Insight with Chris Van Vliet - Grant Cardone: How anyone can become a millionaire, why NOT to buy a home, the common habits of successful people

Episode Date: January 20, 2021

Grant Cardone chats with Chris Van Vliet from Miami, FL about his new show "Undercover Billionaire" on Discovery Channel where he has 90 days to turn $100 into a $1,000,000 business. He also talks about how anyone can become a millionaire, how he built his empire and his brand, why he doesn't want to send his kids to college, why he hates "The Wolf of Wall Street" Jordan Belfort, the common traits that all successful people have, where he gets his drive from, facing the criticism from people who don't like him and much more! If you enjoyed this episode, could I ask you to please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcast/iTunes? It takes less than a minute and makes a huge difference in helping to spread the word about the show and also to convince some hard-to-get guests.  For more information about Chris and INSIGHT go to https://chrisvanvliet.com Follow CVV on social media:  Instagram: instagram.com/ChrisVanVliet Twitter: twitter.com/ChrisVanVliet Facebook: facebook.com/ChrisVanVliet YouTube: youtube.com/ChrisVanVliet Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This podcast episode is brought to you by Coors Light. These days, everything is go, go, go. It's nonstop hustle all the time. Work, friends, family. Expect you to be on 24-7? Well, sometimes you just need to reach for a Coors Light because it's made to chill. Coors Light is cold-loggered, cold filtered, and cold packaged. It's as crisp and refreshing as the Colorado Rockies.

It is literally made to chill. Coors Light is the one I choose when I need to unwind. So when you want to hit reset, reach for the beer that's made to chill. Get Coors Light and the new look delivered straight to your door with Drizzly or Instacart. Celebrate responsibly. Coors Brewing Company, Golden Colorado. Welcome to Insight. If it's your first time here, I'm Chris Van Fleet, an Emmy Award-winning TV host,

and I'm obsessed with finding out what makes successful people so successful. On each episode, we have in-depth conversations and reverse engineer the habits and techniques. of the world's top athletes, celebrities, entrepreneurs, you name it. If they are the best at what they do, I want to get their insight so we can apply it to our own lives. And there is so much insight in this conversation with Grant Cardone. He's a New York Times bestselling author of books like the 10x rule, and if you're not first, you're last.

He built Cardone Capital, his real estate empire, that now manages more than $2.1 billion in assets. Yeah, that's Billion with a B. And he's the star of season two of undercover billionaire, which you can see Wednesday nights at 8 o'clock on Discovery. He'll tell you more about it, but in a nutshell, he has to take $100 and turn it into $10 million in less than 90 days. Oh, by the way, he's in a city that he's never been in before, and he can't use his name or any of his contacts. Hey, if it's your first time here, make sure to subscribe on whichever platform. that form that you're listening on right now. And if it happens to be Apple Podcasts,

could I ask you to leave a rating and a review on there? And as always, we will read one out on every single episode as our way of saying, thanks for being on this ride with us. This one comes from Dead Ahead Ra? Maybe it's Dead Ahead R.A. Well respected is the title of this. Chris is one of the most respected interviews in the business.

I heard his name long before hearing about his podcast. You are missing out. you don't give it a listen to hear what he's got to say. Well, thank you for the kind words and thank you for taking the time to leave a review. Many, many more episodes are coming up. And there is so much in this chat with Grant Cardone that you will immediately be able to apply to your life from his mindset to just the way that he approaches his business and how he approaches every day. So here we go. Let's do it. Please welcome Grant Cardone. Grant, welcome to the show.

Hey, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate you taking an interest in what I'm doing. How could you not be interested in what you're doing? But I think we've got to get the most important thing out of the way here. How the heck are you 62 years old? Teach us your secrets. Oh, man, like, you know, God, time is flown by. I guess I didn't celebrate the birthdays.

So if you don't pay attention to it or you do pay attention to it, like I work really hard. I stay busy and I think that helps people, you know, just keep, I'm moving and shaking and pushing like I've always been out of time. My dad died when I was 10 years old and then my older brother died when I was 20. He was only 25. My dad was 52. So I've always like been in a hurry because I never believed I would live this long.

You know, most people get into their 60s and they're starting to think about, all, I'm going to retire in a few years and, you know, then live the quote unquote, good life. I feel like you're working harder than ever now. Oh, dude. Well, I'm having fun. You know, I just finished doing this project with discovery that was really, really exciting for me that I could show, show, demonstrate, not teach, but demonstrate to people exactly what I would do if I had nothing, if everything was taken away from me. And that was a really, really exciting project for me to prove to people that you don't need money. You don't even need a lot of time. As long as you've got the strategy in the

heart and you don't quit. You know, really you can do unbelievable things. So I'm excited right now. So I was fascinated by the idea of undercover billionaire. And as we sit here right now, it debuts tonight, eight o'clock on Discovery. But basically they took everything away from you. Gave you a new identity, different name, took all your money, all your contacts away, gave you $100, dropped you into a city you'd never been before, and gave you 90 days to make a million dollars. That idea sounds crazy to a lot of people. Yeah. Yeah. So they called me and January. This is the second season. They had done it with another guy last year. And they said, hey, could you do it? I said, well, the question is not could I do it. The question is,

would I do this? Because this is an insane, insane challenge. I said, explain to me exactly what the deal is again. For real. Don't tell me, like, what really happens here? And they told me, and they said, look, you have 90 days to build a million dollar business with only $100. I said, look, how about this? How about we do $10 million business? That's that 10x thing I do. Right, yeah. I said, bro, I can't do a million dollars.

