A Million-Dollar Lessons on Wealth & Grit | Dan Pascone with Cody Hall | Podcast #24

Posted on July 10, 2025 by Dan Pascone

Episode TL;DR

In this episode: Dan talks with Cody Hall, founder and CEO of Telehelping, about growing up with nothing, grinding through the Marines and big tech, hitting seven-figure exits, and then walking away from “dream” paydays to protect his health and become the kind of dad he wants to be. Cody breaks down how he thinks about money now (reserves + aggressive but thoughtful risk), how multiple marriages and lifestyle creep shaped his financial mindset, and why his current business is built around helping entrepreneurs actually succeed with remote talent instead of just “hiring a VA.”

Who this is for: Entrepreneurs, executives, and high earners who’ve tasted big income or equity but still feel like they’re on a hamster wheel; anyone juggling family, growth, and health; and leaders curious about using nearshore VAs the right way.

Key Takeaways

From trailer park to MARSOC to CEO. Cody grew up poor (“owed the world something”), joined the Marine Corps, worked up to special operations, then transitioned to college, Apple, Amazon, and into startups and CEO roles.
First big money lesson: pick the comp structure. At Amazon he was offered two roles paying “the same,” but the HR role was hourly with overtime. He chose HR and immediately saw the power of how compensation is structured, not just the headline salary.
Early equity win funded real assets. At a small pharma company he got 30,000 shares; the company sold six months after he joined and his equity instantly vested. He used that plus profits from a college firearms manufacturing side business sale to buy rental properties (leveraging his VA loan creatively).
Startup glamour can destroy you. A flashy HR tech startup (kegs, scooters, chefs) gave him responsibility for thousands of clients. He was commuting early, working late, and living with crushing stress while his lifestyle (and then-wife’s spending) escalated. The combo of overwork + overspending drove his blood pressure to “70-year-old with hypertension” levels.
High income ≠ financial security. Cody was making great money but had minimal cash reserves due to constant spending. The rentals paid for themselves, but everything else vanished into lifestyle. That mismatch between income and net worth created constant stress.
Money mindset formed early: “never enough.” His earliest memory about money was not having a few dollars to buy a book at the school book fair. That created a deep “there’s never enough” belief, which later manifested as hoarding cash mentally, even when he wasn’t actually saving.
He walks away from an “ultra high net worth” outcome. After being sponsored with $1M to start a health-care company (and landing huge clients like HCA, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Providence), he worked 18-hour days through COVID. When he found out he was having his first child, he chose to resign, broke his contract, and swapped a massive future payout for a smaller (but still seven-figure) exit so he could be a present dad.
The Allen Iverson fund: protecting himself from himself. From that CEO exit, he put ~half into a hard-to-access trust managed by a third party so he can’t easily blow it on risky bets. He calls it his “Allen Iverson fund” — if everything else fails, something is still there he can’t mess up.
Layered investing strategy: short, mid, long-term.
- Long-term: Real estate (VA-loan-based rentals, including a meaningful condo in historic Mexico), Telehelping itself, and equity stakes in client companies via Telehelping.
- Mid-term: Private investments like bourbon holdings and fractional ownership in blue-chip art (e.g., Picassos) that he plans to sell in 5–10 years.
- Short-term: A separate equities trading company he runs with his former CMO, day trading indices and equities—high risk, but in a contained bucket.
Telehelping’s real value isn’t “cheap labor,” it’s acclimation. He started Telehelping to move nurse roles from the Philippines to Mexico at lower cost and better language fit. Over time he realized the hardest problem wasn’t hiring—it was teaching U.S. companies how to manage remote staff and teaching remote staff how to be great virtual employees. Now they see themselves as “acclamation consultants” first, staffing company second.
The podcast started as an internal tool. His podcast began as a way for his team to truly understand clients (beyond “Wealth Manager #475”). They interviewed clients, shared the videos internally, and it grew into a public show with 70+ episodes focused on the human side of entrepreneurship.
Growth obsession vs impact. Cody used to be obsessed with rapid growth and lived in constant disappointment because reality couldn’t keep pace with his expectations. Now he focuses on impact—lives changed on both the client and remote-worker side—rather than just growth charts.
Frugal by design to “never go broke.” He and his wife intentionally live well below their means. He jokes he’ll spend days researching fun toys (dirt bikes, electric surfboards, cars) with only a 0.01% chance of buying, but he’ll rapidly pull the trigger on appreciating assets like a meaningful condo that doubles as an investment.
Relationships cost and shape you. Cody openly says he wishes he hadn’t gotten married so many times, because he would’ve “kept more of his stuff,” but he also acknowledges those relationships made him who he is today.

