#136 The Comeback is Personal.

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The people who told you no were not protecting you. They were protecting themselves from their discomfort of watching you try something they never dared, from their embarrassment if you succeeded, from them having to explain themselves and why they never did it. Gatekeepers never guard the gate for your benefit. They stand there because they can't bring themselves to walk through it. But I have something wrong with me. I'm happiest when I'm counted out. I'm hungriest when my seat at the table gets taken. If you give me a chip on my shoulder, I'mma thank you. But I didn't always have that mindset. So if you have been denied, ignored, rejected, pushed away, this episode is your counterpunch. This is The Big Deal Podcast. I'm Codie Sanchez, and this is the comeback episode. Before we go any further, if this lights a fuel for you, I want you to do something. Subscribe. Takes 2 seconds. It's free. And it tells us what is really resonating, which guests we should book, what to go deeper in. My producer just told me that 76% of the people watching my videos are not subscribed., which means we're reaching a lot of new people that are part of my tribe. Like, you are my people. I created Big Deal for the ones who are serious about building something and don't want to be sidelined. So if that's you, I want you here every week. So hit that subscribe button. I see you and I'm so grateful for you. Now, here is the pitfall nobody warns you about. I call it the ladder trap. You climb the ladder, you get the fancy title, you get the paycheck, and then one morning you wake up and realize this ladder is leaning against the wrong damn building. I spent years on Wall Street, like Goldman Sachs, State Street, First Trust, years. I was really good at it. That's the worst part. When you're good at something you don't love, the golden handcuffs get tighter. My time was tied to a clock of a person I didn't even like. My income to somebody else's decision. I was making money for people that I didn't actually want to make more money for. And I had this like sickening realization that the most smart people I've ever met at some point said, I either want to be able to grow more here or I want to stop being your product. And like everyone around me was fine with it. You know, the paycheck was big enough to keep my friends, my family comfortable to never leave. But here's what I learned in Juarez that applies directly to you. The most dangerous prison is the one where you don't know you're locked up and you do it to yourself. Right now, there's something in your life that you know you need to do. Like you need to take the risk. You need to ask for the big thing. You need to move a tiny step forward that feels like a giant jump. I know because I did it too. I left Wall Street after I had bought a lot of laundromats. One of the most prestigious financial institutions on the planet, Goldman Sachs, Vanguard, and instead I want to go work at a place where people wash their underwear? Like, they're gonna laugh at you. And that's the thing I want you to realize. The laugh is the win. When nobody believes, that's when you know you're actually doing something interesting. You want to know what loneliness sounds like? It sounds like the silence from people who used to cheer for you. I remember All of my family at the time said replacing Goldman Sachs with Codie Sanchez was a huge mistake. The Wall Street friends I used to have, gone, right? The invites dried up, the calls stopped. Nobody says it to your face, they just disappear. And the few who do say something, it's always dressed up as concern, you know? Like, "Are you sure about this? That seems a little risky. You've had such a good thing going. Is the grass always greener?" Translation is, "I don't understand what you're doing, so it has to be wrong." And I want you to think about that again and again and again, because I cannot remember one transition in my life where somebody cheered me on and told me to do it. And you know what's funny about this is I think today everybody's telling you, go be your own boss, go be an entrepreneur, it'll be great, they said, right? Then you get the company like, fuck me, what did I sign up for? And actually I'm gonna like have a lot of years of not making a lot of money and not doing this. That is true. You don't have to go burn the bridges to have a comeback story. You just need to go work on something you're really passionate about. You need to go turn the thing that you do every day into something you are passionate about. You need to figure out how to play the game of money and business and do it right now where you are. Like, I think a lot about how much less money I would've made if I had started 15 years earlier, which is like not very popular to say. Like, I talk so much shit about old bosses and old companies, but the truth of the matter is, I learned so much on somebody else's dime. So every time they dissuade you, it's okay. Maybe you're not ready yet. Keep that in your back pocket for later. I was just talking