the bossbabe podcast - 57. Elena Cardone on Balancing Business & Marriage, Developing Your Money Mindset & What Your Royal Core Assets Are

Episode Date: November 18, 2019

In this episode, The Ultimate Empire Builder, Elena Cardone, also known as Mrs. 10x joins us and dives deep into conversation with the co-founder and COO of BossBabe, Danielle Canty. Elena is a businesswoman, author, investor, speaker and the Queen of her empire. There so many takeaways in this episode and we can't wait for you to share with us your most significant takeaways. Elena and Danielle cover topics on building an empire, recognizing your royal core assets, becoming a stronger and more independent woman, working as a team, trusting yourself, money mindset, what it means to help, building your legacy and SO much more! After listening to this episode, be wholly prepared to alter your money mindset, think completely differently and totally ready to build your empire. This episode is brought to you by The Société. Join the community and learn how to start and scale your business at: bossbabe.com/connectbuildgrow Discover how to grow your audience on Instagram by 10,000 ideal clients in 30 days: bossbabe.com/growthatinsta

We're such a team now, I don't care who thinks I'm what. I will do whatever to forward our mission. If you don't trust people to let them in your life, there is something about yourself that you don't trust. You know, when you hit the finish line, you don't remember how painful and blood, sweat, and tears, you just remember the victory. Welcome to the Boss Babe podcast, a place where we share with you the real behind the scenes of building successful businesses, achieving peak performance, and learning how to balance it all. I am Danielle, co-founder, COO and president of Boss Babe and on this episode I am so honored to be interviewing the powerhouse, the Boss Babe that is Elena Cardone. Along with

her husband, she is the ultimate empire builder, speaker, author, businesswoman and investor. She is one half of the Cardone empire with over $300 million, mothered to beautiful daughters and in her own words, the queen to her empire. Now you guys are going to love this behind the scenes interview with Elena. I mean, the insights she shared on how she got to where she is right now was completely priceless. Her mindset around money, around building a legacy, about how she shows up every single day in pursuit of growing the Cardone capital. It was just such an honor and a privilege to kind of get behind the scenes, learn a little bit more about what it really takes

and I know that you guys are also going to have so many takeaways. Now with that being said there really was only one boss babe quote I could share to represent this episode and that was this, when I invest in myself the outcome is priceless. Because you will hear yes Elena and Grant have invested money but first and foremost they really invested in themselves and their mindset and I know you're going to love the story where Elena shares about their lotto game. So after this episode, be completely prepared to have your money mindset altered and you'll be left thinking completely differently and totally ready to build your empire. So if this episode does inspire you and you get super excited about what's next for you and your empire, then join us and the other women who are in the society,

our Boss Babe membership. It's literally the place for female entrepreneurs to connect with each other, build their empires and grow personally and professionally. And with thousands of dollars worth of resources already in there, which you're going to have immediate access to for just $34 every month, it's a complete no brainer. Now, currently, unfortunately, the doors are closed, but if you would like to get in, join the waitlist at bossbabe.com forward slash membership hyphen waitlist and get your name down there so that when we do open the doors, you are the first to know and get access immediately. So enjoy the episode. Make sure you tag myself at Danielle Canty, tag us at bossbabe at bossbabe.inc and tag Elena Cardone at Elena Cardone.

A boss babe is unapologetically ambitious and paves the way for herself and other women to rise, keep going and fighting on. She is on a mission to be her best self in all areas. It's just believing in yourself, confidently stepping outside her comfort zone to be her best self in all areas. It's just believing in yourself. Confidently stepping outside her comfort zone to create her own vision of success. So welcome to the Boss Babe podcast, Elena. We are so thrilled to have you on here. I have to say, I have been admiring yours and Grant's work for some time. So it's a real pleasure to be able to interview you today. Oh, wow. Well, I'm really grateful that you had me on your show. I always look forward to reaching new audiences. So I appreciate you trusting me with yours. Thank you. And it's been quite the year for you guys. I mean, I've been watching international sellout events, magazine covers, the continued growth of Cardone Capital. And even I feel like