Key Moments

00:02 – Dan opens the show and reiterates the mission: cutting through noise to help business leaders make confident money decisions.
00:27 – Intro to episode #24 and guest Cody Hall, founder and CEO of Telehelping.
01:06 – Cody gives his background: trailer park beginnings, Marines/special operations, college at UNC Charlotte, and working full-time at Apple while taking 15–18 credits.
03:12 – The Amazon decision: two “equal” offers, he chooses HR over operations because it’s hourly + overtime and “you always get overtime at Amazon.” First big comp-structure lesson.
03:55 – Moving to California, hating Amazon, and working daytime at startups while doing 12-hour shifts at Amazon.
07:15 – Pharma job: easiest job he’s ever had, hired as VP HR for U.S. presence; six months later they’re acquired and all his shares instantly vest. He fires everyone and gets his first substantial payout.
09:03 – How he used early money: running a firearms manufacturing side business in college (later sold to Palmetto), leveraging his VA loan to “hopscotch” into multiple rental properties, especially in Vegas.
10:24 – HR tech startup: from apartment to $50M investment, multiple floors in a downtown LA high-rise, kegs, scooters, chefs, and scaling from 500 to 5,000 clients.
11:03 – Mental and physical breaking point: brutal commute, long hours, chest pain; doctor tells him he has the blood pressure of a 70-year-old with hypertension. He quits, calls the CEO, and walks away.
12:12 – Marriage + money conflict: high income but constant overspending (think $20k Maldives trips) with a spouse who “could spend money faster than I can make it,” leaving him perpetually stressed about not having enough reserves.
14:03 – Earliest money memory: school book fair with no money to buy anything. Deep imprint of “never enough,” driving an obsession with having cash reserves.
15:28 – Current philosophy: he’s still aggressive and risky in investments, but only from a base of stability and meaningful reserves.
18:08 – Origin of Telehelping: started as a cost-saving move in his previous healthcare company—replacing expensive Philippines-based Spanish-speaking nurses with Mexican nurses at 40% less cost.
19:07 – The board conflict: as CEO and fiduciary of his healthcare company, he also helped create Telehelping to serve that company’s needs. Later, during his exit, the board disliked the perceived conflict and used it as leverage in negotiations.
20:16 – Negotiating the exit: instead of the massive payout his contract promised, they agree on a smaller but still significant seven-figure buyout. He uses strategies (like an 83(b)/similar) to mitigate short-term capital gains.
21:20 – The “Allen Iverson” trust: he locks away roughly half his exit into a trust he can’t easily touch, so future Cody doesn’t blow it. The rest goes into more rentals and a trading company.
22:22 – Telehelping’s evolution: from plug-and-play staffing to a consulting-heavy model helping both clients and VAs acclimate to remote work and delegation.
24:47 – How the podcast started: internal interviews with clients so the team could understand who they serve; it then evolved into a public show exploring the human side of entrepreneurship.
26:15 – Lightning round: coffee, burgers, guns, Einstein quote, The Checklist Manifesto, and his “just get over it” personal hack.
27:19 – Bucket-list item: becoming a (liquid) millionaire and the surreal feeling of constantly refreshing his bank app to make sure it was real.
27:46 – Big personal/business challenge: being obsessed with hypergrowth and living with constant disappointment, then pivoting to focus on impact instead.
28:26 – Financial milestone in progress: “never go broke”—choosing frugality with his wife even though they could afford more, and prioritizing investments over toys.
29:56 – Advice to younger self: don’t get married so many times, though he acknowledges those relationships shaped who he is today.
30:37 – Where to find Cody: LinkedIn, Telehelping, and his podcast site. Dan closes with the reminder to prioritize your version of a rich life.

Episode Summary

On this episode of Making Sense of Your Money, Dan sits down with Cody Hall, founder and CEO of Telehelping, to unpack a life that’s zigzagged from poverty and military service to seven-figure exits, major health scares, multiple marriages, and now a more intentional, impact-driven approach to money and business.

