Lessons - From Drug Addict to $4 Billion Real Estate Empire | Grant Cardone - 10X Founder

Summary

---

Success Story Podcast: Lessons – From Drug Addict to $4 Billion Real Estate Empire | Grant Cardone – 10X Founder

Host: Scott D. Clary
Guest: Grant Cardone
Date: August 30, 2025

---

Episode Overview

This episode of the Success Story Podcast features a candid conversation between host Scott D. Clary and real estate mogul Grant Cardone. Cardone shares the foundational philosophies behind his dramatic transformation from addiction to founding a $4 billion real estate empire. The discussion dives deep into persistence, the strategic focus behind scaling, the practical application of his well-known "10X Rule," and why avoiding mediocrity is crucial for extraordinary success.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Power of Persistence and Doubling Down

• Cardone’s Iterative Approach to Success
  Cardone shares an honest account of experimenting with new ventures, and how not every idea pans out immediately. Persistent effort—even in the face of repeated failure—is essential.

  • "There's one division... we've started three or four times now and every time it's failed, I know that it's going to be probably one of the most successful things I do. I just cannot figure it out." [01:53]
  • He describes scrapping an entire department multiple times, but keeping faith in the idea and his own ability to eventually figure it out.
  • Key mindset: “If you don't quit, you can't fail.” [02:22]

• When to Quit—and When to Keep Going
  Cardone draws a vital distinction between giving up and strategically pausing.

  • “There does come a time where you got to quit, too. But maybe it doesn't mean quit. Maybe it just means slide over a little bit. But I quit on one thing—I mean, quitting drugs was a good thing for me.” [02:31]

2. The "10X Rule": Core Philosophy and Implementation

• Origin and Personal Impact
  Cardone discusses how the 10X Rule didn’t start as advice for others, but as a personal solution to breaking through a plateau.

  • "People talk about... the 10X rule is a book that I wrote... People like, 'that book is a game changer.'... But that book was written for me. I was trying to figure out, at 50 years old, how do I scale?" [03:05]

• Results from Scaling Up
  He shares before-and-after statistics:

  • At 35: 160 apartments
  • At 50: about 230 apartments
  • Now: 7,700 units, "I have four times more vacancies, three times more vacancies than I owned 12 years ago because I learned how to scale.” [04:19]

• The Rule in Practice
  The rule isn't simply to work harder—it's about multiplying what already works rather than chasing novelty.

  • Memorable quote: “Don’t just double down. Take something that’s working... and don’t do something new. Scale it.” [04:37]
  • He cites Jeff Bezos as a model for relentless scaling of core businesses: “He went from selling books on Amazon to selling everything on Amazon—scale.” [04:48]

3. The Four Levels of Action and Escaping Mediocrity

• Breakdown of Action Levels
  Cardone explains there are four levels of action:

  1. Do nothing (“impossible” but used for the analogy)
  2. Retreat
  3. Normal/average/middle-class effort
  4. 10X—massive action
  • “There's four levels of action. There's you don't do anything, you retreat, you do average or you go 10x.” [09:49]
  • "Number three is the most damaging of all three, which is normal levels of activity....they never get rewarded ever.... That’s where I operated most of my life.” [10:40]

• Why the Middle Class Gets Stuck
  Cardone argues that society, education, and culture reinforce operating at only average levels, leading to a cycle that benefits the already wealthy.

  • “All wealth is created on the backs of number three, the wealthy. … The wealthy do not do normal things.” [12:00]

4. The Wealth Mindset vs. Middle-Class Thinking

• Action vs. Risk
  Cardone emphasizes the importance of risk, investment, delegation, and truly going all-in.

  • “Wealthy people don't save money. They invest money... They’re not spending time managing time, they’re buying scale.” [12:18]
  • Cites Elon Musk’s 100-hour weeks as a tangible example of relentless action: “If I do 100 and you do 40, I win.” [12:38]

• Practical Takeaway: Contract to Expand
  Sometimes, scaling means pulling back before doubling down again.

