Cody Hofhine on Why Investing in Yourself Is the Best Investment

Mike Hambright (00:01.208)
Everybody welcome back to the show today. I am here with the one and only Mr. Cody Hofhine We were just talking about what we’re gonna talk about today. We’re gonna talk a lot about personal development I think a lot of us have made investments a lot of us is real estate entrepreneurs have made many investments over the years Depending on what your business looks like I personally have invested in a lot of multifamily a lot of Commercial things over the last few years expecting them to be passive They’re kind of sucking wind right now honestly, but I think about this all the time I was like man What if I take it that money and put it into myself or back into my company or back into my people or?

back into what I’m doing because that has always been the best investment. And I think that’s what we’re going to talk about today is the best investment is you. The best investment is always you. And very few people are willing to invest in themselves. You know, you’ll say you do it, you do it up to a level, but then you just kind of like break down and you think you can’t see the return on it. can’t see it on a P &L, but the returns are real if you do it right. Anyway, that’s what we’re going to talk about today. Cody, what’s up, buddy?

Cody Hofhine (00:54.968)
Dude, excited to be here. And there isn’t a more important topic that all of us, including myself, always need to remind ourselves of, and that’s personal development. Maybe a quote to start this off is Jim Rohn, one of the greats, right? He’s the one that taught Tony Robbins, Darren Hardy. He’s the OG. He says, rarely does a man’s income exceed their level of personal development. And I think it gets so easy as an entrepreneur to just go chase the dollars, go chase the business.

And he’s suggesting something completely different. He says, no, no, no, chase personal development and the business will chase you or the money will chase you or the A players will chase you. But it’s as a result of who you’re becoming.

Mike Hambright (01:33.74)
Yeah, I know we’re going to talk about a lot of this stuff, even proximity today. I want to share a quick story. you know, at the time we’re recording this, this this documentary on Martin Short just came out. Martin Short, the comedian, right? He’s a funny guy. He’s been around for decades and decades. And they give this whole documentary and they show like from right out of high school. He like I think he dropped out of college or he was only in college for a year or two. And then he went to be part of a comedy troupe. And if you go back and you look, it was like Steve Martin.

Chevy Chase, was like John Candy, like all these people were together as like teenagers or early twenties. And just that proximity, it’s like everybody that they showed in every one of these views when they were is black and white and they were super young, all became stars and they all hung out together the whole time. Like they just keep kept leveling up together. And you and I see that on the business side. We’re around people all the time that miraculously their success needle keeps going up because they keep surrounding themselves with the right people. So let’s let’s talk a little bit. Actually,

Cody Hofhine (02:07.054)
8.

Mike Hambright (02:32.95)
Before we jump into Proximity, tell us, if there’s anybody that’s listening to this doesn’t know Cody Hofhine, tell us who is this magical man.

Cody Hofhine (02:40.52)
Magical man, this magical man. This magical man is a guy that’s just passionate about having fun in life, and business is part of that. Has it always been that way? I would say because of growing up with a dad and a mom that were entrepreneurs themselves. Meaning my mom was a stay-at-home mom, but she supported my dad that was a general contractor. And so he’d go out and build commercial buildings.

Mike Hambright (02:42.52)
I just made that up, I don’t know. You’re good dude.

Yeah.

Cody Hofhine (03:04.825)
He did pretty well for himself. I’d say he was probably like the $150 to a quarter million type contractor a year, which in the 80s and 90s, I would say, man, that was a good, that was a great income. So he did well for himself. I worked from him ever since I was super young. But I can’t say I thought about this when I was eight. It’d be lying. I didn’t say like, man, I’m going to be an entrepreneur because my dad gets to control his life. I only knew what I knew. I didn’t know other people that worked for people. But as I grew up working for my dad,

Mike Hambright (03:30.018)
Right.

Cody Hofhine (03:32.558)
There was a point in 09 where his business collapsed and there was no more commercial buildings to be built. So I had to jump out on my own and start getting into entrepreneurship. So to make this story short, over the last, let’s call it, a little over a decade, a little over about 15 years of entrepreneurship, been able to be part of and exit five different companies now. Real estate being probably the biggest

portion of where maybe wealth or growth has taken place. Maybe that’s not true. Maybe the first business is always your biggest growth. It was insurance. Sold that in 2017. Co-founded Wholesaling Inc. with Tom Krol. We sold that in 2020. Sold a PPC company. There’s sold my wholesaling business. I don’t actively just go out there and wholesale, but very active in the space of wholesaling, still coach people in wholesaling.

Mike Hambright (04:30.956)
Mm-hmm.

Cody Hofhine (04:30.987)
And then just recently just exited with Joe Homebuyer.

