1069 Grant Cardone: Mastering Money, Persuasive Negotiation & Building a Billionaire Mindset

“Wealthy people don’t spend money, they invest money.”Today’s guest is billionaire, bestselling author, and businessman, Grant Cardone! He owns and operates seven privately held companies, a private equity real estate firm with a multifamily portfolio of assets worth over $2 billion. He has earned the title as Top Crowd-funder in the world by raising over $500 million in equity via social media. He is a New York Times bestselling author of 11 business books, including The 10X Rule, which led to the establishment of the 10X Global Movement and the 10X Growth Conference which is now the largest business and entrepreneur conference in the world. Lewis and Grant sit down to discuss industry secrets, billionaire techniques, and even some behind the scenes stories from Grant's new show, Undercover Billionaire Season 2, where he goes undercover with just $100 in his pockets to find out if he can start a business and grow it up to $1 million in just 90 days! For more go to: www.lewishowes.com/1069Check out Grant’s new show: Undercover Billionaire Season 2The last episode featuring Grant Cardone: www.lewishowes.com/905 Daymond John on How to Close any Deal and Achieve Any Outcome: https://link.chtbl.com/928-podSara Blakely on Writing Your Billion Dollar Story: https://link.chtbl.com/893-pod Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

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

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 1,069 with New York Times bestselling author Grant Cardone. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:31Lewis Howes?

  Carlos Ruiz Zaffron once said, "Making money isn't hard in itself. What's hard is to earn it doing something worth devoting one's life to." And Mahatma Gandhi said, "Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony." Today's guest is a friend and New York Times bestselling author and real estate mogul, Grant Cardone. He operates and owns seven privately held companies, a private equity real estate firm with a multi-family portfolio of assets worth over $2 billion. He has earned the title as a top crowdfunder in the world by raising over $500 million in equity via social media. He's a New York Times bestselling author, 11 different business books, including

• 1:14Lewis Howes?

  The 10 X Rule, which led to the establishment of the 10 X Global Movement and the 10 X Growth Conference, which is now the largest business and entrepreneur conference in the world. I'm always excited to have Grant on my show because every time, something new unlocks for him and something new unlocks for me. And the wisdom he shares is truly inspiring on his journey for his own personal growth and business growth. And he opened up in a big way and even shared some behind the scenes stories from his new show, Undercover Billionaire, Season Two, where Grant goes undercover with just $100 in his pockets to find out if he can start a business and grow it up to $1 million in just 90 days without using his name or any context. It's crazy what he's doing. And in this episode,

• 1:57Lewis Howes?

  we discuss the importance of equity and why you should make it a top priority. The biggest challenges Grant faced while filming Undercover Billionaire, how to get people to buy into your vision consistently, the moment that changed Grant's life. Grant's life and put him on his path to healing drug addiction from his past. The power of negotiation and why most people don't do it right. How to find out what a person's motivation is and how to use it for good. What it says about you and your business if you start resenting your customers. How to build wealth and stay happy and so much more. This one's a powerful one. Make sure you share it with someone you think would be inspired by this by sending them the link LewisHowes.com/1069. Or you can simply copy and paste wherever you're listening to this on the podcast app you're at

• 2:41Lewis Howes?

  and share it over on social media. Make sure to tag me and Grant and share it with your friends that would be inspired. And of course, if this is your first time here, click the subscribe button right now on Apple Podcasts. If you want us to reach more people in the world and help more people improve their life, when you subscribe, when you leave a review, that helps us spread the message of greatness to more people. So again, click that subscribe button and in a moment, we bring you the one and only Grant Cardone.

• 3:09Lewis Howes?

  Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness Podcast. Very excited about our guest, my good friend, the man Grant Cardone, back in the house for probably the third or fourth time. Grant, welcome back to the show, my man.

• 3:19Grant Cardone?

  Lewis, you know what? I always love being with you because I'm always different every time I get here and so are you. So you're getting better and I'm just getting different. I hope I'm getting a little better.

• 3:30Lewis Howes?

  We're always a new person. We're always reinventing ourselves. You know, it's every nine to 12 to 15 months, we do a conversation here and it's fun to see you, you know, from the first interview a few years ago on this type of format. I think you're at 90 million in assets. Now you're, I believe, over 2 billion in assets within the last four years.

• 3:50Grant Cardone?

  Yeah.

• 3:50Lewis Howes?

  So it's been, it's been inspiring to see your trajectory and growth. I think you're the, uh, the, the biggest crowdfunder in the world with raising over 500 million in equity of your social media. Is that still true?

• 4:03Grant Cardone?

  Uh, I don't know anybody that's done that much with, with, with no ads, no influencers, direct to, to retail investors and like yourself and, and, um,

• 4:15Grant Cardone?

  Yeah, it's pretty, pretty, pretty, uh, pretty good deal.

• 4:17Lewis Howes?

  It's pretty big, man.

• 4:18Grant Cardone?

  Yeah.

• 4:18Lewis Howes?

  It's pretty big. I wanted to dive in. You, you've done some amazing stuff, especially in the last year with this show called Undercover Billionaire. Before I talk about the show, I want to give some people some nuggets and, and ask you, what are, what are three things that you believe rich people do differently than poor people?

• 4:36Grant Cardone?

  Uh, rich people do not value money the way poor people do. They, they, they, they invest money. They don't spend it. You know, the best, the best spending is still worse than the best, the, the, the worst investment. Like you could make a bad investment that would still be better than a smart spend.

• 4:54Lewis Howes?

  Really? So what, what's a, what's a smart spend? What's a smart spend versus a bad?

• 4:58Grant Cardone?

  I mean, I don't really know anything that's a smart spend, but you know, you spend money, when you spend money, you, you don't get an investment back. And when you invest money, at least you got a possibility. I mean, at the very, at the very least, you get a tax write-off. So if I spend money on a belt, um, I can't write it off. I can only wear it. And if I invest money in a Grant Cardone belt, and wear it on stage and it flops as a product and nobody ever buys it, it's at least a write-off. It was at least a promotion. So a bad investment is still better than a smart spend. So, uh, wealthy people don't spend money. They invest money. Uh, number two, they also know that money, money is not required.

• 5:41Grant Cardone?

  I, I think a lot of us, if we grew up poor, we believe it takes money to make money. Our parents told us that. Uh, maybe a grandparent or the neighbor or somebody said that to us because that was their, how they justified not having their breakthrough. And getting trapped. They're like, oh, the reason I didn't get out. And we, we know, we know everybody's got an excuse in their lifetime. Everybody uses them at some point in their lifetime to trap themselves. Uh, this idea that it takes money to make money is not true. It's a myth. It's, it's, it's the number one reason why I did the show, the Discovery Show, to debunk that on TV,

• 6:20Grant Cardone?

  that I didn't need any money at all. Uh, they, they offered me a hundred bucks. I'm like, just keep it, dude. Like, no, no, we gotta give it to you. It's part of the show. And I'm like, I don't need the hundred. They're like, no, but you gotta take the hundred as part of the show. So, uh, the third thing I would say about wealthy people is their. I mean, different people have different ways they invest, but they tend to be more focused on the long-term appreciation of an asset rather than "give me money this second." And I think they're not stuck in this "get rich quick" thing.

• 6:52Lewis Howes?

  It's a delayed gratification.

• 6:54Grant Cardone?

  Yeah, they're more like, "Yeah, I'd rather have wealth tomorrow than rich today." And they do have a distinction between the rich and the wealthy. You know, the super wealthy are looking to create wealth beyond their own means and needs. Like, they're not thinking about their kids, their boat, their plane. I know people think that, but that's not actually true. They're actually thinking about, "How do I create wealth for a lot of people?" Amazon's got a million employees. Now, most of them only earn minimum wage, but there's some people at the upper level of Amazon that are making fortunes.

• 7:28Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, and I'm curious. You wanted to debunk this myth of that it takes money to make money, which is something I heard a lot growing up. And a lot of people think, "Well, unless I can't make it because I can't invest it until I have it." So what were the lessons you learned, you know, starting from essentially zero, having no money, no contacts, no relationships, no opportunities in a town that you went to for this show? What did you realize were the keys to actually making money, even if you didn't have any?

• 7:58Grant Cardone?

  Well, as you see the show, you see that I actually never make any money, right? So the two girls, they actually, they followed three of us. And the two girls went out and got a job in the first week. And I'm not saying that's right or wrong, or my way's better or worse. But they are strategies, okay? They're different strategies. I was not there to get a job or to earn money. I was there looking for one thing: opportunity. I never spent time looking for money, ever, the entire 90 days, okay? I'm not looking for money. I was actually looking for contracts through the contacts. I wasn't looking for money because I knew the evaluation of the company in the last segment.

• 8:42Grant Cardone?

