Leap Academy with Ilana Golan - Grant Cardone: Reinventing at 50 to Build a Multi-Billion Dollar Business from Rock Bottom

Episode Date: March 4, 2025

At just 10 years old, Grant Cardone lost his father. This moment flipped his world upside down. He spiraled into teenage addiction, hitting rock bottom in his mid-twenties. Determined to change, he got clean, mastered sales, and began building wealth. It wasn’t until his fifties, during the 2008 financial crisis, that he realized survival meant growing bigger. That’s when he went all in. He scaled Cardone Capital, grew his brand, and turned his hard-earned lessons into a multi-billion-dollar business. In this episode, Grant joins Ilana to discuss overcoming adversity, embracing reinvention, managing fear in high-stakes investments, and his strategies for building wealth and a powerful network. Grant Cardone is a serial entrepreneur, equity fund manager, real estate investor, and bestselling author. A global authority on sales, investing, and personal development, he influences millions through his books, events, and online content. In this episode, Ilana and Grant will discuss: (00:00) Introduction  (01:48) Reinventing After Facing a Career Crisis (03:01) Childhood Struggles After Losing His Father (05:52) Battling Addiction and Near-Death Experiences (08:17) Stuck in a Sales Job but Crushing It (10:35) The Birth of the 10X Movement (15:02) Building a Highly Influential Brand at Age 52 (17:38) The Secret to Never Getting Laid Off (20:13) Taking a Loan to Launch His Real Estate Empire (21:33) Navigating Fear, Doubt, and High-Stakes Risks (27:04) The $58 Million Loan Call That Shook Him (30:35) Turning Small Investments into Billion-Dollar Deals (35:00) The Future of the 10X Growth Conference (38:54) Grant’s Real Estate-Bitcoin Investment Strategy (40:19) The Most Overlooked Shortcut to Success Grant Cardone is a serial entrepreneur, equity fund manager, real estate investor, and bestselling author. He is the founder of Cardone Capital, a real estate investment firm managing billions in assets. He also created the 10X movement, which includes the 10X Growth Conference, the largest business conference in the U.S. A global authority on sales, investing, and personal development, he influences millions through his books, events, and online content. Connect with Grant: Grant’s Website: https://grantcardone.com  Grant’s LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/grantcardone  Resources Mentioned: Grant’s Book, The 10X Rule: The Only Difference Between Success and Failure: https://www.amazon.com/10X-Rule-Difference-Between-Success-ebook/dp/B004X75OES  Grant’s Book, Sell or Be Sold: How to Get Your Way in Business and in Life: https://www.amazon.com/Sell-Be-Sold-Your-Business/dp/B00JV3YVHU  Leap Academy: Ready to make the LEAP in your career? There is a NEW way for professionals to Advance Their Careers & Make 5-6 figures of EXTRA INCOME in Record Time. Check out our free training today at leapacademy.com/training

Wow, this is going to be such an incredible show today. But before we start the show, I want to ask you for a favor. See, I'm on a mission to help millions leap their careers, land their dream roles, fast track to leadership, jump to entrepreneurship, or create portfolio careers. Now this podcast is about giving you a blueprint of how some of the biggest leaders of our time resuccess. So subscribe, download, so you never miss it. Plus, it really, really, really helps me continue to bring amazing guests. So let's

dive in. I am naturally negative. I was raised by depression, baby. Why would I not be scared? The only reason a human being wouldn't be scared is because they're not doing anything new. Grant Cardone, CEO of Cardone Capital, from building a multi-billion dollar real estate empire to teaching millions how to sell, how to scale businesses. I didn't come for money. I didn't have connections and unfortunately I did not spend the first 50 years of my life getting connected. My dad died when I was 10 and everything changed. Drifted into a drug problem when I was 15,

overdosed three times, and I should not be where I'm at today. The biggest hack on this planet is to change the network you hang with. And the fastest way to change the network is to write a check. I love that and I keep buying my way in. And I really, really appreciate you support this

on the Grant Cardone Foundation. If you're in transition right now, it's not too late. I was 51 years old, the economy had collapsed, and I was like, what did I do wrong? What I had done wrong was... What I had done wrong was... What I had done wrong was... What I had done wrong was...

What I had done wrong was... What I had done wrong was... What I had done wrong was... What I had done wrong was... What I had done wrong was... What I had done wrong was... What I had done wrong was... What I had done wrong was... What I had done wrong was... What I had done wrong was... What I had done wrong was... What I had done wrong was... Oh my God, today I have such a treat. Grant Cardone, who was also a mentor and somebody that helped me, is a fund manager.

