Transcript: BiggerPockets Podcast Show 108 with Grant Cardone

Transcription of the BiggerPockets Podcast, Show 108: Building a $350
Million Real Estate Empire Using the 10X Rule with Grant Cardone
Listen to the show or read the show notes here.
This is the BiggerPockets Podcast Show 108.
Grant: You guys have been unbelievable. The best podcast I've ever been on in
my whole life. You guys are masters of the podcast universe.
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investing online.
Josh: What's going on everybody? This is Josh Dorkin, host to the BiggerPockets
Podcast, here with my co-host Mr. Brandon Turner. What is going on Brandon?
Brandon: Dude I am pumped. I'm pumped.
Josh: Dude, I am also pumped.
Brandon: Alright. For those people who don't know why, we just got done
recording today's interview with our guest today, we will introduce in a second.
And it is incredible, incredible.

Josh: Fabulous show. Fabulous. I mean, we've done 107 previous shows with
fantastic people but I've never left an interview feeling as motivated, as excited,
as just jazzed up. This one takes the cake. There's motivation, there's education,
there's more motivation, there's comedy like you wouldn't believe. This is our
first Rated R podcast by the way.
Brandon: We'll add some bleeps in there but if you got kids in the car, you may
want to, you know. I don't know, earmuffs.
Josh: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Brandon: And besides the fact, this guy probably has more real estate than all of
our guest we've had previous combined. It may not be number of units but value
of real estate. And if not, he will. Crazy stories. You guys are going to love this.
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Josh: A lot of good stuff. Awesome.
Brandon: Cool.
Josh: No, it's great. Alright, big thanks to our sponsors. We really really do
appreciate it. Before we get into the show, I just want to say something. This is
extremely important and yes, we're going to force you to sit and listen to this
entire show. It's not a forcing. This thing is absolutely insane. But you guys, at the
end of the show Grant is going to make a proposal for a job offer that can change
your life. It's going to make a millionaire out of somebody, a multi-millionaire out
of somebody.

So you have to listen to this show. If you are in real estate, involved in this
business, and see big things of yourself, pay very close attention to A) to the
show, and B) to what we get to towards the end of this thing, because this is an
opportunity of a lifetime. We've never had this on our show before and may not
ever again.
Brandon: And you'll hear me pretty much quit the podcast, to quit BiggerPockets,
then there.
Josh: Yup.
Brandon: You'll hear why.
Josh: This did happen. Alright guys. Grant Cardone is an entrepreneur, TV
Pundit, New York Times bestselling author, he's a speaker and a real estate
investor. Grant spoke the 10X Rule, it was recently featured on Brandon's post of
the 'Top Five Business Books That Changed My Life'. And frankly Brandon does
not shut up about this book. Seriously, he just talks and talks and talks.
Brandon: 24/7.
Josh: Oh my god, he doesn't shut up. Alright. Well, we decided we had to bring
Grant on to the show to tell us more. So with that, why don't we do this? Grant,
welcome to the show my friend. It's good to have you here.
Grant: Thanks for having me. And Brandon, dude Brandon's got it right. You got
to read the 10X Rule. It takes whatever is unbelievable in you and turns it into a
freakin’ obsession.
Brandon: I'm a freakin’ obsession. I don't need 10X. If I went 10X more I'd be
crazy.
Grant: No it would be good man. You'd be 10X bigger and then 10X bigger again.
You know this is an important message that people need to get because people
are settling for their reality rather than work into their full potential.
Brandon: Awesome, awesome. And we're going to totally get into that. We're
very excited about it.
Grant: No, we into it now dog. We into it. We all in. We lickin’ the bone man.
Brandon: Alright. Let's start with you. People don't know who you are. Who are
you, like what's your background? How did you become who you are today? You
wrote all these books, you got all these cool stuff happening, what's your story?

Grant: Well first of all, I want to apologize to anyone and everyone that doesn't
know who I am because that's my fault. That's my fault. I haven't done a good job
in marketing myself and I apologize to you. It won't happen again. My name's
Grant Cardone. I grew up in Lake Charles, Louisiana from a lower middle class
family. My dad worked real hard, died when I was 10 years old.
There was five kids and my mom brought me up. She didn't have an education,
never held a job. So she was basically, for most of my teenage years, she was
trying to manage a little bit of life insurance money to get three boys and my two
sisters through school and into college. So everything that we were brought up
on was like a lack, scarcity, fear, and don't use what you have, conserve
everything, it was just scratch and get by kind of like, and be grateful that you’re
in the middle class. Because we weren’t poor, we weren’t without, we had food
and clothes and we had a used car to get to school in which was a thousand
times more than some people on this planet had, but it wasn’t enough to waste
anything.
That’s kind of how I was brought up and one day when I was 16 years old, I told
my mom, I’m like enough of this shit. It’s the first time I cursed at my mom. I’m
like, I will not grow up and be like this. I refuse to grow up and worry about
every time I walked out of my bedroom, I remember the bedroom I lived in on
10th
Street in Lake Charles, Louisiana, I’d walk out and my mom from the kitchen
would say, “Turn those lights out!”
Brandon:My dad did the same thing all growing up.
Josh:And I do it to my kids.
Grant: And it’s like everything was about save rather than create. I don’t know
what clicked for me when I was 15 or 16 years old – actually 16. I was like, when I
grow up, I’m going to be rich. I’m going to get rich so I don’t have to worry about
turning the lights off because to me it was just a constant fear and it was a
contraction. It was this pressure to be small and now I look back 30 years later
and I’m like, wow, look at what’s happening to the middle class. So many of us
brought up like that and so many people in this country suffering, barely can get
by. Anyways.
Brandon:It’s funny like that because I actually leave the lights on at my house
almost every night. My wife always gives me a hard time about it and that is
exactly why I do it, though, because I was raised with that scarcity to turn every
light off and now I don’t need to turn my light off. I can afford the extra $20 on
my power bill or whatever.
Grant: Dude, let me tell you, $20 is your problem. You’ve got bigger problems
than the 20 bucks.

Josh:Yep. Absolutely. But it’s part of that culture, right? We all grew up with that
culture. It was the upbringing from the ‘60s and ‘the ‘70s and so on and it’s born
and bred in us and it’s great. I know I came from fairly well to do. Not upper class
but upper middle and even then, it was kind of the same thing so I think it was
part of the times, but you said I’m 16, I’m 17 – I’m going to change. I’m going to be
rich. What did you do? How’d you go about making that happen?
Grant: Well, I stayed broke for nine more years. It took a little while to click. I
went to college because my parents thought college was important and so many
people still do today, so I went to college and did the deal. I didn’t want to go to
college. I was there five years. I borrowed money from the government. I got an
accounting degree I didn’t want. I went to classes I didn’t really want to be in and
I get out of college and there was 24% unemployment in the little town I worked
in which was an oil gas and refinery town, which basically was a union town and
if you wanted a good job, it paid $15 an hour then you went to work at the unions.
I didn’t want to do that. I got a college education, can’t get a job in the degree I
went to college for, owed the government money, and the only job I could get
was a sales job. So it was either take the sales job or get unemployment. I actually
hated the idea of being in sales so much, I went for the unemployment money.
Josh: So you did a piece I saw in your reel. You did a piece, I think it was on Fox
where you’re talking about the education system. I know you’re a big fan of a
need for reform. I’m guessing you probably are one kind of like Peter Teal who is
all about, college today, its value has gone down dramatically. I’d be really
interested to hear your thoughts on education because listen, our audience are
entrepreneurs. These are folks who go and make things happen with or without
schooling so I’m curious.
Grant: Look, I got an accounting degree. It was one of the better business degrees
you could get when I went to college and I didn’t want to get just a business
degree so I was like, I’m going to get an accounting degree. I own four
businesses. We do almost $100 million a year in sales here. I’ve never even
written a business plan.
All I know is how to produce revenue. I’m like, produce revenue, span, grow
revenue. I built a software business, I didn’t know anything about software. You
build a piece of software, you’ve got to sell it. Somebody’s got to sell the software.
It doesn’t matter how good it is, there’s probably better software. But you’ve still
got to sell it so Mark Cuban says, the first thing that everybody needs to learn if
they want to start their own business is how to sell the product or the service or
the concept or raise money. One of the four.
I don’t think much of college. I think college is basically a big business. I don’t
think it’s for most people. I think a very small percentage of people should go to

