[00:00] Cody Smith: I just took that leap of faith and just knew that something was gonna work out. Something had to work out. There’s no way I could have been as stressed as an agent as I was at that job. So something had to change. And that was that change.

[00:17] Jim Harshaw, Jr.: Welcome to another episode of success through failure. This is your host, Jim Harshaw, Jr. and today I bring you Cody Smith. Cody is the creator of the geared for life company and habit tracking system geared for life was created to visibly transform, consistent small steps into revolutionary big leaps. He’s a firm believer in that it’s not the strong that survive, but rather those who are willing to change and the easiest.

[00:46] To change is to track your habits. And it took him years of bad experiences, bad habits, and self destruction to learn that we are either taking steps forward or taking steps backward, either way. We have a choice to choose which direction we’re going. Knowing where you’ve been explains, how you got to where you’re at and creating better habits will show you where you are going, starting out at a young age, working any job he could get.

[01:12] He now owns multiple businesses managing a real estate team, investing in real estate, in different businesses all while enjoying life with his beautiful wife and amazing daughters. Small consistent steps have led him to revolutionary big leaps. Wait until you hear Cody’s story. So many amazing lessons from it and specific concrete takeaways.

[01:33] Cody is also a client. He’s a reveal your path, Pathfinder coaching client, and he’s also a reveal your path. Coach actually coaching other clients of mine, clients of the reveal path system. He’s an amazing coach, an amazing person. Wait until you hear his story, you will be gripped from the very beginning and you’re gonna take so much away from this.

[01:55] Here we go. My interview with Cody Smith, you had a tough road as a child. Tell us about your C.

[02:03] Cody Smith: I was born in a small town of York county, Pennsylvania. I had a pretty big family when I first came home from the hospital. First couple of years was my mom and my dad, my mom’s parents. So my grandparents and then my mom’s grandmother who would’ve been my great-grandmother.

[02:20] And then my brother, who was about two years older than I am. My brother lost oxygen to the brain during birth. So he was considered mentally challenged. So he’s like 35 right now, but he’s got like the mindset of like a nine year old. So if you can kind of picture that and kind of see, see how that works.

[02:36] Absolutely crazy. You know, Corey is Corey, it’s been a wild ride with him. It’s been a lot of fun years with him and just some crazy things. You know, like right off the bat, I would say my mom’s father passed away first. Not a very good storyline with him. Apparently it was not a very good person to my grandmother and to my aunts and uncles.

[02:56] Just not a very good man. My great-grandmother however, she passed away when I was about six and, uh, I was actually with her when she passed away. Yeah. I had no idea what that was, what that meant, anything like that? All I knew was that I was always the like first one up. Still am. Early bird gets the worm type of thing.

[03:16] And, uh, you know, my mom came running downstairs and saw that she wasn’t there anymore. And, you know, I just remember sitting there holding her hand, she pointed up to the light. Just kind of gone. Yeah. At six, you don’t really realize what exact that means. So essentially it was just left with my mom, dad, my grandmother, and my brother left shortly after that, we ended up moving, you know, and my parents always did odd jobs.

[03:39] They always had multiple jobs. We did paper route on the weekends. We did. I mean, my parents lived paycheck to paycheck their whole lives, you know, it’s all we ever knew. And around six, right after my great-grandmother passed away, we ended up moving. So we moved up into a different town. And that’s where we ended up going to school after that.

[03:58] And you know, it wasn’t long after that, that we ended up, you know, homeless for about two weeks living outta my mom’s car. We were back and forth. Just some crazy things with my dad. My dad ended up cheating on my mom and she left him and then they split up and it was the whole thing. And, you know, shortly after that we were homeless and you know, just all this crazy stuff that’s happened, you know, you don’t know what, what you don’t know.

[04:21] So to Corey and I, this was just life, you know, Stayed in my mom’s car while she went to work throughout the course of the day. And we sat with my grandmother and can’t say, how many days we’ve done that? You know, how many hours we’ve done that anytime that we weren’t in school, when we were with them, we were pretty much happy to go to school because we had normal life there.

[04:40] It kind of seemed like my dad ended up moving from Pennsylvania to Maryland in this timeframe. And my mom got scared that somebody was gonna find out that we were homeless. So she actually shipped us down to our dad for a few. Not a good situation. I would say family members down there, we just didn’t know.

[04:57] We weren’t close with, you know, my dad in this new home, you know, it really wasn’t a clean home. How old were you at

[05:03] Jim Harshaw, Jr.: this point? Cody?

[05:04] Cody Smith: Probably around eight. Yeah. So we just kind of floated back and forth between, you know, my mom and my dad. And we did that for years. Eventually we ended up just getting to the point where I had a big fallen out with one of my dad’s girlfriends.