I got to go, my whole audience, I got, like, I have people following me. I've been telling people they can do big things for 25 years. I said, the deal is I'm going to do a $10 million business in 90 days or less. I'm trying, I'm going to try to get out of there in 60 days. Wow. And, and, and I'll give a million. $10, $1 million in cash. I said, I need a meeting with the president of discovery.

I literally walked in her office with four bags, $250,000 in each bag from the bank, dropped them off her table. I said, this is yours if I don't hit it. So then this is the crazy part. No, I can't use my contacts. Can't use any of my money. They give me $100.

I can't use my credit facilities, credit cards, debt, banks. Can't use any of my contacts. I cannot. If I'm discovered as Grant Cardone, that basically nullifies that relationship and I can't use it. And COVID happens. And I get altitude sickness twice. And I'm taken out of the thing for almost one, two weeks, two and a half weeks. So the odds are stacked against you like crazy.

So when you get there, day one, where do you begin? First thing I do is I think I'm, I think I'm, I have it in my pocket right now. Let me see if I have it. Yep, here it is right here. They gave me this $100. I keep it in my pocket now. First thing I did was took it to the bank and dropped it off at the bank.

And they were like, why you dropping the $100 off of the bank? I said, dude, I'm not spending this money. This money's gone. I don't need $100. And they're like, you're going to need that $100 tomorrow to eat. I said, I don't need $100. I am going to prove to America that you do not need money to, make money and you do not need money to find shelter and you do not need money to feed yourself,

okay? But you do need a strategy. And tonight, starting tonight, people will see me. I literally go the entire 90 days and never tap that hundred bucks. So, I mean, so someone watching this right now is going, well, this is crazy, Grant. Like, this is not possible. What do you say to someone that wants to do something like this? Don't. Don't do this. Do everything you can. So they that you never, ever get close to doing this. You know, the last time I was in LA, I saw all the homeless people there. And, you know, you see,

then you drive 15 minutes in your Beverly Hills and you see a guy buying a $45 million house, you know, just keep going. You're going to see another homeless person sooner or later. Like some people have figured out how to have more than they can possibly use, consume, spend, or, and a guy with the $45 million house probably has three or four houses. And there's this other dude,

he's worried about, you know, tonight where to sleep, who's going to rob him, who's going to beat him up, where he's going to, you know, where he's going to get his next meal from. So I know there's a lot of unfairness in the world. In addition to what's already unfair, people need to make sure that they're not adding to their own unfairness by not having the strategies. So the thing that really interests me about this show is discovering, spent their time and their money, had a crew follow me so I could demonstrate to people that much of what we are taught, if not most of what we are taught, actually keeps people from having wealth and prosperity and flourishing as a possibility in

their life because what we were taught, not because we're not taught anything, it's because we have information that actually holds us down. And I'll show people that tonight. I'll debunk a lot of the middle class myths. When you mention a crew's following you around, I think the obvious question is, how can you be undercover if you've got a camera crew, an audio crew following you around?

Yeah, because I know how to cover stories. So the first time I did this, they said, look, you've got to cover the crew. You'll have to explain to the people you're talking to so that we can follow you and actually record this because we have to get permission from these people. Right. And so they had this whole story mocked up.

And I said, tell me your story. tell me, I'm like, that's so stupid. Watch this. And I walk in a company. Look, I've been pitching people for years, right? Of course. Yeah. I've called on, I don't know, thousands, thousands, literally thousands and thousands of businesses when I was 29 years old to 30, 39 years old for 10 years. All I did was cold call companies, not their homes, but their business. And so I would walk in and say, hey, Chris, my name's, I had a different name. I can't tell you what that name is right now. And I'm here to talk to your owner about a business. And I got these freaking wackos from L.A. behind me. I said, I don't have anything to do with those guys. But they say

they're here to do some documentary on Pueblo. They look like a bunch of left-wing liberal wackos from L.A. You know, they're all coming over here. So I basically used that whole L.A. Midwest story to kind of distract them. And I said, it seems like, they want to do some good stuff for Pueblo, but I wouldn't let them in if I were you. So I did the takeaway. And, you know, 95% of everybody that I told that story to said, no, bring them in. We want the attention. Oh, so can anyone become a millionaire?

