how much we talked about everything last time, but my company has basically,
we've doubled our manpower since about February.
We picked up some pretty big things for us and it's just been, it's been crazy.
So it's been a very busy, busy summer.
So you've doubled your manpower since we last talked.
And what's the company name?
Absolute landscapes. It's a landscape maintenance company.
That's what we do mostly commercial. Yep.
I remember that now.
It's been so long since we've talked to so many people.
Yeah. But one of the things I loved about what you do is, you know,
how to work hard. You know, you know, how to do manual labor.
So where are you based at again?
So I'm in South Carolina. We're, we're right.
We're about an hour of the border, North Carolina, South Carolina.
So we kind of do a little bit in both States.
Yeah. Okay. Awesome. How many trucks?
There's a, there's four now, although one is having an issue at the moment.
So, but okay, but you have four and you're expanding lawns
and landscapes will always need attended to. So that's right.
That's awesome. Especially in America. So good stuff, man.
Well, everybody who's listening, we're going to be talking about overcoming
fear and self doubt and vision blind spots. We got Cody Jones on who's a,
who's an entrepreneur, who's also a huge enthusiast of personal growth and
development. He's got a podcast of his own.
Remind me of the name. I know it's got the word wisdom in it.
It's the pure wisdom podcast, the pure wisdom podcast.
And I need to head over there right after this.
What's one of your favorite episodes, Cody put you on the spot with that.
You know, I talked to a gentleman, his name is Carlos Burgundy, and he was,
he's a black belt martial artist and he has overcome a lot of things in his life.
Man, he is, he's actually done two episodes on the show and he has some
great insights for anybody who is just, I think he's overcome addiction. He's,
he's dealt with the divorce thing. I mean, he, this guy's he's,
and he's also a black belt martial artist. I mean, this guy's, he's,
he's very, uh, very interesting guy. So I would,
I would say that's probably the, the, the favorite. If, if I had to say one,
his favorite, awesome. I'm gonna ask another strange question. What's the most,
um, advanced or profound episode you think you've had so far?
Is that the one or is it, is there another one?
I talked to a dating coach and that's definitely the longest.
That was a little over a two hour long podcast. Yeah. Yeah.
And it was, uh, man, I just feel like with the dating market, you know,
in 2024, just the current state of things, everything's just so,
there's just so many different avenues that people take with the dating
preferences and this kind of thing. So there was just a lot to cover in that,
you know, two hour span. Yeah, no, absolutely. That's cool.
You guys have deep then, um, do you have any solo episodes?
I tried to start with the solo episodes,
but even for a person that can talk as long as I can, it's just, it's difficult.
You know, it's difficult to have a conversation by yourself about whatever
topic. So, and plus I, you know, it's, it's,
if I bring somebody on who is, who has more wisdom than I do is, is,
is, is kind of in a different area.
It just makes more sense to bring these people on and ask them the questions and
learn from them because my knowledge is so limited, you know,
versus if we get on the, on the internet and we kind of expand out with who knows
who, you know, we, we can just expand our, our, our reach and the knowledge and
insights. So yeah, the solos are difficult. I probably won't do any more solos.
Okay. Well, I get that, but I'm also, I'm that guy looking for your wisdom.
You're my avenue for that. So I'm like, cool. I want to know.
So if you had to vote for one of your episodes, which one would it be
vote for one of your solo, did you release a solo episode?
So I did initially, but you know that man, that was probably two,
two years ago at this point, cause what happened, I started the podcast,
it started out as a solo thing and I,
I kind of stopped it for almost a year and then I got back into it,
bringing guests on. So, no,
you don't want to, but I still want one.
I mean, man, I, you know, I don't know. It's, it's kind of the same,
some of the same things maybe that I talk about now. It's just, you know,
when a person sees something like that, it's almost like, well,
who is this guy? You know what I mean? Like, why should I listen to this guy?
So I don't know. I probably have them saved somewhere, you know, in a,
in an archive somewhere, but they're, they're definitely not public.
Hope, hope not. Okay.
Okay. If I find one, I'll let you know.
I probably won't let you know, because you know, two years ago or not,
the value of, of gold remains valuable. I mean, it's,
it's still gold. It is what it is. Sure. The market can make their judgments,
but you know, you,
you definitely have a depth of wisdom for your own experiences.
And I got a real appreciation for the hard work that you put in and just our
first conversation too, there was, it was,
it was like I was talking to somebody who's more in their forties, fifties or
sixties. And how old are you, Cody?
I just turned 31 in April.
Yeah. Yeah. No, not, not something that, that makes a lot of sense.
So you've been, you've been using your miles well. All right.
So before we dive in too deep and dive into this full vision, your full vision,
what are three resources that you recommend? It could be books, movies,
anything you recommend for others outside of your podcast.
Okay. So I think with that question, man,
I think that we all have four areas that we should find a resource that really
caters to those areas that really enhances our personal growth and our personal,
you know, wellbeing. I think those areas are mental health, physical health,
emotional health and spiritual health.
