The Charlie Kirk Show - What Successful People Do, And Others Don't: Business Tips with Grant Cardone

Episode Date: May 25, 2025

What's the secret to building a successful organization, whether it's a business or a political group? What's the hardest part of becoming an online influencer or content creator? Charlie talks to entrepreneurship superstar Grant Cardone, retelling the story of how he created Turning Point USA without attending college, and supplying lessons that apply to all kinds of business endeavors well beyond politics.Support the show: http://www.charliekirk.com/supportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey everybody, Charlie Kirk here live from the Bitcoin.com studio. Today on the Charlie Kirk Show, Grant Cardone live from Vegas. I take questions from him about entrepreneurialism, building Turning Point USA, my daily routine, honoring the Sabbath, and more. That's at Grant Cardone's 10X Conference. You're going to love it. Email us as always, freedom at charliekirk.com. Subscribe to our podcast, that is the Charlie Kirk Show podcast page, and become a member today, members.charliekirk.com. Subscribe to our podcast. That is the Charlie Kirk Show podcast page and become a member today. Members.charliekirk.com. That is members.charliekirk.com.

Buckle up, everybody. Here we go. Charlie, what you've done is incredible here. Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus. I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk. Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks. I want to thank Charlie. He's an incredible guy. His spirit, his love of this country. He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA. We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country. That's why we are here.

Noble Gold Investments is the official gold sponsor of The Charlie Kirk Show, a company that specializes in gold IRAs and physical delivery of precious metals. Learn how you could protect your wealth with Noble Gold Investments at noblegoldinvestments.com. That is noblegoldinvestments.com. It's where I buy all of my gold. Go to noblegoldinvestments.com. Give it up for Charlie Kirk. That was quite an intro, I got to tell you. So you're going to run for governor of California, I guess we — Well, right, right now I'm trying to, I'm trying to get out of this business because your audiences are getting so big, okay?

I don't know if you guys know who Charlie Kirk is. He's got a hundred billion people on social media. Is that right? Okay. 450 employees. He's organized to present at 3,000 colleges a year. Organizationally, yes. I can't quite make 3,000 campuses myself.

Okay, okay. And it looked like he could. This guy's making a difference. And what's crazy is he's waking people up about what's happening and what needs to happen. So give him another big hand. Thank you, guys. Thank you. Charlie, how did all this start, man? How did this start that you go to a campus? Like, I don't even know the story. The story is amazing. By the way, Grant, thank you for having me. And you've been doing a great job. It's an honor to be with all you guys. You know, I think my story can resonate with a lot of you because I get called a lot of things, as you can imagine. The one thing I wish I would be called more, which is actually true, is an entrepreneur. I build things.

I build organizations. We help build movements, we build messaging, and we helped a certain person become President of the United States recently, and he deserves all the credit, the President deserves the credit, but we helped especially with younger voters in particular. But Grant, it started back where I grew up, the suburbs of Chicago. I wanted to go to West Point. It was my whole life was about going to the United States Military Academy in West Point. Eagle Scout, football, basketball captain, heavily involved in my community. Ended up not getting into West Point. I convinced my parents, hey, I'm not sure if I want to go right into college. I'd like to take a gap year before I go to college. And the idea I had was, hey, I want to start an organization

from nothing to try to reach the next generation around first principles of liberty and freedom and that our country is a great nation and is worthy of preserving and protecting. Well, one gap year turned into 13 gap years. Wow, wow. And— But what happened that you wanted to do that? Like, what was the spark?

Understand, this was in 2012, Chicago. And for those of you from Chicago, you understand that was very heavy Obama time. You know, being from Illinois, by the way, we have term limits in Illinois, little different than California. It's one term in office, one term in jail for our politicians. And my grandmother was a lifelong Republican, passed away about ten years ago. She's been voting Democrat ever since. And so, in Illinois we had plenty of problems.

That was good. That just hit me. I got to that one late. That one had to go all the way around the room and finally hit Grant. She's probably still getting Social Security. Oh, yeah. Not if Doge has its way.

She's getting her Social Security checkup. So the process was, look, I saw a problem. And entrepreneurs are problem solvers. It's that simple. People say all the time, Charlie, how do I get rich? How do I be successful? You solve a problem. Once you solve a problem, people will give you value.

And when you solve a problem over a period of time, better than somebody else, then you have a market differentiator. Well, I saw a very big problem, which was that the nation's youth were dramatically going to the left, that our college campuses were not places of free speech and free dialogue and open discussion. And so I decided to start an organization that would address that. It was called Turning Point USA. Started it in literally my parents' garage with no money, no connections, and no idea what I was doing. And thanks to the Lord's providence, and I have to give credit to God Almighty for his blessing at every single corner and step and turn. We experienced the most amazing journey over 13 years where I have been able to not just make an impact in the culture and politics, but build something of value and of great substance and depth. As you mentioned, we have over 1,000 employees at Turning Point.