Is that a possibility? 100%. Without a doubt. I mean, a millionaire, like, not even, not even hard to do if you understand math. Sure. if you understand that's the target and you back into it. Now, the question is, how long is it going to take you to do it? Because if you're paid $50,000 a year for 20 years, you're going to make a million

dollars. Right. The question is not, can you make it? Can you keep it? Can you get it, keep it, and then multiply it so money is making money? Where did this relationship? I don't think many people can do it in 90 days. Well, you can, obviously.

where did this relationship that you have with money begin? It began when my dad died. I was 10 years old. My dad died and my dad did everything right. Like most Americans, he was playing by the middle class book. Pay off your home. Pay off your cars. He had life insurance.

He had some investments. A retirement account. He died at 52 years old. The moment he died, they quit paying him at the job he was at. They didn't pay him for another week. it's a funny thing when you die, they quit paying you. I don't know if most people even know that. And then what happened was my mom,

when my mom should have been experiencing grief and loss, she was having to scramble to figure out, okay, what has to go and what can we keep? The house, even though the house was paid for, became a liability and she had to sell it. So I was learning at 10 years old. I didn't know I was learning then, but I was learning.

And by the time I was 16, I watched my mom just terrified every day, clipping coupons, doing what so many single parents are forced to do every day, the best they can. And she was scared. So at 16 years old, I'm like, you know what? I'm going to change this. I'm never going to see my mother suffer like this. One day I'm going to get rich. And I basically at that moment, I created this hate relationship with the middle class.

because we were clearly middle class. And my mother loved the middle class because she came from an Italian family that had nothing. So the middle class was a big deal to her. And I had this hate relationship. I had a hateful kind of respect, if you will, for just enough because I knew just enough didn't work for her. So for, I don't know, 40 years,

I've been studying money and people that have created tremendous fortunes and how to get it, how to keep it, and how to multiply. So if someone's living paycheck to paycheck right now, what one thing can they do today to kind of get out of that cycle? So, you know, the thing to do is not to save money, like saving money, playing defense. You know, if you're making $70,000 a year and you live in Los Angeles, spending $2,000 less, not going to Starbucks, not buying a car that costs $228 a month, that's not going to solve your problems.

And this is what people are trying to do. They're trying to bring their bills to zero impossible in L.A. Okay? You just can't get to zero. So a man told me once, he's like, Grant, you can only go to zero. How far can your income go up? He's like, don't pay attention to how little you spend, pay attention to how much you can make, and then figure out how to get money to make money for you.

So my first advice to somebody that's, you know, just getting by is put 95% of your time, and efforts and creativity on income and only spend 5% of your time thinking about what you're spending. And you've got a lot of feedback from people saying, I mean, you talk a lot about how you shouldn't be buying into this American dream of, you know, getting a house and putting all your money into that. The house is not an asset. There's obviously a lot of people that say, well, you know, how else am I going to live? You know, what's the right answer to that? Yeah, you're going to rent an apartment. You're going to rent an apartment and you're not going to buy a house. In Los Angeles, I can rent. I mean, every time I go to L.A., I rent a house. I rent there

and I stay there for a month. I spend a bunch of money on that house. I would rather rent in L.A. than own a home in L.A. People do not get rich buying their house. Your mommy and daddy ended up with some money because they bought and paid for their house. But the money was all trapped in the house. People should be investing money in themselves and their business. They should be investing money in opportunity and possibility, not in a house, 21.0320th Street, a 1401 orio-old drive up in the hills. You're just, you've got money sitting in one location. And, you know, to go get money, you've got to go get people. People aren't coming to your home. You're not going to open your refrigerator one day and say, oh, money's there. Opportunities in the refrigerator.

So money is out in the marketplace. And, and all I'm saying, to people is show me one wealthy person. I'm like super wealthy. Like they no longer have to worry about money. And that would be the target, by the way, enough to not worry. I guarantee you they're not going to say their house did it for them. It's going to be a business. It's going to be a deal. It's going to be an investment. And so what I'm saying to people is don't in, don't buy a house until you're rich. On the way up, put all your money in you, put all your money in investments, put all your in your business. You know, you talk about growing up and, you know, your father passing away early,

your brother passing away when you were 20. You got into drugs as well and, you know, you had an addiction that you ended up beating. Do you feel like now maybe you're addicted to this idea of chasing after wealth? You know, yeah, I'm definitely addicted to other things today. Like, you know, when I got out of that treatment center, they're like, you're coming back. I said, dude, I ain't never coming back here. I'm going to switch up this thing. I'm done spending time with losers and deadbeats and snarting and smoking and needles

and this world is terrible. I need to shift that energy. They tried to convince me I had a disease. I'm like, I don't have a disease. I have a gift. And I've been misusing the gift. And look, anybody, anybody starts down the drug thing, you know, nobody, there's no drug addict on the planet that ever started thinking that they were going to be a drug addict.