And when you say what are those three resources,
that's going to be different for everybody for me personally.
And some of these resources kind of overlap, you know, these different areas.
For me personally is, is of course the fitness routine, a gym routine,
a diet routine. I talk about that a lot. For me personally is prayer.
I've done a lot of meditation, you know, over the years.
I know prayer is maybe not for everybody and that's okay,
but it's some sort of connection to a higher power,
whether that's a higher being, a higher version of yourself,
the universe as a whole, the collective that we all are, you know,
there's a lot of different labels we can put on this thing.
And then I know that we've already mentioned on this before, but you know,
the podcast, man, we're just so, we live in a time right now,
where information is just so easily accessible. You know, it's just, I mean,
you could, there are no shortage of podcasts or YouTube videos or whatever it is
that you want to learn about is out there.
And you can listen to these things while you're doing other things. You know,
I'm a, I'm a fan of people reading. I'm a fan of books.
I know a lot of hard work goes into books,
but the problem is that I feel like a lot of people don't feel like they have
the time to read, which, you know, maybe that's debatable,
but I think one thing that I've done sort of in my journey is not necessarily,
I have read whole books, but not necessarily read the whole book,
rather than find a summary of the book online that sort of, you know,
pulls out the, the, the 20% inside the a hundred percent, if that makes sense.
And you know, there's apps and these kinds of things, there's,
there's things that you can buy the memberships for the fees.
I think it's a very, very inexpensive. I think one is like headway.
I think that's the app that it basically summarizes a book into a, you know,
a couple of pages there that you can read. But yeah, these are resources, man,
that, that I think that are just at our fingertips these days that really,
other than the fitness and the prayer to meditation,
that's kind of something that's been around a long time,
but the technology that we have, I think that we would be,
we would be doing ourself a disservice if we didn't use that to our own
benefit and not let the technology use us as it should be the other way around.
Yeah. I agree wholeheartedly. The Cliff notes,
you know, was certainly one of my greatest friends in high school.
No matter how mad teachers were about it, you know,
I could see the vision of how important that would be for my future.
And so, you know, and sure enough, you know,
in the world where in business collaboration is how you win.
You know, it's not called cheating and the world of business, you know,
you're, you're learning faster and collecting wisdom to use.
And it's something that is like you said, I loved your words.
It is a disservice to ourself if we're not taking full advantage of that.
So reading the books can be important, but also sometimes not skipping the book
per se, but going to trusted mentors and seeing what their reflections are
on the same subject that you know is super valuable and important can be
a fantastic way of leveraging a resource.
But I do want to circle back to the one that I'm grateful for your
your willingness to help those who don't appreciate the power of prayer.
Don't we don't want that for their lives, but I'm going to double down with you.
That's one of my absolute I would say that's my top secret.
Right. If anybody cared about the success I drive and what I do, it's prayer, man.
You know, like that. That's it.
It's staying in line with am I taking this to my higher being,
whether it's a walk, which is how I like to pray, is actually walking
and going for long walks in nature, you know, or kneeling by your bedside
or meditating. There's a lot of ways that that can be done.
But I do believe that that's how we access the best knowledge that that,
you know, this universe or that God has to offer for us.
And then puts us on the best path for what makes the most sense for where we're at.
Nobody else really knows where we're going.
They can only see bits and pieces of it, even somebody as close as a relative.
So further thoughts on on prayer.
I'd actually like to to open that up a little bit before we hit the break.
OK. So.
I think you touched on something right there that is really important
that a lot of us don't think about enough is that there's this connection to this higher.
Some people see this as a an all knowing being that created the universe we live in.
Some some people refer to this as a higher version of yourself.
Like I said earlier, some people look at this as the collective of who we are.
And what we all do, their little seemingly small decisions that we make
that lead up to the collective of who we are as humanity.
But I think that when you break this thing down and when you can say that we have this power,
this ability to communicate with this, the way I view this, the way that I believe about this,
is this being that is that is way stronger, way more powerful, omniscient,
way more than we could ever comprehend to be.
We have this ability to communicate with this being.
And it's like, man, you're talking about doing ourself a disservice if we don't if we don't visit that.
You know, if we don't use that in our journey, I mean, what what like what else can you do
that is as powerful as that?
You know, there's not there's not.
And that's I love that, you know, again, you're trying to be respectful about I am too.
And there's a there's a sacred nature of this type of conversation as well.
And I'm I'm actually going to reveal my exact truth regarding it, because the the sense of clarity
that I have over my relationship with God is what allows me to have clear conversations back and
forth with him.
Right. And so I've got for me, for me, God is my heavenly father.
I'm a big believer that like father, like son, that we have the potential to understand and to become.
Like our God. That's for me.
That's not fair, but I'm not preaching, not preaching that anybody else.
That's what I know is possible.
