The Exchanges

Q You and your husband do this thing, the team thing. Can you explain this to me and, and how it's helped your marriage?

A Yeah. Yeah, we've added on to it. So it's, so, um, I don't know if, you know, you have this, but you know when you keep sort of bickering with your spouse, like little things, and they kind of compile, and you look back on a fight, and you're like, why was that so dramatic? It was about, you know, a book left on the table. It was about a water stain somewhere left out. What a dumb fight. And so we were having some of those. And, uh, and so we have a coach that we use because I believe in coaches in almost every area of your life that you can. I want to steal other people's 10,000 hours always. And so Brandy was basically like, we do this thing called team, which is at the end of the day, I want to say every day, but we don't do it every day. So often sit down and it goes like this. You touch. So the first thing, maybe you're like holding hands. Maybe you're sitting next to each other. Um, the second is educate. So you sit down and you're like, what did I learn today? Um, Oh, I learned this cool thing from my conversation with Shane. I share, he shares. Then appreciation. So it's like, hey, I really appreciate, honey, if it's a bad day, it might be like, thanks for taking out the trash. You know, that's all I fucking got today. But I appreciate that you did that. The only rule is you can't keep using the same things. Every day you got to find something new to appreciate. And the…

AI assessment note: “we do this thing called team... You touch... educate... appreciation... metrics”

Q Is that like, was it a freedom thing to get out of that? Like you felt like your time was somebody else's?

A Um, it was more a curiosity thing in the beginning. I love, I love the ability to go deep into a subject matter that, uh, that I think is rare. And so, you know, if you look at skill sets, the way we determine if something's rare or valuable these days is typically monetarily, right? It's not always the best way. Maybe spiritually it doesn't make a lot of sense, but our society seems to say your skill set is ranked on how much money it makes. And so when I thought about it that way, um, I just wanted to go win the game. I wanted to play the game, and I wanted to win, and the highest game I could see was one in which you, you go and get financial freedom. And then with financial freedom, it wasn't that I wanted to work less, it was that I don't want other people to assert their will on me. And so when I was a journalist, I saw a lot of people on the U.S.-Mexico border Who, they had a last name like Sanchez, just like me, but they were being human trafficked. I mean, I was in Juarez, where women were getting mutilated along the border. Yeah, I mean, I saw, I've crossed, crossed the border hundreds of times illegally, documenting sort of what happens in conflict zones. And, um, and after a while, I was like, what's the difference between them and me? It really wasn't that I was American. It was, they just didn't have any money. They had no resources whatsoever. So the world assert…

AI assessment note: “it wasn't that I wanted to work less, it was that I don't want other people to assert”

Q Or how do you, how do you think about that?

A Yeah. We talk about it like, uh, learn, earn, invest, repeat. So I think when you're in your twenties, you're in your learning phase. You still want to try to increase your earnings, but if I had to choose between earning more or learning in that period, I'd optimize for learning because learning has unlimited upside potential. Like you're never going to go in your twenties from making 30 K a year to 300 K a year per year because You negotiated a better salary. That's a very unhigh likelihood. What you very well could, if you learn something additional in that one year, compound that over 30 years to multiple millions or more. And so I obsess on learning first. And then as I get into my later twenties and early thirties, I start thinking more about earning. So how can I make more money? Like my first job, I made 37,000 dollars a year when I was at Vanguard. I thought that was a bajillion dollars. And, uh, and then I realized quickly it wasn't, especially after taxes, but that first job in Vanguard set me up for, you know, jobs at four of the biggest financial institutions out there, and an ability to earn more, um, when I didn't want to be in the world of finance anymore.

AI assessment note: “We talk about it like, uh, learn, earn, invest, repeat.”

Q Is there a difference between, like, a rich mindset and then a broke mindset then?

A Many things. I think a couple things. Rich people overall They really don't believe in that word impossible. You know, they're not like, if you said to a really rich person, um, hey, it's just not possible for you to start this next business and execute on it. Kind of doesn't enter their psyche. So they have what I've always thought of as like an armor of no's. So rich people have gotten told no so many times. They've been rejected so many times that it almost just bounces off of them. They kind of go, yeah, I'm gonna do it anyway. Thanks for the feedback. I'm gonna try it. I think poor people They have confirmation bias of no. So when stuff has happened to them that's bad, or when stuff hasn't worked out, instead of an armor of no, they're wearing a coat of no. They're like, yep, just let it in. Let's just build some more on this coat. Let's make this cape longer. And I think if you can kind of visualize it like that, a deflection versus an accumulation of no's, that's the difference between rich people and broke people. And in my career, And for a very long time, I think you want to be around people who often tell you, do more, go harder, keep going, as opposed to people who say, that's not possible, it worked for you, but it wouldn't work for me. And I think that's the difference also between allies, those are people who want you to win, and friends, who are people that want…

AI assessment note: “a deflection versus an accumulation of no's, that's the difference between rich people and broke people.”

