There are people you meet once and think about for years. Codie Sanchez is one of mine. She is the founder of Contrarian Thinking, a Forbes 2026 Top Creator, and one of the most powerful voices in business on the internet, the rare person in her world who says the quiet part out loud instead of selling you the highlight reel.
There are people you meet once and think about for years. Codie Sanchez is one of mine. She is the founder of Contrarian Thinking, a Forbes 2026 Top Creator, and one of the most powerful voices in business on the internet, the rare person in her world who says the quiet part out loud instead of selling you the highlight reel. A New York Times bestseller with a nine-figure portfolio of businesses most people will never see the inside of, and a way of talking that makes you sit up straight.
So I asked her the thing I actually wanted to know. What's the most dishonest part of the entrepreneurship dream we're all being sold? And she did not flinch. We get into why most business owners don't run their businesses, their businesses run them. Why the thing you build to give you freedom so often ends up with you by the throat. The vacation test that Gary and I failed miserably. And her whole argument, the one behind her new book Own or Be Owned, that being needed is not the same thing as being free, and most of us confuse the two until it's very expensive to learn the difference.
But this one got personal fast, because Codie is about to become a mother for the first time, at the exact moment she's releasing the biggest work of her career. So we talked about what happens to a woman who built the whole machine when she has to evolve into a different woman for the next chapter. Running a business with your husband. Softness and power, and how they actually meet in leadership. Whether we even want it all, or whether we've just never been asked what we actually want.
This is for the woman who is burned out, or tired, or quietly talked herself out of starting the thing. The one who suspects most of what she sees online is a little bit fake, and is right. Codie is proof you can build the business and still have the life, but only if you're honest with yourself about which life that is first. This is Codie Sanchez.
You can find Codie on:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/codiesanchez
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@realcodiesanchez
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@codiesanchezct
BigDeal podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bigdeal/id1736593333
Preorder her book, Own or Be Owned: https://codiesanchez.com/book/
Follow Valeria:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/valerialipovetsky
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@valeria.lipovetsky
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/ValeriaLipovetsky
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/valerialipovetskyblog
Follow Not Alone:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/notalonepod
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@notalone.pod
Podcast: https://www.notalonepod.com/
Shop
Shop my look from this episode: https://shopmy.us/collections/7214312
Amazon Storefront: https://www.amazon.com/shop/valerialipovetsky
What We Talked About:
3:00 Round two, and a whole new chapter
5:00 Should you even become an owner?
6:00 Everybody can build a $10 business, but should they
9:19 The most dishonest part of the entrepreneurship dream
10:30 Selling a dream that's missing all the context
12:36 The questions nobody asks before they start
13:46 The price of the visibility
14:50 What do you actually want, though
16:00 The first million is the hardest
18:30 The martyr trap
21:03 Profit and revenue, not vanity metrics
24:11 Everybody's doing the most
25:19 Getting your team invested and leveraged
28:00 I'm not happy, and I'm the one who built this
30:27 Being needed is not the same as being free
33:10 What women in particular have to unlearn
35:30 Knowing what your person actually wants
36:38 The asset nobody wants to buy
39:00 What's my real hourly wage?
42:53 This is our era, ladies
44:00 The vacation test, which Gary and I failed
46:23 It won't work if you want different things
47:28 The moment she realized she had to evolve
48:51 Fresh flowers, and building a company you want to be in
50:55 Creating something from nothing
52:17 A world builder
55:00 What if you want something different now
58:07 Running a business, and a marriage, at the same time
1:00:44 The bargain you don't want to make
1:02:44 We're more capable than we're told
1:03:38 It's okay to say you want less, too
1:06:15 Softness and power in leadership
1:08:02 Buy or build?
1:09:28 Time is the real currency
1:11:00 Rapid fire
.png){kind=logo}
.jpg)
Codie Sanchez is the founder and CEO of Contrarian Thinking, one of the fastest-growing investment and advisory companies in the country. A former Wall Street investor turned entrepreneur, she owns Main Street Holding Company, a nine-figure portfolio of professional and home service businesses. She is a Forbes 2026 Top Creator, a New York Times bestselling author, and the host of the BigDeal podcast. Her new book, Own or Be Owned: Building a Business So Good It Doesn't Need You, is out September 18. She is on a mission to create a million financially free humans through business ownership, and is expecting her first child.
Become a member of the notalone community and make sure you never miss an episode.
A community of Self-Discovery.
.jpg)