Mike Hambright (04:35.476)
Mm-hmm. Yep. Yeah, I think thanks for sharing that. I think, you you and I were talking ahead of time about, you didn’t call it this, but it’s like the wisdom you get from playing the game over a long period of time. And, you know, what’s funny is there’s so many people that, you know, there’s a ton of people in this industry that come and go. There’s a ton of people in probably every industry that come and go. We just see our industry really, right. But there’s also a ton of people that would lead you to believe that, well, that must be nice, like,

because you did it, you know, it’s like seems easy. And it’s like, you know, like you said, 15, 16, 17 years for me, almost 20 years. It’s like 20 overnight success, 20 years in the making. Right. Like nobody sees and I’m not saying that I don’t. I’m not the type of guy that goes out on social media and just shows the highlight reels. But I also don’t go out of my way to show the negative things because I just like I want to move on. You know, so it’s not like I’m hiding them, but they’re there and they’re there for all of us. And anybody that has any level of success has had a ton of failures. Right.

I think that’s one of the biggest challenges today is people generally think that those didn’t exist or they don’t see them so they don’t believe they exist. That it was just always easy for you or easy for me or easy for anybody. And that’s simply not the case. Like I’ve, you know, I’m sure you could give a bunch of quotes from professional athletes and things like that of people that have clearly have failed more than they’ve succeeded. But when you play the game enough times, those successes seem like they’re

coming all the time and it’s like, yeah, but you should see the pile of losses I have behind me too, right?

Cody Hofhine (06:06.923)
Yeah, one of the, I think the best analogies I’d ever heard around this is when you have a big dream, you’re gonna have big struggles. Struggles the same size of the dream that you want to fulfill. So if your dream is to have a million dollar business, you’re gonna have a million dollar struggle coming your way. But what’s amazing is the next step is you’re gonna have a million dollar victory as well.

But they’re all the same size and we want to have like a million dollar dream but I want like a hundred thousand dollar struggle and I still want the million dollar victory and life just doesn’t work that way. And I think entrepreneurship, there’s probably a book, it’s right here. Have you ever read Buddha and the Badass? Dude, so simple, this one phrase that I’ll tell ya. It says this right here.

Mike Hambright (06:30.328)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Hambright (06:49.26)
No.

Cody Hofhine (06:57.613)
The most important thing that our business schools need to teach us is that your work is not about your work. You guys, this is impossible for me to wrap my head around in 2010. It was all about work. It was all about being a provider. It was all about bringing in income so I could pay for my mortgage and pay for all the stuff that’s happening of life, right? But this is saying work is not about work. Rather, your work is nothing more than the ultimate vehicle for your personal growth. If your business fails, it doesn’t matter. The question is, how did you grow?

If your business becomes a billion dollars, it doesn’t matter. The question is, how did you grow? And it’s almost like we have this so backwards. Our tradition has said we just got to go to work because you’re the provider and you got to provide. OK, I think that was great knowledge maybe for past generations. But really, every day on this earth is just more in line with what I’m saying is probably more like atomic habits.

with James Clear when he says, it’s just becoming 1 % better than the person you were the day before. And if you’re doing that, you’re winning. You’re experiencing success. And business is probably the best vehicle I’ve ever been a part of for forced personal development.

Mike Hambright (07:51.746)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Hambright (08:08.502)
Yeah, especially if you if you’re on with like a lot of people treat their businesses as a It’s it basically is a job for a lot of people. If you’re a solopreneur, I mean, there’s plenty of lessons you learn. Don’t get me wrong. But when you start building teams and you start being responsible for other people’s livelihood and you start signing leases for office space and spending a ton of money on marketing and things like that, it’s like you’re going to take you’re going to take a lick and a little bit every once in a while. And those are those are the best lessons. Right. It’s like what honestly, I think you learn a lot more from what not to do.

Cody Hofhine (08:13.335)
Yeah.

Mike Hambright (08:36.236)
to do because when you do something right, you just you usually think you’re the hero like, I made such a great decision. This was such a good idea. But you don’t really learn from that because you you need to be punched in the mouth a couple times to learn like what not to do really.

Cody Hofhine (08:49.079)
Yeah, and the last, let’s call it the last decade. I I think people call COVID maybe a downturn. Maybe it was for a lot of businesses. I mean, there were some pivots in real estate. I feel like for the last eight years, this market has made everyone, including myself, look better than I was. Like, it was a great bull run. We had a tremendous bull run. And so all these different little economic crises that pop up, it’s starting to expose those that had a great bull run.

Mike Hambright (09:00.109)
Right.

Cody Hofhine (09:17.813)
and the bull run made us look a little bit better. it’ll be interesting what happens over these next few years. My hope is that whatever’s going on with politics and all that, that more chess playing is happening than we know, I have no idea. I never get involved because I can’t change anything. It’s out of my control. And maybe that’s maybe one more message to say is.