  • "Sometimes 10x means I got to contract again, get rid of some stuff so I can double down or 10x on the things that are working so I can move again..." [05:31]

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Persistence:
  “If you don't quit, you can't fail.” – Grant Cardone [02:22]

• On the Dark Side of Normal:
  “Number three is the most damaging of all three, which is normal levels of activity. …they never get rewarded ever.” – Grant Cardone [10:40]

• On the Mindset for Scaling:
  “Don't just double down. Take something that's working... and don't do something new. Scale it.” – Grant Cardone [04:37]

• On Wealth Creation:
  “Wealthy people don't save money. They invest money. Wealthy people don't spend time or manage time… This is an old story, by the way.” – Grant Cardone [12:18]

• On the 10X Way of Life:
  "The 10x rule’s not an idea, it's a way of life. And people that go 10x are massive action people." – Grant Cardone [09:49]

---

Timestamps for Important Segments

• 01:53 – Cardone discusses persistence, repeated failures, and not giving up on big ideas but knowing when to hit pause.
• 03:05 – Origin story and impact of the 10X Rule; how he broke his own plateau in real estate.
• 04:37 – Advice on scaling: double down on what works instead of chasing novelty.
• 09:49 – Explanation of the four levels of action.
• 10:40 – Why “normal” is the most dangerous level and how Cardone operated there for much of his life.
• 12:00 – How middle-class thinking supports wealth creation for others, and why average effort never leads to rewards.
• 12:38 – Reference to Elon Musk and the power of relentless, above-average action.

---

Episode Takeaways

• Massive Success Requires Purposeful Scaling: Recognize what's working, push limits, and focus on multiplying proven successes rather than endlessly experimenting with new ideas.
• Avoid the Trap of the “Normal”: Mediocrity perpetuates itself; true breakthroughs require risk, investment, and a willingness to stand out.
• Strategic Contraction is Part of Expansion: Sometimes the best move is to pull back, refocus, and then leap forward with greater force.
• 10X is a Lifestyle, Not a Slogan: Adopting the 10X mindset means committing to massive action, constantly pushing boundaries, and never settling for average.

---

This episode offers a wealth of insights for entrepreneurs, business leaders, and anyone looking to break past barriers and achieve extraordinary success by thinking bigger, acting bolder, and embracing the discipline of the 10X rule.

Transcript

[A]

Success story is a Square partner. Now your favorite neighborhood spots run on Square. You know, I was just at Panther Coffee here in Miami last week. And beyond the incredible cortado, what struck me was watching them seamlessly handle the morning rush. The barista mentioned they've been using Square to manage everything from inventory to building their loyal customer base. It's so much more than just that little white card reader that we all recognize. Square knows that local businesses can be big businesses. And as things get more complex, Square meets you at every opportunity. So whether or not you're expanding, expanding to new locations, building a loyal following, even covering cash flow gaps, Square's powering all the behind the scenes stuff that matters. They knock out today's to dos and they unlock tomorrow's what ifs. If you're ready to see how Square can transform your business, go to square.comgo/success to learn more. That's square.com go success square. Meet you there. In this Lessons episode, uncover how persistence and strategic focus drive exponential growth. Discover why doubling down on what works accelerates success. Understand the mindset behind the 10x rule and its call for massive action. And explore why avoiding mediocrity and embracing bold moves separates winners from the middle class. One thing, one thing that I want to sort of highlight is you've built all these things. Like you know, even like the training, real estate conferences, you've built them over a period of time. But like there's obviously it's been purposeful to an extent I'm assuming, but I'm sure there's also some like, oh shit, this really works. We should double down on that. Yeah. So what's, you know, what's your process and you know, what, what you've built out under like the Cardone capital empire and then like what's, what's next? Like you know, how do you decide what you want to go into?

[B]

Yeah. So I'll give you an example. It's a great question. Okay. Like there's, there's one division, I'm not going to mention what it is, you know, but that we have started three or four times now and every time it's failed, I know that it's going to be probably one of the most successful things I do. I just cannot figure it out. I haven't figured out. I just can't get everybody to duplicate what, what, what I have figured out in my mind. So we just have not figured scale it yet. So again, I started it, have scrapped it I think four times now and just recently scrapped an Entire department around it. But I'm going to go back and do it. I know I'm going to do it. And I live off the saying that. Like I heard once, forget who told me, he said, look, if you don't quit, you can't fail. And there does come a time where you got to quit, too. But maybe it doesn't mean quit. Maybe it just means slide over a little bit. But I quit on one thing. I mean, quitting drugs was a good thing for me. Right. It didn't have a benefit and a big enough benefit. And so, yeah, what we do double down though, or we look at what things work. And I think a lot of companies I know I didn't scale the way I should have because too often I was doing either the same thing over and over and not getting bigger. Like today, when we find something that works, we're like, okay, how do we 10x that the 10x rule changed my life. People talk about, they talk about online about. The 10x rule is a book that I wrote. It was the third book I wrote. And people like that book is a game changer. That book's one of the best, you know, best books they've ever written. And it's on the top 10 most inspirational books in the world. But that book was written for me. I was trying to figure out, at 50 years old, how do I scale? How do I actually go from in 2008? I think I had 300 apartments. Well, I had 160 apartments when I was 35, so 35 years old. I had 160 apartments. When I was 50 years old, I only had about 180 apartments. Like, I didn't have maybe 230 or something. It wasn't that much more. From 2008 till 2020, I went from one hundred and sixty units, or I guess I had maybe two hundred and thirty units at the time. I'm at 7700. I have more bake. I have four times more vacancies, three times more vacancies than I owned 12 years ago because I learned how to scale. This 10x thing was about how do I take double down? Don't just double down. How do I take something that's working and don't do something new? Take something that's working. I think about Jeff Bezos right now because I'm like, he went from, hey, I'm gonna go from selling books on Amazon to selling everything on Amazon scale. So how do you do that? You study statistics and you double down when you're winning. So Notice I scrap in that conversation. I scrapped one business four times. Cause I can't make it work. But that doesn't mean we didn't keep scaling the things that did. And it also doesn't mean I won't go back and figure that other thing at the right time.