I was watching Instagram and there was meeting of royalty in some countries. Yes, yes. I met princesses and princes soon to be kings. It's amazing. It really is incredible who we've met during our travels. It's amazing because it hasn't always been this way for you, has it? And I just, I really would love to start this interview just kind of taking you back to your roots a little bit, you know, before the glitz and the glamour and the private jets and really just share a bit of your background on how you found yourself from New Orleans to LA and eventually meeting your now husband Grant. Well, if we're going to go back that far, yeah, I grew up in New Orleans and I had kind of an unfortunate turn of events when my best friend at the time, I was 13, she perished in a fire

across the street. And so I was unfortunate enough to have witnessed that. And from that experience, I just didn't really know how to cope with it or deal with it at that time. So I really just turned to drugs and alcohol to self-medicate at that time. So for a long time, I didn't fully clean up until around the year 2000. But from 13 to 17, I was off the rails. I was a little punk rock chick and, you know, just confused and hurting. I had a lot of pain in life and just found that as an outlet to release whatever was going on for me. But at 17, I had realized that I had lost because when you play hardcore in that world, you're going to have some friends that lose their

lives and there's just accidents. There's car accidents, there's suicide, there's just tons of stuff that goes wrong. And when you're hanging out, you know, pushing life to the limit. So at 17, I decided the only way out that I knew how to get out of New Orleans was modeling and acting. So I thought I would take a stab at it and move to Los Angeles at 17. I knew no one, but I went there in an attempt to get myself out of this situation that I was in in New Orleans. So from there in Los Angeles, I clean up somewhat. Wasn't as crazy as the New Orleans days, but it still by all means wasn't handled.

So I met Grant, I think when I was 27 or 28. And I went through a series of just two failed relationships. Before that, I wouldn't commit to anyone. I thought I had to be this independent woman who did everything on her own. And I had the idea that men hold me back. So I realized at one point in my life that I was actually creating that circumstance to prove myself right about my thoughts that all men hold me back. And I had to be this independent woman. So one day I just recognized and realized that maybe I could be open to the possibility of a man actually helping and contributing and pushing me to higher limits. And then I thought if I found that man and if that man really existed, perhaps I could be with one guy for the rest of my life. Shortly after that, Grant came into my life. I didn't see him right away. So he pursued me for 13 months. He's persistent. I like that.

I know. He would leave a message on my answering machine twice a month, every month for 13 months with no return phone call. And then finally, one day I returned his phone call and the rest is kind of history you know so it is amazing what your level and your mindset can actually do to show up physically in the physical universe completely and I love that and I think it's so important to recognize like your own behaviors all of us can particularly as, sometimes we strive for that independence, but there comes a point where you can be so fiercely independent that you're not actually willing to accept help from anybody. And so what was really the shift in that for you? Like, how did that show up for you? But how did you transition that to actually, would you say you

work with Grant? We're such a team now. I don't care who thinks I'm what I will do whatever to forward our mission because we have couples goals. But what transferred that way of thinking is when the economic collapse happened in 2008, I was pregnant with our first child, you know, so all of the acting jobs were kind of dried up for me at that point. And the business as he knew it was gone. And he was on the verge of, he really thought we were going to die in this situation. You know, if not physically, for sure, financially, it was the first time I've ever seen him scared. It was the first time I ever thought that for a second he could think he was a small being. And that's the moment when I said, you know what, this is my partner in life. It has nothing to do

with male, female. When you see someone who you love, who has so much potential, you're not going to for one second, let them think that they're small. So that's when I said, I don't care what the women's lib thinks about me. I don't care if they think I'm a gold digger and I quit working and I sold out. And I went to support a man and how weak and lame am I? And now I'm just a house mom. And all those fears came into my head and, oh, and then he's going to leave you for another younger woman in the future. All those thoughts that certainly I can't be the only one that's having, but I certainly did. And I just said, you know what, I can trust myself. And if it doesn't work out for me, and he does all those horrible things, then I can take

