Jay: This week I’ve invited my business partner, Cody Shirk, to be a guest on the Jay Kim Show. Cody is an explorer, surfer, and founding partner of Explorer Equity Group. He travels and invests around the world sourcing hidden and hard-to-access investment opportunities, and I am sitting here at the table with Cody. So, Cody, welcome to Hong Kong and to the show.

Cody: Thank you. I’m finally here figuratively on the podcast and physically in Hong Kong. So I’m glad to be here.

Jay: I know. I’ve been wanting to have you on for so long, and we just have never been able to do it, and finally I had to drag you all the way, physically, to Hong Kong to record this. So I’m pretty excited and thanks for coming on the show. We’ve pulled out two Asahis here to crack open now.

Cody: Two celebratory cracks.

Jay: That’s right. So we’re going to get into it today.

Cody: Let’s get cracking.

Jay: I’m excited. Let’s start off with just a little bit of background. You have a very unique background compared to probably most of the guests that have come onto the show. So maybe you could give our audience a little bit of color — where you’re from, what was your background beforehand, and how did you eventually become a full-time investor.

Cody: Like you said, I am a full-time investor right now, but I have no official or formal finance background, so it’s kind of a weird profession or venture that I’ve ended up in. Originally, I grew up in Malibu, California, which is a pretty wealthy area, but I was not wealthy myself. On one hand, I was surrounded by all this money, and it was very attractive and looked exciting. But on the other hand, I had this confusion of “How do you get from point A to point B?” And not growing up wealthy but being surrounded by wealth, I don’t want to say you’re jealous, but you have this question, this curiosity.

After I graduated high school, I went to college to play water polo, and I probably wouldn’t have gone to college if it wasn’t for sports. So it was kind of one of those natural progression type things where people go to college, and you don’t really know why you’re going there. That is very common in the US. And then after college, I became a firefighter. And that’s very much a blue-collar job, but it’s a unique job in the sense that if you want to work a lot, you can make pretty good money for being somebody young.

So looking back at how I grew up and seeing all this money, I said, “I want to get there, but I’m probably not going to get there as a firefighter.” So I took every paycheck that I had, and I saved at least 50%, if not more. It was really hard to do. We definitely — when I say “we,” it was me and my girlfriend at the time — we sacrificed a lot. We were eating rice and beans, living out of a trailer. It was the real deal, saving. But we reinvested, literally, every dollar, and we got to a point where we had done a lot of investments, and we were looking all right financially compared to what I was familiar with.

So I eventually left the fire department and, as any investor finds out, you reach a point in time when it’s almost impossible to continue on your own. You can certainly do a lot of personal investments throughout the world — you can do whatever you want — but you need, at a certain point, to scale up, and you need help with that.

At that point — this was pretty recently, within the last two years — I released an investing syndicate which is called the Explorer Partnership. And basically, what it is is a group of like-minded people that go around the world and invest in exciting opportunities.

Jay: That’s an awesome introduction. In a strange way, because it’s so diverse and different from my background, I’m actually very jealous. It sounds strange to say that, but I’m jealous in that you were actually able to basically create the life that you wanted and, by just observing and studying and researching and working hard and saving… Everyone that is an investor sort of knows that one of the first ways and the core tenants of wealth building or wealth generation is to be frugal when you can and save a lot. It’s just funny because my background was probably completely 180 opposite of you. And I was actually in Wall Street spending 50% of my paycheck on rent alone. So I literally left my first few years, this bigshot career on Wall Street, but I basically left with zero. Nothing to show for it. So I think it’s ironic, but I think it’s really cool how two people from completely different background kind of ended up in the same place.

Cody: Yeah, but I think there’s value to that because your background and other investors’ backgrounds are very attractive and very interesting to me. It’s the-grass-is-always-greener type scenario where you think, “Oh, I wish I had that opportunity,” or, “I wish I did that.” And then the person that I’m looking at is looking back at me and saying the same thing. When you have people with that much diversity and a different history and a different knowledge set, when you put them together, you can often create really great things because everybody is going to bring something very different to the table.

