The Clever Investor with Cody Sperber

Judd Shaw: [00:00:00] Welcome to Behind the Armor, where we deep dive into the heart of what matters. I’m your host, Judd Shaw, adventurer, storyteller, agent of change, and speaker on authenticity and human connection. Join me as we explore the complexities of human connection, featuring theorists, scientists, and speakers. Our mission is simple, to inspire you to reclaim your true self and create genuine connections with others.

Judd Shaw: Join me as we lay down our armor and live authentically. Hello, you beautiful people, and thanks for tuning in. Today I’m speaking with Cody Sperber, a Navy veteran and real estate expert, widely known as the Clever Investor. Cody earned this nickname for his use of highly creative strategies and innovative thinking.

Judd Shaw: Cody is one of the most successful real estate investors and leading educators in the US. Starting with nothing, Cody eventually cracked the code and has since been on a massive profit and growth [00:01:00] track ever since. Let’s see what’s behind the armor. Cody Sperber, so grateful and so appreciative for you coming on the show today.

Cody Sperber: Yes. Thanks for having me on.

Judd Shaw: You know, by context, I wanted to give a little background about how you and I even came to this moment in our universe, right? And it really, you know, there’s a picture back on the wall here and I don’t know if you see it. You see this moment? You remember

Cody Sperber: that moment? Look at those two sexy gentlemen.

Judd Shaw: Right? Look at that. And so this moment is what this was all about. And that’s why I, I, I really so believe in the power of authentic human connection. You know, I’m at a conference. Uh, I feel like I’m the only guy there. Around thousands of women there to see Jen Gottlieb, right? At this big conference. Um, learning to build your brand, your personal brand.[00:02:00]

Judd Shaw: And next is a guest that is asked to come on as a keynote speaker and name Cody, the clever investor. Never heard anything about you. I don’t do real estate, but I’m really focused on this human connection part about building the brand that way. And here you come out with a hat, with a white t shirt, you’re cursing, you’re, you’re like throwing it down.

Judd Shaw: And. What I found so incredible was my, my magnetism. My, my attraction to you, not because of all of your success, but because you were so real and raw up on that stage. And I’m like, I got to meet, like, that’s amazing. This guy is, I was, I was so interested in you because of your authenticity. And I remember after the event, I’m sitting there and I’m, I’m, I’m with my nephew, Buzz.

Judd Shaw: And you know, he says to me, you got to go over there and meet him. And I was like, I [00:03:00] can’t, I can’t look at, you know what this guy’s all about. He says, no, you got to go over there. Just tell him, introduce him yourself. And so I go over there and I remember you’re with your wife, Maria. And, uh, you’re, you know, about to like order something.

Judd Shaw: And I come over and I, and I introduced myself. And at the end of that conversation, it led to this moment. It was like, remind me of this conversation and I’ll come up on your podcast. Is that how long have you been the version that we see today?

Cody Sperber: Yeah, well, um, first off, you know, that was a great event, you know, it was, it was cool because it was a brand building event and I was able to share some of my journey, you know, it’s, you’re not in real estate, but I’ve been in, I, you know, in the real estate space, I’m very well known in the brand building space, not really well known, but, you know, I think what connected us was just me being raw and authentic because you know [00:04:00] real estate’s a great business to be in you can make a lot of money and for many many years I made tremendous amounts of money and built a lot of wealth but all the money in the world doesn’t really matter if you’re an unhappy human being or if you’re living out of alignment or if you’re in tech if you’re constantly breaking your own promises to yourself and It’s easy to make excuses in life, like when you’re successful in one area, like when, when people knew me or saw me online, they just saw the success side of Cody, the Lambeaus and the houses and, uh, the big deal checks and all the vacations and all that stuff you see on social media, what they didn’t see.

Cody Sperber: Was, uh, me hiding my pain and achievement, not being a great husband, not being a great father, not keeping the promises to my family, um, not [00:05:00] being, not having my health game on point and sacrificing a lot of my personal health just to make money. You know, I know a lot of people out there can relate to this.

Cody Sperber: You know, how many, how many times do we have to make tough decisions just to put food on the table? You, you give up going to the gym, you give up eating right, you give up sleeping well, and. on the spiritual side. I was a pretty disconnected person. I didn’t have a spiritual connection at all. I would probably consider myself an atheist.

Cody Sperber: And so there was like all these pillars of a person’s life that nobody was really seeing. They were just seeing the success side of me. And unfortunately, a couple years ago, my mom passed away right at the same time I was going through a divorce. And it was like this, just kind of like a, a come to Jesus meeting in life, you know, where you’re like, you can kind of hit rock bottom and you kind of think that you’re at rock bottom.

Cody Sperber: And then just something else goes bad. One more thing breaks and you realize that rock bottom has a basement and [00:06:00] it’s when you’re crashing and burning and kind of reevaluating, like, how did I get here? Why don’t my kids respect me? Why is my marriage falling apart? How come I’m so far out of alignment with my words, my thoughts, my actions, my purpose.

Cody Sperber: You’re living like this double life. Like we’re, Financially, you’re murdering it, but emotionally you’re dying inside. And you’re a bad partner, a bad friend, a bad, all these, all the things you’re talking about, all the human connection part of it. I was so disconnected. And so at that moment, I had to make a choice.

Cody Sperber: You know, what kind of man do I want to be moving forward? And I think that’s what you connected with on stage was just me kind of telling my journey of like, yeah, I crashed. I crashed pretty hard. I had to kind of take a step back. I had a lot of really great mentors and friends in my life helped me through that moment where it was like, the question I was asking was, what, what, how do I become the best version of myself?

Cody Sperber: Like, how do I step into my full potential? [00:07:00]

Judd Shaw: Right.