He's a CEO of Cardone Capital. He's the CEO of Cardone Training. Serial entrepreneur is an understatement for you, Grant, but he really, he's like a real estate investor. He's a private equity fund manager. From building a multi-billion dollar real estate empire to teaching millions how to sell, how to scale businesses. Seriously, Grant, the 10X movement is not just a slogan. It's your way of life.

Yeah, and it's actually, I wrote a book in 2012, maybe, called The 10X Rule, and that thing really hit. It wasn't my first book. It was a very significant book for me because I was 51 years old at the time and I had plateaued in my career. 2008 came economic collapse that lasted way longer than anybody wanted it to. And it really drained me of resources, energy focus. And I found myself almost in this mid, you use the word late stage career. I was in like this crisis. And you're 50 years old and you're like, hey, I'm running out of time. I'm running out of energy. I've already worked 30 years. I don't want to do this again. Like I'm going through my money, burning

through resources. A lot of people are going through the same cycle right now. And so I had to kind of reboot. I didn't come for money and I never, I didn't have connections. And unfortunately, I did not spend the first 50 years of my life getting connected. Yeah, let's go there for a second because your story is phenomenal and you weren't born to wealth and I want to make sure everybody understands that. Let's take back in time to the kid in Louisiana. Look, I grew up where there was, we had air condition and heater and we had a three bedroom house for five kids, mom and dad. My dad died when I was 10 and everything changed.

The whole world got flipped upside down. Take us there for a second because you talk a lot about that. Also in undercover billionaire, that was a pivotal moment for you, for your mom, for your family. Yeah. Because if you're a parent, you know, kids are always watching and they're always learning. And for me, I was learning throughout the most traumatic moment of a kid's life, which is the loss of a parent. And I'm also watching my mom, which I'm very connected

to spiritually. I'm watching her go from what should have been grief to fear. I could see it on her face. I don't need a class in fear to know what it looks like. Like I'm like, shit, she's scared. I didn't know what she was scared of, but then I kept hearing the money thing. Got to sell the house, got to sell the cars, got to downscale, got to move us, got to get closer to the schools.

When a human being should be in fear, right? Now I'd also heard 10 years of how we were doing well and how we had, my dad had got us into the middle class and he'd finally bought his dream home. Boom, next day, all that's unwinding. So, unspeakable to me, I'm learning. I'm becoming who I am today. And you're only 10. I mean, you're at that point, you're 10 years old. That is traumatic. But I'm learning about money. This is all personal finance 101 and a grief class all combined. These two messages are coming.

You lost your dad and your mom's scared. And so this conflict comes into like sell everything. I learned a house was not an asset. The house was paid for by the way. So it should be an asset based on what we're told. But my dad's savings got sucked out of savings. The life insurance got sold. The stocks in the market that were paying a slight dividend every quarter. All these things start becoming pieces of data for me to later use in my life. So all I'm telling your audience is we have $5 billion worth of real estate under management. I've never taken any money from a major bank.

We have, I don't know, I've raised a billion six over the internet without advertisers, promoters, or middle man. I've sold $2 billion worth of products. Some people say I'm a grifter because I'm selling products on the internet. Educational products, by the way, because I don't believe the education system

is good for us anymore, for the most part. Not completely products, by the way, because I don't believe the education system is good for us anymore, for the most part. Not completely, but for the most part. And I did all this without connections and without a great education and without any money, no credit, no debt. I didn't code anything like the geniuses in Silicon Valley. So take us there. We'll fast forward in a second, but I think it's important. You've been in this trauma age I think 15 to 25 you were still kind of lost right? What was it like Grant? Yeah drifted into a drug problem when I was 15 You know, I start drugs at 15 16 years old smoking weed and the next thing, you know

I'm doing pills and then I'm you know Everything like like any drug that was available. The next thing you know, for the next 10 years of my life, I go, I'm a middle class kid that falls right off the charts and overdose three times, you don't have 70 stitches put my head and face from a guy that came in and beat me up. It was terrible. It's awful.

My family almost lost me. I lost three friends. Nasty. I should not have been there and I should not be where I'm at today. What changed? How did you decide to take control of your life? Because I got sick and tired of being sick and tired is the saying goes. It wasn't when I hit bottom because there's many bottoms. You think the bottom is where you are right now, but there's another bottom. Trust me, there's always another bottom of D grade.

And then there's death. I just escaped right before death. My mom basically intervened and said, look, I'm done with you. She basically broke this little agreement that we had, this little game that we played back and forth that she would take care of me. And she basically said, gave me the middle finger and said, I'm done. And 25 hours later, I was in a treatment center in Minnesota. And for the first time in my life, I put 28 days together without using drugs.

