: and especially when the blood is your own. And so
Speaker 1: that is a hard visual way to realize that actually
Speaker 1: real money is made when the market feels tough.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So actually, right now, even though the market is tough,
Speaker 2: we shouldn't be discouraged and waiting for the market to
Speaker 2: be good. This should be the time that we actually
Speaker 2: doubled down and listen to your advice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, think about it. I was looking at
Speaker 1: an NFT yesterday that was sold for sixty million dollars
Speaker 1: in the height of the NFT land. It is worth
Speaker 1: nineteen thousand dollars today, sixty million to nineteen thousand. It
Speaker 1: felt good during that time, didn't it. Everybody was like,
Speaker 1: we're making money, We've got all this extra stuff. But
Speaker 1: what actually happened is we bought things at overpriced assets
Speaker 1: and now we're left with assets that are underpriced. The
Speaker 1: opposite happens in this market. And so right now is
Speaker 1: the time I think to put up your little spider
Speaker 1: sense and start saying, well, everybody else is panicking, where
Speaker 1: can I start to make some smart moves? Because there's
Speaker 1: always money and opportunities, But definitely you want to buy
Speaker 1: when things are on sale.
Speaker 2: Should people even be dreaming or thinking about wanting to
Speaker 2: own a home anymore?
Speaker 1: I think that owning a home as an investment right
Speaker 1: now today is mathematically not a smart decision. For the
Speaker 1: first time in my lifetime, the numbers say that homes
Speaker 1: today will you have an interest rate of five to
Speaker 1: eight percent, You have a three million home shortage in
Speaker 1: the US, you have flat wages, and you have this
Speaker 1: increase of home prices. The math us is a math
Speaker 1: in and so today I don't think you should feel
Speaker 1: like you're not an adult, you don't live the American dream,
Speaker 1: you're a failure. If you don't buy a house. You
Speaker 1: might actually just be really financially intelligent rent and go
Speaker 1: negotiate your rent prices right now, by the way, because
Speaker 1: there's a lot of excess in the market. They want
Speaker 1: to keep you, and you might actually be making an
Speaker 1: incredibly smart financial decision. And so don't let people make
Speaker 1: you feel bad if you're not doing what the American
Speaker 1: dream adult thing used to be. The market's changed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you've already shared some really powerful advice for right now,
Speaker 2: given the idea that now is a great time to
Speaker 2: go and negotiate your rent. Now's a great time to
Speaker 2: go and think about finding places to potentially purchase property
Speaker 2: if you are what should be people thinking about doing
Speaker 2: right now when it comes to making money that you
Speaker 2: couldn't have been doing a year ago. That's very different now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a great question. Well, first, what I would
Speaker 1: think about today is I think you got to first
Speaker 1: understand some like baseline financial literacy. And you and I
Speaker 1: were talking about this. You know, they say the average
Speaker 1: American reads at a sixth grade reading level. They say
Speaker 1: the average American actually understands finances at about a high
Speaker 1: school level. So we're taught, and you remember this in
Speaker 1: high school, we're taught all the way up to like
Speaker 1: budgeting like back in our day. Probably the kids will
Speaker 1: do it this way anymore. But you used to have
Speaker 1: checkbooks right now and everybody knows how old I was,
Speaker 1: and you have to like balance your checkbook and how
Speaker 1: do you do that a little ledger? That's actually where
Speaker 1: we're capped. And so I think first what I want
Speaker 1: people to do is realize that if you don't understand money,
Speaker 1: you're never going to make more of it, because understanding
Speaker 1: money is like speaking a language. How are you going
Speaker 1: to speak to somebody in Spanish and communicate and win
Speaker 1: at that relationship? If you guys don't speak the same language,
Speaker 1: it's very hard, right, So I want people to speak
Speaker 1: the language of money. So I think about this in
Speaker 1: like small ways. Let me tell you, like one way
Speaker 1: to know if you're financially literate today. One way might be,
Speaker 1: do you really understand the difference between debit and credit
Speaker 1: cards and why you should really never be using debit cards.
Speaker 1: Everybody talks these days about how credit cards are bad, right, Well,
Speaker 1: credit cards are bad if you don't pay off your
Speaker 1: payment every single month, if you allow big interest rates
Speaker 1: to stockpile, and if you use it as a I
Speaker 1: want things as opposed to I need things. Credit cards
Speaker 1: are bad, but debit cards are actually worse. They don't
Speaker 1: allow you to build credit, and credit good credit in
Speaker 1: this country is the underpinning of wealth. Debit cards do
Speaker 1: not allow that. They also don't give you any points
Speaker 1: or perks or cash back, and then you're less protected
Speaker 1: actually with a debit card. So if somebody steals your
Speaker 1: debit card and goes and charges things, the bank goes,
Speaker 1: I don't know, that's your money, don't really care. If
Speaker 1: you go and you charge a bunch of things on
Speaker 1: your credit card and there's fraud, what do you do?
Speaker 1: Two clicks? They erase it, right, they ship you a
Speaker 1: new card. And so I think this generation was so
Speaker 1: tormented by credit is bad, debt is bad. Don't have it? Well,
Speaker 1: the people who are the richest in the world, they
Speaker 1: all have some debt, just good debt as opposed to
Speaker 1: bad debt. So where I want you, guys to start
Speaker 1: is actually before you even think of making more money,
Speaker 1: let's understand the language of money, right.
Speaker 2: So glad we're stying there. It's brilliant. And I had
Speaker 2: personal experience of this. So I grew up in London,
Speaker 2: where it's not the same setup, similar, but it's not
Speaker 2: exactly the same. The whole structure is not based on
Speaker 2: credit as strongly, and I was trained to believe you
Speaker 2: only use a debit card, and so I used that
Speaker 2: my whole life. When I came to the US and
Speaker 2: I moved here. For the first year I lived or
Speaker 2: I only lived, and I didn't have a lot of money,
Speaker 2: so I was living just on a debit card. And
Speaker 2: then when I wanted to finally get a car, I
Speaker 2: was thinking about, you know, having an apartment, whatever it was.
Speaker 2: I couldn't get anything because I had no credit score.
Speaker 2: My credit score was like nonexistent, and it hit me
Speaker 2: like a ton of bricks because I couldn't believe it
Speaker 2: that I'd finally done good with my life, but I
Speaker 2: couldn't actually exercise any of it. So walk me through
Speaker 2: the myths about credit cards and debit cards that people
Speaker 2: can solve right now. Is there a special credit card
Speaker 2: they should be getting, is there one that's better? What
Speaker 2: should they be looking out for? What does APR mean?
Speaker 2: You know, walk me through the hidden things buying credit
Speaker 2: cards that we all feel stupid about. When you see
Speaker 2: an ad and you're like, I have no idea what
Speaker 2: that means.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so true.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I had an employee, actually Christian, who's in from the
Speaker 1: UK too, and we were ridiculing him merstally actually because
Speaker 1: he only had a debit card to pay for things,
Speaker 1: and I didn't even know that the U K was
Speaker 1: completely different.
Speaker 2: No, they're all credit cards, but it's not he said,
Speaker 2: it's not normal.
Speaker 1: I was like, you're a twenty eight year old man.
Speaker 1: You don't have a credit card. He was like, you
Speaker 1: need to travel more Cody, and I was like, sorry,
Speaker 1: but then we got him a credit card so he
Speaker 1: could start establishing credit here. But more of the story
Speaker 1: is here's I think the couple first steps to financial freedom.
Speaker 1: You know, if you want to set up your kid
Speaker 1: for success, you actually want them to get a credit
Speaker 1: card really early. Does it so much matter what type
Speaker 1: of credit card. I'm not like the points guy, where
Speaker 1: I like to operationalize and optimize every aspect of a
Speaker 1: credit card. I think that is almost more work than
Speaker 1: trying to make more money. But I think if you
Speaker 1: go from any of the major banks, there are a
Speaker 1: lot of rules around credit cards, so they're really not
Speaker 1: allowed to mess with you so much on interest rates.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of protections for consumers, so it don't
Speaker 1: stress too much about which one. Which one seems like
Speaker 1: it has some night perks for you and you can
Speaker 1: get the most amount of money that you need. Cool.
Speaker 1: So that's step one. And if you can do that
Speaker 1: for your kids when they're in high school, they will
Speaker 1: actually have more access to the first pillar I think
Speaker 1: of wealth, which is resources. We all know what's the
Speaker 1: saying takes money to make money, right, And so if
Speaker 1: you come from nothing. Well, you can start actually building
Speaker 1: up your resource pile just from your credit, which you
Speaker 1: can start at a young age. You don't need to
Speaker 1: be rich to do that. And then after resources, you
Speaker 1: pile on knowledge. Right, the rich pass on how to invest.
Speaker 1: We need to start doing that to our next generation.
Speaker 1: Then you pass on wealth accumulation. That's where you start
Speaker 1: to pile on your own money. And then finally you
Speaker 1: pass on the ability to invest to continue to move
Speaker 1: cyclically your money around and make it work for you.
Speaker 1: But that's where I would start. It's like you start
Speaker 1: with a credit card. You have a debit card really
Speaker 1: just because you want to get cash out sometimes if
Speaker 1: you go into the club and buying drinks or whatever
Speaker 1: people do these days that are cooler than me. And
Speaker 1: that's where I would start, and then I would move
Speaker 1: to this next level of Okay, if I have some credit,
Speaker 1: now we need to focus on earning. So how do
Speaker 1: I make more money? But I think most people skip
Speaker 1: that first step because credit is scary, and like listen,
Speaker 1: Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett's partner, obviously very famous dude. But
Speaker 1: here's a line I love, which is men only go
Speaker 1: broke by three things, and it's whiskey women and leverage,
Speaker 1: and leverage means debt, right. Warren Buffett gave him a
Speaker 1: little adage to it at the end, and he goes,
Speaker 1: I think, actually, what my friend meant to say was
Speaker 1: really just the last one. It's really just leverage. And
Speaker 1: Warren Buffett, one of the richest guys in the world,
Speaker 1: said he doesn't like debt. Here's the problem, Jay, He's
Speaker 1: highly levered. He has a massive amount of debt. Why
Speaker 1: because he has debt on assets and other people's things
Speaker 1: as opposed to personal guarantees on his own. He's not
Speaker 1: mortgaging his house to buy these companies. He is raising
Speaker 1: debt on a company in order for it to make
Speaker 1: more money. And So if you don't understand all that
Speaker 1: right now, that's where I want you to dive in
Speaker 1: a little bit more. Maybe you can start with a
Speaker 1: debitan into credit card.
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, I think it's so important to understand debt.
Speaker 2: And you see that when you see a celebrity buy
Speaker 2: a new home and you realize they borrowed to buy
Speaker 2: that home. They didn't buy it in cash, even though
Speaker 2: they have the cash, and it's a available to them.
Speaker 2: And I think that idea is so foreign. So if
Speaker 2: someone's thinking about starying a business right now, well wants
Speaker 2: to grow a business, And the number one thing you
Speaker 2: hear is, well, I don't have any money. I don't
Speaker 2: have to fund it. How much do you actually need
Speaker 2: to start a business?
Speaker 1: I think you never suffer from a lack of money.
Speaker 1: You suffer from a lack of knowledge on how to
Speaker 1: get money. The richest people in the world they never
Speaker 1: use their own money entirely to buy things. And if
Speaker 1: you can like sit on that for a second and
Speaker 1: let that sit in, then I think you can really
Speaker 1: open up your eyes to the fact that all around
Speaker 1: you there are deals right now, and there is money
Speaker 1: that is waiting for the actually rarest of things, which
Speaker 1: is a human who wants to work really hard and
Speaker 1: has a good idea where to put the money. And
Speaker 1: so you actually don't need money to start a business.
Speaker 1: I don't think you need it at all. What you
Speaker 1: need is some access to it. And so you know,
Speaker 1: next week I'm going to the SBA, the Small Business Administration,
Speaker 1: and they just ran out all of these new programs
Speaker 1: for new business owners where they will one do grants
Speaker 1: where they give you money and grant means you take
Speaker 1: this money, you don't have to give it back. The
Speaker 1: government is going to give it to you, maybe because
Speaker 1: you're a minority or a woman or have a core
Speaker 1: needs business. They also do a ton of loans. You know,
Speaker 1: they'll loan you ninety percent of the purchase price of
Speaker 1: a business if you need one. And all around us
Speaker 1: are also people who want to invest and so like
Speaker 1: there's a website called percent and on percent. If you
Speaker 1: have a small business and you need some debt for
Speaker 1: a small business, you can actually get debt from your
Speaker 1: small business through you know website. But I think the
Speaker 1: most important part is not just tactically, It's like, can
Speaker 1: I change my belief to believe that money is all
Speaker 1: around me and I do not need to have only
Speaker 1: my own money in order to get rich, and I
Speaker 1: want more people to think that way. It's hard, I
Speaker 1: get it.
Speaker 2: Do you think everyone needs a side us right now?
Speaker 1: I have two thoughts. One, I do not believe that
Speaker 1: you have to go all in on the thing that
Speaker 1: you want to do in life. I think that is
Speaker 1: told to you by people who had survivorship bias. Like
Speaker 1: it worked for me, so it's going to work for
Speaker 1: you and what do we know to be true? Ninety
Speaker 1: percent of startups fail over any five year period, and
Speaker 1: so I actually think that the way to never have
Speaker 1: risk in building a business. If you want to do
Speaker 1: a startup and have no risk, I think you keep
Speaker 1: your job. You do really well at that job while
Speaker 1: you're doing it, you use your salary to fund your
Speaker 1: side hustle or your next venture. You keep moving forward
Speaker 1: on it until your side hustle matches the cost of living,
Speaker 1: that you have your cash flow, and then you leave
Speaker 1: your business or your job to go start your business
Speaker 1: once you have enough money from inflow of the business.