We have well over $150 million in revenue between all the different entities. We have over 430,000 people that donate money to Turning Point USA and Turning Point Action. You can call them our customers. But as a nonprofit, we do have a for-profit arm, which is my show. But as a nonprofit, our customers are actually, the students are actually the target that we are trying to reach every single day. And so it's just been an amazing blessing. And as an entrepreneur, I'm always looking at new problems to try to solve and new ways that we can try to bring an innovative, passionate approach to try to make America a better and stronger country. Did he sell in America? So keep in mind now, I opened this

morning. Yeah, we're moving. OK. Yeah, thanks. The president was on this stage and he started moving. He's like, are we moving right now? I started this morning by saying everything starts with an idea. And then you take the idea and you start marketing that concept. How important is marketing? Let me just back up. How many people did you have on social media 13 years ago? 11.

Yeah. You were three of them. Yeah, exactly. I mean, it was just literally just my Facebook friends from high school, back when Facebook was still a thing. I had like 12 Twitter followers back when it was Twitter, not X. This was before Instagram, before TikTok. It was nothing.

It was a zero to one story. But it was also this idea of, okay, the hardest part, believe it or. It was a zero to one story, but it was also this idea of, okay, the hardest part, believe it or not, was not getting to the billions of views that we now have, or the nearly 5 million people on X or 6 million people on TikTok, whatever. The hardest part was actually getting to 10,000 followers. The hardest part was getting to 10,000 followers or 500,000. Once you get at scale, it is the Pareto principle, which is that then once you have more, then getting even more is easier than going from nothing to something. And so, and then you just apply the same success formula over a period of

time and you apply that and you realize that there is a rhythm to how God designed the universe. And the rhythm is very, I believe that also the Scriptures give us an idea of how we can succeed as business people, entrepreneurs, husbands, wives. And one of the ways that we are told is to treat others the way you want to be treated. Because look, here's the thing, it's love your neighbor as yourself. Leviticus 19, Christ our Lord repeated it. And it's a very important teaching, but in the business world, think about it. If you don't love your neighbor as yourself or treat your neighbor well, no one will want to do business with you.

No one, Grant, the reason why you sell this place out for 10 years straight is because people know they're going to get value when they come here. If it was just one year and it was the Fyre Festival, it would not be the 10X conference. It would be the 10 lawsuit conference. Right, right, right. But you treat people with value and reciprocal. The worldview that I bring to a lot of students as well, though, as a tangent is that we believe market principles, not Marxism, but market principles demand you to treat other people well because you're both getting value in that transaction. That there's two winners, there's no losers.

So when somebody comes to this event, you're winning because you put on all this time and you have to be rewarded for doing all this. Your team all has jobs and all the AV people, but most importantly, the attendees find value and they travel from across the country and they get something out of it. So anyway, going from zero to one and then one to ten, ten to a hundred. 10X. Yeah, exactly, 10X.

10X. In a lot of ways, our story is like a 5,000X story. Yeah, yeah. It is the, you could say, one of the greatest growth stories in American political cultural landscape of the generation. See, I didn't know you saw yourself as an entrepreneur, but I'm glad you said that because I see you as an entrepreneur. Thank you.

I've always said, oh, that dude's a brilliant marketer, knows how to monetize. He's not selling a product. He's getting people to do something even harder, which is to invest in an idea and a concept that hadn't actually produced itself yet. So I've watched you like, dude, that guy is a monster marketer.

Where did the original messaging come from and then how long did it take you to craft the message to find out what was actually people's buttons? Yeah, and that's the beauty of social media, that if you really know how to use it, and this is very important, that you should be understanding what your audience is processing as much as what you are posting. And a really good content creator understands the needs, wants, the emotions, and the inclinations of the audience, and then also tries to anticipate what content that the audience will want before they can even actually ever verbalize it or

vocalize it. So as an entrepreneur kind of in the social media space, I had a very difficult job. It's easy to kind of look now in 2025. Oh yeah, of course, Charlie, you have all these followers. I want you to think of how difficult my job was even eight years ago. Eight years ago, I had to go to college campuses and reach young people on the idea that I'm not going to forgive your student loans. I'm not going to give you free healthcare. I'm not going to give you free money to not to work. And I'm not going to say I'm going to legalize every drug that you can use for any reason you want to do it. And my message actually is, no, you can be really successful, but you have to apply actions differently than what you're currently doing, and America's actually an awesome country.

My message was rooted in a victor mentality, not a victim mentality. Way harder. You know how easy my plan — So this violated the customer's always right. Well, in some ways, but the customer, there's — the customer had two things they wanted simultaneously. Outwardly, they wanted just free stuff for their flesh, but also deeply they realized that gives them misery and not a life of prosperity or excellence or flourishing. When our job was how do we get the audience or the customer to try to reach to a better version of themselves?