  An evaluator will come in and determine what my company's worth, my new company, right, that I created. And at that point, I just need to validate to him. Dude, my company's worth this based on that. Louis, the entire 90 days, I never touched the first hundred they gave me. And this was to prove to people, dude, you do not need money. Like, it's just, it's not true you need money. You do need contacts.

• 9:06Lewis Howes?

  You need people. You need relationships.

• 9:07Grant Cardone?

  You need people. You need the right people, though. The right people that are already in play. Okay, just because a guy's got money. I remember a billionaire friend of mine, you know, he could buy a jet. And I said, "Hey, Bob, should I buy a jet?" He said, "You should. I shouldn't." Meaning, Grant should, because, and he's way wealthier than I am. He could have bought 40 of them. He's like, "I don't have a place to go on mine. You have a, you could use yours every day." So you gotta find somebody that's in play, somebody that not just has money, but somebody that wants to do more with their money. So you'll notice in the first 10 days, I don't spend any money. I don't spend money on shelter, not on food, and not on water.

• 9:49Grant Cardone?

  Nothing. Then what I do is I end up accumulating assets. And it's unfortunate that the viewer doesn't see this. Within five days, I have two vehicles. One was given to me by Discovery, and the other one was a $40,000 Jeep that I basically used from Ryan, this guy I met, and told him, "I'm gonna sell your Jeep. I'm gonna drive it around town and put 10 miles a day on it, and I'm gonna sell it." Well, that's a $43,000 asset. My truck was worth four grand. I still had my hundred dollars. I lived in a $46,000 RV that I was trying to sell. So, and what's the other thing I did? And I picked up $10,000 to do, in a 15% partnership,

• 10:34Grant Cardone?

  in the equity of the upside of this guy's company. So literally in 10 days, I was accumulating contacts that could get me equity. And the part of that story is, man, go get you some equity. You know, Jay-Z talks about this. You're getting, you know, so many of you young brothers are getting an advance while I'm picking up the equity.

• 10:55Lewis Howes?

  Oh, yeah, they're trying to get the get rich quick. Let me give you the money now. Where the publisher is getting the long-term residual income for decades off of your work.

• 11:06Grant Cardone?

  Kevin Hart, look at what Kevin Hart did with this with this show, right? He owns that show. He owns the ticket sales. He was willing to promote it, not just be a comedian where Richard Pryor showed up and got his check, told his jokes. Kevin Hart says, yeah, I'm gonna show up, I'm gonna tell my jokes, but I'm gonna own, I'm gonna own the entire platform, the equity.

• 11:27Lewis Howes?

  So how do you get someone to give you $10,000 when you have nothing to give them a return? Or what is it that you're selling them a greater promise in return?

• 11:35Grant Cardone?

  So what I did was I pitched this guy. I said, look, he's a business owner. He wants traffic in his company. Every, every business owner wants traffic. Every entrepreneur wants traffic to their website. And I said, look, I'm gonna drive traffic to your store. He owned a mattress store, big margins. And I said, I'm gonna, I'm gonna make sure you have the biggest weekend that you've ever been here. And I said, if you give me $6,000, I'll take the six grand to the store. In fact, you don't give me the money, just call it in and approve it. I didn't want to touch his money. I never asked anybody for any money. And I said, I'm gonna go run a promotion for you. I'm gonna put together the banners, the logos. I'm gonna stand out in the street.

• 12:20Grant Cardone?

  I'm gonna drive the traffic to your place. What do you want, Grant, uh, Louis? What do you want, Louis? I did that more than once, by the way. What do you want, Louis?

• 12:28Lewis Howes?

  You did?

• 12:28Grant Cardone?

  Cause my name was Louis, right?

• 12:30Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 12:30Grant Cardone?

  And I said, dude, I don't want anything. He tried to give me money to do this. I don't want your money. I just want the opportunity. I want to prove myself. Cause what I really wanted from him was I wanted him to front the bill at the print shop. So that he could put me in play. Well, I went and ran the whole promotion that weekend. I said, if you, if you send them, if you just authorize the spend, I'll conduct the promo. I'll run it and do it. We did $91,000 worth of mattress sales. We did $15,000 that weekend and then another $65,000 over the, the next three weeks. And he's like, dude, you're a star. Now, now, he's like, hey, what do you want for what you did for me this weekend?

• 13:15Grant Cardone?

  That was the best weekend we've ever had. And I'm like, I don't want anything except to be your partner.

• 13:20Lewis Howes?

  So, so you wanted equity?

• 13:22Grant Cardone?

  I want to be your partner, dude. And I said, I want 15% of the upside of your company. I said, what's fair? He's like, 15%. Everything above what I'm doing now, I'll give you 15%. He, he's the one that made the offer. I said, that's awesome. And then that's when I said, hey, can you give me an advance of 10,000 on the 15%? People think that I asked for 10 grand. I actually didn't get 10,000. I got an advance on a partnership, which is even better.

• 13:47Lewis Howes?

  That's fascinating. So you never really, you never asked for money. You said, give me equity with everything?

• 13:51Grant Cardone?

  Give me equity. And then, once I got the equity agreement on the upside, uh, most people are willing to give you this.

• 13:58Lewis Howes?

  Because it's more than they've already made. They're already making a certain amount. They've never crossed past that probably in years. So they're like, okay, if you can help me 10x it, I'll give you 15%.

• 14:06Grant Cardone?

  I don't want a piece of what you're already doing. That's not fair. That's an unfair deal. I mean, you know, people are like, I need to ask for more. Yeah, but you don't want to ask and be, look stupid. Like, you can't ask somebody to give you something of a company they already have. Also, it's interesting because they, again, they didn't show this. And I look forward to kind of breaking this thing down. We're gonna actually, I'm gonna create a whole platform where I go in and break the show up and show people what they didn't see. When I left Vegas to fly to Pueblo, uh, the production company said, hey, what's your first move? First move, I'm going to the bank to drop off the 100. Second thing, I'm going to the gym to meet people. Third thing is, I'm gonna find a business for sale. And I'm gonna see if the guy that owns the company can give me a place to sleep. Those three things happened exactly the way I predicted

• 14:52Grant Cardone?

  before I got to Pueblo, before I even knew I was going to Pueblo. I mean, it happened just every one of them. And then Discovery came to me at four days and said, bro, you gotta slow down. I said, what do you mean? We don't have a TV show if you keep winning.

• 15:06Lewis Howes?

  Right. If you, if you make it happen in two weeks, what are we gonna do?

• 15:09Grant Cardone?

  I'm like, okay, come out here and watch me throw up. Okay, come, come out here and watch. I'm sick. I was sick from altitude sickness. I'm like, what, what, you guys gotta cover how hard this is for me? I'm terrified. I'm cold. My back hurts. I don't have a good place to sleep. I'm pissing in a bottle. And then they cut all that out of the show. So, so, um, the point of that story is quit going for some dead Benjamins and start getting you some equity. Okay? Hundred dollar bills are dead. They're from the past.

• 15:39Grant Cardone?

  Equity is the future. You're better off with a future if you believe in yourself than you are with a dead Benjamin.

• 15:47Lewis Howes?

  What are some things people should be looking for in terms of the right people or the right products or companies to say, okay, and how to position and package themselves to make a partnership equity deal? What should they be looking for and how can they position and package the way you did?

• 16:04Grant Cardone?

  Yeah, so like in Pueblo, there's 112,000 people that live there. The average household income there is $24,000 a year. Household income. Like, it's one of the most beat up, economically beat up cities in America. They were at 8% unemployment when the country was at 3. When COVID hit, it went to 22.

• 16:25Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 16:26Grant Cardone?

  Like, just ridiculous, right? So, now, when I'm in a problem environment like that, you have to do the math. So, I'm like, okay, there's 112,000 people there. I can't meet them all, and I don't want to meet them all. I only have 90 days. So then I said, okay, who's got the money in this town? The businesses have the money in the town. This is the unfair advantage I have in this show, is that I did not go there to start a new business. I went there to find a business that was already banking. A lot of people think I started...

• 16:57Lewis Howes?

  Did you have that intention before?

• 16:58Grant Cardone?

  100%. I said, there's no way I'm gonna start a new business. There's 34 million businesses in America. America does not need a new business.

• 17:07Lewis Howes?

  And it's so hard to launch and create momentum, especially if you don't, even with your audience, it's hard to launch a new business.

• 17:14Grant Cardone?

  It is so ridiculous. It is so stupid what people are doing today. I'm gonna start a new beauty salon. I'm gonna start a new masseuse place. I'm gonna start a new cosmetologist's house. I'm gonna start a new... You got a new idea, nobody needs it. Like, if you were an alien looking down at the United States of America and saying, okay, what is there too much of? Restaurants, bars, and businesses. There's too many of them. And then, and then somebody, some kid pops up, Paul pops up and says, I'm gonna start a new business. And, and the guy from outside the planet is looking down there saying, well, that's stupid. Why don't you just go, two thirds of all the businesses in America break even or lose money?