Cody Sperber: And I didn’t have any answer or clarity on how to do that. It felt like I was just like running as full speed, but I was not going anywhere. And so I realized that to go forward, you got to go backwards. And I think that was the hard part for a guy like me.

Cody Sperber: I’m, I’m an entrepreneur. I’ve been an entrepreneur my entire career. Uh, I sold drugs, first candy when I was a little kid at school and that morphed into selling weed and that more, thank God I never got caught, you know, and, um, I got, A bunch of my friends went to juvenile hall when I was a little kid. Uh, when I was 16, 17, a bunch of my friends got in trouble for dumb stuff.

Cody Sperber: Uh, nothing too major, but just enough to get them into juvenile hall. And I decided at that moment that I wasn’t ready for college. I was just graduating high school and that I wasn’t ready for college. And so I father followed in my dad’s footsteps and I went to the Navy. And by being plucked out of [00:08:00] that bad environment where All my friends were kind of losers, uh, and I went into the military.

Cody Sperber: That’s kind of saved my life because it got me out of that environment. And after the military, I went to college and then I started my own business. So I’ve never really worked for other people successfully. And so I was always very entrepreneurial and entrepreneurs are really great. At hiding their pain in their achievement and compartmentalizing in bearing pain And so I got I had this really bad habit of like taking every Tough thing in my life and pretending it never happened or like burying it and I almost like hardened Myself over many years to be in like this psychopath where it was like a light switch for me Um, if I was into it I was obsessed and the light switch was on and if I if it wasn’t part of that goal You Well, everything else was like the light switch was off and I just totally disconnected from it emotionally.

Cody Sperber: And I did that in my marriage and I did [00:09:00] that in my relationships and it hurt a lot of people. And I ended up crashing and burning, getting this divorce. And I realized, okay, if I want to change who I am moving forward, I got to figure out like, why do I operate this way? Like, what’s the rules of Cody Sperber software program?

Cody Sperber: Like who, who programmed me? And a lot of, I had some good friends. One, one guy named Dean grassy OC. He’s a. He’s Tony Robbins business partner now, and just a really big guy in the personal development space and used to be in real estate. And he’s just a friend of mine. And he went through some similar things going through a divorce.

Cody Sperber: And I was just kind of asking him, I’m like, I don’t understand how to step into my full potential. I don’t understand why I’m so broken. And he was like, man, you got to kind of go upstream and figure out your subconscious programming. And so that’s what I did. I, I went to a place called psychological counseling services, In Scottsdale, Arizona.

Cody Sperber: And I went and got therapy for a week straight. It was seven, it was seven days, 14 hour days. [00:10:00] And they just kind of unpacked who is Cody. And, and I don’t know, maybe you can relate to this. I I’ve never slowed down enough to ever even ask that question or take the time to try to like shut everything else in my life down so I can go and figure out the answer to that and, um, sometimes when you’re in that much pain and you’re so out of control.

Cody Sperber: And I remember when I was going through it. I was trying to manipulate the situation as if I could control it. You know, it’s almost like you’re like little white lies trying to cover up lies, little white, like, like you’re like, just always trying to hustle to control it because that’s all I ever did my whole career is try to control tough things, but you can’t, you can’t outrun this.

Cody Sperber: And so finally, when I gave up control and I went up, I went to that counseling place. They did all kinds of wonderful things with me that I would have never have done if, if I hadn’t [00:11:00] been put in that position and, and so the outcome of that was through the therapy, I slowly started reprogramming my software system.

Cody Sperber: Like, why do I, why do I lose my mind when somebody cuts me off in traffic? What, what are the things that piss me off? And like, what are, what are my core principles that I run my life by? Like, do I have clarity on that? And how many times in my life did I bury painful moments? Why was I an atheist? I didn’t think about it, but like when I was a little kid, my grandparents were Pentecostal and extremely poor.

Cody Sperber: We, we grew up in trailer parks and we grew up in very poor areas of town, but my family was heavily, heavily religious. And there was so many moments as a little kid that I forgot or buried of these really weird [00:12:00] Conversations around religion or these like my grandpa one time pinned me in a corner I was probably 10 years old and he pinned me in a corner and he started speaking in tongues and his eyes are rolling back in his head and he’s you know Like kind of like having like a weird seizure and then after like 10 minutes i’m crying like i’m so scared because I don’t He was scary to me.

Judd Shaw: Yeah You

Cody Sperber: And, uh, he gets done and he grabs me and he’s shaking me. And he’s like, someday you’re going to be a, a pastor and you’re going to lead a big flock. And I’m thinking, fuck you. No, I’m not like that was the scariest thing I’ve ever experienced being a little kid. So no wonder I’m like, anti religion.

Judd Shaw: Yeah.

Cody Sperber: And so we started unpacking all that. And I think that’s what you connected with is like, once you start becoming that raw and authentic and just real with like who you are and what got you there. I’m now on the other end of it. It’s that was a few years ago and we can kind of talk more about that, but like.[00:13:00]

Cody Sperber: You come out of that experience and i’ve been putting in work ever since my health game is better than it’s ever been I am the greatest ex husband on planet earth. I I promise you i’m gonna get if there’s an award i’m getting it like I have a better relationship with my ex. We got a very high level very expensive divorce with no attorneys We are still best friends.

Cody Sperber: I would do anything for her. Like she is one of the greatest human beings on earth I couldn’t celebrate her or admire her more And I think she feels the same way about me just watching me rebuild me Over the last two years into the man. I am today I’m a better father than i’ve ever been me. I was just texting my daughter right before this She’s telling me all these secrets and think she’s she’s 13 years old and we’re more connected than ever I I wasted 10 years of her life Not being connected to her and and now we have this just unbelievable relationship because I took the time to kind of go upstream Um And heal my inner child and by the [00:14:00] way I’m gonna just stop talking with this thought the reason I was failing

Cody Sperber: is because And I had to discover this through the therapy through the emdr the the breath somatic release breath work the one on one the horse therapy the acting therapy all these therapy modalities Is that I couldn’t show up for all these people? I couldn’t show up for my my ex wife or my kids or my business partners or my best friends You Not really show up like I was there but I wasn’t present because you cannot give what you do not have and I didn’t have The unconditional love for myself and I didn’t even realize it And that’s why I couldn’t give it to them.