[05:17] I just told my dad, I said, you know, I’m not coming. Ever, I’m just not going through this again. Yeah. Shortly after that, my mom passed away just before I turned 11 and she passed away of a brain aneurysm and she was 33 years old, um, 33 now. So it kind of that that age kind of sits there, but, um, nobody ever thought that this would’ve happened.

[05:40] She was the youngest of eight kids, you know, she was there one day. Gone the next. So I was essentially after that my mom had a boyfriend. And so we went through about two years of custody battles between my grandmother and my father. And so my mom’s mom fought to keep us and she was older. And so it was troubling for her to go through all this and pretty much raise two teenage boys.

[06:07] One of ’em being challenged. And then I had a stepfather who technically wasn’t my stepfather. He never. Married my mom, but you know, it was a guy who was in his thirties. He was a bachelor and he just asked if he could stay and help take care of us because he felt that that’s what my mom would’ve wanted.

[06:25] So to speak. So to this day, they were actually down here, my stepdad, who I call pops, they were actually just down here last week at my house. So, you know, my daughter’s got the spend some time with him. And so he is still a part of our lives. I mean, we live. States away from him now, you know, he’s been there since we were, you know, about 10, you know, since I was about 10.

[06:47] And so, you know, through all those years, teenage years, he was there to help taught me to shave, taught me to drive, taught me, you know, everything that pretty much learn as a kid growing up. Yeah.

[06:56] Jim Harshaw, Jr.: Yeah. You and I have talked about this more in depth and boy, there’s a lot of details in between, but that’s a, a great high level view of it, Cody, and I appreciate you sharing that.

[07:04] The hell of a story. You’ve had just hardship after hardship and every excuse and every reason to believe that you were just gonna end up, you know, down, uh, some kind of similar path and, you know, and you haven’t, which is really the story that I want to continue to explore with you. But at what point did you realize this wasn’t a normal life?

[07:25] Cody Smith: I don’t even know how old I was. All I know is that. Steered away from friends that had a normal family, friends that had, you know, like a normal mom and dad, you know, siblings and just normalness in their life. I just shied away from that. You know, it just didn’t feel right. You know, it just didn’t feel because that’s not what I was used to.

[07:44] I was raised in a. Family. It was, I mean, we have a very large family between aunts and uncles and cousins and, you know, our family, our close family was just, uh, you know, we always lived lower class growing up. We never really had a whole lot of cash to really do anything. I felt like I couldn’t relate. To kids that had a normal life that wore fancy clothes.

[08:07] I was in high school, still shopping at Walmart, wearing, you know, shack, shoes to school. And, you know, and I can’t tell you how many pairs of shoes I would like spray paint or I’d like, marker. ’em up just so they didn’t look like they were from like Walmart and stuff. I mean, it’s crazy, but I just didn’t fit in with them.

[08:22] We didn’t live in, you know, a nice house. So for us to go to. Friend’s house that had, you know, a nice house. We just didn’t. And I think it was mainly because I didn’t ever want them to come to my house. Like, I didn’t want them to know like, okay, like where are your parents at? Like, why are you living with this, you know, older lady and this guy, and you kind of don’t know, like I said, you don’t know what you don’t know.

[08:41] That was just life for us for, you know, a very long time. So it, it probably wasn’t until after my mom passed away, that I really started to realize and kind of look around and see how other families were. all that kind of stuff.

[08:53] Jim Harshaw, Jr.: So your graduation party, uh, I think this was your high school graduation party.

[08:57] There was a conversation that you had at that party. Tell us about that day.

[09:03] Cody Smith: My grandmother who ended up raising us, she was hell bent on us graduating high school. That was the only thing that she wanted. She was like, I just want you guys to graduate. So my grandmother never graduated high school. She never learned how to drive.

[09:14] She never did, you know, a lot of those things. So she was hell bent on us, at least just doing that. And so at my graduation party, I just remember I spent most of that graduation party talking to my aunt and my. and my real dad’s stepmother. So she was the grandmother that I knew, like she was sort of like my dad’s mom kind of that’s the person that I knew as.

[09:39] Grandmother on my dad’s side growing up. So, you know, I spent most of my graduation party just talking with them about rental properties and just real estate and business and finance and you know, all this stuff. And I was so engulfed that this could happen, that this was a real thing. And it was probably one of the first times in my life that I felt like I actually believed, like I could do this.

[10:01] It just intrigued me. So, so.

[10:05] Jim Harshaw, Jr.: So is it because there were people who, you know, you could feel in touch, they were sitting in front of you and they were doing this thing that lifted them above poverty.

[10:16] Cody Smith: I would say so my, um, aunt and uncle, they owned a real estate portfolio in Philly where they also owned a printing company.

[10:24] They were the wealthiest people that I knew by far. And so it was always fun, kind of going to their house and they didn’t live. Overly lavish lifestyle, but you know, it felt kind of weird sometimes going to their house, cuz it was. Nicest house I’ve ever been to. It was the first house I’ve ever been to that actually had a pool.