Look at what we've already achieved.
Right. I can see I don't even know where you are in the world, but I can see you and hear you almost feel you.
Right. Just what our lowly technologies that we have in real time, you know, that's insane.
And what else we're going to be able to achieve with an attorney?
It's just amazing to me.
Now, why why does this matter?
This relationship of a father, the idea of a father I'm a father for, right, is that your father wants you to have everything that you can possibly have for your own good.
My son's sick right now.
Why he ate too much dessert yesterday.
I warned him.
I told him I wouldn't eat that.
I see you've got you've already had a lot today.
Sure enough, he is sicker than dirt.
Today's like, oh, he's like walking around like an old man.
Like, I don't know.
I'm not going to give a hard time about it, but I'm going to give a hard time about it.
I'm very aware of his decision and what he made, but I'm there to counsel as well.
All right.
I know my father in heaven is doing the same thing.
He is there and willing.
He lets me make my choices and my mistakes, but he's there and he wants me to have the best answers in life.
And so by having the correlation of that type of relationship, by knowing that's who I'm talking to and knowing how I want to show up as a dad, I unlock a totally different level of
communication that's not abstract.
It's not foreign to me.
It's not something I have to guess and figure out.
Well, like which mushroom is going to make me high enough to to figure out this strange connect?
No, it's very tangible.
It's very straightforward.
It's something that I can relate to and express to anybody in the world in the world that you have the same opportunity to do just that.
And it's one of those things that again, we don't want to offend people.
We don't I don't want people to feel like I'm preaching at them.
But if they want my truth, that's my truth.
Like that's that's how I go about making my decisions.
And so again, I appreciate you being the facilitator of being able to talk about that in depth.
Anything else you want to add before we hit the break and come back and talk about overcoming fear, self-doubt and and and blind spots to our visions?
You know, I think with just with the nature of this topic, man, I don't think that there's anything that we can say that's going to describe it the way that it deserves.
So, you know, we could we could literally talk for six hours about this thing and there's not enough we can say about it.
There's not. So I think Cody and I would both invite you to just experiment with it, explore it, continue to expand on what that means for you.
We'll be right back. We'll dive into Cody's vision and we'll talk about overcoming fear, self-doubt and blind spots.
All right. Welcome in to Vision Pros Live with Jackson Calame.
I'm your show host. We'll be doing interviews for visionary entrepreneurs and guest leaders who are building fantastic visions out there.
What's up, Vision Pros and welcome in to another episode of Vision Pros Live.
I'm your show host, Jackson Calame, founder and CEO of First Class Business. And man, we just took a super deep dive.
If you're just joining us, Cody and I just talked about our greatest superpower, what it is that has helped the resource that is open and accessible to any of you.
I highly recommend going back and checking that out if you're starting with us right now.
We're going to be, of course, diving into his vision as both a business owner in the landscape space and as a podcast host of a podcast called the Pure Wisdom Podcast.
I'm a huge fan of principles and developing based on principles.
And as I talked to Cody, you get to know him in the pre-show. It's like, man, this guy is going to bring some awesome wisdom to the table.
So before we bring Cody back on, I want to always give, of course, access to other assets that we've gathered as we've gone along and opportunities for you to continue to improve your life.
One of them is the Hard to Kill podcast listed up here as a sponsor. That's Dave Morrow of the Hard to Kill podcast.
In fact, just look up Dave Morrow, Afghanistan, and you'll get a sense of what type of leader Dave is.
He was featured in the New York Times and elsewhere and talking about the extraction from Afghanistan and helping the interpreters who are going to be stuck and left behind.
Super emotional reality and topic, but something that I think is worth being aware of.
Now, his goal with Hard to Kill as a podcast is to help over 100,000 veterans lose 2 million pounds collectively, really to become the best version of themselves so they can go out and do good and not get lost in the shuffle
of trying to get back into society. I love what he's up to. It's been an honor to work with him.
And definitely check that podcast out and learn about what he's building through HardToKill.org.
Then in addition to that, we've got Magic's Productions. We did our first event in Dallas. It was absolutely awesome.
And Peyton Childers did the events. In fact, that's our event right there on the screen, as it was. Peyton does live productions and live streaming.
He also just launched his own podcast, so make sure to check that out. But what he gave us the power to do was broadcast our event live with lots of different camera angles, almost like we were some type of like massive production.
And in addition to that, we can take all that footage and use it as B-roll for other productions that we create. You can again see his setup on the screen there.
He's super hospitable. He has the hospitality skills of a veteran in the restriture space, yet he's 25. And two cool facts about him.
He was part of the production for the World Series Texas Ranger Champions, as well as the University of Sam Houston.
And he's got rings from both those experiences. So he's definitely been involved in really cool things.
When it comes to production, I highly recommend consulting with him if you're trying to produce an event of some type or produce content that requires a visual element of what you do.