And that was the reboot of my life. Wow. Again, I want people to hear this because people are right now going through really tough times. There have been layoffs. I mean, people are going through a lot. California had this fire. There's a lot of crap going on in the world right now, and there's a lot of suffering.

So I want them to hear that you can control your life, that you can decide that you want massive success no matter what, and you are a hustler. Grant, I think of myself as somebody that is hardworking and I can outbeat almost anyone, but you put a shame on me. So you outwork me any day. You think about that like in relationship to me and I think about me in relation to Donald Trump and Elon Musk. So I get shameful because thinking about how hard those two guys work,

because I know they're maniacs. So tell us what shifted and suddenly you learned that you love sales and you take that as a gift. Look, I didn't, I've never loved sales. I don't, I still don't love sales today. So I let, but a lot of people say, Oh, you love selling. You're a great salesman. I'm like, I hate fucking sales.

Okay. I hate sales, but I do like hitting my targets. Okay. So I am very target driven. It's why I hated college so much is because the targets were too long. It took too long to get there. I hated school because I'm like, I got to be here 17 years or 12 years to get anything done or three years or a whole semester or whatever. I can do anything over short periods of time. And then my interest in the work or the effort

of the target goes up. And the bigger the target is, as long as I'm trained or educated to believe that I can actually hit the target. If I actually believe it's attainable in a short period of time, I'll do almost anything. That's what changed for me. I was in a sales job. I was 25 years old and the only people that were hiring me was a sales company and I had to take it. I didn't have a choice. It was the only job I could get and I had ruined my reputation where I lived. And look, my reputation was even ruined with me. So I had to rebuild that and I had to learn how to be a salesman. I didn't want to be a salesman, but they offered the job. It wouldn't have mattered.

It could have been carrying urine. It could have been digging a ditch. It could have been whatever. Whoever would have given me an opportunity, I would have gotten great at it because I no longer had any choices and I knew I couldn't make excuses anymore. I no longer had the privilege of saying, I don't like this job.

What happened was a flip switched because I now made a decision to get good at something. The next thing you know, in a very short period of time, I'm talking about 72 hours, not only did I get good at it, I started enjoying it. That shift is absolutely incredible. And I think you took it to a whole different level, by the way, one of your books, sell and be sold is just so incredible because you're trying every conversation.

There's like two frames, right? You're either selling or you're somebody's telling you their crap, right? Like it's like one of them and happening. But you also build the 10 X brand and the tech next rule to a global movement way before anybody understood branding. I think most people didn't really understand what it took. And you were just like, you saw it. You saw the future and we're going to tie it to what you see now.

But you saw that future. Really? I didn't really see a future. Really? I mean, I appreciate that, that I would be some kind of like clairvoyant. But it wasn't that it was just everything that's happened for me has come out of a problem. Everything, everything that has happened to me in my life. At some point in my life, it was a problem first. The sales game, it was a problem. I wrote Sell or Be Sold.

Took three hours to write that book, but it took 26 years to decide to write it. Once I decided to write it, it took three hours. So it was this 26 years I spent studying this one little sector every day, hours a day after hating it, by the way, after hating this thing called sales, studied it, and then it became a business for me. I would end up being known as one of the top three sales consultants in the world, blah, blah, blah, with the names of like Brian Tracy and some of these freaking icon guys that I used to study. So the 10X rule was born out of another book was born out of the 2008 global collapse.

After working for 27 years or 26 years, whatever the number was, I was 51 years old. The economy had collapsed and I was like, what did I do wrong? I spent some time looking at it. What I had done wrong was I did not have 10 verticals to work in. I had one vertical, the vertical got cut in half. I had not scaled. I sat down and wrote a book, the 10X rule. I basically figured this formula out. Had I done 10X, I would have gotten cut, but I wouldn't have failed. I would have actually punched through a crisis and benefited from it. Instead, my family suffered from it. And I wrote the book called The 10x Rule. That book took me like, I don't know, three weeks to write.

I didn't think much of it. Put it out. It was my sixth or seventh book that I wrote. Put it out. Tell my wife, I finished the book. What do you think? I said, it's all right. Bone book took off went crazy. And then said, that's all right. Boom, book took off, went crazy. And then out of that was born the 10X movement, which is all these 10X events.

And it was really an accident, just so you know, to know the truth. It was humbly, it was an accident. The 10X rule I stumbled across. Now the branding of who I am, that was very much planned, including my wife came from an audition one day. And by the way, for those who don't know, that's Elena. Yeah, she comes back from an audition. She's in Hollywood.