And we saw this quite honestly post-COVID was a great tragedy. And we also have to be very morally clear. There's COVID and our reaction to COVID. Our reaction to COVID was far worse than anything COVID actually ever did to our society. And that must always be stated, that the lockdowns, the masking, and what our reaction to COVID did is it created a generation that was so angered, that was so depressed, that was so drug addicted, that was so searching for answers, that we were able to come by with a very compelling message and be not just viral but also very appealing to a generation that was drowning in the nonsense of the modern zeitgeist. Not to mention, you had an entire generation of young men that were being told that it was a problem that you merely even existed, that if you're a young white man you have to apologize for just breathing

at some of these schools. And so what we were able to do, and we're very thankful for it, was really fill that vacuum and fill that void. You didn't know, I mean, then you'd never imagine you'd have 100 million followers. No, and again, that's 100 million between Turning Point USA and Charter. Well, whatever, dude, 100 million is 100 million. I know, I want to, I'm trying to be a little less Grant Cardone USA and Charlie Pellett. Well, whatever, dude. $100 million is $100 million. I know. I want to keep it real.

I'm trying to be a little less Grant Cardone. I'm trying to just be a little bit, you know. We're on the same team, man. No, I'm not. I'm kidding. So, like, backstage you said, man, this guy's got a lot of energy. Do you see me as a person with a lot of energy? Oh, yeah.

What do I do that communicates a lot of energy? I don't know, Grant. It's just the way you are. Okay. It's God. God instilled a lot of energy? I don't know, Grant. It's just the way you are. Okay. It's God. God instilled a lot of energy in me. I have to give you a compliment, Grant. I'm giving you a hard time, of course.

No, no. It's that when you walk into a room, there's a magnetism. There's a life force that if even 10% more of humanity had it, the world would be a much better place. It is an optimistic problem solver. I mean that. Yeah I only say the follower thing that I just always want to be thrilled down and be accurate. But no, I never could have imagined it. Did you ever imagine that you would have people fund $150 million?

Never. So I'm just telling the audience, and you just want to talk about in the beginning that your imagination is probably limited to the possibility. This is a very important point, that even though your imagination is limited, I could not even grasp the concept of what does it mean to cash a check from a donor. Understand, I was a recent high school graduate who did not know the difference between credit and debit, that barely knew how to open up a checking account, that all of a sudden wanted to start an organization. Like, what does that even mean, right?

But in entrepreneurship, there are steps and there are sequences. And eventually, you get to a place where you realize what you are doing is working, making the world a better place, and can be scaled. And you enjoy it. If those four things simultaneously can occur, then you are in the right place at the right time. That is the recipe. That if you are able to find something that you're good at and find something that you enjoy. We're honored to be partnering with the Alan Jackson Ministries. And today I want to point you to their podcast. It's called Culture and Christianity, the Alan Jackson podcast.

What makes it unique is Pastor Alan's biblical perspective. He takes the truth from the Bible and applies it to issues that we're facing today. Gender confusion, abortion, immigration, Doge, Trump, and the White House. Issues in the church. He doesn't just discuss the problems. In every episode, he gives practical things we can do to make a difference. His guests have incredible expertise and powerful testimonies. Each episode will make you recognize the power of your faith and how God can use your life to

impact our world today. The Culture and Christianity podcast is informative and encouraging. You could find it on YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss any episodes. Alan Jackson Ministries is working hard to get biblical truth back into our culture. You can find out more about Pastor Alan and the ministry at alanjackson.com. That is alanjackson.com. Again, that is alanjackson.com. Let me just also speak to some of you in the audience. Maybe you guys are here looking for that next passion project. I think that we actually go after our nation's youth a little bit wrong about this. We say, hey, follow your heart in everything that you do. I actually think we should tell them, follow your skill that you enjoy doing.

Because, for example, there are things that I really enjoy doing that I'm not that good at. For example, I could be a college football coach. I love college football. It's one of my favorite things in the world. Not my greatest and best use. But my greatest and best use, I love politics, I love speaking, I love changing people's lives, I love the battle of ideas. But for entrepreneurs out there that might not be able to even see that horizon, understand

that there are chapters and there are sequences in this kind of growth journey that you're on. Did you know back then that there was a sequence or a system? No, I will say though that — Are you paying attention or you're just like paying attention to the stakes? No, it was — honestly, the first couple of years, and this is for those of you in this stage as an entrepreneur, I hope you internalize it, this is okay and it makes you stronger and it makes you better. And Grant, I know you will resonate it, this is okay and it makes you stronger and it makes you better and Grant, I know you will resonate with this, is that it was

all survival mode for the first four to five years. It was running one check to the other, barely making payroll. I did not pay myself a salary for the first six years. And that's just, by the way, I was happy to do it because I was just pouring all the money back into the organization, pouring it all back into growth, growth, growth, growth, growth. And now I can sit 13 years back and, you know, enjoy and see what we've grown and really pick different areas that we want to continue to invest in. But I wish I would have had more people say to me, hey, when you're in that survival mode, little do you know you're actually growing as a person and as an entrepreneur.

You're not just going through a subsistence phase. Does that make sense? Yeah, 100%. And as an entrepreneur, you will become a stronger and grittier person in those chapters, in those phases. In fact, if you had to make me choose, Charlie would you rather be or would you rather have a founder that went to MIT with a great idea in AI and gets a $100 million check immediately from private equity because he has a great idea?