responsibility for how I created a little bit or some of that. Certainly he would have his part in that too. But then I could always trust myself to depend on myself ultimately to have the courage and the tenacity and the discipline to pick myself up. And like nothing kills me off, you know. So once I realized no one can take anything away from me, sure, I can be humiliated. But, you know, it won't be the first time that's happened. So I just went all in on us. And it was my first entrepreneurial moment where I pushed all my chips on a bet. And I bet on him. And it turned out that he was a winner. He's my triple crown. He's never let me down. So I made the turn on being this independent woman. As a matter of fact, I've become more independent and more strong because of the challenges that I faced being with such a powerful and strong man. But certainly he depends on me

every single day to rear our children and to show up in our relationship and our marriage and to do all of the things that interest me because he doesn't want me selling out on my goals or dreams either because he knows that would mean I would sell out on him and the kids and whatnot. So the independent conversation is such a farce. I truly believe that us as women need to stop having that conversation that we have to be this independent woman. Who cares? You realize men are not having this conversation. Men aren't saying I have to be independent. Men are willing to do whatever it takes to get whatever they want and they will use anyone. They're not worried about

what they look like or that they have to be independent, but we're cutting, I don't know, is the phrase cutting your nose off to spite your face? Yeah. It's like we're doing that. We're putting ourselves at such a disadvantage. Look, I'm going to depend on everyone, especially as I grow my empire. I depend on Rock, my executive assistant, to keep me organized and keep me on schedule and to get all the stuff that I need done, handled. I depend on her. I depend on my nanny to show up on time so I can go to work and get things done. I depend on her to take care of my kids while I'm not there. I have to depend on my husband for things and there's nothing wrong with that. I can just hear the passion in your voice and you're so true.

I think it's like, we're not meant to be these little desert islands, are we? We're not supposed to live in independent lives. We're really sociable creatures. And I think, you know, my parents always brought me up to say like, you treat others as you expect to be treated yourself. I really honor the relationships I have and I have people around me and if they are willing to show up the way I show up for them, then they stay around. And if they don't, then fine. Then you don't need to be in my circle and that's fine. But I definitely always willing to let new people in and be like, okay, well, let's see if this friendship works. Let's see if this relationship works and I'll put everything behind that. And when it works out,

great. But if it doesn't, don't. But I do think I hear a lot of people being scared scared to let people in because they're like worried about the thought of being held that pessimistic side to relationships so how have you coped with that because I imagine I've heard you talk about the royal court before like what do you mean by that that's all the people in your court like rock who I'm talking about now my executive assistant the bodyguard, the housekeeper. She's in my house every single day. You think she's not a valued commodity to me? I appreciate her. I need her. I depend on her to help keep my house clean so I have a calm environment to come home to that's de-stimulating at the end of the day. So that's my royal court. My friends

who helped me, how I helped them, all the people that are directly connected to your business, your personal life, your finance, that's your royal court. And it's exactly what you said. It might sound brutal, but you're not going to build an empire on airy-fairy. And the people in your life are either assets or liabilities. It goes both ways. I mean, I want my executive assistant to be able to depend on me for a good, stable income and for security and stability. And I use her and she uses me. And that's a mutual exchange that is beneficial to both of us.

She is an asset to me and hopefully I'm an asset to her. And I look at every relationship in my life like that. So even the relationships that are not assets anymore and now are liabilities, they are not entitled to be in my life just because I knew them when I was 15 years old and we were all doing drugs together. If they're all still doing drugs and having accidents, and I can't have that in my life. I can't have it around me. I can't have it around my children. I can't have it around Grant. I can't expose my family and my loved ones to danger. And those people are dangerous to be around. Just look at the statistics of their life. They're not an asset. They're a liability. So I look at everyone like that. No one's built an empire alone ever in the history of the world.

So you will have to embrace that. You will have to expand and depend on people. I've been stabbed in the back a lot of times, but I learned from it and I learned, what am I doing where other people could perceive I'm stabbing them in the back? Because if you don't trust people to let them in your life, there is something about yourself that you don't trust. If you fully trust yourself and you know who you are, chances are you're going to be able to see out points and plus points in other people. I love that.