Cody starts with his humble beginnings in a trailer park and a deep sense of “starting in debt to the world.” Not a standout student or athlete, he joins the Marine Corps and eventually makes it into special operations, where he first experiences accomplishment at a high level. After leaving the military, he goes to UNC Charlotte, works full-time at Apple while carrying 15–18 credits a semester, and later jumps to Amazon.

At Amazon, he faces a pivotal money choice: two roles with the same headline pay—one in operations, one in HR. The HR role is hourly with overtime, and since “you always get overtime at Amazon,” he picks HR. That decision becomes an early lesson in how compensation structure can matter more than the raw salary.

He eventually leaves Amazon for startups. At a small pharma company, he’s hired as VP of HR for their U.S. operations. Six months in, the company is acquired. All 30,000 of his shares instantly vest, he’s paid to lay everyone off, and he walks away with a sizable equity payout. Combined with profits from a firearms manufacturing side business he ran in college (which he sold to a larger player) and strategic use of his VA loan, he uses the liquidity to build a portfolio of rental properties—especially in Las Vegas.

Next, Cody joins an HR tech startup in LA that explodes from 500 to 5,000 clients after a $50M raise. The office is stereotypical startup heaven—kegs, scooters, chefs—but behind the scenes, he’s commuting from Orange County, catching the first and last trains, and carrying heavy responsibility. At the same time, his second marriage introduces a very different money energy: lavish vacations, heavy spending, and a lifestyle that eats every dollar of his high income. Eventually his body rebels; a doctor tells him he has the blood pressure of a 70-year-old with hypertension. He quits, walking away from the job to protect his health, but the financial stress and “never enough” mindset linger.

Those early experiences cement his money psychology. One formative memory: standing at a school book fair with no money to buy a single book. For young Cody, that becomes proof that there’s “never enough,” and later manifests as an obsession with having reserves—at least in theory. In reality, during his high-earning years, the money kept disappearing into lifestyle creep, which contributed to both stress and marital strain.

He later moves into healthcare, where a company sponsors him with $1M to start and lead a new venture. Cody builds it into a serious player, landing clients like HCA, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and Providence, and grinding through COVID with 18-hour days. While the contract promises him an “ultra high net worth” outcome, the birth of his first child reframes everything. He decides he doesn’t want to be an absent father, resigns, and in the process breaks his contract. The board pushes back, especially over the fact that he helped create Telehelping to service his company’s needs. They view this as a conflict and use it as leverage in exit negotiations.

In the end, he walks away with a smaller but still meaningful seven-figure payout. To protect himself from his own risk-taking tendencies, he puts about half into a trust he can’t easily access—his “Allen Iverson fund”—managed and invested by a third party. The rest goes into more real estate and a separate equities trading firm he runs with his former CMO.

From an investing standpoint, Cody now thinks in layers. Long term, he focuses on real assets (rental properties, including a sentimental condo in historic Mexico), Telehelping’s equity, and stakes in partner companies. Mid-term, he allocates to things like bourbon holdings and fractional ownership in blue-chip art. Short term, he and his partner day trade and run an equities company that swings harder but sits on top of a stable base.

Telehelping itself was born inside his previous healthcare company as a way to replace expensive Philippines-based Spanish-speaking nurses with Mexican nurses at lower cost. When he left healthcare, he took over Telehelping fully and gradually shifted the focus beyond healthcare into professional services like legal, accounting, and finance. The biggest lesson: simply finding good nearshore talent is the easy part. The real work is helping U.S. entrepreneurs and their remote hires acclimate—teaching owners how to delegate and train, and teaching VAs how to excel in remote roles. Today, he sees Telehelping first as an “acclimation consulting” business that happens to provide and manage talent.

His podcast emerged from the same desire to understand his clients. Initially, he interviewed them for internal training and alignment—so his team saw more than just a client ID. As those conversations deepened, the show evolved into a public-facing podcast with 70+ episodes focused on the human stories behind entrepreneurs and professionals.