• 17:53Lewis Howes?

  So what I'm hearing you say, Grant, is a lot of people have the dream of wanting to start and launch a business. But what I'm hearing you say is, it's probably a lot smarter to go find a failing business, or a business that's breaking even, jump in, add value, and see if you can 10x that.

• 18:08Grant Cardone?

  Dude, that's, that's how you get on planes. That's how you, you know, you go to the hospital. You need emergency care. You don't build a hospital. You just go to the hospital. You want food, you go to Whole Foods. You want gas, you go to the gas station. It's no different in business. It's called a going concern for a reason. Find a going concern that's got a brand. Go in, that's what I did. I just went in and added value. Once I added value, actually, we end up splitting off another business out of that. So, so out of that relationship, your, your first question was, hey, who are you looking for? I'm looking for contacts that can actually become contracts. I'm looking for specific relationships. They have to have money. They have to have credibility.

• 18:53Grant Cardone?

  They have to have credit lines. That's the only people I was looking for in Pueblo. Out of 112,000 people, are there 50 of them? I need to be 50 people that have money, credit, and credibility.

• 19:05Lewis Howes?

  How did you feel, uh, cause I saw in, you know, the first episode that you got rejected a few times. How did you feel from someone who is getting yeses a lot and building their business so fast, to go into a place where people just say, nah, I don't believe in you, or eh, you don't seem credible? Or how did you take it in security wise internally?

• 19:26Grant Cardone?

  Well, what, what, again, pieces you don't hear is I was in this meeting and this guy starts flexing on me. And he literally like I had to sit there and, and, and listen to his, well, I did thirty, I raised thirty million dollars and I bought all this and I put this together and I'm the king and la, la, la. And I'm sitting there thinking to myself, dude, I'd like to just draw, I'd like, you want to see a flex right now? You know, the same day I had written a check for like forty-five million dollars and I'm, I'm having to bite my tongue. Like, he doesn't know I could be his investor. By the way, there was a great lesson in that. Like, I was nobody. Shaved head, old truck, no name, no social media following. And this

• 20:09Grant Cardone?

  guy treated me just like that. Like I'm a nobody.

• 20:13Lewis Howes?

  And you never know who you're talking to or who they're friends with or who their family is that could support you potentially.

• 20:20Grant Cardone?

  Totally. Like, the same day this guy's flexing on me about how he raised thirty million and he's the king of Pueblo and blah, blah, blah. I mean, like, what I had in my checking account that day is Grant Cardone. I, I just wanted to pop it out on him.

• 20:38Lewis Howes?

  Like my baby cat.

• 20:39Grant Cardone?

  Shut up, dog. Treat everybody like, you, you, you never know who you're dealing with. You, you know, and, and just because they're, they're having a bad day. You, you, one, you don't know who you're dealing with and you, and number two, more importantly, you don't know who they're going to become.

• 20:53Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. Yeah, they may not have money yet, but in, in ten years, they might have a brand or audience or something that could support you.

• 20:59Grant Cardone?

  Every accredited investor was a non-accredited investor at one time. Every whale was a minnow.

• 21:05Lewis Howes?

  I mean, you've been doing sales for, what, four decades now?

• 21:08Grant Cardone?

  Yeah.

• 21:09Lewis Howes?

  You've been selling from cars to real estate to everything in between, you know, eleven bestselling books. You've been, you've been a selling machine. How did it feel to go in without being able to use any of that? And go back to kind of the basics of like, okay, I'm a brand new car salesman, just trying to figure out how to do this thing. How did you have the confidence or the courage to go in blind and try to build these relationships?

• 21:35Grant Cardone?

  Because I had the commitment. You know, I was committed to the, I was committed to the, the outcome.

• 21:42Grant Cardone?

  I always say, man, commitment comes with time and money.

• 21:45Lewis Howes?

  The thing that you do extremely well is you're a master enroller, Grant. And I believe that we're either enrolling people in our vision, or we're unenrolling them in our vision every moment, every day with our content, our posts, our interactions, and we could be unenrolling people in our brand from one conversation or one thing that we do to piss someone off. Where did you learn the skill of enrollment? Of getting people to buy into you and your vision?

• 22:11Grant Cardone?

  I think what I do is, and I talk about this in Seller Be Sold. I've been a sales guy for a long time, and I just learned early on, and I was terrible at sales, 17 years old, 18, 19, part-time, part-time sales guy. I was awful. When I finally realized that sales was the only job I could get at 25 years old, I'm just like, dude, I just gotta tell people the truth, because I can't do all these tricks.

• 22:35Grant Cardone?

  The NLP, the, and look, if it works for you, good, whatever, but the mirroring, the matching, they ask a question, you ask a question, the hot potato. I've heard all these strategies. And I'm like, dude, I just can't do it. I'm just gonna be me. Hey, guys, I'm moving from LA. I'm out of work. I'm looking for opportunity. I'm trying to move my family here. My name's Louis Curtis. 2008 beat me up. I gotta get my family out of LA. Real estate's impossible. I can't buy it there. It's priced out of the market. And I'm here in Pueblo because I think there's opportunity here, and that's all I'm looking for. No handouts, no help. I don't, I got an old truck with me. I got no money. I left my kids with, you gotta have your story.

• 23:20Grant Cardone?

  So people enroll, but you also have to be talking to the right audience. I only spent time with people that were able, capable, qualified. I spent no time, I was in a meeting once in Pueblo. I walked into the meeting, assessed the situation, and bounced. I said, guys, I'm done, I'm out of here. Boom, and I walked out. And my partner at that time, you'll see it later in the later shows, he's like, what just happened? I'm like, there's nothing here, bro.

• 23:47Lewis Howes?

  There's no money here.

• 23:48Grant Cardone?

  There's no, there's no opportunity here. And I'm on a clock. I couldn't tell him I'm on a clock. I couldn't tell, I couldn't tell anybody. So I had these little secrets going on. So, you know, how do you enroll people? It's like, you gotta get enrolled. You know, my, my, my personal integrity and ethics is why I can sell so hard.

• 24:08Grant Cardone?

  Because I believe in my product, I believe in my investment vehicle, I believe in my company. I don't trick people, screw people. Like 35 years I've been in business, there's not one person in 35 years that says I owe them money. There's people that try to get stuff from me using lawyers and bullshit, but there's nobody that can say I ever financially damaged them in any way, not a penny. And so that allows me to go back into the world and push. It allows me to sell tickets for big prices. You know, when I spent $7 million to rent Mandalay Bay, dude, I can sell anybody a $20,000 ticket. Like I spent, you know, somebody complained about my ticket price, I'm like, dude, like I spent $7 million on this event, you spent 20 grand? Who got the best deal?

• 24:52Lewis Howes?

  How did you learn to have courage in yourself when you were, you know, doing drugs and, you know, I think you're an alcoholic, I think in the past when you were a teenager, maybe not a full-on alcoholic.

• 25:03Grant Cardone?

  No, it's a drug problem. It wasn't an alcohol problem, it was a drug.

• 25:06Lewis Howes?

  Drugs and just, you know, kind of a deadbeat for off and off many years. How did you learn to kind of build confidence though? So that you could be inspired in yourself to push bigger, to ask for more? How did you do that?

• 25:22Grant Cardone?

  Well, first I quit using drugs. I mean, the order, everybody wants to get better and have confidence, but the first thing you gotta do is you gotta quit doing whatever's destroying your, destroying your self-esteem, you know? I'd like to believe that I could look in the mirror and tell myself I'm great and then I'd feel it, but if you're destroying yourself the other 23 hours and 56 minutes, the self-talk isn't gonna matter. So I had to quit doing damage to myself. I hated myself. The worst part of my drug addiction was how, it wasn't just what the drugs were doing to me and the hangovers and the lost time and it was the personal.

• 26:05Grant Cardone?

  Personal deprivation and degrade that I was doing to myself. And how many times I tried to quit. I would, Louis, every morning for 10 years, I said, today's the last day. I'm never going to use again. 15 minutes.

• 26:20Lewis Howes?

  10 years?

• 26:21Grant Cardone?

  10 years, nine years and nine years and like six months.

• 26:24Lewis Howes?

  So what was the deciding factor that actually made you quit?

• 26:27Grant Cardone?

  I finally went, you know, I had to go some, someplace. I had to change my environment. So I went to a treatment center in Minneapolis during the winter time. Late, late February, I was 25 years old and spent 28 days there in an environment where nobody had drugs. I didn't have access to drugs and people were starting to talk about, okay, how, how'd you get here? They ended up putting me on drugs in the treatment center. And I'm like, I don't want the drugs, dude. And they're like, oh, no, you needed to detox to get off. I'm like, this, this was 30 years ago. Like they've really ramped that program up now. It's the legal, legal drug dealer now is the treatment center.

• 27:09Grant Cardone?