She comes back from an audition. She's like, Oh my God, I just their job's terrible. You know, and she's crying. I'm like, what's happening? She's like, this audition went terrible. And the same time I was invited to go on some TV show and I drive, I don't know, 45 minutes to the interview. The interview was like 45 seconds long. I'm driving home 45 minutes, pissed off out of my mind. Like you have no idea how angry I feel

like an idiot. I'm like, I just drove an hour and a half to answer a bullshit question for 45 seconds. These people act like they're doing me a favor. I think it was Fox News or something. Same day, my wife got rejected. I came home and I said, this will never happen to us again. And she's like, what do you mean? I said, I am going to make sure everyone knows our name. And that was really the start of the branding. I said, I will never, I am never gonna be humiliated like this. You don't deserve to be humiliated like this.

And we're gonna build our own audience. And now we have, there's about, I don't know, between us, about 20 million followers online. Oh yeah, for sure. Wait, what age was that when you decided that? We started that at 52 years old. Incredible, and I think this is so important, Grant, because a lot of our audience,

if they're somewhere around that age, do you feel like life is over? Did I miss the boat? Like, am I done? I mean, I literally just had somebody on LinkedIn that said, hey, you know, I saw your episode with Gary Vee, and I decided not to end my life today. And I was like, that sucks.

Like, people are suffering right now. So what made that switch of, I'm not going to give up on this. I'm not just going to look for another thing to just this, but I'm going to create this portfolio career and I'm going to make sure my brand is known. And I'm going to, you know, like, what made that shift and what happened then? Well, because of that moment, that loss,

I was doing pretty well in my life, but nobody knew me. And this was after the collapse. I'm like, nobody knows me, but I expect to do well. How can I do well if nobody knows me? I remember my dad saying at eight years old, two years before he died, he says, look, the most important thing you have is your name. And what my dad didn't understand was the most important thing that you do is protect your name.

And the second most important thing is make sure people know it. Because if nobody knows your name, there's nothing to protect. Now everybody in my dad's little town knew him, but he couldn't go anywhere outside his little town and be known. I can't go anywhere in the world. We flew to Malta one night. We were in London. My daughter comes to me and says,

Papa, I don't want to go home. I'm loving this trip. We're having fun. You know, we're traveling around the world. And she's like, I don't want to go home yet. And I'm like, where do you want to go? She's like, I don't know. I said, get a map. Let's find a place to go tonight. It was like, I don't know, eight o'clock at night.

Yeah, we were in London. I said, close your eyes and pick. Boom, she picks the map, Malta. Malta is just south of Italy. Used to be an air force base back in the World War II. And I said, let's go to Malta. So I called the pilot. We had our own plane at the time. And I said, we're going to Malta tonight. We don't know anybody in Malta. I've never been to Malta.

Like I didn't know where Malta was. We land in Malta two and a half, three hours later. There's people at the airport because I posted, I'm coming to Malta. You're kidding. Wow. And there's people at the airport at one, you know coming to Malta. You're kidding. Wow. And there's people at the airport at one, you know, 1230 one o'clock in the morning. I'm just saying that that because it's cool because if people know you, they can help you. If people know you, they can feed you. If people know you, they can find you. We ended up in a hotel that night. I've never, I hadn't told this story. I don't think ever. We ended up in a hotel that night. We hated, it was a last minute booking.

We hated the hotel. I called the people that I met at the airport and said, can you help me? And boom, they got me in a different hotel. So the value of being known is so important. And I'm sure Vaynerchuk talked about this, you know, the value of being a brand trusted, that people value or think enough of you that they would stop what they're doing and go to the airport and say hi to you? That's incredible.

I think it's so important for our audience. A lot of them are giving a thousand percent to the workplace, which is really important to be loyal. And I do believe in this, but you can't have all your identity attached to one title, one company. You need to have your own brand to stand on its own because the minute they lay off, you're a nobody. And I think this is just something that sometimes we just don't understand that we also want to build our own brand and that safety net for ourselves.

Well, let me just say that if anybody lays you off and they stay in business, you weren't that valuable. There's going to be hundreds of thousands of people, by the way, they get laid off right now because of Doge. If you guys get laid off and somebody else doesn't pick you up, it's because you're not valuable. In the story, okay, the last job that I ever lost, I was 29. Then there's another job I lose after that. I lose this job, the company literally goes bankrupt 10 months later. That's how valuable I was to that company. And I think that that's what an employee should do.

You should be so valuable to the company. They're dependent upon you. You're not dependent upon them. I left that company at 29, went to work for another guy. In 15 months, I am producing more revenue for that next company than the company produced. The position for an employee to be in is you should be so productive that the company is dependent upon you.