Cody Sperber: And so my journey since that breakdown was just how to, how to really building on all of that momentum I did because I feel 10, 000 pounds [00:15:00] lighter and I’m murdering it spiritually. I’m on point father game. I’m on point partnership game. I’m on point. Everything’s just on point because I’m in alignment with my purpose again.

Judd Shaw: You’re coming from this frequency, my brother, right? You know, my, my story so resonates with you. Um, you know, uber successful in the sense of jets and boats and planes and cars and all that stuff. And, you know, driven so much so that my teenage daughter, a lot of times, I couldn’t get the validation from the relationship with her because it came from the success.

Judd Shaw: I was a success addict. Every billboard more that I was on meant that I was more lovable. Any person who recognized me on the street meant I was more valued. I was getting that from other people until all those cosmic bricks came down on me in 2020. When I was like, I’m a shell of a human. Like, what is this?

Judd Shaw: I have anybody from the outside will go look at this guy, he’s on a [00:16:00] yacht, a crew, he owns it, he’s living in a country club, and meanwhile, like, I’m broken, man. Like, inside. And I’m coming to work every day, and I’m putting on the show, hey everybody, hey. And, you know, until all of that came down, the weight of that and said, you can’t continue this way.

Judd Shaw: You know, uh, and So what

Cody Sperber: did you do about it?

Judd Shaw: That’s a, I, I love that question. What I did was, I, I was at this jumping off point so close that I was actually thinking about how to kill myself. Like, I was like, I, I was like, maybe I should off myself. It’s that easy, I don’t know about that. Like, I was having these discussions, I’m like, this can’t be it.

Judd Shaw: I can’t have worked this, I couldn’t have worked this hard. I couldn’t have achieved this much. And at the end of this, this was it? This was it. And so I, I went out to California. I went into recovery. I stayed into, I went in rehab. I came out of rehab in 2020 in August, [00:17:00] and I went on a, a journey. If there was something that somebody told me would help, I did EMDR.

Judd Shaw: Great. Paddles. I’m doing the paddles. I’m doing, I’m learning about stoicism. I did this whole course on dialectical behavioral therapy. I did CBT. I did ayahuasca in the Mexican jungle. If I dunked it myself in a cold bath. I mean, if you said this would help my mental health, I tried it. But ultimately what I found at the end of all of those was showing up as me, because just like you hit it on the head, I realized that how can I love anyone if I didn’t love myself?

Judd Shaw: And so I went increased my self worth and then I was able to love others.

Cody Sperber: I love that. You know, you’re, you’re, you’re, you’re going to go as far. You’re going to go as high in life as your level of personal development. You know, there’s a lot of truth to [00:18:00] that. Yeah.

Judd Shaw: And I want, I don’t want to unpack this.

Judd Shaw: So let’s go back to find. So there’s some actionable stuff here because you’re growing up and you want to be a ninth grade history teacher and you realize your homework I did for you to be on the show, you bet your ass. I’m going to do my homework and. You know, and, and you decide that the people around you, you’re seeing this in a wonder how much of how you grew up that dollar, because you decided the ninth grade teacher may have been a great job and you make a great mentor and you do a lot of coaching and you’ve helped that.

Judd Shaw: I mean, so many, so many people, both real estate and just their own personal and professional development. Uh, and so you can tap into that. And I, I, I find it interesting that you wanted to sort of be a teacher. I could see that in your story, but yet the dollar was more important meaning at that time, right?

Judd Shaw: You’re like, well, I’m not going to do this job. It’s not going to pay. [00:19:00] And when you went into the Navy and by the way, thank you for your service, you came out of it decorated, you learned, you know, leadership integrity and loyalty and commitment and these skill sets, but you come out and now you take all of that to the advantage of.

Judd Shaw: Being a success addict, like driven, and then you have this dark night of the moment, right? Like most of us have that come in and kick our ass and say, you can’t keep going that way. When you were younger, how much of that, the idea, the concept of like the success, the material things meant validation to who you were as a man.

Cody Sperber: Yeah, of course. I mean, look, I was a little guy. Um, I didn’t even hit puberty until I was probably almost 17 years old, 16 years old. So I was a late bloomer. And my son’s the same way that it’s, it’s, it’s tough when you’re the tiniest kid in your class [00:20:00] and, but we compensated that with being funny or being witty or, um, having a hustle, right.

Cody Sperber: And trying to like control what you can. Right. And so, uh, I was always chasing significance cause I, I didn’t have the respect naturally that the all star quarterback had. I wasn’t overly athletic at the time. I wasn’t overly book smart at the time. And, um, like I said, we didn’t have a lot of money, so it’s not like, and I didn’t have a lot of successful people around me.

Cody Sperber: My dad was the most successful person in my life. He has been my hero and my idol my entire life. Like I, I couldn’t say enough great things about him, but I mean, the man was making 60 K a year, you know, my whole childhood, like, like my mom had a job working at the phone company or an ad insurance company doing like low level stuff.

Cody Sperber: We didn’t have a lot of money. And my grandparents lived with us on and off, or we lived. With them. And it’s just so [00:21:00] when you don’t have a lot of success around you and you’re completely out of control as a little kid, you’re always chasing that significance. And so the month, the business to me was the one thing I could control.