Speaker 1: And I think we've told too many people and idealized
Speaker 1: this idea of entrepreneurship when in fact, you know, I
Speaker 1: had three or four businesses fail. If I had just
Speaker 1: left my job that paid me good money, I would
Speaker 1: have been sleeping on somebody's couch. And so you can
Speaker 1: have a side hustle, but please keep it on the
Speaker 1: side for a minute until you make sure it's not
Speaker 1: just a passion project it is a profit project.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, And I think that's dismised wisest advice. I'm
Speaker 2: in the same boat when I started doing what I
Speaker 2: do today. I had a full time job. It didn't
Speaker 2: pay great, but it paid enough to get buy It
Speaker 2: paid my bills. It means it means I wasn't creating
Speaker 2: from a place of stress. And when you're creating something
Speaker 2: new from just stress, it can be quite dehabilitating. Now,
Speaker 2: sometimes stress can be the greatest motivator. It can propel you,
Speaker 2: it can be your launch pad, but you've got to
Speaker 2: kind of get it right. Too much stress and you
Speaker 2: fall apart. Too little stress and you stay in the
Speaker 2: golden handcuffs.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 2: And I think that's where I see a lot of
Speaker 2: people stuck today. Is I meet a lot of people
Speaker 2: who I feel have tied on the golden handcuffs but
Speaker 2: not using that as the investment. So it's like, I
Speaker 2: want to have a lifestyle with the money I make,
Speaker 2: I don't want to use it to build a new life.
Speaker 2: Does that make sense?
Speaker 1: Yes? Well, I mean, and you know, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of data out there that actually backs that. There was
Speaker 1: a study that was done on should you leave your
Speaker 1: job to do a startup or should you stay in
Speaker 1: your job and do your startup at the side, And
Speaker 1: what the data tells us from hundreds of individuals that
Speaker 1: went through this is you have a thirty three percent
Speaker 1: higher likelihood of your startup succeeding if you have an
Speaker 1: income source while doing it, because we make better decisions
Speaker 1: when we're not in flight or fight, when we can
Speaker 1: actually sort of downregulate. You know all about this, thankfully,
Speaker 1: there's so many tools like what you do that teach
Speaker 1: people how to downregulate, and sometimes you can't control it.
Speaker 1: But if you can control that, your decision making is
Speaker 1: better by keeping an income source. Oh my gosh, why
Speaker 1: wouldn't you, Because being a CEO is really, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: it's like three things. If you want to be a
Speaker 1: great CEO, it is number one, you have to be
Speaker 1: able to sell a dream so big that other talent
Speaker 1: wants to come alongside you they think that their vision
Speaker 1: is bigger under yours. Then number two, you have to
Speaker 1: make great diagnoses what's happening in the world around us,
Speaker 1: just like a doctor would to understand what's good or bad.
Speaker 1: And then you have to have great decision making on
Speaker 1: top of the diagnoses. And so if you can hire
Speaker 1: great talent diagnose well, but you make bad decisions because
Speaker 1: you're scared. That's not going to lead to the successful startup.
Speaker 2: In my experience, I love those top three qualities of CEO.
Speaker 2: I wanted to ask you the opposite. What allows an
Speaker 2: employee to be great and make more money as an employee?
Speaker 1: If you want to make more money as an employee.
Speaker 1: Number one, you have to understand how much money you
Speaker 1: make the company today. If you don't understand what your
Speaker 1: value dollar amount is you bring into your business, you
Speaker 1: should probably go talk to your boss and say, hey,
Speaker 1: I'd like to understand how I make you money. If
Speaker 1: you had to quantify how I make you money, could
Speaker 1: you help me understand that. One your boss is gonna
Speaker 1: be like, this is amazing, nobody's ever asked me this before.
Speaker 1: And then two, Once you understand that, you need to
Speaker 1: figure out how could I make more money for the company.
Speaker 1: Once you can understand how you can make more money,
Speaker 1: you can say, well, what do you think the profits
Speaker 1: of this business are? If we bring in one hundred
Speaker 1: dollars sale, do we keep twenty bucks of it? And
Speaker 1: if I figure that out, then I can go, Okay,
Speaker 1: I made you one hundred bucks, we kept twenty of it.
Speaker 1: If I do that, could I keep five of that twenty?
Speaker 1: I brought you and then you actually know how to
Speaker 1: negotiate for your salary. And a lot of times this
Speaker 1: isn't always possible if you're in a big corporate job,
Speaker 1: but more often than not, there is money available for
Speaker 1: those who understand how to ask for it because they've
Speaker 1: earned it.
Speaker 2: I love that that step by step process is so
Speaker 2: brilliant because you're so right. If someone ever came up
Speaker 2: to me and said, how do I make money? And
Speaker 2: how do I make you more money? Yeah, oh my gosh,
Speaker 2: it's like the best thing ever because it's so often
Speaker 2: not thought about and you don't realize. And like you said,
Speaker 2: there may be certain companies where you can't have that conversation,
Speaker 2: but today I feel like there's just so many more
Speaker 2: spaces to actually have that connection that you.
Speaker 1: Can yeah, you know, and think about it from your
Speaker 1: boss's perspective, like they hires you for a reason because
Speaker 1: they thought that you would make their life easier and
Speaker 1: that you would make the business better. And I think
Speaker 1: a lot of times you leave your job before you
Speaker 1: get all of the money out of your job you
Speaker 1: could have, and I did this so often in the beginning.
Speaker 1: I think you'd make way more money if you thought
Speaker 1: that you could have a conversation with your boss and say, man,
Speaker 1: this isn't exact working how I thought it would be.
Speaker 1: I think I could be of use over here as well.
Speaker 1: I'd love some additional responsibility here, maybe less here. You know,
Speaker 1: could I make you more money over here? If I
Speaker 1: prove myself here? Could we do less here? You leave
Speaker 1: the devil that you know for the devil that you
Speaker 1: don't often, and when that happens, I think you actually
Speaker 1: lose more money than you anticipate. It used to be
Speaker 1: back in the day, you made about twenty to twenty
Speaker 1: five percent more money every time you job hopped to
Speaker 1: the next job. These days, I actually think that there
Speaker 1: is a real value you can have to increase your
Speaker 1: salary or overall pay by more like twenty five to
Speaker 1: fifty percent if you stay and you diagnose as opposed
Speaker 1: to you skip, and then you guess yes. And so
Speaker 1: I would highly recommend that you not do what I
Speaker 1: did at the beginning of my career, which was skip, skip, skip,
Speaker 1: and never give the place a chance to pay me more. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because they might want.
Speaker 2: To absolutely And what you miss when you skip is
Speaker 2: you actually miss the skills of negotiating, upmanaging, learning new
Speaker 2: skills and abilities at that place. You're so right, and
Speaker 2: it's so I mean, you're so vulnerable for even saying that,
Speaker 2: because you know you've done so phenomenally well. But it's
Speaker 2: such a good lesson for people to understand because in
Speaker 2: the carrot of a couple of extra whatever it may be,
Speaker 2: you're moving across, but you're actually losing the skills. One
Speaker 2: thing I painted up recently which I haven't fully presented
Speaker 2: to my team yet, but it's been something i've been
Speaker 2: putting together for how and I know you have something
Speaker 2: on this too, so I want to share mine with
Speaker 2: you to get your thoughts on it. I've been building
Speaker 2: this framework of how to talk to my team about
Speaker 2: what helps you grow at the company, and I used
Speaker 2: a very very simple analogy and metaphor of beginning at
Speaker 2: the bricklayer. So the bricklayer is usually at the level
Speaker 2: with which you come in, and the bricklayer knows I
Speaker 2: have to lay this brick and I've got to lay
Speaker 2: it next to this one, and I know the pattern,
Speaker 2: and I can lay a brick. Maybe I can build
Speaker 2: a wall. Maybe the next level up is a builder
Speaker 2: you actually know how to build a wall. You know
Speaker 2: how to paint the wall, you know how to put
Speaker 2: up scaffolding, you know how to connect walls. You can
Speaker 2: do a bit more, and you're a builder. Above from
Speaker 2: that is something I call the architect. Now, the architect
Speaker 2: is not just good at building a wall. They could
Speaker 2: actually go and build me and design me a new
Speaker 2: part of the business, an extension of something, a new idea,
Speaker 2: And that's how I want people to grow. And then
Speaker 2: the highest stage that have come to is the city planner.
Speaker 2: This person's not just building me one home. They're planning
Speaker 2: the whole city, of the ecosystem of how everything falls
Speaker 2: into place. And so I'm communicating this to my team
Speaker 2: now because I'm like, I want all of you to
Speaker 2: graduate from bricklayers to builders, to architects to city planners.
Speaker 2: And that is what's attached to more money. It's not
Speaker 2: more effort. It's not more work. It's not being more busy,
Speaker 2: it's not doing more stuff off. These will come with
Speaker 2: a different type of vision, They come with a different
Speaker 2: strategic element, they come with more care, they come with
Speaker 2: a wider scope. It isn't just about oh but I
Speaker 2: worked more hours this year or I put in more time.
Speaker 2: Didn't you see how much effort I put in? And
Speaker 2: I think those things don't necessarily result in more successful
Speaker 2: a company. What's your thoughts on that?
Speaker 1: I think it's perfect one. You know, we all want
Speaker 1: to feel like we can see a future at an organization,
Speaker 1: and I think we all want to make money, but
Speaker 1: we also really want to know that we're getting better
Speaker 1: and we want to know that we're going to get
Speaker 1: rewarded for all the hard work we're going to put
Speaker 1: in over the long term. And so if you can
Speaker 1: show people a vision for the future, I think that's incredible.
Speaker 1: I totally agree. We also talk about it as and
Speaker 1: this isn't quite the same because the up bricklayer is
Speaker 1: in many ways just as important as the city planner.
Speaker 1: And so one other way we talk about it is
Speaker 1: called the NPC ladder, and we sort of talk about
Speaker 1: you know how there are video games, right, and in
Speaker 1: the video games you have the NPCs, which are sort
Speaker 1: of these people that sort of stay in the same
Speaker 1: spot and repeat the same things, like you know, find
Speaker 1: the dragon, find the dragon, and some people choose to
Speaker 1: kind of stay in the same spot and to stay
Speaker 1: as an NPC for much of their life and not
Speaker 1: to move to each level of the game where you
Speaker 1: become not the main character. Next you're a supporting cast member,
Speaker 1: you know, and then you might be one of the
Speaker 1: main characters, and then you might be the protagonist, et cetera.
Speaker 1: And so at the very top of my best performers,
Speaker 1: where I say the people who will be paid the
Speaker 1: most maybe eventually get equity, well, they're the main characters.
Speaker 1: And that means that they actually change the script, they
Speaker 1: move forward the company overall. And so I love that,
Speaker 1: and I think, you know, for most of us, there's
Speaker 1: a saying that you don't leave bad jobs, you leave
Speaker 1: bad leaders, and so I like to try to remember
Speaker 1: that often in my companies that when somebody leaves, that's
Speaker 1: a reflection on me and my team, that they didn't
Speaker 1: see a way for them to become a city planner,
Speaker 1: and that they didn't see a way for them to
Speaker 1: come to the next level. I do think about that often.
Speaker 2: It's almost like it's a validation of all of these
Speaker 2: are needed. But there's a ladder, yeah, and the ladder
Speaker 2: isn't just more time and more work now, which often
Speaker 2: is the mistake.
Speaker 1: Well, I think you're you're really right. I mean, today,
Speaker 1: I think there's a culture of there's a hustle culture
Speaker 1: that happens about hard work will equal wealth, and that
Speaker 1: is actually not true at all. And we have seen
Speaker 1: over time, if hard work would equal wealth, then the
Speaker 1: person who runs my laundromat would make just as much
Speaker 1: as Jeff Bezos. And we know, you know, there's an
Speaker 1: incredible video out there that I can't remember who did it,
Speaker 1: but it basically shows, for the sixty seconds that Jeff
Speaker 1: Bezos is in the video, how much money Jeff Bezos
Speaker 1: is making every single second as he walks around the factory.
Speaker 1: And it shows that he makes let's say, I don't
Speaker 1: know x millions of dollars per second. And so by
Speaker 1: the time my laundromat owner has picked up his coffee
Speaker 1: put it in his mouth, Jeff Bezos has already lapped
Speaker 1: him multiple times for the year. Now, why Jeff doesn't
Speaker 1: work as hard as the guy who's laying actual bricks
Speaker 1: or actually cleaning the roof. And so I think we
Speaker 1: have to ask ourselves, if this idea of just work harder,
Speaker 1: what's your work ethic? That's not true anymore, especially in
Speaker 1: the age of AI. You know, the more I think
Speaker 1: about AI as a total normy, I'm not a big
Speaker 1: tech person. I'm almost like Boomer, incapable in many ways
Speaker 1: with tech. But the more I think about it, the
Speaker 1: more I think it will enable all of us to
Speaker 1: have massive knowledge. And because we'll all have massive knowledge,
Speaker 1: we will actually have to perform better because everybody will
Speaker 1: be able to do a mid level execution, very few
Speaker 1: people will be able to stand out amongst the noise.
Speaker 1: And we're already seeing this forty seven percent increase in
Speaker 1: creators just this year online. So why because it's so
Speaker 1: much easier now to go bang bam boom put it
Speaker 1: on the internet. So that's going to be everywhere, which
Speaker 1: means that going forward, just doing a lot more, just
Speaker 1: working a lot harder, won't be what changes it. What
Speaker 1: will taking a moment to look at what do I
Speaker 1: know different than anybody else? How do I increase my
Speaker 1: knowledge stack? And how do I get really creative in
Speaker 1: a world of lack of creativity but mass production? And
Speaker 1: so I love to involve Ravikan's line, which was, in
Speaker 1: this world today, you don't want to work like a cow.
Speaker 1: You don't want to work continuously sort of grazing non
Speaker 1: stop like this. You want to be the lion. You
Speaker 1: want to have periods of sprint and rest, sprint and rest,
Speaker 1: and that will be what the top performers do.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely so, well said. Is passive income a myth?
