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Graham Stephan
K Pop Demon Hunters, Saja Boy's Breakfast
Grant Cardone
meal and Hunt Tricks meal have just dropped at McDonald's.
Jack
They're calling this a battle for the fans.
Grant Cardone
What do you say to that, Rumi?
Jack
It's not a battle.
Grant Cardone
So glad the Saja Boys could take
Graham Stephan
breakfast and give our meal the rest of the day.
Grant Cardone
It is an honor to share.
Jack
No, it's our honor.
Grant Cardone
It is our larger honor.
Graham Stephan
No, really, stop.
Jack
You can really feel the respect in this battle.
Grant Cardone
Pick a meal to pick a side. Ba da ba ba ba and participate in McDonald's while supplies last. I am not here to satisfy you. I don't care if you like me or not, man. Grant Cardone, the man himself.
Graham Stephan
What do you think is a criticism about you? That's fair.
Grant Cardone
There's a lot.
Graham Stephan
Where do we start?
Grant Cardone
This is why people hate me. I have debt on $2.2 billion of real estate. I would appear to be disconnected. There it is. This is cool. Showing the plane can appear to be arrogant to some people. Overconfident. What I have here is a fleet.
Graham Stephan
How much of that, though is just played up for the camera?
Grant Cardone
No, I don't play up. There's not a play up.
Jack
The main controversy surrounding you would just be mostly around the fee schedule for your Cardone capital. People don't quite understand it. And I still, like, don't even understand.
Grant Cardone
What don't you understand, bro? What's your iq? It's not a math number. It's an idea. The real issue here around money is roles and responsibility.
Graham Stephan
So what do most people get wrong?
Grant Cardone
Well, they don't ask me like you guys did. They do YouTube videos. Don't make accusations that aren't true when you know they're not true. Because the moment you move into definition and own something, if you own any property, I'm gonna come get it from you.
Graham Stephan
Grant Cardone, thank you so much for coming on the iced coffee hour. Really appreciate it.
Grant Cardone
Yeah, thanks.
Graham Stephan
What do you think is a criticism about you? That's fair.
Grant Cardone
Oh, man, there's a lot. Lot. There's a lot.
Graham Stephan
Where do we start?
Grant Cardone
Yeah, where do you start? Okay, I'm. I'm. You know, the fair criticism is. I mean, there's some unfair. But the fair would be that I would appear to be disconnected, maybe from, you know, because of what. What I've achieved. The plane. Showing the plane can appear to be arrogant to some people. Arrogancy, overconfident. What do they say about me? Trump supporter get a lot of hate for the Trump support. You know, some of this stuff about the offerings on the investments, that's completely unfair because what we've done for 20,000 investors is unbelievable. To provide people with access to institutional quality assets the way we have at scale.
Jack
But you would say the arrogance. So, so you say people claim.
Grant Cardone
When I watch my own stuff, I'm like, do you look so arrogant when you present stuff? I just, I just, and, and, and, and that I'm not thoughtful enough about how people receive something.
Graham Stephan
How much of that though is just played up for the camera?
Grant Cardone
No, no, it's not. I don't play up. There's not a play up. There's, there's not, there's not. Okay, I'm going to do this because this is going to trigger people.
Graham Stephan
So when you said that someone making
Grant Cardone
400,000 a year is broke, that, that, that was done. It's a great, it's a perfect example. Yeah. Okay. That was not contrived. I had no clue that would happen.
Graham Stephan
You just said it.
Grant Cardone
By the way, that was videoed in front of an insurance company. There was 120 people in the room. Very large insurance company. And they hired me to come speak to their people. I said, hey, I asked the CEO, what do you want me to, you know, what would you like me to do? He's like, look, I got a couple guys making $10 million a year and everybody else is here is making 400 grand. He said, I need you to freaking amp these guys up to make 10 million each. I said, okay, I got it. So my opening line was, look, if you're in this room, okay, this was not, this was pre Internet. The video had been that, that video was probably 4 or 5 years old when it was found. And then put on, put on one of the social platforms. Yeah, I don't even think the social platforms existed when I did that event. That's how old it was. Could be seven years old. And he said, I need you to get the $400,000 guys off their ass to earn more money. I said, well, what's the most money you can earn? He's like, I got guys making $10 million a year in this room. So my opening line was, if you're in this room and you're sitting with people making 10 million and you all had the same opportunity and you're making 400 grand, I don't even know how you go home and feel good about yourself. That was the line. Okay, do you believe that though?
Jack
Or was this just like, hey, this is the requirement of speaking. You, you gotta amp These people up and you're like, okay, well, what's this?
Grant Cardone
I had one guy paying me. They pay. I think they paid me 150 grand to go in there and spend one hour jacking these guys up. That video was not made for mankind. That video was made for 125 guys that work at an insurance company that have the ability to make 10 million selling a product. And if you're in a room, if you're. There's four of us in a room and there's a guy in the room and we're all doing the same thing and you're making a billion dollars and I'm not. I'm like, what's wrong with me?
Jack
Okay, well, there's a lot to decode from that.
Grant Cardone
Yeah, let's decode it.
Graham Stephan
I would like to. Yeah.
Jack
Because you're saying, what's wrong with me if I'm not making a billion dollars? That's basically saying that like, highest moral value, highest value of life is suggesting that. That increasing your income to its maximum cap is like the best utilization of a life.
Grant Cardone
In this case, I was not asked to catch fish. I was asked to amp a room up about making.
Jack
So I understand, like, why selling more
Grant Cardone
insurance, by the way? By the way, the guy that sells. If you believe in the product, okay, I was doing this company and the people have been a service if the insurance product is good when they're not. They're not selling drugs. They're providing people with insurance, which people might not have, or they're underinsured. And I'm going in there saying, if you have the ability to make an extra phone call, it's not really about the money. I just, I could. The guy didn't ask me talk to them about selling more insurance. He said, talk to them about making more money.
Graham Stephan
Did you end up making them more money?
Grant Cardone
Well, you know, like does that. If I would have mentioned the insurance company's name, I certainly would have because
Graham Stephan
no, for the sales people, 100%, they made more money when they felt that 400,000 was broke.
