Andrew Cordle: From Real Estate Agent To Owning 23 Companies By Building A Brand
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Andrew Cordle got his start as a real estate agent in the Atlanta and Chicago areas, doing about 1000 transactions from single family homes, investment properties, flips, etc. He had a much larger vision for himself and his brand, so he continued to build. Today he's an author and international speaker, and is the host of the "Money Is _____" show, where he hosts leaders and influencers in authentic business conversations about money. He's interviewed the likes of Gary Vaynerchuck, Grant Cardone, Kevin O'Leary, and he even has a testimonial from Mike Tyson on his website! He's a partner in a multi billion enterprise made up of 23 companies and 1,000 employees with a real estate development portfolio of over $1.5 Billion. Andrew has a big heart to help others and give back. Listen as he shares how he was able to build and grow his businesses and the importance of the long-term vision of building his brand.
In this episode, hosted by Mike Swenson, we discussed:
- Drew is the host of the "Money Is _____" show. He's interviewed a lot of fantastic people, people you obviously know Kevin O'Leary, Gary Vaynerchuk, Grant Cardone, and many others.
- His parent were school teachers. He started a window cleaning company out of his college dorm room.
- He invested to his own brand and that opened a lot of opportunities. Up until now, he is still doing the same thing.
- Majority of humans across the world do not understand money. It's a foreign thing to them, and it's a sore subject, they don't like talking about it. Even those that have some rental properties, they still don't understand how to someone can create this massive amount of wealth. It's just simply because they haven't understood the rules of the game. If you don't know the rules of the game, you cannot win the game.
- In order to get an influence, you need to create impact. Impact creates influence and influence is one of the greatest things you could ever have on the planet. If you want to influence the world, the neighborhood, the church, the community for good, its influence that we need. But most people today, search influence because they want to be a social media influencer. They want to be famous on social media. So that word influence is a little bit of a tainted word. True human influence for positive activity in the world. But to do that you got an impact.
- How do I how do I create wealth and go do good with it? Versus how do I make enough money for me to retire and die one day one is abundant one is the scarcity. One is selfish, and one is giving. And what's funny is we talk to people from the side that's all they think about is how do I get enough money to retire? All at best they can say is I made enough money to retire my family or myself.
Timestamps
00:00 - Intro and overview on Andrew ‘s career
03:17 - How he got started by being a real estate agent
08:16 - Disadvantage of investing in your own brand
09:59 - Andrew’s 23 companies
14:54 - What his brand does to him
19:00 - Understanding “Money is ______”
26:06 - How other opportunities bubble up in his businesses
30:02 - Memorable collection of Andrew
40:13 - How to reach out with Andrew
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Full transcript here:
Mike Swenson
Welcome to The REL freedom podcast where we inspire you to pursue your passion to gain time and financial freedom through opportunities in real estate. I'm your host, Mike Swenson. Let's get some real freedom together
Mike Swenson
All right, welcome, everybody. We've got another episode of REL freedom stories. And I am so excited. We have somebody on who has had a lot of experience worked in a lot of different areas in real estate as a speaker, a coach, a trainer, you name it, he's done it. So we've got Andrew Cordle here and Drew is the host of the money his show. He's interviewed a lot of fantastic people, people you obviously know Kevin O'Leary, Gary Vaynerchuk, Grant Cardone even got a testimonial from Mike Tyson, on your website. So definitely have rubbed shoulders with a lot of big name people. And I love your heart for helping people helping people talk about money, how the wealthy talk about money in a previous life early on, you were a real estate agent in the Atlanta area have done about 1000 transactions they are in in Chicago, now you're on commercial. So you just have a lot of irons in the fire, a lot of stuff going on. So welcome Drew to the show. We're so excited to have you.
Andrew Cordle
Amen. Happy Happy to be here. And excited to talk to entrepreneurs or investors as well.
Mike Swenson
For folks that don't know about you haven't heard your story. Why don't you just give us a little bit of a bio or a little bit of a background of how you got started kind of leading up to all the stuff that you've got going on today?