college. I think people actually use college as a way to avoid going to work and
confronting the reality of life.
Josh: I see that with every one of my peers going to college. I went to college and
I got a history degree and now I’m using it to do a podcast.
Brandon: Now, you’re doing it to do a podcast.
Josh: I’m using it to do a podcast with Grant Cardone.
Brandon: Exactly.
Grant: Hey, maybe it worked.
Grant: I don’t know. I don’t care. You could have told me it doesn’t matter to me
that he’s got a degree or not. I hire people every day in my company, I could care
less what your degree was. I could care less what your grades were. I could care
less what you study. What can you do for me today and what can you do for me
tomorrow?
Josh: Hey Grant, what do you say to those guys who say that you need to have
the business plan because that’s a big thing, right? You’ve got to have the plan
and you’ve got to map it out. You say you’ve got to sell, you’ve got to be able to
market and produce. What do you tell those guys?
Grant: I think everybody’s business plan is a great idea if it gives you comfort.
It’s kind of like a condom, you know. Most people take it off. I mean, really. Come
on. You can get a business plan if you want, pay $800 to build one if you want to
go spend time and energy getting a business plan, 90% of the stuff that’s going to
happen to you will not be in that business plan. The storm that New York got hit
with last night – not in the business plan. ISIS, not in the business plan.
Disruption of technologies, not in the business plan. You cannot think about
everything that’s in the business plan so while you’re writing your business plan,
I’m going out into the marketplace and I’m building customers whether it’s in
real estate or whether I’m selling a book.
The first book I wrote was called Seller Be Sold. I didn’t know anything about
writing a book. A book was never in my original business plan. I actually wanted
to write books since I was like 7 or 8 years old because I thought I wrote well. My
dad did calligraphy. My dad thought writing was a big deal. I don’t know,
somehow that stuck with me. I didn’t write a book for forty years. My first book,
Seller Be Sold, I wrote in three hours. I didn’t even know you were supposed to
get the book edited. I just went straight to print. I couldn’t get a publisher to pick
it up because it was 2009. Nobody was buying books. Wrote the book, put spines
on it, found out – hey, put a cover on it, go with it, do it and then I’ve got to figure
out how to sell a book.

Well, we sold thousands of copies of this book in 2009 when the world was
coming to an end and people started writing me saying, man I love this book. It’s
the best book I’ve ever read on sales, blah blah blah, but you’ve got misspelled
words everywhere. I’m like, really? And then one guy sent me a spreadsheet of
every misspelled word, every run-on sentence, every semicolon in the wrong
place and then I called him and said, man thank you so much for doing that but
I’m like, dude, it’s a bestselling book, Sam. It’s not a best-written. I never said it
was a best-written.
I think the business plan can be important to give you some kind of idea but it’s
all going to change anyway.
Josh: Yeah, it’s really funny on the book because we kind of had a similar
philosophy. We actually launched a publishing company two years ago through
BiggerPockets. We were like, why don’t we just write a book? Let’s put
something out. We don’t have a publisher. We’ll self-publish this thing. We’ve got
a distribution channel which is our platform. Let’s see what we can do. We wrote
a book. We sold thousands and thousands of copies in the first year.
Brandon actually just put out a book three or four months ago. We’re selling
thousands of copies of that and yeah, you know what? In the world of business at
least what we’ve discovered is, sometimes you’ve got to just jump in and make
things happen and it’s either going to work or not. You’ve got to hustle. You’ve
got to grind. You’ve got to work it out and that’s kind of my philosophy and I love
it.
Grant: Yeah, and as long as you’re not going to quit. If you just don’t quit – that’s
what I would tell everybody. If you just don’t quit, as hard as that is, you’re going
to figure out how to get to the other side.
Josh: I love that, for sure. Well, I know you wanted to talk about 10X so Brandon,
I mean, this is a book you say is pretty good. I don’t know, is it good?
Brandon: It is good, actually I listened to the audiobook of it on my road trip last
couple of months ago to California. It was amazing.
Grant: It’s ten times better than anything else you’ve ever listened to or read.
Brandon: Ten times better.
Josh: Did you read the audiobook? Was that you, Grant?
Grant: Oh, definitely. There’s no way I would get my material to anybody else to
deliver.
Brandon: See, when we came up with our book, I debated back and forth, should
I do it or not? Then I heard you read yours and I was like, oh, I can read mine. So

I read half of it. It was terrible quality audio. So I dropped it and I hired some guy
to do it. I kind of regret that now, maybe going back, I’d do it myself.
Grant: We hired somebody for my first New York Times bestseller was If You’re
Not First, You’re Last, Wiley convinced me to have this guy read it. When I heard
it, I said no. you’ve got to take it off every shelf everywhere in the world. I’ll pay.
Remove it. It’s horrible. And then I went and sat and read it. What happens is that
I write a book, then four to six months later, I go read it, I sit here in a studio like
this and read it and it becomes double the book because now I’m aware – you
guys have written books so you’ll understand this – when you put that last
chapter, last page in a book, you don’t know for another three or four months all
the chapters you left out and all the stories you could have added in and all the
examples and then you get questions from people. So, that’s when I go back in
and the 10X rule, the one you have on audio, is probably double or triple the
content of the book.
Brandon: Oh, wow.
Grant: Because I just start ripping off on it. And I’ve had enough time on it to
understand what I missed.
Brandon: I actually thought that when I was reading it. I was like, I wonder if he
expanded on stuff as he reads it. It makes sense.
Grant: I know people that have read the book and then they get on the audio
program or the mp3 download and they’re like, that wasn’t even in the book.
Brandon: That’s awesome.
Josh: Maybe you can kind of start at the beginning of 10X. What is the 10X rule?
Grant: Well, the 10X rule, in the order of the books I wrote, I wrote a book called
Seller Be Soldin 2009. The economy was falling apart. The president of the bank
now became a salesperson. If you owned a company in 2009, when Lehman
collapsed, the next day, you were a salesperson. You were no longer Chief
Operating Officer or CFO, Treasury. If you couldn’t produce revenue in the next
three months, you were out of a job. So that book was not a sales book, it’s not
about how to sell something. It’s about why your dreams and your future
depends upon selling and what that is and what it means to be a salesperson, not
just a sales professional.
The second book I wrote was called CloserSurvival Guide. That was a book
about how to negotiate and in that book, that was six months after I wrote the
first book, 2010, I think. I was saying, look, the world will no longer give you
what you’re worth. It will only give you what you negotiate and what you can
make sense of. So that book was about how to get a deal done. That’s different
than selling.