Grant Cardone
It woke people up, even if it was just temporarily. Like, like, you know, if you get. If you get in a car wreck, you're going to be become more conscious of how you drive and how other people drive after the car wreck. So I'm punching them in the face to say, hey, wake up, there's an opportunity here.
Graham Stephan
Why do you think some people were complacent with 400,000 while other people felt like they need to push to.
Grant Cardone
Because. Because at that Time, like, what's the difference between those two, seven or eight or nine years ago, that's when you could actually live on 400 grand. Fast forward to 2026 and I'm probably closer to right than, than wrong, okay? Because I've been talking about this inflation thing for many, many years. Hey, you don't make enough money. I've been talking about a million dollars with no money. The middle class was changing. These numbers are all basically inherited ideas from earlier generations where, oh, 100 grand's a lot of money, 400 grand's a lot of money, a million dollars, a lot of money. Your generation is being told right now that you're being priced out. You're not priced out, you just don't work hard enough. Now, not in your case, but a majority of the population is tapping out right now believing in that case, seven or eight years ago you could live on 400 grand. When the truth is, if you live in the state of California, 400 grand is really 260. And after the cost of living, electricity, taxes, insurance, etc, you're probably down to a hundred thousand and, and a hundred grand today in this country, in almost any place, except maybe, you know, rural Midwest, it's not a lot of money.
Graham Stephan
So if someone has the ability to make a lot of money but they're not doing it, what do you think is hold back?
Grant Cardone
Well, these conversations, you know, like you're, you're like, oh, the moral compass, it's not about money. I'm like, dude, if you have a wife and two kids or three kids, two parents that are aging, you know, and any other responsibilities in the community that you consider yourself responsible for, some participation in the game, you need to make more money. You know, I agree with that.
Jack
I mean, I think that there is obviously like some sort of diminishing return at some point though. What I was saying was like the
Grant Cardone
different difference between making diminishing return.
Jack
It depends on what your, like your roles and responsibilities, what you are, what your duties are. And so if you're a man trying to provide for his family, it's like, okay, well there is obviously in California, probably it's going to be a couple hundred thousand dollars if you're the only person working. And then if it's, you know, you have many kids and your kids have like physical needs and stuff, okay, then you keep bringing it up. But I don't think that like the difference between making $2 million, granted, this is coming from a person who doesn't make $2 million. So take it with A grain of Salt difference between $2 million and $10 million in terms of what you can provide for your family will not make them better people.
Grant Cardone
Yeah. Oh, I didn't say, I've never, there's no clip of me saying people that make more money are better people.
Jack
Well, like raise your, raise your children in a more efficient way.
Grant Cardone
Well, you can do that on $2 million. You can probably do that on, you can do that on 200 grand. You, I mean, you can, you know, the amount of money raising your kids efficiently. You can give a guy a billion dollars. It doesn't mean he's going to raise his kids. Well, you know, I'm doing a great job of raising my kids. I know that. Nobody can take that away from me, but the money has nothing to do with it. Does it allow me to spend more time with them? Yeah, 100%.
Jack
There was a comment, but it was
Grant Cardone
cheaper for me to take my kids out of school and keep them in the schools. So anybody that thinks they can't homeschool can't homeschool because you're not taking responsibility. This is the real, the real issue here around money is role and responsibility. And most people think they're only responsible for themselves and not even their wife anymore. Okay. It's like, I got to have two people work. No, you don't. You need to work. She should stay home and raise the kids and, but you need to make more money. You, you know, so that, I mean, that's just my belief, like work.
Jack
So if, if your wife was better at making money than you.
Grant Cardone
Yeah.
Jack
Do you think it would be most efficient or productive for you to be a stay at home dad and she be a stay, go out and work?
Grant Cardone
Yeah. Never, never, never considered it.
Jack
But if, if she was more efficient at making money.
Grant Cardone
So if she was better, I can't even think. But I'm sorry, I just.
Jack
Is there, is there a world in which a woman can be better at making money than a guy? And like, if they're in a relationship, should she be the one going out?
Grant Cardone
I just can't have babies, you know, I can't have babies. So I, I, I don't know how to do that. So, and maybe it's just traditional, you know, just, look, I, that ain't gonna happen. My wife used to ask me, what if I made more money? I said, you're never gonna happen.
Graham Stephan
You said that?
Grant Cardone
What was you're never gonna make more money than me?
Graham Stephan
What was her response to that?
Grant Cardone
She's like, but what if I did Would it? Both. It won't bother me. Make more money. If you want to make more money, go get a deal. Get somebody to give you a bunch of money. But, like, you never going to make more money than me, because I am always going to.
Jack
So you're flexing on your wife?
Grant Cardone
No, I'm always. I'm always going to amp it up. I'm going to figure out another way to earn more money, because I know there's endless amounts of money since the last time I was on this show. Yeah. Okay. The US government has printed 25%, maybe 30% more currency is in place today, in play today than was the last time I was on this show. That means I should have gotten a pay raise. You should have a pay raise. You should have a pay raise. Everybody watching this right now should be making more money. But most people can't say they're making more money, because they're not. Why? Why aren't they earning more money? Why aren't they getting more money? If more money was produced. I'm not even talking about spending right now. If more money was produced, your earnings should automatically gone up, period.
Graham Stephan
What's the minimum amount that you need to make to not be broken?
Jack
I don't know.
Grant Cardone
I mean, I'm broke. I'm broke. No matter how much money I make, I'm broke anyway, so you got to tell me what broke means.
Graham Stephan
What would you consider to be broke?
Grant Cardone
Well, I don't have any money with me right now, so I'm broke right now. I'm broke. To get back to. If you didn't get me a ride back, you would have.
Graham Stephan
You had a credit card or.
Grant Cardone
I don't have. I don't have anything on me. I'm broke right now.
Jack
You don't have, like, an Uber app on your phone?
Grant Cardone
I do have an Uber app. Okay, so you.
Jack
You could figure out a way to.