Cody Sperber: This is what I mean by hiding my pain and achievement. I took all that pent up energy of the bullying, the sidelining, the being passed over, the being picked on. I can’t even tell you how many hundreds of fights I got in. Where I just got my ass kicked because I was so angry inside. I would say something back to somebody and they would just kick the shit out of me because I was a little guy.

Cody Sperber: And I remember, I mean, I got beat up by a Mexican guy named turtle, like, like just to put this in perspective, like, and he was littler than me. And he kicked my ass. Uh, you know, I was, I was the kid that would talk shit and then. I’d be running and there’d be like nine Mexican kids chasing me in a parking lot.

Cody Sperber: I got my backpack on like running in the, [00:22:00] trying to get away. And so it’s like, when you’re so out of control, you just are like, screw that. And so I had this defiant, like fuck authority energy in me. And that’s why I always lean towards like, fine, I’m going to start my own thing. And unfortunately we, I channeled some of that in a negative way.

Cody Sperber: In the beginning I was selling drugs. Kind of just low level. I just like, you know, weed to my friends. Uh, and it just got to a point where I’m like, if I get caught, I’m going to disappoint my dad and my mom so much. I can’t, I can’t do this, you know? And so I, I, uh, I chose to go in the military at the last moment.

Cody Sperber: I actually went to college for like two and a half hours. I enrolled in community college and I went and I walked around on campus and I went to my, I believe it was a biology class. And I went for about 35 40 minutes and then I Stood up in the middle of the class walked out got in my car and never went back And I immediately went and [00:23:00] joined the military.

Cody Sperber: Yeah, I had to get I had to get out of that environment So I don’t I don’t know, you know, that’s a tough

Judd Shaw: when you’re when you’re going I

Cody Sperber: don’t want to be like woe is me I had a good childhood like if you want to ask me at the time like everything was fine, you know

Judd Shaw: but that but you see that’s that’s the important thing is that a lot of people will think of You Uh, I had the almost like a, like a guilt where I wasn’t, I didn’t grow up with trauma.

Judd Shaw: I wasn’t sure that I had childhood trauma. I had shitty attachment styles and unhealthy relationships and mirroring and all that, you know, but for a lot of, you know, People. They don’t necessarily have to have big T’s in their life to lead up to this, you know, moment where they have to change because the universe is coming down on them.

Judd Shaw: You know, for you, you found that in your success. It was almost unstoppable. It was. [00:24:00]

Cody Sperber: I just knew I couldn’t be controlled. I was so anti controllable that I was a horrible employee. If, when I did have a job for somebody else, I was just, I always broke the rules.

Judd Shaw: Yeah. Yeah. And you’re going through this though, but you still had the, what, what was the ass kicking moment, you know, a couple of years ago that you realized that, that you had to make a change as successful as you were, that you still had to make that change.

Cody Sperber: Mom had cancer and I’m wanting to get out of my marriage and it’s falling apart. And I, I mean, that, that was the, that was the ass kicking moment.

Judd Shaw: Who are you able to speak to in those moments?

Judd Shaw: You know, and I asked, because for me, I realized that the, that when it came to really picking up the phone and going, I’m in a really [00:25:00] bad place, the people Who I felt even vulnerable enough even brave enough to call was one

Cody Sperber: Yeah, uh, no none I didn’t talk to anybody about it at all because I was carrying around this you know, I have millions of social media followers and i’m I got You know, 65 team members that are, I’m responsible for it, my company and all this stuff, you know, I always just shouldered that weight alone to nobody.

Cody Sperber: Yeah. Nobody that’s, I think that’s why we break down and we stress out. I carried it for a decade. Until I couldn’t carry it any longer or didn’t want to, you know what? It was a buildup. And I think anybody listening to this, look when you there, there’s three types of behavior, right? [00:26:00] Green light, yellow light, red light,

Judd Shaw: right?

Cody Sperber: It’s pretty clear. When you’re doing green light stuff, you’re eating healthy. You’re going to the gym. You’re going to, you’re, you have a relationship with your creator. You’re praying, you’re connecting, you’re meditating, you’re doing whatever. You’re you’re in alignment with your wife. You’re you’re, you know, like, yeah, I, I green lights, easy.

Cody Sperber: Red lights also easy. You’re cheating, you know, like you’re gambling, you’re addicted to drugs and alcohol, and you’re hiding your pain and vices.

Judd Shaw: Right.

Cody Sperber: It’s the yellow light that gets you the yellow light. It happens over a long period of time. It’s like, you’re just kind of chipping away at your own integrity.

Cody Sperber: Integrity is not keeping your promise that you made to other people. Integrity is keeping the promises you made to yourself. And so for me, I was just doing all these little yellow light things. I and you know, i’ll give an example. I got millions of followers millions of dollars Nothing is more dangerous than a bored entrepreneur that has resources.

Cody Sperber: I could get into all kinds of trouble and if i’m at and i’m [00:27:00] i’m going all over the country i’m speaking at all these events my My wife is back at home. My ex wife’s back at home taking care of our little kids I’m the motherfucking man. I come off stage. Everybody wants to talk to me Who do I talk to?

Cody Sperber: The, the 45 dudes that, that need help or the one hot chick, right? I’m zeroing in. Right. It’s like, I knew that was yellow light behavior, but I liked the attention. Right. I knew I shouldn’t answer that DM, but I liked the attention.

Judd Shaw: I

Cody Sperber: liked the danger that the, Oh, I shouldn’t be doing this energy. It’s like, I’m, you know, a psychopath almost like I, everything that I ever did to hurt anybody, including myself is all self imposed.

Judd Shaw: Yeah,

Cody Sperber: you know, and so I just slowly started doing all this yellow light shit and it just built and built and built and built and built. I never got caught for cheating. I never, I, I, I could have ignored it forever and never got caught. I got so good at hiding everything. [00:28:00] Nothing was more freeing than that moment.