So just speaking about assets, and I just want to touch on like, how do you see you and Grant assets to each other? Like, what do you bring that with, you know, a lot of women listening, they might have the opportunity or they might already work with their husbands, or they might have significant business partners. I'm in business and that's like, what does that look like? What do you both bring from either side where you meet in the middle? Well, for one, I mean, how do you quantify how I am an asset for Grant? When you look at that in the 16 years that we've been together, I have never, not one time told him, come home and spend time with me. You're not paying me attention. So can you imagine how much he's been free to keep

his mind on business and not have to worry about me or getting pulled off a project or having to stop a project, just all of a sudden prove his love for me. I run all behind the scenes operations. I make sure everything flows well in his life. I make sure the kids are happy, healthy. They're contributing family members. There's not problems. I keep problems off of his plate. I handle, I solve problems behind the scenes. He doesn't know about half of the stuff I do. And that is so true. Sometimes to him, it makes it seem like I don't really do much, which is frustrating at times. But how do you quantify the relationships and the contacts

that I've put him in? I can look around and see multi-million dollar partnerships that he has solely because I have introduced him to people and collaborated and put them, pushed them coincidentally together. That's how we help each other. When he has to miss our little four-year-old's birthday party, I'm not, you don't love the kids and you don't pay time and your dad couldn't be here for your party. No, I have his back always. And I'm like, look, you get two birthdays, one with the family and one with your friends. And isn't this amazing? And they don't for one second think, oh, Papa didn't show up at my birthday party. I'm going

to be scarred for life because they understand that we're a team and sometimes there's sacrifices that we're going to put in the other time, the extra time and later. And this is what we do. And how do you quantify all of that? And for him, my God, I've never been pushed harder by another human being. He is tough as nails and tough enough to take a hit and strong enough to deliver a blow is what I say. And constantly, I'm constantly rising and stretching to new levels because of his mentorship and his inspiration and push. And sometimes I resisted at times, but in the end, you know, when you hit the

finish line, you don't remember how painful and blood, sweat, and tears, you just remember the victory and all those victories accumulated that we have with one another are what keep me in love and excited and motivated by him. Let's take a quick pause to talk about my new favorite all-in-one platform, Kajabi. You know I've been singing their praises lately because they have helped our business run so much smoother and with way less complexity, which I love. Not to mention our team couldn't be happier because now everything is in one place so it makes collecting data, creating pages, collecting payment, all the things so much simpler. One of our mottos at Boss Babe is simplify to amplify and Kajabi has really helped us do that this year. So of course I needed to share it here

with you. It's the perfect time of year to do a bit of spring cleaning in your business, you know, get rid of the complexity and instead really focus on getting organized and making things as smooth as possible. I definitely recommend Kajabi to all of my clients and students. So if you're listening and haven't checked out Kajabi yet, now is the perfect time to do so because they are offering Boss Babe listeners a 30-day free trial go to kajabi.com slash Boss Babe to claim your 30-day free trial that's kajabi.com slash Boss Babe you're right I love what you're saying like it's not quantifiable because I really see that too and I think often it's like being there for each other is what really makes that

team like showing up how the other person needs to and you know whether it's with my husband or whether it's with Natalie we always have you know if any of us are having challenges we always ask ourselves like what is this actually did they actually say that and did they mean that or was that me telling myself that story and really taking responsibility for our own feelings and I think that's exactly kind of what you were saying with like the kids birthday is like you can play that either way and you can see it how you want to but you should choose to see it in a positive way and when you choose to look at it that way and then show up and support then it's not even an issue and you can move past that rather than wasting energy on like okay the negative side of this or reading into something or making a drama out of something we always say at Boss Babe

one of my favorite quotes is we do business not, not drama. Oh, I love that. I don't like drama either. No, completely. So I just want to talk a little bit about building an empire. You wrote an incredible book. What does building an empire mean to you? What is an empire? It's something you really relate to as well. I've seen empire builder on a lot of the times of how you describe yourself. So what does that mean to you? Well, to me, it's about building something that eventually can live on even if you don't and expanding and growing. And it's about thinking on levels bigger than who you thought you were before you ever conceived of the idea of building an empire. But when you start thinking of an empire, it automatically opens up your thinking to now I have to go big. I have to get people. I have to, what is the product that

