Grant Cardone Debunks the Middle Class Myth, Shows Off His Jet, and Talks Kicking His Drug Addiction

You see, nobody's ever covered this, what you're doing right now. The entire middle class is a complete phenomenon. It is a mythological creation by politicians. God doesn't need to be recognized as blessing me. I need to prove that I'm blessed. He already did his work. I need to do my work. Now you guys need to go out and prove that you're blessed. You need to get grateful, full of greatness. I only did drugs when I was bored. When I was bored, I got in trouble. I'm not a planner. I'm a nuker. What's going on everybody? Welcome back to another episode of Travis Makes Friends. Today is a unique episode because the episode that you are about to watch was actually recorded back in 2018. But luckily the content is extremely relevant to today because we didn't really talk a lot about time-sensitive things. Basically what happened was we did this interview with Grant. This was one of the first interviews I ever did in person. In fact, it might have been the first interview I ever did in person. I flew out to his studio in Miami to get it done. Grant actually really liked the interview himself. So they ended up taking the interview and posting it on his YouTube channel where it's been sitting currently for the last few years. So this year when we started our YouTube channel, we were just like, you know what, why don't we just... I mean, it's our interview that we did. Why don't we just post it on our channel as well? For those of you who haven't seen it, if you go through the comments on the video that Grant posted, you'll see a lot of people in there that are saying that this was the best interview that they had ever seen Grant do. I say that so that I can pat myself on the back. But I also say that to say that I really tried my best in this interview to show a little bit of a different side of Grant, to peel back layers and showcase who he truly is as a person rather than this online persona that he magnifies. If you watch the interview, there's a part at the very beginning where you'll see an instant demeanor change that he has when he realizes that I came with a real plan to get actual information and content from him. He says several times that we've taken these clips and him and his team have given us permission to use them, that the interview was really great and he really appreciated the research that I did ahead of time to make sure that it was a good conversation. Even if you think you don't like Grant, I would implore you to give this one a shot and look for the things in his story that maybe you can resonate with or at least sympathize with a little bit. Without further ado, please enjoy this conversation that I had with Grant Cardone back in 2018. Let me know what you think. Grant is a massively successful entrepreneur, real estate investor, sales trainer, consultant, and public speaker. He also owns the Grant Cardone TV Network, a digital home for business owners and other success-minded people where he hosts, directs, and produces programs that help people do whatever it takes to succeed. His best-selling books include The 10X Rule, If You're Not First, You're Last, and Be Obsessed or Be Average. He lives in Miami Beach with his wife Elena and two children. Grant, welcome to the show, man. Hey, man. Thanks for having me. Travis, Travis Chappell. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Now, are you in any relation to David? David Chappell? No, no. That's actually, it's pronounced Chappell. Yours is Chappell. Yeah, yeah. It's a lot more boring. Maybe his is Chappell, too, but he smoked too much weed. That could very well be accurate. Yeah, you never know. Great to be on the show, man. So let's dive straight right into it. Dive in. I want to talk a little bit about where this all came from. So get back to where this all kind of started. So your dad starts making good money. Yeah, yeah, yeah. At a young age. And then you find yourself this awesome lake house. You're, you know, on the boat every weekend. Yeah, I mean, look, it wasn't, like, when you say the lake house, man, I get fantasies of being on Lake Tahoe with this big mansion, you know, and the Godfather's there. It wasn't like that. It was like a four-bedroom house, two acres of land, Lake Charles, Louisiana. Ideal middle class, though. Yeah, yeah, ideal middle class. He had just made it, right? My dad just got in. So then what happens? Well, for the first time, our neighbors were doctors. And something had significantly changed. Like, I could tell my mom and my dad were celebrating something. Like, they had somehow made it. And then my dad died about 18 months after he bought his dream house. So, you know, when people hear this story, because they didn't live it and haven't looked back at it, they're like, okay, dad died, guy moved into his dream house. But what they miss is that the 10-year-old, the kid, is collecting data. I'm calculating everything right now. Kids calculate everything, by the way. I mean, teenagers are over-underestimated. Eight-year-olds are underestimated. They see everything, how kids use food. Soaking in, yeah. They're soaking everything. There could be 50 things going on, and a kid probably picks up all 50 of them. Whereas an adult's only going to pick up one or two things. So I'm collecting data. Okay, dad died. Life is short. Mom has to sell the house the next week. House is not a good deal. We lost the dream house. I'm pissed off. So how crushed are you at this point? I'm crushed, dude. You get into this awesome house. At this context, at this age, you do think it's the awesome house, right? For me, it was. I mean, we went from a little 1,400-square-foot house to, like, 3,000 square feet. I went from, you know, 5,000-square-foot lot that we, you know, had a little tetherball and a treehouse to two acres of land where I could go shooting in the woods. I mean, this is when kids could carry guns. I had a gun with me. I'm out shooting owls and