  But, but the environment gave me at least, I was able to look around and see the damage drugs were causing these other people, men and women of all ages. And then that really solidified, okay, I'm stopping. But I needed, I needed a day, one day not to use drugs because I hadn't been using drugs every day for nine years, nine and a half years.

• 27:27Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 27:28Grant Cardone?

  And so I needed the first day. Once I got the first day, I'm like, shit, I can put together two days. Then my head started clearing up a little bit. 28 days later, I go home to Lake Charles, Louisiana, and that's when the rebuilding really took place. And, and I had to replace all that drug time, which was a bunch of hours every day. This is what made me the beast, like the savage that I am today.

• 27:48Lewis Howes?

  You had to put that time to good use.

• 27:51Grant Cardone?

  Dude, I had so much free time.

• 27:52Lewis Howes?

  Right, not being high, not doing drugs with, not being with the friends that are doing the drugs.

• 27:59Grant Cardone?

  Looking for drugs, finding drugs, losing drugs, like you lose them.

• 28:03Lewis Howes?

  Hiding the drugs.

• 28:04Grant Cardone?

  Yeah. Find them, buy them, lying to people, hiding from people. Uh, you know, it was terrible. It was terrible. I did that for nine and a half years. It was awful. It's the worst part of my life. It's the darkest, worst part of my life. And so I had to crawl out and then I replaced, literally, when I was 25 years old, I started every day with a meeting and I ended every day with a meeting. I'd go to a Narcotics Anonymous meeting or some kind of 12-step program for, I'll bet you I did that for 15 or 16 years.

• 28:37Lewis Howes?

  So you were all in committed, I'm going to a meeting in the morning and at night?

• 28:41Grant Cardone?

  I'm either, I'm going there to help myself and I'm gonna help somebody else every day.

• 28:44Lewis Howes?

  Wow, 15 years.

• 28:46Grant Cardone?

  Yeah, and then, and then that was my form of helping people. I'm like, I'm gonna help other people that have this problem. That really kept me from going back. And then in the meantime, when I wasn't at a meeting, I was studying sales for the first five. When I got out of the treatment center between 25 and 30 years old, all I did every day was study sales, do sales, or I was in a meeting.

• 29:08Lewis Howes?

  That's impressive.

• 29:10Grant Cardone?

  I would drive 25 minutes to work and I would listen to sales tapes. I listened to this one set of sales tapes I had. And I would learn how to, how to, I would learn the game, like, I would learn how to talk to people, communicate. And it was really communication skills, it wasn't so much sales. It was more logic, how to make sense of a purchase or an investment.

• 29:30Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 29:31Grant Cardone?

  And then at lunch, sometimes at lunch I'd go to a meeting.

• 29:33Lewis Howes?

  What was the, in those early tapes, is there anything you remember that you still use today that, that seems to work consistently on the science or secretive selling that, that's very simple maybe for someone to do, but maybe they just don't have the courage or confidence in the reps to do it?

• 29:49Grant Cardone?

  What, what happened the first, when I really started learning from the, in the beginning, what, what you learn is, you're learning from the master. You know, and, and so I'm, I'm duplicating and emulating, then at some point you cross over and you become the master.

• 30:05Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 30:06Grant Cardone?

  And, and if, if you're a guy like me, I'm always looking to improve everything, I'm looking for another little tweak, another little twist, you and I did that with the podcast, I'm looking for that, that next thing all the time, how to make something just a little better, a little faster. And so at some point, I kept studying this guy until I was able, in the beginning I didn't challenge anything, I used. I duplicated.

• 30:31Lewis Howes?

  Let me solve the script that I learned. Let me use exactly what he's telling me to do. Do it.

• 30:36Grant Cardone?

  Whatever I heard, I'm gonna be like, I'm gonna make that work. That's gonna be my stable datum. And once I could trust that, then I could build on top of it. I never yebudded anything. I got a better way in the beginning. Dude, until I got the results, over and over, consistent results. Then I started teaching it to other people. Then I started learning angles. And then I basically created my own style and my own. I actually almost threw away what I had learned and created this new thing called information assisted selling.

• 31:09Lewis Howes?

  Information assisted selling.

• 31:11Grant Cardone?

  Where I started leading with what people wanted, rather than. This guy kinda hid. It was the old school, hide it. Avoid the price, bring it up later. And that's where I really started accelerating everything, giving people the information upfront, allowing you to understand how much this watch or ring was, or car was. Before you even asked about it, I'd tell you it's 58,000.

• 31:34Lewis Howes?

  Right away. So you wouldn't wait till the very end, you'd say, here's everything.

• 31:37Grant Cardone?

  Look, if you're shopping for a car, or a watch, or a ring, or a coaching program, whatever it is. You probably wanna know how much it is. I know I would. This particular product's 58,000. It would require about, you know, $2,500 down. Your payments would be about 550 a month. Let's be sure you're on the right product. You see, I've already, I got the value proposition, the money. I got you thinking about money right now. I want you thinking about money. So that when I show the product, you can start making sense of it. Cause I can't convince you that it's worth it. You have to convince you. Okay, I can build value, but you, the buyer is the buyer. I can't be the buyer.

• 32:21Grant Cardone?

  I can only help the buyer make sense of it.

• 32:23Lewis Howes?

  Is there a certain amount of steps in this selling system that you have?

• 32:27Grant Cardone?

  Uh, yeah, it's like, like, like, like, tell them what your intention are. My intention is to get you to be, to be of service to you, to do business with you. Okay?

• 32:37Lewis Howes?

  So right up front, if I'm, if I'm looking to buy real estate.

• 32:42Grant Cardone?

  I'm doing a, let's say I'm doing a, I'm doing a webinar and it's a coaching class because you and I are in that space.

• 32:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 32:48Grant Cardone?

  You, you've heard me many times. Open the event with, hey, my intention is to get all of you to be my customer tonight. We have a $1,900 program or $9,000 program. We're going to offer it to you tonight for $9.97. It's sitting over there at a website right now. If you want to go click it, get it. But my intention is to make every one of you a customer tonight. The most you can spend with me is $9.97 tonight. Okay. Or you spend nothing at all. And then what I'm going to do is spend the next three days or three hours or 30 minutes talking about this program. Hmm. But I let everybody know right from the get-go. Now Russell, Russell does it different. You know, he's going to wait till the end.

• 33:30Lewis Howes?

  So that's step one is be clear with your intention about.

• 33:33Grant Cardone?

  What's my intention? Okay. Second is, what do I have to offer? Three, I need to qualify the lead. Is the lead even qualified to do anything with me? Otherwise I need to bounce.

• 33:43Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 33:44Grant Cardone?

  I need to bounce.

• 33:44Lewis Howes?

  Do you tell, do you tell people, hey, just go ahead and get off this training right now if you're, if your intention is not to be a customer or do you allow them to kind of?

• 33:54Grant Cardone?

  No, you can, you can, you can listen if you want to. You can keep listening if you want to. You know, you can watch for free if you choose to. But let's say I'm selling a guy a watch. I mean, I'm going to tell him it's $58,000. We do have a payment plan. Payments could be as low as 300 bucks a month. Um, but let me ask you a question. Have you ever bought a $58,000 watch? No, what kind of watch do you have? I got a Seiko, great, how much was it? $200, right. Now he's telling me, hey, maybe move him into some different inventory. I might be on the wrong product.

• 34:26Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm. Okay, so that's step three, I think you said.

• 34:29Grant Cardone?

  Yeah, and then it's gonna be, I'm gonna explain my product. Be sure it fits his needs, okay? And then I'm gonna trial close him and say, hey, come on inside. Let's, let's make this work. Let me make you a customer. Let me get you a watch. Let me get you a car. Let me get you a coaching program. Let me get you started and then I'm gonna close the deal.

• 34:47Lewis Howes?

  You say trial close, is that what you said?

• 34:48Grant Cardone?

  Yeah, I'm gonna test it. I'm gonna try to move that, I'm gonna try to move the buyer. Hey, go to, go to the table, right? For those of you who are ready, go to the table.

• 34:57Lewis Howes?

  Go to the checkout page. Go to the checkout page.

• 34:59Grant Cardone?

  Go to the landing page, right? And then hopefully I'll close the deal. And then, and then I'm moving to follow up. So it's, it's, it's not really a sales process. It's really a customer experience.

• 35:10Lewis Howes?

  And what have you learned about? You've done so many massive deals over the last three or four years in real estate. What have you learned about negotiations? And, and the power of negotiating to get exactly what you want in these bigger, you know, mega multimillion dollar deals that you're doing?

• 35:30Grant Cardone?

  It's, uh, it gets pretty intense, man, like.

• 35:32Lewis Howes?

  The negotiation process?

• 35:34Grant Cardone?