I exchange with the world? How can I make it better? How can I reach up and how can I grow and expand? So that's why I said build an empire because for me to keep me from all the petty fights with my husband and keep me small and in my little old ways of thinking, which I do get tempted to react to at times. Every time I remember, I'm either building or creating an empire. I'm either building or destroying an empire with every decision. It helps me step out of little old me and be big enough to accomplish my goals and my dreams. So that's something that I did for myself years ago and it worked. And then I decided, you know, I wanted to share this idea and the concept of the king and the queen. It goes with

everything. Like I would never talk about grant to anyone. I look at us as the highest level in our empire. The queen wouldn't go to a chambermaid and ask advice about the king. I really hold his trust in the fact that we are going to do this together. So I make sacrifices because sometimes you're tempted to go on the little rants with your girlfriends because let's face it, guys aren't perfect. Like us. Obviously. Anyway, you know what I mean? So it's just a way of thinking that's going to get you unstuck from little small you. I love that. It's a mindset shift. And I really would love to ask you, you know, watching from the outside and how you say you're building this empire and the

lifestyles that you lead now, you must have had to have a significant change in your money mindset and how you think about money is what your old money mindset was. Like how did you used to think about money? What changed and how do you think about money now? Because I felt this is such a huge takeaway for so many people. Well, I had to write down all the negative connotations or misconceptions that I had about money. I'll give you two examples. When I was a teenager and I was in my punk rock phase, and I'm older than most people, I don't know about your audience, but I mean, I was punk rock when it was like no one had seen punk rock.

It was a really rebellious time against the norm and against society. I was very anti-rich people back then. And I felt entitled. I felt like because they were rich, they were rude and greedy and they should pay for me. So I used to steal. As a teenager, I would steal from... I never stole from the mom and pop places because I did have morals, but I did steal from the major companies and corporations because I felt entitled. So I had this thing that rich people were greedy and I just hated rich people. I know that's so weird to conceive of, but I had to come to terms with that was my money mindset.

So I then go off to Los Angeles and I'm trying to make it as an actress and a model. And I could only hit low six figures, a hundred thousand, which was a lot of money to me, but it wasn't like rich. Like I wanted to hit a million dollars, but I could never get over 120,000. This is like in my twenties when I was on a show, I could never break out. And then as an actress, I would have money and then lose money and have money. I could never break through the ceiling until I realized that I was never going to break through a ceiling until I got over that rich people are greedy and that money makes you evil because no one wants to be evil. So I would create situations in my life, unbeknownst to me, to always push

myself down, to knock myself down because I didn't want to be greedy. I didn't want to be the anti-sellout. I was punk rock, man. I didn't want to be in the rich people category. Even though I thought I wanted it later, I still had that idea about money stuck on me. So no matter what, it kept preventing me from having money. So I had to get over that and I had to take on a new idea about money, which was, hey, you know what? Money can actually magnify who I am. Money can mean generosity, more giving. Money can make me able to contribute on bigger levels. Money is generous, not money is evil, greedy people. 100%. Then I had this connection with money that tied into the whole independence thing. I thought everything had to be my money, my money, my money. And I didn't want a guy to even buy me a dinner because I felt like he would think he owned me or some weird,

I don't know, it's crazy. Like some weird idea that like I was in control and I was the boss. I never let any guy do anything nice for me because I had to have this independence all on my own. I was proven to the world that it was my money and I'm successful. The only time I've ever kind of got over that one and started to now married to Grant. Now I'm getting over this idea of that. It has to be my money and I'm letting him take care of me financially. And that's starting to feel good, but I'm still not trusting him so much, but it developed over time. But I go into this, to the Chanel store in Paris and I had asked Grant to buy me a purse there. It was the first time I had ever asked for anything materialistic ever. And so he buys me this purse at the original, that it had to be the original Chanel store. He buys me this purse. The lady takes my money.

And that's when it dawned on me. The lady didn't ask me if this was my money. She sold me the purse. She didn't care if it's my money, if it's Grant's money, if it's your money. And then I realized it's illegal to have your money. You can't make your own money. It's money. Money circulates. It's energy. It's a flow. It switches hands.