Speaker 1: Well, passive income is a tax statement. So like the
Speaker 1: actual words passive income versus active income are real per
Speaker 1: the government. But is passive income in the fact that
Speaker 1: I will make money if I do nothing, and I
Speaker 1: take X amount of risk and X amount of my
Speaker 1: money in order to do something. No, that's a total lie.
Speaker 1: And I think anybody who tells you that this will
Speaker 1: be completely passive income, there's a red flag, immediate red flag.
Speaker 1: I mean, I own a bunch of venting machines. Vening
Speaker 1: machines are often something people call passive income. Let me
Speaker 1: tell you what's not passive A veny machine. They break
Speaker 1: all the time, people break into them. They don't make
Speaker 1: that much money per machine. And also they make a
Speaker 1: ton of money on aggregate, and they're great for many
Speaker 1: things once you have hundreds of them or thousands. But
Speaker 1: there's no such thing as passive income. And once you
Speaker 1: know that, I think you also can recognize do you
Speaker 1: want passive income. Is that what you really want or
Speaker 1: do you just want a job that you love, that
Speaker 1: pays you well, that like lights that fire inside of you.
Speaker 1: I think we want passive income because we hate what
Speaker 1: we do, Because eighty seven percent of Americans don't like
Speaker 1: what they do for a living. They don't like who
Speaker 1: they work with, and so why would they want to
Speaker 1: do more of it? Please give me passive income. But
Speaker 1: I don't think that's actually what we want. We just
Speaker 1: want something that really speaks to us.
Speaker 2: Before we dive into the next moment, let's hear from
Speaker 2: our sponsors and back to our episode. Do you think
Speaker 2: people can do what they love and make a lot
Speaker 2: of money or are those ideas disconnected.
Speaker 1: I think that anybody tells you you should follow your
Speaker 1: passion in order to make money is probably already rich
Speaker 1: and it sounds really nice actually, and so they're like,
Speaker 1: of course, follow your passion. Well, even somebody like we
Speaker 1: both know some of the founders of Airbnb. You're closer
Speaker 1: with them than I am. But like you know Joe
Speaker 1: and Austin, he would say that he was incredibly passionate
Speaker 1: when he started Airbnb, But was he like passionate about
Speaker 1: I don't know home design of his like you know,
Speaker 1: mattress on the floor, Like, no, what was he passionate about.
Speaker 1: He found some game that he loved to play in
Speaker 1: the game of business. And it probably could have been
Speaker 1: a lighting company that he had, or a painting company
Speaker 1: or Airbnb. He just learned to love the game. So
Speaker 1: where I think people get it wrong is learn to
Speaker 1: love the game. Don't try to obsess on your passions.
Speaker 1: We try to turn like painting that we do or
Speaker 1: underwater basket weaving or whatever our weird hobby is into
Speaker 1: our profits. And that's where you go really really wrong.
Speaker 1: And in fact, there's a lot of data to support this.
Speaker 1: I mean, we have something called the Boring Sexy Matrix
Speaker 1: that essentially it kind of looks like, you know, two
Speaker 1: lines and then a charted graph that shows you the
Speaker 1: more boring industry, the higher the income, and so especially
Speaker 1: in Hollywood. In fact, there's an incredible study that shows
Speaker 1: in SAG after the Hollywood Union, there's one hundred and
Speaker 1: eighty seven I believe, one hundred and eighty seven thousand
Speaker 1: members of this union, and of those, more than eighty
Speaker 1: percent of them do not qualify for health insurance, which
Speaker 1: means that they don't make enough money to even qualify
Speaker 1: for health insurance. The average income is like twenty three
Speaker 1: thousand dollars for an actor in LA And so what
Speaker 1: does that tell you when you want to try to
Speaker 1: be a clooney or you want to try to be,
Speaker 1: you know, a famous Brad Pitt. Most people make no
Speaker 1: money from it. You'd be way better off going to finance,
Speaker 1: where ninety nine percent of the people earn one hundred
Speaker 1: percent of their income from their job than in acting,
Speaker 1: in which it appears that less than twenty percent of
Speaker 1: people make their full income from this job. And I'm
Speaker 1: not trying to dissuade anybody from doing things that you love.
Speaker 1: I might just be pushing to even say, how could
Speaker 1: I be more creative about this? Yeah, if I love
Speaker 1: to act, where is their money around the world of
Speaker 1: acting that I could go grab and still integrate the two?
Speaker 1: But does it have to be this preordained sexy role?
Speaker 1: And I think the answer is no. You're a perfect
Speaker 1: example of it. That's how podcasts were born, you know.
Speaker 1: It was like these people who wanted to maybe have
Speaker 1: talk shows, who wanted to interview people, and we said
Speaker 1: we could do it. Here instead of a studio, and
Speaker 1: you change an entire industry.
Speaker 2: I wanted to talk show so bad. It's such a
Speaker 2: good example, and I love that. Yeah, who like that was?
Speaker 2: You know? I grew up watching Oprah Big fan, and
Speaker 2: I was like, how would it be to sit down
Speaker 2: with people and to have a talk show and all
Speaker 2: the rest of it. And then you realize no one's
Speaker 2: giving you a talk show, and unless your talk show
Speaker 2: is really really significant, no one's making any significant money
Speaker 2: and no one's giving you a talk show. That's the
Speaker 2: reality of it. There's only ever like three daytime talk
Speaker 2: show hosts that are successful and maybe three late night
Speaker 2: talk show that are successful. And then everyone else, like
Speaker 2: you said, same as acting, ninety seven percent of people
Speaker 2: nine nine percent of people don't have that. And when
Speaker 2: you do what you love, like, so do I love interviewing,
Speaker 2: Yes I do. But I love the distinction you made
Speaker 2: because I think there's a difference between a hobby and
Speaker 2: a skill. So, and you just said it, You literally
Speaker 2: just said it. So I love soccer. Soccer is my
Speaker 2: first love. It's one of my favorite hobbies. I love
Speaker 2: talking about it, I like playing it. I like FIFA,
Speaker 2: like on the PlayStation, Xbox, whatever I'm in. If I
Speaker 2: tried to become a soccer player, it would never have happened.
Speaker 2: Like I'm not good enough, not even close. And sure
Speaker 2: I could have found a way to maybe get into
Speaker 2: coaching or maybe whatever. But to be honest, it's a hobby.
Speaker 2: It's something I love talking to my friends about that
Speaker 2: doesn't have to be the thing that I monetize or
Speaker 2: that I build into my offering to the world. And
Speaker 2: I love the difference because I think when we hear
Speaker 2: the word passion, we confuse hobby for skills, and then
Speaker 2: you go, wait a minute, no, my hobby's painting. I'm
Speaker 2: not the best painter. Let me be honest. And I
Speaker 2: think I've never heard someone say that before. I've never
Speaker 2: had that clear clarification. So thank you for making that
Speaker 2: crystal clear.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really you know, I heard Michael Dell the
Speaker 1: the it was I think it was in Michael Dell's book.
Speaker 1: He said somebody was asking him why he wanted to
Speaker 1: take his company back because he had kind of had
Speaker 1: it pulled away from him him. Another big investor basically
Speaker 1: got into the scuffle and somebody was asking him, why
Speaker 1: do you still care about Dell. You're a billionaire many
Speaker 1: times over, you're super successful. Why don't you just let
Speaker 1: this go? And he says, I will care about this
Speaker 1: company after I am dead. He loves the game. He
Speaker 1: was so obsessed with Dell that you couldn't pry it
Speaker 1: out of his cold, dead hands. And I think about
Speaker 1: that often. I think, you know, you couldn't make me retire,
Speaker 1: no matter how much money you gave me. Why are
Speaker 1: there many days where the game of entrepreneurship is so
Speaker 1: brutal that I do think what am I doing? I
Speaker 1: don't have to keep doing this? Why do I do it?
Speaker 1: But I love the game?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: And I think if we can instill in more young
Speaker 1: people a love for the game, then they will realize
Speaker 1: that it is the most fun thing that you can
Speaker 1: do when you get a chance. And that's also how
Speaker 1: you know if the thing you're doing is what you
Speaker 1: should be doing. Like famously, when the two Steve Steve
Speaker 1: Jobs and Steve Wozniak were first starting out, they were
Speaker 1: at I think it was a Tory the company that
Speaker 1: they were at. Anyway, they're at another tech company and
Speaker 1: yeah it was and Jobs. Do you remember the story
Speaker 1: where Jobs said the only way that I'm coming to
Speaker 1: work here is if I can sleep here too. And
Speaker 1: the founder, as a normal founder it probably would do,
Speaker 1: is like that's weird, No, you can't do that. But
Speaker 1: he realized that they were so good, they were so obsessed,
Speaker 1: that their outperformance meant that he should let them be weird,
Speaker 1: and so we let them stay there, which was like
Speaker 1: a little problematic because I hear Steve was a little smelly.
Speaker 1: But like, top performers are really just people who are
Speaker 1: obsessed with the game. It's not that you have to
Speaker 1: have crazy IQ, it's not that you have to have
Speaker 1: a crazy skill set. It's really hard to beat the
Speaker 1: compounding thing that is obsession. And I think that's should
Speaker 1: open up for some people a realization that you could win.
Speaker 1: You could beat a Jay and a Cody if you're
Speaker 1: more obsessed with something than we are.
Speaker 2: Oh for sure. And what I've learned is that in
Speaker 2: order to love the game, you have to respect the rules.
Speaker 1: Oh and what I.
Speaker 2: Found it's like playing Monopoly. Everyone knows Monopoly, so I're
Speaker 2: used as an example. It's like playing Monopoly. You know,
Speaker 2: you have to have a three set in order to
Speaker 2: build homes. Once you build four, homes on one street,
Speaker 2: you can then upgrade it for a hotel. That is
Speaker 2: the rule of how Monopoly works. Now, you play with
Speaker 2: some people and they'll say, well, I don't like that.
Speaker 2: I just want to be able to build on even
Speaker 2: if I have one of the sets, Or why do
Speaker 2: I have to build four houses to build a hotel.
Speaker 2: I should just be able to build a hotel. And
Speaker 2: I see this in real life too, where we start
Speaker 2: saying things like well, I don't like the social media
Speaker 2: algorithm because it's not fair, and it's like, it isn't fair,
Speaker 2: but it is the rule, and so if we hate
Speaker 2: the rules, you can't love the game. And I see
Speaker 2: that over and over again, where it's like, well, Jay,
Speaker 2: but this isn't or this isn't right, or it should
Speaker 2: be like this or new thing, and I'm like, I
Speaker 2: get it, Like I actually empathize with that, and I
Speaker 2: validate you. I feel the same way. But in order
Speaker 2: to love the game, you have to respect the rules.
Speaker 2: And so figure out the rules that you figured out
Speaker 2: the rules of vending machines, you figured out the rules
Speaker 2: of different businesses that you've built, and once you know
Speaker 2: the rules, you can play the game just like monopoly,
Speaker 2: and I think that's what it takes. So what would
Speaker 2: you say, are the rules of some interesting businesses or
Speaker 2: even business in general, or money that you think people
Speaker 2: need to learn to respect.
Speaker 1: I think the number one rule if you want to
Speaker 1: be successful today is that there's really there's two type
Speaker 1: of people. One type of person will be really successful
Speaker 1: and one type of person will never be successful until
Speaker 1: they change their mentality. And we call these fixers verse freeloaders.
Speaker 1: A fixer is somebody who if you imagine there's a
Speaker 1: leaky boat right and there's all these holes in it,
Speaker 1: the fixer will be the one that starts actively thinking, okay,
Speaker 1: we've got some you know, putty over here, We're going
Speaker 1: to put it on here, We're actually going to start
Speaker 1: bailing things out over there. They realize that there is
Speaker 1: a problem. The problem is annoying. They probably didn't create
Speaker 1: the problem, The problem might actually be somebody else's fault entirely.
Speaker 1: And yet what do they do. They immediately go into
Speaker 1: fix mode. And then there's the freeloader. And we can
Speaker 1: all have a little component of this, but a freeloader
Speaker 1: is so common today. The freeloader is the one that's
Speaker 1: standing in the boat, and they might be saying, well,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't mind the holes, or that's what
Speaker 1: somebody else's issue, or I don't have time to fix that,
Speaker 1: or I don't really know what to do about that.
Speaker 1: And if you go through your life with this freeloader mentality,
Speaker 1: if somebody else will fix it all the time, well
Speaker 1: then somebody else will profit all the time. I've really
Speaker 1: had to right, I've had this realization lately that every
Speaker 1: time I find a problem in my business, that's where
Speaker 1: the profit is. Every time I have a problem in
Speaker 1: my life, that's where the money is.
Speaker 2: Oh that's so good.
Speaker 1: And so if I can just start not having that
Speaker 1: sinking feeling in my stomach when I find a big,
Speaker 1: hairy problem and instead say oh that means there's money there,
Speaker 1: that means there's opportunity there, that means there's growth there,
Speaker 1: then my worldview kind of changes. And you know, when
Speaker 1: we came in here, we were just talking and I
Speaker 1: was like, oh God, I'm having a week because I
Speaker 1: you know, I got this one business and we're growing
Speaker 1: really fast, and that sounds cool, except that when you
Speaker 1: grow really fast, there's all these issues. There's people issues,
Speaker 1: and there's business issues, and so I'm in it right now,
Speaker 1: and yet I always try to make myself go back
Speaker 1: and say, it's my fault that we're here, and that
Speaker 1: actually is really liberating because if it's my fault, that
Speaker 1: means that I also might be able to fix it.
Speaker 1: If it's somebody else's fault, then what am I going
Speaker 1: to do about it? And so as often as possible,
Speaker 1: be a fixer and not a freeloader. It's where the
Speaker 1: money is.
Speaker 2: I really like that, and that's true whether you're a
Speaker 2: team player, whether you're an employee, whether you're the owner,
Speaker 2: whether you're looking at a new opportunity. It's true for everyone.
Speaker 2: That's why I love it so much, because you could
Speaker 2: be on a team and going, well, where is my
Speaker 2: seat is greatest pain point? Whereas my manager's greatest pain point?