Jay: Yeah, and I think you’re definitely doing that with the Explorer Partnership, and we’ll get into how we’re actually business partners on a fund investing level. But in the end, investing is what basically brought us together and being like-minded in that regard. And so I think that the key theme is basically, I think the theme that you bring to the table, is one of you don’t need pedigree. I don’t need a fancy college degree or education. You don’t need to have worked on Wall Street to become wealthy and generate wealth and get access to things that seemingly only rich people get access to. And so I think this is a very unique value proposition that you bring to the table. So let’s dig into some more of that.

Tell us a little bit about the Explorer Partnership. It’s investing syndicate, as you said, but it’s also your business that you run day to day. I know you do a lot of work for it, and it basically pays you your salary. So why don’t you share with us what the EP is.

Cody: It’s a private social investing group. It’s called The Explorer Partnership, and it’s exactly what it sounds like. It’s basically a private group of individuals who are exploring the world as partners — not as literal partners but as figurative partners for opportunities. There is a membership fee, but honestly, the fee doesn’t really go to any profits. It goes back into the group to pay for investing opportunities, trips, dinners, and we have a lot of member’s perks with a website, online, the members directory so people can stay in touch. We have private chat channels and all that type of stuff.

So we go on three to four trips per year. In the past year, we’ve been to Colombia, Ukraine, Puerto Rico, Denver, and our next one is in Asia. We’ll be in Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and Macau. What we do is we look for investments. And after we physically go meet founders of companies — we get to shake their hands; we get to see their business operations; we get to see everything; It’s the real deep-dive due diligence — we create a fund, and that fund pools our members’ money together. And we’re able to not only invest in these great opportunities, but we can negotiate great terms because the type of money we’re coming in with is not five to ten thousand dollars. We’re coming in with a significant amount of money for these companies. So we can say, “Hey, we want a better valuation,” or, “We want these terms,” or, “We want a seat on your board,” or whatever it is. We can really have a lot more control over the investments. Obviously, everything has risk, but if we can try to get certain terms which are going to increase our chances of profiting, then that’s a great deal for everyone.

By going on these trips, everyone in the group gets to see what these investments are and get a better idea of what the investments are like.

We also do dinners throughout the year. We average probably one per months. Those are all around the world. We’ve done them everywhere from Asia, London, all over the US, South America — all over the place. These are just a time for people to join in together, talk, exchange stories, network, and really just share a meal and get to know each other. And that’s really the best thing in any business that anyone can attest to. It’s getting to know people. It’s your network. It sounds cheesy — “Your network is your net worth” — but it’s the truth. It’s that quality time that really brings the group together and adds value.

The group also has a lot of membership perks. Because we’re a larger group, we can negotiate better terms with services that range from special travel insurance or if we’re buying real estate or even precious metals. Like we’ve talked about, we can get better terms because we’re going in as a group. So there’s a lot of those group perks that the group benefits from.

Jay: Just to take a quick step back, how did you actually curate members to this group? What is the application process if you’re interested? And how much does it cost? I know that with all the events you do, you actually, a lot of times, aren’t making money off of the membership and the minimum fees and this sort of thing. I’m just curious as to how your business model works.

Cody: Great question. To back up a little bit, I had be writing about the investments I had been doing for long time. The reason I write about the investments is not really to share with anybody — even though I do. It’s more to keep myself in check. And when you write something out, it really makes you think things through, because a lot of times you’ll write about something and through that process of researching and really putting your thoughts on paper, you find out “My idea is dumb,” or, “This investment is horrible.” Through that process of synthesizing everything, you go, “Wow. I should not be doing this.” So it was a good practice for me. But while everyone was reading — or a lot of people were reading what I was writing about — a lot of people were like “This is interesting. I want to join in with you.” And that’s, essentially, how the Explorer Partnership came to be.

We’ve increased the fees because we’ve actually added a ton of value, a lot of member’s perks that we pay for. So it’s a $5,000 up-front fee, and then it’s $2,000 a year. And the funds that we make and all the investments that we provide, we do not charge any type of management fee. So basically, we say, “Hey, you want to invest in here?” We’re not collecting any money upfront. So there’s no way that we’re going to be making money off these investments. We’re just providing these opportunities for you.