outside to a guy whose name is Brian that I used to work with at a company called First Trust. And when I left that company, he was one of the few people that said, go do it. You're going to crush it at this. Go do it. You're not going to regret this for a minute. And when he saw me today, 10 years later after that, maybe even, maybe even 12 years later, he said, look at you. You're actually doing it. But you know what I look back at him and said? I remember Every piece of advice you gave me, because let me tell you what, lots of people were dissuading me, but there will be a few people in your lives that are gonna make you believe that you are capable of doing something bigger. And I repeated back to him 3 pieces of advice that he gave me. He told me that you never sell anybody anything. You only find people who are predisposed to already want what you're selling. And if somebody hasn't already done the action you want them to do, don't ever assume they're going to do that action. The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. And I repeated it back to him and he looked shocked. Why? Because I remember my haters just as much as I remember the people that cheered me on and gave me great advice. So yeah, it's fine. Let them dissuade you, but also remember all the people around you that think it's possible for you. You know, that laundromat cost me $100,000 and it made me $67,000 a year. That's a pretty damn good cash-on-cash return. Do you know how many hedge fund managers would sell their Patagonia vests for a 67% cash-on-cash return? A lot of them. But nobody saw it because it wasn't shiny. It wasn't tech. It wasn't a unicorn. It was a laundromat. And I bought a few more and I rolled them up into a portfolio, and then I sold it. But this thing that I did back in the day is not that different from the thing that you have inside of you. And it doesn't mean you have to go do something entrepreneurial. I was talking the other day about— think about this for a second. Bain is a big consulting company, one of the biggest in the world, worth billions of dollars. One of the top— it was started by a single dude who just gave advice. That's literally how Bain Consulting started. I give advice, people pay me for advice, I do it again and again, I build a big company. Then he wanted to invest in companies. So he said to his friend Mitt— by the way, this is Mitt Romney, who used to run for president— hey, Mitt, do you want to go run Bain Capital for us? So one of his employees, his best employee, that was a savage and a stud and he kept pouring into, he goes, you want to go run this thing? If it doesn't work out, come back. You can have your old job. You'll still make tons of money. But in the meantime, go run this thing. And now I walk past Mitt Romney's $80 million house on the beach in California often, and I chuckle thinking about the fact that there are all these people on the internet who tell you you can't make make a ton of money as an employee. Bullshit. Bullshit. Mitt Romney makes more than like 99.9% of entrepreneurs ever will, maybe in their entire lifetime. And so nobody should doubt you. You just are probably doubting you. Where are you not trying to get bigger in what you're doing right now? You don't have to leave to have a comeback story. You can just say, hey, trust me to go build this thing over here. I'm gonna do it. You're gonna bankroll it. Like, why don't we have more of that energy? Hey, I'm so good in your company. Actually, there's a chick I hired and she's amazing. And I remember she first said to me, she's like, I want to buy a business. And I said, well, first you got to do the job because I don't want you distracted. And she goes, oh, don't worry about that. I'm going to be so valuable here that eventually I'm going to buy a business and you're not going to care anything that I do because I'm just going to be such a stud at this company. And I was like, that's the energy. Because here's the thing, most people will doubt you and they won't come back and apologize. They don't call and say, "I was wrong." They just get quiet. And then later they ask how you did it. This is the part of the comeback nobody prepares you for, which is the loneliness of the middle. The part where you've left the old thing, but you haven't proven the new thing, where your conviction is all you've got. And I want to tell you something about that space, that uncomfortable, uncertain, everyone-thinks-you're-crazy space. That's where everything gets built. It's not on the mountaintop. It's not at the finish line. It's in the ugly middle. That's where everything gets made. And what is made then is crucial, like owning your business, owning your platform, owning your attention. You can have the best ideas in the world, but if nobody hears them, you're just talking to yourself. That's actually the same lesson I learned when I started my newsletter business. That's how this entire company got started is on a platform just like Beehive, building my very first newsletter that turned into multiple 9 figures. And that's why I publish my newsletters on Beehive