Speaker 2: And if I can solve that and we're clear on it,
Speaker 2: that could be the greatest opportunity for me to grow
Speaker 2: my career one.
Speaker 1: Hundred percent, you know, And if you really want to
Speaker 1: grow and earn a lot, I think one of the
Speaker 1: greatest things that you can do is go find a
Speaker 1: leadership team and a leader that you think you want
Speaker 1: to be like and that you like their trajectory. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think you should try to get on as many
Speaker 1: rocket ships as you can, and you should really stay
Speaker 1: away from like the pta mom bus, you know, in life,
Speaker 1: I think often we want the smooth ride, we want
Speaker 1: the certain ride, we want the sliding doors. We want
Speaker 1: to be on a little, nice, little minivan. And what
Speaker 1: we realize is that minivans don't go fast, and minivans
Speaker 1: will probably not be the winner of a race, but
Speaker 1: winning comes with all the prizes. So I think, wherever
Speaker 1: you can, you should try to get on the rocket ships.
Speaker 1: And then when you get on the rocket ship, you
Speaker 1: got to realize rocket ships have turbulence, they're bumpy, they
Speaker 1: go fast, things break. You can't be surprised when you
Speaker 1: want to be an astronaut and there's turbulence on the
Speaker 1: way up. And so, you know, I think there's two
Speaker 1: things that I didn't do early enough on in my career. Was, gosh,
Speaker 1: I really should have tried to get on more rocket
Speaker 1: ships fast, bumpy, messy, big problems. Oh my gosh. But
Speaker 1: we're going to the moon, and I should stay away
Speaker 1: from the normal, you know, mom bus life. That's super,
Speaker 1: super smooth, because when I'm young, man, I don't need this.
Speaker 1: I need this once I got kids and once I
Speaker 1: got a bunch of responsibilities. But in the beginning, I
Speaker 1: should be trying to take all the rides I can.
Speaker 1: And so if I was young and hungry, I would
Speaker 1: be trying to find a jay. I would be trying
Speaker 1: to find teams where they are moving and I want
Speaker 1: to learn from them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's such great advice. And I look back and
Speaker 2: I think as well that I had that same spirit then,
Speaker 2: and I probably didn't seek out people like that enough.
Speaker 2: I got lucky with a couple of examples, and I
Speaker 2: remember it could happen anyway. I remember being I used
Speaker 2: to work at a grocery store, and you know, stacking
Speaker 2: shelves and whatever. But I was always trying to f
Speaker 2: that on a weekend, you can make a time and
Speaker 2: a half. On a holiday, you could make time and
Speaker 2: a half. If I worked a few extra hours, you'd
Speaker 2: make You know, you're always trying to figure out what
Speaker 2: the rules are, as I was saying earlier, and I
Speaker 2: think your spot on that if you can jump on
Speaker 2: a place where your role is not perfectly defined, you
Speaker 2: get to do lots of stuff you get to take
Speaker 2: more on. When I was at Accenture, which is a
Speaker 2: global consulting firm million employees now globally, it used to
Speaker 2: be five hundred thousand when I was there, they actually
Speaker 2: had this really great setup where every year they asked
Speaker 2: you to learn one professional skill, one personal skill, and
Speaker 2: then one skill that you were just fascinated by. And
Speaker 2: it was really interesting because it was always encouraged that
Speaker 2: you needed all three. And I loved that about the
Speaker 2: workplace because it was almost like, what's your extra curricula?
Speaker 2: So you did your day job, but what did you
Speaker 2: do in the evenings? So my evening job at my
Speaker 2: company was teaching meditation. So I was bringing my passion
Speaker 2: into work. What did it do? Hit onlp me network more,
Speaker 2: help me connect with people deeper, help me learn about
Speaker 2: different parts of the company that I would never have
Speaker 2: got to see if I wasn't teaching meditation. I had
Speaker 2: a friend who was a photographer outside of work. We
Speaker 2: were consultants by day, but he brought photography into work.
Speaker 2: He would photograph all the major events. He'd take headshots
Speaker 2: of our CEO, he'd take headshots of our CMO. All
Speaker 2: of a sudden he's networking inside the company in a
Speaker 2: way that you never would before. And so it's so
Speaker 2: interesting when you take on new responsibilities which are based
Speaker 2: on your passions, even in the workplace, because you never
Speaker 2: know where they can go.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and there's something really contagious about somebody who
Speaker 1: is hyper passionate with the things that they do for
Speaker 1: a living. I mean, so many studies that show that
Speaker 1: humans are contagious.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I was reading something the other day that said, if
Speaker 1: you want to make more money, the fastest way you
Speaker 1: can do it is actually just by who you surround
Speaker 1: yourself with. And so there is actually a correlation between
Speaker 1: if you have more friends who make over one hundred
Speaker 1: thousand dollars, you have a ten percent increased like of
Speaker 1: making more money, and somewhere between a two point nine
Speaker 1: I believe in a five percent higher likelihood of investing more.
Speaker 1: This is just like Jay stays the same, Cody stays
Speaker 1: the same, but I hang out with a few people
Speaker 1: who have more cash, I start making more money and
Speaker 1: investing more. That's wild, but if you think about it
Speaker 1: makes all the sense in the world. Imagine you wanted
Speaker 1: to lose weight, and so what did you do you
Speaker 1: went and hung out with a bunch of people who
Speaker 1: partied all the time, who ate late night food, who
Speaker 1: were drinking constantly, who slept in late, who are more
Speaker 1: lethargic because of it, Or you went and hung out
Speaker 1: with crossfitters that don't drink, that work out every day,
Speaker 1: that already have six pack apps. Jay is the same person,
Speaker 1: Cody's the same person. I choose the group that parties,
Speaker 1: you choose the group that crossfits. Who do you think wins?
Speaker 1: It's the people that you surround yourself with. And so gosh,
Speaker 1: people are contagious in every sense of the word. If
Speaker 1: you hang out with people that are passionate and obsessed
Speaker 1: and moving forward, it's just going to be easier for
Speaker 1: you to do the same thing.
Speaker 2: Oh it's so good, it's so true, And I just
Speaker 2: you know how simple it is when you start doing it.
Speaker 2: But I feel like we're all so scared of like
Speaker 2: letting our friends down. We think we're you know, sometimes
Speaker 2: we also get the backlash, like our friends might be like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: you just want to be around that person now, you
Speaker 2: just want to be successful. Now we're not good enough
Speaker 2: for you. And I think all of these things of
Speaker 2: what play on people's minds is we don't want to
Speaker 2: be bad people, but this isn't being a bad person,
Speaker 2: but we kind of carry that around.
Speaker 1: It's very true. I mean like there's like a micro lesson.
Speaker 1: So let's say right now, you're trying to save more money.
Speaker 1: A lot of the ways when when you're young and
Speaker 1: don't have a lot of money that you spend it
Speaker 1: is entertainment, right, It's going out with your friends. And
Speaker 1: a lot of times when you go out with your friends,
Speaker 1: what do you do? Like you guys are eating and
Speaker 1: drinking and who's splitting the check and what's happening here.
Speaker 1: I think that's a really uncomfortable thing for young people
Speaker 1: to do. They're like, I don't know how to have
Speaker 1: a conversation with somebody saying I'm really limited my spend
Speaker 1: so I know there's six of us and it would
Speaker 1: be really awkward. But I'm not drinking tonight and I'm
Speaker 1: just going to have this little thing, So do you
Speaker 1: mind if I pay for my portion of it? Why
Speaker 1: do we worry about doing something like that because people
Speaker 1: are going to think we're cheap, They might judge us.
Speaker 1: They're gonna think that, you know, we're not all in
Speaker 1: it together. And yet how are you going to reach
Speaker 1: your goals if you're not willing to do even that
Speaker 1: little thing? And I remember back in the day, you know,
Speaker 1: when I had no money at all and I couldn't
Speaker 1: afford anything. That felt super embarrassing to me. And yet
Speaker 1: those micro decisions will help you macro if you do it.
Speaker 1: And all it is is expectation setting. I think a
Speaker 1: lot of times, if you want people to go along
Speaker 1: with something, you just say, Hey, I'm super embarrassed to
Speaker 1: bring this up, and it's a little it feels weird
Speaker 1: to me, But I'm really trying to save up to
Speaker 1: invest and to do this other thing, and I want
Speaker 1: to hang out with you guys tonight. Would it make
Speaker 1: you so uncomfortable if I asked to just pay for
Speaker 1: my portion because I can't keep going out and doing
Speaker 1: all this if I have to spend everything. You know
Speaker 1: what you're gonna do, You're gonna unlock for somebody else
Speaker 1: there who's too afraid to say it and never will
Speaker 1: that they feel the exact same way. They're actually like,
Speaker 1: oh god, they got me too, because Happy Hour slowly
Speaker 1: killing my entire investing budget.
Speaker 2: This is coming up more and more in every conversation
Speaker 2: I have right now, if you actually said what you
Speaker 2: were worried about, people would actually get it. It's when
Speaker 2: you kind of try and do the awkward thing of
Speaker 2: not sharing how you feel about it. Like when you
Speaker 2: say I'm embarrassed about this, All of a sudden, that
Speaker 2: person has empathy. Right. Your confession of embarrassment creates empathy
Speaker 2: and compassion in the other person, and then they receive
Speaker 2: it with the understanding. Whereas if you just say, hey,
Speaker 2: I don't think I'm coming out tonight now, it's like
Speaker 2: what's wrong If you now go out and say, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm just going to pay for my thing now, you
Speaker 2: could come across as cheap or all the other things
Speaker 2: you're worried about. As soon as you're honest about the embarrassment,
Speaker 2: the vulnerability insight such a beautiful connection with someone. And
Speaker 2: by the way, next time, they may not choose that spot.
Speaker 2: They might choose someone that's easier for you. If they're
Speaker 2: a good friend, they're actually they're actually walking your direction,
Speaker 2: if that makes sense.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you give somebody else a chance to actually be
Speaker 1: there for you, which I've realized is a real gift.
Speaker 1: I'm not so good at that. But you know, if
Speaker 1: you can allow another person sort of in man, Wall's
Speaker 1: breakdown pretty quick. And then as you make more money,
Speaker 1: you can start paying for the other way. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: and then when you can. That's one of the coolest
Speaker 1: parts about having money is then you're like, I got
Speaker 1: all this, like, don't worry about it, not want of you,
Speaker 1: and you don't have to do it all the time.
Speaker 1: You don't have to, you know, big shot people. But
Speaker 1: when you're in your growth phase, when you're in your
Speaker 1: save phase, just be there. That's okay, that's where you are,
Speaker 1: and know that you don't have to stay there. You
Speaker 1: can eventually be in your big boy giveaway, buy the bottles,
Speaker 1: do whatever you want phase, but you don't have to
Speaker 1: pretend like you're not there. And man, that'll really help
Speaker 1: too in environments like this where it feels harder to
Speaker 1: make money and you feel a little heavy, and you know,
Speaker 1: I saw this in business too. I saw this tweet
Speaker 1: the other day that I was like, ooof.
Speaker 2: It was a.
Speaker 1: Business owner and the tweet was literally a picture of
Speaker 1: a really expensive looking dinner and it was like, when
Speaker 1: your company's a couple of weeks out from having no cash.
Speaker 1: But you know that team morale is really expensive, so
Speaker 1: you spend a couple thousand dollars on a dinner for
Speaker 1: the team. And I looked at that for a second,
Speaker 1: and I don't believe in like posting any criticism on
Speaker 1: the internet, so I would never say anything for that
Speaker 1: person directly, but I think he's wrong. I think instead
Speaker 1: what you really should do as a leader just say, hey,
Speaker 1: we're in a period where we need to tighten up
Speaker 1: a little bit, and I'd love us to maybe take
Speaker 1: an afternoon off, or maybe do something that doesn't cost
Speaker 1: the company money, or maybe we could come up with
Speaker 1: some cool ideas. We could do a little challenge to
Speaker 1: see who could come up with the best idea for
Speaker 1: us to do some team building. But I can't actually
Speaker 1: afford this couple thousand because it's my duty to protect
Speaker 1: your job and to protect your future in this company.
Speaker 1: And so even though it would make me look good
Speaker 1: to spend a bunch of money, I'm not going to.
Speaker 1: And it's scary being in an ownership position when a
Speaker 1: business isn't working, it's super super scary, And so it's
Speaker 1: okay to also, they don't have to tell everybody everything
Speaker 1: all the time. It's not their job to handle your
Speaker 1: business stress, but it is okay to tell them some reality.
Speaker 2: Cody, there's two big Arizona quiz you on now. I
Speaker 2: think there's going to be a lot of great stuff.
Speaker 2: I'm going to let you choose which one we start with.
Speaker 2: One is money and dating and relationships, and the other
Speaker 2: is the basics of investing. When someone is starting with little,
Speaker 2: where do you want to go first?
Speaker 1: I want to start with something really random, which is
Speaker 1: so there was an interesting study I saw the other
Speaker 1: day that shows how you can predict if a recession
Speaker 1: is coming through the way that women buy beauty products.
Speaker 1: And so it's called the lipstick theory. And I was
Speaker 1: playing around with this today because I think all of
Speaker 1: us are wondering where the economy's going. And basically what
Speaker 1: happened is during the this is when the world trade
Speaker 1: centers came down. So Estey Lauds, the founder of the company,
Speaker 1: basically realized that even though the market had a lot
Speaker 1: of fluctuations in it, it was down hugely from the
Speaker 1: world trade centers crashing. Lipstick sales were up eleven percent,
Speaker 1: and actually a bunch of these like non necessary cosmetics
Speaker 1: were up a ton, and so we started looking at why,
Speaker 1: and what they realized is when the market really crashes,
Speaker 1: you would think people would pull back on things they
Speaker 1: don't need, but what they actually do is they pull
Speaker 1: back on the big luck and they spend more on
Speaker 1: the tiny ones. So it might not be that they
Speaker 1: go on vacation that year, but it might be that
Speaker 1: they look a little prettier in the mirror every single day.