Grant Cardone
Yeah, but if I was broke and my Uber app doesn't work anymore, then I'm broke now. How do I get back that? That is the way people really should. This is the. The calculation people should understand. This is what I did on Undercover Billionaire. I didn't have any money. I had a hundred dollars. I took the hundred dollars, gave it to the bank. Discovery Channel was upset because they're like, you. You need money. I said, no, I don't need money. I need people. I need my ability to contact people and ask somebody to give me a lift. I go out there right now and I do this, and I'd get a lift. I'D get a lift back to the hotel, right? And then, and then I got a room tonight. How did I, you know, so, so, you know, that's the hustle. The hustle is other people. I need to get in front of people. That's why the roofer and the H Vac guy and the plumber and the electrician are going to kill a. They're gonna, they're gonna, they're gonna over perform. They're gonna make the. The plumber tomorrow is gonna make more money than the doctor tomorrow if they know how to hustle. Now if they don't, they're just going to get inflated on and they're going to tell, okay, you, the wife's got to go work now and the kids have to go to schools and everything's going to get more expensive on you, and you're just a spectator in the game.
Jack
One thing that was really interesting that you mentioned on our last podcast, though, is that if you have a million dollars, you're as close to broke as possible. And so I feel like a lot of people disagree with that sentiment because I would say there are many dollars, maybe even a million different dollars, that are closer to broke than a million dollars. And so what do you mean by a million dollars being as close to as possible?
Grant Cardone
How old are you?
Jack
27.
Grant Cardone
Okay, so if you don't have new income, okay, and you're going to live to your 87 and you have no new income, you guys break up. There's no sponsors, there's no income, nothing. Dude, like what? You're just, you know, whatever. You cannot earn income. You have no government check, so you have 60 years and a million dollars. I don't know what the math is on that.
Jack
Well, you can say, let's say I put it in stocks and I'm taking a 3% withdrawal rate. So I have 30k a year.
Graham Stephan
Yeah, 30,000 a year?
Jack
Yeah, give or take.
Grant Cardone
Okay. You live on 30 grand a year.
Jack
It would be uncomfortable.
Grant Cardone
2500 bucks a month? You can't, bro. Not even in this town. Your rent's 2500 bucks. Your rent's two grand. How do you live? You got a mom and a dad. How do you feel about yourself? Now? Your dad. You find out your dad has dementia and it's going to take him 16 grand because your mom can't take care of him. Now you got to take care of the mom and the dad. Now how do you feel? What happened to your roles and responsibility? You were thinking about yourself. This is the problem right here. It's not a money problem. It's a roles and responsibility problem. I'm not responsible just for myself. If I'm a capable, able, intelligent, I can work. I'm healthy. That's my abilities. And I don't extend my roles and responsibility, not just my wife, my kids, my. My employees, my community, my neighborhood, even to my government. Then, Then, then I have a diminishing roles and responsibilities. Okay? And if you have no roles and responsibilities, then you don't need a lot of money. But if you have. If you have. Believe you have. If God gave you a bunch of responsibilities and roles, and then, Then you need money. Mother Teresa needed money, so she. She didn't have any of her own money, so what does she do? You don't need your own money. You need to be connected to people that have money. In that case, a lot of people. And you need more than a million dollars. Like, I don't even know where this number came from. It's not a math number. It's an idea. It's an old idea. A million dollars and you got it.
Graham Stephan
Yeah. For me, growing up, it was always a hundred grand that I thought when I was, like, 12 years old, like, you want to make a hundred thousand dollars a year?
Grant Cardone
Yeah.
Graham Stephan
And then you see how quickly it goes. Like, even my health insurance is close to a thousand dollars a month now, and it's the worst health insurance possible. It's a catastrophic plan. Still $1,000 a month for two people, which is crazy. The amount of prices are going up.
Grant Cardone
Yeah, I mean, I. I had a. I had a coffee this morning. It was $12.
Jack
Okay, well, that's. That is. If I walked up to a coffee shop, saw coffee was $12, I'm walking 20ft to the next.
Graham Stephan
Yeah, I make my coffee at home. I just brought it here. Well, you know, I saved $12.
Grant Cardone
Okay, good. Maybe I did. Okay, good. But, but you know the idea that I'm not interested in saving money, I'm interested in. In earning more money. So I'm like, oh, it's $12 for the coffee. I wanted the coffee. So I'm like, do I save $12 if I. No, actually, you don't get the coffee. So you could say you saved $12. But the truth is, I didn't get what I wanted. You know, in an abundance mindset, I'd be like, okay, yeah, dude, give me, give me, give me two of them. Give me two of them. And here's a tip. Here's another 12 for just delivering me the coffee. No harm no foul. I'm gonna go earn more money. And by the way, I'm going to do that for my wife and my kids and my church and my community and all my employees.
Graham Stephan
And yeah, look, it's no secret that finding a good real estate deal takes a lot more than just casually browsing a few online listings. Like, let's face it, between researching markets, running the numbers and figuring out financing, it could quickly become overwhelming.
Jack
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Graham Stephan
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Jack
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Graham Stephan
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Jack
Thanks again so much to Lennar for sponsoring the iced coffee hour. And back to the episode. To live in abundance, you need to have a lot of money, though, presumably, like, if you want to be the way that you just described. What would you say your predictions are for the 2026 housing market? How can people make money in real estate in 2026?
Grant Cardone
If I was trying to make a bunch of money tomorrow, I would not go into real estate. Real estate's a very heavy. I, I'm more likely to go sell waters at a concert where I could get $12 for the water because people are thirsty. You know, the location changes, how much I'm willing to pay for that coffee or that water. Right. The real estate, the real estate would not be what I would go into tomorrow if I was trying to make a bunch of money.
Jack
What would you go into?
Grant Cardone
Well, I would definitely think about AI. You know, if I was 25 years old and didn't, didn't, you know, hated school or 20 years old or 18, I would become an AI consultant. If you'd asked me this the last time I was here, I wouldn't, I wouldn't even know about it. I would become an AI consultant. I would have, I would have 10 clients each pay me $8,000 to go in and push all their AI, all their programs. I'd probably bring three i3AI platforms into the company, figure out three or four different projects they want me to handle. I wouldn't be on their healthcare, wouldn't be on their payroll. They'd pay me an $8,000 consulting fee. I'd make a million dollars in year one. $83,000 a month. 10 people, 8, 300 bucks each.