[10:43] And now where I live that’s every other house. Yeah. So it’s crazy. But you know, there are cars that they drove and just things that they did. I just, I wanted to be just like that. And so when I got a chance to actually talk to them and I was old enough to really realize where their wealth came from, I was like, oh my God, like, I can like, show me how to do this.

[11:01] Just teach me and I’ll do. You know, they never acted wealthy. They never treated anybody. You know, me, us, like we were less than them or anything like that. And they knew everything about us growing up and how we grew up. And now we’re at this point where we’re like graduating school and we have the rest of our lives to figure out what exactly we were gonna go and do.

[11:24] And so that party was really the, you know, spark that want to want to go and do this business thing.

[11:32] Jim Harshaw, Jr.: It’s interesting. What one conversation can do. It can just set your life onto a totally different trajectory. And so you’re at your graduation party. You have this conversation, you turn 19 and what happens.

[11:45] Cody Smith: Uh, so at their graduation party for my graduation gift, I got a laptop and the. Opportunity to get help with college. So, you know, I worked full time, went to college on online, full time, and I was kind of stuck in that, that age group where you kind of had to have some college experience and you needed to have some sort of work experience.

[12:07] If you wanted to kind of get a job, doing anything worth doing. I did both. And that same year for Christmas, that same aunt and uncle, they got me a book. And I hated reading. I was like, what the hell is this? I got a laptop for graduation. I get a book for Christmas and I didn’t really realize it. But you know, now kind of like thinking back on it, or like years later, I’m like, that’s a really crappy way to kind of see it.

[12:33] You know, it was a. Gift. And these people thought of me enough to send me something for weeks. I actually kept this book in a drawer and I never really looked at it. I never really did anything with it. And then weeks would go by and it would just randomly pop up. I would just open up that drawer and it would be there.

[12:46] And I’m just kind of, so one day I picked it up, started reading it and I was like, I don’t get this. I don’t understand any of this. Maybe this real estate thing. Isn’t for me, I Don. And so it was like a couple weeks later I found the book again and I don’t know what happened between the first time I ever picked up that book.

[13:04] And this time that I ended up picking up that book, but I ended up picking up this book and a couple hours later, I realized that I was still reading it, but I wasn’t like retaining anything that I actually read. So I’m like, I gotta start over cuz this book is just too good. So I got a pen and paper. I started the book back over and I started taking notes and I would take notes on things that sounded good.

[13:28] That sounded cool. Things that were new to me, things that I didn’t really like understand. Just keep it as like a little sidebar over here that I can come back to and reread it. So rich dad, poor dad was that book and. That was the first book of a, of a long line of books. And now in this closet right here, I have tons of books that I’ve read, you know, over the years.

[13:50] And that I still taking notes. I have binders full of notes that I’ve taken in these books. So that was the book that really kind of started from having one talk with my aunt and uncle to getting this book to catapulting, to being 19 and essentially buying my first two unit proper.

[14:11] Jim Harshaw, Jr.: So this conversation and this book, and we talk in the coaching program, reveal your path, which you’re a product of.

[14:18] And you’re also a coach of reveal your path. You know, we talk about the environment of excellence and you know, this aunt and uncle in this book, these are part of your environment that were this catalyst for you. And so you buy your first property. You’re 19 years old, you buy a multi-family unit. What was that?

[14:35] Like, how did that

[14:36] Cody Smith: feel? I was clueless. I was so damn scared. I was so nervous. I had no idea what to do, what to expect. So just to give you some, some sort of inkling on how a, this property went like the first year. Everybody told me not to buy this thing. They were like, you’re crazy for buying a property that you’re never gonna live in.

[14:54] Like you’re absolutely insane. Tenants are gonna ruin this place and you’re gonna be fixing toilets at 3:00 AM. And yeah, I didn’t really realize how right. Those people actually were. Right. And so the first mortgage payment that I had to make, I sent in the same rent. So it was. Two unit property still own it to this day.

[15:15] I only had a tenant in the second floor. I didn’t have a tenant in the first floor. It was empty. I had no idea how to get an actual tenant, so it was just empty. And so when the first mortgage payment came in, I wrote a check and I wrote a check for the same. Amount that I got from my second floor tenants.

[15:33] And I forget back then what? It was 5 75, 6 75, whatever it was. I sent it into the, uh, bank. And a couple days later I ended up getting this call and they were like, sir, do you plan on paying? paying the rest? And I’m like, what do you mean? And they were like, well, your mortgage payment is more than the check that you sent in.

[15:48] And I was like, yeah, I don’t have it. Like my tenant own. I only have one tenant and they only paid me this. And they’re like, sir, we don’t care. What your tenants do, or how much money you say you have, you agreed to pay this payment every month. So either you pay it or something else is gonna happen. As in, like, I was not gonna have this house anymore.