I give it to you. You give me a service. Then you give it to somebody else. They give you a service. You just use it. It doesn't matter where it came from. It didn't come from you if it came from you chances are you're going to jail I love that I have always thought about money as energy

and it's really interesting actually I really relate to a lot of your old money mindsets they were some that I was brought up with too so I really really get late to that and I've done a lot of work to try and like move past those but I haven't heard the kind of thinking around that like you say they didn't ask who that money came from. Like it's just, you're just paying for a service and that exchange and that energy flow is really, really interesting. And is that how Grant thinks of money too? I know you said there's kind of a, he's on another level. So you guys think big, like really big, like on money amounts that most people can't even conceive. Right. And you know, that was difficult for us to conceive at one point too. And I always knew we were going to hit this point, but at one point for Grant, it was not real and

very not conceivable. I mean, 10 years ago when the economic collapse happened, he was in that situation. And that's when I decided to cash it all in and put all bets on him. And in order to get him out of this lack of confidence that he had at that moment about money and where he was going, we used to play this game called the lotto game. And I played this game. What if you had $200 million? And it was an unfathomable amount of money to him at the time. But I played this game with him every night for months and months and months. I'm telling you, I made him do it ad nauseum. But what this game did was once he assumed the beingness of a 200 millionaire, and then I would increase it all the way up to a

billion. Then all of a sudden you have this sort of thing where if you're a billionaire, all of a sudden you have this freedom. People take your phone calls. Who wouldn't take a billionaire's phone call? You could do this. You could do that. You walk different. You don't care if you lose a job. There's a certain thing that what you think about happens to a billionaire really does happen with a billionaire. But I got him to the point of believing and thinking of who he is without having to need physical digits in a bank account that he is never going to see anyway. I am never going to see that much money that we are worth today ever in one location, probably in my entire lifetime. I don't know what these numbers mean. I know I have a certain net worth or we have a certain net worth. It's not real to me. It's not real to me. I don't know

how much that is. I've never seen it. I'm never going to see it. It's digits real to me. It's not real to me. I don't know how much that is. I've never seen it. I'm never going to see it. It's digits in a bank. It's made up. So why would someone need that to go be who they really are? It's an illusion. Just be who you really are without having to need this stupid little crutch called money. And that's why we think on big terms now. We understand that it's just an illusion. It's just a game. It's just about targets lining up and how you perceive and use money. So from that point on, I realized it's not my money. It's everybody's money. So I take, you know, I want grants, products and services to the masses. Why? Because I need wealth. No,

I don't need wealth. I like it. But I want to do it because I know his products help people. Same with mine. Now that I have my own products that I'm about to put out, I believe I have data that could help people who are in the situation that I was in. And when I was looking for someone 10 years ago, I didn't have a person that was willing to expose their life at this level. Usually at this level, people close the curtain. They don't want to be seen. They're worried about the lawsuits. They're worried about the attacks. They're worried about their stockhold investors. I mean, people, they're worried about their security. They're worried about a lot of things. They close the

door, they get hurt, they get stabbed in the back. They say, that's it, I'm out. And I made a vow that if we ever got to the place where we wanted to be, which is not now, but I have at least have a certain statistic now that people can't argue with, but it's not where I want to be. But I vowed if I ever got here, a little tiny girl, little small girl from New Orleans could do this without stepping foot in a college. I would never shut the doors and be willing to take all the attacks and whatever comes with it because I know I can help people. And that's our goal. That's our mission. We want to help people. I want to leave that legacy. That's why I think in terms of empire.

I love that. You know what you're saying about you want to help people. I get that. But what does actually helping people truly mean for you? Is it being teaching them to be financially independent or financially stable? Is that what really drives you forwards now? Yes, that drives me forward. If someone can hear a piece of content that I have and it changes the trajectory of their life, my God, I mean, that's like a being who can create an effect. That's a very powerful thing to be able to create an effect on somebody else to change their life for the better. I mean, what's more rewarding to that? Nothing.