Speaker 1: And so I thought that was interesting because as we're
Speaker 1: thinking about recession, what are some of the indicators that
Speaker 1: nobody's watching today that could tell us what's happening. And
Speaker 1: so one of them is actually, look at a spike
Speaker 1: and beauty products. You can also see that by a
Speaker 1: spike of the people who are launching them are a
Speaker 1: lot of people continuing to buy, which I thought was
Speaker 1: kind of interesting, which is which is happening right now? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then you know, the place I think that this
Speaker 1: takes us is maybe a little bit more on the
Speaker 1: dating side, which is here's some a little tough truth.
Speaker 1: It turns out, if you want to make more money,
Speaker 1: one of the best things that you can do is
Speaker 1: find a partner, which is crazy. So married couples make
Speaker 1: on average more than thirty percent more than non married couples.
Speaker 1: Their net worth is almost three x someone who is
Speaker 1: single over the course of their entire career. And so
Speaker 1: I bring this up not to shame anybody who hasn't
Speaker 1: found their partner. I know what that's like when you
Speaker 1: feel like there's no options and you want to find
Speaker 1: love but it's not around you. But why I do
Speaker 1: bring it up is because I think it's something that
Speaker 1: we should really prioritize. We should prioritize if we care
Speaker 1: about making money, and we should prioritize if we care
Speaker 1: about love, certainly, and I think it's gotten a bad rap.
Speaker 1: Marriage has a bad rap. You do an incredible job
Speaker 1: of showing the beauty that can be behind it. Will
Speaker 1: also being like sometimes I hate her, Like I with
Speaker 1: my husband side was like, oh you today. Really they
Speaker 1: got to love you because I want to murder you.
Speaker 1: It's a real boon to your financial health. And so
Speaker 1: anybody that is around you that is saying I don't
Speaker 1: need no man, I'd be better off without him. You know,
Speaker 1: they're all toxic. Everybody else is a narcissist that I've dated.
Speaker 1: I kind of want to push on your frame a
Speaker 1: little bit and say, one, do you think you attract
Speaker 1: things that you hate on? Probably not. Two. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of reasons why you showing the stability for a
Speaker 1: partnership will lead to a more stable life overall. And
Speaker 1: so I thought that was that was fascinating.
Speaker 2: Before we die into the next moment, let's hear from
Speaker 2: our sponsors, thanks for taking a moment for that. Now
Speaker 2: back to the discussion. When I look at successful men,
Speaker 2: going back to your earlier point of mentors, any of
Speaker 2: the successful men that I've ever been mentored by talk
Speaker 2: to me about having a one woman life change their
Speaker 2: career trajectory because they found that the less time they
Speaker 2: wasted on chasing, pursuing, wooing women, the more time they
Speaker 2: had to focus on their career. So, even from the
Speaker 2: other side, men who decide to commit to one woman
Speaker 2: have more energy, more focus, more drive, more power to
Speaker 2: direct towards making money and building a business than they
Speaker 2: do when they're trying to impress lots of women or
Speaker 2: take care of lots of women. Now, of course, there
Speaker 2: are exceptions. There are people who have become very successful
Speaker 2: without having a partner, and whatever they may have even
Speaker 2: put their love life on the back burner. Sure, but
Speaker 2: men who were married were just more who had that
Speaker 2: commitment in their.
Speaker 1: Life, which is wild. They say, you're happier too, and
Speaker 1: you live longer. Yeah, we're like slightly less happy as well.
Speaker 2: Right, you're dealing with a baby exact. It's funny. Yesterday
Speaker 2: my wife said to me because I must have said
Speaker 2: to her what I want for dinner, and she goes, well,
Speaker 2: this is great training to have a kid. And I
Speaker 2: said to yeah. She goes, husband's a great training to
Speaker 2: have a kid, and I go, yeah, wife's a great
Speaker 2: training to have a teenager. It's just like, it was
Speaker 2: just this really funny moment when we were bantering and
Speaker 2: I was like, yeah, you're like a teenager, like dealing
Speaker 2: with emotions and all this stuff, and you're dealing with
Speaker 2: my like baby needs of like hey, can you feed me?
Speaker 1: It's very, very true. I also think, man, if you're like,
Speaker 1: I talk more from the women perspective, just because I'm
Speaker 1: a chick and so I try to talk about all
Speaker 1: the things I know about, but you know, from a
Speaker 1: female perspective, there's a lot of things that I think
Speaker 1: are wrong in the way we date with money.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what I want to get into. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like, for instance, you know, increasingly they say that
Speaker 1: sixty four percent of women will not date a man
Speaker 1: if he doesn't have the same income level or higher
Speaker 1: her for men, that actually, in the studies at least,
Speaker 1: does not seem to be the case. They actually don't
Speaker 1: care about income level. Well, problem there that more women
Speaker 1: are increasing their incomes and increasing their education levels than
Speaker 1: men are today. I think there's something darker even than
Speaker 1: the six or five trust fund blue eyes thing, which
Speaker 1: is we're prioritizing the thing that seems to not lead
Speaker 1: to any increase in happiness. Couples are no happier if
Speaker 1: they are the same income level or higher or not.
Speaker 1: They aren't wealthier if they focus on that than something else.
Speaker 1: And so from my perspective, I'm like, man, if you're
Speaker 1: a woman today, you know that don't give dating advice.
Speaker 1: But the money seems to show that that does not
Speaker 1: matter in a relationship. You know, my husband is amazing,
Speaker 1: and I was already ran a business when I met him.
Speaker 1: He was an avcal. The government doesn't pay very much
Speaker 1: for that role, and so he was just playing a
Speaker 1: totally different game. He didn't care about money actually at all.
Speaker 1: He cared about service and he cared about respect. That's
Speaker 1: what he wanted. He wanted to do something served, and
Speaker 1: he wanted to do something that commanded respect. I in finance,
Speaker 1: was not that much serving, you know, but I was
Speaker 1: a lot money, and so when the two of us
Speaker 1: came together, it was really really powerful. And so for
Speaker 1: women today, a lot of times when they asked me,
Speaker 1: how do you know? How do you find a partner?
Speaker 1: What do you do if you make a lot of
Speaker 1: money and he doesn't like, find somebody who plays a
Speaker 1: different game, because then you two can compliment. Did you
Speaker 1: both play the same game? Were you both trying to
Speaker 1: grow and make money?
Speaker 2: No? No, no, So well, Radi's always been at peace.
Speaker 2: She's always been at peace with who she is, what
Speaker 2: she has, and her journey was more kind of I
Speaker 2: always talk about the aspect of what you mentioned of
Speaker 2: being surrounded by more people. So we grew up in
Speaker 2: a culture where generally women in our community became housewives
Speaker 2: and took care of the kids. That's majority of what
Speaker 2: you'd see growing up where I grew up. Now, that's beautiful,
Speaker 2: there's nothing wrong with that, And I'm not judging it.
Speaker 2: What was interesting was when we moved to New York
Speaker 2: and then we moved to La RADI was surrounded by
Speaker 2: a lot of our female friends who were all founders,
Speaker 2: who built businesses, who've achieved a lot of incredible things,
Speaker 2: and they happen to be happy moms and happy wives
Speaker 2: as well. Rather being exposed to them almost opened up
Speaker 2: to this idea of what women could do, what women
Speaker 2: could achieve, what was possible. And she has just come
Speaker 2: into her own when she launched her book last year
Speaker 2: for the first time, when she launched her podcast last year,
Speaker 2: when she's just been growing and finding herself, and I
Speaker 2: think she's really loved the journey. It's never been about growth,
Speaker 2: it's never been about conquering, it's never been about a destination.
Speaker 2: She just loves the fact she can fully express herself
Speaker 2: and use her skills to help people. I started with
Speaker 2: the same thing. I never had financial goals. I never
Speaker 2: knew anyone who is that financially successful. I just wanted
Speaker 2: to find a way to help people. And then I
Speaker 2: realized you couldn't help people full time if you couldn't
Speaker 2: do this full time, so you can have all the
Speaker 2: most noble reasons to do what you do. If you
Speaker 2: can't pay yourself and pay people to help you do it,
Speaker 2: you're not going to do it for that long. So
Speaker 2: I had to rewire my relationship with money because I
Speaker 2: used to believe that if you were doing good in
Speaker 2: the world, you had to be poorow And I had
Speaker 2: to completely shift my relationship because I had to understand
Speaker 2: that actually, if I wanted to do bigger good in
Speaker 2: the world, I needed money because I needed bigger teams,
Speaker 2: I needed bigger opportunities, I needed bigger relationships and the
Speaker 2: rules of the game. Money gives access to that.
Speaker 1: I come from a Latino culture, and so money was
Speaker 1: never really bad. It was bad to talk about it.
Speaker 1: You couldn't really talk about money, and it was bad
Speaker 1: to maybe have too too much of it. That was like, oh,
Speaker 1: they're really rich, so how did they get there?
Speaker 2: Same? You know, I'm very similar.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but my dad, which I'm so grateful and if
Speaker 1: I have kids, I hope I can do the same thing.
Speaker 1: You know, if you want to be a good father
Speaker 1: to a daughter and you want your daughter to be
Speaker 1: really confident and have a ton of optionality, I'd model
Speaker 1: after my father and what he always said as well,
Speaker 1: you could be a princess, or you could also be
Speaker 1: the president. You know, you choose, and then he's very cute.
Speaker 1: And he also really taught me that money is a
Speaker 1: moral It doesn't care. It is a tool. A hammer
Speaker 1: is not good or bad except how you use it.
Speaker 1: You could use a hammer for really good to build something.
Speaker 1: You could use a hammer for murder. Same with money,
Speaker 1: And so I had to. I came to the terms
Speaker 1: with money in this way because I think that money
Speaker 1: is an accelerator to whatever is inside of you. So
Speaker 1: if you are not a great person and you want
Speaker 1: to do bad things in the world, money is really
Speaker 1: bad to be in your hands. If you are a
Speaker 1: good person and you want to do good in the world,
Speaker 1: money is really good to have in your hands. And
Speaker 1: as long as you can stay true to that thing
Speaker 1: inside of you, then money is actually just an ability
Speaker 1: for you to build the world that you want as
Speaker 1: supposed to live in somebody else's.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I watched my brother kind of go through this because
Speaker 1: he's never cared really about money or success. I mean,
Speaker 1: he got married last weekend and at you, wow, no, thanks,
Speaker 1: I'm really excited for him. She's amazing too, and he
Speaker 1: said at his speech, He's like, before I'm at Athena,
Speaker 1: I used to think that I wanted to just kind
Speaker 1: of post up on a beach somewhere, drink beers, like
Speaker 1: I didn't really want to build very much out of life.
Speaker 1: I want to just chill. And I'd never heard him
Speaker 1: say that out loud before. He said, but then I'm
Speaker 1: at Athena, and now that's not enough. Now I want
Speaker 1: to build something. I want to build for her, I
Speaker 1: want to build for our kids. And I just watched
Speaker 1: him like turn into a little man, you know, in
Speaker 1: front of me, which was incredible, and then also realize
Speaker 1: you're made for more. But he is. He sounds to
Speaker 1: me like what Roddy sounds like to you, which is
Speaker 1: he has always been very comfortable as him. He is
Speaker 1: the most him human I've ever met. You couldn't really
Speaker 1: peer pressure him into anything. And I have a lot
Speaker 1: of respect for people that have that kind of piece.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really special. I want. I want to go
Speaker 2: back into this, and I know I'm not asking for
Speaker 2: dating advice, asking for money advice good, which I think
Speaker 2: they go so closely together now. And I love where
Speaker 2: we started off. But there's so many things to kind
Speaker 2: of unpack with that. Who should pay on the first date?
Speaker 2: Men or women?
Speaker 1: In my opinion, I think the person who asks for
Speaker 1: the date it pays. I agree, yep. Men versus women. Women,
Speaker 1: if you're going to ask them out on a date,
Speaker 1: I think the expectation is at least offer. If you're
Speaker 1: going to ask somebody out on the date, I think
Speaker 1: the expectation is do it. I tend to be a
Speaker 1: traditionalist in some ways. I think sort of a high
Speaker 1: value man wants to support and protect his woman, doesn't
Speaker 1: always have to be financially, but in some way, shape
Speaker 1: or form, and a high value woman wants to do
Speaker 1: the same thing for her man, but probably can't protect
Speaker 1: him as much. That's just our physiology, right, And so
Speaker 1: that would be my gut reaction now if it's up
Speaker 1: to me. I remember back in the day, I did
Speaker 1: get asked on a date once and they didn't pay,
Speaker 1: and it was such a huge turn off for me.
Speaker 1: We've stayed friends, but I was like, immediate unsubscribed, we're
Speaker 1: never dating. And so it's tough to be a man
Speaker 1: in that case in some way today, But if you
Speaker 1: were going to date somebody like me, I would expect
Speaker 1: you to at least offer if you ask, what do
Speaker 1: you think?
Speaker 2: I think? So I agree with you the person who asks,
Speaker 2: the person out in the day should pay. Yeah, And
Speaker 2: this wasn't to get you in trouble. I think it's
Speaker 2: a real discussion because I think that's what people do.
Speaker 2: How you just said, hey, if he didn't pay, he's out,
Speaker 2: by the way. And I come from I was raised
Speaker 2: by my mom. I have a younger sister, so I
Speaker 2: come from a very like i'll do it, I'll take
Speaker 2: care of it kind of background, and I did when
Speaker 2: me and Riley Fest started daying, I used to actually
Speaker 2: tutor students for their college and eleven plus exams to
Speaker 2: make enough money to take Rady out on a date
Speaker 2: to make like twenty towns an hour because I didn't
Speaker 2: have any money when we met, and that's how we'd
Speaker 2: pay for stuff. I think a lot of men feel, yes,
Speaker 2: I'll do that once we have some commitment, like once
Speaker 2: we're going somewhere today, Like I feel like then, I'm like, well,
Speaker 2: why would I do that if we're both figuring this out,
Speaker 2: Like I would do that once we both say, hey,
Speaker 2: we're exclusive, we're boyfriend and girlfriend. We're in a committed
Speaker 2: relationship like this is going somewhere. But if it's like
Speaker 2: our first or second day or third day, and we
Speaker 2: don't really even know each other, then I kind of
Speaker 2: want you to come and meet me hot middle because
Speaker 2: that's what we're trying to build.