Cody Sperber: I made the internal decision that enough was enough.

Judd Shaw: What you mentioned is something that I realized was like the breadcrumbs to my healing, which was at first I had to figure out how to like almost reparent myself. So what I did was I came up. With three questions. It’s so interesting. You say it in a green, yellow, red perspective.

Judd Shaw: I, I hadn’t heard that. And what I did was I said, is this good for you? Have you thought it through? Do you still want to do it? That’s how I literally had to go through this. Okay, I’m picking up this hamburger. Is it good for you? I don’t know. Maybe it’ll give me like cholesterol. Do I want it? Yes. Is it hurting anybody else?

Judd Shaw: No, I thought it through. I eat the burger. Same thing. If I’m as a social, social smoker at a bar. Yeah. I want to see, I’m not hurting anyone, but when it came to those yellow moments [00:29:00] and it was like, is it good for you? No. But then the next part, that intentionality, the consciousness of. Have you thought it through and you still want to do it?

Judd Shaw: Listen, there were still things that I went down that yellow behavior because I was learning. But at least I was questioning it. It was like a compass. And then what I described was having an operating system. I literally had a Judd 1. 0 to Judd 2. 0, and at work, I had core values on the wall. My companies have core values.

Judd Shaw: And then someone said, well, what are your core values? What do you mean, what are mine? Well, what are yours? I realized, holy shit, I had no core values for myself. So how could I then decide whether I’m in alignment or not? And I love what you’re saying because that was a thing that when it was yellow, if I could ask it and understanding it under it, as long as I can stay aligned with my new core values that I established, I had created a whole new operating system for myself.

Cody Sperber: Yeah, that’s [00:30:00] great. I have my core values written down my personal core values. I bring them around everywhere I look at them all the time number one pick up the trash number two Don’t be a dickhead number three land the plane number four. Don’t fill up on bread five, whatever it takes Six win and be humble seven lose with grace eight set the standard Nine do the right thing even when nobody else is looking and ten is serve your way to success

Judd Shaw: I love that.

Cody Sperber: Yeah. And some of them, you know, you got to kind of really think about them like, you know, like don’t, don’t, you know, don’t fill up on bread. What does that mean to you? You know? And to me, it’s like, keep the main thing, the main thing.

Judd Shaw: What’s the plane one,

Cody Sperber: land the plane, finish the fucking job,

Judd Shaw: right?

Cody Sperber: How many times do we, do we start something and we never finish it, right?

Cody Sperber: We get distracted or we listen to other people’s opinions or whatever gets in our way and, and, and we never finished the damn job. And so for me, it’s like, we’re, we’re not going to fill up on bread. We’re going to keep the main thing, the main thing, and then we’re going to land this motherfucking plane.

Cody Sperber: Yeah. [00:31:00] You know, a couple of the, and pick up the trash. That’s it. That’s a, that’s a humble thing, right? It’s like. Don’t be, don’t be too big for your britches. Like, and people will know, like, I’m up the floor. They’ll be like, is the CEO really mopping the floor? Like, yeah, yeah. If it’s dirty, I’ll mop it. I don’t, I don’t have any ego when it comes to picking up the trash.

Judd Shaw: How often do you review your core values?

Cody Sperber: Oh, all the time, all the time, at least once or twice a month. At least but i’ve now in great they’re they’re part of me like these are my Things that I really spent a lot of time thinking about like sure, you know, uh when and be humble That’s how I want to roll through life.

Cody Sperber: Like I I could be cocky I could go around and say look at all the great things that i’ve done But I don’t like it when other people do that. So why am I going to do that just to feed my own ego? So It’s these are mine. I, I think you should write down your core values and I think you should look at them all the time and talk to them with look, winners love to be around other [00:32:00] winners.

Cody Sperber: And if somebody rolled up to me, it was like, dude, you want to, you want to change court, personal core values. I’d be like, Oh my God, you’re my people. Like, you’re the man,

Judd Shaw: right?

Cody Sperber: Uh, those are the kinds of conversations I want to have with, with, with other leaders.

Judd Shaw: I love that, uh, you know, challenging the core values.

Judd Shaw: And I agree. I have mine written down too. And the way I look at it is constantly like. The, you know, in the theme of operating systems, software updates, you know, there are certain things that start to come up, you know, around another six months and I’m like, well, what is this that I’m really attracted to, you know, what, what value is that?

Judd Shaw: And then I get underneath that. And so for instance, like, uh, this year is really like compassion is a core value because I know that for so long, like I w I would have wanted that for me. And I couldn’t give that to others. And so I wanted to learn about what compassion looks like and, you know, and, and empathy.

Judd Shaw: And [00:33:00] so I, you know, I update those.

Cody Sperber: Well, when you figure out what empathy is, can you let me know?

Judd Shaw: You, you know, I think the beauty of being empathic really comes from a story of being, of ours, of being able to be able to say, I know how you feel. I know what that looks like and, and honestly for us, there are, when they say it’s lonely at the top, fuck, right? It’s lonely at the top. And you know, and so sometimes I didn’t have the patience or the understanding or the grace to give to my team when I was driving a thousand miles an hour.

Judd Shaw: It’s like, I’m writing your paycheck to do your effing job. And as I learned on the other side of Judd 2. 0, that. That servant leadership that tell me more, what, what are you struggling with? How can I help you? Like, what can I do to help [00:34:00] you? You know, boy, does that, that energy change the entire frequency of a culture or work team, things of that nature.

Cody Sperber: Yeah, that’s great. That’s good.

Judd Shaw: So, um, Cody, I want to ask you, you know, You’re, you’re doing a lot of mentoring. Um, you do the Clever Investor. What are some of the programs you’re launching right now? What are you working on?

