Top 1% Secrets To Make EVERYONE Respect You Instantly

Today’s episode breaks down the exact behaviors, communication strategies, and mindset shifts that separate people who get overlooked from people who command respect instantly. From the snap judgments people make in the blink of an eye to the dark arts of leadership nobody will tell you about, you'll learn why being liked is overrated, how to balance authenticity with strategy, and the specific moves that earned respect in male dominated finance and tech rooms. In this episode, you'll learn: Why the way you look, stand, and carry yourself can command respect before you say a word The Clap Back Principle: Why your reaction to disrespect can make or break your authority Why the best leaders aren’t always liked, and how being too friendly can undermine your authority The Context Framework: A simple shift in communication that earns lasting respect and loyalty Why being too honest, authentic, and accessible can actually make people respect you less ___________ (00:00:00) Introduction: People Win Because They're Respected, Not Because They're Smart(00:00:46) The Snap Judgment Problem: Why Your Posture Matters More Than Your Words(00:02:09) When to Clap Back and When to Let It Go: The Respect Over Hate Rule(00:03:56) Working With People You Disagree With: The Chess Board Mentality(00:05:00) When to Part Ways: The Warren Buffett Reputation Test(00:06:58) Commanding Respect in Male-Dominated Rooms: The Symmetry and Style Advantage(00:09:23) The Humor Defense: When You Lecture You Stand Above, When You Laugh You Stand Alongside(00:10:08) Being Respected vs Being Liked: Why You Don't Need to Be Friends With Your Employees(00:12:32) The Stoic Under Pressure: Why Emotional Regulation Is Non-Negotiable(00:13:35) The Mystery Factor: Robert Greene on Seduction and Separation(00:15:00) The Authenticity Trap: Why Full Transparency Doesn't Actually Work(00:16:41) White Lies That Win: The Career Advice Nobody Will Tell You(00:18:26) Context Is King: How the Best Leaders Communicate to Earn Respect(00:20:34) Finding Mentors Who Have Your Biggest Weakness as Their Greatest Strength(00:22:34) The Chess Board Strategy: Playing Multiplayer Success and Never Burning Bridges ___________ MORE FROM BIGDEAL 🎥 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@podcastbigdeal 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bigdeal.podcast 📽️ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@big.deal.pod MORE FROM CODIE SANCHEZ 🎥 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@codiesanchezct 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/codiesanchez 📽️ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@realcodiesanchez OTHER THINGS WE DO 🌐 Our community: https://contrarianthinking.typeform.com/to/WBztXXID 📰 Free newsletter: https://contrarianthinking.biz/3XWLlZp 📚 Biz buying course: https://contrarianthinking.biz/3NhjGgN 🏠 Resibrands: https://resibrands.com/ 💰 CT Capital: https://contrarianthinking.biz/4eRyGOk 🏦 Main St Hold Co: https://contrarianthinking.biz/3YfGa8u Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Codie Sanchez?

  People don't win because they are smart. They win because they're respected. And that does not always mean you're light. I spent my career going from Vanguard to Goldman Sachs, running a portfolio of companies. And I've been disrespected at every single step. And guess what? I'm still winning. So you can too. If you're sick of being overlooked, doubted, or people mistaking your kindness for weakness, today's episode is for you. I'm Codie Sanchez. This is the Big Deal Podcast. Let's go.

• 0:32Codie Sanchez?

  Today, we did something different. I got asked questions by my actual team about things they've seen in me leading companies, finding respect, getting disrespected, and what I do about it. So if you like this episode, tell us. We'll do more.

• 0:46Speaker 01

  How should someone carry themselves to command respect?

• 0:49Codie Sanchez?