Andrew Cordle
Yeah, man, I came from a obviously more of a poor family. My parents were school teachers and started a short story started a window cleaning company out of my college dorm room, and built it up to about a million dollars before I left revenue, and sold that and I knew I wanted to get into real estate. When I was in college. I finished my degree in teaching but never became a teacher but made my mom and dad very happy and and then took a job. So my company and I took a job in California actually, we were the real estate office because I wanted to learn about it. We're there for about a year, and then moved back to Georgia and started my real estate career there. And then between Atlanta and Chicago, I guess I did about 1000 different types of real estate deals, transactions investments. And my background is always been in entrepreneurship like that's, that's I'm an entrepreneur through and through. And real estate investing was one of the ways that my entrepreneurship first came through was real estate investing and fell in love with it. And now I don't do so much of the single family. But being my partners, we've got about $1.5 billion in commercial development right now, in Utah
Mike Swenson
I should I should clarify that for those where it kind of cut out for a second. So billion with a B 1.5 billion billion with
Andrew Cordle
a B in commercial development that we build. And and then we truly either hold on to them, or we'll sell them off to hedge funds and so forth insurance companies. And then in between there, I just do my normal entrepreneur stuff, we have about 23 Different companies here total, and about 1000 employees right now, amongst all 20 of them or so. So that's a little bit of what I do now.
Mike Swenson
one of the things that that I know people will automatically kind of jump to is okay, how do you go from? I'm a real estate agent in Atlanta, and I'm selling homes fix and flips, whatnot. And all sudden now we fast forward and how long is that from real estate agent to today? How many years.
Andrew Cordle
So that started in 2000. And into 404 is when that started. And then I was strictly doing single family homes, therefore, from oh four to about 2013 is when I was just doing all the single family homes. And I kind of shifted more into real estate investing from an agent so is like agent and then shifted away deeper into real estate investing side of it and and just kept buying more and more and more real estate and built out a team. The one of the biggest years that we did that year was around 2011. We did 151 Buy, fix and sells in one year, which is that's a lot of moving parts in buy fix and sales. And one thing I would tell people when they ask that question of how do I make that transfer is one thing that I invested in is and I went deep into was I always invested in my brand. That was always my number one investment. That's where I put more money into anything else in my life was always my personal brand. And that's very, very hard to do. Because, you know, I would have a lot of my buddies other investors that I was doing stuff with and I'm still buddies with them today.
Andrew Cordle
And you know, they would, you know, fix and flip 20 houses and they would take their profits and they would go buy put down payments on rental properties and you know, they they would have 3040 rental properties right now. And, and they're making great cash flow. And of course, the market has increased, and they're very happy. For me back in that day when I was doing all the fix and flips, I chose not to keep putting him into rentals. And I said, Okay, I'm gonna put them in my personal brand, I'm gonna invest my brand, I'm gonna invest in my brand, very, very hard investment, because you don't get immediate return is like a house where you put, you know, 20% down, and in next month, if it's, you know, turnkey or ready, you know, you got a tenant, and you're making x amount of dollars, when you start investing in your brand. It's a long, long haul, and you got to be in it for the long, long term. And I'm still in it for the long term. So that, but because I invested in my brand, it opened up doors for me that my buddies who had the rentals didn't get access to because they were very kind of solo in a in their own like silo for the most part, and they were just doing their and they have great cash flow freedom right now. I mean, they're very happy. And that's what they wanted.
Andrew Cordle
For me, I was looking for more, I wanted more out of business, I wanted more out of life, I want to go the next next next level. And so for me, I chose to invest my brand. And what I did that slowly, but surely, just more and more doors opened up. And and that's where I put my focus on investing my brand. And then pursuing different opportunities that were doors were opening at, and I would choose the right ones and go through them, and build something and then go the next level to the next level. So that's how I've kind of from 2012 to 2000. Currently 2022 we're at right now, I'm still doing the same thing I I'm working on a new project right now where we're just kind of an opportunity presented itself. And I'm now going through that door. Because I'm always investing in always investing in the brand along the way. So that's what kind of got me here actually was investing in the brand, which is again, I'm not telling anybody to go do that because that is a long play, you have to know why you're doing it. Because it's more is way safer to just go buy that single family rental house duplex triplex quad way safer to do that, then do what I did, but to go from school teachers to partners in a billion dollar empire. I would never did that if I just bought 20 more single family homes for rentals. The way they did that was I invested in the brand and then pursued opportunities with partners and developers and partners and partners until I got where I'm at.
Mike Swenson
What does that look like when you talk about investing in the brand?
Andrew Cordle
Lot of money, a lot of headache, and probably therapy because when you invest in a brand, again, the hard part of it is you can't look at it as a business. When you look at as when you invest in businesses, and you own a business and you invest in that business, there's always a ROI, a rate of return, if I put x amount in marketing, my return is x if I if I buy these billboards, then they're gonna call this I have this special phone number, I have a set of former QR code. And I can track that those billboards brought me in X amount of deals. So there's an ROI Oh, should I do more of it or less of it next time. When you invest in a brand, you get none of that, all you can do is keep investing in the brand, keep investing in the brand. And there is literally no way to calculate ROI. So it becomes very, very frustrating. Because at the beginning of I'm like, oh my goodness, man, I'm pouring hundreds of 1000s of dollars a year into this brand. And I'm getting nothing out of it right now.