Speaker 1: I mean, I can't imagine I've ever been on a
Speaker 1: date where I didn't ask to split it. At least
Speaker 1: I think I would weird if you asked to. You know, yeah,
Speaker 1: you pick it up all the way. That's a signal.
Speaker 1: That's definitely it's a signal. Let's an opt out. But
Speaker 1: you know, men, hey, it's a byproduct of the fact
Speaker 1: that we have, for the first time in our let's
Speaker 1: call it the last two hundred years probably of human existence,
Speaker 1: men and women are competing for the same thing. This
Speaker 1: has never really existed before. I mean, my parents were
Speaker 1: the first generation where this started. My grandparents, that was
Speaker 1: not an option. So we have to be honest about
Speaker 1: the fact that today, men and women, they are competing
Speaker 1: for jobs, they are competing for education spots, they are
Speaker 1: competing for relevancy, they're competing for being heard places. I mean, heck,
Speaker 1: in some ways, they're even competing for like necessity to
Speaker 1: procreate with all of the modern medicine that's happening. And
Speaker 1: so there are going to be rippling side effects from
Speaker 1: this that I can't even imagine. And one of them
Speaker 1: is that when we say we want to be equal
Speaker 1: as women, well then we should think about what that means.
Speaker 1: And so I think young men today are very right
Speaker 1: to say, hey, you know, it's we're equal in every way.
Speaker 1: It's a partnership between the two of us. So I
Speaker 1: don't believe that we are partners yet. If so facto,
Speaker 1: let's split. And I think in life, Chris and I
Speaker 1: always have a saying, which is do you want to
Speaker 1: be right or do you want to win? And so
Speaker 1: my thought is, if you're a young man and you
Speaker 1: are pursuing a woman that you really like or think
Speaker 1: you might like, do you want to be right or
Speaker 1: do you want to win? Do you want to be
Speaker 1: right in society that yes, she should have split the bill,
Speaker 1: but now you have to talk her back into a
Speaker 1: second day. Okay, fine, then go that way. If you're
Speaker 1: a young woman and you really like the guy and
Speaker 1: he is more comfortable with this, do you want to
Speaker 1: be right? Or do you want to win? Split the
Speaker 1: bill and then tell him at some point, hey, you know,
Speaker 1: if we're committed to each other, this is important to me.
Speaker 1: Can we negotiate it between the two of us. We're
Speaker 1: so busy these days pointing fingers at what's right as
Speaker 1: opposed to saying what do I want? And then so
Speaker 1: what action am I going to take to get there?
Speaker 1: In a world in which a lot of guys split bills,
Speaker 1: if you have a hard time getting chicks, be a
Speaker 1: pretty big upside if you can pick up the bill right.
Speaker 1: And if you're a woman that can't find a man,
Speaker 1: maybe you show the man that you're a true partner.
Speaker 1: And like, even if he offers, you say I really
Speaker 1: would like to split it, wuld that make you feel comfortable?
Speaker 1: I want you to know that in partnership, I believe
Speaker 1: in being there for my man. Neither of those are wrong.
Speaker 1: They just might help you win.
Speaker 2: Definitely. I love that right and winning. There's a did
Speaker 2: you watch that movie fair Play? No? Okay, so there
Speaker 2: was a movie last year. I don't think a lot
Speaker 2: of people sway. It was kind of like an I
Speaker 2: think I don't know if it's a true indie, but
Speaker 2: it wasn't. It was on Netflix, but I don't think
Speaker 2: it was hugely popular. But it was a dark take
Speaker 2: on couple who were both vuying for the same job
Speaker 2: in a company. It's really good, like it shows. It's
Speaker 2: definitely dark and it's definitely extreme, but it just shows
Speaker 2: the envy, the competition, how the gender roles have changed,
Speaker 2: the expectations women being more talented and educated. And you know,
Speaker 2: it's such a good social commentary on where we're at.
Speaker 2: I wonder how have you found it? Because I meet
Speaker 2: a lot of ambitious young women who want to do really,
Speaker 2: really well, and they seem to intimidate men today. And
Speaker 2: I look at that from the men's perspective, and I
Speaker 2: understand that it's new for men. A lot of men
Speaker 2: feel left behind. They've inherited the pain of the men
Speaker 2: who came before them, who've abused power or used it wrongly.
Speaker 2: If a woman's ambitious right now, how does she continue
Speaker 2: to be ambitious and still find a man that gets
Speaker 2: that and respects that. From a financial point.
Speaker 1: Of view, Yeah, the hard truth that I've found as
Speaker 1: a woman, who you could say is hard charging is
Speaker 1: that you can't play a man's game and win in
Speaker 1: this society, and I'm not sure we should. And so
Speaker 1: what do I mean by that? I mean that men
Speaker 1: are push push push aggressive, or even our physiology right,
Speaker 1: one is receiving and one is certainly given. And so
Speaker 1: today I think, if you are a young woman who's
Speaker 1: really hard charging, you have to think about are you
Speaker 1: being ambitious and intimidating? Are you being I'm a bitch?
Speaker 1: And I think a lot of times, because we've had
Speaker 1: we felt like we have to stand up, we have
Speaker 1: to push for ourselves, we're actually just not being that
Speaker 1: nice as women. And it's that, you know, you can
Speaker 1: go get a girl and you don't need a man,
Speaker 1: and he's not listening to you, and you know, blah
Speaker 1: blah blah. That energy is really negative. Men don't need that.
Speaker 1: The two women that I that I know that are
Speaker 1: lovely and they're single, and you know, everybody I know
Speaker 1: tells them all the time, I can't believe you're single.
Speaker 1: You shouldn't be single. But what do they say? Often
Speaker 1: one of them who I adore, and I kind of
Speaker 1: have given her my opinion on this, but she says
Speaker 1: all the time, well, I don't want to like mother anymore. Men,
Speaker 1: I don't want to mother them like you know what
Speaker 1: all these boys like, Well, if you keep calling them that,
Speaker 1: then that is what they will be. And so you've
Speaker 1: got to be really careful about not demasculating men. And
Speaker 1: you've got to be really careful about making sure that
Speaker 1: they care about the two things they care about more
Speaker 1: of the women do, which is which they care about
Speaker 1: respect and you know, women, really we want to be loved.
Speaker 1: You guys want to be respected, right like buy and
Speaker 1: large grow generalization, and so in driving businesses, I have
Speaker 1: to remember that all the time. I employment, I just
Speaker 1: had a conversation right before this where I steamrolled somebody.
Speaker 1: I totally owned the entire meeting. I just kept talking
Speaker 1: and I was really aggressive and I lectured a little
Speaker 1: bit in the meeting, and thankfully my person in this
Speaker 1: situation was like, hey, by the way, I felt a
Speaker 1: little bit like a lecture, felt like they needed to
Speaker 1: be heard, not pushed so much. And I was like, God,
Speaker 1: you're right. And that's when like the negative feminine shows
Speaker 1: up in my mind, is when we think, let me
Speaker 1: just keep going, I'm going to pound on this. So
Speaker 1: I would push back on the negative. Are you really
Speaker 1: intimidating men or are you being mean? And I think
Speaker 1: often we are being a little mean, and so we
Speaker 1: need to pull that back. Not all men want to
Speaker 1: dominate you. You know a lot of men are the
Speaker 1: best mentors I've ever had.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's that hard part for women because men
Speaker 2: for so long have gotten away with pounding the payment right.
Speaker 2: So like if a mind behaved in a meaning, would
Speaker 2: he get the same feedback? Absolutely absolutely not. He'd just
Speaker 2: be told that's normal, and he'd get away with it
Speaker 2: and he'd move on. And so it's almost what people
Speaker 2: expect of you, and it shouldn't be based on gender.
Speaker 2: It should be based on your demeanor. Like, for example,
Speaker 2: I'm not someone who gets angry or shouts at people
Speaker 2: or it's just not who I am, So if I
Speaker 2: did it, it would be so out of character that I
Speaker 2: think someone would cry. You know. It's like you think
Speaker 2: the person who shouts you every day makes you cry. No, no, no,
Speaker 2: it's the person who's really silent and calm that if
Speaker 2: they lost it, you'd be heartbroken because you don't expect
Speaker 2: it from them. And I think this all gets difficult
Speaker 2: when we're talking about money, because money creates power dynamics
Speaker 2: it creates, especially in couples, it creates power dynamics in families.
Speaker 2: I mean the amount of friends I've had recently who've
Speaker 2: both men and women, have had to ask their partner
Speaker 2: to sign a prenup before they get married. And it's
Speaker 2: been really uncomfortable because you hope that we love each
Speaker 2: other and that we would never have to do that.
Speaker 2: My friends have talked to me, that's really odd. What's
Speaker 2: your take on people having to sign a prenup before
Speaker 2: they get married.
Speaker 1: I think you should always sign a prenup before you
Speaker 1: get married.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: I think you should have every hard conversation that you
Speaker 1: need to have up front, and that is just another
Speaker 1: hard conversation. You know what a prenup will tell you
Speaker 1: before you get married is do you guys have the
Speaker 1: same vision for life? Do you guys care about the
Speaker 1: same things? How do you handle conflict between the two
Speaker 1: of you? Can you guys compromise on the important part? So,
Speaker 1: even if it's not about the money, like your bank account,
Speaker 1: is a reflection of how willing you are to have
Speaker 1: difficult conversations. The more you delay and the more you
Speaker 1: don't have, the less money you'll have. And I think
Speaker 1: a prenup is a perfect example. You can take it
Speaker 1: as a victim and say, if he's asking me for
Speaker 1: a prenup, that means that he does not want to
Speaker 1: stay with me, or she does not want to stay
Speaker 1: with me, or you could say this is an opportunity
Speaker 1: for us to determine what are life will look like
Speaker 1: together and what is his and what is mine and
Speaker 1: what is ours together? And so I am a big
Speaker 1: proponent of get that prene up on either side, get
Speaker 1: real clear on your finances, and have a crucial conversation
Speaker 1: up front. Now that said, I really try to never
Speaker 1: give like individualized one on one advice. I'm sure you're
Speaker 1: kind of the same. So it's like, here's the big
Speaker 1: giant you. But you know, when my brother and new
Speaker 1: sister in law came to me, they were like, should
Speaker 1: you once you get married, should you have a joint
Speaker 1: bank account or should you have a separate bank account?
Speaker 1: I said, you should have a hard talk first, and
Speaker 1: you should ask each other why you want each separate segment,
Speaker 1: because what is the real conversation you're having. It's do
Speaker 1: I trust your spending? Are we going to communicate well?
Speaker 1: Are you going to put me in a weird situation.
Speaker 1: Are you going to tell me I can't do something?
Speaker 1: I'm an adult, don't tell me what I can't do.
Speaker 1: And so it's not really about money. It's about can
Speaker 1: you get on the same page. Yes, and so forget
Speaker 1: the bank account, right, it's really can you have a
Speaker 1: hard conversation? And there's no right or wrong. In my opinion,
Speaker 1: some people say they still venmo each other their partners
Speaker 1: back and forth, and they're like, that's awful. How could
Speaker 1: you do that? That is the up to you. A
Speaker 1: lot of my like you know, big friends in finance
Speaker 1: would say, if you get married, you have a joint
Speaker 1: bank account, that's what you do. And I would say
Speaker 1: even having a joint bank account can be hugely problematic
Speaker 1: if you're not willing to talk about it.
Speaker 2: Absolutely no. I love how practical that gets, and I
Speaker 2: love how practical you always get because that is what
Speaker 2: people are dealing with. And you're right, it's not about money.
Speaker 2: It's about power, it's about agency, it's about accountability, it's
Speaker 2: about all these other things. But money becomes the central
Speaker 2: point of conflict. And you're right, just because you have
Speaker 2: a joint bank account doesn't mean you have better compatibility.
Speaker 2: That means nothing if you haven't had the hard conversation.
Speaker 2: And I think having the hard conversation early about money
Speaker 2: and expectations is so important. Going back to your earlier point,
Speaker 2: which I was thinking about that idea that it's really
Speaker 2: important how married couples end up making more money. I
Speaker 2: found a lot of people recently looking for a business partner,
Speaker 2: not a partner, so like when they're looking for someone
Speaker 2: to be with, they're kind of seeing, will this person
Speaker 2: help me build my business? Which is a really interesting,
Speaker 2: you know, difference to what love is. What's your take
Speaker 2: on finding a partner or a business partner?
Speaker 1: That's fascinating. Well, I mean, isn't it funny how everything
Speaker 1: just comes full circle. So if we think about the
Speaker 1: original contract of marriage, it was business. It was can
Speaker 1: your family further my family, and we will come into
Speaker 1: contractual agreement one way or the other. Was that way
Speaker 1: in India and the UK, It was that way here
Speaker 1: in the US, and so that marriage was a business contract,
Speaker 1: and in some ways it still really is because it's
Speaker 1: a government contract and so and then for a long time,
Speaker 1: well not that long really, what a generation or two,
Speaker 1: it became love it was about love only that's actually
Speaker 1: a new construct and so I think it's interesting it's
Speaker 1: coming back to this idea of partnership.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: I have a personal bias. I think that you should
Speaker 1: marry somebody if you believe that they will help get
Speaker 1: you out of a third world prison when you get
Speaker 1: in prisoned, you know, is this going to be your
Speaker 1: person who will save you in your times of difficulty.
Speaker 1: That's to me what a good partnership is. It's trust
Speaker 1: this year and with my life implicitly, and I want
Speaker 1: to build with them. Yes, I love them, but it's
Speaker 1: not this like, oh, this victimized like I love them
Speaker 1: even if they beat me and if the world you know, ends,
Speaker 1: and some of the things we see in books today.