Jack
Let's break this down to actionable things. So if you were watching this right now, let's just say they're 25 year old guy, not up to a whole lot and they want to make the crazy amount of money.
Grant Cardone
8, 383,000 bucks a month.
Jack
So about a million bucks a year.
Grant Cardone
Yeah.
Jack
What is the first thing that they do?
Grant Cardone
Like you gotta, you gotta become an expert at AI.
Jack
Okay, so how would you become an expert in AI?
Grant Cardone
Well, rather than sitting in your little room and watching my Instagram and me tell you you're not making enough money, you need to become an AI expert. You need to throw yourself down into cloud, into chat, into which nobody even talks about. Yeah, five months ago that's all you talked about. Whatever. Pick a platform and you need to become an expert. You need to learn how to ask questions better than anybody else can ask questions on the verticals that you're going to go on. If I was chiropractory, I'd be like, I would learn how to ask those questions, have that already set up, dentistry, etc. And then I would start calling on those companies saying, I've built these AI platforms. You know, I am an expert in this. The guy you're calling on will not know whether you're an expert or not. That'll be determined by how good work you do for them in month one, whether you get paid in month two. But this is a brand new open space. The other, the other thing you could do is the social media. So people are still terrible at social media. All these people I'm talking about, all these verticals I'm talking about are horrible at best. They have a LinkedIn account or maybe an Instagram account and they misuse them. Car dealers in this town don't know how to use their social media and don't know how to use their AI. Every car dealer in this town would be a player for an AI consultant. Once you become the ma. The. A genius at this, what, whatever this AI platform is now you need to become a sales, you need to become a sales God. You need to. Because these are knocking on doors These aren't. I'm going to send an email out and Dr. The dentist is going to answer me and say, please come in and pitch me. You got to go call on companies.
Jack
And this.
Grant Cardone
This is why your viewer won't do it. Because they are so dis. They' disabled with making contact with the human being.
Graham Stephan
It's hard to do, man, even for me. I hated door knocking. I couldn't stand it. I would rather quit real estate than do doorknocking.
Grant Cardone
It's not even the rejection. See, See, I'd say, why does your audience not do this? And they're gonna be like, I hate rejection. No, you don't hate rejection. You hate being ignored. Because in the beginning, they're gonna ignore you. There's not gonna be any rejection. There'll be no response at all. That's why you send the email. You send the email so you don't have to deal with reality. If you go knock on their door, watch them turn you away and say, I don't have time for you. You. You can't even get over. Forget whether you're an expert. You cannot even get past I don't have time for you. Like, your audience doesn't even know how to handle that one thing.
Graham Stephan
It's dehumanizing. I did two videos where I went door to door washing windows.
Grant Cardone
Yeah.
Graham Stephan
Because this kid was making a thousand dollars a day cash.
Grant Cardone
Yeah.
Graham Stephan
Going door to door washing windows. But the amount of rejection that I got, the way that people treated me, it was dehumanizing and it was discouraging and I felt like crap.
Jack
Yeah.
Graham Stephan
But then when you finally get a yes, it's a great feeling. Have to go through like 10 to 20 no's.
Grant Cardone
My daughter, Sabrina, she was here last time, and she. We put her on the phones and I said, here's the script. You're going to call and say, my dad asked me to call you and he wants to know why you didn't buy the product. It's very easy script. She had a list. They were warm. They weren't expecting a call. Hey, my name's Sabrina. She's like, oh, my God. What am. I said, don't worry about what you're going to say. Worry about what's going to happen to you when they don't pick up. Okay? She's like, what do you mean? I said, you'll know. You'll know. Just let me know when you know, okay? So she started making phone calls. No answer, no answer, no answer, no answer, no answer. Won't pick up, won't pick up, won't call back. She went through like 19 of those. She was devastated. She had never been at her age. I think she was 13 at the time. Never been ignored by that many people. She's used to walking up, saying hi to people, and everybody gives her attention. And that was removed. So, like, like people don't know. This is what the Mormons do. They, they send their kids two years to missionary, which I think is brilliant. And they got to go to another country with another language and knock on
Jack
doors and so you.
Grant Cardone
Could you do it?
Jack
Could I do it? Yeah, I could if I needed to. Yeah. I think because, I mean, growing up there were like different things I needed to raise money for, like even track. You sell these car wash things, you come door knocking. Like, I was able to do it, but now I'm not necessarily in a position so it'd be more uncomfortable. But if I had the hunger instilled in me because I wasn't providing in the way I wanted to, then yeah, I could.
Grant Cardone
Yeah.
Jack
So I am curious though, on the topic of AI implementation, which is basically what you're suggesting, you would say that that is the number one thing that people should be doing right now to make a lot of money is AI implementation. Is there any other thing that you think is really lucrative you could make,
Grant Cardone
you could make the same money doing social media.
Jack
Okay, so what exactly in social?
Grant Cardone
You go in, you would go in your, your, you know, your, whatever you are, your dentist. I'm going to handle your LinkedIn. Oh, we got that handle. I'm going to handle your Instagram. I'm going to handle your TikTok. I'm going to handle your YouTube. I'm going to handle your shorts. I'm going to handle your long content. I'm going to get you podcasts. How much is that going to cost me? 83. 83. 88,000 bucks a month. I'll handle all of it. I'll handle your responses, your comments. I'll make sure everything's linked up. Back to your website. $8,000. You can't hire an employee in this country for $8,000 a month. It. And even if you did, you'd have to train them. You don't have to train me. I start today. Your close ratio is probably going to be 40%. You're going to call on 10 clients and you're going to get four of them to sign up.
Jack
If you're good at sales.
Grant Cardone
Well, if your pitch is good, what's
Graham Stephan
the one thing people get Wrong about sales,
Grant Cardone
everything.
Graham Stephan
Where do they.
Grant Cardone
Dude, first of all, it's terrible. It's nasty. You know, nobody gets training. You're not encouraged to do it.
Graham Stephan
And what's the biggest mistake people make when they're selling someone something?
Grant Cardone
Well, God, I mean, we could talk about this for three hours.