In the lightning round, Cody shares quick hits: coffee over tea, burgers for life, guns as his non-negotiable hardware, Einstein’s “don’t be limited by what others have said or done,” and The Checklist Manifesto as a favorite book. His personal hack: “just get over it,” a mindset forged in the Marines that helps him push through setbacks. His proudest bucket-list item is becoming a liquid millionaire; he jokes about repeatedly refreshing his bank app in disbelief. His current financial milestone is simple but powerful: “never go broke.” He and his wife intentionally live “cheap” relative to their means, obsessively scrutinizing purchases that don’t appreciate while quickly buying assets that do.

Pressed for advice to his younger self, he laughs and says he’d tell himself not to get married so many times. But with a bit more reflection, he acknowledges that those relationships—while financially costly—shaped his character, his resilience, and the way he leads and invests today.

Full Episode Transcript

Transcript edited and lightly condensed for clarity.

Narrator: Brought to you by Tailored Wealth, helping business leaders live their version of a rich life.

Dan: Welcome to another edition of the Making Sense of Your Money podcast, where we cut through the financial noise and help business leaders make smart, confident money decisions.

Dan: Welcome to episode number 24. I’m your host, Dan Pascone, founder and CEO of Tailored Wealth. Each episode features a trusted voice in the financial world—someone who works directly with high-level professionals to simplify the complex and turn strategy into action.

Dan: Today we’ve got a special guest. I’m excited for this conversation. We’ve got Cody Hall, founder and CEO of Telehelping. Cody has a really interesting story and background. His team provides virtual and telehealth/remote support across multiple industries. He also runs a successful podcast that I had the pleasure of being on. Cody, pumped to have you on Making Sense of Your Money.

Cody: Yeah, I’m super excited to be here. Especially since I’ve had to learn my finances most of the time by Braille. I’ll probably be a great example of some of the things you shouldn’t do.

Dan: We’ll definitely get into that. Start us off with a quick overview: who you are, what your business does, and how you got into this world.

Cody: For sure. First, level set: I come from what I like to call a “very high class of trailer park.” I really came into this world owing the world something—came in with debt, so to speak.

Cody: I wasn’t the smartest kid, not the most athletic. I joined the military and that’s where opportunity blossomed. I worked my way up in the Marine Corps into the special operations group, which was the first time I really accomplished anything at that level.

Dan: And thank you for your service.

Cody: I appreciate it. Y’all were worth it.

Cody: After the military, I wanted to do something that didn’t involve a gun, so I went to college. First kid in my family to graduate—UNC Charlotte, management. While I was in school, I was full-time—15 to 18 credit hours—and also working 40+ hours a week at Apple. So I’d take early morning or late night classes and then work nights and weekends in sales, then HR for their data centers.

Cody: After four years at Apple, Amazon came knocking. They made a bunch of promises, and here’s where the first big money decision shows up. They offered me two jobs—one operations manager, one HR manager. On paper they paid the same. I asked which paid more, and they said technically the HR one is hourly, so you get overtime, and “you always get overtime at Amazon.” I said, “Done. HR for 500 please.”

Cody: I took that, then moved to California—packed up my Ducati and some clothes. Important note: I had just gotten divorced. Everyone in the military gets married at least once, right?

Dan: (laughs) Sure.

Cody: So I split everything, took what mattered to me, and headed west. I hated Amazon. They know how to drive employees into the ground. While I was there, I started working with startups during the day. I’d do three 12-hour shifts at Amazon and then spend the “off” days working at startups. That’s how I got into tech. Eventually I jumped around as an executive and landed my first CEO job at a smaller company.

Dan: You mentioned a couple exits and then your CEO role before starting Telehelping. Let’s start with the equity pieces. Walk us through how those played out and what you did with the money.

Cody: First stop: small agile pharma company—“small” meaning about $300M valuation. That’s tiny by pharma standards, big by normal standards. I joined as VP of HR.

Cody: Easiest job I’ve ever had. They just wanted an HR presence in the U.S., with two big buildings in California. They needed a smiling HR face. I was happy to be that. I learned a ton about pharma, but six months after I joined, we got purchased.

Cody: Here’s the “beautiful” part: all I had to do was lay off everybody, and then I would get my money. I had about 30,000 shares. That acquisition instantly vested everything, and they bought my shares from me. At the same time, I knew it was coming, so I’d already started interviewing elsewhere.

Cody: Coming from where I come from, being jobless is something I never want to experience. So I was lining up the next role. Another tech-driven HR company wanted me to lead their outside HR. I told the CEO, “I can’t leave until I get this payout—I worked hard for it and I want it.” He said, “Great. Work remote from their office until you’re done firing everybody, then come here.”