  Oh, yeah. Massive egos, like you got a lot of people involved. You got very intelligent people involved. Everybody's got money. You know, it's like the whale and the great, the great, the, the, the great white and the killer whales there and the humpbacks there and dude, it's a feeding frenzy like, like, you know, everybody's got bulk, everybody's got muscle, everybody's got power, everybody's got money and, and you know, it's, uh, but you know.

• 36:06Lewis Howes?

  What have you learned about the art of negotiation during, you know, these bigger deals for yourself, how to navigate those?

• 36:13Grant Cardone?

  You know, most of these deals are lost over face. They're not even lost over money. They're lost over somebody losing face. I'm doing a deal right now.

• 36:20Lewis Howes?

  You mean ego or mean like, what do you mean?

• 36:23Grant Cardone?

  I, I can't, if I give you anymore, I lose face.

• 36:27Lewis Howes?

  Okay, got you.

• 36:28Grant Cardone?

  So I'm negotiating a deal right now and I said, look, if I give this guy exactly what he wants right now, he still will not do it. And they're like, why is that? Because he's gonna lose face. So it's, it's, it's, people have to win. It's, it's almost never about just the money. It's how do I win? Not just financially, but how do I win and feel good about this transaction? Because I've done transactions before where I supposedly won in the moment, and everybody felt terrible.

• 36:57Lewis Howes?

  So it's not a win unless everyone wins?

• 36:59Grant Cardone?

  Dude, dude, everybody needs to win. Everybody needs to win something. Like, everybody needs to feel like good about the transaction. I'd rather pay a little more, and make sure you feel good, than I pay a little less and you feel bad because I can't do another deal with you now.

• 37:18Grant Cardone?

  And I'm trying to do more deals.

• 37:22Grant Cardone?

  And then everybody's got, everybody's got a motivation. Everyone has a motivation. Every buyer has a motivation. Every seller has a motivation. Most of the time, it has nothing to do with the money. You, you have to find the motivation.

• 37:35Lewis Howes?

  How do you do that quickly for yourself? Are you asking certain questions to figure out what that is? Are you just listening to their, you know, without asking them, what's your motivation? How do you ask them?

• 37:44Grant Cardone?

  I could, I could ask that. Other than money, what, what, you know, why? What do you need? What's your motivation? I could ask them straight up. Asking, asking those kind of direct questions are very powerful.

• 37:57Grant Cardone?

  Hey, why would you pick me as a buyer? There's so many other people that could buy this asset. Like, that's the one I used in the real estate game. These are hundred million dollar projects. Some of which you're invested in. So I'm like, hey, guys, like JP Morgan's trying to buy this, Blackstone's trying to buy this, Grant Cardone's trying to buy this, and two other groups that have more assets than I have. I, I'm the little guy on the list. Why me? Why would you pick me? Well, we probably won't. See, that's me qualifying. You know, we're probably gonna give it to, we're probably gonna give it to the guy that just sold the New York Mets. I just lost a deal to that guy. So there was no number, there was nothing I could have done, no number I could have done that would have gotten that deal.

• 38:42Lewis Howes?

  So what does that do for you when you have that information? Is it just allow you to move on quicker to the next opportunity?

• 38:47Grant Cardone?

  Yeah. Okay, well, I'll keep my, you know, I'll keep my, I stay, in real estate, it's called staying by the board. I'm waiting for a rebound. Maybe he blows, maybe the guy leaves and I'm there waiting for the, waiting for the rebound. I'm just waiting for a ball to fall in my hands, right? And so, so I'll wait, I'll wait until he closes. But, but it lets me know, hey, go add something else. That's that 10x mentality, okay? Don't depend on this one thing. You know, if you're disappointed, if I'm disappointed, it's because I'm relying on too few of things. If I resent my customer, it is because I have too few.

• 39:27Lewis Howes?

  Too few customers.

• 39:29Grant Cardone?

  Yeah, so everybody, the beauty salon, the restaurant, the bar, the bar owner, the consultant, we've all had the experience of resenting our customers, starting not to like them. And it's because we've become dependent upon them. We have too few.

• 39:48Lewis Howes?

  If we're resenting our customer, what is that saying about us? That we're not building our brand, that we're not growing, that we're not selling enough?

• 39:55Grant Cardone?

  Yeah, you didn't go, you didn't, you didn't build the top of your funnel out enough? Because this, this part of it's easy? Even though you hate them, they never pay you enough. This is the kind of stuff that goes on. They don't pay me enough, they always complain, they never use the product, no matter what I do for them, they bitch and complain, okay? They're never happy, blah, blah, blah, right? Well, the truth is, those are indications that you didn't build your, your customer base wide enough? Because you now resent them. Your resentment is an indication that you rely on them too much. And every time they complain to you, it reminds you, shit, I'm too reliant on too little. And, and we've all done it, we all do it, I've done it. Uh, right now, I'm doing it in my real estate.

• 40:39Grant Cardone?

  I told my guy Ryan the other day, I said, we're depending on this one guy too much.

• 40:44Grant Cardone?

  And he's like, why do you say that? Because I'm starting to resent him.

• 40:48Lewis Howes?

  So what's the first thing we should do? What are the, what's the action steps after that? When we resent our customers?

• 40:53Grant Cardone?

  You gotta, you gotta understand, it's not about them, it's about you. It has nothing to do with them. You need to go wide. You need to go get more customers. If you resent Facebook, if you, if, if Facebook pisses you off, it is because you are too reliant on Facebook.

• 41:10Lewis Howes?

  You gotta get other platforms. You gotta build other leads in other places. There's a ton of social media sites don't rely on one.

• 41:16Grant Cardone?

  Exactly. And so for me, resentment is always an indication of something about me.

• 41:22Lewis Howes?

  What happens if you resent a family member? If you resent your kids? You're not gonna say, oh, I'm gonna go find new kids.

• 41:28Grant Cardone?

  Yeah, no, but, but, I don't know. I mean, I don't resent my kids, so, you know.

• 41:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 41:33Grant Cardone?

  I might, maybe I'm doing some stuff with my kids. I don't have that particular issue, but maybe, maybe I'm doing some stuff with my kids that somebody else should be doing. Right? So maybe, you know, I remember when Elena, when we first had Sabrina, I said, Elena, you cannot be with Sabrina every hour of every, of the day. And, and, and I'm like, I don't want that. We need to get a nanny so that you're not resenting

• 41:58Grant Cardone?

  that your entire life, and I know this is hard for women to hear, but no, no woman, no, no, no man or woman should spend all their time with a kid. Like, how can that be entertaining?

• 42:13Grant Cardone?

  Like, I, I love my kids. I don't want to be with them all the time. Never have wanted to be with them all the time. I, I want to be with them more now when they're growing up than I did when they were three months old, like, like, oh, you're so cute, you're so cute, until you're not.

• 42:29Grant Cardone?

  And so, and so, you know, if you're resenting your kids, maybe it's because you are not willing to spend money on a nanny.

• 42:37Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 42:37Grant Cardone?

  Or.

• 42:38Lewis Howes?

  Thinking of new strategies, just like in your business. What's a new strategy to increase your customers, to increase the top of the funnel, to bring people in? Yeah.

• 42:45Grant Cardone?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 42:46Lewis Howes?

  You know, a lot of people will say this, even still today, I know you've talked about this a lot, that uh, that money won't make you happy. Uh, do you think most people with money are happy? People that have above their means, that have an abundance of finances in their bank, that can buy anything, go anywhere at any time. Do you think most of them are happy? And how do you build wealth and stay happy at the same time?

• 43:11Grant Cardone?

  Well, number one is I don't think, you know, money will not make you happy. Like, if you're not happy, you're not happy. So it'll make you jubilant and it'll make you giddy for a second. You know, if I dropped off a hundred million, you know, at your feet right now, uh, it would definitely change your attitude for a bit. But sooner or later, you're coming back. You're, you're coming back to your, your, your happiness level. I've never tried to get money to make me happy, ever. I've never thought, oh, I'm gonna go get X money, this much money, and I'm gonna somehow be happier. I've never, ever, I don't even know where this concept came from, the, the connection between the two. You know, I go to the gym, I think I'm gonna build muscle. I go to the water fountain, I think I'm gonna quench a thirst.

• 43:55Grant Cardone?

  I go to a football game, I think I'm gonna be entertained. I get money, I never think about, okay, I'm gonna get 10 million bucks and I'm gonna suddenly be happy.

• 44:06Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 44:06Grant Cardone?

  Now, I never, I never even think about it like that. I'm gonna get 10 million, and then I'm gonna invest it, and I'm gonna pick up 30 million on the next swing, and I'm gonna take 30 million and convert that to 90 million, and I'm gonna take that and convert it into 270, and I'm gonna get to, you know, blah, blah, blah, right? And then what am I gonna do with it? But dude, I'm never thinking about it, it's gonna make me happy.

• 44:30Grant Cardone?

  We ju- we just gave, uh, in December, uh, 25 million dollars to Irrevocable Trust that will fund a, a charity for the next 25 years.