blackbirds and robins. Dude, I'm freaking happy. Ideal kid life. Kumquat wars. We're in the lake. I'm in the lake every day, crabbing, fishing, boating, mud fights. I'm coming home at night, man. I got mud. I can't hear because I got so much mud in my ear. Because me and my twin brother have been having mud fights for four hours. So how devastated then are you? My dad dies. So immediately, like, the guy that, like, this guy could do no wrong. He was the success figure in the household. He was the provider. He dies. So I got the grief to deal with. The next week, my mom sells the house. I'm like, oh, now I'm pissed off. Now I go from grief to pissed off. I'm angry my dad died. I'm angry at my dad. I'm angry at God. I'm angry at my mom. I'm angry at everybody. And so, dude, and I'm 10. OK, now I'm going to be moving into puberty here in a couple years. I'm moving away from all my friends, my dream deal. No more kumquat wars. No more BB gun. No more 22 calibers. No more shooting Robins. Now I'm back in the city. But I still have this space that I've been dealing with. And now I'm getting restricted and thrown back in a school. I actually lived across. My mom moved across from a school. So I had to look at prison every day. Go drive by where you went to school. And look at it today. Because it looks like a prison. So you're 10. You get back into the city. Going forward into your teenage years, typically you have some sort of an obsessive personality. Would you say that would be accurate? Your personality type is? I think everybody does. So everybody. I've never met somebody that doesn't have an obsessive personality. But can't obsess about something. You have one. What do you obsess about? This. Good. Everybody obsesses about something. People are like, oh man, you're just unusual. You're a beast. You're like a freak of nature. Dude, everybody's a freak of nature. Just let it out. So you start using that obsession for negative things as a teenager. Well, yeah. Drugs came along. I started smoking weed when I was 15. I knew the second I picked it up it was a problem. Just didn't care though? It was a secret. No, I did care. I cared a lot. Okay. And that was the problem. I couldn't smoke it away. So do you think it was definitely like an escapism type of a... No, no. It wasn't an escapism. It was basically because what do you escape into? Now I have shame. Now I have guilt. Now I know I'm a liar. Now I know I'm a bit of a thief because I'm stealing. I'm stealing. I got secrets. I can't tell my mom. I got this new life, this quiet life. I don't feel good about it. My twin brother is the one that turned me on to it. Him and his two punk friends. So now I don't like my brother about it, but the next thing I know I'm smoking weed every day. And then I'm smoking weed 10 times a day. Then I'm skipping school to smoke weed. Then I'm popping pills, drinking during the day, by the way. Amphetamines. Nobody smokes weed and says one day I'm going to be freaking... I'm going to think about putting a needle in my arm. That's how close I got. So for the next nine years, I became a daily drug addict. Okay, so now you're 23. Yeah, 23. Get my brains beat in. Yeah, yeah. But that wasn't enough. You know the whole story, I knew. That wasn't enough. I was reading Be Obsessed or Be Average. Yeah, yeah. A guy leaves my house. We were doing drugs. They knew I had some money in the house. Because when you're doing drugs, you tell people stuff you shouldn't tell people. It was a rainy night. And I'm walking these guys out. We had a steak or something in the house and we're doing stupid stuff. I walked them out of the house and they got a guy there to rob me. So the guy walks in and beats the ---- out of me. Just beats me like 70 stitches in my head and face. Wow. Still got tracks all over my head, under my eyes. You can see them right here. Yeah. Like right there. You can see over both of my eyes, my lip. And I went to the hospital for four days. I was using drugs the next day in the hospital. But I couldn't stop. It wasn't about enough. It was always, I want to stop. Dude, I couldn't stop. By this time, I had this compulsion, this addiction, this inability to stop. If drugs were around me and I didn't change the environment I was in. So what was the final straw then? I went to treatment. My mom said, hey, don't. You can't come here anymore. That's what I wanted to get to. So mom was the final straw. Two years later, I went and visited my mom. She had a little business and I went and visited her and I was loaded. Yeah. Slurring my words. Falling on her. Embarrassing her. She was like, hey, don't ever come back here. Wow. It was the hardest thing she ever did. Wow. Sure. 28 days later, I was in her treatment center. I was like, okay, I surrender. Yeah. I went to the treatment center, stayed in the treatment center as long as the insurance lasted. It wasn't long. Quite a scam. That was 28 days. Okay. So 28 days, man, look after like three or four or five days, I was like, wow, I can quit. I went five days, first five days. It was really the realization that it was possible. It was possible, man, because I had been trying to quit Travis for like nine years, not just nine years, nine years every day, probably 10 times a day. I would snort cocaine and then say, I'm never going to do this again. And within hours. Dude, I'm filling the second nostril up and I'm like, okay, this is the last time I'm going to do this. My nose has got like, back then, it was starting to have damage to the membranes, right? And I'm always runny nose and I'm gray. I weighed 135 pounds when I went to treatment. Wow. So 35 pounds less than I weighed. I was sick, dude. I was a sick man. And so what they told me there was like, you got a disease, dude, you'll never get over this. That's the craziest part of this story. So you go to this place where like their job is to try to keep you from not doing this. And then you leave. And what does the counselor say to you? The guy says on the way out, he's