Graham Stephan
What's the main thing that you see people doing? Because I remember when I was watching the Wolf of Wall street, he's like, you just gotta shut up when you make the pitch and don't keep talking.
Grant Cardone
Not really.
Jack
Is that true?
Grant Cardone
Not really. I mean, I don't think it's that simple, right? So if. If I shut up and he shuts up now what happens? Everybody shut up. You're deep into the deal now. Like, you're not in sales now. You're in the negotiations and a close at that point. So the first mistake would be the target. You know, this goes back to money. The problem with most salespeople is the target's so low that you're not going to go through what it takes. It's what you just said, dude. You said, oh, I could do that if I had a need to. But most people don't actually have a need to because their understanding of money and life is so messed up. Like, they think, oh, I'm gonna make 8,000. 8,000 is a lot of money. I said, 8,000 times 10 clients. You're that. And you're going to find out that's not a lot of money. You're just going to find out that life is going to throw more problems at you. That costs money. So you, you can go to $80,000 a client if you want to. You're going to find out it's no money. You're going to find out no matter how much money you make or don't make, you're going to end up with a problem managing money, funding things. So the sales guy comes in, he's like, I'm going to make four grand a month. For four grand a month, you're not going to go through the amount of rejection you were talking about. For four grand a month, you're going to say this. I'm going to get a job that pays me four grand and I'll work for somebody else. I'm not going to go through all this rejection.
Graham Stephan
So why don't you say real estate? Because I feel like seven years ago, seven years ago, I feel like you would have said, all right, we're going to scrounge up some money together, buy a multi family.
Grant Cardone
Never said that.
Graham Stephan
No, never.
Grant Cardone
Never in my career. When I said that, I'd say, if you want to make money, you go out there and hustle somebody right now. Now I'll go back to your. Your window washing. Who was doing the window washing?
Graham Stephan
I did.
Grant Cardone
Yeah, dude. Like that. That's a great business, okay? Because I get money today. So that's why the H Vac and the plumber, electrician, all those guys are going to just crush. The electrician is going to be making 350 grand a year here in the next two or three years. So just got to be good at the pitch. And he could make three and a half million if he could scale his business and tell a story and call on clients. But the money's going to come from a person. You still got to go call on people like. Like. This is the big problem with the sales game, okay? This is the problem with people that start a business. Most people start a business for the wrong reasons. They start a business because either they got left, let go from their last job, or they hate the guy they work for and they come up with this calculation that says, like, they're Einstein and says, I, rather than being abused by Grant, I'm gonna go do what I learned at Grant's place and go work for myself. And now I work for myself. And they're going to find out now that they still don't have the skills to make any money, and now they hate the client, the. The. The environment, and probably even don't like themselves. The average CEO in this country, a solopreneur, makes $30,000 less working for themselves than they would in the same position working for somebody else.
Graham Stephan
There is something mentally different, though, for doing something. When you're doing something for yourself that is freeing. Like, I'd much rather make less money and know that I have full control over my schedule to make more and work for someone else.
Grant Cardone
Yeah, all right.
Jack
That's you, though I think not everyone would agree with that, actually.
Grant Cardone
I don't. I don't. You know, I don't care who I. I'm. Look, I work for somebody else every day. I'm working for you guys. Today I'm working for Jared. I'm working for my partner Brandon. I do a deal with Blackstone. I'm working for them. You know, get a loan from Wells Fargo. I'm working for them. I'm working for everybody. I can pretend to be working for myself, but I'm. I'm always on somebody else's schedule.
Graham Stephan
What are you seeing right now happening in the real estate market, well, it's
Grant Cardone
just, you know, there's a lot, lots going on and, and we've got a bunch of debt. Single family, Single family is not gonna. Let's just start there. Okay.
Graham Stephan
Yeah.
Grant Cardone
Very difficult to sell house today. The only people selling homes, new homes are selling for less than existing homes are. And that reason that is because the new homes are subsidizing the rate. They're buying the rate down from six and a half down to five and a half or even lower. They're subsidizing down payments. And Bill down the street that wants to sell his house. The guy that wants to sell his house here can't do that or he doesn't think he can. So the sellers aren't creative enough to offer financing, so they just lower their price and they can't get the price low enough to actually bring the buyers in. Now mortgage rates look like they want to fall off the, the ledge right here.
Graham Stephan
Yeah, they just drop below six.
Grant Cardone
Yeah. So they're below six. I think they go down to four. I think they're going to just collapse here in the next six months. What do you think if that happens? That, that, that will, then the housing market will be. Real estate agents will start making money again, brokers will start making money again, mortgage brokers.
Graham Stephan
So does that mean then you are bullish long term for single family homes? Because if, but if mortgage rates drop, don' that all of a sudden then affordability comes back and that the buyer could now pay what the seller wants.
Grant Cardone
I think what happens in the beginning, contrary is I think that if rates fall off the cliff, if they would come down really fast, which is what Trump wants. Yeah. And the first thing that would happen is prices would come down, not go up if rates dropped. I think what happens now, most people don't agree with this. I think the supply is going to go so high that so many people are gonna be like, okay, now's the time to sell our house. The supply is going to increase so much that everybody's gonna be like, I'll drop my price right now because I want to move into that other house.
Jack
So then secure another low interest loan.
Grant Cardone
Yeah, exactly. They're trying to move to something right now. Right now. Look, for a sale to take place, there has to be motivation on both parties. So for me to compromise my price, I gotta want to go do something else. And right now there's no, there's no urgency to compromise my, my, my price because I have no place to go. The moment I have someplace to go, then I compromise my expectation for what I want for my house because I want to go to this other place so bad, and that doesn't exist in the system right now. You got to have supply. You got to have a lot of supply. You got to have tremendous demand. And you also have to have urgency by both parties to say, I'm ready to roll right now because I get a low rate, not a low price, by the way. I'd rather a low rate than a low price all day long. This is what Trump wants, by the way. He doesn't want to destroy the equity in the housing. There's about $38 trillion equity sitting in homes and he doesn't want to destroy that. He could, you know, he doesn't want to do that because that would hurt your parents. It would hurt anybody that owns a home. What he wants to do is drop the rate, maintain the equity, and have people be able to afford a home.