Andrew Cordle
Now again, I had a career and money in a business that I was running. So it was like I was living paycheck by paycheck, I was still had money. But I was getting nothing in return for it. But I just knew if I just kept going kept going kept going, eventually, the doors would open. And that's how all brands are built is they're willing to they're willing to do things invest in their brand when others aren't because it doesn't logically financially or emotionally makes sense. But they can see something that others can't see. And they're willing to pursue that and not just pursue it in action, but pursue it with deep money and let it play out. So that's how I did it. You know, so when you talk about investing in a brand to get more specific, it linear, if you want to is like it's I have probably built I probably have spent in my career right now. My guess is a quarter of a million dollars on websites on my personal websites and rebuilding them in. And then I hired a branding teams and probably spent a quarter million in different brand development teams and social media teams. And as I sit here, do this podcast with you guys. Just to give you an idea if you're listening or watching, this is my office.
Andrew Cordle
This is an 80,000 square foot building because one of our two we own. I'm in my office right now. And in my office. There's nine cameras out of this in the ceiling right now above us. To my right is a full time camera guy that system I write on a switchboard. And when we should use podcast again, what am I doing? I'm investing in my brand and so he's cutting up different clips, sections of it, but I'm spending I don't know, probably 100 grand a year just on my camera guy right here. I got probably, I don't know 100 grand worth of equipment hanging from the ceiling right now. So that's what I mean by investing in the brand. It's a constant outgo to see where it goes.
Mike Swenson
Thinking about the 23 companies that you have just to give people a little bit of a taste what are those different companies that you have?
Andrew Cordle
And so obviously, the real estate development we talked about, and one thing I want to point out is, a lot of times you hear someone says, Hey, we have 20 companies. A lot of times, you may think, oh, it's one guy running all these little little companies over here. And that's not at all what it is, we have a massive org chart. And there's different presidents over different companies, sometimes different comms we have are partnered with someone else. And so there's a partner there, but we we manage run a lot, the day to day, we're partnered in it. We own it, though. So there's not me running 23 companies, right presidents and everything else.
Mike Swenson
So I think that's a key thing quick just to talk about is, you know, we talk about real freedom, it comes down to real so real estate, leverage freedom, it's having the leverage of the people. And I think that's something that, you know, like kind of the the difference that you talked about, you can have the lone wolf investor that's going to have 20 3040 doors and make their cash flow. But part of that that freedom comes from building up a group of people that you know, like and trust that want to work with you and can see the bigger vision of what you have, you know, it's going to open up more doors and opportunities for them when they see what what you're growing.
Andrew Cordle
Exactly. And success attracts success, right? So as people come in and see what we do, and you know, all of my money shows, our in person shows they have to fly to my office to be here to be on the show. And I do that so they can see what we do. And I can see what they do. And we can talk in about relationships. But you know, the good companies we own is obviously real estate, we own a tax business tax hive. That's a business that we have partnered with Kevin O'Leary from Shark Tank that we have. That's one of our big companies right now. Let's see we own crumble cookies, if you've ever ate cookies, a different site would crumble cookies
Mike Swenson
location just opened up next to the Starbucks a few months ago here in my hometown
Andrew Cordle
cookies we own, we want to mastermind is when the big ones that I kind of oversee and run, which is a mastermind, and that's the mastermind is a CEO entrepreneurs that are high net worth into entrepreneurs, and you got to be a multi million dollar producer to be in it. And then there's a 25,000 a year membership fee to be a part of it. And right now, we were close to probably 200 members inside of that one mastermind alone. And we bring in massive speakers right Mike Tyson as we're we interview him, I got Bob Iger, CEO of Walt Disney coming in and all kinds of different ones. So that's one of them, the money is show, which that's about a three person team that just just strictly does kind of show side of it. We have we want to stock investment company, we own a pickleball, the Nate world's largest pickleball arena, in pickleball. Arena, we own a mortgage company, so you name it, we have our hands and a lot everything, man.
Mike Swenson
Well, you know, I can see the natural correlation between, you know, crumble cookies and taxes. And pickleball, you know that it's all in alignment, right?
