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If it feels like it's hard to you right now, like everything's more expensive,
0:34
everybody's buying houses, but you can't. It's not working like you thought it was going to work.
0:38
You feel behind compared to your peers, or you just don't understand what the future is going to
0:44
hold, because what you've built to date hasn't been enough. This episode is for you.
0:48
I'm going to talk about why you're not crazy. It is really just hard out there.
0:52
And I'm going to tell you all the stats, so at least you can stand on solid ground,
0:56
knowing that you're going to have an uphill climb. And then I'm going to talk about what it's
1:00
going to take for you to get to the next level of the game, because it's not going to be anything
1:05
like what people tell you today. This is me raw in this podcast. I'm going through a bunch of things
1:11
right now, but I want to have a conversation with you because I think it's really important today.
1:15
This is the Big Deal podcast, and I'm Cody Sanchez.
1:20
It is not just in your mind. You are not crazy. It is more expensive for you than it is for any
1:27
other generation. Right now, credit card debt has hit a record $1.28 trillion. 49% of people cannot
1:37
afford their rent or to buy a house today. Most of us are sitting here trying to figure it out.
1:45
When they told us learn to code, that hasn't turned out well. Meanwhile,
1:49
electricians are making like a hundred bucks an hour. And we went and got these grad degrees
1:54
that have on average $76,000 in student debt. And oh, by the way, they're non-forgivable. Meaning
2:00
that debt will follow you around for the rest of your life. Not to mention, look at this video.
2:05
And if you can't see it right now, this is what it is. It's how all the boomers told us that we
2:10
were lazy little shits that bought too much avocado toast and had lattes. And it turns out
2:16
they were full of shit. Because look at how much more expensive it is to buy a house for us
2:21
than them. Back when boomers were buying houses, it was four years of salary on average. You know
2:27
what it is today? 12. 12 years. I don't know how much avocado toast you eat, but I don't think
2:34
that's sufficient. You know, and I was thinking about that today because we're sitting here this
2:38
week. And I'm not a geopolitical expert. I have no idea if we should have gone to war with this
2:43
country or that country. What I do know is that we said, hey, government, we can't pay rent,
2:49
we can't buy homes. Remember 49% of us can't. And government said, best we can do,
2:55
buy my ran. What the fuck? You know, it's actually crazy. If you were to go and look,
3:01
I will pull this up for you because it's out of control. If you were to look, go to Groc
3:07
on Twitter. That's Twitter's AI. And you would ask it how much money we have spent in the Middle East
3:14
on wars. The answer would be eight trillion dollars. That's a hundred X, the annual
3:22
federal spending on roads and bridges. So you're right. They, the collective they pick whichever
3:29
politician you want to are using your tax dollars to do things that will never touch you in the US.
3:36
Imagine how affordable groceries would be for the average person. If we had spent things on,
3:42
I don't know, maybe making it easier for us to farm. I saw this beautiful thing
3:46
where as only Europeans do, really. But in Europe, they bought every household six chickens.
3:52
And they have viscerated the egg industry overnight. Nobody needed the egg industry overnight
3:57
because you were allowed to have these chickens and these coops. And it turns out you gave extra,
4:02
so you gave them to your neighbors. And of course, this wouldn't work in super urban centers,
4:06
but like really, we can drop $120 million on a bomb, but we can't buy Americans some chickens.
4:14
So I just want you guys to know it is actually really hard out there. And then I saw this other
4:19
thing today that I want to read to you. So I was like, tell me if this hits you in the gut,
4:23
like it did for me. Employee goes, it looks like we made $1.3 billion this year. Boss goes,
4:29
that's terrible news. Employee goes, ah, that's a lot of money. Why is that terrible news? Boss
4:34
goes, because last year we also made $1.3 billion. And employee goes, all right, I forgot.
4:39
It's not enough to make an insane amount of money. We also have to make more than we used to. Boss
4:44
goes, that's right. And simply paying our executive seven figure salaries won't cut it. We need more.