I posted on X yesterday, hey, I'm hiring federal government employees. We're offering free training and education to all government employees. The first thing I want to teach us how to work again. Second thing, how to sell, do your own startup, grow and scale your business. I'm going to teach you those things for free, by the way, not charge the government, anything, no taxpayers involved. If you guys want come register for this free event, you're a government employee, except we will not allow anyone from the IRS.

I love that. And we literally just published that we going to help some of them find a job for free for a little bit. But a lot of those people are going to need to be reeducated. I agree. Because they got a bunch of bad habits. They basically been on government dole. Nobody was paying attention. Nobody's holding them accountable, responsible. Nobody's checking on their work ethic or their productivity or

their ability to hit targets. It's a problem. Well, I hope you're enjoying this amazing conversation. We have a lot more to cover, But don't forget to like this video and subscribe to our channel. Now, if you're looking to fast track your own career, figure out what's next for you, get that clarity, fast track your own growth, check out that free 30 minute training, you'll get a lot of value out of it. It's sleepacademy.com slash training. That's sleepacademy.com slash training. Now let's get back to the show.

It's true for everything. I mean, the comfort zone is a very dangerous place for all companies. I agree. So tell me, how did you get into real estate and when was that based on that 51 boundary, right? I was making decent money when I was 31 years old. I left the second company that I told you about earlier that I was making more money for. I was stacking money away.

And then what I would do on the weekends is I would look at real estate. I've always been interested in real estate. And I remember my dad was a stockbroker and he used to drive around and look at real estate when I was like six years old. I'm like, oh, this must be valuable. Little kids do all these crazy things. And I'm in the backseat of that car thinking one day I'm going to own some real estate. One day I'm going to drive a car.

One day I'm going to be able to pay for the ice cream. So I didn't want to own a company. I never thought about being a boss. I have never ever had the idea that I was going to own companies, be a CEO, none of it. But I always wanted to own real estate. And so at that consulting job, I was starting to stack up some dough. I had about 300 grand and I'm like, I got to do something with this money. And I would shop real estate on the weekends.

And I bought a 48 unit deal and this to California put 300 grand down. I had to borrow another 50,000 bucks and get a loan. I didn't know how to do any of this. And that was my first $5 billion of real estate ago. Nicole Sarris But take me there for a second, because one of the things that we're seeing with a lot of people is that fear of money or fear of taking a loan or fear of doing something that you don't really know, how were you not afraid? I was, I was afraid. Tell me more.

I'm always afraid. And you still build empires. I'm afraid, I'm afraid, just so everybody knows, I'm afraid most of the time, I'm tired most of the time, I'm lost most of the time, but there's certain things I just hold onto that I know are gonna be all right, but there's certain things I just hold onto that I know are going to be all right, that are going to get me through.

But I'm always scared. I always doubt. I never think it's going to work out well. I'm not a positive person. And I'm not overly confident, by the way, even though I appear confident to people, I know I appear even arrogant to people. Dude, I have to do that to protect myself. But that doesn't mean that's what's going on inside of me.

Nobody knows what's going on inside of me except me, including my wife and kids. So you somehow know how to push it out? I don't think fear's going away. So I tried to medicate it, it didn't go away. I've tried to make self-esteem issues better with cars. It doesn't go away. Like it is what it is, man. I'm not trying to get rid of anything.

I am what I am. I am who I am and I got to be all right with it. And the fact that I'm scared doesn't mean I'm wrong. So many of my people listening to this have to hear this. And honestly, I have to hear this. And honestly, I need to hear this. So walk me through this for a second. So you are taking a loan on money

you don't necessarily know where it's gonna come from. You know that you could be broke because you've seen your mom, right? So it's not something that is unknown to you. What makes you still go for it? And now you just do the same, Grant, but you just do it on bigger sums of money that are just like mind blowing. So take me to your thought process, because again, the biggest thing holding people back is this. What happens is, it's a good question, by the way, you know, I don't think I've ever formulated what happens.

But number one, I think what happens is I am naturally negative. And I think people think I'm this positive guy. I mean, yeah, I mean, I can have positive responses, but it doesn't mean like I was raised by depression, baby. My mother grew up in bread lines. My whole life I was like, a depression is coming up, mother grew up in breadlines. My whole life, I was like, depression's coming up, depression's coming in depression. Well, depression never came. So I always look at worst case scenario. I always go to

worst case. I'm always scared. So I'm 66 now. I know enough to know, hey, brother, if the fear was going to go away, it had gone away in your thirties. So the fear is here to stay. Don't try to get rid of it. In fact, it would have gone away in your 30s. So the fear is here to stay. Don't try to get rid of it. In fact, it might be godly. Yeah, I know a lot of my buddies that have gone bankrupt. I know a lot of my buddies that are over their skis. I've never done that.