  We make snap judgments on a human in about the blink of an eye. They say half to a fourth of the blink of an eye. So the very first thing that you have to do that nobody likes, but is actually the truth, is the way that you dress, the way that you stand, the way that your posture is, the way that your hand movements are. Before you ever open your mouth once, you've already been judged. And people don't like that these days because it shouldn't be, you know, don't judge a book by its cover. It shouldn't matter what the outside looks like. That's just categorically not true. You know, if you are hunched over, looking small, hands in your lap, sort of, you know, Bernie Sanders during the inauguration, and you're trying to get a job interview, it's not going to go very well for you. If you're really quiet and small

• 1:33Codie Sanchez?

  and, you know, sort of diminutive in your movements or mannerisms, and you're trying to get a big, serious, intense job, salary, deal, whatever, it's probably not going to go very well for you. And so you could actually, you don't have to fake it till you make it. You could just actually stand in like you're the main character as opposed to an MPS or a sideshow. And so I wish I would have learned that earlier. It's why a lot of times, even if you're freaked out, the way that you stand, the way that your posture is, not only is going to make you feel more powerful, but it's going to make somebody else mistake you for more powerful than you actually are.

• 2:09Speaker 01

  When do you choose to clap back? And when do you let it go?

• 2:13Codie Sanchez?

  People respect people who are unruffled and unriled. And the second you start having an emotional reaction that seems unregulated, especially if you're a woman, I hate to say, people immediately will dismiss you. It's not right. It's not fair. It just is. And so what I've realized is if you're going to clap back, it better be with humor. It better be unemotional. It better be facts, not feelings. Otherwise, you are just going to stir the pot more so that you have more coming to the top. And I don't think you typically want that. So I've, for years now, you know, my motto has been if I want somebody's respect,

• 2:58Codie Sanchez?

  I will only ever throw respect out and not hate out. Because usually hate out gives you more hate back. You just spend more time on the thing you want more of in the world. And so if you want more respect, spend more time respecting others. You know, a good rule of thumb, I think, when things aren't going your way or somebody's really rude or terrible to you or you feel like you've been slighted, is just do the opposite to somebody. Like every time somebody talks shit about me on the internet, I do the opposite. I go and congratulate somebody. I go and write a nice little DM to somebody. I say, hey, I love what you're building over there because I just feel like it balances the universe out. And so every time I get a little hate, I give a little love. And I keep going that way. And I think Dolly Parton was an incredible example of this. You know, people would look at the boobs and the hair and the outfits and think she wasn't very smart.

• 3:43Codie Sanchez?

  And then she said, but by the time that I was done, I got the money and ran. And I think that's part of the game. It's like, do you want to be emotional and unregulated? Or do you want to win? And I was just talking to one of our executives about this today. He kind of came all hot and bothered about something and said, this person is, you know, a scumbag and they're not ethical. And, you know, we don't want to operate like that. And I said, well, uh, hey, you know, wouldn't that be hard if we could only do business with people that we agreed with them on everything? Wouldn't that be tough? If every person that we engaged with, sold to, bought from, et cetera, we had to have the same set of moral principles with? It wouldn't be tough if you had to only work with perfect people

• 4:27Codie Sanchez?

  because then, by the way, you couldn't work with yourself because there is no such thing as a perfect person. And so in fact, what we should probably do is not be a moral absolutist where you think that everything you're doing is right and what everybody else is doing is wrong. And instead, take the things that you can learn from another person without having to take all their values on. Don't take somebody else's ethics or morals on top of you. Just take the things that let them win and leave all the emotional baggage to the side. That's what people who have a lot of respect for themselves do. They don't let somebody who doesn't really matter emotionally charge them.

• 5:00Speaker 02

  When do you choose to work through differences? And when is it time to part ways?

• 5:05Codie Sanchez?

  Those who respect themselves also require the people they work with to respect themselves and the values that the company has. I always liked the old Warren Buffett-ism where he says, you can lose me money. You can make mistakes, but you can't lose a shred of reputation. For the first two, I'll let you do it as long as you keep not repeating it. For the third one, I'll fire you. And so I do think your name is one of the hardest things for you to keep intact. Any chance you can. To make sure your name continues to grow is worth it. I can think of two instances in my career where somebody wrote something. It was my fault because I was their leader, but somebody wrote something wrong on the internet. One was that I worked at Goldman Sachs for seven years instead of two.