What are you doing? What are you going to wake up and take control of? Because there’s so many things out of our control. And that was the other thing, a pivot point, I think that’s crucial in entrepreneurship. Control the controllables and only focus on what you can control. Because there’s so many things outside of our control. And there’s so much wasted energy and time spent.

Mike Hambright (09:58.401)
sure.

Cody Hofhine (10:02.207)
on Facebook, like fighting people about politics. I’m like, you guys, this is why you frickin’ lose. It has nothing to do with the President of the United States. It’s because you spend two hours a day fighting over the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of in this post, right? Focus, like focus, focus, focus. Entrepreneurship, those that stay focused and just control the controllables, man, they’re fun people to be around, but they’re also dominating.

Mike Hambright (10:13.484)
Yeah, yeah.

Mike Hambright (10:22.412)
Yeah, I would say in the real estate space, this is because obviously I have the investor fuel mastermind around, know, hundreds of people that are doing this professionally at a high level. And in my experience, yeah, thank you. Yeah, Cody, great to have you here.

Cody Hofhine (10:30.401)
Your group is so good, the way, Mike. I have to give you a shout out. Your group is so good. Being out there speaking, was awesome, like reconnecting with the Fuel Fam. It was awesome.

Mike Hambright (10:40.118)
Yeah. One of the things that I believe, like I feel like things are getting better for a lot of people that are are focused on playing the game full time. And I don’t think I think that what changes their perspective, like I don’t feel like it’s gotten easier. It’s just they’ve gotten better. They’ve gotten better on how to navigate the times. You know, there were probably the last couple of years, a lot of questions asked were like, I’m going to wait till it gets back to normal or what is the new normal? And people are like, OK, I think I guess this is normal now.

this you just you learn how to like navigate these waters and I think there’s a ton of people in entrepreneurship that jump into the next thing because it seems easy they typically jump from one thing that’s hard to something that’s easy at the time but that thing will also get hard and as an entrepreneur there’s a lot of people that refer to themselves as a serial entrepreneur you’ve owned a bunch of companies I want to watch companies but they’ve all been in the same vein they’ve all been in the same type of space not like I’m jumping into being a day trader I’m gonna go do some more crypto or I’m gonna

jump in to acquiring businesses. There’s nothing wrong with any of those things, but I generally feel like people that whenever it gets hard jump into something else, you’re starting over. So every three or four years you start over, start over, start over. What does it look like 20 years from now when you’ve started over five times? And then look at the people that had some level of success and every time things got hard, they just doubled down and focused and focused and got better and got better and got better. They will absolutely be ahead of the person that jumps ship every time it got hard.

Cody Hofhine (12:07.18)
Mike, and one thing that I think is a truth about that latter person that you just said that doubles down, I don’t think they do that by themselves. I don’t think they do that by sitting there in the walls of their office and of their team and just figuring things out. This goes back to that whole entire proximity is power. I would tell anyone listening to this podcast, spend at least 10%, at least. That’s my minimum. Spend at least 10 % on a mentor.

on Mastermind, spend at least 10%, and get yourself out of the walls of your office and have conversations with other people that are winning. That has been probably my best secret. When everyone’s like, what has been an attributer to your growth? It has always been rubbing great shoulders with great thinkers, great people, people winning, people that are five to 10 years ahead of me. I never take advice from people that haven’t done what I’m seeking advice for.

It is like cancer, like do not take it. I remember and I love my dad to death. When I got my first rental, he literally was like, why’d you get a rental? Didn’t you know they could smoke meth in it and then you have to do this and you have to do this? And I remember leaving Sunday dinner, like I literally was like.

Mike Hambright (13:05.015)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Hambright (13:16.952)
Thank

Cody Hofhine (13:21.388)
just do?” And then I’m like, I better call this other investor and see if I made the right decision. And so I called this investor that had like 40 doors. I said, here’s what I did. He’s like, tell me the numbers. I tell him the numbers. He’s like, dude, I will pay you 20 grand to walk away and I’ll own the rental. And I’m like, so is this a good deal? He’s like, dude, it’s a phenomenal deal. Don’t listen to your dad. And from that point, I learned something. Although my dad loves me, although he’s probably saying advice from love, he also never owned rentals.

And so why would I seek advice from people that haven’t earned a rental, haven’t never had a rental? so that’s something that has been some of my secret sauces. I don’t go to college. don’t have a degree, and I don’t think anyone needs one, to be honest. But at the end of the day, it’s who are you surround yourself with? Surround yourself with people five to 10 years ahead of you. R &D is not research and develop. It’s rip off and duplicate. This world is all about just fast tracking your success. And you do that by surround yourself with great people.