The third book was called If You’re Not First, You’re Last: How to Keep a Pipeline
Fulland the fourth book was The 10X Rule, which was basically, if you know
how to sell and you know how to negotiate, you know how to follow up, but if
you don’t take any action and you don’t take the right orders of magnitude of
actions, you’re going to stay small. These books were written for me to solve the
problems I was facing at the time which was in 2012, I realized I had been selling
to too small of verticals. I had been communicating to verticals. You guys didn’t
know who I was. That’s a problem.
So when I came on, you said, Grant, tell me – the fact that I’ve got to tell people
who I am is what the 10X rule is. Seven billion people need to know your name,
your brand, your company. So if you look at the most successful people, the
Cubans, the Jack Welches, the Steve Jobs – we know them. Jesus Christ, I know
their name. And the 10X rule is about you have to become omnipresent. You
have to get everybody to know you. We are no longer in a world where you’re a
target market. Everybody needs to know you even if you’re not in that market.
Brandon: Gotcha.
Josh: So is that what you mean in the book when there was a quote, and I know
Brandon mentioned it, success is your duty, obligation, and responsibility. Is that
kind of what you’re talking about here?
Grant: Well, that’s a little more of a why, like why are you going to do this. I’m
heavily invested in real estate as you guys might know and that wasn’t my first
business. That was my third business, but I thought that real estate provided me
with a financial success that the other companies could not because I believe
that real estate, particularly the kind of real estate that I invest in is
indestructible. No technology will ever destroy or disrupt what I do, which is
multi-family apartments. No economy, no inflationary, no deflationary – there’s
nothing that will happen that will disrupt my real estate holdings. So that ties
into success is my duty, it is my duty and my obligation and my responsibility to
provide that kind of success for my family and for my dreams and my name.
Josh: Yeah. And that’s interesting. That’s one of these things where we’re in this
real estate investing space in BiggerPockets. I started out of a need to help myself
with my own personal real estate investing and it’s funny, I get a lot of people
who say, hey Josh, when the economy was bad what was going on with
BiggerPockets? How’d you guys survive? And when things are thriving, how do
you guys do it? I’m like, real estate is always going to go well if you know what
you’re doing. If you’re smart, if you get in at the right time, if you know how to
evaluate a property, buy it at the right price, you really can’t do wrong at least
over long terms. That’s exactly right and hearing you say –
Grant: Well, I’ve got at least 11 buddies that would disagree with you because
they busted out in 2009 and 2010.

Josh: Sure, but what did they pay for their properties? How did they finance it?
Grant: They were over leverage. They bought product that people didn’t actually
need. It was all on the come. What you’re describing for me is income properties.
When I buy something that’s producing income from day one. I don’t need to
wave some magic wand, I don’t need fix something. I don’t build anything. I buy
existing properties that are already producing revenue, then I do my little magic
to them.
Brandon: So, you don’t focus on appreciation whatsoever, it’s all about just
income from the get-go and just kind of go forward.
Grant: My performance is going to say it will never be worth more money. It will
be. I don’t manage better. It’s going to assume every worst case scenario which is
out of the 10X Rule and that regardless, I’m still going to make money every
month.
Josh: I love it. Yeah, I read Ken McElroy’s book, The ABCs of Real Estate
Investingway back in the day and he’s a multi-family investor as well and just
got completely consumed by the idea of apartments. So I bought a 24-unit a few
years ago. Love the thing and my plan is to do what you do and you mentioned in
the 10X, actually. My goal was always 100 units. I said, I want to get 100 units.
That was my goal. And you said something about, you wanted I think you said
500 units, and then you 10X that, you were like I want 5,000 units. Totally
changed the way I thought about it.
Grant: Well, I actually wrote in my book. I have this daytimer called the 10X day
planner book and the 10X basically has my goals in it in the morning and at
night. I write my goals in the morning, and I’ve been doing this for 30 years. I
write my goals down twice a day for 30 years. That’s a lot of focus on goals.
Another guy writes it down once a year. Out of sight, out of mind. If you’re not
paying attention to what you want, you’re not going to get it. You’re going to get
something else. For at least maybe six years, I wrote down, I own 500 units in
Southern California. I didn’t even live in California. I don’t even know why I was
writing this. I was in Houston, Texas. I own 500 units in Southern California – I
had never even been to California. I wanted to live there one day. I own a home
in La Jolla, California. I just wrote this stuff constantly for maybe three, four,
five, six years. Every day, every morning, every night. The next thing you know,
I bought 500 units in San Diego, California, had a house in La Jolla, California –
this isn’t like the law of attraction.
This is not that. This is not the secret. This is not a secret. You don’t want the
secret. You want the answer. And the answer is, focus on what you want every
day and I was writing this down every day – that’s where I’m going. First deal I
ever bought was 38 units but it took me five years to buy my first deal. While I
was writing my goals down every weekend, I was living in Houston, Texas at the
time. Every weekend, I’d spend every Saturday and Sunday shopping real estate.

I’d never read a book on real estate. Never read one book. I’ve got a book back
here, I’ve just never read it. How to Build a Real Estate Empire.
Josh: Nice.
Grant: I’m like, shit, I ain’t got to read a book.
Josh: I wrote the book. I’m living it.
Grant: Right. I own $350 million worth of real estate today. My accountant just
gave it to me, like you just hit 350.
Josh: Why not 3.5 more million, man? I’m disappointed in you.
Grant: I’m working on it, bro. I’m working on it. Dude, I’m disappointed in me.
Josh: Report back to me next week and let’s see where you’re at.
Grant: I’m disappointed in me, you know. You being disappointed in me? That
doesn’t mean anything. I’m disappointed in me because I know it’s out there. So,
I used to write it down in Houston. I own 500 units, you know. and they all cash
flow 12% and the next thing – I didn’t buy anything in Houston because I didn’t
have enough money. Didn’t mean I didn’t have money. It means I didn’t have
enough money to pull the trigger and that’s really important to know because
most people will not pull the trigger when they don’t have enough money put
away.
So I needed to accumulate more money to have the courage to say I’m willing to
put this at risk. So, I missed this whole opportunity in Houston but the whole
time while I was studying, looking at deals, looking at performers, meeting
agents, learning what NOI is and what rental income is and what an expense is
and what the expenses should be, what a market looks like and then the next
thing you know, I was in San Diego and I bought my first deal.
Josh: Why did you pick that particular deal? It was San Diego versus Houston.
What was kind of the –
Grant: I think I had enough looking in a market to start having a sense of a
market. There’s an intuition that can only be built over the experience of looking
and observing. I knew when I left Houston, had I bought everything that I had
looked at in Houston, I would have made money. Everything. Literally. It was
going through this bad market in Houston at the time. Look, real estate is
definitely a timing thing. So, you don’t want to be in the same market forever. I’ll
take that back here in a second, but it was in this troth and it was in this bad
news and it was after the savings and loan collapse and I was just too scared I
didn’t have enough money but looking back, I could have bought anything and
everything I looked at and on almost everything, I would have made money.

