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You were supposed to read this…
It's not getting easier out there, especially in the world of business. How will you react?
We know how the members of our Cashflow community will react. Over the past few days, I've been reading posts from our community members and found three who have executed their first cashflowing deal EVER despite what's going on in the economy. When fear is among us, we double down. Isaac closed on his first laundromat deal, Justin followed two of our playbooks and added ice vending and a cleaning biz to his portfolio, and Matt's first deal netted him about $40k extra per year. Want to join them?
Today in < 10 minutes or less we’re serving up:
- The market is going to turn... in fact, it already has
- What if you are harder than a hard market?
- A lesson from the most violent city in Mexico
- Now what will you do?
THE WORLD IS ABOUT TO GET HARD
We all sense it
A small niggling sensation that something is a bit off, that the world around us is hanging on a precipice. We've been inundated with headlines filled with words like: Inflation, recession, layoffs, and banks bailing out. And yet it's hard not to become desensitized, isn't it? There's a word for this; it's called Emotional Blunting. So much exposure to even the most horrible things and we can become numb to them.
However, my friends, there are tea leaves to read:
I've never been one to fearmonger. There is always opportunity, but I want you to be prepared. The question becomes what you do about it, of course. BUT - more than what you are going to do it's a reminder of why you do it.
I can only have one guarantee for you... this market is going to be tough for a while.
If you know that is the truth, how do you prepare? Can I tell you a story about a time I saw bodies swaying from overpasses and decided I'd dedicate my life to freedom?
THE WORLD IS ABOUT TO GET HARD... But what if you're harder?
I want you to read this if you're struggling. If you aren’t sure where to go from here.
If you believe one thing to be true from everything we write at Contrarian Thinking it is this… You were meant for something more.
It’s not about the money.
It’s not about the cars and houses.
It's not about how difficult the world is about to become.
You need to tell a story with the things you build in this world.
Have I ever told you my story?
I used to be a journalist in one of the top 10 most violent cities in the world.
I was a journalist focusing on the worst type of violence against humanity along our US/Mexico border.
It changed me. It carved its memories into my skin as sure as a knife.
I wrote my senior thesis from a little shanty I borrowed from a non-profit called Rancho Feliz. I would travel back and forth from the maquiladoras to towns like Juarez, also known as La Ciudad de Muerte or the city of death. Almost 2,000 people are murdered there each year, and I lived and walked among its streets. A naive child thinking I could change anything. An odd thing happened; with each trip, my heart broke a little more. On each trip, I struggled to see the human in humanity.
I vividly remember crossing the border in Juarez from El Paso. I did it on foot the first time. If you’ve walked those steps, you’ll never forget them. Over the Rio Grande you go from a land of industry, little violence, and prosperity to the most dangerous city in Mexico. A land where death is cheap and life is expensive. I was just about to turn 21 and returning to Juarez when a Sinaloan cartel leader was broken out of a maximum-security prison. His gang bore down with Apache helicopters holding anti-tank missiles and decimated the police force.
The meek did not inherit the earth here.
I recall so vividly the moment I escaped the barbed wire and steel border fences and stopped to gaze upon a towering wooden cross in the middle of the Juarez road. I can still see it. The wood was all but covered in photos, pink ribbons, and mementos from the thousands of las desaparecidas. The disappeared. These were the women of Juarez who had been murdered, brutalized, and often raped all along the Mexican border. Their families left their ribbons as a glaring reminder to all those who enter Juarez of the underbelly within.
Every day the newspaper would tell of an unnamed woman or body parts found in the desert. Almost as common as quoting the stock market was to count the dead. As a journalist, it was the first time I saw a dead body. I was tasked with going to the morgue and identifying which newspapers were lying. It was cold, damp, oddly bright with fluorescent lights, and smelled awful. On the first trip, I got sick. Then it became clinical... were there 3 women’s remains found or seven? Were their hands really chopped off or just fingers? After a while, they wouldn't let me in anymore. I thought I’d cry seeing those bodies but that wasn’t what made me cry.