[16:07] And I was like, you know, like I can’t fail. Like this is my first payment, my first property, I gotta figure it out. So it was quickly after that, where I learned how to get an actual tenant, make the payments. and keep it going. You know, that property had never really made any cash, but it was the best college that I’ve ever, ever gone to that I’ve ever had.

[16:27] And it’s given me some of the most valuable tips and tools and tactics. And I’ve struggled with that property for years. I mean, to the point where I was like borrowing money, just to fix it, I borrow money from my then girlfriend. Who’s my now. Who was like against me buying this property in the first place.

[16:44] And then one day I come to her and I was like, Hey, I have a tenant who doesn’t have any heat. I think it was like 350, some bucks to put like a Thermo coupler in one, like a Friday night after hours. I called the only plumber, you know, HVAC guy that would come out and do it. And he was charging me like 300 something bucks.

[17:01] I don’t have 300 something. Can you help me pay this? And like, she ended up paying it and the whole way home, I just got read this like ride act. Like I told you not to buy this place. This sucks. You’re dumping all your money in this place. It’s not making any money. You’re frustrated. You’re stressed out.

[17:17] 14 years later, 13 years later, I still have that property. You know, it’s doing a lot better now and that property turned into other properties. And, you know, so for

[17:27] Jim Harshaw, Jr.: the listener, if you heard the words that he said nervous, scared, and clueless were included in the words that Cody used to talk about this first step, like whatever that first step is for you talking again to the listener right now, what’s the thing that you’re nervous and scared and clueless about.

[17:44] Like find it and step towards it. Not away from. Move towards it. And so Cody, you take this first step and you, you buy this property and you go on to buy a bunch of other properties and you live happily ever after. Everything’s easy from there on out. Right?

[18:02] Cody Smith: I wish talk about your twenties. So, uh, same aunt and uncle that helped me purchase that very first property who kind of coached me and how to purchase it.

[18:12] We purchased more properties going into my early twenties. I was probably 23 or 24. We bought a 12 unit. It was three buildings. 12 units total, it needed a complete rehab, a complete gut job. The tenants were like slum Lords from like some other state. I mean, the first time we ever walked through this property, you could literally put your hand on the wall and there was water running over your hand.

[18:32] Like, and they still had people living in this place. I mean, it was absolutely the insane, it was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen. And so we ended up buying this property and, and fixing it up and, you know, so and so forth. And it. Well, over the years, it, you know, paid for itself. But you know, the whole way through my twenties, I spent my twenties partying.

[18:48] You know, I spent my twenties not really growing, not really, you know, learning and really getting in contact with people that could help me grow further. I had a very good group of friends, friends that I’m still friends with two day they’re like brothers to me. I would do anything in the world for ’em.

[19:05] I. That time with them. And we created some of the most fun, fun memories you could ever think of. But, you know, personally it had nothing to do with growth in building these properties and growing this overall business. It was really just spent partying every weekend. And I lived, you know, for that Friday night and you had job after job.

[19:26] I would say my mid twenties, I got a construction job. You know, I loved the, uh, people that I actually worked with. These guys were awesome, but the job itself was just stressful. And I ended up working up my way in that job to being able to run that division of the company when that started falling apart.

[19:47] So. My wife, who I’ve been with now for 16 years, since we were 16 years old, everybody calls her goose, I’d call her goose. So if you hear me say goose that that’s my wife. So one day goose came home and my truck was in the driveway. Lights were all off in the house. She finds me sitting in the bathtub, no lights on a rumming Coke sitting on the side of the bathtub, hot towel on my face, you know, playing like eighties, hair metal, just, you know, I was done.

[20:18] I was so stressed to the max. I didn’t even want to open my eyes. I mean, I was just, it was just taking this like toll on me and she comes in, shuts off the music and she’s like, dude, what are you doing? And I’m like, I’m done. Like, I, I cannot do this job anymore. I’m miserable. I don’t wanna wake up in the morning and go to this place.

[20:36] I don’t want to clock in. I don’t wanna clock out. I’m done. I’m just done. And so shortly after that, lo and behold, I was driving home one day from that job. And I passed a friend of mine that I haven’t talked to in a long time on the highway. I saw him, he saw me, we ended up calling each other, set up a date to kind of meet up.

[20:54] So we ended up going over to his house, him and his wife. They had this beautiful home, the nicest home I’ve ever seen. My life growing up, I was like, how are you doing it, man? Like, I feel like I’m like running ragged here. And so now I’m, you know, I go from party mode in my early twenties to getting to my mid twenties and, and really start questioning how to grow, how to start moving forward.

[21:16] I’m just working this job, stressing myself out, not really knowing why I’m just spinning my wheels. And then finally, you know, this friend of mine’s like, you gotta become like a real estate agent you’re already in it. You already do. People call you about this anyway, just become an agent and get in contact with the right people.