So when I was in San Diego, I told myself, if I’m ever in that kind of market again,
I’ll buy. This was right after the saving loan – nobody was buying anything.
Everybody was leaving California. It was 25 years ago. And I told my friend Dale,
we were driving through downtown San Diego and I’m like, dude, this is it. It’s
happening. And then I started looking for property. I found these 38 units. My
first deal was $1.9 million. I put $350,000 down, shoved all in. I don’t believe in
diversification. I think diversification is a dumb thing to do. Find the right
vehicle and go all in. And then I bought that deal, and 38 days later, I bought my
second deal.
Josh: Wow, now that first deal, you put cash down. How are you financing most
of these deals now? I mean you’re doing big properties.
Grant: The same way I do them now, I mean I won’t even look at 38 units
anymore. I ain’t doing it.
Josh: Piker, come on.
Grant: But that leaves a lot of opportunity for other people out there to look at 38
units. I would just tell everybody, leave single-family residents alone. I don’t
know if ya’ll invest in that but –
Josh: I don’t like it. I’ve had bad luck with single-family.
Grant: If you can figure out how to do 4 units, you can figure out how to do 12. If
you can figure out how to do 12, you can figure out how to do 20. So, your issues
are going to be a down payment, but it’s easier to get a loan on a multi-family unit
than any other piece of real estate in the world today. Multi-family is the easiest,
most desirable, in vogue, bank-friendly, debt you can get including where you
live.
Your question was what, why that one?
Josh: How’d you finance it? Do you use partners as well or do you –
Grant: No, I haven’t used partners. I use a bank. I just go to a bank and I say, I
want to buy this deal. Today, I use Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, but I’m using my
own equity and I’m using traditional financing.
Josh: Fascinating. So you’re using Fannie Mae, Freddy Mac, like the big
government, what do you call them – they have like a name.
Brandon: Quasi-government.
Josh: Yeah, quasi-government organizations.
Grant: I call them my partners. I just locked on $50 million worth of Fannie debt,
Freddy Mac debt actually, 3.8% on $50 million for 10 years. It’s a 30 year AM. 10

years – I’m sorry, not 10 years. It’s based on the 10 year treasury, 3.8% interest
only for 5 of the 30 years.
Josh: Man, I gotta get me some of that.
Grant: It’s like, the money’s so cheap right now.
Josh: Really quick, on the property you’re buying – obviously you’re buying
larger properties right now. Where are you finding them? How are you learning
about them? Is that just through the agents that you speak to or what are you
doing?
Grant: People know me as a closer. I found a deal – it’s a long story here. Let me
just back up a second. So I buy 500 units in San Diego. Now, that goes back to
that goal setting thing. If you don’t have something driving your destination. I go
buy 500 units in San Diego. That market explodes. We were literally raising rent
sometimes $100 a month. And everybody’s like, oh we’re doing so good. I’m like,
those units – raising the rent. Just raise the rent. And they’re like, well we need
to do something. You don’t need to do anything. Just raise the rent.
The marketplace is causing – this is a compressed market so I always look for
typically, it’s a couple of little tricks, I’m looking for markets where they don’t
allow building, where permits to build cost more than the building. At that time
in San Diego, it would cost $26,000 to permit one unit. I was buying the units for
$70,000. So, to go build a new one, it would cost $26,000 for a piece of paper and
you hadn’t even put a nail or a stud up in a piece of cement. Typically, I’m
looking for democratic voting environments.
Josh: Interesting, why is that?
Grant: The more liberals, the better.
Josh: Interesting, why is that?
Grant: Because they don’t like to build.
Josh: Ah, makes sense.
Grant: They want to restrict everything. They get their panties in a wad over
everything. They want to protect everything and everything the way it is and that
makes it very expensive. Look at cities like New York.
Josh: You’re talking about rent controls and stuff like that as well, though.
Grant: Like San Francisco, Los Angeles, all these very heavy – I’m not talking
about politics here, I’m talking business – where there’s heavy concentration of
liberals, you’re going to see extremely high rents if they would just pay attention
to their own bullshit.

Josh: We just lost half our audience but it’s all good. It’s all right, there’s seven
billion people on this planet.
Grant: I mean, if you guys are interesting in making money, you’ve got to pay
attention to those kinds of things. Also, I’m looking typically, I’m not always
interested in high growth areas either so if a deal adds value where – I should
know that day that I bought it, that I made money. I know everybody’s heard that.
If you don’t know that you made money the day you bought it, that was a bad
deal. You should know that day, hey I made money today. Whatever that is. Like,
you’re going to go in there and do something to improve it but you should be
making cash flow on your deal from day one. You should know going forward,
you made money. You see some value in that deal and that’s going to take more
than a book. That’s going to take you putting feet on the ground, learning the
town, learning a little market.
Brandon: I love it. What you mentioned there, and maybe it kind of ties in with
the 10X stuff, I mean it does. You mentioned when Josh made a joke about losing
half our audience, it’s okay, there’s 7 billion people. That’s our philosophy right
there. I just love that philosophy. There’s always more people. There’s always
more success. I think you mentioned it in the book that there’s always more
opportunity out there. Can you maybe talk about that for a minute and that kind
of philosophy?
Grant: Yeah, I’m 56 years old so it took me a little while to understand this but
I’m not in high school running a popularity contest anymore. You want to
criticize me? You want to hate me? You think I’m arrogant? You think I’m
conceited? You think I’m a bragger? You think whatever. That’s more about, I
know today this. When people criticize me or you, it’s more about them than it is
about you. It’s never really about the target. It’s really about the person that’s
delivering the message. Like, somebody will be like – I have a really nice car and
people are like, why does he need to drive that? See, that’s about you, that’s not
about me.
I’m going to buy a plane this year, okay? Nobody needs a plane. Nobody needs a
plane, it’s stupid. I’m going to buy a nine passenger jet that’s got six feet of
headroom that I can walk down the aisle and there’s only going to be me most of
the time, maybe another person on that jet. Stupid. Burns 250 gallons of gas a
freakin’ hour. It’s stupid, man. It’s so stupid. And somebody’s going to be like,
what’s wrong with that guy? That says more about you than it does about me,
okay?
Josh: Well hey, if you want to come to Denver and we can go for a spin, I’ll come
hang out.
Grant: All I’m saying is, I used to make fun of all that stuff until one day, a guy
told me, he’s like hey man, whatever you criticize, whatever you criticize, you’ve
got a problem with. It’s your problem, not their problem. And typically it’s stuff I