like, look, you'll never make it, man. I said, what you think, man? You'll never make it, dude. And I said, what do you mean? He's like, you have to give up all these ideas. Because when you go to treatment, you tell them everything, right? So you kind of start opening up. So you start telling them about your grandiose dreams and ideas. These ideas that you being rich, that one day you're going to own companies or that you're going to write books and you're going to somehow make your mark. He's like, you got to give all that up, dude. You need to be satisfied with one thing, not using drugs 24 hours a time. I'm thinking to myself, that's some bullshit. I am never going to be you, dude. He's like, you need to help other drug addicts and you need to be satisfied with not using it, period. Go to meetings. And I did, man. I went to meetings for, I don't know, seven years. And then one day I looked up, I said, look, everybody around here, man. There's nobody getting better in here. People are stuck in a lower condition. I learned this later. They were stuck in an addiction, in a disease. And people kept saying, I'm a drug addict. I'm a drug addict. I'm like, no, I'm not a drug addict, dude. I don't use drugs anymore. I am not a drug addict. I am a recovered, once addicted individual. And so what I did was I said, look, I got to take all this energy, this negative energy. By the way, my drugs weren't my problem. Drug was not my drug of choice. I only did drugs when I was bored. When I was bored, I got in trouble. And this is what led me to this book, Be Obsessed or Be Average. I have never had a problem as long as I was active. It is the moment that I become inactive and bored. I did a red eye, I was telling you the other night from Vegas. It's, I don't know, three o'clock in the morning. I don't have anything to do. Man, I can't sleep. The guy next to me is sleeping. And I'm bored. I'm trying to sleep, but I can't sleep in this bullshit seat. So I take my camera out. Everybody in first class is sleeping. And I take my camera out and I just start popping pictures of this guy. With the freaking flash on right through his eyelids until he wakes up. Because when I'm bored, and I think a lot of people are like this. I know when I wrote the book, people are like, dude, when I'm bored, I get in trouble. When I'm bored, I start looking for action. And I don't think that that's a problem with me being a kid. I was at my kid's school this morning. And I watched this one little kid doing this in art class. He just couldn't stop, man. I know somebody's going to try to put him on drugs. One of those teachers is going to be like, that kid's got a problem. Because he's bouncing. But I think everybody's a bouncer. I think everybody's bouncing. Everybody's got that in them. Everybody's got energy. It might be an introverted energy. So then you take this energy and you go back to the car lot that you were working at before you checked yourself into rehab. But this time with a total renewed energy focus. I was selling cars when I went to the treatment center. Because they allow drug addicts to work there. And I remember I'd be between deals. And literally using drugs. It was sad, man. So I went to the dealer that I was working for. I said, look, I've got a problem, man. I can't quit. I need to go to treatment. Can I have my job back when I get back? As long as I earn it. And he's like, yeah, but you don't need to go to treatment. I said, no, no, I've got to go. Or I'm going to die. And so I went to treatment, came back, he gave me my job back. I hated car sales. All I knew when I left was I hated that job. Part of why I hated it, though, was because I hated myself. I think a lot of people hate the job they're in because they don't do well at it. Because they don't like the way they're doing their life. They don't like the way they're performing at their job. So when I came back, dude, I said, look, I'm going to get great at this job. It was the only opportunity I had. So I came back, man. I took all that addictive energy, all that time I spent on drugs, and stupid... Just one more thing on the drugs. Drugs are not the only problem with drugs. It's all the degraded stuff you do that you would never do if you weren't on the drugs. That's the shameful stuff that the drug addict has to do or does. And so when I came back, man, I said, look, all I need to do is keep busy. If I don't keep busy, I'm going to be in trouble here. So I threw myself into this car thing, and I reached the top 1% of all the automotive people in the world. What kind of a role did the owner of that car dealership play in all of this? Was it just kind of like, hey, you can show back up, or was he actually trying to help you? He didn't understand the severity of the problem. He's one of those people in your life, dude, you're all right. Everything's fine. He was close enough to be blind, like my mom was for years, like my brother, like my sister, like people that care, like my other drug buddies. Everybody goes blind, right? That's the importance of networks. Your network has to be, they have to have open eyes, and they need to be honest, and they need to have ethics. Otherwise, they'll be blind to what they're doing that's not ethical. What's interesting to me about this whole story is that throughout this whole time, would you say that your dad was probably one of the more successful people that you ever saw up to the time you were in your 20s? Yeah, him and the doctor, him and his buddy the doctor. I didn't know any other successful people. How long did it take for you to find someone that had the same point of view on obsession with success as you did? It seems like all the authority figures would sit down and say, hey, slow down, take a break. This is a great question. By the way, you do a great interview, dude. I need to send a bunch of my buddies over to you. Number one is, the environment I was in, the automotive environment, was filled with just a lot of very average people that were satisfied with