And the membership fees go towards services that we provide. For example, the dinners. We have dinners around the world. These are really nice dinners, and any member can come for free. That’s part of the perk. And you can come to every single dinner if you want. You can come to one, two — whatever you want.

And then the way we do make money is that we charge a 20% carrier fee on the funds that we make. It’s worth noting that I personally invest my own money in these funds. They’re at the same exact terms as the members, and I don’t accept any type of front-end referral, commission, kickback — any of that stuff. So basically, the only way I’m going to personally profit is if the investments are profiting. So that incentivizes me to find really good investments and also broker really good deals. Because if the group is not profiting, neither am I. So it’s a very good structure, in my opinion. Everyone’s interest is thought of.

Jay: We’ve spoken about fees and the change that we see, the shift in the asset management industry that’s happening right now. As one that works at a hedge fund that charges two and 20, which is a lot of money for a management fee… In the fund management industry that will provide overhead for salaries and office space and this sort of thing. But I can definitely see that, coming from the other side, if you’re just an investor, a lot of times those fees aren’t justified. So I think it’s the way that it was set up is very fair and unique. And it’s a genuine way of offering a service where, basically, like you said, you don’t get paid unless all of your investors make money.

Cody: And our “management” fee, which is that upfront fee, which the members pay, which is $2000 a year, they don’t have to invest. So, what are they paying for? They’re paying for all these perks and these trips. Basically, they’re getting a platter of options served to them. Not only do they get these trips they can go on, but they also get these investment opportunities. It’s not just me sourcing these deals. I believe that I have a good deal flow because I’m traveling the world constantly, looking at opportunities. But our extended network is also providing a lot of deal flow. Also, we have basically a full team that does due diligence on all of these deals to make sure that we’re covering all the bases, and we’re trying to poke holes in any story that we think is true. And then once we find something that looks really attractive, we feel confident presenting the investment to the members because we’re putting our money in that investment as well. Like I said, it’s incentivized all the way around.

Jay: Definitely. Full skin in the game. This goes along with forward looking and how the fund management industry is going to change. Obviously, fees are coming down rapidly, and that’s on every level of asset management. And I think that since the financial crisis, I think there’s been this desire to reset, basically, fiduciary duty. So asset managers who once got away with charging exorbitant fees and not posting up performance, I feel like we’re going through a day of reckoning or a period of time of reckoning where a lot of the free-loaders or people that basically collect a lot of money upfront, charge a management fee, and was not able to produce results, they’re going to get weeded out and culled.

As far as setting up a business for the long term, I think that the way you’re going about it is the right way.

Cody: Yeah. And we hope that’s the case. We believe in it. I agree with you. With all these low-cost brokers out there and low-cost providers, it’s pretty hard to compete with those guys. You’ve either got to perform or you’ve got to structure the investment so you’re only profiting if your investors are.

Jay: So another forward looking trend — and we kind of talked about this recently, but it’s hard to actually pinpoint. But with your experiences and the way that you’re leading your investing group around, I personally think it’s very unique because I haven’t really run across a lot of these investing syndicates where you can actually travel and actually meet the co-founder. And this is one of the big barriers that used to exist in private equity and early stage investing, particularly, is access to management. So unless you were a big name — Sequoia or one of these big VCs — it was very hard to find access to the best deals or even just have a conversation with a founder of a hot startup.

And part of it is the Silicon Valley old boys network, and they like to try to keep it that way and private. So it’s not as democratized, but I think that’s all changing. With the flow of information now, with the internet, accessibility, all these walls are being broken down. I think that experience part is extremely special and unique.

Maybe you can talk a little bit about the last trip you did, kind of big one, was in Colorado. Maybe you could talk to us a little bit about how that experience went and what happened afterwards.  