Mike Hambright (13:57.079)
Right.

Mike Hambright (14:14.968)
Yeah.

Mike Hambright (14:20.194)
Yeah, and I think there’s a lot of people out there. The other side of that is people that everybody has opinions and I’m guilty of opinions on. have opinions of things that are. Yeah, I have. I have plenty of opinions that people seek out like I have a lot of wisdom and a lot of experience and a lot of arrow wounds in my back and I have opinions on pretty much everything else as well. So there’s some things you should take advice from me on other things you probably shouldn’t, but that doesn’t mean I’m an opinion. And so I guess it. But your point there is.

Cody Hofhine (14:29.102)
I just made mine about college.

Mike Hambright (14:48.704)
I think there’s a lot of people, newer entrepreneurs that just want, they almost, people want to say, I tried it and it doesn’t work. Like they feel like they validated it. They never work through the hard part, but they’re just like, you know what? I didn’t try because I mean, they did try. They just want to check the box and say, I tried and it didn’t work. And it’s like, well, the way you tried it didn’t work. There’s plenty of people doing it that it’s working very well for. And what are they doing differently? And you don’t know that until you get in a room.

Cody Hofhine (15:07.606)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mike Hambright (15:18.178)
full of those people that also have a ton of arrow wounds in their back and tuned out their friends and family, the people that said that that’ll never work. Quite frankly, it’s because they weren’t willing to take the risk that you’ve taken. so surrounding yourself with people that have done exactly what you’ve done or are doing it at a high level right now is critical. Obviously, I believe that as well.

Cody Hofhine (15:39.201)
You’re nailing, if I was to say any mastermind I’ve been a part of, any mastermind that I’ve grown, any coaching platform I’ve grown, the number one what’s interesting to me is it’s not fear of failing. I used to think, oh, they’re just afraid to fail. And I used to believe that. And then I’d get with them and I’d talk to them, and it comes down to this. They’re not afraid of failing. They’re afraid of what people will think of them if they fail.

Mike Hambright (16:04.504)
Hmm.

Cody Hofhine (16:04.66)
Isn’t it like if I had a bike up here and I’d never ridden a bike before and no one’s watching, I’ll get on a bike and say, hey, I’m going to learn how to ride a bike. But if I put 500 people in this room and I’ve never rode a bike before, I’ll probably be like, I’ll pass today. Why? What changed? It’s people are watching me. And what are people going to think when Cody Hofhine gets on a bike and doesn’t know how to ride a bike? They’re going to make fun of me. And many people don’t get to taste. And they have every excuse in the book. It’s unfortunate. It’s, God doesn’t want me to be rich.

Ah, I guess it’s just not meant for me. Ah, you know, the Hofhine generation, Hofhine’s are from Germany, and maybe we’re not supposed to be successful in real estate. So it just doesn’t work. And they throw out these cheap excuses. And at the end of the day, it’s like, no, no, no. You just gave up. Like, you gave up.

And you probably, like you said, didn’t separate yourself from the people that were naysayers, that were blue crabs pulling you down into the bucket saying, you know what? I’ve given up on my dream and I want you to join me and give up on your dream. That is the truth. As hard as that was to receive, if someone’s out there saying, no, it just doesn’t work, you gave up. It works. There’s plenty of people that can tell you. In fact, I know way more people that it’s worked for than it hasn’t worked for.

Mike Hambright (17:13.356)
Hmm. Yeah, I think, you know, one of the problems is people are quick to sabotage themselves because they don’t feel like they deserve something right or they get to a level. This is probably the bigger one. People that that are in some of our circles that we know as people that get to a level and they just get way too comfortable. And it’s not. And I think, you know, when you get to a certain level like you and I have, let’s say I’m it’s hard to like you have to you have to force yourself to think bigger because sometimes

Cody Hofhine (17:29.953)
Yeah.

Mike Hambright (17:42.328)
You have a level of success that seems bigger than maybe what some of the folks have had. And in your mind, like I’m just getting started, right? And you just have to keep pushing forward. Sometimes you had to push yourself into the next room or like Investor Fuel, we have additional groups. We have four different groups. People kind of keep elevating up, right? And there’s people that have been at the very top of that. And they’re like, where do I go from here? And I was like, I don’t know what to tell you. Like, maybe we formed a group.

Cody Hofhine (18:04.46)
I have a mentor right now. I pay $100,000 a year, and it’s a one hour call every other month, meaning I get six calls, each call being one hour. So I get six hours of this guy for $100,000. That’s my next level. He’s 10 years ahead of me, and I’m like, if I want it, I better seek advice from someone that’s doing it. I mean, that’s, yes, what you’re saying is you can’t rest on your laurels. When you’ve succeeded,

That’s when I realized I’m just at the bottom of my next mountain.