Andrew Cordle
Just one straight line of single file, right on the pipe. You know, a lot of those is, you know, as you talk about leverage real estate, right, which is extremely important, extremely important. In business, it's a lot of the same stuff, like, you know, the reason that we have these different businesses is their businesses, but they're also investments, you know, we call it, we kind of have our main core businesses that the core partners manage and oversee and run. And then we have all these other we'll call them side businesses, but investments that we have leveraged, and there's a there's a president that's running that division, or whatever it is, and maybe we're we're always on the backend running the day to day, financial side of them, but maybe we invested in it, we partner with that person, or we want to we own a gun store, an indoor gun range, we own a shoe store, sneaker store, UTV players dealerships, like I don't know is all kinds of random stuff that will and a lot of those, like I said, are investment.
Andrew Cordle
So just think about owning up to Polaris dealerships. Like owning real estate, you know, it's just a we invested in it, just like you invest in real estate, we get cash flow off of it, just like you get cash flow for real estate, we can leverage our money because we go get an SBA loan and put up 200,000 But get a $1.3 million loan from the SBA to buy that dealership, though it's very, you know, there's a lot of similarities, of course,
Mike Swenson
and like you said, so going back to investing in the brand is that has opened up doors and opportunities because people know what you're looking for. They know you're looking to invest. you're aligning yourself with great people. That's how that stuff kind of builds off of each other versus it's not like you're just sitting in your office by yourself. And this person comes up and says, Hey, I've got this great idea about pickleball. Let me talk to you about it's because you've built great relationships with great people over the last 15 20 years.
Andrew Cordle
Yes, that's what the brand does that my buddies never got to do right. So my buddies owned 40 rental houses. And again, the very happy, what the brand did for me was it brings in a constant amount of opportunity, I have to turn away more opportunities than I ever take because I have endless amounts of opportunities almost on a daily basis, not that I came up with some idea, I do have those. But because of the brand, it attracts other successful people and they say, Hey, you're doing this, I have this thing going on, I have this idea I want to expand I want to franchise or I want to start this. And so the brand is what is like the honey that just drives people in or opportunity in and allows me to go through certain doors, that then allows me to increase my net worth and cash flow as we go through the different doors. This is not a by any means I don't understand. It's not a dig. But just to be clear, all my buddies pay me 25 grand to be part of my mastermind. It's not the other way around right now. They still own the 40 whatever houses and some of them own apartment buildings and so forth. But I don't pay them to be in their mastermind, they pay me to be in my mastermind, because you know where they're at. And where we're currently at is not the same place. Not that one is better or good or bad. But there is a difference.
Mike Swenson
And I think too, you bring in a good point of people want to be around like minded people. And so that's where like these mastermind things. I mean, you could you could probably find millions of masterminds, you know, it's it's common in real estate, it's common in, you know, coaching and training organizations, but it's about being around like minded people. And that's also to where a lot of those opportunities can open up. Because you're talking with people, Hey, I've got this, this idea for this, who do you know, well, I, you know, maybe you don't want to take on an active role, but you can invest money in that thing. And so that's where some of those opportunities can build up when you're around those like minded people talking every day, or weekly, or whatever that might be in a mastermind. So yeah, why? Why would I pay $25,000 to be in a mastermind? Well, you might have a business opportunity that comes up, that's gonna make you a million dollars eventually. And so that's why you're willing to pay that amount.
Andrew Cordle
Yeah, you know, think about the mastermind is normally the the only people that that this is, again, I don't want to be crude or anything. But just to the point and the truth of it. I mean, the only people that ever asked, why would someone pay $25,000 to be inside of a mastermind? Is because they don't, they probably have not reached a point of financial success, that they're that they understand the value of the people you surround yourself by. Again, this is difference between someone who buys a handful of rental properties, or they open up a landscape company, and they run that, but they say, wow, why would I pay 25 grand to be inside of some mastermind?
Andrew Cordle
Well, if I can put you in a room in front of 200 multimillion dollar entrepreneurs, the amount of opportunity that comes from inside that room of doors that are open businesses that people didn't get involved in create. And that's the whole purpose of the mastermind. It's why we did not say that there's going to be a real estate one or a marketing mastermind. We said, Hey, we want to see you entrepreneurs. We want the playmakers that are currently doing deals that are currently there. They're multinational producers, we have billion dollar companies inside of our Mastermind and the billion dollar companies they pay because of the amount of opportunity that it's going to create for everybody in that room. So normally, only people that ever asked that question are those who don't understand the value of net worth net, your network is your net worth man.
Mike Swenson
Now talk a little bit about because you know, you you've got the money his show. You've talked to a lot of great people, what are some, you know, kind of some nuggets of wisdom that you found through that process of talking with people, you know, you've you've talked with some of the greatest folks out there, what are some things that you can share for the listeners, you know, the kind of the commercial or the cliffnotes version of your your money is learnings that you've you've accumulated over the years?
