🎙️ Big Deal by Codie Sanchez: 39 Brutal Truths I Know at 39 and Wish I Knew at 20
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Life Wisdom, Business Strategy, and The Power of Choosing Your Hard
In this raw and insightful episode of "Big Deal," Codie Sanchez celebrates her 39th birthday by sharing 39 brutal truths she wishes she had known at 20. As a successful entrepreneur, investor, and business owner, Sanchez delivers hard-won wisdom that cuts through conventional advice to offer practical, sometimes uncomfortable truths about money, relationships, business, and personal growth. This collection of life lessons serves as a roadmap for anyone looking to accelerate their success and avoid common pitfalls on their journey to building a meaningful life and career.
The Philosophy of Hard Choices: Embracing Inevitable Difficulty
Sanchez begins with a fundamental truth that sets the tone for the entire episode: "Being poor is hard. Getting rich is hard. Being overweight is hard. Getting fit is hard. Being married is hard. Being single hard. Every choice in life is hard. If you don't choose hard, you're hard will choose you."
This powerful opening establishes a core theme that runs throughout her wisdom. Life is inherently challenging, and success comes from intentionally choosing which difficulties you'll face rather than having them chosen for you. This reframing of hardship as inevitable but selectable empowers listeners to make conscious decisions about their struggles rather than being victims of circumstance.
The Power of Questions and Continuous Learning
Sanchez emphasizes the importance of curiosity and continuous learning with a quote from Socrates: "Smart people learn from everything and everyone. Average people learn from their experiences. Stupid people already have all the answers."
This lesson highlights the value of humility and the recognition that we never know everything. By asking more questions and remaining open to learning from all sources, we position ourselves for continuous growth and improvement. Sanchez contrasts this with the closed mindset of those who believe they already have all the answers, which inevitably leads to stagnation.
The Amateur vs. Professional Mindset
A crucial distinction Sanchez makes is between amateur and professional approaches to work and life: "Amateurs want to do what they love. Pros learn to love what it takes. It's not about what you're good at. It's about doing what needs to be done."
This insight challenges the common advice to "follow your passion" and instead suggests that success comes from developing the discipline to do what's necessary, even when it's not enjoyable. Professionals understand that mastery requires embracing the process, including its difficult and tedious aspects, rather than chasing only the enjoyable parts.
The Danger of Distraction and the Value of Boredom
Sanchez addresses a modern epidemic with striking clarity: "We've weaponized distraction against ourselves. We've turned silence into the enemy. Every goddamn moment has to be productive now."
She identifies how our constant need for stimulation. For example, podcasts while walking, scrolling while using the bathroom, Netflix while eating. This has created a mental dependency on distraction that prevents deep thinking and creativity. Her solution is simple but profound: "Be bored more often. Turn off your phone and your brain turns on."
This lesson highlights the importance of creating space for reflection and original thought by regularly disconnecting from the constant stream of information and entertainment that dominates modern life.
The Company You Keep: Relationships and Reputation
Sanchez emphasizes the profound impact of our social circles with multiple lessons: "Behind every successful person is a story that gave them no choice" and "Surround yourself with people whose character you admire, and you'll begin to notice your character improves, too."
She also warns about those who gossip: "If someone you just met is talking shit about their ex, friend, partner, boss, guess what? They will be doing the same to you next." This practical wisdom serves as both a warning and a guide for selecting relationships that build us up rather than tear us down.
Perhaps most importantly, she shares her number one regret: "Not prioritizing my marriage above just about everything." This candid admission highlights the personal cost of business success and the importance of nurturing our most intimate relationships.
The Currency of Action: Urgency and Momentum
Sanchez stresses the critical importance of taking action quickly: "The greatest muscle you can build is urgency. Decrease the time between having an idea and getting it done. Everything changes when you do."
She illustrates this with a personal example: "I waited a year to take my Goldman Sachs job. That delay cost me six figures." This lesson emphasizes that inaction has a real, measurable cost and that developing the habit of immediate action creates momentum that compounds over time.
Related to this is her insight about momentum: "The longer something has been successful, the more likely it is to continue to be successful. This is called a feedback loop of life. And it turns out this is true for business and it's also true for you. Once you get the momentum going, it's really hard to stop."
The Power of Leverage and Simplicity
Sanchez shares two crucial business and life principles: "You will be richer when you understand leverage" and "Complexity makes you seem smart. Simplicity makes you money."
These lessons highlight the importance of understanding how to multiply your efforts through leverage; whether financial, operational, or relational. All while avoiding the trap of unnecessary complexity that often impresses but rarely delivers results. The ability to distill complex problems to their essential truths is presented as a valuable skill that improves thinking, communication, and decision-making.
The Importance of Reputation and Integrity
Sanchez emphasizes the long-term value of a good reputation: "The smartest people I know obsess on their reputations. Do not play short-term games with your name."
She shares Warren Buffett's philosophy: "If you lose me a dollar, I'll forget. If you lose me one cent of reputation, you will be fired." This lesson underscores that while money can be lost and regained, reputation is fragile and once damaged may never fully recover. This long-term perspective on integrity and reputation is presented as essential for sustainable success.
The Balance of Faith and Action
Sanchez offers a nuanced perspective on the relationship between faith and hard work: "I'm going to pray like it's up to God, and I'm going to work like it's up to me."
This balanced approach acknowledges the value of faith and belief while emphasizing the necessity of diligent effort. Rather than relying solely on divine intervention or personal effort, she advocates for a powerful combination that harnesses both spiritual belief and practical action.
The Danger of Comfort and the Myth of "Too Late"
Sanchez challenges the complacency that comes with comfort: "You're not too old, you're just too comfortable. The most addictive drug is comfort."
She counters the common excuse that it's "too late" to start something new by sharing her own timeline: "I didn't get married until I was 33. I didn't make content until I was 35. I didn't start my podcast until I was 37. At 30, I thought I'd peaked. At 39, I know it's just getting started."
This personal testimony serves as powerful evidence that it's never too late to begin anew and that our greatest limitations are often the comfort zones we create for ourselves.
The Value of Working Hard Before Working Smart
Sanchez debunks a common myth about success: "Working smarter, not harder, is a beautiful lie. You will not know how to work smart until you've worked very hard for an irrationally long time. If you actually want to work smarter, work harder."
This counterintuitive wisdom suggests that the ability to work smart comes only after extensive experience working hard. Without putting in the necessary hours and effort, we lack the context and insight to truly understand how to optimize our efforts effectively.
Conclusion: The Compound Effect of Wisdom
Codie Sanchez's 39 brutal truths collectively form a philosophy of life that values action over intention, simplicity over complexity, and long-term thinking over short-term gratification. Her lessons cut through common platitudes to offer practical, sometimes uncomfortable wisdom that reflects her journey from a 20-year-old with limited perspective to a successful entrepreneur at 39.
What makes this collection particularly valuable is its balance of practical business advice and profound life wisdom. Sanchez doesn't separate financial success from personal growth. Instead, she shows how the same principles apply to building wealth, nurturing relationships, and developing character.
The underlying message is clear: success in any area requires choosing your difficulties intentionally, taking consistent action, surrounding yourself with the right people, maintaining your reputation, and embracing both faith and hard work. By sharing these lessons on her 39th birthday, Sanchez offers listeners the opportunity to accelerate their own growth by learning from her experience rather than making the same mistakes.
For anyone feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or uncertain about their path, this episode serves as both a wake-up call and a practical guide. Sanchez's brutal truths remind us that while the journey to success is never easy, it is infinitely more rewarding when navigated with wisdom, intention, and the courage to choose our own hard.
Crepi il lupo! 🐺