Cody Sperber: Uh, yeah. So, I actually sold Clever Investor at the end of last year. Um, the company Clever Investor, it’s an, it was an education company.

Cody Sperber: It’s, it’s, it’s, uh, Phenomenal education company full of amazing team members. Wow. Was that,

Judd Shaw: was that in the works for a while? Because I know when we first met, you still had it. Wow.

Cody Sperber: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s been in the works for probably the last six months or so. Uh, but we completed the deal right before the end of the year.

Cody Sperber: It was a, a. a great exit for me. I’m still heavily involved with making sure that the turnover and students and [00:35:00] culture and everything just stays on point. It’s, um, the group that bought it as a phenomenal group, they’re going to do really well. There’s a lot of synergy between the two companies. They were a bigger company than mine.

Cody Sperber: So they, they took all of us and all our resources and everything rolled up, rolled us up into them, which has been kind of cool to see. And it’s, uh, it, it’s been great. Cause I started that company in 2009 is when I officially started working on it. 2010 is when we started the actual LLC. So it had been 14 years of me growing and scaling this to one of the largest online education companies in the real estate space.

Cody Sperber: We’ve had over 185, 000 students come through our program. I can’t even tell you how many insane amount of success stories, uh, thousands, thousands of people have gone off and either done real estate deals or just took our skills and things that we taught them and went off as entrepreneurs and started and scaled other businesses.

Cody Sperber: So that’s been awesome. And so that transition. Is [00:36:00] couldn’t be at a better time because now it’s kind of like you said jud 2. 0, right? What is what is cody 2. 0? Where do I go with all of my energy? I’m 45 years old I’ve been biohacking so i’m gonna live to be 245 years old and uh, I love that. Yeah. Yeah, we’re just gonna stop aging.

Cody Sperber: I’m over i’m over the aging thing. I love that But uh, it’s like what what is next for me? and sometimes Especially as an entrepreneur, we start a business and we got to, we kind of get stuck doing that. And that becomes our identity.

Judd Shaw: Yes.

Cody Sperber: And everybody called me the clever investor. And even now I have people that don’t even call me Cody when they see me, they’re like, Oh, what’s up, clever.

Cody Sperber: And I love it. There’s nothing wrong with that. I did a really great job branding, but now it’s time to evolve. relaunched cody sperber. com. Um, I’m helping a lot of other just, you know, people. Mentorship for CEOs and marketing teams to really help [00:37:00] scale their marketing departments or CEOs to do some high level consulting for CEOs that are trying to scale their businesses.

Cody Sperber: I’m working with guys like you that maybe want to, you know, do better at building their personal brand. They’ll bring me in, uh, pay me 10 grand a month for consulting on how to build their brand. I’ll plug them into my entire. Uh, content creation machine and team members and all that stuff. You know, we’ve, we’ve sold over a hundred million dollars worth of online education.

Cody Sperber: So I got a very unique skillset of, uh, running cold traffic ads to a funnel, to a webinar, a VSL, or to a book, a call to a sales person. Process to a follow up process to a high ticket close and, uh, that can be applied towards a lot of different industries, not just online education. So it’s been kind of fun just doing some consulting with some, some really high level badasses at the same time.

Cody Sperber: I’ve been, um, I’m starting and I’m getting ready to scale a flooring business called floor daddy. Uh, for daddy, [00:38:00] you know, sexy floors, affordable prices install. I love the home services industry. And so you’ll watch me, maybe you’ll have me back on your podcast. And in two years, I’m going to scale this business and sell it.

Cody Sperber: It, the whole point of this is to scale and sell it. I, I love the home services industry. Once you’re in somebody’s home. If, if you think about it, I might be there to, to sell them floors, but then they need a kitchen remodel. Well, let’s go over to kitchen daddy. Let’s go over to cabinet daddy. Let’s go over to solar daddy.

Cody Sperber: Let’s go over to whatever. So I own all these home services kind of other businesses. And so we’re gonna, we’re going to start with the flooring and we’re going to slowly build out the other businesses and the other niches. I’ll have AC daddy, right? Plumbing daddy, all this stuff. And I’m taking a, uh, a, uh, I don’t know what’s the right phrase.

Cody Sperber: I’m, I’m stealing Bob Parsons, go daddy’s concept of just kind of, how do you, [00:39:00] how do you make domain sexy?

Judd Shaw: Right.

Cody Sperber: Right. Or fun or interesting. And so we’re just doing the same thing. And he happens to be from here in Arizona and I drive by go daddy all the time. So it was fitting for us. So we’ll see, have me back on in a couple of years and I’ll tell you, Hey, I exited that for 200.

Cody Sperber: 20 million. Now what’s next?

Judd Shaw: But what it goes to show you is that you can apply your scalability processes and the marketing to flooring and do the same thing that you did with real estate. And that’s how you can coach CEOs and other guys like me in doing it. Whether you’re selling widgets, time or tires.

Cody Sperber: Skills are the skills. Yeah. And it’s, it’s every, I tell everybody, like a lot of times young entrepreneurs come to me and they’re like, What’s the most important skills I should focus on in 2024? And it’s like, Oh, cool. Great skill. Number one, sales, persuasion, and influence. If you can sell well, uh, I like to call it [00:40:00] enrolling.

Cody Sperber: If you can enroll well, then you’re going to enroll your way right up to making a fortune, right? You’re going to, you, that’s the number one skill that you need. Cause nothing matters until you can make sales. It doesn’t matter how great your widget is. Like you, you gotta be a killer on the sales side of things.

Cody Sperber: And then once you get that down, I would say written sales, copywriting is another great skill to have. Really know, like I write all my own email copy, uh, as a direct response marketer, I know how to build all my own funnels, upsells, downsells, side sales, all the email copy and all that stuff. You know, last year I did, uh, about 8 million through email.