Mike Hambright (18:36.94)
Yeah, one of the things for me that I realized, because I, you know, I grew up going through coaching masterminds, like all those things before I formed a mastermind or did any sort of coaching is I used to, I used to be like trying to go to an event and just fill a notebook and like have all these things that I need to go do. And then I realized I could never execute like hardly any of this. Right. So now

Cody Hofhine (18:54.41)
You and me both.

Mike Hambright (18:59.732)
I go, and I, by the way, I started going to events that are completely outside of real estate, like just completely off the wall events, like newsletter conference. went through a little while back, just different things, just to get a different perspective. Cause I’m so ingrained in our, in our industry, right? But for me, it was just this realization of I’m not here looking to fill a notebook. In fact, I go out of my way to not write most down. Cause I don’t, I don’t, then I feel like I have to do it.

I’m what I call a nugget hunter. I’m looking for a gold nugget and you go to an event and I just need one. Like maybe you get a couple, but I need one or two gold nuggets. Sometimes they’re relationships by the way. They’re not necessarily something I heard and very rarely are they something that I heard from stage. It’s usually a hallway conversation, something at a dinner or a lunch, right? It’s just something that you didn’t expect and it comes out of nowhere and you’re like, whoa, say that again. Tell me that again.

Cody Hofhine (19:43.414)
side chat.

Mike Hambright (19:54.578)
And I think a lot of people that go to events, they spend all their time on the phone or they’re checked out. They’re really not even that engaged. And then they’ll say, I didn’t really get much out of it. It’s like you weren’t even there. You weren’t even really there, you know. But those would be one of some feedback that I have for people that are listening is when you go to events, when you come to a mastermind like mine, don’t don’t bring a notebook. Don’t bring a fresh notebook to fill out. Like, you know, bring it proverbially. Bring one page of paper and just write down a couple of nuggets. And the biggest thing you’ve heard and yeah.

Cody Hofhine (20:20.746)
can’t execute 20 things. Yeah. And I think people lack clarity on what they want out of life and what they want for their business. And so prep, if you’re going to events, if you’re going to Mike’s event, doesn’t matter. Like whenever you’re going to event, here’s the prep I do personally for my own life. I literally will just ask my own self a question. Like where do I want my business to be 12 months from now? And then I just say, what are my current roadblocks?

Mike Hambright (20:25.24)
I’m excited.

Hmm.

Cody Hofhine (20:48.032)
from the person I am today and the person that has, let’s say I’m at, let’s say you’re at 500K and you want a million dollar business. What does a million dollar operator look like? What are the skillsets, the mindsets that this operator has that you don’t have? Those are your roadblocks. And I would have questions, like I’d have specific things that I’m looking for. I’m looking for what skills are necessary to grow a million dollar business. I’m looking for the team size that I need to have to have a million dollar business. And I come prepared.

Mike Hambright (21:13.677)
Yeah.

Cody Hofhine (21:16.01)
so that my ears and my eyes are literally listening and looking for someone on stage or a side chat with someone that’s a million dollar operator. When someone’s like, I did 1.5, I’m like, that’s my person. I’m going go talk to them. Hey, what’s your team size on that? you can do that with one acquisitions and one dispositions? Amazing. And then I ask another guy, one point 2 million, I’m going to go talk to him. Hey, what’s your team size look like? And then when you get a consensus of everyone saying, I can do that with one dispo and one acquisition, I’m like, good, now I know. I need one acquisition. I need one disposition.

Mike Hambright (21:27.768)
Yeah, I know.

Cody Hofhine (21:45.879)
But I wouldn’t have known that if I didn’t come prepared to that event with specific things that I’m trying to overcome, the one to three things that I’m trying to overcome to get to the next level so that I can hear it, see it, and then go talk to that person on the sideline. Because I agree, the side chats are better than the stage.

Mike Hambright (22:02.008)
Yeah, yeah. One of the things that a lot of my Investor Mastermind members know this, some people outside know this because I’ve shared it, but I haven’t talked about it for a little while, Cody. And I think this will resonate with you because I know just from our conversations, like I know you think like this too. And it wasn’t always this way for me. Like for me, it started with, I started different than you, but like I had to feed my family. Like we had to like get things going. We were just burning cash, like had a new baby, like all this stuff, right? Had to figure it out.