No nice, luxurious plane ride is nicer than that. That's the reward. The plane is the trophy in the physical universe saying, hey, you're winning the choices that you made, the sacrifices that you made, all the bad people that you had the strength to leave, even though the deal looks so good, but you avoided them because you knew they were no good. All those things that can't measure up statistically, the plane says, you know what? You're doing it. You're killing it. You're winning. You're winning in life and you're making a difference. So I admire and appreciate all the trophies that I have in my life, but the real prize is,

is being able to really create an effect, a really, a good effect that makes a difference for the better on this world. Like, wow, I have the power to actually come to this planet for the 80 years and I'm going to live here and make a difference. Wow. I can't even believe that. That's what I want to leave behind. I love that. It's so powerful. And like, so anyone listening, if you were saying to your, whether it be a message back to yourself when you first started or a message to someone who has started in a similar position to you, you know, on the rungs of the ladder behind, or I don't like that necessarily analogy, but you know, what bits of advice would you give them? Like, what are the three things that you're like, right, you need to start thinking like this, or you need to start doing this to really start

getting to where you want. Well, the one I said earlier, you have to know that with every decision you're either creating or destroying an empire, your empire, you're either destroying the one that you're never going to build, never have the courage to build, or you're going to make the right decisions and create. And sometimes that means being really strong and really fessing up to the truth about what's going on in life. You know, if it means you don't party on the weekends and you self-educate yourself instead, you have the discipline to do that. It's not easy when everyone's partying and you just want to fit in and everyone's telling you to relax and you work too much and all the normal people that try to get you normal with

them. The world is surrounded with normal people. It's really difficult to maintain extraordinary in a normal, ordinary environment. So coupled with that, then I would say, look who you surround yourself with and And are they willing to help you build your strengths and steer clear of your weaknesses or help build them up to at least not a deficit for you? The third thing is just learn to become the best friend to yourself. Like really like the best friend to yourself. Don't think everybody else is better than you. If that just because they have more money than you or they have a better job or ultimately, for lack of a better word, you are the God of you. So learn to value yourself and don't beat yourself up so much. I did that to myself for years. It was a big waste

of time. I just learned to forgive myself, move on, put policies in place to prevent myself from messing up again in the future. And as a friend, I pick myself up every time I've been knocked down and I come back and I'm ready to swing again. So I don't let myself take off time or feel sorry for myself. I hold myself accountable and I love myself. And that took a long time. So if someone could really truly be the best friend to themselves, I think you're going to be head and shoulders above a lot of other people out there who are struggling and hurting. Helena, that's so powerful. It's very easy for lots of us to play those old negative cycles over and over again. And when you really start breaking that and backing yourself, that's when the true magic

happens. I do two live calls with our society members, which is our membership. And every call call we create affirmations in our phones so these alarms coming up saying like you are awesome or whatever you need to hear so often we'll pick three words like how would you like people just describe you behind your back and you know really like bigging yourself up and having these like flash up on your phone not that they're interrupting you there's not an alarm set but they come up periodically through the day just be so that your future self will thank you

for it. So even when those moments you're not necessarily feeling as pucker or as like in love with yourself at that moment, but when you see that, that message from your past self to your future self, and it's something really powerful and helping you break in those cycles by putting those alarms on, like ways you can do it. But what are other ways that you can do that? Making a decision to get better and then figuring out how you can become an asset to yourself and to your family, to your community, to your job. You know, what is it? You know what you have to do.

Do you need to stop eating so much sugar? Do you need to start working out? Do you need to drink water, take vitamins? Do you need to learn a new skill? What is it? Those little things that you know you need to do and are scared to do or you're lazy or procrastinating. Those are the just things that you have to do and just start doing them little by little.

You don't have to like climb the mountain in one step. And if you stop and take a break, don't be like, oh my God, you can always just recommit and continue. If you miss a workout or you miss where you think, oh God, I failed again. I failed again. I failed again. Yet another thing I tried and I failed again. I mean, I've done that a lot and I just go, okay, well that's in the past.

And maybe this time I don't quit. I don't quit. I don't quit. And that's worked for me, you know, but if you don't quit, you can't fail. The other thing is, learn to disregard your feelings to a certain degree. I feel like we've become a very sensitive society and everyone's like, do what you love and the money will come. I do things almost every day that I don't always want to do. And I certainly know Grant does, but because it aligns and it fits into my bigger purpose, I'm willing to do it. And I'm willing to not be so sensitive about

certain things. And I don't care how I feel. Every single time I have to go speak on a stage before I go out, my heart is pounding out of my chest. My knees are shaking. I'm uncomfortable. Like I don't want to do it. That moment does not feel good to me, but I do it anyway. So if you can get in the habit of experience what you feel and still achieve the mission or the target, if you can get that one little quality in, oh my gosh, you will be able to soar higher than most people because they will stop when it gets too uncomfortable for them. Most people stop. That's what I would say to break the cycles.