Or would you rather have a guy that had to work 9 to 5 jobs and midnight shifts, started his own business and took a second mortgage out on his house, and had to go six years barely making payroll with three employees, and then got a $5 million check and a $10 million check. Which entrepreneur do you think is more likely to make it happen? Everybody, too much investment capital early can be a burden, not a blessing. In fact, you'll be like, oh, you know, we're going to go have the nicest office and a ton of staff. It is a recipe for disaster for entrepreneurs and early risk takers to all of a sudden be flush with capital. Being in those early stages at times can actually end up being a phenomenal upward blessing for you in the future. Yeah, so you're saying that the surplus of money, the surplus of money can actually stunt the creativity. Because if you didn't have money, you're going to come up with a solution.

Yes. Without spending money. Not only that, I think that the, yeah, I think that's right. I would add to it, the incentive structure as an entrepreneur, I think the way that God designed us, that our best ideas and our best creativity is one when it is musts, not wants. That if you have to go make payroll, and you have to go feed your family, and you have to make this business survive, and you have burned the boats, you are going to be more likely to be able to have that company

be durable and anti-fragile than the company that just has Sequoia Capital come in and drop another $50 million check. Yeah, makes sense. It makes you a better and stronger entrepreneur. What do you, get strong, stay broke. Well, and I will add even beyond, and I love that. I want to add another term to your vocabulary though, everybody here. There is fragile, strong, and then another term, the fragile and strong is a binary, but there's another term called anti-fragile, which is what I think you mean when you say strong, I think you mean anti-fragile. Yeah, that's right.

There's a book by Nassim Taleb which is phenomenal, which is called anti-fragile. And Donald Trump mean anti-fragile. Yeah, that's right. There's a book by Nassim Taleb, which is phenomenal, which is called Anti-Fragile. And Donald Trump is anti-fragile. Michael Jordan was anti-fragile. He's a very unique type of person. And let me describe what I think Grant Cardone is anti-fragile. So, someone who is fragile, they shatter when opposition comes against them. They're not

an entrepreneur. Someone who is strong can endure opposition, but they don't get stronger in the midst of it. Something that is anti-fragile, actually, it is their life force the more you push against them. That is an anti-fragile organization, an anti-fragile entrepreneur, an anti-fragile creator. And it's a completely different thing than being strong. Someone that's strong survives and can withstand the storm. Someone that is anti-fragile becomes stronger after and through the storm. Yeah, they convert the attacks.

Bingo. The attacks actually become surplus advantages. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, so, so that brings me to your haters, okay? Oh. Because I have a lot of haters. And most people say, I have the most haters, but I can't have the most. I know you have a lot. I think I got more. And Trump's got a lot. I mean, anybody that's got big visibility is going to have a lot.

Can you just talk about, have they aided you? Have they provided you with the impetus for more creativity and more solutions and more funding? No. So there's two types of haters. There's the, I was trying to find a nice way to say this, but I'm not going to say it. I can say it for you. Yeah, there's like the purple-haired jihadist on a college campus that wants to murder me and my family.

Oh. That, like. I don't have those kind of haters. Yeah, I know. Those people don't bother me, whatever. My haters are nothing now. Yeah, exactly. You know, they have weapons.

We get death threats almost every day. That's part of the game of the space that I'm in. The other type of haters, though, are the ones that are the close proximity ones. And these are the ones I know that had some sort of relationship with me and either betrayed me or deceived me or said that I could not succeed. That is a whole different, those actually get my attention. Yeah. Just like the random troubled person on a campus, whatever. So, so the, the obvious, I want to hurt Charlie Kirk doesn't bother you as much. Zero. In fact, yes, I actually believe that I am doing my job as a truth teller,

the more that those people are trying to come and murder me. Yes. Yes. Yeah. I know that might sound crazy, but in the world that we are in, truth telling is a signature of whether or not you are receiving, receiving hate is a signature of whether or not you're trying to kill. Right. And a sign of success. Exactly. Now, so the group you worry about is not— Not even worry, but that draws my attention. Is the inner circle, inside— Yes, or people that suddenly started acting in a way where they compromise— You blew them up, and now they forget that.

Yeah, something like that. Something like that. Or they betrayed you internally. Sure. Do you have someone you have in mind, McGranderson? No, I'm kidding. Oh, yeah. No, something like that. Something like that. Or they betrayed you internally. Sure, do you have someone you have mind-regretting or something? No, I'm kidding. Oh yeah, every — No, I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Dude, I mean, I —

I mean, the — I love the game, I love the game though. I gotta tell you, the game's good. I will say, I'm a big Michael Jordan fan, I've mentioned him before. Michael was vicious. And this is an important thing. Yeah. Is that everyone should watch The Last Dance, Netflix.

By the way, I'm from Chicago. And can we just settle this once for all? There is not even a comparison between LeBron James and Michael Jordan. It is just ridiculous, okay? It is such a silly, sloppy, modern, like millennial Gen Z thing. Michael Jordan is the GOAT. No one will ever come close to him. And also, LeBron is not even on Kobe Bryant's level, okay? It goes Jordan, Kobe, magic, and then like LeBron is...