• 5:49Codie Sanchez?

  And another one was passive income doesn't exist, but we had previously said passive income does exist. Passive income is a tax categorization. It does exist as a tax categorization. There's active income, there's passive income. And anyway, we were talking about like, get rich quick passive income, but I just got blown up for that all over the internet. And both times, I didn't write them. And both times, those people no longer work with me. Why? Because hyperbolic stuff, it really does hurt your reputation in some way, shape, or form. And I've had to have people talk about that for years because of a tiny little thing. Reputationally, we said online. And so I think you gotta really try to protect who you are. Now, you should never fake it

• 6:33Codie Sanchez?

  because everybody can feel that. And it's too hard to do for the long term anyway. It's like, you know, one of the CIA's tricks is you never try to figure out if somebody's lying in the morning after a cup of coffee. You always do it in the evening after a couple of glasses of wine because it's way harder to keep face throughout the duration of the day. It's the same thing with this. You want to figure out who people are and you only want them to stick with you if they're going to increase your reputation, not decrease it.

• 6:58Speaker 03

  How have you personally commanded respect in male-dominated tech and finance rooms?

• 7:04Codie Sanchez?

  You gotta know the game that you signed up for. And if you want to be a serious executive or C-suite, for the most part, you're going to have to learn how to have a little bit of masculine energy. And it doesn't mean that you can't wear the dresses and, you know, the bright lipstick and the makeup and all of that stuff. But the truth of the matter is, there's actually two. It's interesting. When you're more symmetrical, we'll say that instead of beautiful, when you're more symmetrical, you make more money on average. When you're better dressing, you make more money on average. And this is like all things being equal. But at some point, you also got to be careful because when you look a certain way or different than everybody else, you're going to get immediately judged. I mean, there's a reason that people think

• 7:48Codie Sanchez?

  that Kim Kardashian is not very smart. And she's by all metrics, quite smart. She's a billionaire multiple times over from multiple businesses. So are all of her sisters. So is her mom. So is, you know, and, and like one time, for one of them in the family, you could say, well, you know, it was the sex tape. Well, it was, you know, Hollywood. But for the whole family to create like eight or 10, hundreds of millions of dollars a year business, if not billion-dollar businesses, like they're smart. But the way that they look makes people not take them very seriously. And so I think if you're going to play the corporate game or if you're going to be in the room with a bunch of finance dudes, you need to take that into the equation. I mean, I know it all the time. I mean, on X, I can't even tell you this.

• 8:33Codie Sanchez?

  This week, you know, I just got people saying, oh, she's never built a business. She doesn't have any businesses. She was never in finance. When she was in finance, he was a secretary. It was probably her husband. You know, it must have been her dad, all the things. And sometimes it really does get me down. And I try to like overly defend myself. But I think lately, like a good way to play it off is be humorous as opposed to defensive. And so, you know, there's a saying in Shakespeare, which is thou doth protest too much. And sometimes when people are all railing on you, be in the one that's silent, that doesn't feel like they need to respond, that's above the fray. At some point, you're a little bit like the wall

• 9:17Codie Sanchez?

  upon which the waves crash upon. You just can't get a rise out of you. And that bothers people. And then if that doesn't work, you can do what my friend Brian Johnson does, which is make fun of himself. So when everybody's making fun of you on the internet, can you make light of it? Because he said a line to me that I love, which will teach you a lot about respect, which is when you lecture, you stand above. When you laugh, you stand alongside. And so even for your haters, could you think of them? My friend Sean Perry said, could you think of them like doubters, not haters? And maybe they're just waiting for a reason to actually come alongside you. And often them not liking you or people not respecting you is very little about you and usually about what's going on in their life.

• 10:01Codie Sanchez?

  And so if you can learn to just make them feel big, they won't feel the need to make somebody else feel small.

• 10:08Speaker 01

  So Cody, how do you? Balance being respected and being liked as a CEO.

• 10:13Codie Sanchez?