Andrew Cordle
Yeah, money, money, there's a the show's called Money is blank. Meaning everybody comes on the show, they have to fill in that blank of what money means to them, it has to be signed, they have to go put the word on it and sign it. There's a lot of really cool answers, but the one that I think makes the most logical sense, from a logical standpoint is understand that money is a game. And the reason that most people struggle with financial success is because they don't understand that money is a game and they end up hyper focusing on the on the wrong thing. They hyper focus on the vehicle versus the game. It's like It's like if you're taking a monopoly monopoly is a game. And inside that game, you have the the game pieces you choose at the beginning you're going to be the dog or the hat or the car, whatever it is that the thimble and what happens is, most entrepreneurs hyper focus on that game piece.
Andrew Cordle
They know everything about hats, they know how to build a hat. They know how to manage a manufacturer hat they know how to Sell a hat, they know anything about a hat or a car, whatever it is, they hyper focus on the wrong thing. The true purpose of monopoly is not the piece that you're moving around. And that's where most entrepreneurs focus on the true game is understanding money. And money is a game. And just like there's rules to monopoly, there's rules to money. And the more money you want, financial success, financial freedom that you want, you have to go deeper into the rules of money. And I spoke on money for six years straight on the road and hit all 50 states in 22 countries. And what I will tell you is that the majority of humans across the world do not understand money, they don't understand it. And it's a foreign thing to them. And they it's a sore subject, they don't like talking about it, even the ones that have some rental properties, they still don't understand how to someone create this massive amount of wealth over here. And it's just simply because they haven't understood the rules of the game. And if you don't know the rules of the game, you cannot win the game.
Andrew Cordle
That's the fact like you cannot go play Monopoly, or chess or checkers, or any other game and win and be successful at it if you don't even know how to play the game. And so I would say that's probably the most unique thing that I would say about the money is show is is all all the answers, I think that money is a game, it has rules to it. And if you want financial freedom, you must master those rules. I mean, what separates the 1%? Or I can even go deeper the 1% of the 1% from the rest of the world? What do they know about money that you don't know? Because I guarantee you, there's a difference between what the 1% of the 1% of the wealthy know about money from the average person. And until you understand those rules that they play by, they're always wind always outperform you, you just understand the rules,
Mike Swenson
how have you seen that grow over the last five or 10 years kind of thinking about as you're learning, you know, that it's a brilliant idea, to interview people talking about money, because you're learning, right? Like, that's a big reason why I have this podcast is I love interviewing people, because it's going to help me to learn, it's going to help me to connect with people. And so I always tell people, if I never had anybody watch it, I would still do the podcast, because I like having these types of conversations, right? So it is kind of the, I'm not calculated an ROI on the podcast, because I get a chance to talk to you. I mean, if I didn't have this podcast, we probably wouldn't be talking, you know, cuz I would be one of the many people calling you up with an opportunity, versus being able to get a chance to interview and share you with the listeners that I've built over the years. And so as you have learned more about money, I mean was was that partially your intention to when you're you're interviewing these people is it's an opportunity to get in front of people and to really learn firsthand what lessons they're learning as they pursue their career so that you can kind of apply it and feel your own growth.
Andrew Cordle
It was a part of the of the strategy. It was not the main strategy, although what you're saying is 100% true. I don't want to miss that point. And I have, I have learned so much on my show than than I could possibly imagine. I mean, there was at one point, we were doing eight shows a week of people CEOs flying in every ACOs we were flying in, and the amount of knowledge that I was learning was through the roof. But it wasn't that wasn't the main purpose of it. It was a side benefit of byproduct of it. The main purpose of it, I'm gonna go back to what I said earlier, it was me investing in my brand. You actually alluded to it, right? It's like, hey, if i i have right now there's no let's say trackable ROI right now for maybe the podcast you're doing right now. But what you're doing is you're investing your brand, you're investing money, you got equipment, you got time you had to go learn how to do podcasts and set them up all those things that you did, were investing in your brand without a direct ROI.