You could boo all you want. How about you go lose another NBA final, LeBron? Something Michael Jordan never did, okay? Anyway, 6-0 in the NBA finals. Took time to go play baseball and come back to win another three. LeBron, something Michael Jordan never did, okay? Anyway. 6-0 in the NBA Finals. Took time to go play baseball and come back to win another three. Okay. Don't complain more, LeBron.

Anyway. Sorry. See, these are the haters that bother me. This is one guy that I would suggest you guys not do a debate with. Especially about Michael Jordan. No, I'm kidding. Before you enter a battle, make sure you can win it and you can last. I would not enter

the octagon. We aren't kind of like an octagon thing that keeps on moving. It's very medieval here. I don't know what... Anyway, but the point being is that... No, vicious. And Michael Jordan, though, he would always say, like, once you're on my list, I will never forget it. And it took a lot to kind of get there, but he was vicious, man.

He played to win. He understood it. He was loyal to his teammates. He was loyal to those people that were always ethical. And by the way, even other competitors like Karl Malone or Charles Barkley or people that or Magic Johnson early in his career, late and early in his career, they never, they were never on Michael's list. It was the people that talked dirty about him, that said he wasn't up to it. Those were the ones that Michael was like, okay,

I'm going to have to go make an example out of you. So when you first started going to the campuses, like, was that for content? Was it for your mission? It's a great question. It was not for content. I started to go to campuses with no cameras. And I would just set up a card table and I would talk to one student at a time and just have debates and try to start a club on that particular campus and find a student. And we'd have three or four kids and then we would start it like at University of Wisconsin-Madison or University of Illinois. It was pure grassroots. And that is the other thing as an entrepreneur that I would encourage you guys as a takeaway. Nothing will replace grassroots activity and connection and hustle and relationships, especially in a world drowning with digital and AI and synthetic and inauthentic. Being in the grassroots, being connected with people is a defining characteristic for anyone that wants to succeed. How do you develop authenticity? Because I hear it all the time by people that are like, you're reading right now, dude. How can you be authentic when you're reading?

Right. And I agree. I hear it all the time. And I don't know quite how to respond to it because almost every corporate advisor or consultant will say, you know, the problem is that you just have to be more authentic to Gen Z. I think that we solve this problem in one way. The most authentic way that we could, our job was to get Donald Trump elected and help him with younger voters. That was my task. Okay, well. Somebody else gave you that task? I'm sorry? Did somebody give you that job?

You just said, I'm doing this. Well, I mean, I knew him since 2015. I know Eric. I know Don. And I said, I want to fill this void. And they were unbelievably supportive. And the president, again, deserves all the credit. We just said, we just want to focus on this one thing.

So we had a choice. We could go raise a ton of money, which we had the opportunity to do, and go run a bunch of TV ads that young voters can go see. Right? 15-second ads. Okay, maybe. Or I could just go set up a table and say anybody at any time can come up to this microphone and ask me any question. Let's go do it. We're going to go do it on 25 campuses. Were these scheduled? Were they planned? Were they advertised? Yeah, I mean, they were scheduled like two weeks in advance. And we have a whole amazing team that comes in and organizes and works with the administration.

And we have chapters all across the country. But in the beginning, in the beginning. Oh, in the beginning, nothing. Anybody could go to a campus and start talking. I couldn't order a pizza, let alone schedule an event. But like if I wanted to go to a campus today, could I go there and just set up a cart? Yeah, I mean, you could. Absolutely.

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that kind of got into the space and then others were starting to go to campuses and I would do evening campus events. I started to realize though, that there was a great attention in the audience or desire and appetite, a demand, if you will, for the least filtered conversations imaginable. Show me two human beings having unfiltered, unscripted, raw and organic convos on things that I don't quite know where I stand on. I think I lean one way or the other, and let's just kind of have it out. And the Internet at its best lends itself towards conversations that aren't censored. Yeah, that's right. At its worst, it was — became so hyper-inauthentic — let's use that term again — where everything was just kind of reading off a teleprompter and was just scripted.

And so we helped fill a void — again, it just wasn't us, but we kind of stumbled into it. Yeah, but you're the king right now. No, I'm not the king. No, I'm not the king. Hail the king! 10X! No, I'm not the king. Hail the king. Ten X. I'm not the king. Hail the king.

Christ is king, not Charlie Kirk. Charlie's not king. Christ is king. Okay. Thank you. I do appreciate the compliment. But I know what you're saying is that we are probably the most popular in this genre, right? And the reason being also, and I think this is important, is that other content creators that might have had an opportunity to do this, I don't think wanted to do the work.

