The #1 Financial Freedom SECRET Rich People WON’T Tell You!

When ordinary businesses become extraordinary engines of freedom

There is a strain of financial advice that has always sounded like a dare: give up the glamour of venture myths and build a life by buying things that actually earn cash today. Cody Sanchez has turned that dare into a practical playbook. What reads like a contrarian manifesto is, at heart, a set of tiny, repeatable choices that tilt the odds of wealth toward the everyday person. It’s not glamour or a single great idea; it’s a steady sequence of deals, negotiations, and small optimizations that compound into freedom.

The pivot from scarcity to upside thinking

Sanchez begins with a basic cultural diagnosis: most people save, then worry. The better move is to reframe money as a performance scoreboard. That reframe changes behavior. Instead of hoarding every dollar, she asks entrepreneurs and employees alike to ask a different question—how can every dollar be made more productive? The answer is rarely just austerity; it is creativity, negotiation, and the willingness to get skin in the game.

Maximize income before you minimize spending

There are practical, low-friction plays that improve your financial trajectory immediately. Negotiate salary. Structure upside inside your job by negotiating performance-based bonuses. Take the next role before you are technically qualified for it by demonstrating the results that justify the pay. These moves require curiosity and follow-through—qualities Sanchez values more highly than raw intelligence.

Buying stability: cash flow over romance

Much of the conversation feels like a course in tempering entrepreneurial romance. Startups have allure—big exits, dazzling headlines—but the statistics are brutal. Instead, Sanchez points toward steady, boring businesses that pay every month. Cash-flowing assets, not speculative equity in early-stage companies, become the vehicle for sustained independence. A laundromat is unglamorous; it is also a predictable revenue stream that can be improved, layered, and scaled.

• Why cash flow matters: Cash flow creates optionality today, not a possibility someday.
• How to scale boring businesses: Look for recurring revenue, add parallel offerings (vending, pickup-and-delivery, commercial contracts), and replicate what works.
• Seller financing: Much of small-business acquisition relies on creative financing where the seller becomes the lender, enabling buyers to use business profits to fund the purchase.

Productize the craft

One of the sharpest observations is how to take offline trade skills and turn them into something scalable. A carpenter who builds bespoke outdoor spaces for cats—yes, "catios"—can document work, sell products, offer subscriptions, or license a repeatable service model. The future of local trade lives in packaging and content: document the craft, standardize the offering, and create recurring streams.

Mindset, relationships, and the economy of time

Sanchez’s counsel extends beyond balance sheets into the social architecture that supports success. She argues that time is the scarcest currency: giving away other people’s time without reciprocation is dangerous. Choose friends from business, not business from friends. Set boundaries, curate a small circle that can disagree with you, and be willing to walk away from deals that damage human capital.

Marriage and partnership also receive practical treatment. Complementary roles—one partner pushing for growth and the other protecting downside risk—create a dynamic balance. She and her husband use written visions and yearly checkpoints to align sacrifices with long-term goals, emphasizing shared rituals and “perfect day” practices to inject joy into a building phase.

Growth equals sacrifice, not guilt

The hardest trade for many is the willingness to let people go—even good people—when the company needs different performance. Sanchez is blunt: set clear KPIs, give the chance to improve, and remember that keeping someone in the wrong seat hurts everyone. The humane part of this approach is generous severance and honest transition support, paired with the belief that the right recalibration can free both parties to pursue better fits.

Practical stair-steps toward ownership

Sanchez lays out a stair-step approach: master income generation, then buy predictable assets, then use those returns to take equity positions where upside is meaningful. She cautions against betting a future on speculative startup equity until you have a financial base. The path she describes is not glamorous but durable—earn, negotiate upside, buy cash-flowing assets, productize services, and when scale demands it, deploy capital into larger equity plays.

The larger theme is ethical and philosophical: wealth is not an end in itself but a means toward sovereignty. By treating money as freedom—something that allows one to resist external control—Sanchez frames accumulation as agency rather than status. The result is a worldview that values compounding competence, small daily joys, and the discipline to write your own rules. That, she believes, is the secret to greatness.