  Well, you don't have to be liked, but you need to be respected. You don't have to like all your coworkers, but you have to respect that you need to work well alongside them. I do not think you have to be loved or liked to be a leader. Now, it's a little tough if you're hated. That's not great. But I don't always need everybody to like me as a leader. I don't think that's my job or your job if you want to be a serious person. Your job is to help people achieve the things that they want to in life. And your job is to help them make, is to help them feel safe in their decision at your company or as a parent. I mean, there's a lot of similarities between leadership and parenting, I think, which as a parent, you know, we all know, you know, the parents who try to be friends with their kids.

• 10:58Codie Sanchez?

  How well did that turn out, right? You can do it when they're older, but not when you're growing up. You can't, when you're just getting to know employees, you shouldn't try to be best buds with them unless you guys are co-founders with equal skin in the game, equal opportunity, equal risk on the table, and about the same equal experience. Otherwise, it's okay. You need to have some, some distance. And in fact, I really think with your employees, you need to allow them to have a bunch of fun and shenanigans without you, you know? I go to some of the stuff where, you know, all the employees are hanging out and drinking and going to dinner, but I try to not stay the whole time because I want people to have fun and I don't want them to feel intimidated or like they have to have some other sort of airs on because the boss is around.

• 11:42Codie Sanchez?

  And I think that's perfectly okay. The only times I've seen it go really, really bad are where people are too scared to tell someone the truth, which is your job as a leader, because that's your buddy and you've crossed the line. Not only that, your buddy, who is actually your employee, no longer respects you as leader because you've muddied the line. Now they think that you're the same. And then when you have to fire them, they're going to be really confused. And so, again, like, these are lessons for serious people. If you don't ever want to manage somebody and you don't ever want to lead and you don't ever want to run a company, don't listen to any of this. Do whatever you want to do, have a good time with your colleagues, like, it's all good. This stuff is kind of hard because it's true and it sucks and you're going to have a bunch

• 12:25Codie Sanchez?

  of difficulty if you want to be a really serious person. And, you know, I like to think about that part from Secession where the dad looks around the table of his kids and says, "You guys are just not serious people." And I think about that quote often. My husband and I share it with each other often and we send it to each other when somebody's being unserious. And one of the number one ways you can absolutely stop people from respecting you is not being able to manage your emotions, is not being stoic under pressure. It doesn't mean you can't lose your mind and cry at a beautiful movie if that's what you're into, or you can't be moved to tears by a piece of poetry, or you can't be moved

• 13:07Codie Sanchez?

  to tears by something horrific happening in life, like a death or a sickness. Absolutely, you could feel that deeply. But you should also feel like when your team is really going through it and when everything is difficult and falling apart, they know they can look to you and you will not fall apart. You will be working harder than they will, longer than they will, and you'll do it with a smile on your face. That's just the fucking job. And if you don't want to do that job, then don't be a leader.

• 13:35Speaker 04

  Can being too present or too accessible make people respect you less?

• 13:39Codie Sanchez?

  Robert Greene talks about the same thing, which is that you have to remove yourself and have an air of mystery around you, that this is a key to seduction. And seduction is really just a form of respect. Who do we respect but the people who seduce us into thinking that they are worthy of respect and interesting and somebody that we should look up to? It's all sort of a, a form of seduction. And so, I do think there's like a separation that's really important to have happen if you want to be respected. That's when you see everybody at work gossiping about something small and do not participate, you know? And if somebody asks you why not, or they try to get you to participate, you just say,

• 14:23Codie Sanchez?

  "I'm not interested in talking about people or small things like this. No judgment on if you are, but that's just not something that interests me." It's creating that separation of how you're different from others. And it takes like a little degree of narcissism, right? It's like a little ego that you have to have to do this. But I do believe that if you're everywhere all the time, if you're too accessible, if you set no boundaries, then you've no longer allowed yourself to be put up as somebody to respect. And instead, sort of, you've gotten off the balcony and you're in the crowd and that's very hard to see. And these are not very politically correct truths, you know?

• 15:04Codie Sanchez?