Then there's the water project. I've got my little water bottle here today. And I like to bring up the water project because, in all honesty, I've never been thirsty in my life.
I've never had the deal with not having water. So when I learned about the water project and I saw the transparency that they're leading with and how they're helping millions of people get access to the resource that I've been able to take for granted my whole life, I just I couldn't stop thinking about it.
And I started to invest in funding it. And I'm not an investor in the water project, but I have invested in a few of their their projects. And I'd like to invite you to do the same.
These are people whose lives would change dramatically if they just had access to clean drinking water. These kids, for instance, when they get their water, they celebrate it like my kids celebrate Christmas Day.
And we have the ability to make impact like that simply by donating five, ten, twenty dollars. And if you're not in a position to financially help out, my request is that you just share this.
Maybe you tag a certain friend or you tell you share it on social media. You never know how far the ripple effect will go of your good deed. You might end up inspiring somebody to spend one hundred thousand dollars on this and help a bunch of these communities.
And the generational impact that you can have with doing that is absolutely worth pondering. So without further ado, let's go over to Cody Jones.
Cody, welcome to VisionPros Live, man.
Yes, sir. Glad to be here.
Absolutely. Let's dive into first question. What is your vision for the people that you serve?
You know, man, I really wish that people could understand that the vision they have for themselves is it's not an accident that they have that vision.
You know, we have this vision for ourselves. We have these dreams. We have these goals. And it's like, you know, you and I, maybe we're both in the same podcast space.
Maybe we have a similarity there. But outside of that, there's there's probably very few similarities.
And it's like this dream that you have, this this this desire, this idea, this goal, it's not an accident that you have that.
You know, we just talked earlier about about this higher power, like we can talk all day about where does this dream come from? Where does this goal come from?
But it's no accident that you have this. Do other people have something similar, similar to your goal, similar dream?
Maybe, but they don't have every detail of your life that makes the story the exact same.
So I wish that there's a couple of points. The first thing is I wish that people would understand that their vision that they see for themselves is not an accident.
It's just not some random thing. The last thing that it is is random. It's not random. It's not random.
So with this not being an accident, with this being something that is almost it's like it's it's almost like it's specific to you.
Like only you can make this dream happen. Can ever can can multiple people be a professional baseball player?
Absolutely. But when we break this thing down, it sounds like it's supposed to be something that's huge and it's just big accomplishment.
But if you think about this thing, man, your your thing, your dream, your goal might be to have a loving, happy family.
Think about it this way. If you have man a and woman a and they have child a man, a cannot be with woman B and have child a like that.
That the child is not going to come like that.
If that is your thing, have a happy family to have that offspring.
That is something that only you can bring to the world. You know, so yes.
The points here is it's not random and only you can do it. And since it is only the it's only you that can do this thing,
that should give you some sort of I know it sounds grandiose, but when we when we say it, man, it's real.
It should give you some sort of motivation that this is supposed to be your purpose.
This is something that you are supposed to do while you're here.
The only problem with that is that I wish people that I want to kind of attach to this message is it sounds like that's going to be something this easy.
But I mean, it's probably going to be the hardest thing that you've ever had to do.
But, you know, it being made for you, it being your vision doesn't mean it's going to be easy.
It just means it's going to be worth it. I love everything about what you said.
I'm going to go back to that baseball player analogy. Anybody can be a baseball player, but only Jackie Robbins can be Jack Robbins.
Right. And while that's the story, we love to gravitate towards stories.
I love to gravitate towards stories that everybody has heard about because it makes it a little bit more inclusive.
But it's not to say that the other baseball players don't matter.
We hosted Carlos Sarmiento on our show a few weeks back.
And a lot of people don't know who Carlos Sarmiento is, but he played baseball for the national Guatemalan team.
He also played soccer for the national Guatemalan team. Like, who does that? You know, who plays for multiple sports?
Bo Jackson, you know, but Bo Jackson is Bo Jackson.
And that's kind of who Carlos Sarmiento is in my mind in terms of all the different sports that he competes in.
But why does he do it? He does it because it's what helped.
It was his coping mechanism for overcoming his father's death. Right.
There's a much deeper story and bigger picture behind that that sense of purpose or that thing that he was driven to pull off.
And I also love that you talk about how difficult it is. Right.
If I wanted an easy life, I could probably make a pretty good realtor.
I've got the gifts for that. Not everybody could. I could. You know, I could probably make a really great plumber.
I had a I had a path for me in the oil industry. You know, I could have done that.
I've gotten that route and done very, very well financially.
And I knew I wasn't called to that. You know, that's that's not what my purpose was.
And I would much rather I knew I would rather live a life of purpose that I could hang my hat on and be grateful for what I did or tried to do.
Then focus on doing what other people felt would be easier for me just because it would hurt less or be simpler.
So that's that's neat that you're driving people to catch that by just kind of living your purpose and dive into what you feel called to.
What's your vision for you, Cody? What do you see for yourself?