• 44:39Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 44:39Grant Cardone?

  Another 8 million dollars to charity in cash in, in December. Like, that didn't make me happy either, but it sure made them happy.

• 44:48Lewis Howes?

  For a moment, yeah.

• 44:49Grant Cardone?

  For a moment, and they're like, wow, man, that's awesome. You know, they all celebrating everything. Made me feel good. I don't know that it made me happy.

• 44:56Lewis Howes?

  What do you do to cultivate happiness on a daily basis for yourself beyond the money?

• 45:02Grant Cardone?

  Yeah, so happiness for me comes from doing stuff.

• 45:05Lewis Howes?

  Personally, yeah.

• 45:05Grant Cardone?

  Yeah, yeah, it comes from accomplishing things. Like, I experienced my happiness when, when I accomplished something I'm proud of. So when we do a conference and I walk away and I'm thrilled at the event we put on, the quality, the lights, you know, that feels good, you know, when, when the people around me are happy, when I look around, when I'm proud of who I'm being and doing every day, you know, that makes me happy. Seeing my kids, my kids are, I'm so proud of my kids, they're such a, you know, a validation that I'm a good guy. When I can't see the good guy in me, I can look at Sabrina and Scarlett and say, hey, dude, you gotta be a good guy to produce those, because I got good kids.

• 45:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I saw the speech, I think Sabrina was like 11 or 10 or 11, I can't remember when she did the speech on stage. I was like, this girl's a better speaker than me now at 37 as a 10-year-old, 11-year-old, and the confidence and the poise, I was like, that's a, that's a skill right there. You must have been very proud watching her on stage.

• 46:03Grant Cardone?

  Oh, my God, just like, her dancing down the aisle, you know, that, that video, I'm so proud of that video. She wrote her own speech, practiced her own speech, threw away her index cards in the middle of it, wrote her own jokes, wrote her own jokes, you know, practiced and knew how to use the teleprompter. I mean, and the same thing for my eight-year-old, like, they did that. And, and so I'm really proud of that. Elena's done a great job with them. They've done communication courses for kids that really helped them have that confidence and social presence. So that makes me so happy, bro. There's nothing that makes me happier than that. My, my friendship with you, the how it's grown and developed, that makes me happy.

• 46:48Grant Cardone?

  But money, money, man, you know, being on my plane, dude, sometimes being on my plane, nobody else is on it, just me, I get giddy, like, like, like, those are moments where I'm like, dang, I love this plane so much. You know, finishing the Pueblo project.

• 47:03Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 47:04Grant Cardone?

  Made me really happy and proud, but dude, I wasn't happy while I was doing it.

• 47:08Lewis Howes?

  Right, but finishing hard things makes you happy.

• 47:11Grant Cardone?

  Totally, but it was, that was the hardest, hardest thing I've ever done in my life. Probably the best and worst experience I've ever had in my lifetime was undercover billionaire.

• 47:22Lewis Howes?

  The thing that inspires me about you, there's a lot of things that inspire me about you. And, and you rub a lot of people the wrong way. And you get a lot of negative criticism online, a lot more positive than negative, but you've definitely rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. You say things that can be offensive at times, you frustrate people, you offend people, all these things. I've known you for 12 years. I know you behind the scenes. I know, you know, a lot more about who you are than some of the content you put out there. But one of the things that inspires me about you is your ability to reinvent after 50. And I think there's a lot of people when they hit 40 or 50, they think of, okay, well, my best years are behind me. I had my opportunity in my twenties and thirties to build something.

• 48:05Lewis Howes?

  There's no way I'll be able to build something now in my 50s and beyond. Whereas you kind of said, I'm 50, now's the time to build. What is the, the mindset you would share with anyone who's 40, 50 or 60 and above, who hasn't accomplished what they want yet? What would you say to them based on what you've learned after 50?

• 48:27Grant Cardone?

  You know, I used to tell myself I would never have anything to contribute to the world until I was 50. Cause I'm very immature. I've always been described as a rough diamond, like, like rough around the edges, abrasive, not much of a filter, you know, I, I, I am, I mean, I know everything that people say negative about me. For every one thing, every, the public has, I, I know, I know every one of them. There's nothing anybody ever says about me that surprises me. I'm like, yeah, I know that. Like you guys don't think I know that? I, I live with me every day. Like, I didn't, actually did not think I would have anything to contribute worthwhile until I was 50 years old.

• 49:09Grant Cardone?

  And that was about the time the economic collapse was, the Great Recession. And I was so lost in that financially. I didn't understand, I was actually being formed right there. I was being matured. I was being prepared for whatever's going on in my life right now. Really, the creation of Grant Cardone has happened in the last 10 or 12 years, not before that. The Grant Cardone people know today is being developed right now. And I would just tell people that are older, like, dude, you're gonna have more energy later unless you don't. You're gonna have more genius later unless you refuse to.

• 49:50Grant Cardone?

  You're gonna have the ability to influence more unless you refuse to influence. And age has got nothing to do with the game. Like, nobody really knows my age. Like, I was 50 years old when I was in Pueblo. I told everybody I'm 50 years old, my name's Louis Curtis, I have two kids, beautiful two kids. I got a wife named Ava. I had made up names for the kids. I had to make up all that story. And we live in LA and I hate it. Because if I told people I was me in Miami, if anybody went and searched it and started doing, you know, images, like, people do all that stuff today.

• 50:32Lewis Howes?

  I know.

• 50:33Grant Cardone?

  So, I would just tell people, man, you, look, I look at people that are 80 years old, I'm like, dude, I got 20 years left. You know how much damage I could do in 20 years? I know guys are in great shape. Dolly Parton, I mean, she's still hammering, she never did nine to five. She made some money on a song called Nine to Five. You know, but she's been doing five to nine for years. So, I just think people can get better if they want to, or they can get worse. You're either gonna decay, or you're gonna reboot yourself over and over again.

• 51:05Lewis Howes?

  The 2008, 2009 was tough for you, just like it was for a lot of people. What was the lesson you learned then that prepared you for 2020? That you, when the recession hit, you said, okay, I know exactly what to do based on that pain in 2008?

• 51:21Grant Cardone?

  Yeah, well, I was so disappointed with myself then. Like, I had not put my family in a position to... Flourish and prosper because of suppression. You know, the tide goes out, you don't have a boat, shame on you.

• 51:35Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 51:36Grant Cardone?

  And I didn't have a boat, dude, I mean, I had, I looked good. I looked good until it happened.

• 51:41Lewis Howes?

  You had a suit, you had the car.

• 51:43Grant Cardone?

  I thought I was good, I thought I was good, but I was too small. Small, small always gets hurt. And that, that was my big wake up call in 2008. I didn't have enough assets, I didn't have enough money. My business was too small, my customer base was too small. Uh, I was too relying on too few verticals. This was the creation of 10x. I blame no one in 2008, nine and 10. I was like, okay, I'm in shit. I got myself in shit. This is not about the mortgage crisis. It's not about the builders, it's not about the strippers that got 17 loans. This is about me. I was in this pile of shit. I was in this fear. I was, I let my family and myself down.

• 52:27Grant Cardone?

  Nothing was happening to me. And the most important thing is, I was not in a position to take advantage of it. That's the thing that pissed me off.

• 52:38Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 52:38Grant Cardone?

  And so I told Elaine, I said, the next time this happens, dude, we're gonna freaking rock. And then COVID had happened. And COVID, I was shooting a TV show and my company would have the best year it's ever had.

• 52:50Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 52:50Grant Cardone?

  I wasn't even here. Uh, we, we, we bought more assets this year than we bought the year before. We raised more money this year than the year before. Um, you know, when, when, when Lehman collapsed in 2008, I had $50 million worth of debt. I told Elaine, I said, the next time this shit hits the fan, I'm gonna have a billion dollars worth of debt. I know, I told her, I said, I'm gonna have a half a billion dollars worth of debt. We had a $1.2 billion worth of debt when COVID hit.

• 53:16Lewis Howes?

  And so people understand, what does that mean?

• 53:18Grant Cardone?

  You want debt, you want debt, man, you want debt. Who gets, who keeps getting bailed out? Only your mommy and daddy think that you should have all your debt paid off. The big boys want debt, they want lots of it. Government has debt, California's, California can never, ever pay all its debts.

• 53:35Grant Cardone?

  That's why it keeps shutting down California because they're trying to get money from the federal government to bail them out.

• 53:40Lewis Howes?

  What's the difference between good debt and bad debt? Because I think when people might hear this, they might say, okay, open a bunch of credit cards and spend on whatever you want.

• 53:47Grant Cardone?

  Yeah, well, that's we're back to that first question about spending versus investing, right? So, consumer debt is terrible debt, suicide debt.

• 53:54Lewis Howes?

  That's that's credit card debt.

• 53:56Grant Cardone?