Graham Stephan
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Jack
That is. Up w o r k.com upwork.com there's also a link down below in the description. You can just click it right there. Thank you so much to Upwork for sponsoring this episode. This episode is in partnership with Airbnb. So Graham and I just wrapped up a trip. We were in Austin for a few days. We filmed episodes with Togi, Chris Camillo and Caleb Hammer. And honestly, every time we're on the road, we're staying at homes on Airbnb. It's just become the default.
Graham Stephan
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Jack
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Graham Stephan
So instead of your home sitting empty, you could be generating some extra cash. Whether that helps you cover the next trip, your flights, or just goes towards something that you've been putting off at home.
Jack
I actually listed a spare room in my house on Airbnb and I was genuinely so surprised how easy it was to set up, how seamless the entire process was, and it actually made me some pretty good money. I would actually recommend this to anyone out there that wants to make a little extra cash on the side. It's honestly phenomenal. If you're thinking about hosting but want some help getting started, find a co host@airbnb.com host so what do you think
Graham Stephan
is the best way to make money in real estate in 2026 or is it just waiting?
Grant Cardone
Well, it's not the single family home. If, if, if you, if you, if you force me though into the single family home and say, look it, you grant, how would you make money in single family homes? Well, I would pick three or four cities. Miami would be one of them. And I'd say, I'd go, I'd probably go do. As much as I hate this concept, but you're saying short term you just want to make some money. I'd go flip old 80s homes in Miami in certain locations in five or six different pockets. You need a place where there's old inventory, there's old 80s, eight foot ceilings, old kitchens, and you'd go in rehab them and pick up 15 or 20,000 a unit. But the problem is you need some money to do that. You don't. You're not going to need a mortgage. You need some money to flip that house and you need guts. And now you're back in a sales game. Now you got to buy it, you got to try to steal the house. You're calling on a hundred people to get one or two deals, not 100 people to get 40 deals. So that's why the AI thing and the social media thing would be such much greater return than me trying to get you to sell me your house that you just bought.
Jack
Those would still be active ways to make money though. Like you're spending your time making money. What about passive income? Like if you're going to deploy your capital in any asset, would real estate be the optimal asset class? Or what would you.
Grant Cardone
I didn't know I had any money. I didn't know I had any money. I thought I was broke.
Jack
Well, let's just say someone's out there, they're working a job that they, they went to college for, they're making 75, 80K a year.
Grant Cardone
Yeah.
Jack
And they don't want to change career paths and they have this disposable income that they want to invest somewhere.
Grant Cardone
Yeah. I mean, that's a different play. So you're describing me when I was 29 years old. I'm making, I'm making 80 grand a year. I have 30,000 left over. When am I do that? Two years in a row. I do it three years in a row. I got $90,000. I'm not overspending. I live like him, very fr. He watches every $12 that he spends, every $1, every 10 cents. And so I'm banking money over here. I don't know what to do with it. And then I started buying real estate. So I started using that real estate to leverage. I would go buy, but it wouldn't be a single family home, it'd be at least four units. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac today have a 5% program where you can buy four units. It's limited to the four units and a million. I think it's a million three, 95% down. So on a million dollar four unit complex, you could put 50 grand down on 200 grand, you could put $10,000 down and you'd get four units of cash flow. But you're not getting rich, dude. You basically took $5,000. You have four units, you're the manager, you got to go collect $6,000 a month. Four times 1500. You're going to have to fix a place, garden the place, collect the checks, evict people, look notices, qualify people, like fix the plumbing. So that ain't passive, bro.
Jack
What would you recommend to someone who has maybe 30 or 40k in money that they can invest somewhere they're able to save a little bit of money at the end of every month?
Grant Cardone
Yeah.
Jack
Where should they deploy that?
Grant Cardone
Well, I'd say invest it with me, but it's not enough.
Jack
You can't say that. That's the one thing.
Grant Cardone
It's not enough money. So I don't need to say it.
Jack
Where would they be putting that money?
Grant Cardone
I would do what I just said. I would do the four unit deal and software offer and go do ten up. I do four units. I'd take $5,000, I'd buy four units and then I'd go do a second one and a third one, I'd do them. If I could do them on the same block, I would do them on the same block. Now what are you buying now? Four units. It was built in 1970. It's old. Four units. That's why all they built back in the 70s, they were building four units. In the 80s, they're like, hey, let's build eight units. And then they built eights and then they said, let's build 16. So you'll see them by age. Today they're only building 350 units. So you'll see these big complexes going vertical. But that's what I would do now. Is it fast money? No, it's just a little bit of drip. The 30 grand is going to earn them, maybe 3,000 bucks a year. So you traded 30 grand for 3,000 bucks of income. And most people won't do that. They're like, I want my 30 grand. Your 30 grand is going to be worth 3 grand here in the next 10 years. Years. They're just going to keep printing money. So you need to convert your cash, the 30k into something more valuable. In this case it was, let's say, 150,000 of real estate. 30 grand leverage, 20% down. I bought $150,000 property. The value of that property is going to go up as they print money, but it's just a drip. You're only earning three grand a month. You're earning, you know, 250amonth. You're like, this is not a deal. I traded 30 grand for 250amonth. Month. I would do that trade. But most people watching this are going to say $250 is nothing. So they won't do it. But you would never say just $250 because you. You're a miser.
Graham Stephan
250. If you save that over 30 years, invested at a 7% return, that's over a million dollars.
Grant Cardone
Yeah. So 12 bucks.
Graham Stephan
There you go. Exactly.
Grant Cardone
So that's why he's going to Korea for the. He got them. Hurts.
Graham Stephan
So what do you think is the biggest risk to housing prices over the next few years?
Grant Cardone
Yeah, there's. I think the biggest risk is that, you know, the. The baby boomer does.
Graham Stephan
Don't they then pass off their wealth?