Speaker 1: It's like, no, is this my chosen human human who
Speaker 1: were going to go through time together and I trust
Speaker 1: their ability and who they are. So that's for me personally.
Speaker 1: The flip side of that is it's really hard working
Speaker 1: with your spouse. We both do it in many ways.
Speaker 1: My husband runs our investment side of our fund, our
Speaker 1: holding company and our Vungure Capital fund. And our first
Speaker 1: hardest year together was our first year of marriage. We
Speaker 1: got married a little older, and so I didn't really
Speaker 1: know how to compromise. He didn't neither. It was really
Speaker 1: hard for us our first year, and I hear that's
Speaker 1: a common thing. Our second hardest year was the first
Speaker 1: year that we got into business together. And I was like,
Speaker 1: huge mistake. You know, where's the like pull the shoot?
Speaker 1: This is so hard? Why because anytime you put two
Speaker 1: things closer together, what do they do? Friction? Baby? You know,
Speaker 1: it's just natural, this is physics. And so I don't
Speaker 1: know why I was surprised, but I was surprised. And
Speaker 1: then I realized after we got through the first year,
Speaker 1: I was like, how did I ever do it? Where
Speaker 1: I had a human who couldn't understand some of the
Speaker 1: stuff I was going through at work. He is such
Speaker 1: a crutch for me now and I am for him.
Speaker 1: So now I'm kind of a proponent of by personal bias.
Speaker 1: There's nothing better than having the ability to truly understand
Speaker 1: what your spouse does for a living and intertwining it
Speaker 1: some way.
Speaker 2: What do you think we were together for a long
Speaker 2: time before we launched a business together. There's a couple
Speaker 2: of things I have that I take. It's almost like,
Speaker 2: so I never wanted my wife to support my work
Speaker 2: when my career was taking off from the beginning, and
Speaker 2: my reason for that was very clear. I knew a
Speaker 2: lot of men who are extremely successful in their fifties
Speaker 2: after three decades of success, where their partners had become
Speaker 2: basically their assistance, and at the age of fifty, their
Speaker 2: partner now felt that they didn't achieve their dreams because
Speaker 2: they felt they didn't achieve their potential. And the guy
Speaker 2: had gone off and ticked off every box on his
Speaker 2: checklist and felt like a champion. But now at fifty,
Speaker 2: they're having this realization. And because I saw so much
Speaker 2: of that and my own work on purpose, I was
Speaker 2: really clear that everyone has their own purpose, like everyone
Speaker 2: has their own offering that makes them feel significant. And
Speaker 2: no matter how much you love someone, no matter what
Speaker 2: anyone says, you cannot say that your significance is just
Speaker 2: tied to someone else's significance. You have to have something
Speaker 2: that feels like your own thing that feels meaningful to you.
Speaker 2: That could be your child, it could be your business,
Speaker 2: it could be coaching the college basketball team. Right, this
Speaker 2: isn't about building a business. And so all I would
Speaker 2: encourage Rady to do was to find her thing. My
Speaker 2: favorite thing was setting her up on girl dates. I'd
Speaker 2: become friends with women, just introduce them to my wife.
Speaker 2: She'd be like, what are you doing, You're weirdo, But
Speaker 2: they're now her best friends, so I guess, well, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: But my whole goal was just I don't want her
Speaker 2: to fall into the trap of Jay's doing really cool stuff.
Speaker 2: I'm just going to help him and then feel like
Speaker 2: she didn't find herself. And you see women do this
Speaker 2: more than men doing this. Men generally are more independent,
Speaker 2: they know their thing, or they don't want to be
Speaker 2: involved anyway. And she was so talented and skilled and
Speaker 2: amazing from the moment I met her that I was like,
Speaker 2: I mean, like Riley could have a TV show and
Speaker 2: it would crush, like she's just the most magnetic elector Yeah,
Speaker 2: she's just so lovable, right, So I was like, she
Speaker 2: deserves to have all all herself, and she found out
Speaker 2: as time went on. When we found a June, we
Speaker 2: were both at such a strength in our knowledge of
Speaker 2: each other's strengths and weaknesses. But we don't take any
Speaker 2: meetings together zero zero. So she does all the formulation
Speaker 2: meetings of the taste the flavor profile, the mixtures, all
Speaker 2: of that. She does everything to do with the colors
Speaker 2: and the packaging and everything else, and I'll do all
Speaker 2: the business and marketing calls, and so we're never even
Speaker 2: on the same calls. And that works for us because
Speaker 2: it actually splits up the work because I'm like, oh,
Speaker 2: I trust you you can nail like my palette is basic,
Speaker 2: and you know, it's like I knew nothing about you
Speaker 2: Zu Pineapple when I met Radi, or you've got the
Speaker 2: peach one over there, like I had no clue. She
Speaker 2: really gets that and I really get my part, and
Speaker 2: that works well for us. But we founded this like
Speaker 2: ten years into our relationship, and so there was such
Speaker 2: an understanding of each other that it split it up
Speaker 2: nicely for us.
Speaker 1: It's you know what, when you say it out loud
Speaker 1: like that, I'm like, oh, that's actually similar in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways, because our reasons for friction in the
Speaker 1: beginning were because we were two captains. Yes, two captains
Speaker 1: don't work. No, it's so you know, I was on
Speaker 1: their trying and he was trying to. And now he
Speaker 1: runs our investment business entirely, and like, you know, shout
Speaker 1: out to him. He gets so embarrassed because I love
Speaker 1: bragging on him. But you know, he has like one
Speaker 1: of the top performing funds for his whole twenty twenty
Speaker 1: two vintage, and people always say congratulations, and I'm always like, honestly,
Speaker 1: I did so little for that.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm good at like top of funnel, bring people in.
Speaker 1: And then he is really good at execution. And he's
Speaker 1: a hunter. He chases things down. And so you're right
Speaker 1: now that we now I think about it. I'm on
Speaker 1: two calls a week with him, but he runs everything
Speaker 1: else and does it much better. And actually our only
Speaker 1: annoying spots are when I'm like weaseling in on something
Speaker 1: that like he's our I got it, I got it, Like,
Speaker 1: don't bother me over here. So it's it's you know,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm the weasel in.
Speaker 2: Robbie. Wait a minute, where have you been for the
Speaker 2: seven months we've been working on this and now you
Speaker 2: want to give your opinions?
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you making me feel better.
Speaker 2: Hey, I'm that guy too. Gosh, where did you turn
Speaker 2: up from? Like I've been working so hard on this?
Speaker 1: Yeah, he says, He'll be like, here's the summary I
Speaker 1: sent you four times and now you want to talk
Speaker 1: about it. But you know, we are endearing sometimes, you know.
Speaker 2: Sometimes Yeah, But that's what's so important, right, it's trust
Speaker 2: to me. I just don't want my private time with
Speaker 2: the rody to become business time. And that's a personal choice.
Speaker 2: I don't look down on someone who does it. I
Speaker 2: don't think it's I don't think that's the best for
Speaker 2: business or whatever, but it's the best for me. I
Speaker 2: married Ridley because I like spending time with her. I
Speaker 2: didn't marry her so that we could talk about how
Speaker 2: to make more money together. Like that just wasn't That's
Speaker 2: not why we're together. And that's not a bad thing
Speaker 2: or a good thing. It's just who we are. It
Speaker 2: works for us.
Speaker 1: It's true. I actually haven't found a lot of people
Speaker 1: that are like that usually, And now I have a
Speaker 1: lot of friends, probably just selection bias, who both work together,
Speaker 1: but they're very different, you know. And usually you have
Speaker 1: one person who I kind of joke is like more
Speaker 1: of the fun. They're the one that's like, let's go
Speaker 1: do activities, let's do whatever. They're still working a lot,
Speaker 1: and then you have sort of the fun sponge, which
Speaker 1: is me, you know, it's always working and without my
Speaker 1: fun guy, I would just be working all the time.
Speaker 1: And so it is this balance. I mean, I've become
Speaker 1: friends with Sean rad who's the founder of Tinder, and
Speaker 1: what's so interesting every time I talk to him We're
Speaker 1: going to see him tomorrow night, is that he has
Speaker 1: all this data on when relationships are the most successful.
Speaker 1: It's like the problem with a lot of these algorithms
Speaker 1: and how they do dating is that actually the things
Speaker 1: that we choose do not lead to happiness, such as similarity.
Speaker 1: Similarity actually doesn't lead to us happy of relationships, according
Speaker 1: to Sean and his dad. And that tracks for me each.
Speaker 2: From us too. You know, Roddy's the playful and the series. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and I've always said that that playful and that performance
Speaker 2: mindset works so well together because you're balancing each other out.
Speaker 2: But first, here's a quick word from the brands that
Speaker 2: support the show. All right, thank you to our sponsors.
Speaker 2: Now let's dive back in.
Speaker 1: You know, isn't that funny? And that's most things in
Speaker 1: life too, Like if you want to make a lot
Speaker 1: of money in business, you also need somebody who they
Speaker 1: call them the visionary, right, the person who has all
Speaker 1: the ideas, the crazy things, and then you have your executor,
Speaker 1: which is often called your implementor. And so if you
Speaker 1: only have vision but you have no execution, you will
Speaker 1: fail and make no money. If you only have execution
Speaker 1: but you have no vision, you will play small games
Speaker 1: for life. So there's a great book actually called have
Speaker 1: you read How to Make a Few Billion dollars? No,
Speaker 1: it's a good book. It's by this guy, Brad Jacobs.
Speaker 1: If you could get him on the podcast, I will listen.
Speaker 1: I've been trying to. I don't know if he's your style,
Speaker 1: but he's well, actually he might be. He was like,
Speaker 1: he's a multi billionaire hedge fund manager and private equity investor,
Speaker 1: and he started off as a jazz musician and that
Speaker 1: was going to be his calling. So he really likes
Speaker 1: like dissonant noises and like, how do you pull things
Speaker 1: together and sort of make them play like a jazz musician?
Speaker 1: Mark Anyway, he's bought all of these companies. He's massively successful.
Speaker 1: But he always talks about what makes a great deal.
Speaker 1: If you want to make a lot of money, you've
Speaker 1: got to pick the right deal. And there's sort of
Speaker 1: four types of deals. You could think about it like
Speaker 1: a quadrant. You could have a low risk and you
Speaker 1: could also have a low reward deal. That's actually most
Speaker 1: deals in life, right, that's like stay in your same job,
Speaker 1: don't take risks, et cetera. The problem is you're not
Speaker 1: going to make much money. Then you have a high risk,
Speaker 1: high reward deal. Well, that could be like investing in
Speaker 1: an El Salvadoranian power plant. It's just so likely to
Speaker 1: fail that even though it's super high profit, we probably
Speaker 1: want to stay away from those. And then you have
Speaker 1: sort of the golden child, which is how can we
Speaker 1: have high reward low risk. Well, not many of those exist, right,
Speaker 1: that would be a unicorn. So what we're really looking
Speaker 1: for is where is there a big, hairy problem that
Speaker 1: has the right amount of risk and if we can
Speaker 1: find that, then we have profit. And so now they
Speaker 1: call it hair on a deal. That's like you know,
Speaker 1: investing terms. You want to look for those hairy deals
Speaker 1: where you think, oh, that level of risk is manageable.
Speaker 1: And in our culture, for some reason, I think we've
Speaker 1: gone into risk off. God, we don't even want the
Speaker 1: risk of asking somebody a question at a bar, you know,
Speaker 1: more or less starting a business and that's a problem.
Speaker 1: I mean, the SBA has fascinating data. Do you know
Speaker 1: there are more small businesses that close each year than
Speaker 1: open in the US, No way more close than open.
Speaker 1: And so we have people taking way less risk than
Speaker 1: we think, and that means you'll never make as much money.
Speaker 1: That crazy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's talk about that in terms of investing. If
Speaker 2: someone's thinking that, because they cut exactly what you're talking
Speaker 2: about right now, this risk reward profile. If someone has
Speaker 2: never invested in anything, they're working their job, they've got
Speaker 2: a little bit of money, maybe if they've got one
Speaker 2: thousand dollars to start thinking about investing. Maybe they've got
Speaker 2: a bit more. Maybe they've been saving up and they're
Speaker 2: thinking that home that they want to buy is a long, long, long,
Speaker 2: long long way away. But they've got a little bit.
Speaker 2: Where should they.
Speaker 1: Invest If you have only a little bit of cash.
Speaker 1: The best returning asset class of all time, it's going
Speaker 1: to be you put the money into you learning first
Speaker 1: before you go to invest. A lot of days, a
Speaker 1: lot of people these days will say, hey, it's Airbnb.
Speaker 1: Hey it's buying small businesses. Hey it's real estate. The
Speaker 1: highest performing asset class that you could ever have is
Speaker 1: you because you have unlimited upside and it compounds over time.
Speaker 1: And so if you don't have a lot of cash
Speaker 1: right now, bet on you first before you go back
Speaker 1: on somebody in the SMP. Now after that next amount.
Speaker 1: I believe because I'm old school, I started at Vanguard.
Speaker 1: I believe if you're reasonable, you'd probably agree with me. Like,
Speaker 1: do we think that we're going to beat the best
Speaker 1: stock pickers in the world who obsess on this every
Speaker 1: single day? Are we going to beat the titans of
Speaker 1: industry with their technology? No, So that's why I always
Speaker 1: go for low cost, low movement, so they don't trade
Speaker 1: a lot index funds. I worked at Vanguard. They have
Speaker 1: the best cost structure, so I throw things in the
Speaker 1: S and P five hundred in a diversified portfolio out
Speaker 1: of cost. To this week, you go to Vanguard dot com.
Speaker 1: You have no fees on their trading platform. In my opinion,
Speaker 1: avoid Robinhood, avoid anything where you're buying individual stocks when
Speaker 1: you don't know, unless you're doing it purely for learning
Speaker 1: and you're okay with losing everything. And you go to
Speaker 1: Vanguard dot Com and you select a diversified portfolio It's
Speaker 1: cool too because they'll actually help you do it based
Speaker 1: on your age and based on how much risk you
Speaker 1: want to take. So they'll have a sixty forty portfolio,
Speaker 1: which is like sixty percent stocks and forty percent bonds
Speaker 1: if you're our age, for instance, if somebody's a little younger,
Speaker 1: they'll go eighty twenty because you should take more risk
Speaker 1: with stocks when you're young. So you can literally in
Speaker 1: one click get a diversified portfolio, and then you can
Speaker 1: add to it. You could also use like a wealth
Speaker 1: front for that.