So Joe Rogan talks on his podcast about this philosophy of being the hero of your own story.
And what I find fascinating about this is, you know, Joe Rogan covers a lot of topics on his podcast,
but there's also a connection in the personal growth and the mental health space of a profound experience of visualizing yourself,
your present self, who you are today and a past version of you.
A lot of people do visualize their the child version of them, their inner child, and visualizing a future version of yourself.
So you have these three versions of yourself. And people do this different ways.
They have a conversation. They they, you know, the future them thinks the present them for not giving up.
And and the present them thinks the child loves the child them or gives them attention, whatever it was they thought they needed.
But when when we talk about being the hero of your own story, man, and I and I walk through this this experience in my own brain,
it's like I realized that the child version of me.
Was admiring a hero that he maybe needed at the time or wanted to know at the time,
and that is now who I see as the future version of myself is this man who is successful, who is strong, who is competent,
who is courageous, who is who is a person of integrity, who is honest, who is dependable.
And so the fascinating thing about this and this is this is kind of the take home point when I visualize this in my mind and I and I there's these three versions of myself.
On the left on my left side, there is a the there was me as a child and my left hand is holding the right hand of that child version of me.
On my right side, there is the future version of me, the person who has already achieved everything that I'm trying to accomplish.
And I'm my right hand is holding the left hand of my future self.
This is the beauty about this experience to me is that I am the thing that bridges the gap.
The present version of me is what bridges the gap.
Everything that I do in this moment or everything that I don't do in this moment, the wise decisions I make, the unwise decisions I make,
everything that I do in the present moment is what is what brings this hero version of life or to life to this inner child me.
And I can't think of anything more because we think about a vision, we think about a dream, we think about a goal.
And we just we think about this as something in the future, oh, you know, one day I'll have the nice house and the nice relationship.
And, you know, I'll have this much money in the bank.
But it's it's it's what we do in this present moment that either pushes us away from that or pushes us towards that.
So I think to answer the question to me, it is my vision for myself is to.
Is to be my own hero, man, you know, and I do that through the choices that I make in this moment that pushes me to that person that I aspire to one day be.
You're here made me cry. I mean that like that's holy crap.
That's what's mind boggling to me is I haven't had a lot of guests talk about this theory,
you know, in this this process of diving into your past, present and future.
So you either did your research really, really, really, really well and watched yesterday as I was live with Kareem Abel Naga for 30 and 30 education space.
And Kareem talked about this. Wow.
I did not see that. Yeah. So, you know, when when God, when the universe, right, when it's speaking to you and that law of attraction is saying, hey, listen up.
You know, I know that these episodes are very much for me as well as for others who are listening in and on.
And here this comes. But you hit this in a way that I hadn't thought about it before either.
With that, that analogy or that imagery of holding hands with the future and the past.
I got to do some work on that, that, you know, that's that's an easy thing to make the time to like time for to meditate on and to journal out.
And to visualize and the empowerment of realizing that, you know, it's easy to tell yourself you're in control of where you're going.
But you're right. Bridging that gap between.
Who you wanted to be as a child, right, and who you see yourself as becoming, but knowing that you're wow, that puts you in a very, very strong position of like not only control, but I want to say empowerment.
Exactly. That's free.
And the thing is that it happens through you.
You know, you are the process because there's like I said, in the mental health space, this is actually a lot of psychologists, therapists talk about this very thing is, you know, if a person had a rough childhood or whatever, they they they talked to this inner child version themselves.
But it's you are the process. You are the what connects your you bridge the gap of the the person, the past version of you. It doesn't have to be a child.
Maybe it's different for somebody else. For me, it's the child, the child and that hero that he once needed.
You are what bridges the gap. So think about this, you know, this electric or this spiritual current that just flows from your left hand to your right hand to the other person.
I mean, it's through you. That's huge.
And again, I love that, too. Thanks for thanks to John Asher, actually.
He's featured in The Secret. He's got his NLP program.
And I remember him talking about writing goals down and how it's different than typing goals out, you know, and how when you write it down, he talked about the connection, the current energy that goes between you putting it on paper and it actually, you know, meeting into your body.
And I don't I don't know how to explain the mumbo jumbo.
Like, but I can get it right. I can feel it. And I was like, man, that's that's cool. And you just done that with a whole new level.
So I normally ask worst business, worst leadership experience next. I'm going to switch gears, though.
I'm going to go to the opposite of that, because for me, you may have just earned your best leadership experience.
That was huge for me, man. Thank you.
What would you say is the best leadership experience that you've ever had?
So it's actually crazy that you did that, because I think my best and worst are sort of in the same answer.
So it's sort of I can answer both with the same question. So.
Somewhere around, actually, here you go. Ready? Boom, boom, boom, boom.
OK, sorry. Go ahead.
Now, yeah. So somewhere around twenty twenty, man, was when we really let me see that would have been roughly five years in business is when we were five years in business.