4:50
Employee goes, all right. I guess we could try making our product better to sell more. Boss goes,
4:55
sounds expensive. And employee goes, how about we create some new products to sell? Boss goes,
5:00
that's going to take forever. I need an immediate solution. I can implement right now.
5:04
Something that makes me look really good takes basically zero effort. Employee goes, oh, please
5:08
no. And boss goes, layoffs. And I just kind of think that that's what's happening in this world.
5:14
So right now if you feel like nobody's hiring you, it's probably not your CV's bad. It's that
5:19
most people hire friends and relatives and people they know and colleagues and they get
5:24
jobs based on hand shakes and looking at each other in the eye. And if you're not actually
5:27
out there talking to somebody direct, you're probably not going to make it. I was looking at some
5:33
stories about people, for instance, there's a guy yesterday, MBA from Wharton,
5:37
nice house in the suburbs. He was a big company employee his whole life, you know, like a big huge
5:42
corporation. He was laid off six months ago. And he kept getting to the final round and he's 54
5:48
years old. Like that is rough. It's rough right now. And I don't think, I'm not a pessimist.
5:55
I don't think this is going to be this way forever. But I do think that we need to be honest about
6:01
what's happening around us. That we have to normalize that if you want to win, you have to be
6:06
almost a little bit delusional. That you have to do things most people won't. You have to believe
6:12
you're the one. You have to go after it relentlessly. You have to focus so intently on the few things
6:18
you want as opposed to spray like the system taught you to apply to a thousand places to use
6:23
indeed everywhere to go to college and hope that somehow somebody picks you. No, it's so hard.
6:30
But it's so true. Nobody will ever pick you. No one is coming to save you. No one is coming to
6:36
pick you. You have to introduce yourself. And if you don't introduce yourself, you're just not
6:40
going to get ahead. And I was looking at this, you know, today I did this post talking about how
6:45
it's kind of not fair that we're spending all this money on other people in other countries. And
6:49
right here, your tax dollars that you work so hard on, which listen, it's not that like I'm like,
6:54
oh, fuck everybody who's not an American. That's, that's not true. I'm just saying you didn't
6:59
sign up to give away your life force, AKA your time that you trade for a salary to give it to
7:06
everybody else when you're not doing so great. When you're doing good, when the average American,
7:11
when 50% of Americans can afford rent and a house and afford groceries, awesome. Let's help
7:17
a brother out. In the meantime, why do we say take care of yourself? Why do we say you can't
7:23
pour from an empty cup because you can't? If you guys aren't doing okay, then everything else in
7:28
the world can't be getting more than you can. I think about this often, like how many wants
7:33
in a lifetime things do we got to go through? You know, now we have AI coming, which is something
7:38
totally different. Now we have, you know, a 50 year mortgage is basically what they've given us
7:44
as a solution when we all know that AI is going to disrupt a lot of jobs in the next five years.
7:50
So it's kind of like, all right, 50 years, but I have no idea what's going to happen in the next
7:53
five. I don't know if you've noticed it, but I certainly have. I travel all over the country a lot
7:58
right now. And I've sort of seen it in like grocery stores and airports and people walking down
8:04
the street and government buildings. Everybody looks a little drained, right? Everybody looks a little
8:09
worn out. And I think that is a warning sign of how hard it has been in many ways for many people.
8:18
And I just want you to know, I think there's three answers to this only. And the first answer is
8:25
that you can never quit. That like, once you figure out what you want out of life, the secret is
8:31
just keep going until you figure it out because usually the thing you want is right on the other side
8:36
of the time that you quit gave up stopped too early. And I know this sounds like hustle porn.
8:41
Like Cody, nobody can afford houses. Just don't quit. I'm sorry. There's like, there's
8:45
not a better answer than that. The first and best answer is prove that you are a person that
8:50
doesn't quit because those are the type of people that get hired, that get money from investors,
8:54
that get more opportunity that things get attracted to them. That's just it period end of story.
8:59
Like if you go into an interview and you don't say to them, I am the type of person that is so
9:03
relentless that if you don't hire for me for this job, I'm going to keep bothering you.