[21:36] So, um, you know, I signed up to be an agent. I quit my job, my full-time job shortly after I went straight cold into being a agent and had no idea what I was doing. And my first year as a real estate agent, I matched my salary from what I was doing at my job. So I just took that leap of faith and. Knew that something was gonna work out.

[21:59] Something had to work out. There’s no way I could have been as stressed as an. As I was at that job. So something had to change and that was that change.

[22:09] Jim Harshaw, Jr.: Quick interruption. Hey, if you like what you’re hearing, be sure to get the notes, quotes and links in the action plan from this episode, just go to JimHarshawJr.com/ACTION. That’s JimHarshawJr.com/ACTION to get your free copy of the action plan. Now back to the show.

You have this epiphany in the bathtub, you know, with the rum and Coke in your hand and the music on, and you like, I’ve gotta make a change. And then it’s like one of those moments where you’ve heard the, the quote, the teacher will appear when the student is ready and the student was ready, you drive past your friend, you make this connection, you become a real estate agent and it changes everything for you.

[22:45] And is that the point when you started really buying properties and tell us sort of, kind of the high level view of going about buying these properties over the course of years and, uh, how you built your burgeoning empire?

[22:59] Cody Smith: I think first and foremost, I think you have to know that you grow through. What you go through and with everything that I had in my life, my mindset was to never quit.

[23:10] Like I never wanted to give up. I never wanted to have to go back and say, I failed. You know? So like that very first property things I couldn’t pay for not knowing how to make the actual payments to the bank on and so on and so forth. Like I never wanted to go back to that. And so after I became a. I started learning and getting in, in touch with, with the right people, the shakers, and was kind of like, all right, like these guys are like making moves.

[23:35] They’re like shaking things up. They’re constantly buying properties. They’re flipping properties, they’re doing this. They own like hundreds of properties and so and so forth. How can I do what these guys do? And since I was now in this space, that’s who I was like targeting. That’s who I was going after.

[23:48] I didn’t need to sell their properties. I didn’t need to buy their properties. I just wanted to sit. For a half hour to an hour and just learn, just tell me anything and everything you could possibly tell me. That’s a lot of how it ended up starting. And from there, it was just, I took any deal that I could.

[24:04] And sometimes it was like, you know, buy this property for 30, 30, 5,000, but you gotta buy this house across the street too, that I own, and it’s literally falling over, but you can’t have the nice house without having that house too. So you gotta figure that out. And that was one deal that, you know, I ended up doing and it was crazy.

[24:21] It was insane. I had no idea what I was doing with it, but, you know, at this point I was getting in touch with people that I could call. And so I, I was quickly learning that your circle of. Influence is like by far one of the best things you could ever have. That’s like better than like gold, because it’s when those issues come up, you know who to call when you get those hurdles, when you get those challenges, when you get all these things, or there’s a, a deal that comes your way and you don’t know how to handle it, or somebody’s just pissed off and they’re just frustrated with you and you don’t know how to handle them, you have somebody that you can call.

[24:56] And that was really how. Started that’s how I got into all of these other properties and all these other buildings. And I was able, able to build what I build very quickly, just cuz I just had those, those people that I could just call on. And

[25:08] Jim Harshaw, Jr.: I, I know you’ve sold a bunch of the properties here in the last couple years and I know you’re kind of storing up right now to buy a bunch more properties.

[25:14] But how many did you own at your peak?

[25:16] Cody Smith: Yeah. So within those couple of years that we were doing stuff, we ended at one point, I think we had like 22 or 23 properties. Yeah. We were like building one house. We had a couple of lots. We were, you know, interested in building more houses on more lots, you know, we were kind of getting into those things.

[25:31] And just recently, last year I sold every single one of those lots, every single one of those properties, except for two properties that I still currently own. One of them. Stepdad is actually in now. So he’s pretty much the reason why I have that property up there and the, uh, cabin that I’m also part owner with other family members that we pretty much grew up going to over the years and so on and so forth.

[25:55] So those are two properties that I currently have now. You know, other than that, we, we sold everything. Yeah.

[26:01] Jim Harshaw, Jr.: Fascinating story Cody from homeless to owning dozens of properties to where you’re at now, you know, you and I have worked together for years and you’ve set some BHAs and achieved them along the way.

[26:12] And by the way, I don’t wanna skim over that for the listener because you set a big, scary goal of selling everything, moving to Florida and starting over back then, cuz you were in York, PA, but, and you did that. I mean, holy cow. I mean, I remember the day when you called me, you’re like Jim, I can do it.

[26:29] He’s like, wow. You know, you were just like, and you still are just making these huge leaps in such a short amount of time. Were there failures along the way Cody or was it always just kinda like, okay, we buy property, this is easy. Just keep on moving. Did you fail?