just having fun on the weekends. I remember Kenny. If Kenny could just get drunk on the weekend, he was fine. I had a salesman in the store. He'd been there 15 years or something. He could get his award. He was happy. Prior to that, though, I had always been looking for a mentor. I had always been searching. When my dad died, that guy that I looked up to, I started looking for other guys like that. TV's available. There's a lot of mentorship going on in TV. I started watching all the gangster movies. Oh, wow, there's power. He gets the girl. I'll watch the James Bond movie. I'm starting to pull in these ideas of role models or success or what I'm going to be because I'm trying to formulate my life. It doesn't matter. If you're 10, 12, 15, 18, you don't have a choice. You're trying to become someone who you are. I'm pulling in all this data, half of which is bad stuff. Criminals. I forget that they die but we're starting to become our role models. When you get into the educational system, schools, high school, college, it's boring. The teachers are boring. I don't want to be that guy. I'm searching for who can I be. Years ago, there's not a lot of role models out there. This is one really big part of this because that's what I find. People are always a product of their environment. You're in an environment that has a lot of people that are trying to contain you. That's one thing that I find very similar with a lot of the people that I've talked to, especially on the show, is that they were in this environment where they're trying to excel and become the best but everybody around them, even the people that they love, it's not always the drug dealers and the people that despise them. More often than not, it's the real enemy. It's not done out of a spiteful mentality either. I'd rather know that somebody is consciously trying to stop me. Because then you know it's at least wrong. 100%. I know what they're up to. It's my sister that wants to cuddle me under the disguise of I just want to take care of you that is the most damaging because it's the wife you sleep with. It's your dad that says, dude, I just don't want you to get hurt. It's the people in your life that care for you that don't even know what to do from reaching. Yeah, because they have some other agenda. That's why I say never take advice from a quitter. That's not a damaging comment. It's like, look, if your dad quit on money, if he was going along in his life and he's like, I'm going to go get it, I'm going to go get it. And then one day he's like, it's not worth it. He had a big loss. He's like, I'm not going to go for it anymore. That's the last guy you'd want to get advice from. If somebody went bankrupt don't spend money and don't. Bigger is not better. Don't never take advice from a quitter. He quit on expansion because he got spanked rather than recalibrate and figure out creating a new network. I need a new network of people that are winning. And just because you were winning a decade ago doesn't mean you should be in my network today because a guy was expanding 10 or 15 or 20 years ago doesn't mean like when you study mentors, you got to study where they're at in the cycle. Right. That's what the cycle is. I want advice from Jack Welch when he was building GE, not when he pulled away from it. I want to know from Howard Schultz when he's blowing up Starbucks not when he's leaving the company he's going to go into politics. I don't care about his politics, I care about his expansion. This is something that I find really fascinating is that most people will always look for the excuse to stay average. What I mean by that is they're okay with comparison to people that are less fortunate. So they'll use it as like we'll just be grateful that you're not in Zimbabwe living in a grass hut. But then the second that you bring up we'll look at Grant Cardone. He's buying multifamily real estate in millions of dollars. Hundreds of millions. Hundreds of millions of dollars. He's worth all this money. But then when you say that it's like you should just be grateful for where you are. They use comparison only when it's in their advantage. Does that make sense? You just encapsulated the entire definition of the middle class. The middle class in America and other middle classes that are being developed in India and other third world countries where there's not a middle class. They are based on comparisons. The entire middle class is a complete phenomenon. It is a mythological creation by politicians where comparison is the definition. I am in the middle because I'm not in poverty and because I'm not super rich. Even rich to a degree is just a fancy middle class. Like if you ask my seven-year-old Sabrina hey what is the middle class? Because she asked me one day she's like you talk about the middle class all the time. What is it Bob? I said what do you think it is? She's like I think it's rich people that are really poor. And that's the person that makes 70 grand a year doesn't have any money left over making their car payments making their house payments stuck, can't leave, can't move but you're better off because you said it perfect you are better off than somebody in Zimbabwe who's never had a bicycle. You have more than most you have clothes on your back you have transportation you have air condition you have food in your refrigerator and every time you go to Whole Foods by the way you're like ouch that's not freedom. So Travis you're doing a service to people to tell them the truth. So what is the balance then? Because I feel like being grateful is a really good practice but you should also have some sort of a healthy you need to be great and full of great. You need to be great. Somebody said the other day man you're really blessed I said no dude I'm proving it I'm proving that I'm blessed I'm not interested God doesn't need to be recognized as blessing me God has zero like he's not putting a mark on the board I need to prove that I'm blessed he already did his work I need to do my work I need