9:06
Like I am meant to come do this thing. Like I need you to have an unreasonable amount of belief
9:13
in yourself. Not that you can achieve anything. You don't even have to go that far. But that you just
9:17
you're a dog on a bone. You know, you're that pit bull that grabs and locks on and won't let go.
9:23
And every single successful person I've ever met has that. They are just a dog on a bone,
9:28
unapologetic for the fact that they will not quit. They will not let up. And that has to be you.
9:33
And the second thing that I've realized is you have to, you have to lock in this year. You're
9:42
going to have more distractions than you've ever had in your entire life. And you're going to have
9:46
to figure out like one or two things you can focus on per day, where at the end of that day,
9:51
you feel like you made it. Every almost every morning I call my president Mark and I have a
9:55
shit ton of activities. And he has a shit ton of activities. And I go, hey, okay, here's what I'm
9:59
working on. But if I get these two things done today, today was a win. How about you? And he goes,
10:03
yeah, yeah, these are my two. We're like people with really big jobs, but we know every day there
10:08
are the crucial two. And we kind of kill anything that isn't that because the world will try to take
10:14
your attention. And it can seem rude. You know, people come up to me sometimes. They're like, hey,
10:18
can I talk to you about this? I'm like, not right now. No, actually, uh, or they'll say, hey,
10:23
do this. Can I have your phone? Can I? And I go, no, not right now. I'm working on something else.
10:27
It is that relentless because maybe maybe in the past, when everything wasn't so crazy,
10:32
you could just get by by being a personality guy. You know, you could be like, that guy's nice.
10:37
So it's just like he just nices his way through stuff. That could be enough, but I don't think
10:41
it's enough anymore. You're going to actually have to kill distractions. You're going to actually
10:46
have to set boundaries and not like fake with all due respect. I'm also millennial, not like fake
10:52
millennial boundaries. Like I don't work or answer my email after five. Good fucking luck.
10:57
Good luck. I mean, I, I, I love disconnecting. I'm like a, I tell pretty much everybody on my team
11:04
always, unless we have something going on, I go, I work all weekend. You can ignore me. If I really
11:09
need something from you, I'll text you, but like you can ignore me in Slack on the weekends. Like
11:12
just ignore me. You can ignore me usually after work, but you should probably check it. And like,
11:18
listen, I like, I'm going to get raised for this on the internet, but it's just true. You're going
11:21
to have to lock in, work incredibly hard, set boundaries, but important ones that allow you to
11:27
focus on the things that work. You know what's crazy? According to the Federal Reserve, nearly 40%
11:33
of Americans wouldn't be able to cover a $400 emergency expense without barring or selling
11:38
something. So when you worry about why making it feels impossible in the US right now, you're not
11:43
being dramatic. You're actually being honest. Wages haven't kept pace with costs,
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attentions fractured, and the old playbook, you know, work hard, get ahead, feel slow every year.
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I think questions are increasingly more important than answers.
12:55
Now we have the answer machine at our fingertips, right? AI in many ways. But it's like the right way
13:00
you ask questions over time. Most people have maybe a three-to-one talk to listen ratio.
13:10
My mom always said, God, give you two ears so you could listen more than you talk. I never
13:13
listened to her about that, but that's what she said. But most people actually don't ask
13:18
enough questions. I think that is going to be the key today. What should I really work on?
13:22
What matters? Where is my curiosity driving? Do you think you're going to be able to win
13:27
if you're like a kind of curious person? Maybe this is the last one. I will take a confident
13:34
executor with a sprinkle of delusion over almost anybody else. The entire game is almost
13:40
all confidence. I love that little clip from Marty Supreme where she's like, what if you fail?
13:46
And he says, I don't even allow that kind of thought to enter my reality. Let me ask you something.
13:52
Do you make money with this little table tennis thing? Not yet. How do you live?
13:57
Well, I live with the conference if I believe myself, the money will follow.
14:02
And what are you planning to do if this whole dream of yours doesn't work out?
14:04
It doesn't even enter my consciousness.
14:07
The idea of failing is not a part of my reality. I don't allow it to enter my consciousness.