Grant Cardone
Yeah, they're gonna pass it off. They're gonna pass it. The three of us, we're brothers. And our. Our parents die. The last parent dies, and their home is in Shreveport, Louisiana, and we get the notice. You live in la, you live in Las Vegas, and I live in Miami. Oh, my God. He died. Dad. Okay, we go in, we see the wheel. You guys get to split the house. He has no other. No other assets. Do you want to move to Shreveport and live in the house?
Jack
I will not.
Grant Cardone
Do you want to live?
Graham Stephan
No, I wouldn't. Largest we'd sell it.
Grant Cardone
Flying roaches in the world, right? Live in Shreveport.
Graham Stephan
How do you know that?
Grant Cardone
Because I. I lived in Louisiana.
Graham Stephan
Okay.
Grant Cardone
You know, I dated a girl there, so. And she came with roaches, by the way. It was worth it. Oh, my God. But, oh, my gosh. And we're going to be like, dude, what's the house worth? Okay, we haven't. We haven't even buried our father yet. And we're like, what's the house worth? Somebody says maybe 200. Okay. The housing market sucks right now, so we're going to list it and one of you guys is going to get, you know, like, I got time. No problem, guys. Whenever it sells, I'm fine. And then you got. You guys are like, sell it. Drop the price. We're going to have a phone call a month later. Hey, guys, drop the price. You. You and me are gonna be like, just drop the price. Right? You could see to you it's found money. We have no emotional connection or attachment to the house. We're not living in. It's getting degraded. Kitchen's old. The. The ceilings are bad. The real estate agent that got the listings now gonna tell you, oh, my God, you need to paint it. You need to take all the furniture out. We need to re reset it up, we need to refurnish it. All that's gonna cost money, guys. It's gonna be $6,000 to do that. Every. All the three of us need to each come up with two grand. And you're like, hey, hey, it. Sell the house. Just sell it. That's my biggest concern is that you're going to have tens of millions of people all dying in a period of 12 months. Okay? We got 10,000 baby boomers dropping out of the workforce every day. Then you're going to have them dropping like flies, all hitting in their 80s, their 90s drop it just dying or they don't die. They go to senior housing or they go to a dementia. I can't remember myself who I am. I don't remember any of the great things I've done in life. I don't remember any of the interviews we did together. Grant Cardone forgot that he's Grant Cardone. Right. And. And Bruce Willis.
Graham Stephan
Oh, it's terrible.
Grant Cardone
It's terrible, dude. Like it. But it's gonna. It could happen to me or you, you know, or our parents and so nobody cares about the house anymore. That. That guts. Single family homes. The other part that concerns me is the, the guys that are your age don't really want this responsibility that you have this acre here. So you got 75 million baby boomers that have no interest in home housing. Housing. They're dying off. They're not going to buy a new house. They have zero. They're going to spend less money here in the last 25 years of their life than they spent at any other period in their life. They're not spenders, they're not travelers. They're not going to fix the house. They're not going to Costco or Home Depot to, you know, put on a new look. They're not buying new furniture. They don't need it. They don't want any changes. So you got that third that's dying out and you got the bottom third entering in that doesn't really want to own that home.
Graham Stephan
What's the flip side to that? Is there a bullish case where maybe AI makes things so deflationary, Interest rates go low, Everyone like, what's the flip
Grant Cardone
side to that, man? I don't see it. I don't see it.
Graham Stephan
So you think everyone at some point is probably going to live in a big multi family?
Grant Cardone
I do.
Graham Stephan
Because that's all that they could afford
Grant Cardone
or is that just. I think because they're going to. It's a more desirable. You only get most of the populations in 20 top 20 cities.
Graham Stephan
Cities.
Grant Cardone
You know, 80% of America lives east of the Mississippi River. Only 20% lives on this side of the world of the United States. Top 20 cities control most of the population. So we don't have a shortage of housing in this country. There's no shortage. It's just a lie. That's a complete lie. There's, there's, I think there's 11 or 12% of the single family housing supply is abandoned homes or empty. There's no, there absolutely is no housing housing shortage. There's another 12% of multi family that is vacant right now today, maybe, maybe higher than that. We got, we got multi family have with the highest occupancy we've, that I've seen in probably 20 years. So you have probably somewhere between four and a half million single family homes and maybe five million multi family that are vacant right now. Somebody can move into. So like Trump sent somebody to my office three, three and a half weeks ago and said what would you do? I said I would give an incentive to all the vacancy in this country to occupy that house. If you have a vacant home, nobody's living in it, give it, give some kind of tax incentive. You move somebody into that house, set them up to own that house and you'll pay no taxes on the income. It would help the people that own those homes fulfill those homes and it would help the new guy that doesn't have a home that wants home. You don't need to build homes to solve that problem.
Graham Stephan
What should the role of government be in housing?
Grant Cardone
Well, I think, I think you know, they're not fulfilling. That one is the interest rates need to be affordable and they're not. We should have the lowest interest rates in the world. We have the dominant currency on planet Earth. We should have the lowest interest rates so that people can afford a market mortgage and they would fabricate, would be completely synthetic made up money backed by the US government. Lowest mortgages in the world right here in America, you know, 3% that works.
Jack
And how would you justify United States being the country that offers the low interest? Is that just because of sheer productivity we're so productive that we can afford to.
Grant Cardone
Yeah, we're productive. We, you know why, why not? Why not? We're going to go spend a trillion dollars on this freaking nonsense in Iran, man. So why not, why not have our people living in a house, you know, if, if they want a house by the way. I don't, I don't even think that solves the problem though.
Jack
What do you think is the.
Grant Cardone
I, I don't think that because, because I think a lot of you guys are gonna be like, I don't want a house. I. I don't want to own a house. I don't. I want, like, the complexes we're buying today comes with a $4 million swimming pool, a million dollars of amenities, $250,000 gym. It comes with a Whole Foods right across the street, a Trader Joe's two blocks away, and go get, you know, clean eating anytime I want. Like, that's what people want. They don't want to drive 40 minutes to get to their Whole Foods. And so I think a. Do some people want a home? Maybe? Yeah. You want to raise?
Graham Stephan
I would argue more people would want a house than a. Than live in a condo, maybe.
Grant Cardone
But I think if you talk to some of the guys that I talk to that work for me in Miami, first of all, you can rent. Check true for 50% today of what it costs for a mortgage.