to do everything but I'm not spending time on grateful I'm spending time on how do I fulfill my potential that is the great payback like if there's a God a higher power whatever you want to call it him, her, it dude the great payback is to prove it is to fulfill the potential not to be like well I got to work today and I didn't get in a wreck I didn't punch anybody in the face I didn't beat my wife up I didn't make my kids feel bad I could be grateful for that I'm good that's what the rager does I didn't beat anybody's face in it okay dude look where are we going to move the conversation to and that's what I'm interested in is that really the fulfillment of your potential to not hit people I'll give you an example a couple years ago sold the plane bought another plane when I got on the new plane I was literally on this plane three minutes it's a brand new plane Gulfstream 550 it's like top of the line everything I was on that plane maybe three minutes Johnny you weren't on that flight with us were you no Sherry my COO was on the flight Elena was on the flight so was I grateful am I ungrateful dude I love the plane I'm on I'm extremely grateful for it but I know now the question now in this conversation becomes when is enough enough and if you're asking that question I guarantee you don't have enough and you're not working hard enough and you're not going for your potential rather you're measuring against other people so you're trying to make sense of what you said you're trying to make sense of why you don't have what you have and changing it into a morality issue totally totally just saying getting rich is selfish and all this other stuff see nobody's ever covered what you're doing right now now the guy's going to drop into a morality issue why do you need so much you could have taken that money for that plane and you could have fed hungry people well dude I'm feeding hungry people by the way when we're having this conversation I'm feeding more hungry people that's always interesting oh there it is for those listening we'll link up to the video in the show notes you can come check it out we just put a little model of Grant's plane he just bought up on the desk here no this is the actual plane though that I bought the actual model right I shrink myself to get in the plane the future the future shrinker ok cool so we covered a lot of stuff so far building relationships and we've kind of touched on it already but the question I always ask to get the conversation going in the right direction is do you believe that what you know or who you know is more important and why yeah I believe that I've had this conversation with a lot of people I believe who you know is more important than what you know why is that well you know look your connections man the connections can accelerate everything so we did a growth conference we did my annual growth conference we did one that was 9000 people you know I didn't know this years ago I was out there competing I write about this in If You're Not First You're Last the competition thing is a dead art you don't want to compete with people you want to collaborate with people and I didn't know this because the way I grew up because my dad died probably I didn't have any connections and because I didn't have connections and I didn't have a network and I wasn't in the club and I wasn't in the country club and I wasn't at the golf course I probably made networking like wrong as opposed to using it to collaborate because I can tell you a whole bunch of people that are less talented than me that went faster than me so that's exactly my whole point of this entire show and if you listen to this all the time you definitely know this is where I stand on it but what you just said it basically encapsulates my entire purpose for this because I feel like the what is obviously important you have to be competent you have to have a skill set and you have to work on that craft but I just find that if you focus more of your time on the who the speed will always be greater like you'll skip rungs on the ladder you'll shorten the runway however you want to phrase it you'll get so much better so much faster and if you combine the two you're unstoppable if you are committed to greatness and you collaborate with other people and lift them up like make other people great I was talking to my wife the other day she's like my god the amount of time you give other people on the stage is unbelievable we did a four day event 9000 plus people that was incredible I give speakers Grant you could be up there the whole time I said no I'm sharing that platform now what does that do for me first of all it edifies me for sure I don't need to be on the stage they're on the stage on my behalf it's a network a built in network so we spent 4 million dollars with the Mandalay Bay it was incredible to get me instant I got speakers that came from around the world to deliver content I didn't pay them I wrote a check to Mandalay Bay for 4 million bucks I gave them an audience most people cannot put 9000 people in front of themselves so I did that for a whole bunch of people and gave them a great qualified audience which is what you're saying build this network to reach up I realized one day I was watching CNBC one morning I saw all the players on the planet the top 50 or 100 players whatever that number is they were all showing up in Davos in Switzerland Buffet Gates all the players the Google boys you're so stupid dude you need to go to Davos you need to show up where the other players are you need to go there and eat dinner eat dinner with the kings and the queens now I know some people this goes back to this last thing you said about the morality thing I don't need all that when you say you don't need all that you're being selfish you need to eat with kings and queens and power players because it's going to accelerate everything for your family if you're one of those people the best thing you could do is go eat dinner with Bill Gates rather than being in your