don’t understand. So back to your point about the 10X thing. If people don’t know
who you are, you’re not buying their property from them. If nobody has ever
heard of you, me and you go into a deal. You’re got a billion dollars and I only
have whatever I have. You’re worth – you’re a Saudi prince and you’ve got
freakin’ money coming out of both ears and every orifice and you can pay cash
for everything in the town. If I know them, then you’re not getting the deal. I
don’t care how much money you have. In multi-family real estate and the kind of
real estate I buy, it’s will you close the deal? Not how much money you have.
I had a deal, I was in Los Angeles, California. This is right from the 10X rule. I’m
in Los Angeles, California, I’m running my other three companies. So what I do is
I take these three companies and every penny I get, every free nickel I have goes
into this fourth company called the real estate. Every time I get money, I go
broke again, because I just shove it all into this real estate thing so I had this one
company that I know was indestructible. There’s no Apple technology, Steve
Jobs or future technology, Google or whatever, can ever replace where people
have to live. We are a renter nation forever. Anybody that doesn’t understand
that – we will never go back to home ownership at 50% and 60% loan levels like
we did before the crash.
Josh: They’re trying to go there, man.
Grant: They’re going to try. They’re going to push it. But people don’t want it this
time. People that are 25 years old are like, dude, I don’t want to freakin’ live in the
same city for the rest of my life like my mom and dad did. I want to get out and
adventure. Maybe I don’t even want to live in the United States anymore. I might
want to go to freakin’ Indie or Saudi, who knows? So, this multi-family thing
won’t be destroyed. I take these three companies that will probably be destroyed
in my lifetime, that I’ve made a ton of money off of, and I take all that money and
I park it over here so I’m always broke running these three or I’m having to
hustle every day to get new money and then I shove it in over here.
I’m in L.A. and I find out there’s 1100 units in Stuart, Florida that are for sale. It’s
a portfolio. This guy owned it, he died. In his will, it said when I he dies he has to
dump this property. This 1100 units. There’s 38 bidders. This happened 24
months ago. It’s fairly currently. There’s 38 bidders, all 38 parties have money.
All of them have done multi-family and all 37 of the 38 are known by the broker.
I’m the only one the broker doesn’t know. I have no chance of getting this deal.
Why? He doesn’t know me.
The deal in real estate which is not in any book I’ve seen – you’ve got to first
make yourself known to this guy. How do you make yourself known? I used an
electronic – a video LOI to present my offer.
Josh: Nice.

Brandon: Never heard that before. Love that.
Josh: And we’ve been talking about this the other day. Yesterday, Brandon and I
were riffing on this because I just put an offer on a house. We wrote a letter, my
wife and I, we wrote a letter, put a picture of ourselves and our family because
we figure, that’s the one way we can get ourselves to know. I didn’t even think to
do a video. Brilliant.
Grant: This is a video. This goes to a Board of Trustees or six guys sitting on this
board embedded in this video is a link that sends me back a message every time
it may get clicked. So I also know how many times they’ve looked at the video.
Josh: Yep. That’s awesome.
Grant: Now, the broker on the deal that’s responsible for the deal. All he cares
about is what?
Brandon: Closing the deal, yep.
Grant: Because that’s when he gets his commission. Price is less important to
him. 38 guys look at this deal. 38 are bidding this deal up. In multi-family today,
you don’t just get to make an offer and get a deal. There’s a whole vetting
process, 38 guys, best and final offers, make it down to the last 5, then it’s a race
for 4 of the 5 to push the first guy up. They’re trying to max dollars out in
multi-family. It’s extremely competitive, particularly these big portfolios.
I send out an LOI to a guy that’s done billions of dollars in real estate. These are
very sophisticated people. The guy calls me and says, man I’ve never seen a
video LOI in my freakin’ life. I said, I’m the guy that’s going to buy your property,
dog. You want to see how real I am? You see because in the video I became real
to him, now I’m on the phone with him, I said look, man, I’m flying in tomorrow
morning. I’m going to be in at 6:30 in the morning, will you pick me up? He’s
like, what do you mean? I said I found out about the property, I’m taking a
red-eye, I’m flying in. Can you pick me up tomorrow morning? Sure, man. I got
on a plane, did a red-eye that night.
Now, it wouldn’t have mattered to me. I would have done a red-eye no matter
what to show him how serious I was about seeing this deal. I’ve used the video
and the red-eye three different times to buy properties. The red-eye shows
people that you’re willing to suffer to get a deal. People like to see people that
suffer, okay? I bought that property – I was the lowest bidder – and won the deal.
This is a $58 million deal. This is a big deal. This is not for kids. I’m just saying
everybody involved, they watched my video 18 times. Six guys watched it 18
times. That means they watched it over and over passing it around to their
buddies. What are they doing when they’re watching it?
Josh: Talking about you.

Grant: Talking about Grant Cardone. Who is this cat, man? The point of that is
this. You’ve got to get people to know you and you have to be willing to get
people to criticize you. You have to even be willing to get people to hate on you a
bit like, we don’t do business like this, man. Who do you think you are? You’ve
got to be willing to go there. If you could get half the country to hate you, just
imagine how valuable this is. If you could get half the people in the United States
to hate you, you could be the President.
Josh: Yep. Brilliant. So what are you going to do? You get this private jet. You still
going to take the red-eye? It’s not going to work, is it?
Grant: No, then it’s going to be different. It’s going to be, I’m flying in tomorrow
morning, man. How about I pick you up on the way in? And that’s the only
reason to have the jet. The reason to have the jet is to go influence people, pick
them up to give a value add in a transaction that he can’t get some other place.
It’s not for me to fly around by myself. It’s for me to pick that broker up and say,
hey man, I want to pick you and your family up and go off this weekend and
maybe get an in.
Josh: Hey Grant, what does success mean to you, man? You talk about it a lot in
the book. What is it?
Grant: That’s a great question. I love that question actually, it’s a layup. It’s like
you lobbed that one up for me. Make it easy. I’m going to hit it out of the park.
So I was doing a presentation for a group in Salt Lake City last week and I’m like,
don’t even worry about it, I’m going to hit a homerun. The question is, will it be a
grand slam? Some of you are watching this and you’re like, man that guy is so
cocky. You need to get some freakin’ cocky on. You need to get some swag on.
You need to get so confident that you’re walking in a room and everybody sees
you freakin’ beaming. And whether some people like it or not, most of the time
people are walking in a room, nobody knows you’re there. Nothing happened.
You need to walk in a room and own it because you’re getting looked over right
now and that’s what I said earlier about. The marketplace is not going to pay you
what you’re worth. It’s going to underpay you most of your career and if you
freakin’ shine, one day it will overpay you. But it’s never going to pay you what
you’re worth.
So success for me is the difference between – it’s not money, it’s not a car, it’s
not how much net worth is. A success for me is the difference between my
reality, where I’m at now, and my potential to go to another place.
Josh: I like that. I like that. I’ll tweet that later. It’s great.