Speaker 2: What's the divis portfolio For someone who doesn't.
Speaker 1: Know, that means that you never want to have all
Speaker 1: your eggs in one basket and anything in life, but
Speaker 1: certainly in investing, and so that means that they're going
Speaker 1: to give you stocks and bonds. It means they're going
Speaker 1: to give you emerging markets versus the US. So let's
Speaker 1: say India, China, Russia, Brazil and the US stock market.
Speaker 1: And it means that typically over time. You know that
Speaker 1: there's these charts you can see in finance where it
Speaker 1: kind of looks like it looks like a grid and
Speaker 1: audit are all of these different colors, and what do
Speaker 1: all the coverers represent that have no pattern to it.
Speaker 1: Every single year looks different. They represent every asset class
Speaker 1: you could invest in, from bonds to stocks, to Chilean
Speaker 1: stocks to short term money markets. And what you see
Speaker 1: over time is in every single market, everything moves. And
Speaker 1: so what you want to have is a portfolio that
Speaker 1: over time averages somewhere around ten percent. That's the average
Speaker 1: cost of inflation. How your money really if you don't
Speaker 1: invest it. Every single year that you don't invest, you
Speaker 1: lose money. Say you took a one hundred dollars bill
Speaker 1: right here, and I had it right in front of me,
Speaker 1: and I looked at that bill since the beginning of
Speaker 1: the Federal Reserve, which is the government institute that mandates
Speaker 1: or manages all of our currency in the US. So
Speaker 1: if I go all the way back to the seventies
Speaker 1: and I look at it today, what do I see?
Speaker 1: I see that one hundred dollars bill, if I just
Speaker 1: held it from then to now, is worth about twenty
Speaker 1: five bucks. It's not worth one hundred anymore. Why because
Speaker 1: of inflation. And so if we don't invest our money
Speaker 1: and we stick it under our mattress, then sadly the
Speaker 1: government eats away at it every single year, both sides
Speaker 1: politically agnostic, and so we got to make sure that
Speaker 1: we put our money somewhere. That's why the stock market
Speaker 1: over time is usually what most people do.
Speaker 2: Okay, it makes a lot of sense. And what's the
Speaker 2: difference between a stock and a bond?
Speaker 1: Okay, so stocks and bonds one oh one. I think
Speaker 1: about stocks like a ability for you to have future
Speaker 1: upside of a company. So you are betting in a
Speaker 1: way on a company. You're saying, today the price of
Speaker 1: Amazon is ten dollars. I think in the future the
Speaker 1: price of Amazon will be fifteen dollars. I want to
Speaker 1: go for that ride. It's called upside return with a bond.
Speaker 1: What are you doing instead? You're saying, I actually want income.
Speaker 1: It's like a certificate. If I give you one hundred bucks,
Speaker 1: I promise you over the next five years, I'm going
Speaker 1: to give you one hundred and twenty back. You're not
Speaker 1: going to make more if the bond that you invest
Speaker 1: in goes up or down in price. You're just going
Speaker 1: to clip coupons is what they're called. It used to
Speaker 1: be like that, So you're clipping the coupon. And the
Speaker 1: reason we want both of those is because again, you
Speaker 1: want when the stock market crashes, you want your bond
Speaker 1: to still be clipping those coupons, baby still coming in
Speaker 1: when the stock market's raging, you want to capture some
Speaker 1: of that upside. And that's how we play right there
Speaker 1: in the middle of investing.
Speaker 2: Is there a stage three? So we did stage one
Speaker 2: as you Stage two is SMP. What's the stage three?
Speaker 1: Stage three is private? So if you're a real pro
Speaker 1: and you want to go for three h three of investing,
Speaker 1: that's where we start to do private equity. That's just
Speaker 1: investing in those same companies, but instead of them being
Speaker 1: traded publicly, those companies are now held by private investors.
Speaker 1: They'll never trade on a stock exchange. That also includes
Speaker 1: things like you can have alternative investments that might be
Speaker 1: in investing in direct in real estate or investing in commodities,
Speaker 1: which would be like timber. Right, you could bet on
Speaker 1: timber prices that might be like equity and options. I
Speaker 1: think this generation got a little crazy because they were
Speaker 1: the first generation to gamify stock market investing and make
Speaker 1: it seem fun as opposed to serious. And they were
Speaker 1: the first generation that got easy access to things like
Speaker 1: options and warrants, and that's really actually only for pros.
Speaker 1: So I think anybody who's trying to tell you how
Speaker 1: to day trade, anybody who's trying to tell you how
Speaker 1: to do options, that's strategy. You think about that like
Speaker 1: somebody trying to tell you, let me teach you, over
Speaker 1: the course of a couple hours of me speaking to you,
Speaker 1: how to cut open somebody's brain. We just wouldn't do that.
Speaker 1: This is for pros. And if you really want to
Speaker 1: make real money, you don't do it by messing around
Speaker 1: at the margins of financial investing. In my mind, you
Speaker 1: do it by becoming the company that they invest in,
Speaker 1: which is stage four. So that's when you're like, I
Speaker 1: buy the business outright, I raise money for my own business,
Speaker 1: and that's the next level of the game.
Speaker 2: That's so great. I love that step by step because
Speaker 2: I feel for so many people it just feels like
Speaker 2: this unorganized, messy, wild wild West. And now it's like,
Speaker 2: wait a minute, stage one, stage two, stage stage four.
Speaker 2: I love those. Going back to stage two of the
Speaker 2: S and P. What percentage of someone's income should they
Speaker 2: be looking to put into the S and P.
Speaker 1: There's lots of rules around this, but I believe in
Speaker 1: you pay yourself first, and you pay yourself first. What
Speaker 1: I mean is you think about your investments just like
Speaker 1: you would a need, not a lot, so every single month.
Speaker 1: I believe in automatic investing. I've done it my entire career.
Speaker 1: Vanguard taught me that you get really lucky in finance.
Speaker 1: They teach you how to invest so that it becomes
Speaker 1: a habit, not a possibility. You don't wake up unless
Speaker 1: you're gross and not brush your teeth, right, You just
Speaker 1: brush your teeth because you're not gross, And so for investing,
Speaker 1: I think about it the same way. It's like you
Speaker 1: automatically set up your payments, so a little bit goes
Speaker 1: every time. I believe you want to have at least
Speaker 1: ten percent of the money that you make go into investing.
Speaker 1: There's lots of different rules. People could play it either way,
Speaker 1: but I think pay yourself first because otherwise you'll never
Speaker 1: pay yourself at all. And give yourself at least ten
Speaker 1: percent because we want to beat inflation every single year.
Speaker 1: And if you do those two things, you are better
Speaker 1: than about ninety percent of people that don't.
Speaker 2: Do that ten percent off the tax. That's just such
Speaker 2: a great goal for people, and you start thinking about
Speaker 2: it and you go, oh, what am I spending dumb
Speaker 2: money on? You know, like, what do you see people
Speaker 2: wasting money on? You know what?
Speaker 1: The biggest thing is people waste money on looking rich
Speaker 1: instead of being rich. And that is a cultural phenomenon
Speaker 1: that I think is eroding our wealth of society. I mean,
Speaker 1: perfect example here Coachella. We know because we're on the
Speaker 1: inside that the dirty secret of Coachella and everybody that
Speaker 1: you see on there is that most influencers are one
Speaker 1: paid to go, two given free tickets, three flown out
Speaker 1: for free. Four They actually have warehouses where you can
Speaker 1: pick out the clothes because that part's expensive, and you
Speaker 1: get the clothes for free, or if you're a real pro,
Speaker 1: they'll pay you to wear the clothes and give you
Speaker 1: the clothes for free. And so this entire experience for
Speaker 1: the few who become because we're all we just desire
Speaker 1: what other people have. That's how humans are. They're not
Speaker 1: paying anything for a thing that costs thousands and thousands
Speaker 1: and thousands of thousands of dollars. Well, the problem is
Speaker 1: is that the average Coachella main ticket holder, about sixty
Speaker 1: four percent of them couldn't afford their ticket, so they
Speaker 1: had to do buy now, pay later options. This year
Speaker 1: they offered buy now, pay later. And that is just
Speaker 1: for the ticket. That's not for the clothes, and that's
Speaker 1: not for the food, and that's not for the drinks.
Speaker 1: And so we are basically having credit card debt with
Speaker 1: which lasts forever, as a trade for Instagram posts which
Speaker 1: last for a minute. And so the number one thing
Speaker 1: that you can do to change your financial future is
Speaker 1: to not buy into what you see on the internet
Speaker 1: everybody else doing, which is why I really respect what
Speaker 1: you do and I try to do it online too.
Speaker 1: Sure we have nice things now sometimes you'll catch it
Speaker 1: in places because I won't really tell. But you don't
Speaker 1: see me flashing nice watches. You don't see me having
Speaker 1: nice cars. You don't see me posting about private planes.
Speaker 1: Why that's not really necessary. And all you are signaling
Speaker 1: is that that is what success is. That is not
Speaker 1: a success is. Those are just accoutrements that could be
Speaker 1: fun if you're into it once you're rich. But I
Speaker 1: promise you I've met so many unhappy mothers who have
Speaker 1: private jets.
Speaker 2: Yeah no, And I really appreciate that you saying that
Speaker 2: because I think for me it was the same thing
Speaker 2: I never wanted. I mean, when I started, I didn't
Speaker 2: have anything to show, but I didn't want someone to
Speaker 2: follow me for what I had. I wanted them to
Speaker 2: follow me for what I was saying and doing and living.
Speaker 2: And that to me always felt like that means anyone
Speaker 2: could do it, and as soon as it became. And
Speaker 2: also it was never about getting the thing, even for me.
Speaker 2: So if you make it about getting the thing, then
Speaker 2: the thing you do to get it you don't love.
Speaker 2: Whereas my thing is I love the game. I love
Speaker 2: what I'm doing, and same as you. And it goes
Speaker 2: back to where we started, where it's like, if you
Speaker 2: love the game, if you respect the rules, if you
Speaker 2: love what you do, then all of these things are
Speaker 2: a byproduct. They're wonderful, but they're never the gold and
Speaker 2: never the destination. They're never the thing that you wanted.
Speaker 2: That's not what drove you there.
Speaker 1: It's so true, and I'll be taken from you at
Speaker 1: very points, you know. And so I think about it
Speaker 1: a little bit like beauty. You know, I'm getting older
Speaker 1: and I've tried on the internet. Never make it about
Speaker 1: how I look one way or the other, if I'm
Speaker 1: fit or not, if I'm in sexy outfits or not.
Speaker 1: Why because I'm going to get old. I know what
Speaker 1: the future looks like, and it's old and wrinkley and
Speaker 1: sagotits and all the things right, and that's cool. It
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. And so if I can like prepare now
Speaker 1: that maybe people listen because I might have something valuable
Speaker 1: to say, then I'll still have something valuable to say
Speaker 1: when I'm made, as long as I'm still with it.
Speaker 1: And I think it's the same with stuff. You know,
Speaker 1: somebody could take that from you, but they cannot take ever.
Speaker 1: Nobody but God can take all the lessons that you've
Speaker 1: learned while running this business. Nobody but God could take
Speaker 1: the relationships that you've built from this business. But many things,
Speaker 1: including the market, could take everything that sits around us.
Speaker 1: And so I try to remember that so that I
Speaker 1: never anchored to it. And don't get me wrong, I'm
Speaker 1: not like, I am not an actual monk. I am
Speaker 1: very flawed, and so you know, I wish that I
Speaker 1: was better at some of this, But it is like
Speaker 1: the habits of millionaires are that they actually buy and
Speaker 1: large they don't care about money. They care about winning,
Speaker 1: and they care about learning, and real players find things
Speaker 1: and money to be uninteresting at some point.
Speaker 2: Toty cents, you're amazing. This is so great with you
Speaker 2: because it's just it's refreshing. We talked about everything from
Speaker 2: dating to investing, to making money to being a good employee.
Speaker 2: And I love that you're so flexible to go anywhere everywhere,
Speaker 2: because I feel people are going to get so much
Speaker 2: out of this episode, and I'm just so grateful that
Speaker 2: you're showing up as you are always despite everything else
Speaker 2: crazy life that you have going on as well, you're
Speaker 2: able to come here and drop wisdom gems with ease.
Speaker 2: Thank you for the priceless advice. It was so fun,
Speaker 2: amazing value. Everyone who's listening and watching, make sure you
Speaker 2: tag me and Cody on Instagram, on TikTok. Let us
Speaker 2: know what you're testing, let us know what resonated with you,
Speaker 2: let us know what connected with you. Because there were
Speaker 2: so many moments that I was sitting there going this
Speaker 2: is great, this is great. I hope someone does this.
Speaker 2: I want to see what's stuck with you. And of course,
Speaker 2: if you don't already, go and grab a copy of
Speaker 2: main Street Millionaire. Subscribe to Cody's podcast, follow her across
Speaker 2: social media, don't miss out in the amazing wisdom that
Speaker 2: she has to share, and we'll see you again soon.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for listening to this conversation. If
Speaker 2: you enjoyed it, you'll love my chat with Adam Grant
Speaker 2: on why discomfort is the key to growth and the
Speaker 2: strategies for unlocking your hidden potential. If you know you
Speaker 2: want to be more and achieve more this year, go
Speaker 2: check it out right now.
Speaker 1: You set a goal today, you achieve it in six months,
Speaker 1: and then by the time it happens, it's almost a relief.
Speaker 2: There's no sense of meaning and purpose.
Speaker 1: You sort of expected it, and you would have been
Speaker 1: disappointed if it didn't happen.