little freaking Zodiac boat just doing the Zodiac boat thing attacking the big ship you need money, you need funding, you need support you need people behind you you can't do anything by yourself so what's the best way you've found to get into those networks of people flow power man flow power to people when I moved to Miami I called a couple of people business owners here in town and I said look what's your favorite charity I want to help out help out, flow power to power give, give, give don't try to get something don't try to get on my stage I have people every day like hey I want to do business with you I got this great idea I'm going to make you a million dollars just flow power to me flow power to power and keep flowing power to power get used to flowing power articulate it I've never heard it articulated that way that's why I asked for a little bit of an explanation but it's something I talk about a lot is finding somebody that you want to connect with and finding a way to give and add value but flowing power is a great way to put it because what happens is it offers you the ability to start getting into those circles of people and the temptation is if you're a good person that you want to help people if you love helping people the temptation is to help people so I need to be delicate about how I say this but I know guys that they just they help broken people they help people that are out of exchange that don't show up on time that don't stay late that want something extra they advance some money all you do is cripple the individual more enable oh you're enabling you're trying to help and by the way the guy that helps broken people he fixes his own brokenness by helping another broken person I want to help people that are doing well helping themselves that are in power moving to more power that are taking chances and risk I'm not going to help the guy that won't help himself I say this all the time I don't help people that have nothing I help people that have something and are willing to take that something and invest it in becoming more than what they are right there so we can make a network that's strong because a network with a bunch of weak people exactly there's so much stuff there to choose from to talk about but I kind of want to move on the conversation here and ask for just number one tip so if somebody's just tuning in right now they missed the whole part of the conversation and if that's true you should go check out the beginning because it was fantastic but if you're just tuning in right now you need one tip on how to network better how to increase your inner circle what is that one tip make a list you work for the industry that's expanding it's completely ridiculous you work for people not companies so you want to make that's so true that's something if I could go back that would change that so dumb dude what industry do you want to work in well I'm an accountant so who's hiring accountants oh the gas industry is hiring accountants you're not going to work for the gas industry and you're not going to work for a company you're going to work for a person so I would make a list who do I want to network with who do I want to eat dinner with who do I want to spend time with not mentoring I'm not talking about mentoring you need to read a book the mentoring thing is so overblown I've never called somebody and said will you please be my mentor not in a formal way no what I'll do is I'll grab a guy that's written this many books and I'm like that's my mentoring I'm going to read everything that guy put together every audio program he has I'm going to study everything he's done that's how you get mentoring so the network thing is about how do you hook up with players real quick on what you were just talking about how much do you think estimated that you've spent on mentorship, coaching, books basically anything investing in yourself I study millions millions of dollars do you think that's a direct result no doubt it depends on how much time I spent even when I was 25 years old I spent $3,000 when I was 25 years old that would be about $9,000 today I didn't have the money I borrowed it borrowed it from my mother paid her back 30 days later and I watched those tapes there was tapes like a sales it was a sales thing and it was a beta tape the tape was that thick and it played on a machine not just the $9,000 I probably watched that thing 10,000 times it was 12 tapes I knew every word I knew pauses, I knew humor I knew everything, inflections it taught me how to get in a groove and I didn't have a groove since then I have spent millions of dollars to be in the right place just this conference I spent $4,000,000 to be there that's what I spent tickets are expensive my tickets are expensive I'm the one that spent all the money here but it was worth the $4,000,000 to be with Daymond John to be with Andy Frisilla to have guys on stage with me Jordan Zimmerman who does $4,000,000,000 a year Bobby Castro who buys real estate just invested $3,000,000 in my real estate fund I had him on stage he's like this feels good this is the right thing you're a legit dude this is a real business when you build a network when you go from being one person to all of a sudden 25 people and 9,000 people around you you're legit you're not just riding around town saying I'm on Instagram so what was the first the first 9,000 you spent I think it's the first money you spend on personal development whatever you want to call it the first big chunk of money you spend it almost becomes addicting after that it's like ROI with improving the quality of who you are so for somebody out there listening that's going like I've never done anything like that I've always been taught don't put myself in debt but they have done something like that if you're doing self-improvement your first investment will not be that self-improvement course it was college and it failed you or it was high school and that failed you so what happens with people is the reason they don't want to do