  Lamborghini, buying the Lamborghini on debt. Uh, look, if you're gonna buy a Lamborghini, lease it for 24 months. If you can't afford the 24 months, you can't afford the Lamborghini. Debt for clothes, Christmas gifts. I mean, it's stupid. It's stupid to borrow money for for for this Santa Claus for your kids. I know I know people are gonna hate that message. That's why so many people dislike, you know, they you just don't like the truth.

• 54:19Lewis Howes?

  It's stupid to go in debt. If you want to do it and and for for fun or for whatever, then that's okay. But you may you're not investing in a potential greater future.

• 54:29Grant Cardone?

  No. Now, if I if I borrow money for Santa Claus, that's one thing. If I borrow money for to to invest to to buy, to invest in in a piece of real estate for my kids, I mean, I know which one's gonna work.

• 54:43Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 54:43Grant Cardone?

  If you just follow the tax write offs, you'll know the right thing to do. I can't write off Santa, I can write off the real estate.

• 54:50Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 54:51Grant Cardone?

  So, um, yeah, bad debt is anything that I have to then pay the interest rate on. Good debt is I made an investment in my consumer or my tenant is gonna pay my debt.

• 55:03Lewis Howes?

  That's powerful. So you're trying to you're trying to get more debt.

• 55:06Grant Cardone?

  You probably have more debt with me than you even know. Like, like, because of the investments you've made with me, you have debt. You have good debt.

• 55:14Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 55:15Grant Cardone?

  You just don't really know it. Your accountant does, though, because because we're sending them the K1 at the end of the year. That's why when we send you a check, you don't pay income on that check.

• 55:23Lewis Howes?

  That's nice.

• 55:24Grant Cardone?

  Very nice. So you you look at your return, but, you know, whatever I paid you last year. But that is non taxable income to you.

• 55:34Lewis Howes?

  Because of the debt that we have.

• 55:35Grant Cardone?

  Because of the debt. Yeah, exactly.

• 55:37Lewis Howes?

  On the asset.

• 55:38Grant Cardone?

  Exactly.

• 55:38Lewis Howes?

  So what's your goal for for a year from now? How much debt do you want to have?

• 55:43Grant Cardone?

  Oh, yeah, uh, goddamn, I'd love to double that, dude. I gotta double that to get where I'm going. We we have 2.3 trillion dollars with the with the, um, 2.3 billion, sorry, not trillion.

• 55:53Lewis Howes?

  Oh, eight trillion, Dave.

• 55:57Grant Cardone?

  See, the 10x thing starts getting harder and harder, right? So.

• 56:01Lewis Howes?

  2.3 billion worth of assets?

• 56:03Grant Cardone?

  Yeah, I mean, I'd like to hit six by the end of this year. I don't think, I don't think it's possible, but that'd be freaking awesome.

• 56:09Lewis Howes?

  So if it was possible, what would need to happen?

• 56:12Grant Cardone?

  I would need to buy a portfolio. I have to change the way I'm doing things. I gotta quit buying one deal at a time and I gotta buy a portfolio. Or I gotta go buy a company. I gotta go eat somebody that's got, you know, 9,000 units. I have 9,000, so if I went and grabbed somebody's portfolio.

• 56:28Lewis Howes?

  So you just need to find someone who's got 9,000 units? Or you need to, what was the other option?

• 56:33Grant Cardone?

  Buy portfolios.

• 56:35Lewis Howes?

  That seems pretty possible.

• 56:36Grant Cardone?

  So, yeah, but you see that clarity right there? You helping me with that clarity? Shows me who I need to talk to.

• 56:43Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I mean, who are, do you know three people? Do you know three people in your mind who's got 9,000 units? Or who has a bigger portfolios that you could buy?

• 56:50Grant Cardone?

  Oh, yeah, I got a list of 100 guys that have bigger portfolios than I do.

• 56:54Lewis Howes?

  What would it take from you to get to 6 billion in the next six months? Not 12 months? What would it take from you?

• 57:01Grant Cardone?

  I just couldn't close the deals that fast. I mean, some things physically take more time.

• 57:08Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 57:09Grant Cardone?

  I mean, you know, at least that's what I'm thinking right now. But look, if I got it done this year, that would be massive. It would be like, you're talking about what I've done in 25 years being done in one year.

• 57:18Lewis Howes?

  Hey, you did the same thing on YouTube last year. You know, 13 years of content, you got more views in one year on YouTube.

• 57:24Grant Cardone?

  Yeah, you're right.

• 57:25Lewis Howes?

  It's all relative, man.

• 57:26Grant Cardone?

  You're right, you're right, dude. That's why, look, I do these podcasts at the School of Greatness because every time I do one, I end up better off. I don't know what you do to me while we do these, but every time I come out, I'm bigger.

• 57:38Lewis Howes?

  Well, I hear you say it's not possible to do it this year to get to 6 billion from 2.4. But then I said, well, if it was possible, you said, well, I just need to find more portfolios or acquire someone who's got 9,000 units.

• 57:50Grant Cardone?

  Yeah, and then, and then you'll drop it in there. You'll drop in the good question, okay? And then I'll start, I'll start working on it. And then you guys, you guys think I can do it or not do it? Just maybe a year from now, we'll do another one.

• 58:02Lewis Howes?

  We should do, we should do a, we should do a million dollar bet on it. Maybe if you had that, the pressure, the, all those things, maybe it would create.

• 58:12Grant Cardone?

  I don't know, man, that's pretty hard. I mean, I'm just, I'm running up against my blocks.

• 58:17Lewis Howes?

  You did this last time, though. Last two times, you ran up against blocks, but then you blew past them.

• 58:23Grant Cardone?

  Dude, you're planting the seed, bro. One thing about me, one thing nobody can say that I don't, like, I use information. I use experiences, I leverage everything. Like, I consume and I multiply. I don't just consume. And too many people just consume and never use.

• 58:44Lewis Howes?

  What do you mean by that? They're just, they're consuming information, but they're never applying it? Is that what you're saying?

• 58:48Grant Cardone?

  Yeah, you're either a consumer, a producer, or an investor. And I'm all three. I consume it, I produce on it, and then I invest in it. And I'm greedy, too, by the way. I'm greedy about my own self-improvement.

• 59:04Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 59:04Grant Cardone?

  I'm greedy and I am very highly interested in my personal self-improvement, because I know that's where it all starts. I have to make me the most important thing in my life, because other people can't get better if I don't.

• 59:18Lewis Howes?

  What are the three things you'd like to improve over the next year, personally?

• 59:21Grant Cardone?

  You know, I would love to improve my communication skills. Clubhouse is like, the amount of eloquence, the amount of people there that are able to see other people's viewpoints has been fascinating to me. So, number one, I'd like to become a better communicator. Number two, and I think I already am just from being on Clubhouse, like, Clubhouse has been an incredible gift to me.

• 59:45Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's been fun. It's been fun to be in those rooms with you.

• 59:48Grant Cardone?

  Yeah, and so I've learned a lot about how to talk, how to listen, that I didn't know, because of the two-way communication. You don't get that from Facebook and Instagram. Yeah, I don't get it from dropping a video on YouTube. Number two is the collaboration. I want to collaborate with more people. Number three, third thing I want to do, you know, I mean, I need to work on my relationships, my personal relationships.

• 1:00:13Grant Cardone?

  Could be a better husband, definitely a better husband. I've been running really fast. The show was, I think the show... Caused a lot of friction between me and Elena.

• 1:00:24Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, really?

• 1:00:25Grant Cardone?

  Um, yeah, because I was, I was in this thing, bro, like I was in hell. And she was giving me pep talks. I'm like, hey dude, I don't need a pep talk right now. Like you don't understand, it's 15 degrees. I'm dying out here. Okay, and she's like, you can do it, you can do it. I'm like, yeah, okay, click. Like, you don't get it. Like, like, it was, it put a lot of stress on us and then we were apart. So we learned how to be apart and like, so, so that's gotta get, I mean, just between me and you, that's gotta get. I don't, I don't, this doesn't have to make the podcast, but I, I got some work to do on that, just to be frank and honest. Relationships are hard, man, you know, you know.

• 1:01:07Lewis Howes?

  They are hard. After, how many years you been married? Fifteen?

• 1:01:10Grant Cardone?

  Fifteen or sixteen, yeah.

• 1:01:11Lewis Howes?

  Fifteen, sixteen, yeah. You've been together for over fifteen years. What do you say is the, uh, the, this is an important question, and we're gonna get to the end here soon. But I think this is huge. How do you navigate

• 1:01:26Lewis Howes?

  building financial wealth and creating a healthy marriage or partnership in a relationship at the same time? Cause I feel money is the biggest thing that breaks up or causes stress or with relationships, how do you manage both?

• 1:01:42Grant Cardone?

  Yeah, it's just, you know, for me, like, we don't have money. I mean, I, I, I shouldn't say that. Everybody has money problems.