Cody Sperber: Marketing the year before that I did about 11 million through email marketing. It’s

Judd Shaw: crushing

Cody Sperber: it. So imagine how valuable that is I can go into any business. I can re engineer your email list and probably Double or triple your profits that you’ve made just from re engineering your emails So copywriting is a great skill to have in that [00:41:00] direct response piece understanding online funnels direct response marketing So I would be learning everything I could about you know What is a funnel?

Cody Sperber: How does it work? How do you get somebody emotionally from a psychological standpoint to pull out their credit card and make a purchase online? Cause that’s where everybody’s going, you know, nowadays in people’s attention span is so small. So like when I, I, I write all my own. Or produce all my own, uh, cold traffic ads.

Cody Sperber: You only have a couple seconds to get somebody’s attention when, when you’re running an online ad. And so like really understanding, look how to hook somebody, how to create the problem, how to agitate it, how to create the solution, how to get a result. Uh.

Judd Shaw: Yeah, that’s amazing. I mean, there’s so much to the human psychology of that online shopper in the cycle of, you know, how many times you’re seeing something and things of that nature.

Judd Shaw: That’s incredible. You know, you and I share another common thing. Uh. We both went to ASU.

Cody Sperber: I didn’t know that. That’s great. You’re a sun devil.

Judd Shaw: Well, [00:42:00] did you graduate? Of course. Well, that’s the difference. I didn’t, I didn’t make it. I showed up and I was like, I don’t know about this schooling, but this place is heaven.

Cody Sperber: There’s some, uh, Beautiful people that go to Arizona State.

Judd Shaw: I, you know, I went there. It was an amazing school, but I found too much trouble there. Yeah. Yeah.

Cody Sperber: We were the number one party school, but you know, they’ve done such a fantastic job. Michael Crow has done an amazing, amazing job re engineering that school.

Cody Sperber: Pumping insane amounts of money into the Tempe, Arizona infrastructure all around ASU. The real estate that’s gone up all around that has been amazing to see. They’ve really invested. We’re now, I believe, we might be the largest college per student count in the country. And there’s a reason all the beautiful people come here.

Judd Shaw: It’s funny. I went there because of that party school reputation. Now I’d go there because it’s not,

Cody Sperber: yeah, [00:43:00] they’ve done a good job.

Judd Shaw: How are the kids?

Cody Sperber: Uh, my kids,

Judd Shaw: what’d you say? It’s right. How are your kids?

Cody Sperber: Amazing. Amazing. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. You know, they’re teenagers. So that’s a whole nother conversation is like, how do you, I grew up with nothing.

Cody Sperber: So my hustle comes from not having right. So I desired and wanted more, more control, more joy, more money. I used to have the Lamborghini poster on my wall and the Rolls Royce poster on my wall and the MC Hammer poster on my wall and the Michael Jordan poster on my wall at all these things. And I would stare at him every single day and be like, I want success.

Cody Sperber: I want money. I want this. I want to get. Out of having my fucking grandparents in the next room. You know, I, I wanted to be successful so bad inside. My kids have the Lamborghini in the garage, right? It’s not, there’s a difference, right? There’s a different energy there. And so it’s like, how do I grow? How do I

Judd Shaw: encourage these

Cody Sperber: kids to not be entitled little shitheads?[00:44:00]

Cody Sperber: And that’s been a really fun challenge for me. Just really getting them. Involved with helping people that aren’t as privileged as them and and maybe uh, whether it’s you know serving local community or forcing them to Work, you know One of the best things my dad ever did to me and this this I applied this to my kids and they know my kids Never come and ask me for money.

Cody Sperber: They’re there. My daughter might do it a little bit more like Dad, will you help with this or how can I earn money to earn this? But my dad did something with me that i’ll never forget. I think every parent should do this I went to my dad and I told him I wanted to buy a scooter and Uh, he said all the things that of somebody that doesn’t have a great relationship with money says what do you think?

Cody Sperber: I made a money You know, money doesn’t grow on trees around here, all that stuff. But he did say one thing that I really respect. He said, how about this? What if we can come up with a way for you to create the money? And I said, okay, what are you [00:45:00] thinking? He goes, I will give you a 40 loan. What can we take this 40 loan and turn it into?

Cody Sperber: This is how I started selling candy. And so my dad literally had me go get a pencil and a piece of paper and draw out a loan agreement. For 40 bucks. And that’s how I got the funding to go start my candy operation. So now whenever my kids come to me and ask me for anything, I’m like, they already know they they’re, they’re already coming with the loan agreement.

Cody Sperber: Everything spelled out like the repayment plan, the interest rate, the, this. Uh, I always forced them to like, you better come with a plan to create what you need in order to get what you want. Cause I ain’t giving it to you. And, and it’s been kind of my mission over the last, especially two or three years going through the divorce, having them turn into teenagers, like, all right, it’s, it’s time to really ramp up the mentorship, the financial literacy, the mentorship side of things, the, you know, I forced my kids, you know, to [00:46:00] In a nice way to do ice baths with me.

Cody Sperber: So every time they’re over at my house, we’re always doing ice baths because of that mental fortitude and that overcoming a challenge and I’m getting him involved. I bring, I bring my son to work with me every, every summer he hangs out with me. He’s like my little. My little, uh, protege just hanging out with me all summer long goes to all my business meetings comes, you know, I force him to, to just be involved.

Cody Sperber: He helps me with my real estate deals. He goes out to all my projects. He thinks he’s a little manager, you know, managing all the team members at all our real estate development projects. So that’s it, you know,

Judd Shaw: I

Cody Sperber: think

Judd Shaw: though, but the best that comes from that is now they get to mirror the 2. 0 version.