  This is, this is some of the dark arts of being a leader or being somebody who is respected that nobody will tell you because it doesn't sound very politically correct and nice in this world in which we value almost more than anything else, quote unquote, authenticity and quote unquote, full transparency. The problem is that people will tell you that that is what they respect, but in actuality, think about the people who have full transparency and full authenticity, just authenticity, just like play that out for a second. That would be the person that like burps in front of you constantly. Well, that's authentic. It's what they were going through in that moment. It would be the person who talks every single thing out in their head out loud. So they're just yapping non-stop.

• 15:49Codie Sanchez?

  There's no silence. There's no signal to the noise to their words. That would be the person who every time they felt sad or depressed or they just explained their whole story to you. That's the person who goes all the way back in every decision to why their trauma bonded and everything that's happened to them since they were three years old. That person is not usually somebody you respect, is it? It's usually the person who's a little bit quieter, holds a boundary, and probably is slightly less authentic for that. And so, I always go to like the lowest common denominator to play it all the way out, which is I think of the burping in public, which I'm like, nobody needs that. But that would be fully authentic and transparent.

• 16:31Codie Sanchez?

  And so, if you don't want that, then think of all the different levels that come back to the thing you want before it.

• 16:36Speaker 01

  What specific behaviors did you have to develop to earn respect and get to where you are today?

• 16:41Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah, you think early on in your career that it is okay for you to be really honest all the time. And so, I remember early in my career, I would say things to my coworkers like, "No, I don't want to go to lunch today. I have way too much to do. I just can't spend time hanging out with you guys." Or, "I don't have time to go to happy hour because I am slammed." And I thought that I could just be really honest. "Oh, I'm not interested in all with company, company parties. It's just not for me. I find that kind of boring." I was just a blunt instrument. And no shocker, nobody liked me, you know? I was so unlikable because I was quote unquote, "so honest," as opposed to learning to manipulate that slightly, you know?

• 17:26Codie Sanchez?

  "Oh, my gosh, yeah, I'll be there tonight. Ah, I can't later this week. I really wish I could." I didn't wish I could. That's a white lie. Is that a bad white lie? I don't know, but it helped me progress my career and probably the same for you. Marital advice too. Don't tell your pregnant wife she looks fat, no matter how many times she asks, right? That's a white lie. I definitely look fat. I resemble either a toad or a hippopotamus, depending on the day. But like, if he said that to me, it would end poorly with him. And so, why do we think that in work and in career, it's the same thing? Like, we shouldn't have these little white lies that we don't, you know? "No, boss, I love staying late all, every day this week. I'm really, ah, loving it."

• 18:08Codie Sanchez?

  It's probably going to get you further than like, "I'm so fucking tired and over this and I don't want to do it anymore." Yeah, no shit. It's hard sometimes. You don't want to be here. I get it. But just having those little tiny white lies can actually help you progress and nobody will tell you that, especially in this day and age where you're not supposed to say any of that.

• 18:26Speaker 04

  How do the best leaders communicate in a way that earns respect?

• 18:31Codie Sanchez?

  If you want respect, giving appropriate context is a really good way to get it. I think a lot of times, what don't we respect? When parents say, "Because I told you so. Because I said so. Because, just listen to what I do," you know? And you're like, "Yeah, but, you know, I see what you do as opposed to listening to what you say." And there's a disconnect between the two and so I don't have respect for it. When, when times are tough and you don't know what to do next, it's perfectly fine to say that, "Hey, you know what? I don't know what to do next. We kind of didn't win this how I wanted to." I think these are a couple of reasons why, but I'm not exactly sure what to do next. So I'm going to go sit and think about it and pull some data on it and try to figure out our next decision.

• 19:16Codie Sanchez?