[A]

It's a good attitude, and I think it's, that's why it's a winning attitude when you, when you can focus on what's actually working. And obviously it's, you know, like, listen, it'd be stupid not to say it works. Look at what you've built out.

[B]

But get rid of the ego. Get rid of that. Like right now, in 2020. Here we are in April, right? We have this Covid thing happen and we have massive unemployment worldwide. Literally a worldwide recession, if not a depression about information right now. This is not the time for me to go try something new. This is the time for me to double down on what's working, how to help people right now, how do I scale Cardone University, how do I help customers? I need to actually contract a second so that I could pull the forces back and prepare for another assault. Yeah, you can't just go run out like a lot of people think 10x is. Oh, all the time you're 10x. Sometimes 10x means I got to contract again, get rid of some stuff so I can double down or 10x on the things that are working so I can move again and set up that other company that I want to. For instance, the real estate. I can't go expand my real estate portfolio in this environment today. Not because I don't want to, but because the markets have seized up. I need a second. I need a second for things to relieve themselves to in order to go back and go from 7,000 units to 14,000 units.

[A]

Success story is a Square partner. Now, your favorite neighborhood spots run on Square. You know, I was just at Panther Coffee here in Miami last week. And beyond the incredible curtado, what struck me was watching them seamlessly handle the morning rush. The barista mentioned they've been using Square to manage everything from inventory to building their loyal customer base. It's so much more than just that little white card reader that we all recognize. Square knows that local businesses can be big businesses. And as things get more complex, Square meets you at every opportunity. So whether or not you're expanding to new locations, building a loyal following, even covering cash flow gaps, Square's powering all the behind the scenes stuff that matters. They knock out today's to dos and they Unlock tomorrow's what ifs. If you're ready to see how Square can transform your business, go to square.comgosuccess to learn more. That's square.comgosuccess square. Meet you there. The HubSpot Podcast Network is a success story partner now the HubSpot Podcast Network has great podcasts like the Ops Authority. If you are constantly putting out fires in your business instead of focusing on growth and innovation, listen to the OPS Authority. Hosted by Natalie Gingrich and brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network. Natalie speaks about actionable strateg that actually move your business forward. So every week Natalie shares some transformational stories from real business owners who've mastered their backend systems so they can focus on what really matters. So get your OPS in order, get your business running smoothly so you can scale and you can really build something meaningful. Stop letting all this chaos steal all of your energy and listen to the OPS Authority. Wherever you get your podcasts, you just.

[C]

Realized your business needed to hire someone yesterday. How can you find amazing candidates fast? Easy. Just use Indeed. Stop struggling to get your job posts seen on other job sites with Indeed sponsored jobs. Your post jumps to the top of the page for your relevant candidates so you can reach the people you want faster. According to Indeed data, sponsored jobs posted directly on indeed have 45% more applications than non sponsored jobs. Don't wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed and listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility@ Indeed.com podkatz13 just go to Indeed.com podkatz13 right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need.

[A]

It's a smart mentality too. Just like level yourself off, even purposefully, like you're leveling yourself off purposely. Can you, can you. Can you walk through the 10x rule? Like I know you sort of touched on points, but like just high level just because some people may not know, like you're known as the 10x guy. But what is a 10x rule at its core?