Yeah. I mean, understand that for the first 10 years of growing Turning Point USA, I traveled 330 days a year. Wow. 330 days a year. That's real. I'm a multimillion-dollar mile fly fire on every airline. Yeah. United, Delta, American. You name a commercial airport, I can likely tell you there's three letter call signal. Totally. The best place to get food in either the American Airlines, United, or Delta

Terminal. And the highly likelihood of how long you have to wait for your bag, an Uber, a taxi, and what time you need to check in at a 6 a.m. flight to get it right in time if you have TSA pre or not. If you guys want to know LAS, by the way, it's a 6 a.m. flight. It's a disaster. They only open one security line in advance. Make sure you get there about 4.40 in advance. They have that one train that goes right there, and you'll probably be able to board in time by about like 5, 10, 5.15 in the morning. All kidding aside, that was thankless work for about 10 years.

Yeah, that's right. And it's easy to kind of look at it like, wow, you went totally viral. Yeah, okay. We're super thankful for that. And it's a great blessing. But you have to be able to put in the grind, put in the hours. And I mean, I tallied it up. I took 192 red-eye flights over five years.

I mean, I have a belief that a successful person is one that never has to take a red-eye flight again. Like, I think that's like a goal. I think it like destroys your soul that like you have to, do you know what I mean? Like, it's just like, there's something really depleting about a red-eye flight. But at times, like, hey, I have a donor meeting in LA and then San Francisco and then I'm needed in New York and you just got to make happen what you have to make happen. And so, it is, you have to understand the inputs that got us to this place, and you

have to want it. Yeah. You brought up God a number of times. God's instilled in all of us, I think, the ability to work. So, what is it that some people do and some people don't? Yeah, and again, I'm not here to throw my religion at anybody. I am who I am, and I express it. And so in my faith, the Christian faith, we believe that if a man does not work, he shall not eat.

In fact, we believe that working is biblical, that God gave us the ability to create. So it's very important. In Hebrew, there are two words for creation. Bahra, which is the word when God creates, and only God uses that. So in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, right? Only God uses create. And then the word achra, which is when human beings create. So that word is used for when Abram created or Moses created. All throughout the

scriptures, we see this idea that God rewards the creation of value. In fact, one of my favorite teachings is when Christ our Lord, in the parable of the talents, and this is a great lesson for all of you that are entrepreneurs, it goes as follows, where there is a master and a couple servants, and he dishes out basically an investment of talents. You could use that, by the way, metaphorically or literally. Talents were literally just currency. Or you could say it metaphorically, like, hey, everyone has their own talent. And to each one was given a certain amount.

And every one of them did something different. One hit it under a rock and did nothing with it. Another minorly invested it, and one multiplied it greatly. In the telling of the parable, the one that did nothing with that talent was scorned and said, how dare you do nothing with what God has given you? How dare you not sow that? How dare you not multiply it? God wants us to be fruitful and multiply with what He has given us. In fact, in the scripture, it says that we are made in the image of God, in His creator, in the image of Him. Well, since God

creates, we can also create. This is a uniquely Western idea that I believe has given birth to great modern scientific innovations and the reasons why we have the greatest AI companies and the most wealthy and incredible people and why the fact we're able to send rockets into space and recover astronauts. Thank you, Elon Musk, for that, by the way. And the fact that we have multi-trillion dollar companies. Why is it that America has this center of enterprise and ingenuity? Well, the Western idea, which is a biblical idea, that you are commanded to go do something productive with your life,

that you are not commanded to go sit idly by and just receive. You are commanded to go give and to produce and to risk and to then go sow into other people. That is a biblical idea that has made the world a profoundly better place. To next! 10X! How important is it to be surrounded by other people that work at those levels? Does that kick you up? Does that inspire you? You said something once, Grant, that I really like,

which is that if you are either the smartest person or the wealthiest person in the room, you're in the wrong room. Is that correct? Yeah, something like that. Yeah, okay. It's an approximation, right? Yeah. And I think that's exactly right.

I try to surround myself with smarter people, more successful people. You are the moving average of the five people that you spend the most time with. So a good homework assignment for you is write down the five people you spend the most time with. That is who you become. And so if you are spending time with five people that spend the most time with. That is who you become. And so if you are spending time

with five people that are constantly complaining, they're constantly in way too much debt. Blaming. Blaming. Criticizing. Criticizing. Hating. Exactly.

Got one more. Wishing. Okay. Come on, keep going. No, you do one, I do one. Okay. Can't repeat. Can't repeat.

Victimizing. In the past. That's not, that's not. Yeah, it is. In the past, living in the past. In the pasting? In the past. In the past. I thought we were using adjectives, so. Bro, I'm from Louisiana. Okay. Okay. We have limited vocabulary, okay? I didn't grow up in Chicago, man. Fair enough. Okay. So now that we're done with the thesaurus hour at 10X, that type of mentality will cripple you and your business.

Yeah. Now, this is also important. You can go to the other extreme. If you are around people that are so ambitious they are willing to compromise their ethics or their integrity, then you also must detach from that. If you are about people that want to get rich quicker than they want to do good, you're wrong. So you have to, both are equally important. And this is also what I find is that in order for you to 10X, you also sometimes have to delete certain people from your life to get you to that level. 100%. And sometimes you have to, I know that this is not like the greatest marketing, but sometimes you have to subtract before you multiply. Yep.