[26:41] Cody Smith: Struggle along the way? Yeah. There’s obviously people that come and go there’s tenants that, you know, don’t pay rent.

[26:48] There’s, you know, people that say they’re gonna do something and don’t do it, you know, and you’re left holding the ball. But as I was excelling in my business, As I was excelling as an agent. I think one of the biggest failures that I’d noticed as time went on was that I was just working all the time and I was working at the office.

[27:07] I was waking up working. I was working when I was coming home. Like come home, kiss my wife, get back on my phone, laptop, whatever I was just working. I mean, I was working in the hospital when my first daughter was being. I mean, I felt like I was losing grip on all of these other areas of my life. That essentially was the reason I was working so hard for I’m working.

[27:29] And I’m like busting hump, trying to figure out how to make all this work. And I’m working all the time. But you know, I didn’t have that life. Everybody keeps talking about, oh, like you become an agent, you’ll sell all these houses and like, you’ll make all this money and you can do flips and you can do all this and you can do all that.

[27:42] And then you’ll be, you’ll have time with your family and you’ll have time for this. And you’ll have time for that. Like I had no time I was working all the. So I’d say that was probably one of my like biggest failures. I mean, when I wanted to accelerate myself in my career as an agent and in sales, we started learning how to like track progress.

[28:00] So we started tracking our sales calls. We started tracking all of our listings, we tracked everything. And so one day I was sitting there and I was thinking to myself, I’m like, okay, if I can track my sales and I can essentially progress into the next level of being an agent just by tracking progress.

[28:16] How can I track progress in my own life and like grow from there? How can I put things in place in my life and track that I’m actually doing it, not just letting life happen, making life happen, how can I actually do this? So I just started randomly putting random things that I wanted to do on my calendar.

[28:38] And so it was, you know, having those normal, like date nights with your wife, setting time aside to like actually sit down and read, or maybe do something that I wanted to do just for me, you know, planning trips and just doing these different things. I was just kind of like nitpicking little things on your calendar and that’s kind of what I was doing.

[28:55] So I was tracking all my sales. I was tracking all my income and so and so forth. And then I just started tracking these like little things and I started researching entrepreneurial type people, high achieving people. And what I found was these people that are like mock to hair on fire, wake up at 4:00 AM, go to bed when they pass out people that are just nonstop all the time, how do they do it?

[29:19] Because they look like they have it all together. How do they do it? And I started really learning about these people and kind of started learning that they all had the same things in common. They were almost all divorced. At least once they had little to no relationship with their kids. They weren’t happy with their own health or confident in their own shape, just overall lost track of their hobbies, lost track of the things that make them happy.

[29:46] But they were just excelling in their work. They were like king of the crop. Like they were king of whatever they were doing, whatever business they own, whatever category they were in, they were crushing it. But the rest of their life, the other categories of their life were completely falling apart. They ended up changing it and they up building it over time and they started tracking process.

[30:06] And where progress can be measured, progress can be made. So when you start to learn, what’s like working in your life and what’s not working in your life. You can start taking out the things that’s not working and replace it with more of what is actually working. so that’s what I did. I just created a sheet that I filled out every single day that had my goals at the top.

[30:28] And back then, I, to be honest with you, I had no idea even how to write out an actual goal. I was just writing things that I thought was cool. Like I wanted a Corvette, I wanted a house in the mountains. I wanted to live in Colorado. I wanted all this crazy stuff that was just like, I had no idea what any of this even was.

[30:42] And I started writing out these things that I wanted to do. each day and each week, and over the years, I just created this tracking sheet that went from just a blank sheet of paper that I fill out every day to a like template on Google to being able to fill it out on Google. And now it’s national tracking app, and now it’s an app that I have on my phone, have it on my iPad.

[31:04] I can log into it from anywhere in the world and I can track my overall progress and I follow the exact same format that I followed all those years that got me from there to where I am. Right. Writing down your goals every day, starting out with an attitude of gratitude, affirmations, writing out your power list, going through your calendar and your schedule, making sure that you don’t have any white blank spaces that you can just screw off on.

[31:29] And you’re just wasting time doing and putting in those items throughout the course of your day. You know, I wanna go on a date night. With my wife. I wanna take my kids to go get ice cream. I wanna take my kids to go to the movies. We wanna plan a trip for the park. I want go golfing, or I wanna play tennis.

[31:44] You know, I wanna read a book. I wanna journal whatever those things are that I wanted to do. I started to actually input them into my life rather than just maybe one day I’ll journal. Maybe one day I’ll read or when life slows down, I’ll have time to be able to do this. And so I just started putting these things in and started track.

[32:04] Every time I was doing it Monday, I would journal Tuesday. I would journal Thursday. I would journal Friday. I would journal. And over the weeks, you just start to realize where you spent your energy. You don’t get outta life, what you want, you get outta life, what you focus on. And when you learn how to focus your energy and those things on different things in life, you really start to create your.