It all starts recreationally. It did for me. and then I spent more and more time in this recreation. And the next thing, you know, I got an addiction. Once I snapped the addiction, I didn't try to get rid of this capacity to be obsessed with something. I'm obsessed with a lot of things today. You know, this last year, we gave $33 million to charity and I raised another $100 million. I'm fascinated with writing books and helping people.

This discovery thing, I became obsessed with discovery. I had no money. There was no money. I ate beans and rice for 90 days. It was 15 degrees most of time. I didn't have a place to sleep the first three weeks. I was fascinated with the idea that I would educate people through a TV channel rather than a classroom. I really believe what you're going to see tonight.

I believe it's going to be in colleges and universities as case study to show people. Because this is not a TV show. This is real life. I did this. This happened. The crew could barely keep up with me. It was a freak. We got a love-hate relationship going on with Discovery.

They hate my guts. They pulled me over a number of times saying, dude, you're killing the crew. I said, dude, whatever. They can't keep up. 10 million dollar business in 90 days. I ain't worried about your crew. So, yeah, I'm definitely an obsessive, very addictive,

like all-in kind of guy. And I would encourage everybody, everyone listening. Put wood on that thing. Build a fire that is so hot around. on something you are so obsessed about, but make sure it's a good thing. Make sure people around you are doing better because of it and go all in on it. So you've got this obsessive personality. You put it all in on this Discovery Show. What happens to the other stuff that you're working on while you're on the Discovery Show? You've got all those other businesses, all these other employees.

Because I'm obsessed with having good people around me that are doing good and people that are, you know, have the same work ethic and the same interest and they want to grow and And we had the best year we've ever had. And I wasn't even here three months of it. So who's running the company while you're gone? Yeah, exactly. Making money while you're not there. Because I've trained people.

I've educated them. Our businesses are scaled. We're in good spaces. We're willing to pivot when we need to. I'm surrounded by a bunch of great people that don't make excuses and make sure that they're very well compensated. That always helps. I don't know what to tell people.

but like money, everybody's like, money don't matter. Oh, yeah, really. I'll put enough money on a table in front of you. I guarantee it'll change whether it matters or not. A little bit of money doesn't matter. When you give a guy a $10 tip, nothing changes. When you give a guy $1,000, he's like, whoa, and that's a tip. So give him $10,000, you'll have his full attention and it'll remember it forever.

So the problem with most people is the payoff is so small. They're not willing to suffer for the results. Why do you think it is that our society is so like uncomfortable talking about money? Because we quit on it. People have quit on the money game. You know, I mean, the stuff I hear about money is crazy. A money won't make you happy. Who says that?

Whoever says, like, who tells you this kind of stuff of people that quit on money or people that already have it? Okay. If the guy's a billionaire and he says, look, money won't make you. you happy. He's not telling you it's bad. He's like, hey, look, I got a bunch of money and that does not make me happy. And then the guy that doesn't have money says, oh, money is bad. I shouldn't pursue it. Everyone should pursue money because you live on a planet where the only thing they take in exchange is money. So when I go to Whole Foods, I was there the other day. I got four bags with my daughter.

You know, when I checked out, they're like, oh, you're Grant Cardone. Man, I follow you on Instagram. I'm like, good. Is that good enough for the 400 bucks I just spent? it. Like, no, no, no, money matters. So people need money. They've quit on money. Okay, we don't teach it in schools. People are not paid enough. They don't earn enough. They don't know how to save the money. They don't know how to multiply it. Money matters. And hopefully in this show, I'll teach people a new money game that anyone can learn without having to go back to some business school. You know, this reminds me of a line from the movie, The Wolf of Wall Street. Of course, you know Jordan Belford. He says, I've been a rich man. I've been a poor man.

and I will choose rich every single time. Yeah, the problem with Jordan, he's never been rich. Really? He's just a criminal scumbag rat. The guy that he played, the guy that played him in the movie, Leonardo, who was my neighbor, my next door neighbor for years, he's a good dude. He knows about money, but look, that was a TV show, man. Okay, that guy, that guy's a snitch, a rat, a convicted criminal, and a piece of garbage.

For real? Is that really how you feel about it? For real. Wow. I didn't realize. Here's your headline right there. Didn't realize there was so much animosity here between you and Jordan Delph. I just don't like people in a space that are selling things to kids that there is no business.

There is no company. There is no, you know, more than somebody making a movie about him going to jail and becoming a drug addict and ratting out. as friends, there's nothing glamorous about that to me. And so when I see that, when I see that online, Instagram or Facebook or people scamming people, like, I just call it out for what it is. And like, you know, it's just wrong. It's comments like this and a lot of other stuff that you do online that makes you very polarizing. And I'm sure you're very aware of that. Yeah. What do you think, you know, when someone doesn't like what you do? Because I get to be me, right? I get to be me. I get to be me. I figured out how to be Grant Cardone.