Cody: We went to Denver, Colorado, which is the, I’d say, almost the world capital of cannabis. What that means is that Denver, and Colorado in general, was basically the first state to really take on cannabis in a big commercial way. So we went to Denver as a group. We had our Explorer Partnership members, and we invited some guests. There were actually a lot of us. I think there were maybe 60 or 70 of us. So, first of all, it was a really fun time. We had dinner at some of the nicest restaurants in Denver. Again, that’s what some of the membership dues pay for. And then we went and toured a variety of different Cannabis facilities. So we visited an edibles manufacturing facility, an actual grow, a Cannabis grow, and then a processing facility.

By visiting these places, the investors got a real understanding of what’s going on in the market. And keep in mind, just because we were visiting this place, it’s not like we were consuming cannabis. In fact, we didn’t. We made a point of it not to because we wanted to make sure we understood everything that was going on, and we really looked at it in a real professional way. We shook hands with the CEOs, the operators, and even the “lowest” level of employees of these companies. We wanted to know what their job was, what they were doing, what the future is, what their concerns were — everything.

Obviously, our company does all the due diligence first, and then we get our investors in there, and if an investor has an issue or something we didn’t notice, we want to hear about it, and that’s why we go there, to do this deep-dive due diligence.

From that trip, we ended up investing in three companies, and I can’t disclose right now, but one of them in particular, we just had news about having a big exit next year, so we’re looking very forward to that. And the other companies we invested in are also doing very well. So from an investing standpoint, it was and will be a success. But from an experience standpoint, it was a lot of value for the investors. They got a true understanding of how the market works and where it’s going, and we had fun. We had a lot of fun.

Jay: I think, again, it’s the camaraderie, it’s the experience, and it’s also just learning. As investors, it’s hard to just sit behind the computer and try to figure things out. One of the keys to investing is actually getting different perspectives and being able to have a group — whether it’s a team member or an investment committee or a mentor or just an investing syndicate, a group of friends, that you can bounce ideas off of. And you can basically have people challenge your assumptions, and that’s the only way that you can basically find an investment thesis and work on it and solidify it and make it a successful investment. I think it’s a very cool group that you have, and it’s a great business model.

I want to just talk to you a little bit about trends and stuff like that, what you’re seeing. You’re traveling around the world. You’re doing six trips and year and all these dinners, and you’re meeting a bunch of different opportunities and founders. What areas of growth excite you the most right now? Where are you looking at investing this year or the coming three to have years? Where should the attention be right now?

Cody: Clearly, there’s a lot of exciting things going on in the world. We’re living in a time that is unlike any other. We have that hockey stick type chart in almost everything — the longevity of our lives, our technology, our transportation — on and on. And we could dive into any of those. But I’m going to go back to cannabis because, first of all, people think of cannabis, and they think of a stoner, and they think of somebody getting high and abusing it. It’s this kind of dirty industry. The truth is, that’s pretty accurate for what it has been. That’s straight up what it is. The thing is, it’s changing. I tell people that a prediction of mine for the cannabis consumer is going to be your middle-aged mom. It’s going to be your mom that normally drinks a glass of Chardonnay in the evening but — guess what? — Chardonnay is not only fattening, but it gives you a hangover, and it’s not easy to hold a wine glass while you’re tucking your kid in at night or whatever it is. So you assume the people that consume cannabis, marijuana, they’re getting high, and they’re getting stoned out of their mind. But that’s really not the truth. You can consume cannabis on a very small dosage, and it has the effect of you drinking one beer or one glass of wine.

You look at the consumers that are out there that would prefer the cannabis versus pharmaceuticals or alcohol or any type of mind-altering substance, and cannabis is very attractive. It doesn’t give you a hangover; it’s not fattening; it’s impossible to overdose on, and, with the new products, you can really dose down or take a small dosage to just relax. And a lot of people don’t need that in their life, and that’s fine. But a lot of people do need that. A lot of people do need help sleeping. They do want to relax at night. They want to forget about… They don’t want to stress out about business, or they don’t want to toss and turn all night. They just want to have a calm mind. And that’s where we think the big opportunity is.