Cody: So I stayed, finished, got paid, and then walked straight into more money and fresh equity at the new job. It was a perfect setup.

Dan: That doesn’t always happen that smoothly. What did you do with that first real liquidity?

Cody: By then I already had a side hustle: a small firearms manufacturing company I started in college. I rented storage units, put CNC machines in them, and milled lower receivers, uppers, 1911 parts, AR-15 parts. I’d run the machines, print the parts, and sell in bulk at gun shows. I sold that company to Palmetto.

Cody: So between that sale and the pharma equity, I started leveraging my VA loan aggressively. There are some creative ways to use the VA loan—basically hopscotching: get one property, refinance it into a non-VA loan, then use the VA loan again for another property. I did that for rentals, especially in Vegas. I love real assets—things I can touch.

Cody: That first liquidity event let me go harder on rentals. I didn’t really need the cash for day-to-day; I was around 26. So I just plowed it into more real estate and moved on to the new HR tech job in downtown LA.

Cody: That place was startup on steroids. Electric scooters in the office, kegs, full bar, chefs. When I started, we were in an apartment. Then we got a $50M investment and leased multiple floors in a big building. We grew from 500 clients to like 5,000. I went from running all outside HR to just the East Coast as we scaled.

Cody: But after a year, the pain hit. I’d take the first train from Orange County at 4am, and I was supposed to only work East Coast time but somehow always caught the last train home. One morning after vesting, I sat at my desk and thought, “I think I’m going to quit.” I just walked out, went home, and then went to the doctor.

Cody: Doctor told me I had the blood pressure of a 70-year-old man with hypertension. I called the CEO and said, “My man, I can’t come to work anymore. My body feels like it’s falling apart.” I had to walk away. That job would have killed me.

Dan: Was it mostly the job causing the health issues?

Cody: It was the job plus my personal life. I had another wife, and she could spend money faster than I could make it. We had a lot of things—big income, big lifestyle. $20k Maldives vacations. Maldives is nice, but it’s not $20k nice.

Cody: So I was bringing in a lot of money, but we were spending just as fast. My rentals covered themselves, but even money from them got spent. I was high income, low cash in the bank, and constantly stressed that I “should have more than I do.” I was chasing the paycheck, not building real security.

Cody: Add the job stress and the social environment—you’re at this startup where everyone’s young, single, and wants to live at the office and party. I was in my late 20s with military reserve obligations and a wife. Totally different life. The mismatch plus the hours broke me.

Dan: How did all that shape your view of money?

Cody: Huge. A guest on my podcast once asked, “What’s your earliest memory of money?” It hit me hard. Mine was the school book fair. You remember when the book fair came to school? I remember never having any money. My mom didn’t have anything to give us. I couldn’t buy even one book. That stuck with me.

Cody: It baked in this belief that “there’s never enough.” Early on, I became obsessed with having money, keeping money. Not even investing—just hoarding. Then I married someone whose default mode was spending, and that pushed me in the opposite direction—our money was constantly flying out the window. That friction was a big factor in that relationship ending.

Cody: Even during that phase, in my head money equaled safety. I always wanted a couple years of income in reserves. But in reality, we had nothing in reserves; every month the paycheck came in and got devoured. The rentals were the only disciplined piece. Now as a dad, I’m huge on reserves. I’m still risky and aggressive when I invest, but always from a stable base.

Dan: Fast forward to today. You’re a founder, a father, an investor. How do you think about growing wealth now?

Cody: I think in time horizons: short, mid, long term.

Cody: Long-term: real estate and my company. Rentals are long-term. Telehelping is long-term. At Telehelping we also do strategic private equity—investing in some of our clients’ businesses. We’ve put money into legal, accounting, and AI startups that also use our VAs. I see those as long-term bets.

Cody: Mid-term: things I plan to liquidate in 5–10 years. For example, bourbon holdings. Also blue-chip artwork. I own fractional shares of some really nice Picassos through an LLC. I don’t plan to hold that forever—just long enough for a good gain.