You know, like, you don't have to like me. You can love me or hate me. I'm just doing me. And when I see something wrong, I say it. That's not okay. That's why Discovery and I had such a love, hate relationship. They love me and they hate me. They're like, dude, you're so outspoken.

Like, you know, you want to do what you want to do when you want to do it. I'm like, yeah, that's kind of what, like, I'm trying to build a $10 million business in 90 days. I can't rip anybody off. I'm going to get dropped off in a city. I don't know anybody. I can't scam anybody. This is on TV, man.

This isn't a character. I had to lose my name. It was so difficult for me to lose my name. Everywhere I went, I used a different name. I was having a lot of people for 90 days. I'm Grant Cardone. I live in Los Angeles. I actually live in Miami.

I'm Louis Curtis. I live in Los Angeles. Not Grant Cardone. I live in Miami. I'm trying to get my family out here. Like every day I was having to tell this line. I hated it. And so what's polarizing about me is if I disagree with something, I say it.

Yeah. And if I'm wrong about it later, I come back and say, you know what, that was wrong on me to do that. This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Is there something interfering with your happiness or is preventing you from achieving your goals? BetterHelp will assess your needs and match you with your own licensed professional therapist. You can start communicating in under, 48 hours. Now, this isn't a crisis line. This isn't self-help. This is professional counseling done securely online. There's a broad range of expertise available, which may not be locally available in many

areas. The service is available for clients worldwide. You can log into your account anytime and send a message to your counselor. You'll get timely and thoughtful responses. Plus, you can schedule weekly video or phone sessions, so you won't ever have to sit in an uncomfortable waiting room with therapy ever again. BetterHelp is committed to facilitating great therapeutic matches so they make it easy and free to change counselors if needed. It's more affordable than traditional offline counseling and financial aid is available. BetterHelp wants you to start living a happier life today. Visit their website and read their testimonials that are posted daily. Visit betterhelp.com slash insight. That's BetterHelphelp.com slash insight and join the over one million people who have taken

charge of their mental health with the help of an experienced professional. In fact, so many people have been using BetterHelp that they're recruiting additional counselors in all 50 states. So the special offer for anybody listening to Insight right now is 10% off your first month. Just go to betterhelp.com slash insight. That's Beller. BetterHelp-H-E-L-P.com slash insight. Does it matter to you if people don't like you? I mean, I would love for everybody to like me, but it's just not reasonable. It's just not going to happen.

I tried that in high school, ended up with a drug problem. But I feel like that's actually probably why you've been so successful, because you're caring about you and those close to you, and maybe that's it. You know, when they, look, I had to shave my head. I had two t-shirts and two pairs of blue jeans. No place to sleep, eat, no water. When I shaved my head, my daughter looked at me. She's like, you're still my, you're still Grant Cardone.

Like you could take away, Discovery tried to take everything away from me. They try to take my name, my money, but you can't take away the things inside a person. So just because somebody doesn't like me doesn't mean I don't like me, right? You know, just because somebody loves and adores me or, you know, they look, oh, my God, you're amazing. That doesn't change what I think about me. Right. So, you know, on this planet, not everybody's a good person. And if people don't stand up and say, hey, bad guy, then bad guy keeps getting away with bad things.

Right. I'm one of the good guys, but that doesn't mean everybody's going to like me. I curse. I drop F-bombs when I'm scared and when I'm excited. I'm not a perfect guy. I'm not saying I am, but I've never heard anybody financially. I've never sent anybody to jail. People around me don't get hurt. People around me do extremely well. We've got 500 employees in our companies. We sent out $30 million to investors last year, sent $33 million to charities. I'm doing some good things for the world and not doing enough. So you're giving yourself less than 90 days to make $10 million. Do you remember when you made your first million?

Let's see. I didn't make a first million. I accumulated money over time. I was 30, I think I was 31 years old. I lived in La Jolla, California at the time. I put together, I was looking at my finances, which I look at quite a bit to be accountable and responsible for them. And I was like, oh, wow, I have a million and $30,000 in an account, in multiple accounts. So it was really just combined work, store it. And then I looked up one day, I'm like, oh, I got a million dollars in accounts. And my first score was I was 33 years old and I made $3.8 million on a real estate transaction. And that really changed my life.