today. Beehive makes it real simple. You write, you own your audience, you get paid. No algorithms or gatekeepers, just direct line to you. Beehive gives you growth tools that compound referrals, recommendations, built-in monetization, ads, subscriptions from day one. It is the one platform where you actually own your own list. And here's the number that matters. Newsletters published via Beehive grow 2.5 2.75% faster than the ones published on other platforms. So you want leverage? That's it. If you're in the messy middle right now, building, posting, grinding, and it still feels like you're starting from zero every day, go to beehive.com/codie. Use code CODIE30 for 30% off your first 3 months. That's beehive.com/codie and use code CODIE30 for 30% off your first 3 months. Spelled B-E-E-H-I-I-V. The idea is simple. In 3 months, you build once and you own it forever. Here's my philosophy on this. You buy boring, you build quietly. Let me tell you what I figured out that most people never will. The wealthiest people in the world, they are not building apps. They're not on magazine covers. They're not pitching VCs. They own boring businesses that print money. One woman built a roofing company into a billion-dollar enterprise. That's Diane Hendricks. I actually want to have her on the podcast. She's a total stud. A garbage man became the wealthiest person in the state and in the country at the time. That was Wayne Huizenga. Not fairy tales. That's like public record. But, you know, why does everybody tell you out out there to go chase the next shiny thing, to go try to be viral, to chase, you know, somebody else's definition of success. I think the cynics get to be right and the optimists get to be rich. It totally rewired my brain because cynics are right most of the time. Most businesses fail. Most ideas don't work. Most people give up. Yeah, they're right, but they're wrong 100% because the only thing that matters is the one that works for you. My first several deals were not home runs. One of my first deals, I lost a couple hundred K. You know, one of my other deals, once I had more money, I lost millions. You know, I had a guy who stole $25 million from one of our companies and had not one but multiple mistresses, which I find impressive because he was also married with kids plus running a company at a time in some way. Like, I've had really hard setbacks, but each one I had people telling me, I told you so. And they were right that day. But not forever. The difference between me and the person who quit? I kept buying the next one. So if you keep doing this— mine was acquiring assets that produce cash flow, yours may be just having some failures, failures, but they get absorbed by the winners. I think, let me say this plainly, you don't need to be right every time. You need to stay in the game long enough to be right once in a really big way. Then all of your wrongs get wiped away. You know, now I look at a guy like Chamath Palihapitiya, who was like getting ridiculed on the internet for SPACs and bad investments. And I remember asking him at the time, I'm like, Chamath, dang, it's tough out there. You doing okay? And he was like, I love the attention. He's like, just watch me. I'm gonna keep swinging and I'm gonna win over the long term. Now look at the guy. He's done like two of the biggest and best transactions you could say in the last decade in investing. And so like these days I own, you know, a big holding company at Contrarian Thinking, all of these companies that sort of make money while everyone else is refreshing their stock portfolio. And, and that's what contrarian thinking our company actually means. It's not about being different for the sake of being different. It's seeing what everyone else ignores and asking why. Why does everybody believe that you have to do business every way this way? Why does everyone want to be a tech founder when the plumber down the street is clearing half a mil? Like, these are the core ideas that led me to creating Main Street Millionaire Live, where my team and I teach you how to buy, operate, and grow profitable, boring businesses. I do not believe that you have to go to a tech startup to make millions in order. In fact, I think that's a terrible idea. So we built something that's a tactical straight shooter boot camp where in 3 days you learn how to find the right small business to buy, incorporate AI into your business on day 1, and do what I did, like buy that first laundromat that changed my life and set me on the path to ownership. I don't think there's another stock as reliable as a business that pays you every week. And, you know, if you think that same way that I do, like I want you at Main Street Millionaire Live, you can hit the link and I'd love to see you there because I don't think business ownership is about having a big title. I think it is about If you don't have ownership, it will be the most expensive thing you'll never own. That's the key to freedom. But I want to get personal with this idea about like the fire inside of you, you need. You're going to use everything you've got to win. The