Cody: Short-term: equities trading. From my CEO exit, I took half and opened an equities company with my former CMO. We day trade indices and equities every day. I’ve literally got one screen up right now watching the market go sideways. It’s definitely the riskiest, but it also generates the highest daily returns when done right. And it sits on top of a stable foundation—if it goes to zero, my life is still okay.

Dan: Love the structure. Let’s dive into Telehelping: why you started it and what you actually do for clients.

Cody: Telehelping’s roots go back to my previous healthcare company. I was CEO of Octiva, a healthcare company focused on chronically ill patients. We had about 40 nurses in the Philippines, all Spanish speakers, and we were paying a lot for them.

Cody: I realized we could hire Spanish speakers in Mexico for about 40% less, and they’re native speakers. So my now-wife and I started Telehelping in Mexico to transition nursing roles from the Philippines to Mexico. It wasn’t about profit—just freeing up cash flow for the main healthcare business.

Cody: That healthcare company had a seven-person board. Half the board loved me, half hated me. I’m a bit of a cowboy, which is fine when you own the whole company but tough when you’re reporting to a bunch of 60–70-year-old PE/VC healthcare veterans.

Cody: When I decided to leave, we went through heavy due diligence to separate everything I’d been involved in. Telehelping came up because as CEO I had helped create a related company that serviced my own company. Even though I had no personal financial benefit from it at first, they argued it wasn’t at arm’s length. It became a sticking point in my exit.

Cody: Long story short, my contract promised me a massive payday. But between me breaking the contract (resigning early) and the Telehelping conflict angle, they negotiated that down. We landed on a smaller, but still substantial, seven-figure payout. We also did some tax planning (83(b)-style elections) to avoid getting hammered by short-term capital gains as much as possible.

Cody: I took that money, set up the trust we talked about, invested in real estate and the equities company, and then took over Telehelping fully. Over time, we shifted Telehelping away from just healthcare into legal, accounting, finance, and other professional services. We followed demand—wealth advisors, their back offices, preferred partner relationships, and so on.

Dan: What challenges do your customers bring you, and how do you solve them?

Cody: At first, my model was: “You want a VA? Great. What do you want them to do?” You’d say “marketing,” we’d go hire a marketing VA, and then they were yours. We’d handle payroll, compliance, legal protection, healthcare, etc., but we basically just matched and got out of the way.

Cody: We learned quickly that doesn’t work well. When has anything thrived without someone putting love into it? Clients didn’t know how to manage remote staff. VAs didn’t always know how to be great virtual employees. If you’ve never managed someone abroad, it’s a different skill set.

Cody: So we shifted. Now we see ourselves as “acclimation consultants.” We spend a huge amount of time teaching VAs how to work remotely for U.S. companies and teaching founders and teams how to onboard, delegate, and train effectively.

Cody: A common example: a solo wealth manager who’s done everything themselves and finally wants to hire their first marketing assistant. They say, “What do I tell them to do? How do I tell them?” We used to think, “You just tell them!” But of course that’s not intuitive if you’ve never led a remote team. So we step in, help design processes, and support both sides.

Dan: Before we shift to learning more about you personally, tell us about your podcast.

Cody: The podcast is really an extension of what we just talked about. We realized our team didn’t truly know our clients. They knew, “Dan is in wealth management, client #475,” but not who you are, what you care about, how you think.

Cody: We started doing internal interviews with clients, recording conversations, and sharing them with the team. That evolved into inviting non-clients too. Now we’re 70+ episodes in, with a strong following.

Cody: The purpose is still the same: understand entrepreneurs as humans. You’re a dad, a husband, a person first, even when the business is on fire. Sometimes those roles complement each other, sometimes they clash. We explore all of that on the show.

Dan: Love it. All right, time for the lightning round. We don’t tell guests about this ahead of time because we want it raw. I’ll ask a question, you give the first thing that comes to mind—one word or a longer thought. Ready?

Cody: Let’s go.

Dan: Coffee or tea?

Cody: Coffee.

Dan: One meal for the rest of your life—what is it?

Cody: Burger.

Dan: What’s one tool or piece of tech—hardware or software, not your phone or computer—you can’t live without?

Cody: Guns. I love guns. Gotta have a gun.

Dan: Do you have a favorite quote about money or success?

Cody: Albert Einstein: “Don’t be limited by what other people have said or done.”

Dan: Favorite book on business or success?

Cody: The Checklist Manifesto.