Andrew Cordle
All I did was when I you know, I launched my show, I said, Okay, how do we really maximize this to focus on the brand. And there's certain things I did. So we have a massive studio with a full editing team and full setup and not seven cameras and switch your boards and everything inside of it. We have green rooms and everything else. And so those are all investments again, massive investments in into the brand. But because we run to put more and more in the brand. And then we were able to attract CEOs in because of the brand that then opened up more doors, more opportunities. I've partnered with people that have came on my show, I've done deals with people from my show, I funded things from people on my show, I've got money from people my show, again, because part of what we decided was at the beginning stage, we were gonna make our show live and there's not a good or bad live or not live. But for us, it was about the truly going deep on that brand, right, which is a bigger commitment. And so I said okay, let's only do live because we do want to be by live as they have to be in person.
Andrew Cordle
And when we did that, I did not know how powerful that was going to be. He was probably one of the biggest things that has changed. My trajectory, that trajectory is doing the podcast live. I mean, it is insane the amount of people that have came in and that I interviewed and and then went and did business with them. But again, I had to go probably invest, I don't know, 500,000, maybe up to a million dollars in the money is show first, right? And then not even know how am I going to justify spending that, you know, whatever it was $700,000 on a podcast. But I believe that if I just kept building the brand, it would attract opportunity would attract opportunity in PR every time I've ever done it, it's always worked out. It's always always produced, you just couldn't ROI it at the beginning. Right. And I have gotten many arguments with different business partners that I've had and said, Hey, I'm gonna go spend this money on X for the brand. They're like, well, how we're gonna make money off of it. I'm like, Just trust me, it's gonna happen. But I can't tell you right now. But if we go do this, just watch, it will happen. And sure enough, poof, it happens every single time. But it's risky. And it's, it's not as easy. Sometimes I probably make it seem but it is doable.
Mike Swenson
How do those other opportunities kind of bubble up? So you had mentioned people on the show? You've helped them, they've invested in your stuff, because a lot of times, you know, people will go to a conference or go to an event, they'll meet somebody, and they want to maybe try to invest more in that relationship. So what tips or advice might you have for somebody? It's like, Hey, I've got a few people that I think strategically might make sense. How do you go from past? Hey, we met one time, and we had a great conversation, too. How do I turn that into future business?
Andrew Cordle
Man, that is such a good, good, good, good question. Because to me, it's one of the linchpins and all of my success that I've had is the exact thing you just mentioned right there. I think that most people, when they get in business, when they hear the word networking, they think of let me go to a, you know, a meet up somewhere in my hometown, and I'm gonna pass out everybody their business card, and I'm gonna go shake everybody's hand and I'm gonna go, you know, tell them what I'm doing. And I have never in my life, one time ever, ever, ever, ever have I ever done that? What I have done is one word, I created impact. So understanding inside of business, what majority, one of the greatest words of all time in life is the word influence. And we as a humans, we, as leaders, we, as business leaders, we as investors, one of the most powerful words that we could ever have is influence. But influence is very, very, very hard to get. And so think about influence and impact as two separate things that work together, impact is going deep in a relationship, but very narrow influence is very wide, but very shallow on the relationship.
Andrew Cordle
And shallow is not a bad word, it just means is not like impact. And so, I as a, as a business owner, as a leader, as a, as a young entrepreneur, I want influence, I want to be to influence the world for good, I want to influence my, my family for good, I want to influence my staff for good, I want to influence my team for good, I want influence my community for good, I want influence to make a difference in this world. But to get influence, you have to get impact. And so your question goes back to what you were talking about you you have four or five people, how do you how do you grow that and what I would tell you is the thing that I have hyper focused on is never influence. Never by folks that influence, although I wanted it, it's a byproduct of impact. Impact is going very deep in relationship impacts. When someone CEO comes out to my office, and we sit down for five hours, my podcast, total time in is five hours, the podcast is only an hour, but they're with me for five hours.
Andrew Cordle
What I do is I find ways to impact and create value in massive amounts to that person's life with with no true intention of wanting something back in return, except for hey, if there's ever an opportunity that presents itself, that could be a win for both of us, Hey, let's go talk about it. And there is no secret agenda that I have except for hey, I want to impact you, I want to create impact in your life and your family. Whatever it is, I will give I will give money, time energy, it doesn't matter I will give to people that are that I that I need because the more impact that I create long term, the more influence that I will have. Impact always creates influence and influence is one of the greatest things you could ever have on the planet. If you want to influence the world, the neighborhood, the church, the community for good, its influence that we need. But most people today, search influence because they want to be a social media influencer. They want to be famous on social media. And so that word influence is a little bit of a tainted word. And that's not what I mean by influence is some social media icon. That's an influencer. What I mean is true human influence for positive activity in the world. But to do that you got an impact.