The other big thing to consider is that it’s federally illegal in the United States right now for cannabis. Now there are over 10 states now where there’s significant legislation moving where it’s recreationally legal. So there’s many states in the US where it’s medically legal, which means you can get with a medical…based on a diagnosis you have — trouble sleeping, a sore back, whatever it is — and they’ll prescribe you, basically, a card that you can go use and buy cannabis with.

Now many states have changed it where you can recreationally use it, which means anybody off the street can go in, buy it, and then you consume it just like you would drink a beer or have wine or anything like that. What’s happening right now, like I said, it’s federally illegal, and it’s very interesting. For someone who is outside the US, it’s very difficult to understand state law versus federal law. Federal law is supposed to supersede state law, which means that the federal government is supposed to enforce their laws, but they’re not. They’re not enforcing their laws in these states, which puts the federal government in a pretty weird situation that these states are basically doing this even though it’s illegal.

The point is that, as an investor, we can look at this industry and say okay, you have California. You have these big states. California is like the fifth or sixth largest economy in the world right now. It’s recreationally legal. They’re literally making millions and millions and millions of dollars off of taxes from this substance. Are they going to change that? Yeah, they’re going to change their policy. The federal government is going to change their policy.

And you have countries like Uruguay. You have countries over in Europe who are much more lenient, and then you have Canada. They just made it recreationally legal. So this is happening.

As an investor, you can basically say, “Okay, I know that the majority of the market is staying out of the cannabis market because it’s illegal.” That’s fine. That means you have all these huge funds that cannot participate or will not participate because it’s illegal. But we know where the trend is going. So for the small investor, you can invest in this and know that — we don’t know when — but it’s very, very likely that it’s going to be legal in the future. So you can think of it as Prohibition back in the early 1900s in the US. Alcohol was illegal, and then it went back to being legal. And that’s exactly what’s going to happen to cannabis, so now is the time to get positioned, and you have a lot of companies popping up right now that have a lot of upside potential and that’s where we can jump in with them.

Jay: Yeah. It’s pretty exciting. Exactly as you said, right now, a lot of the big players are on the sidelines because their fund mandate will not allow them to touch this space. But, like you said, it’s like the cat is already out of the bag. You know the macro tailwind is going only in one direction. So then it’s really a matter of finding the right investments and the right partners within the space that you can trust and rely and, basically, betting on the right horse.

Cody: Yeah. It’s funny you say that because we actually have a hedge fund manager who is in our Explorer Partnership Group, and he can’t invest in it. His fund mandate says no because it’s federally illegal. But him personally, he says, “Hey, I want to invest in this because it’s a great opportunity.” And he got in on the deals, and we’re doing really well, so he’s happy with that. But that’s a perfect example of a guy who is super sharp. He runs a fund. He knows what he’s doing, and when it becomes legal, guess what he’s probably going to do with his fund. He’s probably going to invest, and he’s probably going to maybe invest in the same company we did, just a lot later.

Jay: Yeah, it’s exciting. Right now cannabis and crypto are like the two hot areas, but at least with cannabis, you get something like a product or a high or something.

Cody: And I’m totally pro on crypto. I’m not anti-crypto. But, like you said, cannabis is a proven market. It’s literally been around for thousands of years. We know people consume it. We know that it’s not like this fad that’s going to go away. It’s here. People use it, and it’s just a matter of time until it becomes a much more regulated market, and we’re just waiting for the government.

Jay: Totally. We’re going to have to have a whole separate crypto podcast debate in the future.

Cody: Yeah, that’s stressing me out just thinking about it.

Jay: I’m definitely with you. I’m bullish on cannabis overall, and I think it’s going to be interesting to see how this plays out. There’s definitely a huge tailwind there.

Last couple of questions, I guess, as we look to wrap up. I think that, again, it’s pretty cool what you’ve put together, and it’s definitely a unique way to get access to these types of deals. So if you’re an investor or an aspiring investor, I would definitely encourage you to check out the Explorer Partnership.

Best or worst investment ever — you can pick.