I'm like, oh, it took me nine years to accumulate a million and it took me like 30 months to make $3 million. bucks. And that's when I started learning the investing game. I mean, the wealth has really been created from investing money, not from working for money. I mean, you've obviously been very successful over your career, but I'm really curious to know when did Grant Cardone the brand begin. In 2008, I can tell you exactly when it began. Okay. In 2008, I was living at 1401 Oriole Drive on Doheny Drive up in the hills, Hollywood Hills. And Leonardo was my neighbor. Dr. Dre was in front of me. God bless Dr. Dre. Dre is in a hospital right now with the aneurhythm, aneurhythm. And Keanu Reeves was around the corner from me. All these people,

these are legends, man, living legends. And I'm like, none of these people know me. Eminem would drive in front of my house to go to Dre's house. I'm like, he don't know me, Leo don't know me, Dre don't know me. Keanu Reeves. I see him at the sushi joint. He don't know me. Nobody knows me. 2008 hit, crushed the economy. Three of my businesses get slaughtered. I have a baby on the way, and my wife knew I was scared. Lehman collapsed, and she's like, what's going on? I'm like, this is going to be terrible. She's like, what's going to happen?

I said, we're going to die. And I realized in that moment, my businesses were getting damaged because I was too small and no one knew who I was. And so in 2008, I made a commitment. This was 12 years ago. I'm going to use YouTube and Facebook and Instagram. Instagram wasn't around yet, but I'm going to use any kind of social media platform possible. TV, radio.

I was trying to get on the news. You were doing the news back in L.A. I'm going to get on every platform possible so that people know who I am, because who people, who knows me, who knows me is more important than who you know. And no one knew me. So this was like a PR move. You wanted to make the name, Grant Car, known to people.

100%. I'm like, I'm going to, my wife's an actress. I convinced her to get out of the business. I'm like, it's a terrible business. And I said, I will make you known more than any TV show you'll ever be on. I said, I'm going to make us a household name. I'm going to make us both celebrities. I don't know how long it's going to take me, but we're going to walk in place and people are going to be like, hey, you're that 10x guy, right? There's so many people online that are trying to do what you do.

And I think that Instagram has been both a blessing and a curse for this because anybody who has a phone can make an Instagram account and try to sell something online. What do you think for all the entrepreneurs out there or maybe I'll put it in air quotes, entrepreneurs out there who are trying to do what you do and are probably not very successful at it? Well, you have to fund it while you're doing it. So otherwise, you're just going to become a celebrity. And you can become a celebrity, but most celebrities don't make money either. So I didn't want to just be known. I want to be known. I want to do good things in the world.

And I want people to pay me for those good things. While I'm being paid for the good things, if there's enough money left over, then I can actually help people and groups do more good things. So look, there's a bit, I have a huge dissatisfaction in my life that I'm not doing enough to help out to make a difference. When I see guys like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos creating these massive new empires, I'm like, why am I not doing more? You know, why am I not? Those guys are going to buy hospitals. You know, Amazon's got a million employees.

So he gives those people an opportunity to have food on their plates and a place to sleep. and a good, good paycheck. So I want to make a difference and I got to be known. Okay, because money by itself, if you just have money and nobody knows you, you can't really play the game. Sure. So, so what would I tell those people? I'd say, hey, look, it's going to, it's going to take a while. It's going to take a minute. You can't just put an Instagram post up or get one viral video and think it's going to be good for your brand or your business. Everybody's going to forget about you tomorrow. All of this sounds like stuff that you don't learn in school. And I'm really, I'm really curious to know, do you have any plans to send your kids to college?

Well, never happen. I'll never pay for it. I mean, I went to college. I spent five years there. So I'm operating from, I mean, if they did go to college, it would be the top three. And it would only, it would be there, they would be there just to meet the people. It would not be to learn the courses. So my kids are homeschooled. We've been homeschooled. We've been homeschooled. our kids for four years. We took them out of the system four years ago. And this is pre-COVID, had nothing to do with COVID. We also moved out of LA eight years ago to get out of that mess. But Florida has better tax benefits too. Well, of course. Exactly. That's why I came here. Right. To get away from the man. Like I'm like, they said, hey, do you like Miami better than

L.A? 13.3% better. Unless, unless you guys pass this next non-term. since and it would be 17.8% more. But we go back to LA a lot. I still got a lot of friends there. I got a lot of business I do there. And I love L.A. I love California. But I will never, ever send my kids to advanced education.

And if they want to go, they can go, but I'm not paying for it. You know, it's interesting. There's been so many people, especially over the last year or so, that have left California. I mean, Joe Rogan, Elon Musk, those are some pretty big ones. They both left for Texas. Texas an idea for you? I mean, Nevada could have been an idea. We flew into Austin. I flew into Austin nine years ago to look at Austin. And when I, when I finished in Austin, I went to Miami. And between Austin and Miami, I picked Miami. Look, I lived in Miami for five years. That's an incredible place.

I was on WSVN. I was the host of Deco Drive there. Yeah. The great place to live. That's kept secrets in the United States is Miami. And they've done a terrible job of promoting their city. you know, all promotions not good promotion. Like what was the show, the cocaine show years ago? Cocaine Cowboys. Yeah.

And then the police. Cocaine Cowboys, yeah. No, no, no. The one that made Miami so famous. Miami Vice. I mean, it just like, people from the Midwest didn't want to come down here. Now they're coming down here.