And I want you to hear me out with this. If there are people in your life that are like, you can't do that. You can't 10X it. Now, and yes, you can use it as like, okay, I'm going to show you and motivate you, but you have to be an exceptionally strong-willed person to be around that all the time and still be able to succeed. And so I recommend, if they're family members or parents, you should honor your parents, but you don't have to immerse yourself in that. Instead, find people that are coaches, mentors, cheerleaders,

encouragers for the type of person and the type of innovator that you want to be. You mentioned earlier about COVID. Yeah, thank you guys. We're honored to be partnering with the Alan Jackson Ministries. And today I want to point you to their podcast. It's called Culture and Christianity, the Alan Jackson podcast. What makes it unique is Pastor Alan's biblical perspective. He takes the truth from the Bible and applies it to issues that we're facing today. Gender confusion, abortion, immigration, Thank you. Each episode will make you recognize the power of your faith and how God can use your life to impact our world today.

The Culture and Christianity podcast is informative and encouraging. You could find it on YouTube, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss any episodes. Alan Jackson Ministries is working hard to get biblical truth back into our culture. You can find out more about Pastor Alan and the ministry at alanjackson.com. That is alanjackson.com. Again, that is alanjackson.com. I'm convinced that COVID, while all the harm it did, it also created something good came out of it. And I think that people are still upset about COVID here four or five years later, whatever it

is. And I think that they're actually looking at the system now. Like it was a big lie perpetuated on a lot of people. Do you think that there was any positive out of COVID? Yes. And again, I keep rooting things back to scripture because it's the most important thing. But yes, I mean, I believe what the enemy meant for evil, God will use for good. And I think regardless of how bad this thing was, that there's amazing good that came out of it. And I can give you some of the good.

And I hope that, again, we all know the negative. But some of the good is I think a lot of people are now taking their own personal health a lot more seriously than they were before COVID. I think people are asking critical questions about the food they're putting in their body, about what they're giving their kids, about the supplements that they're taking. God bless. We have Bobby Kennedy as the head of HHS, right, and the head of Health and Human Services, right? So there's plenty of elements there that I think are positive. But the one that I think I like the most, the greatest takeaway, is that it sufficiently, I think, began the end death march of the mainstream media. I think we are now finally seeing that people can consume information in places that are not named ABC, NBC, or CBS.

That podcasting, places like, you know, all your amazing social media, is now becoming more trusted because what we saw during the reaction to COVID, which was so outrageous when they were saying that we have to close down schools of healthy, vibrant kids, when they were saying that we need to mask and six feet of social distance, which was a completely made up thing. Totally. I think it has now resulted in a counter movement of an enlightenment of humanity that the likes of which we couldn't have imagined 50 years ago. Yeah, you guys, are you guys awake? So, Charlie, you're around — I was at Mar-a-Lago the night you guys flew back in from Greenland.

Oh yeah, that's right. Now, a lot of people don't know this story, but they went to Greenland with— Don Jr. Don Jr. And everybody saw it on Instagram. They were going over there. What you didn't see was you guys brought a whole bunch of people back to Fort Lauderdale. Who were those people?

I'm sitting literally next to the table you guys were at. It was my table. Who were the people that you brought back? It was Don. It was Sergio. James. It was kind of the White House staff now. Was there some people from Greenland?

No, we didn't bring them. Oh, dude, I thought you guys were inking a deal that night. No, no, no, no, no. No? I've been telling people all over the country. Grant. They're inking a deal. They're inking a deal. Greenland is going to become the U.S. Because you want that condo building in downtown Nook really bad.

Yes. I know you. It's like, boom, look at that. You get a 10 exit. And the next 10th growth conference in downtown Nook, right? That's exactly. I would have sworn that was a budget. All kidding aside, Greenlanders, they need a 10x mentality. If I could just say one thing, everyone, this is such an important example, and we see this far too often in the Native American community in America and in indigenous communities. They've been treated terribly, obviously, you know, over 100 years. It's awful. However, there is a mentality that

persists where it is not one where they think that every individual can flourish. It is basically inherited that you're in the place that you are, you're not going to get any better, don't try to become too successful. And Greenland has that problem. I don't know how much you want me to talk about Greenland, but they have unbelievable natural resources, gold, silver, aluminum, natural gas, and the young people of Greenland are starting to see on social media my content, your content, Tony Robbins, and they're like, we want to be rich. We want to be successful. Our parents tell us it can never happen here, and just to stop dreaming so big.

And so in some ways, the story of Greenland would actually be an unlocking of phenomenal historic human potential. You mentioned real estate. Yeah. Okay, do you like real estate, and what's your interest in it? Yeah, I mean, I love real estate. Yeah. Okay. Do you like real estate? And what's your interest in it? Yeah, I mean, I love real estate. Why?

Why do you love it? Well, first of all, I like things that, number one, can't be printed. So I like finite goods. And so it's one of the reasons why I'm fascinated in 3D manufacturing. I think that 3D manufacturing in particular and advanced robotics are going to be one of the most interesting investment sectors in the next couple years. Again, one person is about to become a billionaire because she's applauding me, and congratulations, you're great.