[32:28] Character. And you start to create this own world that you now are in charge of. So it’s not life just happening to you. It’s you creating life based on what you’re actually focusing on. So you’ve had

[32:40] Jim Harshaw, Jr.: these catalysts and these epiphanies and these people, right? You had your aunt and uncle in your life and this encounter with a friend and then you become a real estate agent.

[32:48] And then you had this research and, and you had this other epiphany about, you know, really tracking things and, and finding balance. And then you and I crossed paths. Why did you feel like. You wanted to bring a coach into your life. Why did you feel like the reveal, your path framework was something that could help you?

[33:05] Cody Smith: I kept hearing about having a, uh, coach and I kept hearing about all these people and, and it was like some of the best athletes in the world all have coaches and there are CEOs and entrepreneurs of the world that have multiple coaches and coaches that help them do different things. I was right on that cusp of like, okay, I have all these things going on.

[33:27] I’m almost not sure how to handle them going forward. And some of those fears and some of those things of, of growing up the way that I grew up, like who am I to do great things in my life? Who am I who’s gonna ever want to hear my story, or who’s ever gonna care about some kid that grew up in a small town in York, Pennsylvania.

[33:45] And, you know, he moved to Florida, like, who cares? You know, people do this every day type thing. Like, why am I any better? Any, any like different. And I was like getting to that point in. Life where I felt like I needed somebody that could give me an outside unbiased point of view that could help me look at things in a different light.

[34:03] It’s something differently. And so somebody shared a previous podcast and an old podcast that like you did with them on Facebook or Instagram or something like that. And it was just a small clip of it. I watched it and it was shortly after that, that I got in touch with him. I was like, you gotta put me in touch with Jim.

[34:20] I’m trying to figure out exactly how to get. Coach, you know, I didn’t play sports, you know, in life. So I never really had a coach, never had somebody there that was really gonna, you know, boot you into the next phase. And so one of the very first times that we talked, I think one of the hardest things for me was one getting over that childhood mindset and all that stuff that I had as a kid.

[34:42] And then now I have all these dreams and all these goals and all these things that I wanna do in. But I don’t know the first step in getting to those goals. I have these cool things that I wanna do every day and every week that I’m tracking and I’m getting myself to these points and I wanna buy these properties and I wanna do all this, but I have these really big goals.

[35:00] And I don’t know how to like, get to ’em. How do you clarify this? How do you get clarity out of not dreams that you think of, or that you see in your sleep? The dreams that keep you up. The things that you want that make your heart beat a little faster and a little harder when you think of ’em that thing that when you’re sitting on the couch and you don’t feel like you wanna do anything else, and you’re just tired, you think of one of those goals.

[35:21] And you’re like, that’s why I need to do this. That goal is waiting for me. And so that’s where you ended up coming into play and that’s where your system and, and your path came into play because it really broke down. What I wanted. And I think the hardest thing to do for me was to put it on paper, was to actually write it out and say, this is my goal, and this is the framework of how to get there.

[35:44] And then you get into this whole other set of fears where, oh my God, what if this actually happens? If I follow this framework, what if this actually happens? Like what if, you know, and lo and behold, every goal that we ever talked about, everything that we ever said that we were gonna do from, you know, even, even you guys, as, you know, growth within this, this podcast and, and in this company, and, and in this framework that you have and getting the group together every year and doing these big summits and things like that, like, those were things that we talked about years ago and it’s grown.

[36:15] Drastically and dramatically, and it’s been amazing. It’s been a wild ride. And I can still think back to those days where I call you. And I’m like, yo man, remember that real big goal that I said was gonna happen in like two years. I think I’m doing it in like two months. What do you think? And like all, wait a minute, what, you know, and it’s like, we’re going over these things and you know, it still get chills from it because it’s, I can still think back to those days where I was like, I think we’re like moving to Florida.

[36:39] Like I think I’m selling everything I own and leaving everybody. I know. And we’re just taking this fleet and lo and behold, here we are in Naples, Florida, and one of the nicest beaches and one of the nicest places in the world that I’ve personally ever been to. And still can’t believe some days that I get to walk outside and I get to see this beautiful lake and I have a pool right on my patio.

[36:59] And I, all these things that I never thought was possible growing up the way that I actually grew up, you know? So I owe a huge thanks to, to you and to what you’ve created over these years, because without it, I don’t know if I would actually be here or it might’ve taken me a lot longer to figure out how to get here.

[37:14] Yeah. Thank you. Oh, thank you. It’s

[37:17] Jim Harshaw, Jr.: been a pleasure working with you and I love the fact that you’re now impacting Pathfinders as well. Cody you’re 33 years old. You lost your mom when she was 33. If you could talk to your mom right now, what would you say?