So roughly the halfway point of where I am now, because the business just turned 10.
So somewhere around twenty twenty, we picked up our first big commercial client.
And this this commercial client was enough for us to establish a small company.
And I think at the time it was something like, you know, once we added that in this, these guys were like 70 percent of our revenue.
I mean, it was huge for us. So over the there was like a three year span there that we were working for these guys.
We worked all through covid, never skipped a beat.
You know, we were everything we were was was done what it was supposed to be.
About two years later, I think it was they changed ownership.
Somebody else came in and bought them out, this kind of thing.
And so around that time, we had picked up some other things.
So they probably dropped maybe to about fifty five or 60 percent of our revenue, but still still a significant chunk.
So the worst experience I've ever had was I sort of allowed myself to get comfortable right there.
You know, I had my I had a couple of guys working with me and, you know, everybody was everybody was paid.
Everything seemed to be going well.
But I think it's it might be somebody different.
But I think it's Tony Robbins that talks about either you're growing or you're dying.
You know, it's one of the two. Maybe it takes longer, but one of the two is happening.
And I found that out when they this this new organization came in, new leadership, and they wanted to make a change.
And so I think they sent me a notice in September of what was it?
Twenty three. Last year, twenty three, twenty three.
That said, our contract will be terminated the end of November.
And it was a shock because, like I said, everything was satisfied.
We thought we thought that everything was good.
We were doing what we're supposed to do.
The people, some of the people that were at the property thought we were doing a great job.
And so this was a shock. It was like, man, so I have like 90 days approximately
to replace this huge chunk of our revenue.
I'm like, dude, I got like I got three or four guys that are depending on me right now.
And the bad thing was like these were great guys.
They didn't do anything wrong.
What it was was, like I said, I allowed myself to get comfortable.
Basically, I allowed myself to get lazy because I was not trying to continue to scale the business.
So with saying that my best leadership experience was.
How do I want to phrase this? Because I don't it was a battle.
But my best leadership experience was growing through that experience by trying to replace that revenue that was lost.
I mean, I can't tell you how many doors I knocked on, you know, business.
I probably had no less than 100 business cards that were a maybe, you know, and then that doesn't even count the nose.
Through that process, I almost got it. This is this is a true story.
I almost got attacked by a dog because I'm not on the wrong door.
But, dude, it was it was in that process. It was it was it was in that process that I realized.
And this is something I say to this day.
The journey is more of a prize than the destination that you think it leads to.
It's it's because for me, it was like, you know, it was it was making that process of knocking on those doors,
doing the cold calls, you know, submitting those quotes where the answer was, oh, well, everything looks good.
But our leadership wants to go with these guys. And I'm like, dude, it's right here, man.
Like, it's right here. If I could just get this thing, it would pick us back up to where we once were.
So the best leadership experience was growing through that and understanding how to process that experience.
I think long story short. Yeah, I'll just I'll be quick with this.
Long story short, we we ended up picking up something that replaced that in February of this year.
And it was right on the I mean, it was right on the cusp, because what it was was this was a situation where it was a big company.
And the way they pay out their payments is about 60 days after.
So even though the contract was terminated in November, we still got paid, I think, until like January or something.
So January comes that last piece of that big revenue comes in.
And then February, we pick up this. It was literally like it was like, right.
It was like it was like a if you can imagine Tarzan or something, you know, swinging from one branch to the other.
He lets the branch go and goes like, try to catch another one.
But yeah, that process, man, it taught me it taught me patience.
It taught me how to I thought I knew how to sell.
I thought I knew how to approach people and sell myself and my product and my business.
But it wasn't until that moment that I realized that, OK, it is the process for me.
It's the price. It's not the it's not getting the client. It's not getting the job.
It's not getting the paycheck. It is the process of doing these things that I feel like is my biggest contribution to,
you know, the people that I lead and the people that work with me.
You talked you talked about so many different principles that entrepreneurs skim over.
I mean, we have a 45 minute show, right?
Almost 55 minutes sometimes I'm go back and forth to this worst and best thing for a little while because it.
It is so true that our best experiences and worst experiences often overlap and one of the same,
usually with the same people as well.
And I appreciate that you focus on the lessons learned in that tough spot.
It reminds me of so many of our own lessons.
I mean, anybody who looks at first class business goes to our about page.
You'll see new people and you'll see people who aren't there anymore, who used to be there.
Each one of those individuals has a story behind it.
There are success stories, there are failure stories behind it.
There's moments where we thought investor money was coming in and it didn't.
And then we're like, oh, man, what do we do with this?
And as a leader of that, you know, it's it became apparent as I've run first class business like,
oh, I'm not just providing for my own family.
I'm providing for all of these families now, right?
It's I've got to do make the changes that are required of that responsibility if I'm going to be a great leader.
And that also means I have to learn some tough lessons along the way.