Cody: I’ll do both really quickly. My best investment, it wasn’t monetarily my best, but it was my best because it was just so simple. I was in Panama years ago, and basically, I surf, and I realize the value of a wave, and so basically, I figured out a way to buy some land in front of this wave. This was when I knew a lot less about finance and investing. It was literally one of the easiest things you could do in terms of complications. You’ve just got to find the landowner and buy it. It was a lot of work, but it was really easy. There wasn’t that many steps. You’ve got to go in the jungle and then find out who owns the land and buy it. So we bought it.

We still own it today, but we’ve been offered multiples of what we bought it for. It’s my favorite investment because it’s so simple. You just buy value where you know it is because you have an advantage, and I uniquely had an advantage because I was a surfer and found this thing in Panama. But everyone has that advantage in their life where they have some expertise on something. And if you have that advantage, take advantage of it, and don’t overcomplicate it. Just make it simple. So that’s my best investment just because I like the simplicity of it, and I think that a lot of investments should be like that — just really simple.

Worst investment. Oh, I’ve had a lot of bad investments. I’ve lost plenty of money, and so I’ve had my MBA or whatever you want to call it — my investment degree in hard knocks. But I think the most frustrating investment I had, it was an angel investment into actually a friend’s — that’s another thing. Don’t invest with your friends, in general. But I invested in a friend’s company. It was doing really well. Long story short, they had some issues with the founders. They broke up. And when I invested, I had a lot of collateral with the investment. So basically, if I lost the money, there was this collateral I was supposed to get. So I felt like it was a really safe play. Even if the angel investment had failed, I would get this collateral, which was some IP and some trademarks and some other stuff.

Well, what actually happened when they failed, I realized that I had to go through this whole legal battle and suing them and the whole lawyer fees and all that stuff. So the actual cost of hiring the lawyers and going through this whole process of getting that collateral was more than I had invested.

The reason why that was the worst investment is because I thought it was this safe thing. I don’t know how I overlooked it in the beginning, but it was a total failure. I would chalk it up as a really good lesson learned and my worst investment because I don’t know how I didn’t see that in the beginning.

Jay: That’s interesting. What just popped into my mind is the — is it called FDIC in the US?

Cody: Yeah.

Jay: —where you can deposit, and they claim that it covers up to X amount.

Cody: I think it’s up to $250,000 now.

Jay: But then what a lot of people realized during the financial crisis and these bands were going down and closing is that it will take like 90 years or something…

Cody: It was $100,000 when it happened in ’08, and then they changed it afterwards because, basically, they’re like if it’s over 100 grand, you’re crap out of luck.

Jay: Exactly. So it’s like a fake insurance policy. You put your money there, but the chances that you’re actually going to get it back are slim to none.

Cody: I think a lot of investors overlook really simple things for a number of reasons. One, people just take things for granted, and then sometimes people don’t want to ask a stupid question. But oftentimes the stupid question is the thing you should be worrying about.

Jay: Totally. We’re going to just keep going as we wrap up here with this drilling in the back. One of the good things about Hong Kong is the construction never stops.

So, coming from your background… Again, I get asked a lot of questions through my writing, and you probably get 10 to 20 or to 100 times as many inquiries as I do just because of your unique background. But people are always like “It’s not that easy for just a normal person to invest. You had a career in Wall Street, and you have blah, blah, blah. People can’t fly around the world like you do to find these investments. You have connections. It’s not fair.” But in reality, you started at zero, just like anyone else did. From your perspective, how do you answer that question? A young person comes up to you — or even old — and is like “Look, I want to start building my wealth. I don’t know how to do it. You started when you were young, and now you’re independent. You’re financially free.” That’s a burning question for a lot of people. How did you do it? You were a firefighter, but somehow you managed to have financial freedom now.

Cody: Yeah. It’s a touchy subject. I don’t want to say, “It was easy. So you can do it.” I’ve had lots of help along the way, and I’m lucky in a variety of ways. I’m lucky to be healthy. I’m lucky for all those types of things. The reality is that most people have that ability to go out there and make things happen. It just looks really unobtainable at the time.