• 1:01:49Lewis Howes?

  There's different problems.

• 1:01:50Grant Cardone?

  I just, just realized when I was saying that, I'm like, oh yeah, I have money problems too. They're just, it's a flip side of the problem. So, it's not really a problem with money, dude, it's decision making. Every day I'm doing stuff that's like, you know, there's some things only, you're always by yourself. There's some things in life that no matter how much love you have or how close your partner is, you're still by yourself in that moment. I can talk about it, I can share it, we can hug it out. It's, I'm still left with the burden of that decision, you know what I'm saying? And, and, am I doing the right thing? Like, there's a lot of things that I'm involved in that, that, right now, that maybe Elena doesn't even want me to do it that way.

• 1:02:35Grant Cardone?

  And she's like, you know, and I'm like, no, I have to do it this way. Like everyone is against me doing it that way, except me.

• 1:02:45Lewis Howes?

  Like, like a business thing, or like a personal thing, or you don't have to share if you don't want to, but yeah.

• 1:02:49Grant Cardone?

  Yeah, yeah, like, like a number of those things.

• 1:02:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:53Grant Cardone?

  You know, like, when covid happened, we shut, I shut a department down. Everybody was against that except me. I was all by myself in that decision.

• 1:03:01Lewis Howes?

  People are like, no, let's just like, cut back salaries a little bit, it will keep people.

• 1:03:05Grant Cardone?

  Keep everybody. I'm like, no, we're gonna, we're gonna eliminate that department. You guys need to think about this overnight. This is gonna be the worst, this is gonna be the worst contraction in my lifetime. I'll, I'll talk to you guys tomorrow. We walked out of the meeting. Everyone was against it.

• 1:03:19Lewis Howes?

  How many people did you have to let go in that department?

• 1:03:21Grant Cardone?

  Forty, forty-two. A whole, a whole department.

• 1:03:25Lewis Howes?

  Now, looking back, almost a year later, was that a, in your mind, was that a great decision? And was, is your team seeing, or it was a good decision, or was it a mistake?

• 1:03:34Grant Cardone?

  It was definitely a mistake.

• 1:03:36Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:03:36Grant Cardone?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:39Lewis Howes?

  So, so it was a mistake, and your team told you not to do it?

• 1:03:43Grant Cardone?

  Yeah, but I would do it again. I would do the same thing again.

• 1:03:47Lewis Howes?

  Why?

• 1:03:47Grant Cardone?

  Because, who would have thought the US government would print seven trillion dollars cash? We printed more money in 2020, that we printed one fifth, twenty percent, twenty-one percent of all the currency, US dollars, in circulation were printed in 2020. Who would think that? Had that not been done, dude, we would be, we would be in a, we would be in a situation right now that would be unfathomable for everybody. So I did the right thing. It just so happens the government came in and

• 1:04:23Grant Cardone?

  you know, floated everybody. America thinks they're good, they're not. Um, I did the right thing because, for two reasons, but it was unpopular, right? And I, and I got, supposedly I got destroyed on the internet, which I didn't. I got lifted up, actually. But, because all hate makes you great, so.

• 1:04:45Grant Cardone?

  But what it did do at our company was the people that were left here, 140 employees were left here, dude, everybody understood this is a serious situation.

• 1:04:55Lewis Howes?

  Got to step up.

• 1:04:56Grant Cardone?

  And that's why we ended up with the best year we've ever had.

• 1:04:59Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:05:00Grant Cardone?

  Because everybody's like, oh shit. Now, I just happened to be the first, probably the first company in America that laid off people. We laid off 40 people. We have since, we're since, back before 2020 was over, I think we were at full employment again.

• 1:05:17Lewis Howes?

  So you brought people.

• 1:05:18Grant Cardone?

  I don't have that department, though. I don't have that department. I still don't have that department. And that's where we made the mistake because I want that company. That company, that division's really important to me, but when you finish watching Undercover Billionaire, you'll see something else happen.

• 1:05:35Lewis Howes?

  Okay, there you go. Well, this is inspiring, man. Always good stuff. I want to make sure people go watch Undercover Billionaire. The whole season's out right now. I mean, it's not all out yet, but you'll see it week by week on Discovery, or you can watch the back episodes on Discovery Plus, Fubo, Fubo TV, Roku, all that stuff. You can probably go online and watch back episodes, depending on when you're listening to this or watching this. Make sure to follow Grant everywhere, YouTube, podcast, Instagram.

• 1:06:05Grant Cardone?

  Club, come clubbing with me.

• 1:06:07Lewis Howes?

  Me and Grant are going hard on Clubhouse, so he's Grant Cardone, I'm Lewis Howes over there. You'll probably join us in some rooms. If you're on Clubhouse, you'll probably see both of us in rooms interacting. This is inspiring, man. There's so many things I would love to talk about, but I think it'll just set it up for another great interview in next year. So, any final thoughts or wisdom you'd like to share?

• 1:06:28Grant Cardone?

  No, dude, I love you. You know, you know how I feel about you, and I've loved how our, you know, when people ask me who my friends are, you're one of those people that I call a friend, encounters a friend. And I know, I know people talk a lot of smack about me, and I know in the beginning, I don't think you stood up for me in the beginning, but I know you do now, because you understand me. And my bad in the past for this is what I was saying about learning from clubhouse is like, I'm learning to communicate better. Any negativity that I've collected over the past, I was responsible for because I just was a poor communicator. But my intentions are good, my heart's good. I want to help people and money matters and so does success.

• 1:07:13Grant Cardone?

  Everybody deserves bunches of it, everybody can have it. And so when Discovery offered to do this thing for me, I'm like, dude, the American people are going to see Grant Cardone in a different light. Cause now I'm not teaching or preaching. Now you just get to watch, you just get to roll along with me. Watch these other two chicks, watch me, see what we both come up with, all three of us, see what we create. And pick your style. But I promise you, when people see the last week and see what I create, they're going to be like, fuck.

• 1:07:48Grant Cardone?

  I didn't like him, but I need to, I need to learn those moves.

• 1:07:52Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 1:07:53Grant Cardone?

  So, and you know, I'm not Grant Cardone of the show. I'm an everyday guy with no money, no credit, no banks, no solutions. But I'm just focused the whole time. I'm like a hungry dog on the back of a meat truck. I just won't let go. And I figure out without them helping me, I figure out how to prove the American dream is alive and well, without money and without credit, with just some hustle.

• 1:08:16Lewis Howes?

  Well, make sure you guys go watch that undercover billionaire. It's going to inspire you, definitely going to watch the whole season. Also, if you want to learn more from Grant in our last interview, he shares his three truths. I'm not going to share them here, you're going to have to go listen in the previous episode and also his definition of greatness. I'll link that up in the show notes, but Grant, I acknowledge you, man, for constantly reinventing. I mean, to be at the level you are financially and to put yourself in the 90 days of hell. I acknowledge you for taking on the challenge. It's not something I would want to do, so just putting yourself out there in uncomfortable ways consistently is inspiring and it's what's allowing you to continue to grow. So I appreciate you, man. Thanks for all that you do.

• 1:08:58Grant Cardone?

  Thank you, brother.

• 1:08:59Lewis Howes?

  And we'll talk soon, brother.

• 1:09:00Grant Cardone?

  Love you, brother.

• 1:09:00Lewis Howes?

  Love you too, man. Thank you again, my friend, for listening to this episode. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you got some wisdom out of this. Every time Grant comes on, I'm always learning something new and he inspires me to keep thinking bigger. And a lot of the times, I think we don't think big enough. We think too small and therefore we get the results based on our level and quality of our thinking. And sometimes people think too big, but then they don't act on it. So it's a thinking in a certain way and then following up with that massive action is always important. And you might fail at some things. In fact, you will fail at a lot of things, but that's going to help give you the information to improve and grow every single day. If you enjoyed this episode, it would mean the world to me if you click the subscribe button on Apple Podcasts right now. If you left a review and a rating, it would help us so much in serving and impacting 100

• 1:09:45Lewis Howes?

  million lives weekly, which is our mission here at the School of Greatness to bring incredible tools, training, inspiration, interviews from the greatest minds in the world and to spread that message to as many people as possible. So every time you subscribe or leave a review or share this with a friend, it helps us all change more lives. So please do that right now and always tag me on Instagram if you're posting it so I can know who's listening and when you're listening and what you're really inspired by. It'll help me create more content that you're looking for as well. And if you want inspirational messages from me to your phone every single week, then send me the word podcast. Shoot me a text with that word podcast to 614-350-3960 to get on my texting list where

• 1:10:28Lewis Howes?

  we send you inspirational messages, motivation, and other surprises every single week. And I want to leave you with this quote from Oprah Winfrey, who said, "Everyone wants to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down." Oh, I hope you enjoyed this one. Powerful as always. And I want to remind you, if no one's told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. I'm so grateful for you and your time today, and you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.