14:12
And I think that's kind of necessary. There's this cool thing. If you ever watch race car drivers,
14:16
before they go onto the track, they look crazy. We can show you the clip if you watch
14:20
the YouTube, you can see it here. Fifth gear, sixth gear, seventh gear, into eighth,
14:26
flat out through turn one, flat out through turn two, bringing a car to the left of side,
14:31
breaking hard at the curb on the left through turn three.
14:34
So basically the race car drivers usually have headphones on. They have their eyes closed.
14:38
And you kind of see them like, I don't know, twitching their shoulders and hands and like making
14:44
like weird little hand movements, almost like tiny claws. And just go watch a bunch of them before
14:49
they, before they race. They all do it. Why? What are they doing? They're actually visualizing the
14:53
track. So usually in their headphones, they have like the RPMs of the car going up and down.
14:58
The sounds of the actual track. And then their hands are like moving the car
15:04
and thinking about how the car is going to feel while they're hitting those turns and imagining
15:09
where they're going. They are so confident in their ability to execute because they visualized
15:14
exactly where they're going to hit it. And I think that's really cool. And in life, we might be
15:19
able to do the exact same thing. And so even though it's really hard, even though it's not you,
15:25
you're not crazy, it is harder for you, at least monetarily than it was for your parents.
15:30
I want you to know that there are things we can do to push back on it. And the things we can do
15:35
actually don't just require more hard work. They require a little bit more belief and a little
15:40
bit more focus. And then a little bit more relentlessness on top. But I've been thinking about you
15:45
guys because I've made my bag, you know, by now. I've made a lot of money. And maybe I could lose
15:51
it all. Who fucking knows? And, you know, I spend a lot of it on our companies. And I invest a ton.
15:58
And most of my assets are all set up and everything that we're already doing and all these people
16:03
you can't even see out here and all these other companies we invest in. But like, I've kind of made it.
16:09
And I worry about you who hasn't yet maybe made it or hasn't maybe made enough of it yet. And so I
16:17
hope you feel that like you're a really big deal to me. Everything that we do is for you. And I'll
16:24
push back as often as possible on the big guys who say that it's fine for the many to sacrifice
16:33
for the few. I mean, I saw a tweet that just about sent me a apoplectic because my husband is
16:40
a form of ABCO. We have lost friends and war. And I have seen what it is like to shake a hand
16:47
and then not be able to shake a hand hug that guy again when he comes back. You know,
16:53
we lost one of our very good friends from high school Charlie Keating was an ABCO who lost his life.
16:58
And I won't say the other two because they're not as public. But they died actually in service
17:03
of the country. And so I saw some idiot. There's been three deaths thus far from this war. And
17:09
somebody said like, I just want you to know like your sacrifices are worth it. And I just wanted to
17:15
be like, who the fuck are you? Did you send your kids? Or have you saddled up? You know, is your
17:21
husband or wife on their way to go do that? Who are you in finance? Talking about their sacrifice
17:28
is worth it for you. And so I feel the same way. Like, it's not worth all of human progression
17:36
when we have so many who are struggling here. And so tell me in the comments what you're struggling
17:42
with, what we can help you with. Don't let them turn you into a victim. Believe that you're more
17:48
capable because you probably are than you think. And keep going even though in many ways the odds
17:54
are stacked against you. The last thing I'll end with is like, I do believe, I truly believe
18:00
you guys that if you use this time, these next two years to buckle down and focus and build,
18:10
using the tools at hand, you can still unlock generational wealth for you and your families.
18:15
It is here. It is possible. We see it happen every day in the boardroom. I saw it happen
18:21
just the other day. One of our members, Jimmy had a struggling business. He was barely scraping by
18:27
the business made a couple hundred thousand dollars a year. We helped him find one unlock in his
18:31
business. That was $975,000 in additional revenue for him. Now him and his family are cruising.
18:38
They've got a business that's doing millions of dollars a year. Like, you have the opportunity
18:43
to do the unlock. We see it every single day. But, unfortunately, nobody else is going to do it
18:51
for you. Nobody is going to come out and reach their hand and introduce themselves. You're going
18:56
to have to do that. Let me know what you guys think of this podcast and I'll see you next week.
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