Grant: So what I’m looking for is my potential all the time. I’ve driven to my
potential when other people are comparing their situation to what they have and
where they’re at.
Josh: I just read that the other day. I don’t remember what book it was but yeah,
they say a lot more people compare their success to the next person over rather
than comparing it to what your potential is. I thought that was terrific.
Grant: Yeah, they’re making sense of their position or situation in life, and we
were taught that – your mom said there’s people starving in India. And my mom
– you don’t even know where India is. I don’t know why we’re talking about
India all of a sudden but you should never compare yourself to another person
because they’re not paying your bills and they don’t have your dreams.
Josh: Gotcha. Awesome.
Brandon: So I gave you a softball. I want to give you another softball here.
Goalsetting. Most people recommend setting goals that are attainable. You don’t
preach that. Just on the whole 10X is about going out there. Why do we not want
to go for attainable goals? Why do we want to set these 10X semi unattainable
goals?
Grant: I heard Ted Turner, founder of CNN, his dad told him – do ya’ll know this
story? He said, never set a goal that you can attain. I heard that. I heard Ted
Turner say that. I was like, that is so right. What was I thinking this whole time?
That was stupid. And then his dad killed himself after that.
Brandon: Because he couldn’t reach any of his goals or what? I’m not laughing at
the loss of Mr. Turner.
Grant: Yeah you were. You were laughing. What happened was, he was telling
his son, look man, if you set goals that are attainable you’re going to be
depressed. And if you look around, you’re going to see most people – what are
they doing every day? Are you living to your potential? I mean, come on. Really?
This was what you were supposed to do? Anybody in my family, anywhere in
my lineage. I could go back to Sicily where my family started, or at least that’s
what they tell me. And my great, great, great grandfather would say, son, you’ve
done well. Okay, well good. But what does that mean?
That’s not my potential. If the great people stopped on potential, God would have
stopped on butterflies and mountaintops and blue skies. Why stop, man? Why
stop? A lot of people get confused, I think, because they’re like, oh man, that guy
keeps going because he’s greedy. I’m not greedy. I’m trying to fulfill my potential
and I think my potential is a spiritual issue. It’s got nothing to do with money.
I want to create a billion dollar real estate portfolio. I can’t spend the money I
have now. I just think that it’s within my potential to do this. I have never raised

money. I’ve never create a REIT.I’ve never created a fund. I know a lot of guys
that aren’t as bright as me and don’t work as hard have done all those things and
I know guys that do multi-family that they don’t have any money invested. I have
all my money invested and so it’s available, so why not try to fulfill my potential?
Josh: That’s awesome. I love it. Yeah, you know, I get a lot of questions from
people who are like, hey Josh, when are you going to be happy? When’s it going
to be big enough? When is what you’re doing – and the funny thing is, I can
never actually answer that question because maybe it’s a gamesmanship, maybe
it’s something innate born inside you but for me, it’s like I don’t want to stop
because I find it fun, it’s a challenge to keep going, keep growing, keep building.
Grant: I think, Josh, the answer is not the problem. It’s the question is
problematic. It’s like, I’m telling you I want to build a billion dollar real estate
portfolio and you’re talking about me being happy. I’m not even interested in
being happy. Why are you so freakin’ hell bent on being happy? I don’t want to
be happy. How do you know happy is even on my freakin’ goal chart? When I
draw out my shit, happy ain’t part of the recipe, okay? I ain’t interested in being
happy. You know what? Here’s to your happy shit. That’s to your happy siht.
Middle finger to your happy shit.
I see everybody running around, dude, if you want to be happy, go write a
fucking song with Pharrell or whatever his name is with the hat. Pharrell. I’m not
interested in being happy. I’m interested in meaning. I’m interested in my duty.
I’m interested in obligation. I’m interested in being the biggest donor at my
church. I’m interested in impacting my community. I’m interested in helping
tens of thousands of people. You’re going to work trying to be happy? I don’t care
about it. You see what I’m saying? I would never ask you, what about happiness,
Josh? Josh, why don’t you lay down on this sofa and let’s find out why you’re so
fucked up, Josh.
Josh: Wow, are we going to cuddle, too, or what?
Grant: We might. See, there’s nothing wrong with you, dude. More people need
to be freakin’ grinding and struggling and pushing to really fulfill – because I
think that’s when people are happy. I’m happiest when I’m productive.
Josh: Absolutely. Absolutely. That’s awesome. All right, so you’re one of the
busier dudes out there. You’re rockin’ it. You’re on TV. You’ve got shows. You’re
coming up with programming, real estate, five books, three – I can’t even list
your portfolio, man. You’ve got a whole lot of crap going on. How do you start
your day? I know you’ve got the goals in there and I know you end it with the
goals.
Grant: No, I’ve got routines. I try to work out every morning. I try to spend time
with my kids every morning. The first thing, I get early. I do the early shift with
the kids. Before I had kids, I didn’t have that. When I had kids, I changed my shift

up so I could spend an extra 30 or 45 minutes with the kids in the morning, just
me time, daddy time with the kids because I’m a good father but I’m not a good
mother. I let her do the mother stuff. I get to influence the kids.
Like, Sabrina, my 5 year old, I say baby, look. You count to ten, learn how to
count to 100. Once you get the 100 thing down, then you start skipping. She said,
what do you mean skipping? I’m like, you don’t need to do 101. You go 100
straight to a million. Don’t let those teachers teach you that whole step shit. You
go 1 to 100, you get to 100, then you go one million. Then you go a hundred
million.
Because I learned how to count too many numbers. So, I don’t know. I wake up
in the morning. I try to get to work on time, you know. I have a sales meeting
every day with my staff. What are we doing? Where are we going? Who are we?
And then I put as much stuff as I can on my calendars so that I don’t have free
space because free space is a problem for me.
Josh: What happens, do you just start new companies or write new books when
you’ve got free space?
Grant: Most of the time I’m involved in stuff I have no clue what I’m doing.
Josh: Nice.
Grant: I’m starting a company right now, I have freakin’ no clue. I’m in such deep
water right now, I have no clue what I’m doing.
Brandon: Now, is that good or is that bad? Does that worry you or is that a
beautiful thing when people start to kind of bring you into projects?
Grant: I think it’s a beautiful thing.
Josh: Yeah. Nice.
Grant: I like it. I like the ploy. I like the action. I like action.
Brandon: So of all the stuff you’ve done, we didn’t talk about you had this show
Turnaround Kings.
Grant: I’m an unbelievable human being.
Brandon: You’re a crazy mofo, man. You are a crazy dude. So like, and I’m not
going to ask what makes you happy but like is there one thing of all this stuff that
you do that excites you the most? What gets you the most juiced up, the most
pumped? Is it just everything, just Grant Cardone, the man? Or is there
something in particular?
Grant: I wouldn’t do this if I was just money motivated – all I would do is buy
real estate. So if my accountant said to me, why do you even bother with the

books? You know how many books you’ve got to sell for $350 million worth of
real estate? A lot of books. I’ve got 3200 units who pay on average just under
$1100 a unit. And I own them. It’s not a REIT. I own the properties. So why am I
writing a book? Come on. Why? Because when Brandon says, dude, I listened to
your 10X Rule and it changed my life. That’s what I live for. I love to help people.
I write for Entrepreneur.com. I don’t get paid to write for Entrepreneur.com. It
takes time to write an article. I wrote an article last year for Entrepreneu.com. It
was the #1 article at their site. They have 14 million users. Mark Cuban writes
there. Richard Branson writes there.
Brandon: Starting next week, I write there. I’m taking you on. And Grant, I will be
the most popular article this year. I will be.
Grant: I hope so, man. I hope so. You know, when somebody writes me from
Thailand or from Jordan – a guy came to work for us from Jordan and he was
like, dude, I just want to work here and learn from you. I mean, that’s not money
and that’s not happy. That’s meaning. It’s a meaningful life at that point.
Josh: It’s cool because we get a lot of that with what we do. We got like a group
from our website in South Korea. Brandon was on with those guys a couple of
months ago. I’m going to be on the air with those guys. We get letters all the time
from people how we’re changing their lives, teaching them about real estate. And
I wanted to ask you, because you’re this guy who’s got this success mindset. Why
do you think more people aren’t doing this real estate thing?
When Brandon and I talk a lot about real estate, we kind of talk about this funnel,
right? People start with personal finance. Hey, I’m going to buy stock, I’m going
to buy bonds and as they get more sophisticated they kind of come into this
funnel and that the very, very end of this funnel is the real estate and it kills me
because it’s not as hard as everybody makes it out to be. The major media, the
major press, all the business press – it’s an also/and. Nobody gets real estate.
Which is great, it creates opportunities for guys like you and less competition.
But still. Why do you think that is?
Grant: Well, I think the Wall Street who has the ear of the politician who is really
a lawyer. Why do you have 401 and KIOS? You have a law that says if you invest
in this 401, we’ll match it and you won’t pay taxes on that so it traps money for
Wall Street. It traps. It takes your money that was yours and now it becomes
somebody else’s to control. So, why don’t more people do real estate? I don’t
know. If you look at the richest people on the planet, sooner or later, you’ve got to
have real estate.
Now, the question is, what kind of real estate do you want? Then, I’m like, hey I
buy multi-family. First question everybody asks – do people call you? People call
me. People called me yesterday and said hey, 19 checks are coming your way.
That’s good, that’s good. People don’t call me. Look, I had a phone call from a guy