Now they've got a reason because now they're leaving Chicago, New York, New Jersey. They're leaving the taxes. They're leaving the freaking problems. and they're coming down here like in droves. How's your Spanish? Let's see, I'm pinchy loco. I learned about 10 words all living there.

It should have been more. What are the things that you do in Miami for fun? Because we're often seeing most of the stuff on Instagram. You're doing a lot of work. Yeah, I do. I do. I mean, I work a lot. But look, I love watching TV.

I love sitting down with my family and watching a good movie. When I get into golf, I like playing golf. I'm buying a helicopter right now, so I'm fascinated with helicopters. Let's see, what else do I do for fun? Man, I love to help people, though. I got to tell you, like, of everything that I do, I like to snow ski. Once or twice a year, we go snow skiing with the family. How?

Where's your spot? Utah, Deer Valley, Deer Crest Valley or something, I don't know. But I love Utah snow. I love that. light snow. I love that dry snow. But, you know, I love more than anything. I love helping people. Genuinely love it. It is the, my passion of my life is real estate. I love real estate, love the deal, but more than even that is I love helping other people. What does your time management look like? Because it seems like you have so much going on. Like, why do you break up a day?

I try to beat the sun up. Okay. So wherever I am, I'm like, okay, I want to roll up before the sun does. I don't always accomplish that. I write my goals down in the morning, try to get a workout in, did not do two of those things this morning. So wake up before the sun, write my goals down. Big goals, giant, unachievable, not a target, not a to-do list. Get a workout in, and then I come to the office and I get a financial report on my desk each day, first thing I do each day. And then it's off to the races. Somebody's telling me what I got to do next. And how much sleep are you getting? Oh, I get eight hours every day.

See, this is incredible. I think a lot of people are going to look at someone who works as hard as you and it has accomplished as much as you have and goes, well, this guy never sleeps. No, no, no, I sleep eight hours every day, no matter where I'm at. If I go to sleep at nine, I'm getting up at five and I'm getting eight hours. That's so important. Sleep is really important for my body. And it's what am I doing with the other 16 hours? And I probably spend more time with my family than most people, too.

What are some of these massive goals that you're writing down every day? They're stupid. But they've always been ridiculous. Like ever since I got out of that treatment center, I started thinking about, man, I have to stay busy and I need to do something that's interesting to me. Otherwise, I become destructive. And that's the thing that I found out about, you know, most addicts, most recovering alcoholics and recovering drug addicts, you hear bored. them is as a as a theme in their lives like too much time, nothing to do, tremendous amounts of energy, right?

Sure. And so what was your question? It's one of the big goals that you're working on. Oh, yeah, yeah, big goals, big goals. So look, it's like right now I want to build a $20 plus billion dollar real estate fund. I don't, you know, I don't think I have the time to do it. I'd like to, I'd like eight billion people to know my name. It's impossible.

These things are impossible. I'd like to start a bank one day. Wow. I don't know how to do any of this. I don't know if any of it's even possible, but, but it keeps me in the game. But this is the idea that if you're setting achievable goals, then what are you working towards? You know, you're working towards things that are unachievable.

Because, because, look, if it's just, the target can be achievable. Yeah. What can I do today? Yeah. Get me on the way. But for instance, when Discovery said, hey, could you build a million dollar business in 90 days? I immediately go to, okay, I'm going to build a $10 million business. I just 10x every target.

I'm going to build a $10 million business. I'm going to do it in less than 90 days. I'm going to compress myself, okay? I'm going to have a bigger target and I'm going to back into it by doing the math. Who do I need to meet and what does the business need to be? when I went and got dropped off in Pueblo, I didn't think about what I wanted to do or what I was passionate about or what I love. I looked at the math. I basically build businesses around math.

What is the best business to be in that would produce this kind of result? Who do I need to meet and know to get that? And so that's what I do. Like two years ago, I said, I'm going to get in the best shape of my life. I'm going to be in the best shape of any 60-year-old I know. You are. But at the time, man, I couldn't do one pull-up. Less than 22 months ago, I couldn't do one pull-up or one push-up.

Wow. You mentioned you have over 500 employees. What is the go-to job interview question for you? I don't do the interview. So what is it that you look for an employee? Send me a video 30 seconds long to careers at grant cardone.com. Now what I look for is, when did I get, you heard the message at this moment and didn't send it to me till that moment. So, okay, that doesn't interest me because it took too long to get to the video.

Okay. Then the guy's like, oh, man, I had to shoot this video 17 times. Okay, I'm probably not going to hire you. The video is a minute and a half long. I asked for 30 seconds. I'm looking for fast, man. I'm looking for fast. Can you duplicate?

when I do an interview, I'm not asking a lot of questions. If you say that you know how to fill up, you know how to put water in a water bottle, then I'm going to be like, fill up the water bottle. And that's the interview. That's it.