Mike Swenson
That's the the cut right there for. So appreciate that. A lot of times when I interview people, we don't get a chance to talk about the set that you've got behind you because it's cool. It looks nice. I would just love to hear what something behind you that you know. So for the people in the podcasts that are listening, sorry, come to the YouTube channel and watch. But what's something behind you that is memorable for you? Why did you pick what you pick behind you?
Andrew Cordle
You have no idea the stuff I have in my office. So one thing I tell you is, you can't see it. But the wall on those that is the wall that I look at in my office, I have collected, I'm a collector and I've collected old school forefathers of entrepreneurship. I've collected their certified authentic autographs. And so behind me on this wall is mounted. There's JP Morgan Chase with the original stock certificates. There's John D. Rockefeller from Dell and sign in 1883 with their original stock certificate, the Cornelius Vanderbilt or Andrew Carnegie, Thomas Edison. I love that law. Orville Wright. I love the wall over there because it's it's reminds me of the forefathers of entrepreneurship that I that I'm in behind me is a ton of just collectibles. There's all kinds of sports, there's autograph stuff, there's cool little things. This is a my favorite piece. But this is a 1925 original basketball from the Great Depression. From New York City. This is an original 1925 basketball that people kids played with in the Great Depression.
Andrew Cordle
There's original, you can't see him. There's original bricks from Wrigley Field, Fenway Park, Yankee Stadium, there's all kinds of cool stuff pay lay soccer ball, but I'd probably tell you my two favorite pieces are these two right here. I'll show you two. This one right here is you can see it. Mm hmm. This is a rep miniature replica of the atomic bomb that was dropped in war to my grandfather fought in World War Two. And it is actually autographed by the original pilots who flew the plane for the atomic bomb and dropped it. And then over here is an actual piece of the ground is it's in case, but there's an actual piece of the ground here. And you know, you think about what, what men and women used to have to go through in World War One and World War Two and on both sides, not just one side, but on both sides, and to give us what we can, what we have today in the amount of freedom and opportunity that we have. And you know, I've never had a fight in a war, I've never had to jump off of boats and planes. And in Germany, I never do any of that. But you know, those men and women did and it created massive, meaningful opportunity for us, right.
Andrew Cordle
And so that that one means a lot to me. And this one right here. And this right here is a plaque. And this is my buddy. He gave this to me as a good friend of mine. His name is Tim Ballard. Tim owns a founded a foundation called Operation underground railroad. And it's called o u r and o u r is the one of the largest anti sex trafficking foundations in the world. And they go undercover in foreign countries and put their lives at risk. It's shot at stabbed when they get caught sometimes, and they try to buy and children that have been sex trafficked around this world, they'll try to buy them back and then bust the bad guys as well with the local government. And this right here is a Spanish pesos, it's a Mexican Pesos of $100.
Andrew Cordle
And he gives that that $100 Bill right there was used with his team to actually buy a child that was being sex trafficked, that they had infiltrated, and that was from money that me and a group of friends donate it and they of course they are American dollars and then you know, convert him over and when he came back, they rescued I believe 11 different children they rescued and that was again the word is influence what I can do is I can use my money to influence the world for good and when you have true influence I can take what I have that I've created through impact relationships, opportunities that come from that and I can take that impact and use it now for influence and I'll give my money to them.
Andrew Cordle
And you know when you when I walk in my office every day and you got to think about this this right here represents a nine year old boy that's what it was was nine year old boy that was getting raped and sold as a sex slave in our freakin world that we live in. But my money created influence and I took it and use it for good. And that money has bought the freedom back the life back of that nine year old boy and so coming in my office, all the cool, incredible things that I have and I could go on and on but that one probably means the most to me because it's really influence that I was talking to you about, and it's the most powerful thing you could ever have in life.
Mike Swenson
Yeah, and that's one of the things, you know, when people talk about money and building wealth is, you know, they think about how much am I going to need to survive till I die, you know, and people don't think, well, what if I could? What if I could make double, that triple that quadruple that impact influence more people, that's a way to be able to do that. I mean, you could take 90% of your wealth and give it away and donate it and create more world impact and keep 10% You know, if you're gonna make that much money, fine, give 90% of a way. And I love that mindset, I think that's gonna be you know, that's, that's a key thing for people that are building a lot of wealth is finding those causes that you can really invest in and make a big change outside of my business life. It's impacting the world. So I I love that.