[37:29] Cody Smith: I, I would probably just want her to meet my daughters, you know, I’d probably just be like, Hey, you know, come in and let.

[37:35] Let’s just talk, you know, let’s just have a normal talk kind of conversation having called somebody mom in a very long time. So I think to just be able to call her mom would just be cool, you know, to just to just have that normal conversation with your biological parent. I mean, I haven’t talked to my real dad in years, and so I think to just have that talk to just have that, you know, talk with her and, and really.

[37:58] here. What she has to say, like, here I am, this is, this is what we did. You know, we made it out of that small town. We’re not, we’re not throwing papers on people’s doorsteps anymore. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I’d I’d still do it today. It was some of the best times of my life with her. I would really just wanna sit and just talk with her, you know?

[38:16] Jim Harshaw, Jr.: Well, I know she would be extremely proud. You you’ve overcome so many obstacles and, and achieved so much Cody. And I feel like, honestly, you’re just getting started, right? You’re 33 years old for the listener. Who’s sitting there saying, I want a piece of what Cody has. I want to break out of my rut and get to my next level.

[38:36] Any action items that you recommend for the listener, for something they can do in the next 24 to 48 hours to really start moving towards their.

[38:45] Cody Smith: Yeah, I would say there are probably two, two things. First and foremost, your sphere of influence is. By far, one of the biggest things in your life, it’s either gonna push you forward or it’s gonna hold you back.

[38:56] And in most cases for most people, they’re just blinded by the love that they have for other people. And some of those bad people in your life. Some of those people that are holding you back are some of those people who are closest to you. And I would say, get better circle of influence or add a better circle of influence to what you currently have.

[39:14] Because once I did. And I had a circle of people that I could call to help overcome issues and to answer questions or to just vent to, or to just, you know, learn something from see my life from a completely different point of view. It was huge. It, it drastically and very, very quickly changed a lot in my personal life.

[39:35] So I would say, look at your sphere of influence and make those changes. Get a better circle of, of influence that’s one. The second one is I created an app because of that exact same thought process. How do I get further? How do I. Show progress in different areas of my life. So essentially start taking hold of your calendar and you can do that by yourself with your calendar.

[39:58] Currently, you can get the app and the app can help you do that, but really start to hone in on those blank spaces in your calendar, because that’s, what’s costing you time and money and energy, and really start to measure where you’re showing progress. In life in yourself, in your health, in your wealth, in your relationships and all of those areas of your life, where do they fit on your calendar and start plugging them in plug in those date nights, plug in those ice cream trips with your kids, plug in those family trips, plug in some golf plug in some tennis plug in whatever you want to do.

[40:33] That’s gonna essentially help you. That’s why we work. That’s, that’s why we grind so hard to be able to live life. And if you’re gonna grind hard and you have no time to really live. Life that you’re grinding for. You’re gonna very quickly realize what you’re doing with your time.

[40:48] Jim Harshaw, Jr.: Cody work in the listeners find you follow you, learn more about the tracking app and the work that you do.

[40:54] Yeah.

[40:54] Cody Smith: So you can find me personally on social media. Instagram is Gulf coast, underscore Cody S WFL. So Gulf coast, Cody, Southwest, Florida. And you can follow the geared for life company at get geared for life on Instagram. Same thing on Facebook. You can also go to geared for life dot. And that tells you a lot about the app and, and the back story of, of how that was all created.

[41:17] And you can purchase the app on there and you can do different things on there and really kind of learn how those things work. And I, I would love to be able to answer any questions that anybody has about the app. And by all means, reach out, DM me, hit me up and you know, I’d love to chat about it. Yeah.

[41:30] And then if any,

[41:31] Jim Harshaw, Jr.: this resonates with you deeply, and do you wanna reach out to Cody about a free clarity coaching call? You can reach out to him as well, or you can certainly reach out to me and I can get you in touch with Cody. So Cody. Thank you so much for sharing your story.

[41:43] Cody Smith: Thank you for having me.

[41:44] Thank you for letting me share it.

[41:46] Jim Harshaw, Jr.: Thanks for listening. If you want to apply these principles into your life, let’s talk. You can see the limited spaces that are open on my calendar at JimHarshawJr.com/APPLY where you can sign up for a free one time coaching call directly. With me. And don’t forget to grab your action plan.

[42:03] Just go to JimHarshawJr.com/ACTION. And lastly, iTunes tends to suggest podcasts with more ratings and reviews more often. You would totally make my day. If you give me a rating in review those go a long way in helping me grow the podcast audience. Just open up your podcast app. If you have an iPhone, do a search for success through failure.

[42:25] Select it and then scroll the whole way to the bottom where you can leave the podcast, a rating and a review. Now I hope this isn’t just another podcast episode for you. I hope you take action on what you learned here today. Good luck and thanks for listening.

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