I've never busted out, ever. And so maybe my fear is actually a gift. And number two, I look at worst case scenarios. And once I can calculate a worst case, and then I'm like, okay, okay, worst case. I put all this money in the real estate. Let's say the economy goes to shit. The money was worth shit. The real estate will still be there. I don't have any debt on it. I can't lose it. Okay. It's going to be painful. Okay. Fuck it. I'm going to take my kids out of school and I'm a homeschooler. Okay. What's the worst case scenario here?

Uh, worst cases, you fuck them off and they don't know how to do algebra. Uh, I can live with that. At least I fucked them up and somebody else did. Okay. Take them out of school. So I just get to a worst case scenario. All my calculations, every investment I ever make in my life, every single investment, I bring it to a worst case scenario.

What's the worst thing that can happen? I refuse to lose my money, by the way, on investing. So that's not a worst case scenario because I am not losing money. So it's short answer. It's a short answer connected with a whole bunch of little barriers I put around that thesis that I'm going to be scared. Why would I not be scared? The only reason a human being wouldn't be scared is because they're not doing anything new. Because if you're doing something new, you are going to have some level of doubt. Do you think that being the person

that looks at the worst thing is that making you a better investor actually? Because I think that probably you're not as optimistic. So you're actually finding the actual holes in the deal. I don't know. You know, I don't know. In an up market, and when everything goes right, my pessimism is going to cost me a lot of money.

But when everything goes wrong, okay, my pessimism is going to save me from going broke. But I don't think I have the potential because of my deficit of pessimism is going to save me from going broke. But I don't think I have the potential because of my deficit of pessimism. I don't think I could ever be one of these hundred billion dollar creators, investor guys. It limits my ability to go through to Mars because I am inherently believe something bad's going to happen.

I don't know. I think you kind of are in Mars with your multi-billion dollar enterprises. Not in comparison to the ecosystem. In comparison to where I came from, I'm doing great, but in comparison to the potential of the ecosystem. So talk to me about for a second, a hard moment. And how did you overcome it? It's 2010 and the bank calls and says, hey, you need to pay $58 million of loans.

You need to pay them off right now. Shit. Yeah. And I didn't have $58 million. So I'm like, I don't have $58 million. I can't get a new loan. What do I do? I've never done this before.

I've never had a bank call loan. I'm not even late. I've never missed a payment. Foreclosures are popping up all around me. People walking away, giving keys back. I'm not doing anything. And they tell me, hey, you need to pay the loan off. I'm like, what are you talking about, bro?

I'm not even late. Oh yeah, but you're in technical default. I'm like, the whole world's in a technical default. So I didn't know how to do that. Oh yeah, but you're in technical default. Like the whole world's in a technical default. So I didn't know how to do that. Terrifying, exhausting. It sounds sleepless. Like what do you do? Not really. It wasn't sleepless, but it was like, okay, what do I do? It's like terrifying, right? And we didn't have investors at that time. So that made it easier because now I don't have to worry about other people's money. That's a much greater responsibility. We have 18,200 investors now. At that time,

it was just me. So that's easier to deal with because now I only have to worry about me getting back into the boat. I don't have to worry about everybody on the boat, right? But look, there's a lot of hard things in life. Most of them are not the hard things, by the way. They're not the most difficult things. They're the everyday things. The regular things that throw you off, but it's continuous, yeah. Look, I would rather have a massive problem.

When the fires hit Malibu and my house almost burned down, my family was like, wow, you don't even look bothered. I'm like, yeah, it's a big problem. When the fires hit Malibu and my house almost burnt down, my family was like, wow, you don't even look bothered. I'm like, yeah, it's a big problem. Like it's one I could nothing I could do about it. And sometimes little problems. Like, what am I doing? Or why am I doing this again? Okay, I can't this won't move the bar any. Sometimes it's little nagging things actually that are bigger than, you know, the big, big problem. The big one. Because the big ones you're just gonna focus all in

and you're just gonna solve it versus the nagging ones that you're just gonna nag you. Exactly, it's so big, it's so giant, it's so overwhelming. You gotta hit it, you gotta go at it. There's a target, there's a precise problem. Everything's identifiable. And sometimes life is not like that. You don't even know who the enemy is.