Andrew Cordle
You know, a maybe a final thought unless there's other questions. But you know, you said a very, very powerful statement there that I want to your viewers, listeners that are to hear and understand, which is, we, you know, when you, if you have the mindset of, I need to figure out how much money I need to retire on and live on until I die. At the very best at the very best, that's what you're going to get, you may not actually reach that, but at the very best you're going to accumulate enough money to retire and die because that was your whole mindset focus. That's what you were totally focused on was okay, I need I need $7,000 A month to live off of and retirement, how do I get $7,000 a month to live off of and that's what you have chased and that's at best, which you will get that's a very scarcity mindset, your if you really want to get into money, it's a very selfish mindset.
Andrew Cordle
And because what you're saying is, my only value is to provide for myself, that's my value in life, my value of the planet is I want to make enough money to provide for myself to tie dye. So congratulations, a world that's what I accomplished for the world. Where and and that's just the mindset that you're getting into right? Where if you have a opposite of scarcity mindset, if you have a super abundance mindset, retirement has never been a thought of how much money you need to retire for me. For me, it was like how much money can this business make that I could go do something with that that will create influence in this world before I before I die, retirement of course, by doing that, it created all the retirement that I will ever, ever, ever freaking need like my solo Roth and I use five tax free accounts solo Roth HSA, Roth Coverdale Roth, inherited Roth and regular Roth meant I own so much stuff inside of those different accounts that are tax free wealth for my retirement, that it's insane.
Andrew Cordle
But that was a byproduct of me with an abundant mindset saying, How do I how do I create wealth and go do good with it? Versus how do I make enough money for me to retire and die one day one is abundant one is the scarcity. One is selfish, and one is giving. And what's funny is we talk to people from the side that's all they think about is how do I get enough money to retire? When you tell them it is selfish, they will be absolutely infuriated with you. But you tell me what it is. That's that's what you accomplished. You accomplished enough to retire and die. I don't want to retire and die I want to try to create I want to do good. What that person can ever say is that they made enough money to save a kid who was getting raped and sold. They'll never say that.
Andrew Cordle
All at best they can say is I made enough money to retire my family or myself. That's not what's important. This World Man. We're all gonna live and dies, what do you do between the dash? I call it what I call it? What do you do? What do you what was in between the dash is on your tombstone? It will say born 1982 Dash died in whatever it is 2000 and 105. The question is what did you do between the dash that's all you have is between that dash for me I one of the dash to mean a lot, man.
Mike Swenson
Yeah, it's a difference. Because I know, when you had done your interview with Gary Vee, had talked about kind of offensive and defensive strategy. You know, it's kind of a defensive strategy with money if you're just looking at like, what's the minimum that I need to kind of do what I want to do and be done, versus what's the most impact that I can make. So I think that's another way is offensive or defensive strategy,
Andrew Cordle
One's offense, one's defense, and if you if you go to the 1%, they all play one game, it's all offense is always, always, always offense. It doesn't mean they don't have a portion of defense inside of their portfolio, but it is mainly made up of 80% offense. 20% defense is to go back to the 2080 20 principle rule of life. It's 80% offense 20% defense, if you find people that are working, who are living paycheck by paycheck, trying to get money to retire, I will guarantee you, if you looked at their financial situation, his exact opposite is probably not even at 8020 defense. It's probably 95 defense, maybe 5% offense as you shift that into the other way around. I'm probably right now 95% offense 5%. Defense, but is when you get into the studying to 1% of 1%. I promise it's it's at minimum and 80-20 80% offense 20% defense when it comes to money.
Mike Swenson
Awesome. Well, I would love to talk with you for hours. I wish we had five hours together to talk, you know, thank you so much for sharing just so much wisdom. There's so many great nuggets here for folks listening. And so I hope they take the time to, to really think about that in a more deep level than just hey, I listen to another podcast and I'm gonna move on to the next podcast because there's there's a lot of key wisdom there. For folks that want to learn more about you or, you know, learn more about what you're building, how can they find out?
Andrew Cordle
I would say two ways. So if you want to follow me personally, just I my main one is Instagram. You can find me on Instagram. This is my first last name is the handle, which is Andrew Cordle. And if you want know more about my companies or businesses, my website is the same. It's like first last name, andrewcordle.com. And no joke. You'll see all my phones on here. And this is about that. I want to show you something. This was my phone. She's my assistant. This is one of them to show you this as they go to my website. And literally last night, I spent about an hour of my time. And I text my developers a screenshot last night and said hey, I want to go rebuild my entire website again. Why? Because I'm just constantly re reinventing and putting it back into brand putting it back in the brand and I'll probably in the next I don't know two months drop another 20 grand and rebuilding something that's already built. It's already running. It's already working but I want it better and that's that constant drive that yet you got to put in the brand is gonna go do it.
Mike Swenson
Awesome. Well, thanks so much for coming on. Really appreciate.