Just start getting used to doing it anyway. Yeah, getting used to, I say get comfortable being uncomfortable. I think that's a really good way to like think about it. Cause like you say, it's acknowledging as well. I think a lot of people look at social media and think, oh yeah, well they have this perfect life or they don't do anything they don't like they have it so easy but I think just shining that light and saying no it's not you still show up and do things that you don't

want to do because as you said it aligns with the mission but one of my other questions I had was you know you spoke very early on in the interview talking about you and Grant have a couple goals right and you talk about what's aligning with the mission. What is your process in setting those goals? Is it that you are continually talking about it? Is it that you have that time where you sit down with each other and go, okay, what does it look like on a monetary level? What does it look on a family level? How do you differentiate it to build that picture and really get on the same page? Well, we talked about it. And so we wrote down who do we want to be as a couple and who we want to be as a couple is a model role couple. And what does that look like? And then how do we hold ourselves accountable to that? And why do we want to do that? I mean,

why would we want to do that to ourselves? Like, golly, I mean, we have to live up to a certain standard, like all the time being who we are and exposing that to the world. And then reaching 7 billion people on the world. Why? Why do we want to do that? Because we want to help people. We want to give to our charity. We want our children flourishing and prospering and becoming contributing members of society who are confident and happy. And so we just go down this list of things that once we know all of those, and now those are the things that get me out of bed in the morning. You know, then I write my individual, my personal goals down. Unless it's going to damage the couple's goal, it stays in. Like if I put down on my individual goals, if it causes problems, then I'm going to eliminate my goals of my girls night because that's not helping my empire. It's not helping my relationship. And that's number one to me. But I do, I like MMA. I don't know why I like it. It helps me. It's a good outlet for a lot of the stress that we're under. It makes me calm for the rest of the day. But I

know that the MMA is actually good and fuels my couple's goals because it helps me be smarter. It helps me be more disciplined. I think of business along the MMA lines. How am I going to approach this situation? Am I going to go in for the knee? Am I going to go in for the hook? Am I going to retreat? Am I going to back? Am I going to let him punch and get him tired out? It's strategy. So the MMA helps me in life figure out people. It's a good thing for me and it's a good thing for us. So I tell you that long drawn out story because I want it to be known that not everything that Grant does or I do, we have to love on each other and they have to support us or they're horrible. They're horrible in the marriage and I need a divorce because he doesn't like the MMA. Look, he likes golf.

Like he tries to get me to go golfing. He wants me to golf. I ain't interested in golf. I am not going to do golf. I will never complain that he goes and golfs with his buddies. I don't care. I'm not doing it. I would rather be doing my MMA or my shooting. I used to be a competitive shooter. So not everything do you have to be fully aligned and on the same page with, but we have our couple's goals. If the two individual goals support the couple's goals, they get to stay. If they damage or threaten or violate the empire, they get eliminated. And that's how we do it. I love that. Thank you so much, Elena, for giving us such an insight into your world and building an empire and what it takes. Because I really do think there's been so many takeaways

in this. I know I've been scribbling notes down frantically as you've been talking. So thank you so, so much. So if people want to learn a little bit more about you, where can they find you? They can go to my website. It's Elena Cardone, E-L-E-N-A, C-A-R-D-O-N-E, elenacardone.com. I have a big event coming up in February. It's called 10xladies.com. It's in Las Vegas. And then if you want my free book, you go to elenacardone.com forward slash empire. And of course, everywhere I can be found at Elena Cardone. And I would truly appreciate the support. And I'm very good at responding to people on Instagram. Thank you so much, Elena. It's been an absolute pleasure. we'll send you a copy of the boss babe 25 the boss of 25 is the 25 essential resources you need for personal and professional growth it covers everything from our favorite rituals books and hacks if you want a copy just leave us a review screenshot it and send to podcast at bosswave.com we will then email you a copy asap and since we love instagram you can go to the hashtag

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