in Tucson – I bought 2200 apartments in Tucson. I don’t own those anymore, I’m
in five states – California, Arizona, Texas, Florida and Charlotte, North Carolina.
Now I’m in Savannah and Mobile, Alabama. I bought 2200 units, three days. I
went to Tucson, first time I ever went there, bought. Tucson was not on
anybody’s radar. It was on nobody’s list. You can buy a list from like Hendrix and
Partners and they’ll give you the status of every apartment market in the
country.
So I’m studying these and Tucson’s not on anybody’s radar. Well, good. I don’t
want to compete with people. I want to go places where it’s not on people’s radar.
So I go there, I buy 2200 units, owned them 39 months, sold the whole portfolio.
But in the meantime, one day I get a phone call. Grant, we found two bodies in
the back of a car. What do you mean in the back? They makin’ and they kissin’.
Leave them alone. They’re in the trunk. I said, they’re in the trunk? It’s not my
car. I don’t have a car in Tucson. Why are you telling me this? They’re dead.
Okay. Were they tenants? Did they pay on time? No, they’re not tenants. Well,
good. Get them removed, dude. Welcome to planet earth.
Josh: Cold hearted, man.
Grant: Bad things happen to people all the time, man. Every day. You guys are
waking up and surprised there’s a storm in the Northeast or that somebody
beheads another human being? You’re on planet earth. They’ve been killing
people on this planet for freakin’ 2000 years. 2000 years ago, if you said you’re a
Christian, they’d lob off your head, man. Pow! Boom! Really? So everybody’s all
shocked and freaked out about bad things. Bad things happen. A lot. To go about
my life. I think that was a little too real for ya’ll.
Brandon: We’re just trying to figure out, how do you transition out of that?
Josh: Speaking of dead bodies –
Grant: The point of that is, when you talk about real estate, people are like, I don’t
want people calling me about the plumbing. So what are you going to do? You’re
going to call about your own plumbing? What kind of problems do you want?
See, I want some big problems. Because you’re going to have problems. What
kind of problems do you want? I want some big, giant, juicy problems. Not some
little problems.
Brandon: Yep.
Josh: Problems mean you’re doing big things. It’s a beautiful thing. All right man.
Grant: You don’t know how to get out of this, do you?
Josh: I’ve got this. Don’t worry about me, man. Settle down. Let me handle this. I
got this. All right, so we’ve got people listening from all over. Lots of people in
their car. We’ve got people running. We’ve got people listening to the show doing

all sorts of stuff. For somebody who’s sitting around listening who’s struggling to
get out there and actually make something happen in their life. And that’s just
probably the vast majority of this planet. Seven billion people, right? What do
these people need to do? How do I flip the switch? What do I need to do if I’m
stuck in this rut and get my brain changed to step it up, take action, and make
shit happen?
Grant: You know, every time I’m down, there’s three times when I do this one
thing. When I wake up, when I go to sleep, and when I’m disappointed. When I’m
disappointed, discouraged – and it happens. I’m disappointed, I’m discouraged, I
just lost a deal. I just lost a deal yesterday. What I do is I write down my goals.
Where do I want to go? Where do I want to be? What is possible for me? Not,
what did I just lose or what happened to me or how bad’s my situation? Where
do I want to go? If I could just keep my – the old saying about success is the
journey, not the destination – I think that’s complete bullshit.
I’m not interested in the journey. I’m interested in the destination. Quit paying
attention to the journey. There’s flat tires, there’s chlamydia. There’s all kinds of
shit that’s going to happen to you, man. Bad things happen on the journey. Keep
your attention on the destination. Where are you going? Not where are you at?
Windshields are like six feet wide and the rearview mirror – you’re still thinking
about the chlamydia thing aren’t you? You caught chlamydia as a kid, didn’t you?
Brandon: I just, I don’t know what’s going to come out of your mouth next.
Grant: What was her name, man?
Brandon: Verbal diarrhea over here. What’s his name? I did live in L.A. for a
while so yeah.
Grant: Man, you were just experimenting. It’s all right. So, we’re laughing about it
but the truth is people should experiment with businesses and opportunities and
the thing that intrigues me is, what is my potential? I’ll go back to that. When I’m
disappointed, I try not to focus on that thing that happened to me and look at
where do I want to go from here. What’s in front of me and if you could just keep
your attention on that, I think you’ll find yourself a little more excited about
going out into the world and taking a chance.
Josh: That’s great. That’s great. Fantastic.
Brandon: Grant, what are your goals? Do you have any goals you want to share
with us? Where are you headed? I think you said a billion dollars of real estate,
right?
Grant: I want a billion dollars’ worth of the multi-family, cash flowing, positive
real estate.

Josh: That’s it?
Grant: Now, I can change it. Remember this. Josh, originally it was 500 units.
Actually, the first goal was 20 units. It was 20 units and then the first deal I
bought was 38. So as soon as I bought the 38, I’m like, dude that was stupid. All I
had to do was change what I was focused on. It’s a billion dollars’ worth of real
estate. I’d like to write books that sell in the 10 million copies. I’d like all my
books to be translated. I’m starting to think now about my legacy. When I’m 85,
when I die – is there going to be Grant Cardone schools or Grant Cardone
certifications? Could I be involved in colleges around the world/ I would love for
my salesmen material or my negotiating strategies to be involved in schools.
Those kinds of things. Much bigger.
Josh: Great, that’s awesome, man.
Grant: You know, if people say, hey that cat was an authentic guy. I mean I like
that word. If people see me as arrogant, it’s just because – I’m not really that.
You’re in touch with somebody that’s actually willing to tell you what’s going on
for me?
Josh: Most people have a filter and if you’ve got the balls to go out and talk to the
universe without a filter, then that’s who you are and that’s a beautiful thing,
man. It really is. It’s hard. It’s scary to do that.
Grant: It really is. And it takes a lot of guts and authenticity. You’ve got to know
who you are to be able to do that and you said something before we came on
today. Your question was, is there anything that’s off? Would you say – what was
the word you used?
Brandon: I don’t know what word I used. I just said, is there anything you don’t
want us to talk about?
Grant: Yeah – anything you don’t want us to talk about – what did I say?
Brandon: Off limits? I don’t know what you said. I wasn’t listening.
Josh: You said I’m an open book. If you tell the IRS, you’ll tell us.
Grant: See, dude, if I tell the IRS, I’ll tell you. Now, the IRS isn’t my friends. I don’t
know anybody there. I’m under three audits right now, you know? I’m like, if I’m
going to tell the IRS about my finances – we were brought up not to talk about
money. What do you mean? You tell the IRS what you make but you won’t tell
me? That’s stupid. So, I’m not bragging. I told the IRS. They know what I made.
Josh: That’s awesome. That’s great, man.