Because you know exactly what I'm talking about. You're blessed. Because, so here's my hypothesis and I'll get back to real estate because real estate fits into this. My hypothesis is that the vast majority of wealth over the last 20 to 25 years, and I put it in quotes, has been software breakthroughs, and we have been really lacking in hardware breakthroughs. So our cars basically go the same speed. Our planes basically go the same speed. We deliver things basically in the same way that we did 20 years ago. And that's

finally starting to change. Drones, driverless cars, autonomous vehicles. However, software and hardware has not kept up. Our software is completely different than it was 20 years ago. From microchip processing, NVIDIA, it's totally different. So therefore, my hypothesis is that in an era of mass inflation, where you have more dollar bills than goods and services, it makes a lot of sense to all of a sudden invest and hold on to goods of which the money printer cannot, you can't just push a button and you get more real estate. Definitionally, there's only so much that can exist. Second, it is one of the few human necessities. Lodging and housing is something human beings need.

And finally, again, I'm not making any predictions. I'm not telling you to invest in anything. I'm just saying that there'll be ups and downs. You're not giving financial advice. No, I have to, because like you, I get all these crazy threats of lawsuits, right? Yeah, yeah. But I just want to say this, though.

As a matter of fact, we have a lack of housing in this country. It's very serious. Five million homes. Yes, young people cannot buy homes. That's why I think 3D advanced manufacturing Yeah. It's very serious. Five million homes. Yes. Young people cannot buy homes. That's why I think 3D advanced manufacturing is going to solve this in a very serious way. Because if you are able basically to print an entire home in a factory and assemble it in three weeks —

That's terrifying. — versus then nine months — My rents are going down, dude. Well — How much time's left on the clock? Yeah, exactly. Sorry, Grant. No, but it's real.

That's real. It's real. And again, so this is what markets are all about. And then maybe that's something you guys then invest in because you always have to stay on your toes. That's right. But the lack of supply of housing is a serious major issue, especially in states like California, as you mentioned, that have been so onerous when it comes to environmental impact studies, NIMBA boards, stuff like that? You are very close to politics.

I mean, you're seeing it every day. You're working with people. You've spent time with everybody, been on all the stages. Do you think a person could be more influential kind of pushing the scene from the outside, like you're doing, or being into politics, being in a position? I mean, it all depends on the person. I mean, President Trump, for him, running for president was obviously the most influential that he could be. I mean, let's take a different, let's not talk about me or you. Let's just talk about somebody who I don't think should run for office. I think Tucker Carlson is more influential being Tucker Carlson than if he were to be like Senator Carlson. I think him,

as an outsider, being a podcast host or social media personality, is far more influential. Yeah. Let's pick like Newsom. Didn't you do an interview with this guy? How did you do that, bro? Like, did you take a shower as soon as you left? Did you? Tell me this truth. Did you feel slimy when you walked out of that room? I've been around that dude. I felt slimy. I did not feel good about myself. Yeah, I mean— I asked for forgiveness when I left the room. So that, I did ask for, you know, some sort of an exorcism. All kidding aside, how did I, I mean, I was the first guest on Gavin Newsom's podcast.

He's not very good at this, as you can tell. He's about as good of a podcast host as he is a governor. So, and he, I don't know if you saw my conversation. Maybe you should check it. It went pretty viral. But he was trying to run to the middle and try to, you know, accommodate my positions. He knows where the wind is blowing always, unless, of course, there's fires. The palisades.

Oh, my God. Do you think California can be flipped red? With the right person, absolutely. Does it become the movement first or the person first? Do you think it becomes the guy or the gal that runs, or do you think it needs to be a movement? It needs to be a mixture of both. Movements require people to start them and lead them.

Rarely movements are allowed to continue simply on just oppositional movements. You need an articulate, charismatic leader to lead them. How, if California was flipped, it's 54 votes, right? Electoral votes, I think? I believe that's right. Yeah. How important would that be to the country? Game changer, yeah.

Like what? If California were no longer a blue state and became a presidentially red state, I mean, you would not see another Democrat president for 100 years. And you don't hate Democrats, do you, Charlie? Sorry? You don't hate Democrats. I voted Democrat for 38 years. No, no, no, actually, some of my closest friends are.

I don't like any of these labels. Let me tell you what I do hate. I hate people that go after children. I hate people that want to keep borders open and lie about it relentlessly. I hate people that want to inflate our currency. I hate people that strand astronauts and not have Elon Musk go rescue them because they don't want to give them credit. I do not hate individual people of a political party. I think certain ideas and perspectives are insidious and against who we are as human beings.

But I think regardless of what you call yourself, if you love the country and you love our values, you should join Team America. Ladies and gentlemen, Charlie Kirk. Thank you, guys. Thanks so much for listening. Everybody email us as always, freedom at charliekirk.com. Thanks so much for listening and God bless. For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to charliekirk.com.