comeback's going to be longer than you think. It's going to be harder than you thought, and you're going to want to give up at many points. I grew up watching my parents work themselves raw. Like my mom was a 30-year special education teacher. My dad built things with his hands. He was a carpenter. He owned granite and marble quarries. I used to watch him saw it with him and his brother install it. You know, he worked in roofing, he was in a slaughterhouse. He had a work ethic that, like, I can't even imagine. And then I went to one of the most dangerous places on earth at 20-something years old in Juárez, and I saw what happens to people who don't have any options. You know, they were trafficked, they were brutally murdered in the desert because they had no economic power. And that changed something to me permanently. I hope it does the same to you. So when someone tells me money isn't that important, or money's the root of all evil, or it's not about the money, I know they've never been in a place where they didn't really I have it. Because you guys tell me in the comments, what's it like when you don't have money? What's it like when a rich person says, well, it's not really about the money? You're like, yeah, let me fucking find out. Let me get some of that and then I'll figure it out. Because the truth about money is it's freedom, it's safety, and it's a protection of your life. I think it's the sword of the 21st century, and I want to arm as many people as possible. Like, you don't need followers. You need it because when you have nothing, uh, you can have anything happen to you because you have no leverage. And I think the gap between those two things is not knowledge, it's not talent, it's not luck. It's typically what are you willing to do? What is the game you are choosing to play? What is the voice inside your head telling you when other people say you're not capable of it? That is the real question, and it's the only part that actually matters. You know, we don't— we're not trying to create followers here. I'm trying, you and me, to have a conversation about why are you still stuck before the comeback even starts. When are you going to be the story other people tell about the person who had it hard, who was the victim, who was struggling and then won? And if that sounds too dramatic, I don't know. Good. It should. Because staying broke when you don't have to be, that ain't it. Working for a job you hate for 40 years and calling it responsible, that's a tragedy. Change happens when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of making change. You know, I left the golden handcuffs because they hurt more than the uncertainty. I bought the first business when the fear of staying was worse than the fear of failing. You, you have that inflection point right now in your life, the place where you're staying comfortable, and that's the most dangerous thing you can do. You know, I think you should treat your comeback personally. Like, your comeback isn't going to look like mine. It shouldn't. Yours might start in a cubicle and go through a franchise or a side hustle or a conversation you've been avoiding for 3 years or becoming a corporate exec and making so much money it makes other people uncomfortable, or building a huge business with partners, raising a bunch of capital, doing something that someone told you you never could do. Someone else decided what you were before you could show them who you are. You're gonna still carry that right now as you listen to this? No, no, no, you can carry it, but only if you use it. The weight isn't holding you down. That's your training wheels. Like that colleague who called me a secretary, I'll remember that. The family who said I was making a mistake, Fuel. The Wall Street friends who disappeared, fuel. Every single thing that's risky and 'are you sure,' fuel. You don't beat them by arguing. You don't beat them by proving them wrong to their face. You cast a shadow so big that nobody can see them to begin with. You outgrow them, you outbuild them, you outlast them. And here's the thing, you don't even have to be the smartest person in the room to do it. You just have to be the one who doesn't quit and the one who buys the business when the last one didn't work out for you, the one who makes the call when the last 5 people hung up on you and yelled in face, the one who gets up tomorrow and does the boring work that nobody posts about on Instagram. Because I found that all the big things, they start small. My quote-unquote empire started with one laundromat and everybody laughing. Now it's a mission to free a million people. So what's your laundromat? What's the boring, unsexy, nobody-understands-it first step that you keep talking yourself out of? So stop talking. This is your chance to stop planning your escape, stop waiting for permission, The comeback is personal, and it always was. The only person who gets to decide when it starts is you. So go buy something, go make it extraordinary, go do something huge. And I want you to tell me next week, what are you doing to change your life? Because that