Brandon: All right. We’re going to wrap this thing up now. We’ve got a couple
more quick questions to close the –
Grant: You guys don’t want to go. I could tell. As soon as I’m done with you, I’ve
got something else to do, man.
Brandon: All right, I’m going to hit you with our world famous Famous Four. So
first question is, what is your favorite real estate book?
Josh: He said he never read a real estate book so you’ve got to change it up.
Brandon: Okay. Well, do you have a favorite real estate book?
Grant: I’ve never read a book on real estate, so I can’t answer that question.
Josh: Fair enough.
Brandon: Fair enough. All right. Business book. Is there a business book that you
say, this thing is amazing and what is it, and why?
Grant: I read a book when I was 15 years old, I think it was called OPM. That was
a great book. I read the Napoleon Heels book thinking Grow Rich. That was an
unbelievable book. Greatest salesman in the world. Unbelievable book. I read a
book called The Problems at Work. Why people have problems at work.
Unbelievable book. For me, to handle the work. A big portion of your life is going
to be spent at work.
Josh: That’s great. Awesome. All right. Outside of all this empire that is Grant
Cardone, which sounds like it’s a lot of your world, of course – you’ve got your
kids. What do you do for fun, hobbies other than work? I know work is a hobby
for you. I can tell. Which is awesome.
Grant: Yeah, totally. What do I do for fun? I love the game of golf. I haven’t played
in a while but I love that game. I love backgammon. Anytime anybody wants to
play a game of backgammon, I’m good. As long as you know how to use the cube
in the middle.
Josh: I’ve never played it.
Grant: As long as we’re going to gamble, okay? I like games of chance. I typically
like to see there’s a potential for me to lose at something. I like that. I love to
smoke cigars. I love to smoke Cuban cigars. Your whole audience is welcome to
my home here in Miami Beach and we can sit out and have a Cuban cigar.
Josh: I’m taking you up on that someday, Grant.
Brandon: Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

Josh: All right. Last question for me – what do you believe sets apart people who
succeed from those who give up, fail, or never get started.
Grant: Just action, man. Just some compelling thrust to do something. If you can
just find the thrust and maybe undo whatever governor was put on you by
education, parents, family members, friends, society, the media – if you can
undo the governor and get rid of the brakes, get rid of the rearview mirrors and
just freakin’ put your foot on the accelerator and just go as fast as possible in one
direction, something good is going to happen to you.
Josh: That’s cool. Balls to the wall, I guess that’s called.
Brandon: There you go.
Grant: That’s a little different thing, but yeah.
Josh: All right, man. So you’ve got a website, GrantCardone.com. Where else can
people find you, connect with you? Anything you want to pitch, pitch it.
Grant: If you can’t find Grant Cardone, you’re not going to buy any real estate
because you’ve got some serious problems. I’m on Twitter, grantcardone.
Facebook Grant Cardone. YouTube Grant Cardone. Cardone Acquisitions if you
want to know what I’m doing in real estate. I’m actually going to start raising
money here in the future, so I’m looking at doing something with crowdfunding
and real estate, if you guys want to help me.
Josh: Right on.
Grant: Also I’m looking for a real estate analyst, probably two of them, to help me
go out and buy properties. I’m going to go from 3000 units to 10,000 in the next
three years so I’m looking for two real estate analysts. If you’ve ever worked for
Marcus & Millichap or CBRE and you’re a second tier young guy or gal working
for a broker, getting paid a little tiny piece and you want to get on the ownership
side, send a video – 60 second video to careers@cardoneacquisitions.com. I’ll
put you in. You’ll have an opportunity to earn a position to be an owner in my
real estate company.
Josh: Ooh, that’s awesome. That’s great, man. Great, great, great.
Grant: I’m going to go from 3000 to 10,000 units. You’ll be paid on the NOI – net
operating income – you’ll be paid on an increasing NOI, new NOI that comes on,
and you’ll be paid when we dispose of something as well as a salary. I’m telling
you, you’re going to learn real estate from the inside.
Brandon: Hi, Josh. I’m quitting BiggerPockets right now. Talk to you later.
Josh: Dude, you should. I’m telling you. Get the hell out of here.

Grant: Somebody is going to come work for me and make millions and millions
of dollars.
Josh: That’s great. And if any of our listeners don’t jump on this opportunity, you
guys are out of your mind. So do it.
Grant: You could actually make more money working for the right guy in that
environment with the right pay plan, the right incentives, then you could going
out on your own and buying real estate.
Josh: Grant, it has been great.
Grant: Let me finish this, okay? You guys have been unbelievable. The best
podcast I’ve ever been on in my whole life, okay? You guys are masters of the
podcast universe.
Josh: Thank you.
Brandon: That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said about us.
Josh: It really is. They like us.
Brandon: Now, is this the only podcast you’ve been on or what?
Grant: No.
Brandon: Okay. Well, Grant, this was a lot of fun. We definitely would love to
have you back sometime in the future, talk about your – all that. We’ll get in
touch and that sounds awesome.
Grant: Good. Now you guys be great, all right? Thank you so much for having
me.
Josh: Thank you, Grant.
Grant: All right.
Josh: All right, take care, bye.
All right guys, I don’t know. What can I say about that? The best podcast – I
mean, I don’t know. I don’t even know how to close when somebody pays us that
honor and says that about us, particularly somebody of Grant’s stature so I just
want to say thank you again to Grant. I mean, fabulous, fabulous time. It was
fantastic.
Brandon: I will say pick up his book 10X. If you guys have not read 10X, read
10X. BiggerPockets.com/10X and you’ll get to the Amazon page where you can
buy it. It’s really an incredibly life-changing book.

Josh: Awesome, awesome. All right, other than that, as you’ve heard, getting out
there and making things happen. That’s the key, guys. Write those goals down.
Dream big. And execute. That’s what we’re doing here every day on
BiggerPockets and that’s why we do this show, because we want you to see what
you, too, could be doing and this was the perfect example of that and we’re going
to wish Grant huge success and we’re looking forward to Grant coming back
when he’s done that billion dollar portfolio – when he’s got it, because I have
absolutely no doubt that he can get there.
Brandon: And I hope we can get a BP person to take that position or two at his
company.
Josh: Oh, yeah.
Brandon: Let us know if you get that job.
Josh: Let us know if you apply. Give us a heads up on that. Otherwise, thanks for
being a part of our world. If you’re not already a member of BiggerPockets, jump
in. This is an amazing place for real estate investors to get involved, participate
and make things happen. With that, let’s get out of here. I’m Josh Dorkin, that’s
Brandon Turner, signing off.
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Transcript: BiggerPockets Podcast Show 108 with Grant Cardone

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Transcript: BiggerPockets Podcast Show 108 with Grant Cardone