I remember when I was testing to become a firefighter. I knocked on all the fire station doors because I wanted to do a mock interview, which is a practice interview. And basically, getting hired, that’s really the most important thing is this interview process. You’ve got to do this physical part and a mental part and polygraph and all this stuff, but then it comes down to this interview. So if you smoke the interview, you’re going to do well. If you bomb it, you’re going to not get hired. So it all matters about that.

So I knocked on all these fire station doors. It was a lot. I probably did 20 or 30 of them, and not one fire station said no. I would knock on the door and say, “My name is Cody Shirk. I’m testing to be a firefighter. I would really appreciate some help. Would you mind doing a mock interview with me? It might be an hour or two, and I apologize if I’m interrupting you, but I would really appreciate it.”

A couple of them said, “We’re really busy right now. Can you come back?” or, “stay here. We’ll be with you in just a second.” But no one said no. And I think that is pretty consistent in any industry. For example, the finance industry is very intimidating because you look at these guys who have made a lot of money, and they’ve very accomplished and have these fancy degrees and on and on. But it’s human natural to want to help one another. If you just ask, they’re going to help you. Most people are going to help you. If you have that persistence — and obviously you’ve got to go about it the right way. You have to be strategic about it and be polite and all that. You’re going to get a lot more help than you think. And so if I could recommend anything, I would just tell people that, first of all, it is possible. Whatever you want to do, it is possible. Second of all, ask. Ask for help, and people will help you. The scariest thing is asking though. Just be humble in knowing that you don’t know. And once you get to that point, it’s much easier to ask, and it’s much easier to learn what you’re being told from other people.

Jay: Totally. That’s awesome. That’s a great example of how persistence and how not worrying about being embarrassed or that sort of thing. You kind of have to have thick skin, but if you want something and you’re going to go after it and get it, I would just add to that, obviously, don’t be afraid to ask, but before you ask, do your homework.

Cody: Absolutely. Ask the right people.

Jay: Ask the right people. Ask the right questions to the right people. There’s so much information online available right now that you should not have any questions about the person you’re approaching. You should be able to figure out most things, and you have to be creative, but the worst thing you can do is when you finally muster up the courage and you get that connection or someone introduces you to that person, is to basically stumble because you’re asking them the wrong questions, or you’re just showing that you haven’t done research on them or the situation. That’s just a side thing I’d like to add.

Cool, man. It’s been great having you on the podcast. I’ve been wanting to get you on for a long, long time. And I think we’ll probably have you on again relatively soon. I know that you have a couple of exciting things coming up that we can’t really talk about right now, but I’m sure we’ll have a chance to share with the audience when that stuff happens. But in the meantime, where is the best place that people can find you, follow you, or learn a little bit more about the Explorer Partnership?

Cody: The easiest way is just to go to CodyShirk.com. It’s my name. I’m pretty available. If you send me a message, I’m going to answer you, no matter what. I will try my best to help out, but I’m really available. The same thing goes with Twitter, LinkedIn, all that stuff. It’s just my name, Cody Shirk. You can find me.

As far as the Explorer Partnership, you can go to ExplorerPartnership.com, and there’s information there, and you can check out what’s going on, and we would love to invite and welcome any interested new members.

Jay: That’s awesome. Just real quickly, what are the remaining trips for the year that you had for your partnership?

Cody: Great question. We’re going to be in China. That’s in a couple of weeks. And then later in the year, we’re going to be in Toronto, Boston, New York, Las Vegas, and then we have London. We have everything planned out. We have dinners all over the place, and then we’ve got some trips planned out. It’s highly likely that we’ll be in a city near you.

Jay: Definitely. You have the whole itinerary set up. I would encourage, just personally, I would encourage all of my listeners because I know that the stuff that Cody writes about is very much in line with my thinking and my investment analysis. He writes a free blog, newsletter, that you can sign up for at CodyShirk.com.

Cody: Yeah. Totally free. No catches.

Jay: And it’s awesome. It really is. Every week, he just talks about really interesting investments or asymmetrical trades. So I highly encourage you guys to do it. Cody, thanks again for the time and the beer, and I look forward to having you back on soon.

Cody: Thank you. Let’s have another one.

Jay: Alright.

Cody: See you.

Jay: Take care.