the self-improvement thing is because education failed them they're like I don't want to spend money on your course how bad was high school for you dude it was terrible man it was terrible it's a waste of time 12 years I learned nothing I got nothing out of it then I went to college I did that for two years I'm 40 grand in debt couldn't even get a job very few people attribute college, school to where they are today especially because the mindset just totally screws you over from that culture and then it takes so long learning shouldn't take that long if I get a piece of data I should be able to put it to use right away I shouldn't have to wait until the class is over so that brings me to another question is there too much I've met people recently who are literally never made a dime not implementing any of the stuff they learned they're like $50,000 in debt from spending money on programs, courses, events masterminds, everything but they don't ever make any money when's enough enough I would keep doing it I think it's going to stick I think something's going to happen as long as you take action maybe you're just going to finally change look I quit using drugs 9,000 days in a row 65 times 9 years times 10 whatever that number is is a lot 27,000 times or something I tried quitting every day so based on what you're saying I should have quit trying to quit but one day it stuck I've read a bunch of bad books oh there's the bad book list terrible, terrible, terrible but even when I'm reading a bad book or going to a bad seminar or not using it it's starting to stack data for me just like when you're looking at a real estate deal dude I look at real estate deals no, no, no, bang there's a yes it's all data dude all I need is one deal I need one deal but I need a bunch of bad books and a bunch of bad mentors and a bunch of bad advice to then say there's the golden I just need that golden piece how many days I quit using drugs 32,800 times on the 801 I went to treatment never used drugs again dude we have the wrong information maybe it's too much information and not enough hey pick up the phone right now at the course like we just finished doing a three day boot camp dude we had people making money on the first half of the first day of the course so we're saying here's some data applied at lunch let's talk about it at one so it could be the wrong course it could be the wrong information like there's a lot of bullshit out there you need to spend that kind of money on stuff like that I don't think it's too early I don't think it's too late and I don't think there's ever too much I think people quit people quit getting data they give up on the network marketing company oh Amway didn't work Nu Skin didn't work ACN didn't work maybe the next one works I tried doing Instagram can't get a following good man do another one no matter what unless it's bad for you don't quit if there's a chance of a win if there's a chance your life can get better if there's a chance that there is gold on the other side of the rainbow dude walk we talked a lot about a lot of things I do need to start getting wrapped up but I want to touch on real estate because that's something so I want to talk about that this is something that was polarizing to me when I first started following your content a couple years ago and that's don't buy a house since then I've implemented that and found it to be 100% accurate because of a bad deal that I bought when I was like 21, 22 so talk a little bit about that why is it bad to buy a house that goes against literally everything that everybody tells you to do look houses were made for banks houses were not made for people you live somewhere but you do not need to sign a 30 year note for the place you live in a house is a ball and a chain that weighs it's in the cement and you can't leave it you do not want to buy a house one door is not an investment one door is a liability a liability yeah exactly that was the biggest mindset shift for me because I'd always thought of it as an asset buy a house is an asset don't buy a car it's an asset for assets a car is a better investment than a house is I would buy a car before I bought a house really? I'd buy a boat I think I might buy a boat before and a boat is like as bad as it gets a house is because you guys have been hypnotized you have been lied to so heavily now I know all my real estate friends out there a lot of real estate people do business with me guys that sell residential real estate I am not going to convince the whole world that a house is a bad deal it's so ingrained in people's like I got to own it but what about equity Grant? what about equity? yeah I'm going to create equity other places so to be clear here he's not saying don't buy real estate no no I own more real estate than everybody watching right now so I own just don't buy where you live I don't need to own where I live what I want to do is I want to own real estate that I can rent to others I only want to own what pays me every month like I don't buy land nobody should buy land that's a speculation I would buy land if it was producing oil and if I was getting a pump every month if I got a check I only buy things that give me checks so now that brings me to the plane because somebody is going to be like dude you bought a plane the plane doesn't pay you it doesn't work so when I got on that plane when I bought the first plane Jared our VP of sales says we were going through Dallas I was still flying commercial at the time and he's like we met the VP of some company and he's like you know Grant when you buy the plane we won't meet the VP of the company anymore I said no we won't dude now we'll meet the owner we pay for that plane in three months the first plane was paid for in three months why? because he made his life $128,000 house that's not how he made his money he made his money he didn't build an equity net he bought companies right by the way he doesn't invest in the stock market he buys companies he's not a risk taker he invests