And now it’s evolved to something way better than that, fortunately, and I appreciate that. But one of the things that I realized just a few years ago, was, you you had some of the same things. My mom passed away about three and a half years ago. Your mom passed away. We’ve had some of these conversations before. For me, it was a realization of like, every once in a while you have this, this thought of like, what is this all for? Right. And I mean, I have. And

you know, if you if you follow something like EOS, that’s like, hey, you need to cast a vision, like, what do you want your five 10 year business vision to look like? It’s all around business, though, right? And for me, it was this realization of and that’s powerful. Like if you don’t know, if you don’t have this vision that’s out there, because what you do in EOS is you back into like stepping stones of like, what do need to do today and tomorrow to hit your monthly goal to hit your quarterly goal to hit your one year goal to hit your 10 year goal. They all are stepping stones to the next thing. And that and I agree with that.

But for entrepreneurs, especially when you get to a certain point where you’re comfortable, you don’t really need to work anymore, it becomes more about your why, what is it you’re trying to accomplish? So I created this system a while back that I call the Fuel 5, and it’s around friends, family, faith, fitness, and finances. And it’s really like, my business needs to be a tool to help me hit the goals that I want in life. What’s the relationship I wanna have with my family, my spouse, my kids, things like that?

What’s the what’s the relationship from a fitness standpoint? What do I want my body look like? Physically, mentally, all those things, right? Your business should be an enabler. Everybody has different goals. They’re the Elon Musk of the world that are like doing things that none of us can really imagine. It’s like it’s insane. We were talking about that. Yeah. Right, right. And so, you know, I think that sometimes people see that and they’re like, there are there aren’t there aren’t many Elans in the world and there never will be, quite frankly. But for us as entrepreneurs,

Cody Hofhine (24:09.79)
He doesn’t sleep. The dude works like a hundred hours a week. It’s impossible to replicate him.

Mike Hambright (24:24.116)
your business has to get to a point to where it has to be more than just about that business. Like it has to be more and inevitably this happens. We lose a loved one. We ourselves have a health issue. You know, you get divorced or you have a strain on your relationship with your family or whatever. All those things, they can happen. We know plenty of people that happened to you. And it’s like, well, if the business didn’t support that, then the business doesn’t matter. Like at the end of the day, the business is just like cash is just a, is just dry powder. It’s just,

It’s a tool to do what you want your life to be. And so anyway, where I’m going with that is the importance of having a vision for what you want your life to look like and then building a business around something that enables you to live.

Cody Hofhine (25:08.0)
So this was a crucial turning point for me. Two things. And that was in 2017, paying off my home. If I’m in a real estate room, people crucified me for this. They’re like, what are you doing? All that money locked up. What I didn’t think was going to happen, and I can’t explain to anyone until they’ve done it, is that was the moment I took the focus off myself, waking up every morning saying, hey, I need to go to work so I can pay my mortgage, like pay my bills.

Mike Hambright (25:21.506)
Yeah.

Cody Hofhine (25:37.045)
I have no bills other than the ongoing food and all that stuff to maintain. But I have no debt on cars. have no debt on toys. I have no debt on home. And with that, I was able to just literally focus outward.

And now waking up, it was more of that why that you’re talking about. It’s like, hey, I want someone else to achieve this. Now it didn’t feel like work. It’s like, no, do whatever you can. You white glove. If you’ve got a product, you’d be the best frickin’ product out there in your industry, and you serve that person and help them overcome their challenges. You’re never going to run out of money. That was the day when business took off when I became debt free. So as much as it’s crazy to think, my gosh, $3 and 1 million is tied up in your home,

OK, yes, but my business has done more than that over those years as a result of being debt free because I don’t focus on me. I focus on them. And so my businesses have been better. So that’s one. Number two was when I lost my mom, same story, I came across a mentor that was Robin Sharma, the 5 AM club. And so I met with him for four days in Barcelona, Spain. And we were sitting there talking. And he’s like, Cody?

Mike Hambright (26:26.903)
Right.

Cody Hofhine (26:46.194)
You’re at a spot that you have this. I was telling him everything that we have, our networks, we’re breaking all that down. He says, Cody, do you see a world that it’s even possible to just work four hours a day? And I’m like, jeez. And in my limited mind at that time, and this was just a handful of years ago, I was like, gosh, I don’t know. Because everyone I’m around with still works 50, 60, 40 at least, but 50, 60 hours a week. And I was still doing that. And sometimes I think we get caught in the grind. And I think grind and hustle, it has to happen.

I’m not here to say, guys, start your life off. Entrepreneur, you can do it with four hours a day. I’m like, do not do that program. But you do have to grind and hustle. But it’s a season. It’s not something you have to keep doing. And so he taught me to build a lifestyle. He’s like, Cody, what is your ultimate lifestyle? And how do you get to the point where you can do that by just working four hours a day? And it made me think different. It made me question, like, OK, all this tradition and all the people that I’m hanging out with, is there a world I could actually do it this way? And it got me thinking.

Mike Hambright (27:24.674)
The season, yeah. Right.