And it's incredible. And I've seen that you went to California and I've seen your posts around it. Exactly what I was thinking about when you said that. You're reading my mind. Yeah, yeah, because I've seen it. I mean, it was devastating. When you said that, you're reading my mind. Yeah, yeah, because I've seen it. I mean, it was devastating. When you talked about California,

a much bigger problem was the going to California and seeing if I could do something about it as opposed to my house, right? When I went there, I spent three or four weeks there talking to the people in California about making a change in California. See, that to me is a much bigger life. Can I do this? Will they listen? What happens? I don't know how to do this. I don't know what the rules are. So

those new things walking into new things when you don't have to. Like I don't have to do anything new anymore. My life's pretty good. If I was only going to do something new to improve the quality of my life, I don't have to do anything. But for me to have a quality of life, I actually have to do something new. I don't know if it's your personality or whatever it is, or it's the legacy that you're leaving. Because again, you don't have to, I mean, the California thing, you also don't need

to create a private equity fund. I mean, grant, you have so many things, you have so many businesses. I can't even say all of them. What makes you then go and decide, okay, let me just rate a fund, which is insanity. And to make it even worse, let me try to figure out how do I do Bitcoin type fun, you know, because like, So talk to me about that process. You know, thank you for saying that because all these click baiters on YouTube will be like Grant Cardone's raising money

from the regular person, taking $5,000, grifting on regular people. My fee, I think we make $50, a $50 management fee. When somebody puts $5,000 into Cardone Capital. By the way, that 5,000 will be invested in an asset that required me to write a check for probably a hundred million dollars. So now if you multiply 18,000, we have 18,200 investors. If all of them gave me $5,000 and I made $50 on everybody. It's not much.

So now the goal is to get that 5 billion, 10 billion, $20 billion. And then you make 1% on 20 billion. Then I'm making a lot of money. I'll make generational money that'll last forever for my kids, my wife. They'll just like keep banging. It'll become a bank. Yeah. I mean, the $50 is not what's going to get you there.

That's a million dollars if you have 20,000 people. Right. So that's not it. Right. I mean, you're doing this because if the fun gets big enough, right. Cause there's somebody's going to give me a half a million, a million. We've raised a billion six. So 1% of a billion six is $16 million a year.

That's real money. That's where it goes. But I still had the responsibility of the real estate, 15,000 tenants. Debt, $2.2 billion worth of debt. Like, so God, there's a lot of damn problems. I'm not complaining by the way. I I'm the one that chose this. We're going to take that 5 billion, turn it into 10 billion. I'm going to take 10 billion, turn it into 20 billion.

I'm going to keep growing the fund, and I'm going to keep having bigger problems. Not only that you have bigger problems, first of all, yes, they're bigger and bigger and scarier and scarier, but you're also kind of babysitting now 18,000 people. Yeah, I mean, most of our investors are really, really super, super appreciative. Do we have people that have problems? Yeah, we have people that have all kind of problems.

You know, they need money or not even really that many or they get a lawyer. This is Grant Cardone's rich, sue him, see if you can get some money out of him. Of course. But look, that could happen in any of the businesses. There are seven businesses. It has happened in all of them, by the way. I've had employees sue me. I've had partners sue me. I have a guy right now acting like an idiot.

We're going to crush him. Just finalized a defamation lawsuit for $100 million. It's confidential what the actual results were, but it was very, very good for me and it was not very good for the other guy. Got a full apology, becomes a partner in a business. It was an unbelievable day for me.

It was a legacy, like one of my seven years from now, I'm going to talk about that settlement. Can't talk about it today. But it is what it is, man. Look, you just got to win in life. You got to win more than you lose. And this is the unfortunate thing. Most of America right now is losing more often than they win.

Or worse, they're not even in a game they can win, which is the bigger situation. Unfortunately, the government's not telling anybody. Most people are simply playing a game. Even if you win, you're not winning. There's no trophy here. And even if you get a trophy, okay, the trophy is empty. And that's the hard piece, Seth Godin, that we had on the show. Basie said there's a dead end, you know, much they're gonna like run, run, run, run,

run, but they're running into words, nothing. It's a cool to suck. But talk to me also, you have the fund and on top of this, you also have one of your biggest ever last growth con, which is a global phenomenon. I actually brought my team to it. I think you had Trump at some point, you had Arnold Schwarzenegger at some point.

How did you build this to this size? And why is this the last one you think? I've been going to events or hosting events or speaking at other people's events for 25 years. And what happened was somebody asked me to go do an event in Dallas. This is how shit happens to me. Most things come out of bad stuff for me. This guy pays me a bunch of money to go speak at this gig.

I fly in, I said, hey, what do you want me to talk about? Blah, blah, blah. I said, OK, he wanted me to talk about real estate. When I went in front of the room, I'm like, how many real estate investors here? And not one person raised their hand. I'm like, well, what do you guys do for a living? Entrepreneur, entrepreneur, entrepreneur, business owner, business owner, startup. I said, how many real estate investors here?