Judd Shaw: Yeah, with these core values, you know what I mean, like understanding a different relationship, perhaps with money, understanding. A little difference about humanity as they watch you be so real and raw. And I think what, you know, [00:47:00] attracted me from the very beginning was the fact that, you know, there you are on stage in your YouTube, with your followers, in your business, in your relationship with, you know, your family, you’re the same guy, it’s the same guy.

Judd Shaw: Look,

Cody Sperber: there’s a lack of real leadership out there. Men need to step up, and especially if you have kids. It is your obligation to lead these kids to a place where they are connected. They are, they, they are God fearing. They have a spiritual side. They have a focus on health. They understand what alignment is and what being out of alignment is.

Cody Sperber: They have a good example of you gunning on all pillars of life, not just killing it, making money, but like right now I’m in this new relationship. And I think this is really important for your audience. I treat this relationship so [00:48:00] different than my last one. I almost hate, hate saying it because I feel like, wow, I really failed in my last relation.

Cody Sperber: How did I not see you want to, you know, um, I think it’s Tony Robbins or somebody that’s said some quote along the, if you want to, Never have an end your relationship treat them just like you did in the beginning, right? Like that’s that’s kind of the goal. Well, I operate now In total alignment with my new relationship meaning there is no yellow light behavior.

Cody Sperber: There is no hidden secrets. There is no uh Password on my phone In fact, she’s in my dm. She I logged all my social medias onto her phone at any point in time She can see everything that i’m doing every everything that happens um Every day I pretend as if our relationship is being recorded and at the end of the day Maria [00:49:00] gets to watch that recording.

Cody Sperber: She gets to see and hear my private thoughts, my deepest, darkest secrets, how I talk to my friends when she’s not around, every social interaction that I ever make, every interaction that I make at work. And she gets to watch this tape. And if she watches this, if she loves me more and respects me more than I won that day, if it drives us further apart than I lost that day.

Cody Sperber: So every day I’m showing up like this is the super bowl of my relationship. I’m going to play full out. I’m going to stay in alignment. All behaviors will be green light. And by the end of the day, she’s going to love me more. That’s it. And now that I operate this way, Guess what happens the relationship thrives.

Cody Sperber: It’s so simple and we’re such idiots that we fuck it all up and it’s such a simple concept It’s just like women want three things. They want to be provided for they want to be protected and they want you to be present And that’s what I felt I wasn’t present in my last [00:50:00] relationship because I was over here in the one thing I could control Because I couldn’t control my home life And so it’s just, it’s

Judd Shaw: also because you’re now so deeply connected with yourself that you can be so deeply connected with her.

Cody Sperber: That’s it.

Judd Shaw: You know, I have to ask you, uh, now, in the end of all these things that you’ve done for so many people, Family Man, you know, just how do you connect authentically with yourself? How do you do that best for you?

Cody Sperber: Yeah, strong routines. Strong routines. I every day I have a very strong routine and I don’t break character I don’t I don’t miss like I might not be good at a lot of things, but I won’t miss I’ll you’ll you’ll see me putting in the work constantly Uh, i’m not saying I don’t get tired or I don’t not saying that like there’s many times that i’m [00:51:00] negative or don’t want To do it, but I just do it anyway, like I don’t want to ice bath.

Cody Sperber: I ice bath. I don’t want to do all the biohacking shit that I have to do because I don’t like needles. I’m still biohacking and do it because it’s good for my health. And, uh, there’s many times that I don’t want to read the Bible or, you know, I don’t feel like praying. I do it anyway because it’s a, it’s a muscle that you build.

Cody Sperber: It’s a habit. It’s a relationship that I got to work on. Whether you feel like it or not, you got to work on it. And so you see my routines are very strong. Strong morning routines, strong evening routines. And I think by being, building those muscles and being in that, that, uh, having that energy where I just, I just refuse to miss that I’m constantly staying on track because it would be very easy for me to get off track.

Cody Sperber: And I know, like, I don’t go to strip clubs. I don’t look at porn. I don’t gamble. I don’t do anything that I know is going to lead me in the wrong direction because I know me. I know that if I [00:52:00] do yellow light shit, I’m going to do red light shit. Like it’s just, I’m going to go all the way to the finish line and self destruct.

Cody Sperber: So I just don’t do that. Uh,

Judd Shaw: so good.

Cody Sperber: Yeah. Just self control.

Judd Shaw: So good. Well, Cody, it started with this two guys being real and raw. You know, you up on that stage again, was, was this guy that I was enamored that you could be this person that I am still seeing today. And. I, I couldn’t be more grateful for you to come on the show today.

Cody Sperber: Well, I know who to call if I need a good lawyer.

Judd Shaw: Thanks for having me on. I really

Cody Sperber: do appreciate it. This has been great. Different. I like, you know, I like this podcast is because this is just the real shit that men need to talk about.

Judd Shaw: Right?

Cody Sperber: Yeah, it’s just, Hey, look, I could have sat up here and taught you how to go make a million dollars flipping houses or buying a commercial building and not paying taxes.[00:53:00]

Cody Sperber: What, how, maybe I moved the needle this much for you, but you might take one little thing in this and it totally shifts your psychology and changes the rest of your life. Way more valuable.

Judd Shaw: So, so true. I want to extend my deepest gratitude. to you. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please follow us on your favorite platform or share this episode with a friend.

Judd Shaw: You can also follow me on Instagram at Judge Shaw official. A special thank you to personal injury law firm, Judge Shaw Injury Law for their support in helping us bring this podcast to life. Remember friends, authenticity isn’t about being perfect. It’s about being real. It’s about embracing our vulnerabilities, celebrating our strengths.

Judd Shaw: And owning our stories. Until next time.