Cody Hofhine (27:46.121)
Since that guy, I’ve been working back to the point where that’s what I work every single day. And to many, they’re like, you’re crazy. Why don’t you give more time? And I’m like, that’s great. But I know my lifestyle. know my why. And everything I say yes to has to support that lifestyle. Otherwise, it’s the hardest, easiest no I’ve ever said in my life. And that, over time, I think you just get more refined on, I only do what supports my lifestyle. You’re at a stage, clearly, that you’re doing that. I’m at a stage that I’m like, I’m not.

Mike Hambright (28:06.808)
Yeah.

Cody Hofhine (28:16.01)
working 40 hours because the world says you have to work 40 hours. I challenged that and I found a way because I got crystal clear on what I want my lifestyle to look like and I only built a business that supported that. Otherwise I said no to it.

Mike Hambright (28:19.437)
Right.

Mike Hambright (28:29.216)
Yeah, that’s great. think there definitely is a big difference between having to do something and wanting to or getting to do something, right? I I think for any entrepreneur, there’s stuff that you have to do that you don’t want to do. Unfortunately, it comes with the territory. But if your whole life is 40, 50, 60 hours of I have to do this for the business to move forward, then that’s no that’s no way to live.

Cody Hofhine (28:44.225)
Yeah.

Mike Hambright (28:53.72)
And so if you’re there right now, just make sure that you know it’s a season and work your way out of that get around guys like Cody or get around guys like me or investor fuel right is like we help people build a business that fuels their life and not the other way around and so I think as entrepreneurs we saw this for many years there’s this badge of honor like all the people that are in this hustle crowd and that this badge of honor that they hustle and it’s like I mean you just have a job like you know, so again if it’s a season and you got to work through and by the way

I have those seasons. have these seasons where like I put my head down and I got to work through something right. Doesn’t mean that you’ll ever move on from them, but you get to a hopefully you get to a point is not true. The goal I think I can’t tell everybody what their goal is, but I think for most people their goal is. Get to a point to where you don’t have to do anything, but you get to do some stuff right?

Cody Hofhine (29:46.029)
That’s absolutely true. Me and you talked about rentals and things like that. And it’s like, are they good? Are they great? I think it adds wealth. I think it’s a long-term play. It’s not the right-now money that people are thinking it is. And people get caught up not having an income coming in right now to support owning rentals. They’re like, I just want to get into the game so I can own rentals. I’m like, ooh, you better have something that brings in money today, because those rentals aren’t going to make you money for 30 years. But I’m to the point where I’m in a little hustle season for the next g-

let’s say next month for sure, of turning and converting my current traditional rentals to a strategy that will work better for my lifestyle. And for me, I’ve chosen a lease with an option to purchase. So it’s like, it’s your home now. You get to fix it. When something breaks down, I don’t need to worry about it. I don’t need to keep dumping my money, cash flow that people think is cash flow, and you just keep recycling it. It’s like, I now have a strategy that I’m even putting my head down to just redo my portfolio.

Mike Hambright (30:24.504)
you

Mike Hambright (30:37.261)
Yeah.

Cody Hofhine (30:43.66)
because it supports my lifestyle and gets me in more alignment with who I want to be, where I want to be and where I’m

Mike Hambright (30:50.806)
Yeah, and I think that a lot of folks when they’re depending on where they are in their career, probably all entrepreneurs, but it’s okay that your goals change to right. Like I think we want to set these goals that just seem like they don’t move. But the reality is, on one level, you’re going to hit goals like you’re going to, you’re going to hit goals that you never thought you could hit. And then you have to set bigger goals. You have to set bigger goals and just keep pushing forward. But two is things change. Your life could change. Something could happen to a loved one. You get better. Right? Yeah.

Cody Hofhine (31:15.936)
You get better and as a result you think better.

Mike Hambright (31:19.728)
or you get to a point in your career where maybe you don’t want to do some of what you do. So you can shift. There’s nothing wrong with that, with any of that. I think, you know, I think that gets a lot of people hung up where they don’t know how to move forward because like, what if my goals change? like, just put a flag in the ground now and aim for that. And when you get there, or if you don’t, and you realize that you’re on the wrong path, then it’s like your GPS where it’s like, you know, you make a wrong turn and it just shows you like, hey, we’ll just go this way now, right?

Cody Hofhine (31:48.288)
Yeah, make a U-turn and do this. That’s exactly right.