Not one hand. And so in the moment, I called an audible and said, I'm going to switch from what this guy asked me to do and talk about being an entrepreneur. It was one of the best presentations I've ever done to an audience in my entire life. I walked away saying, damn, that was good. That was the best. And the guy that paid me dog me and complained because I didn't talk about what he wanted me to talk about. I don't even remember his name anymore.

If somebody told me what it is, I'd remember Dallas, Texas. I don't know. There was three or four hundred people there. It wasn't a big, big deal. I came back from that gig and told my guy, Jared, I'm done speaking to audiences. I will only do our own events. There's no amount of money that anybody can pay me that I'll go to their events. Now, that is not true anymore.

I will, there is a number. Then we started the 10x Growth Conference. That was 10 years ago. It was in 2015. We did our first one. There was 20, 30, 40 people there. It was in Orlando, Florida. The second one was in Cabo.

The third one was in Fort Lauderdale. And the fifth one was in Miami. It was 34,000 people there. And that's the story of the 10X Growth Conference. This is our 10 of 10, our anniversary 10 years. We're gonna finish this one this year and I'm gonna take this and throw it away. This part of my life will be over.

So I can wait till it dies or I can kill it myself. And I guess it's a new beginning. So what is the new beginning? Well, a lot of very exciting things on the horizon, some of which I briefly, you know, the California thing is real. I'm going back there to see if I can get 40 million people to save their state.

And I think it's very, very important for America, all of America, not just California. There's probably gonna be something happen in the public markets this year with our companies. That'll be interesting, like a merger, you know, some kind of acquisition, something big. There could be two of those happen. There'll definitely be something happen on the health front. There's going to be an interesting family office wealth concept, possibly event just for our partners.

And I said this years ago, one day the 10X growth conference will not be a ticket you buy, it'll be an invitation only event. And it'll be only to investors and partners. So that's some of the stuff on the horizon. You know, my kids are 15 and 13, so they'll be transitioning into their full teenage years and we'll support them and work through all that. The real estate Bitcoin fund, I think is going to be one of the biggest things that I've done.

I launched one where 95% closed. We're basically taking a piece of real estate that should produce a 10 or 12% return. And I think it'll produce a 40 or 50% return every year. I'm combining basically a very volatile asset Bitcoin with a very stable one that this is the Bitcoin over here. One's liquid, like the most liquid with something that's not liquid at all. And I'm going to combine these and we're going to create new products out of it. And I think this is the perfect timing for it because you have Trump, you got Bascent at the Treasury, Howard Lutkin, Commerce Secretary, you got Atkins, the Crypto,

Czar, or the SEC, and you just got a lot of things that this could be a massive. I showed this to a counter Fitzgerald a week ago up in New York City. And this is the first financial group I showed this to. And when I did, there's 12 guys in the room and all their eyes popped out of their heads. They're literally like, how many of these can you do? How fast? So I think I could get 10 of those done this year. It'll be about a billion dollars for the real estate and Bitcoin. And I think we can take that to the public markets and build something

really big with it. Amazing. So Grant, advice to your younger self. I would just give better advice to my 50 year old self. You know, if you're in transition right now, it's not too late, but you do need to change. You're not going to stop the aging process. It's happening. Your best photos will be taken today, not tomorrow. If you think you look bad today, you're going to look worse tomorrow. So grab as many photos as you can today.

And it's not too late. The best stuff I've done in my life has been recently. The last thing I would say to everybody is the biggest hack on this planet is to change the network you hang with. It is the biggest, fastest, easiest hack on planet Earth. And the fastest way to change the network is to write a check and buy it. You literally buy the new network, okay?

Everybody wants money. The moment you get to the audience that doesn't need money, bro, you're finally in the right network. Okay. Everybody wants money. The moment you get to the audience that doesn't need money, bro, you're finally in the right audience. I love that. And I keep buying my way in. So thank you, Grant, for having that. I appreciate you. I loved having you guys, by the way, when I loved having you on the yacht last year, we're going to do another one of those this year. And I really, really, really appreciate your support and it's on the Grant Cardone Foundation. Thank you Grant for everything you do. Okay, thanks.

Wow, what an incredible conversation. I am so inspired. I hope you are too. And if you enjoyed it as much as I did, please share it with friends. It really, really helps us bring more amazing guests. And if you at some point want to take yourself and your career to the next level, watch our free training at leapacademy.com slash training. It's leapacademy.com slash training.

And I will see you in the next show of Leap Academy with Ilana Golan.