[B]

Yeah, well, the 10x rule, first of all, the 10x rules, not an idea, it's a way of life. And people that go 10x are massive action people. And the premise of the book is there's four levels of action. There's you don't do anything, you retreat, you do average or you go 10x. Now the first three, the first three, everybody knows somebody that does nothing that you call Them lazy. Actually, it's impossible to do nothing. But just for conversation, we'll say a person does nothing. We know that's not going to work. Going, retreating. If you retreat your entire lifetime, it's going to be very painful. Retreating, by the way, actually takes more energy than just normal activity. Just the guys that get up every day and go to work every day, going backwards. Making a decision to do something and not doing it is very painful. A lot of wear and tear going backwards. The third one is the most damaging of all three, which is normal levels of activity. The acceptable, the average, the middle class, the norm. Because you get lost. These people get lost. They work every day, they show up every day. They dig ditches every day. They do a good job every day. They're loyal every day, but they never get rewarded ever. Number three is the story of my whole life. That's where I operated most of my life. Most people, normal levels of activity, maybe just above normal, just enough to shine a little bit. But, dude, I never went for it. And so the 10x rule is like, okay, how do I really take some risk here? How do I really put myself out there? So the middle class of America is basically laid up on number three, being convinced to go to number two and then end up with. Basically, they'll end up with number one.

[A]

And how do you suggest somebody takes that move from three to four?

[B]

Yeah. So what you would do is you need to understand that number three is the biggest disaster that we have. It's where all wealth is created on the backs of number three, the wealthy. And this will happen again. We'll come out of this virus thing. People will go back to consuming again and they'll go back to debt. They'll go back to borrowing money to buy things they don't even need to impress people they don't even know because they're unsure about who they are and where they're going. And so the middle of the spine of America, the middle class of India, when it develops, middle class of China will fund the wealthy. And because they do the normal things, the wealthy do not do normal things. They do completely. You know, they don't save money. Wealthy people don't save money. They invest money. Wealthy people don't spend time or manage time. They take money that's useless. They know it's useless. And they buy. I'm gonna get a thousand employees. And then everybody's like, well, you know, that guy never works. He hired 1,000 people to do work. This is an old story, by the way. You can Go back to the King Tut, okay? I mean, it's not a new story. It's like, how do you get wealthy? Well, you commit to massive action. How do you do massive action? You only have 40 hours a week or 80 or 100. Elon Musk says, hey man, 100 hours. He works 100 hours a week. He does the video about the 100 hours. He's like, look, if I do 100 and you do 40, I win. He's a smart dude too, by the way. Real smart guy. But he's nobody without the risk, without the big think and without the massive action.

[A]

And why do you think, why do you think that everybody has so much trouble understanding this concept that they just have to amplify themselves? Why are they stuck in this? Is it. Is it education? Is it the way society, culture. What, what's.

[B]

Yeah, Society, culture, education. You've been taught. You've been taught to be seen and not heard.

[A]

Thanks for tuning in. If you found this valuable, don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode. And if you want to dive deeper into this conversation, check out the links in the description to watch the full episode. See you in the next one. Success story is a Square partner. Now, your favorite neighborhood spots run on Square. You know, I was just at Panther Coffee here in Miami last week. And beyond the incredible, incredible curtado, what struck me was watching them seamlessly handle the morning rush. The barista mentioned they've been using Square to manage everything from inventory to building their loyal customer base. It's so much more than just that little white card reader that we all recognize. Square knows that local businesses can be big businesses. And as things get more complex, Square meets you at every opportunity. So whether or not you're expanding to new locations, building a loyal following, even covering cash flow gaps, Square's powering all the behind the scenes stuff that matters. They knock out today's to do's and they unlock tomorrow's what ifs. If you're ready to see how Square can transform your business, go to square.comgosuccess to learn more, that's square.com go success. Square. Meet you there. Incogni is a success story partner. Now, have you ever wondered how all those scammers get your phone numbers? All those telemarketers, how you're always drowning in all these spam calls? It's data brokers. Right now, hundreds of companies are collecting and selling your personal information without your consent. Your address, your phone number, even your family members names to anyone who's willing to pay. And this puts you at risk of identity theft, scams and harassment. And that's where Incogni comes in. They contact over 230 data brokers on your behalf and legally force them to delete your personal information. No more spending hundreds of hours doing it yourself. Incogni handles all the paperwork, follows up on objections, and keeps your data off the market with repeated removals. I've actually been using Incogni myself. It's scary and also incredible to see how much of my data was out there, but they get rid of it. They've got a 30 day money back guarantee, so you can try it risk free. Use my code. [e-mail] success to get an exclusive 60% off their annual plans. You have to take back control of your privacy today.