in sure things so the jet gets me to people that gets me to a network that gets me to more money so that's an easy explanation for me every time I say that to somebody it's a great time to buy I have three or four other houses that I own but I just rent those out why not just buy the house that you have right now I buy where I can rent out and I rent where I can live and everybody's always questioning me so I guess the short answer would be ask Warren Buffett nobody wants to hear this conversation you want to have a two hour argument at dinner just say hey a house is a dumb asset those houses were built for banks you would not have the banking industry today if it wasn't for home loans so what do you invest in then the only thing I buy is multifamily or office, possibly office income producing properties something that pays you they have to cash flow for month one is there a cap rate that you usually look for we're not cap rate driven we're location driven market driven job focused like markets that the Dallas's, the Houston's markets where there's growth Salt Lake City I love Vegas so I like those in multifamily I do not like them for houses I hate Vegas for a house so those houses will get cut in half again there's so much good stuff today Graham I wish I could spend a lot more time but we need to move on go straight to nobody even knows what time it is that's true usually that means it's gone longer when I don't really know but let's move on to the last segment here something called the random round just a few really quick random questions with some quick random answers you ready? yeah alright let's do it what profession other than your own do you think would be fun to attempt the Wall Street hustle would be freaking awesome the hedge fund thing oh my god I'm coming back as a hedge fund guy or a rapper one of the two or maybe a rapper that is a hedge fund guy if you could sit on a park bench with someone past or present talk to them for an hour who would it be and why? for an hour? I don't want to talk to anybody for an hour let's make it a day because the whole 58 minutes I'm going to be like damn they're going to leave here in two minutes I don't know man so many people do I'd love to know from Jesus what's the real deal my brother why not one pair of sandals I'd like to know man like hey what's the real story here right so there's a lot of guys like that you know Kennedy I'd love to talk to Kennedy how do you like to consume content books, audiobooks, blogs, podcast videos I like to I particularly I learn best in a course room so in a room where there's a course where there's checkouts where there's duplication where somebody's helping me make sure that I am duplicating the data and not missing something give us a glimpse of your morning routine I wake up first thing I do is I wake up I go take a leak I write my goals down try to write my goals down before I take the leak and then I work out get a bite to eat come to work what is your go to pump up song I don't have one do you listen to music ever more just like but I don't I don't have some gimmick that I use to go from 0 to 100 I hear guys talk about you know the ice bath and the protein drink I don't need all that you want me to go from 0 to 100 oh you gotta say go I got go figured out what are you not very good at I'm terrible let's talk about what I'm terrible at so many things man I am horrible at organizing now my closet my suitcase my house everything's tight but me planning planning is probably a better word planning things I'm not a planner I'm a nuker so what am I horrible at I'm horrible at probably horrible at acknowledging people well enough you know so many things dude just a long list I'll tell you another thing I'm horrible on like I post stuff and I don't double check that it's the grammar's proper I have bad grammar I know I have bad grammar that's another thing I'm horrible at you want any more I'm good at sex though ----'s good alright as we get everything wrapped up here Grant there's probably a lot of different answers to this question but what is one place online where we'll be able to find you the most wherever you are wherever you are you will find me I hear though you're not doing as much on Facebook anymore I'm just you know I'm trying to have a little battle with them right now look they're throttling me so bad hard on Facebook like Facebook is going to implode on themselves for what they're doing this one thing that they're doing right now that I have six million people following me on Facebook it is so criminal what they're doing because you have insane engagement on Instagram it's crazy dude it's crazy like we can post the same thing same image so you can see that they're just doing this right now look you guys can do it like I don't have heartburn about it nothing's going to change in my life because of it well the difference is somebody listening didn't spend like 10 million last year on Facebook ads yeah that's right and I'm just telling you like when you go to a business page on Facebook and they force you to advertise what that will do and it's been proven over time is people will figure out another place to go because they're going to get a hard on for Facebook and say **** you I don't need to do this this is dumb this is ridiculous we're in a society now that rebels fairly easily when people are being taken advantage of so Mark good job bro appreciate all that you've done phenomenal great for you but this will whiplash on them like other great industries and business leaders I think they'll loosen it up in the future but it's just not fair that I would spend this much time and energy I sound like Trump now it's not fair but you built 6 million followers give them content every day and they can't even see the content because they want me to force the ad I'm already spending money with them now I don't want to spend money because I get that bad taste in the back of my mouth well Grant Cardone thanks so much for coming on the show today appreciate it