Q I want to circle back to reputation. I want you to go deeper on reputation. Like, what What do you see as the advantages, disadvantages? Like, how do you think about reputation as a concept?

A First of all, Buffett said the most important thing, which is, what did he say exactly? It was something like, um, he said, if an employee makes a mistake and loses us money, I will allow that. But if an employee makes a mistake and, uh, hurts our reputation, they will immediately be fired. And I think that's quite true, because it's very hard to get back your reputation. And especially if it's, uh, your fault. Like, you did something that is out Of sync with who you say you are publicly. When I think about reputation, I try to be as transparent as humanly possible on all the things good, bad, and otherwise that are true with me. So for instance, um, we know that a lot of female founders get a hard time and, uh, get like, you know, business insider, uh, pieces written on them for being too harsh and too whatever, and there's sort of this phenomenon of this happening to female founders. Um, And, uh, and I think sometimes that's because they portray themselves as, like, sweet, kind, you know, I'm here for other women, whatever, and, and I'm always nice all the time, and so I don't do that. I'm like, I'm tough. I'm tough sometimes, and, you know, and, and we work really hard, and if you don't want to be a part of that, don't work in my company, and so I try to say the quiet part out loud as often as humanly possible, and then we do what's called inoculations against reputation, wh…

AI assessment note: “When I think about reputation, I try to be as transparent as humanly possible”

Q What's the difference between a good business and a bad business?

A In my definition, good business equals profitable, cash flowing, what I call a cash flow versus cash suck business, so you get paid up front for a service, not after you provide a service. Sustainable, it can exist for a long time. Historical, it has existed for a long time. Understandable, you can explain it to grandma really easily, and you have what's called the Lindy effect, The likelihood of the future continuing to cash flow just as it did in the past. Um, those are my parameters for a good business. A bad business would be a business that is unprofitable, hard to understand, hasn't been around for very long. Um, you get, you have to provide the service before you get paid for the service. That is a business that is just much harder. That's a harder game to win. And so, um, as often as possible, I want to have the lifeblood that is money come to me in my businesses, and that way I can make more mistakes as an entrepreneur because I have sort of a, I have a pre, I have a trampoline that has a lot of give to it as opposed to I think of cash suck or bad businesses as a concrete floor that has no give. You're going to jump out of the window sometimes and, and fuck things up, and so it can help if you have cash flow in it because that allows you to jump like a trampoline.

AI assessment note: “In my definition, good business equals profitable, cash flowing... A bad business would be”

Q Meanwhile, if you could focus my energy, we're going to get somewhere. So one of the key traits you mentioned, I think of high performers was the kind versus nice, uh, and the ability to communicate clearly and in a way the message is received, even though it's not always, um, Sugarcoated. What are the other traits that you've learned from people that you would say are high performers?

A Yeah, um, if you want to be a high performer, one, you got to be around other high performers. So try to find a group of people that look like the life that you want in one shape or another. Uh, second, if you want to be a high performer, You want to make sure that you always do the things that you say you're going to do, and I think that is probably one of the most underrated ways to win, is simply say you're going to do a thing and follow through on doing the thing. That is very rare. In fact, sometimes it's rare for me. I keep a, I, I project manage the shit out of myself because I'm forgetful, I have too many things on my plate, um, and I want to be a human of my word. And so I have like a notion task list that has databases and priorities on it, and every single day I look at that task list and I say, did I promise something to somebody? And I check off the things that I don't, or I forward expectation set. Like even with you, I was like, fuck Shane, you know, I have this thing I'm going to do this weekend, and I let you know ahead of time, I'm like, I'm a little worried. What if I can't do it? Do you think we could push it back? You know, we like over communicate almost, which sometimes can feel like too much, but lets the person know, like, I'm taking this really seriously. Like, I told you that I was going to do this thing with you, and I want you to know I'm really, I'…

AI assessment note: “one, you got to be around other high performers... second... always do the things”

Q It's like, I've already invested months, time, salary, money, and now, like, to do this, I have to do more. Like, how do you think about that?