  That is perfectly fine and in fact, is most of life. Oftentimes, leaders don't give enough context, like, "Hey, I really want you to do XYZ thing. Here's why. Because it will set us up for the next two years, but we only have this time period to execute on it." A silly one right now for, for me is reviews for the book. We've had a crazy week this week. We launched a new book, huge book launch. Everybody's a little burnt out. It's a long week. We're tired, but we can't be done this week. Why? Because we've got to ask for reviews really in the next two weeks because, and if you want to, you can go to ownerbook.com or you could go to Amazon, Owner Be Owned, and leave a review and that would be amazing and I'd love you forever. But we have to push for those reviews during those two weeks, I told them, because it

• 20:01Codie Sanchez?

  really sets up your trajectory as a highly rated book and as a bestselling book on Amazon and it's hyper-specific to those first couple of weeks on the charts. And so, it could, the, the next couple of weeks pushing sets us up for years. So the team knows, okay, it's not just Cody annoyingly putting something else on our to-do list. There's a reason why. And a lot of time, the team just wants to know that you realize they got too much going on and so you're not adding something just because you feel like they can continuously take the load.

• 20:34Speaker 01

  What did you admire most in a mentor you deeply respected?

• 20:39Codie Sanchez?

  You always want to find mentors that have as their greatest strength, your biggest weakness. And my best mentors are typically the ones that are more manipulative, less blunt, and incredibly good at politics. Because I am a blunt force object. I am a hammer where everything looks like a nail. And it is a constant struggle for me when it comes to respect to learn how to navigate the softer side of leadership. And so I can think of one, whose name was Barry, at a company called State Street. I was an executive there in the finance business, and he ran it. And what was so interesting about him is he almost never said exactly what he thought.

• 21:22Codie Sanchez?

  He was incredibly calculated with every move. He knew every person and all the chess pieces they had on the board. And he would sort of look at work and politics in one of the world's biggest corporations. State Street touches one in every $4 in the US economy. And he ran at the time, and I don't even know how many hundreds of billions of dollars we managed at State Street in the cash business, which is where I worked. But he would look at the chess pieces and teach me how although what I wanted to do and thought was right was this move. Because the leadership wanted this move executed, I needed to find a way to make this move win. In life, if you want to be respected, you have to realize

• 22:07Codie Sanchez?

  that it's not always the most straight and narrow path that's going to get you to winning. Unfortunately, we have to have other people agree with our decision-making and allow us permission sometimes. Like, success is sort of like a multi-gated highway. And at each stage for the highway, you've got to get them to open the doors to the toll road for you. And if you don't get the doors open, you won't win. Like, it's not a single-player game, right? This is like multiplayer game with a ton of people on the board who simultaneously are all trying to win. And you have to be the one to get them to think that your idea is their idea. And he was a master at that. And so I often like to think about, whenever I have a difficult decision, picture it like a chessboard.

• 22:52Codie Sanchez?

  How many people are on the board? What do they all want? What are their likely next moves? And how could I even get them to where they want to be and have them think that it's their idea, but it's mine? And Barry's incredible at that. Another one of my mentors, Donald, is the exact same way. Has worked at multiple financial companies and almost never says a word out of place. Is so precise with his language. Whereas sometimes what you'll find is you'll think you gain respect by gossiping, by being a little loose with your tongue, by being a bit flippant about what you're saying. And Donald will never step out of character. And why is that so fascinating? Because for somebody like me, who could be kind of brash,

• 23:37Codie Sanchez?

  I might tell somebody, "Oh, yeah, well, I'm not going to do that because that's ridiculous and fuck those guys." Donald would never. Because Donald remembers you might always need somebody else. So another Robert Greene-ism is unless you're going to... If you're going to make an enemy, absolutely crush them. You must kill them. Do not make an enemy halfway. And Donald plays that card beautifully. These days, like all these young kids who I see writing these resignation letters, super big on Instagram right now. And the resignation letter is really cute, but it's pithy and a little angry and mad and really disrespectful. Listen, it probably feels great in the moment. You don't think that I've had times

• 24:20Codie Sanchez?

  where I wanted to just light the bridge on fire as I left? Hell, yeah, I did. But I didn't because I wanted to win. I didn't want to feel good in that moment. So where are you trying to just feel good and be right? And later, you'll never win because of it. And that's the diabolical side of leadership.