And sometimes I screw that up, you know, and sometimes I'm not there exactly how I need to be for people.
But, you know, do we do we choose to allow that growth to kick us into the next gear?
You know, or do we we fumble away from it?
And I've had times where I've done both.
And again, back to your thought process of are you going to be the hero?
Right. Are you going to be the person today that makes the choices to become the type of leader that you envision yourself being?
That's still always an ongoing option for each of us.
Let's skip let's skip gears into one of my favorite questions.
If this was your last chance to speak, Cody, what powerful lesson can other visionaries learn from your experience?
You know, I think we've we've hit on this kind of a different way already, but it sounds so cliche, man.
But it's it's everything that you want for yourself or that you desire for yourself or that you dream for yourself.
Everything is on the other side of fear of the discomfort.
I think that the skill of being able to handle things that are not comfortable, things that you fear, things that are that you're not OK with in the moment.
I think that is the key to the door of your best life, of your of your of the fulfillment that you're supposed to feel in your life.
And you could you could break this thing down and you could say that, you know, if whether it's a career,
a woman that you find attractive, a bank balance that you want for yourself, a business that you want to build everything,
the only thing that is stopping that is between you and that is fear of that uncomfortable process.
It's almost like. I don't know how else to say it other than the skill, the the experiencing that discomfort and being OK with that is a skill.
And I just I just that would that would be this. I mean, it is it is.
And I grew up so comfortable, man, like I think so.
I mean, I had this comfort, too, but I had the choice.
I had my house at my dad's where everything was pretty darn awful.
But I had my mom's house and five older sisters and I literally did not learn how to get a glass of water for myself until I was like nine.
You know, like, that's insane. If you know, nine year olds, you know, we should all be able to get glasses of water by that point.
I was given everything on us on a silver spoon in that household.
And so I learned to really appreciate my levels of comfort to a point where I mean, comfort becomes a vice and addiction.
So now I'm sorry. I don't mean to jump in and say you're thunder, but I'm like, yes, you're right.
It is very much we can learn the ability to the skill of facing discomfort and realizing that there's certain virtues that come through it.
Exactly. Yeah. And that that is that is what's stopping you.
That is what's holding you back. That is the only thing you can learn.
Whatever you need to learn. You can get the funding. You can find the right people.
You can do whatever it is. The fear of the discomfort or the uncomfortable experience.
Absolutely. I hope that all you visionaries listen and continue to realize there's a massive amount of opportunity for you to dive into that that discomfort,
not dive into the fear that I've passed the fear, go through the door, fear, get to this comfort.
I can promise you right now you're going to have experiences that you didn't want.
I'm just going to say that. So you can blame us later, you know, too, if you want to blame us.
But on the other side of that discomfort to come, some of the best experiences, you know, when you when you stay true to it.
But, you know, if you if you spend your entire life or let's say you spend the next couple of weeks creating a farm, right.
And you're digging in the dirt and you're putting all those seeds in.
And after you do all of the hard work that it takes to get that that feel planted and then you give up and stop,
you're going to have hands that are stronger and a back that's stronger.
Probably you're going to have all sorts of things that you gained out of that experience, but you are not going to get the crop.
You are not going to to get the benefit out of it that you thought you would get out of it if you give up and stop
before the farm cultivates the crops that that you were planting.
So I don't know what you'll get out of your experiences, but I do agree with Cody wholeheartedly.
Discomfort is the price to pay for a lot of the results that we want to gain.
Can I can I just make one more contribution that just really quick? Of course.
So the another reason that is so important, man, is leaning into this discomfort and and having this uncomfortable experience.
We talk about vision. We talk about what is your vision.
What's the vision for people that you serve?
If you have this uncomfortable experience and you can not let yourself experience this,
if you turn away from this, if you lean away from this, if you allow yourself to take the easy way out,
when it comes time for, oh, what's my vision? Well, this is my vision.
This is what I think for myself.
You will not be able to trust yourself because looking back over this, you you haven't you haven't you haven't kept the promises
that you make to yourself and done the hard thing over time.
So what do you have to to reference?
You know, it's like it's like if you if you if you can't trust yourself to do the hard thing,
when that's not what you want to do, when something that really is is is profound and spiritual,
like what is my vision when that question comes up?
How can you trust yourself if you can't do the uncomfortable things along the way?
And I just wanted to make that that distinction because that's that that is where we tie self-confidence.
That is the connection between the uncomfortable self-confidence and pursuing your vision or your purpose or your your your dream.
I mean, that's where that's where it all ties in is is building that self-confidence.
I love it. And I know the audience has already gotten a ton of potential opportunities to gain wisdom out of this.
I do want to dive into two more for just the last couple of minutes just to just to pull this full circle.
We're going to talk about blind spots.
And yesterday, Kareem and I talked about it a little bit, but we didn't get to the depths.
We know the time you get to depth that I wanted to.
When it comes to blind spots, you know, we all have them.