A Uh, typically, we do improve, performance improvement plans for employees, not at the executive level. You know, if we have executive level people, which is usually the people that I am hiring or firing now, um, Those people, we start with the end in mind. So when people come onto my company, a hack to never have somebody be surprised by being let go is to start with a 30, 60, 90 day plan with every single person that you bring on board, even a new assistant. And those 30, 60, 90 day plans have very specific outcomes. And if those outcomes don't happen at 30 days for your first check-in, first red flag, they don't happen at 60 days, second red flag, third red flag, you're gone from the company. And then we have that on a quarterly basis too. So we have, you know, KPIs, key performance indicators, and if you're hitting those, then, uh, we're good to go. You keep motoring. If you have a quarter where you're not hitting those, okay, we've got first red flag. Depending on the position, if you have another month or sometimes another quarter of it, that means that you let go. And so there aren't, I hated when I was at a company and I didn't know where I stood, you know. It's like, am I doing a good job? Am I not doing a good job? Um, Why did this person get promoted? Why did this person get fired? It's so confusing. And so I always wanted something where it was like, just let me know…

AI assessment note: “start with a 30, 60, 90 day plan with every single person”

Q And so like, how do we seek this? If we're going to spend a decade sort of like learning and trying to increase our income, we should be methodical about how we approach this.

A Yeah. Well, a couple of things. I was thinking about this today. Like, we have a company here, Contrarian Thinking, which is our media company, and then underneath it, we have Contrarian Capital, which is our venture fund, and the Main Street Holding Company, which is where we own a bunch of small businesses inside of it, and, um, we get a lot of applications for jobs, and, you know, I was looking around at our team today. You just met two of, two of my employees, and the reason that both of them came was because they wanted to be around other people who were high-performing, So one of the nice things about the internet today is, yeah, maybe you can't get to shame as much because you're well known on the internet and you might not have time to mentor people. But how often could you see somebody you liked on the internet and then go, I want to work for them. You can do that a lot now. And a lot of people who are on the internet are hiring like crazy. And so you can't go and just slide into somebody's DMS and say, I want to work for you. What can I do? Lazy. But instead, you could keep on job applications continuously for people that you think are high performing and companies that you think are high performing. And, uh, there was another study that I thought was fascinating about underperformers and high performers. And the study basically showed it was hundreds of employees at …

AI assessment note: “you could keep on job applications continuously for people that you think are high performing”

Q and serves them up based on whatever topic you're interested in. I use Overlap every day to research, guess, explore, and learn. Give it a try and start discovering the best moments from the best podcasts. Go to joinoverlap.com. That's joinoverlap.com. You built a business around acquiring other businesses and enhancing them. Where did this all get started for you and what have been the key moments over that journey?

A I stole it all from private equity, so I, you know, I, I never would have thought about buying businesses, and it seems too big and scary, and I didn't grow up a lot of money or cash or understanding of money, and so if you would have told, like, twenty-year-old Cody, you would be buying businesses, and then buying more businesses, and building on top of them, I would have thought I had to win the lottery or something, and, uh, but thankfully, I got into finance, and I, and I kind of hated finance, And I didn't want to be anybody in any of the companies, uh, even the people at the top. I finally realized that after like 12 years. But I was like, wow, they really understand this language of money, and they know how to buy assets that make money leave and bring back more friends. And so I was like, oof, I want to learn how to do that, and I just don't want to have to do it in a suit, and I want to be able to do it in businesses that I want to be able to do it, and I want to be able to hold the businesses forever as opposed to buy them You know, split them up for parts and then sell them off. And so it got started because I'm a pretty good copycat. You know, I was just like, oh, here's a model that works. Can I do the same thing but a lot smaller because I don't have that much cash? And then if it keeps working, can I scale up to be like the big boys? And so that's where it starte…

AI assessment note: “I stole it all from private equity... it got started because I'm a pretty good copycat.”

Q If you're a boss, manager, owner, how do you determine if somebody's interested or obsessed?

A Mmm, that's such a good question. Um, I always think about what can you not sleep for the want of doing? You know, again, I, I find business to be sort of spiritual, and so I think when you felt that flow state in business before, it could be writing emails for me. Like, when I am writing a really good email, and I am in the zone, and I am focused, it's maybe the most beautiful thing I do. It's my favorite thing in the world, and I'd rather do it than go out and drink beers at the bar. And so, um, I like to ask people a couple questions. One of my favorite questions is, when was the last time you, you pulled an all-nighter? You stayed up all night working on something that you loved? And a lot of times you can tell if somebody is an interested versus obsessed person by the fact that they're like, You know?

AI assessment note: “I like to ask people a couple questions. One of my favorite questions is”

Q In your inner circle, how quickly do you recognize underperformance, and how do you deal with it?