I felt the warm tears slide down my face the first time I saw the Juarez cross.
The huge wooden cross marked the separation of the US from the land of death. Imagine tens of thousands of brown-eyed girls murdered without end. It was too much for me to take in. To escape its shadow I walked the streets a bit in search of air. Yet there was no escaping. Scattered throughout the city were a million other reminders. Posters of young women put up by tormented families who had sent their girls north for a better life, only to be greeted by the afterlife. Down another street were unmarked graves, another was brothels, another was clubs for tourists.
I felt the brutal but true realization that life is simply not fair.
After all, my name is Sanchez. I’m a young(ish) Hispanic woman, with long brown hair and brown eyes that went into the workforce for a better future. My face would have fit right in on that cross.
Yet, what is different about the life I have been gifted and those who share my name but have been given something different altogether? Why me?
The only solution I could come up with was that I am lucky. We are lucky. All of us reading this, we won the birth lottery. There is no deserving or earning being born into a middle-class family in the US. I just got it. And maybe you got it too.
In a way, just about everything I have done in my career has been touched by the shadow of that cross and those faces upon it.
It’s why I went into finance instead of journalism. After all, awareness is great, but money is what pulls people out of poverty and horror and into the light. It’s why I built my first business in Latin America, it’s why we hired almost exclusively women and minorities in the white male-dominated world of finance. It’s why I invested in cannabis, those who torment women get away with it due to the drug money that’s stained red. They traffic in things our government chooses to ignore. It’s why I am so public on the internet. Maybe it’s even why I married a former Navy Seal who told me stories of Yazidi women they saved from ISIS.
I was reminded of all those women while walking through the streets in Mexico City during the Women’s March against violence. Where 80,000 women marched in solidarity with those who had been murdered so carelessly and their killers walked free. They marched, and graffitied walls, and shouted because what other recourse did they have when feminicide was rising year over year? I can still hear the undulating sounds of the mothers grieving.
Why do I keep talking about money if I have so much of it?
Why do I shove my face all over the internet trying to pull others into this game of financial freedom? Oh my darlings if only you saw what the alternative is. I share because that is where the light is, it’s hard to clamp chains on those with the tools to break them. Money is the greatest tool of our age.
The predators play and prosper in the dark.
It’s only by shining a light, that we can see through them.
It’s only by acknowledging that enough demand means supply will be given one way or another. That we can maybe, just maybe, make the hope of, “Ni Una Menos” (Not One More), become a truth.
It’s not the only change we need but it’s a step.
I’d like to live in a world where no more pink ribbons are added to that cross. I wonder if the cross still stands?
I’d like to live in a world where more humans are truly free.
So the question today is, despite how bad it might get out there... will it ever be this bad?
A little context might make you realize that even when the markets are red, money is tight and uncertainty is all around... we're so damn lucky.
And what are you going to do about it?
Question it all and give the rest thanks,
Codie & the Contrarians
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CONTRARIAN EXTRAS
The Not So Boring Section:
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What Did You Think of This Week's Newsletter?
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Disclaimer – This is the “Be an adult” section. Everything mentioned above isn’t advice, just a recount of what I did. That said: This article is presented for informational purposes only. The opinions stated here are not intended to recommend any investment or provide tax advice. Neither are they an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to purchase an interest in any current or future investment vehicle managed or sponsored by Codie Ventures, LLC or its affiliates. All material presented in this newsletter is not to be regarded as investment advice, but for general informational purposes only. Day trading and investing do involve risk, so caution must always be utilized. We cannot guarantee profits or freedom from loss. You assume the entire cost and risk. You are solely responsible for making your own investment decisions. We recommend consulting with a registered investment advisor, broker-dealer, and/or financial advisor. If you choose to invest with or without seeking advice from such an advisor or entity, then any consequences resulting from your investments are your sole responsibility. By reading/sharing this newsletter or consuming our content on our other channels, you are indicating your consent and agreement to our disclaimer.