And the challenge of the blind spot is you can't see it. Right.
You don't know what it is. So how do you spot your blind spots?
How do you come to see the blind spots?
And then how do you prioritize tackling that blind spot?
Well, what are some key frameworks or ideas that you have for that, Cody?
So when we first started talking, I mentioned the two-hour-plus podcast that I did with the dating, the dating coach.
And, you know, I think, man, you're right. Blind spots, by definition, we can't see them.
But I think the one thing, and I've had several dating coaches that agree with this, one thing that are the biggest,
clearest mirror for ourselves are intimate relationships.
How the things that trigger us in an intimate relationship, you know, is it jealousy?
Is it insecurity? Is it over attachment? Is it not enough attachment?
Is it pushing the person away?
I think that if we are able to be humble enough with ourselves and have enough humility and enough self-awareness
that if we have a relationship that didn't work out, you know, these days, man, it's everybody.
Almost everybody X is a narcissist. Everybody's X is the problem.
And this kind of thing. And, you know, it's just it's like the probability that the other person 100 percent at fault is very, very low.
So if we can have enough humility for ourselves to say, you know what, this is what this is teaching me about myself.
You know, I think I think that that I think that's one of the biggest learning spots in our lives is intimate relationships,
you know, that we have, I think, I think because it is a mirror, you know, if you think about over the relationships
that didn't work out in your life, you're like, oh, you know, that was a I had a problem with this.
That should be addressed because there's something there that's not that shouldn't be an issue.
Well, man, you opened a giant to giant cans of worms for me on that one.
So I do I do have the audience owes a validation from me on that.
I'm twice divorced. You know, I got to learn a lot of very, very valuable lessons that I continually get to learn through.
And so your your words are cutting to large degrees.
I know what it's like to, you know, once you're in the divorce community, too, and you start to see how other people talk about divorce,
you know, the conversations become different once you're on the other side.
And it's not a side you want to get to, by the way, for those of you listening in, those of you who are married, figure it out.
You know, like get out of your own way and look in that mirror and try to try to make it work.
There's there's value and what you are learning to give to that relationship.
But those are those are fantastic.
It is so easy to look at the faults of the other person in that picture.
Hence, where the blind spot comes from, you know, if you're if you're looking at them, if if the mirror exists that you're talking about,
this is the analogy that comes to mind to me for that.
If I'm so into that relationship that they're standing in between me and that mirror,
I can't see myself effectively through that.
Now, the moment that that person disappears from your life or the relationship doesn't survive or you take some space from it and you might be able to look at the mirror.
Now, that's what I get to look at.
I get the clarity of that mirror.
And I for now, that's what I need in my life.
I need to spend time with that mirror.
Go ahead. With without seeing that mirror, you also can't bring your best self to the table.
I know you're only you're only at 30 or 40 or 50 percent.
You know, so is and that and that's that's the thing.
That's why it sounds like personal growth is a is a selfish thing.
But it's like everybody who's connected to you benefits, man.
You're your family, your spouse, your right.
It's important for people. I think too many people look at it that way and say, you know what?
No, I I'm not doing I'm not being fair to others.
You know, if I love myself on the flip side, if you don't love yourself, you're going to have a really hard time loving others the right way.
And so again, I appreciate you opening that bomb.
We should maybe we'll revisit it at some point and have you back on.
Doesn't it doesn't scare me. It's a discomfort that I really appreciate diving into because of how much I've learned there,
how much I still have the ability to learn there and knowing that most of my audience,
especially those who feel sorry for my situation, you have more to learn than all of them.
You know, I'm very blessed. I've got a very nice situation.
But I meet a lot of people who feel bad about my circumstance or situation.
Like instantly, they're like, oh, man, like, that must be so hard.
And I'm like, that comment right there is a reflection of that person's own reality.
And my heart hurts for them because I can't tell them that without offending them.
Right. You know, but no, it's we all have so many opportunities to learn.
And I just happen to seek mine.
And so thank you, Cody. You came in. You shared a ton of wisdom with us.
Those of you listening in, we're going to have the action steps below so you can connect with Cody.
You can check out his podcast. I highly recommend diving into his podcast, connecting with him too personally.
If he's able and willing to do that, you'll have the social links on there.
Down below that, too, we'll have the resources. We started adding the resources in.
So everything we talked about, the books of wisdom, the leaders that we've we've gravitated towards and listened to.
It's really helpful to learn. You know, if you see us as mentors, who is that we're learning from?
You know, and I hope that if you're listening in, that you share those with us to comment, share where you find your wisdom.
We can learn from you just as much as you guys have learned from us in this episode.
And we look forward to seeing you on the next show. Take care, everybody.
Thank you for being here today. I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward.
This is going to get more and more fun. We'll have more and more engagement as well.
We'll invite people to participate in the show and thank you for giving us your time and attention.
Have an excellent time building out your vision and becoming a vision.