Dan: Personal hack?

Cody: Just get over it. Whatever it is—get over it and move.

Dan: One bucket-list item you’ve already accomplished?

Cody: Being a millionaire—liquid. It took a while for that to feel real. I can’t tell you how many times I logged in, hit refresh, logged out, logged back in, just to make sure the number was still there.

Dan: One challenge you’ve faced that really shaped how you do business?

Cody: Being obsessed with growth. I used to constantly live in disappointment because my expectations were so far beyond what was realistically achievable in the time frames I wanted.

Cody: Now I focus much more on impact—whose lives we’re affecting, both remote workers and client companies—instead of just growth charts. Telehelping is a slow-growing company overall, with some big spikes, and I’m okay with that because the impact is real.

Dan: One financial milestone you’re still working toward?

Cody: Never go broke. My wife asked me on a recent date night, sitting at a beach bar, “Why are we so cheap?” I said, “So that we never go broke.” The couple behind us started laughing. It was just a reflex answer.

Cody: I’ll spend a ton of time researching toys—dirt bikes, electric surfboards, cars—with maybe a 0.01% chance of buying. I could buy them all, but it doesn’t feel responsible. On the other hand, we found a condo in historic Mexico in the same building where we learned she was pregnant. It has a beautiful view. I bought it within days. It’s an appreciating asset and emotionally meaningful. That I’ll move on fast.

Dan: If you could give one piece of advice to your younger self, what would it be?

Cody: Don’t get married so many times, Cody. (laughs)

Cody: But seriously, while I wish I hadn’t gotten married as often—because yeah, it would’ve been nice to keep more of my stuff—those women made me who I am. Those experiences, even the hard ones, shaped me. I appreciate them for that.

Dan: Love it. Last thing: if listeners want to connect, collaborate, or work with you, where should they go?

Cody: LinkedIn is the best—linkedin.com/in/codyhall. My team posts everything there. If you’re not on LinkedIn, you can go to thefacespodcast.com or telehelping.com. But LinkedIn is the easiest way.

Dan: Awesome. Cody, this was great—really unique hearing your story, your money philosophy, entrepreneurship, and life. Thanks again for joining us.

Dan: That’s it for another episode of Making Sense of Your Money. As always, prioritize your version of a rich life. Cheers, everyone.

Resources & Links

FAQs

What is Telehelping?

Telehelping is Cody’s company that provides nearshore virtual assistants and remote staff, primarily from Mexico, to U.S.-based businesses. Beyond staffing, they help clients and VAs acclimate to remote work by teaching effective delegation, training, and communication.

How did Cody use his first big equity payout?

He combined his pharma equity liquidity with proceeds from selling his firearms manufacturing side business and used them to buy rental properties, leveraging his VA loan creatively. Real estate became a foundational long-term wealth piece for him.

What is the “Allen Iverson fund”?

From his CEO exit, Cody put roughly half into a trust that he can’t easily access, managed by a separate firm. It’s designed so he can’t blow it on risky moves—if everything else fails, that pool of money should still be there.

How does Cody think about risk now?

He’s still very comfortable taking risk but insists on a stable foundation first: ample reserves, long-term assets, and protected capital. On top of that, he’s willing to take aggressive bets in things like active trading and private investments.

What’s the main lesson Cody learned about lifestyle creep?

High income doesn’t guarantee wealth. In his second marriage, constant spending—lavish trips, big lifestyle—consumed nearly all income. That stress, combined with brutal work hours, hurt his health and contributed to relationship tension. Now he and his wife intentionally live below their means.

Is this episode providing investment advice?

No. The episode and this summary are for education and storytelling only. Cody’s choices and risk tolerance are unique to him. Anyone considering similar strategies should consult their own financial, legal, and tax professionals.

Disclaimer

The discussion in this episode and on this page is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute personalized financial, investment, tax, legal, or business advice. Past results and experiences described by the guest are not guarantees of future performance. Always consider your own circumstances and consult with qualified professionals before making major financial or business decisions.

Next Steps

Audit your money story. Ask yourself Cody’s question: what’s your earliest memory of money? How is it still shaping the way you save, spend, and invest today?
Map your own time horizons. Break your investments into short, mid, and long term. What belongs in each bucket? Are you taking risk from a stable base or gambling with money you can’t afford to lose?