A I need to be faster. I mean, the good thing, like, for anybody listening is, like, you don't have to be perfect. Oh, man, the more rich people I meet, the more I realize how achievable it is for most of us, and so I am highly flawed in hiring. I am highly flawed in, uh, letting go of people or changing things when I need to in a business. I, I Even though I sound kind of tough, I almost always defer on the side of like, ah, I wait too long, I think too much about the person, I want to make sure they're ok. Something I'd like to get better at. I think it is the peak of ego to be like, oh, I shouldn't let this person go because they have it better with me than anybody else. I don't know. I believe in their individual capacity to go and do something great that lights up their soul. And if this isn't it, then let's move them on to the next thing. And, and maybe the reason why is one time at my, let's see, company, two companies before I started my own, I had a CEO whose name was Jim. And, uh, Jim is a badass. I mean, he's like a billionaire many times over. He's very intimidating. And I remember, uh, I was running a business in Latin America then. We were crushing it. We were growing like crazy. I was running it for him. And, uh, and he called me to a hotel we were at, the Monarch, and we were walking on the beach after one of our conferences, and, um, he was kind of like, listen, …

AI assessment note: “I almost always defer on the side of like, ah, I wait too long”

Q You're sort of like, oh, this reminds me of this situation. Maybe I can handle it this way. Is the environment different? Can I apply it?

A Yeah. Well, I think, um, I don't have the big, huge type of brain that finds completely novel solutions and runs with it. So my brain is in Colby, what they call a fact finder brain. So I first kind of like, probably because I was a journalist, I look at the landscape and say, how have people done this before? What does the data tell us? If I get, you know, 10 instances of this, what happens in nine out of those 10 instances? Okay, now I have like some examples. And then I'll go, okay, here's my problem. How do I apply those examples to my problem? And that just helps me feel a higher degree of confidence that'll work. So if you work at my companies, you'll often hear me say, Like, somebody will say, this is a good video. And we'll say, what does good mean? And they'll say, well, I like it, or it feels good, or whatever. And I'll say, well, I can't really quantify that. Could you give me some different metrics? And so, now we'll have definitions with metrics for almost everything. Because when you use the same words, then you're actually having the same conversation. Often we aren't. Like, good is too squishy. You can't tell what it means. And so, um, a lot of what we do at our companies is figure out words mean things. Different things to different people. What's our exact definition? And then once we have the exact definition, what's the playbook we can use with those words? …

AI assessment note: “How do I apply those examples to my problem?”

Q I never thought of it like in mirror before. That's a really interesting way to frame it. Yeah. Do men and women think about money differently?

A I want to add one other thing. So one thing I, I don't like, actually, is I have noticed a lot of people on the internet saying things like, you know, if they're not above you, if they're not in front of you, you've got to leave them behind. And if, if, you know, they're not moving as fast as you are, then, you know, they will, you don't need to be friends with them anymore. And I totally disagree with that. And in fact, the research really shows the opposite. Arthur Brooks does an incredible series of studies about Having, um, what he calls worthless friends. And worthless friends are the friends that you have no transactional value you want from. You don't want anything from them. They don't want anything from you. They want to hang out with you. They want to go on a walk with you. They don't want your email list. They don't want access to your money. They just want to have a beer on a Friday night. And these friendships end up materially increasing our happiness, these worthless friends, whereas these transactional friendships actually end up in many ways decreasing our happiness. And so I think when people say, hey, if they're not on your level, ditch them, they don't actually understand the research. And I, I had a friend here, actually, who I saw get really, really successful on the internet. And I saw the most fascinating thing, um, which was, I, I just started meeting p…

AI assessment note: “I want to add one other thing.”

Q Are there different skill sets between acquiring and sort of maintaining or keeping your money?

A Oh, yeah. I mean, uh, it's always, in my opinion, easier in the beginning to save, but easier in the long term to earn. So you can only save your way to zero. You, you know, there's very, there's limited downside, but there's unlimited upside. And so I do think that What do they call that? They call that, like, um, spending creep, lifestyle creep, and so there's certainly that. The more money you make, the more you spend, and then all of a sudden you realize that you've totally outspent your income. That is a big problem for many people, um, but I, I think on average we've been told that we need to save a lot more, and here's why. Um, one, if we're saving consistently, what does that mean? It means that we're putting money into third-party investment products. Um, it means that we have money sitting at banks. Like, If we save, we are helping a lot of other individuals make money. If we earn and invest money in our individual businesses, we are actually giving money back to employees. We are giving money back to local economies. Like, this benefits a few really big guys saving. Uh, earning benefits a lot of little guys, and so I, I understand why society has pushed us to save more as opposed to earn more. Um, I also think by and large, money equals freedom. So the more money you can make, the more decisions that you can make by yourself, and most people, um, they don't want free…

AI assessment note: “I understand why society has pushed us to save more as opposed to earn more.”