Mike Hambright (31:50.614)
Yeah. Cody, what advice would you give to the entrepreneur out there? A lot of folks that you and I work with, successful by most standards, like most people around them think that they’re crushing it. They probably, you know, have some aspects of their life where they are crushing it and some where people don’t know some of the crap they’re dealing with, right? But just that that entrepreneur that’s a little bit stuck in trying to get to the next level, like what in this market today?

whether they’re a real estate investor or any entrepreneur. The truth is, is a lot of people in real estate think that real estate is very unique. It’s like, eh, I mean, it’s not that different. At the end of the day, most small businesses, we don’t have enough leads. We don’t have the right team. keep hiring and firing the wrong people. We got a lot of mindset issues. Like we all have a lot of the same problems that we’re navigating. We never have enough cash. Like we always want more cash to invest in or do things, right? So.

Cody Hofhine (32:43.905)
Yes.

Mike Hambright (32:44.066)
just talk to any entrepreneur out there that’s kind of successful by most standards but still not content with where they’re at. What advice would you give them?

Cody Hofhine (32:52.8)
Yeah, the one that I made the focus for the last, let’s call it, two and a half, three years, and there’s been a whole evolution of about this path I’m gonna tell you now, and that was like, I need to stay fit. I need to get my point where I can attack that because there’s so many times that it’s to you. It’s you against you, but there’s times where I’m sitting at home and I’m like, that cookie sounds good right now.

And I have to hold myself freaking accountable when no one’s there to say, dude, no. When I’m in a mastermind, that’s why I love the mastermind. It’s forced accountability. I get myself in a room and last time, you guys have an awesome setup. You have like half your presenters say what they worked on the last like four months and then they present on it. And you have people set goals saying for my next four months, I’m going to be working on this. And then they kind of swap. And I remember that and I’m like, this is a mastermind. This is what a mastermind is for.

Mike Hambright (33:19.896)
you

Cody Hofhine (33:48.151)
holding each other, it’s forced accountability. But I’m like, where I don’t have forced accountability is with your own health. And so the byproduct, what I’m like, I want to focus on this, but here is the byproduct, the reality of what happened when I focused on that and made that my effort is I got really good at like holding myself accountable because there’s many times I’m driving by myself and I’m like, I kind of just want to go to In-N-Out Burger today and go do this and go smash this massive burger and these animal style fries.

when you can get to the point where you’re like, I don’t want to do that today. It took a long time for me. It took a long time to me to get that point. But the result was when I could master that health side, it made, for whatever reason, it unlocked a whole different level in business. And so I wanted to give something maybe different than what most people would be like, hey, make sure you’re marketing, or hey, make sure you’re going to masterminds, or hey, make sure you’re doing this. All right, all true, everything great. But if you want to also unlock new levels of your business,

master your health and the by-product is you will see that most of these things that we find trivial and that are big problems are actually, they’re not that big. In fact, health was my biggest problem. It really was my biggest problem. It was my biggest challenge. And when I defeated that lion, was like, business is actually a little bit easier now.

Mike Hambright (35:01.047)
Hmm.

Mike Hambright (35:06.552)
Wow, that’s awesome. Cody great, great hanging out with you, buddy. It was great to see you at investor fuel a few weeks ago and always looking for opportunities to hang out if folks want to connect with you if they want to learn what you’re working on, they want to follow you some of the awesome content you’re putting on social media, where they go.

Cody Hofhine (35:22.186)
Yeah, head on over to Cody Hofhine. Look for the blue check mark on Instagram. Yes, I do post on Facebook because it instantly does it when you post on Instagram. But I’m most active. Like, if you want to DM me, reach out to me. Instagram is where I hang out. You can also head over to codyhofhine.com and see what I’m about and what I do. And those are two great areas where they can connect with me.

Mike Hambright (35:42.392)
Awesome, I know you’re putting out great content by the way too. we’ll share the links down below. I’m also gonna put, for those of you that are listening, if you’re interested, I’m gonna put a link to the Fuel 5 Masterclass. We actually have two different workbooks that we give out that part of this workshop. One is just daily habits that you define and you track every single day. And one of them is using this Fuel 5 where you kind of plan your life around the five areas I talk about, family, friends, faith, fitness, and finances. But anyway, Cody, great to see you buddy.

Cody Hofhine (36:11.926)
Thank you. Mike, it’s always an honor for everyone listening. Take them up on that offer. Do something that helps you progress in different ways. So I love that you’re putting that out there. That’s an awesome gift.

Mike Hambright (36:21.27)
Yeah, thank you, buddy. Everybody, hope you got some good value from today. You need to hang out with people that have been doing this for a long time or those that are, you know, a little bit ahead of you or quite frankly, just those that are supportive of you taking risks in your business and in your life because a lot of the I have a lot of great friends from that are, you know, outside of my industry that are a lot of them are W2 folks, family members, things like that. And it’s not like I don’t appreciate their support, but they have a different perspective. They don’t really have the insider perspective that you need in your business. So

Make sure you surround yourself with the right people. Appreciate you guys a bunch. We’ll see you on the next show.