comeback story can be way bigger than you could ever imagine. God, you know who gets this is Michael Jordan. In fact, there was a famous lore about him that You didn't talk shit to Michael because if you did, that man amped up. They only realized this because Michael would sometimes have a game where he was chilling, he was a little bit slower, then somebody would talk a little shit to Michael and Michael would go on to win the game, beat all former records, and annihilate that human. So famously, one of his coaches said the worst thing you could ever do to Michael was tell him he couldn't do something. And if you wanted him to do it, it'd be better if you told him that to his face. That's what I'm talking about. Out. The other GOAT at this, Dana White. Dana White famously says, "I am an incredible friend, but I am an even more dangerous enemy." And I love this line because Dana had time after time after time where people came after him, and he kept saying, "No, there's no way I'm giving up." In fact, you know, when he supported— whether he liked the guy or not— one president, all these sponsors threatened to shut him down. He just doubled down on it and said, "No, no, I'm going all I don't care what you guys think about me. Famously, when Theo Von came on Dana White's podcast— or I guess the other way, when Dana White came on Theo Von's podcast— Theo Von told him a story about how, I believe it was Peloton, the bike company, had promised Theo to do a couple of things, didn't end up following through on it, and talked about some really bad stuff publicly that Dana didn't agree with. So what did Dana do? He said, are you serious? Is this true? He goes, somebody Google this, find out if this is true. This is true. He goes, take all the bikes out of all the UFC that are Peloton, throw them in the trash. Tell them we're never buying a Peloton again. Tell them we're never allowing any sponsorships from them again. He just went ham. Theo Vaughn was like, cool, cool. And I love that because that is you taking a side. The man was like, are you serious? They said that? And I'm kind of keeping some of the details out of it because who cares if you agree with the detail or not? You get to choose your side. You get to have your comeback. Sylvester Stallone. The guy was unhinged. I mean, talk about a comeback story. He was so broke, he had like $30 on him. He was going through a really hard time with his wife, but he was so convinced that he wanted to be not only a famous actor, but he wanted to be in Hollywood at a level of the game that nobody else could imagine. He had written Rocky, and he got it in front of a couple of producers at a studio. And the lore goes that, uh, Stallone had about $30 left. His wife was about to leave him. They offered him thousands of dollars, maybe tens of thousands of dollars, which could have changed his life back then, and some of the rights to the film. And they were gonna make his movie. This is a man who went to hundreds of casting calls. They all told him no. They said, who's gonna listen to you with that weird voice you've got and that beat-up face? No, no, no chance. So he gets his movie in front of like the major movie execs, but then he says, I want to play the role. I want to play Rocky. And they're like, no way, this guy? You're gonna be the lead? Have you seen your face? And he turned it down. So he went back home, told his wife that he turned it down. She left him. He kept going, kept pitching it to other people. It was him, his dog, and like a couple bucks. He got to such a low point that he stood outside of a little market gas station and he sold his dog for the couple of dollars that he needed to keep going. He sold his best friend, the person that he said, the thing that he said he loved most in the world, the last thing he had. He sold his dog for like $50 or something. Then he goes and he sells the rights to the movie, but for like pennies on the dollar. I don't know. Let's say, let's say a couple thousand dollars and sells it to the studio for a couple thousand dollars. But he gets to be the lead. And he's like, yes, I got it. What does he immediately do? He goes back and stands outside the gas station waiting for the guy to come back with his dog. Not there. Day after day after day after day. He's crying. He's beaten up. This is— what is he doing? He sold his dog. What kind of sick human does that? He hates himself. One day the guy comes with the dog. He's like, I'm so— man, I got my money back. I'm good. I want my dog back. The guy's like, no, this is my dog. He's like, no, no, no, I want the dog back. Here's $50. No, No, here's $100. No, here's $200. Here's every single penny I just got from my movie advance to get the dog back. Sylvester Stallone does it, except the guy asks for one other thing. He says he wants to be in the movie and take all of his money. So the guy that he sold his dog to is in the movie, and also Sylvester Stallone believed in himself so hard that that role catapulted himself for the rest of his life. Can you imagine the things that you go to to achieve the life that you want? Love that story.