When the person's like, where's the water? How high do you want it? Hold on a second. I got to tie my shoe. Like all this other stuff happens, you meet the person. Yeah. And for me, for me,

like success is not about intelligence it's about action like how fast can i move how fast can i solve problems how confident am i and unfortunately like you brought up earlier those things are not taught in schools no so many people are inspired by you but who inspires you so many people so many people, man. Like, you know, I'm inspired by your interview right now, but your interview skills, I'm learning right now. I'm learning a ton too. This is great. Dude, to do an interview is so difficult. And I don't know why more people don't do this to grow their audience themselves and get known. Sure. Everybody wants to be the authority rather than to just interview the authority. Like, you're going to build your own audience. You don't need to do everything. So, you know, like there's so many

people living and alive, I, I learn from everybody. Even people that I don't respect and don't like and people that I've mentioned before. I don't want that life. I don't want to be that guy. And I learn as much from what not to do by other people as I learn what to do and emulate. Probably, it's probably like an 80, 20. Don't do those things. Don't be that guy. Don't live that life. And then 20% of the way, where do I want to go? But look, if people, would just learn what not to do, you're going to be only left with a couple of choices. And they're going to both take you the right place if you just know what not to do. I'm just fascinated by the idea that successful people all have the same common traits.

And what would you say these common traits are that successful people share? Possibility, man. Everything's possible. You know, like they go into a deal and say this is possible, even when it's probably not. Like, Elon's going to Mars. He doesn't even know what's over there. Like it's insane, man. And this is not a new person, like a new thing. It's one person. And we have a lifetime of people that have done this, have done incredible things,

didn't know what was on the other side, didn't know what the barriers were going to be, didn't know what it would cost, and they still pulled it off. People from all walks of life. They were only great after they did these things. And persistence, you got to see it all the way through, consistency. I'm there every day doing it.

Most of them when they get there, they want to help everybody. Some level of ego, I need to make this work. Okay. And connected to other people. They're all connected. Nobody's ever done anything on planet Earth ever by themselves ever in the history of the world. Not one person. Jesus Christ had 12 people rolling with it. So these people are all willing to do whatever it takes. Most of them have to leave their community in order to do something. You know, just gangsters.

Gangsters. Great way to end this. Grant, this has been fascinating. Undercover billionaire begins tonight, but it's every Wednesday on Discovery. And I like to say that if you're grateful, then you can live a great life. And I'm really curious to know, what are three things that you're grateful for? in your life right now. One, I'm grateful for doing this show because this is, I had a spiritual experience

doing undercover billionaire that no one will ever build a take for me. And the 90 days was like literally a, those things those people do in the desert and they go out in the desert and they don't eat or whatever that deal is. A spiritual journey. Yeah, dude, it was like this, this was a spiritual quest. or something where I got to meet. Because when you lose your name, your credit cards, your money, your jet, all the people around you and your name, everything, your identity, then you find out who you really are. So I'm very, very grateful for discovery to have, you know, shared this opportunity with me to really meet all of me and find out what I'm actually capable of.

Yeah. Number two, my kids and my wife, I mean, you know, just their reflection and, I'm responsible and it forces me to be a better version of me and cuss less and, you know, not do things I don't want them to do. So they hold me accountable. And then the third thing is that, you know, that I have good health at 63 years old when my brother and my dad, you know, I've outlived my dad by 11 years and my older brother by 40 years. Where's the best place for people to find you online?

Just at Grant Cardone everywhere. I mean, man. You just Google Grant. Grant Cardone, Grant Cardone's Net Worth, Grant Cardone's TV show, Grant Cardone's wife, Grant Cardone's wife, Grant Cardone's hide, anything Grant Cardone, and I'll do the rest of the work. There he is. Grant Cardone, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you so much. Thank you, man. Well, there you go. Grant Cardone. Ladies and gentlemen, his story is absolutely fascinating.

And while we're talking about being grateful, I'm really grateful for Grant for finding the time to have this conversation. You need to check out his show, undercover billionaire. The way that he approaches not just business, but just everything in his life, is completely next level. You could say it's 10 levels up. 10x. See what I did there?

If you haven't yet, please hit subscribe wherever you're listening to this. And since we had Grant Cardone on the show, I'll leave you with one of his quotes. I love this. Your greatness is only limited by the investments that you make in yourself. Be great. Be grateful. We will see you on the next one for some more insight. The Hammer Alley podcast, an 80s flashback mockumentary. Back in the 80s, there were a thousand bands trying to make it in the world of rock, but there was one band that had it all. Hammer Alley.

Whatever happened to Hammer Alley? How did they go from top of the rock? I'm looking for a music video. They're a band from 1987. Hammer Alley. Ever heard of them? To Rock Bottom. I was born in 1987. I can't believe he's doing this. Hammer Alley. Follow and listen on your favorite platform.