Graham Stephan
That is true.
Grant Cardone
Just the mortgage?
Graham Stephan
Yeah.
Grant Cardone
Not the pmi, not the taxes, property taxes, not the insurance on top of that. Just the mortgage itself. If the. If the mortgage is four grand, you can rent something comparable. Not a house. Maybe even a house for two grand in Miami. In Vegas. Same. Same. Same thing in Vegas. Okay, So I got a. One of my guys, Ryan, I think his rent's 8,000 bucks a month. Month. The place is worth 4 million. Okay? The HOA fees and the property taxes are more than 8,000amonth. So the guy's got $4 million of dead money, plus the HOA fees, plus the property taxes, plus the insurance. Ryan pays no insurance, no hoa. He doesn't have dead money. He can leave anytime he wants.
Graham Stephan
Why would the owner agree to rent at those terms?
Grant Cardone
Because he doesn't want to be empty.
Graham Stephan
But why can't he just sell it?
Grant Cardone
Why does a guy charter his jet?
Graham Stephan
Why not just sell it? Sell it?
Grant Cardone
You can't sell it.
Graham Stephan
Well, then it's not worth four. Then what? What do you think it's worth?
Grant Cardone
You're right. But he's not. He's like, I don't want to lose money. He's like, he's got four in it. It's just that you don't have any buyers right now. If you had lower interest rates, somebody would buy that asset.
Graham Stephan
You know what I was really surprised about? I didn't realize this, is that when you have a primary residence and you sell it for a profit. Profit. You pay capital gains, you get the exemption.
Grant Cardone
250, 500 for couples.
Graham Stephan
But what I didn't realize is that when you sell At a loss, you cannot take a capital loss.
Grant Cardone
That's right.
Graham Stephan
Which is crazy. Crazy dude, that if you lose money, because I see sellers here that are millions of dollars in the red on a property that they paid the top of the market in 2021, it's worth 3 million less. They can't take a write off.
Grant Cardone
That's right.
Graham Stephan
They just after tax money, it's to going gone.
Grant Cardone
See? See like crazy to me, these rules, the rules that extend to investment purchases should be extended to single family homes. So Trump sent Bernie Marino into my office and said, hey Grant, I'm down in Miami, I want to know, do you have any ideas about how to really get housing going? Accelerate housing? I said, yeah, here's the number one thing you should do. Like you guys, when I walked in, first question I asked, did you accelerate the depreciation on this place? They should pass on accelerated depreciation. I get it on every property, every property I buy. If we paid a million dollars or 10 million or 100 million, I'm, I' to probably write off under the bonus depreciation, accelerate 27 years of depreciation on a home to year one. So I'm going to probably get like a $40 million. 40 cents of every dollar will be written off the day I buy it. That should be extended to single family homes. So you paid a million three for this place. 40 to 50% of it would be accelerated day one. You'd be able to write off $500,000 dollars today.
Jack
But how would that not just like increase the price of housing?
Grant Cardone
Well, it would, it would accelerate, people would start buying. That would absolutely increase the price of housing.
Graham Stephan
I think what you want your house
Grant Cardone
to go up in value.
Graham Stephan
What Jack is trying to say is for the average person just saying, hey, I just want to buy a place. Now these laws pass.
Grant Cardone
Yeah.
Graham Stephan
And they're like, oh crap. Well, now it just increased.
Grant Cardone
It's already in place for me. All it's doing is being, it's already been approved by Congress. I, I get this every year. This is why I don't pay any taxes. My tax bill last year was zero. Why? Because we buy an asset, we write it down. Blackstone buys an asset, writes it down. Starwood buys an asset, writes it down. All the major insurance companies, New York Life, MetLife, New York Life and MetLife own $200 billion of real estate in this country. Nobody ever talks about them because they're insurance companies and they stay out of the news. You came in here and wrote bought this place and you didn't get the write off. Why don't you get the write off?
Jack
Well, I can.
Grant Cardone
Well, on this one you can't. Well, if it's your single family home, you can't.
Jack
I do not live here.
Grant Cardone
No. Okay, good. So because it's an investment property, you should be able to write this off. But the single family home, the guy across the street should also be able to write his off when, when he buys it and accelerate it this year. You know what that would do to this country? He would pay. He would get a $400,000 tax write off this year. Imagine he makes that 400,000 we talked about earlier. Okay? He's that insurance agent that I ragged on, okay. He gets a $400,000 write off against his earned income this year. His tax bill is zero. He pays no federal taxes. Would that be good for Las Vegas? Absolutely, 100%. Because now he's got 200 grand to spend that he wouldn't have had had he had that tax bill.
Graham Stephan
See, I always felt that the mortgage interest deduction should be raised 100 to a million and a half.
Grant Cardone
It should be raised to 5 billion.
Graham Stephan
And then I also think that the
Grant Cardone
capital gains should be raised to 5 million. It. Or maybe not have one at all.
Graham Stephan
Here's what's crazy. When the capital gains exclusion for single family homes was passed, it was the late 90s. The average home back then, 4 to $500,000 on the, the, the, the high end, by the way. And that was the exclusion.
Grant Cardone
Yeah, yeah.
Graham Stephan
Now it's closer in some major cities to a million dollars.
Grant Cardone
Yeah, that's right.
Graham Stephan
But the exclusion stays the exact same. It's never been adjusted for inflation. Yeah, they should increase that.
Jack
Yeah.
Grant Cardone
So, so, like the interest, okay. When, when I pay, I have, I have debt on. This is why people hate me or don't like me. This is my criticism. I have debt on $2.2 billion of real estate. So the, the moment I say 2.2 billion, they're like, oh, he's bragging. I'm just using it as an example. My interest on 2.2 billion, which I don't pay for, by the way, my, my tenants pay for. I mean, it's funded in the project, right? 100% of that 2.2 billion times, let's say 5, 5%, whatever. $110 million of interest is deductible every year. You can't deduct more than about 42,000. Shouldn't be. There should be no limitation. It's an American product. American house bought In America, you should be able to deduct 100% of the interest to the capital gains. Okay, you bought this place for a million three. You sell it $3 million, you make a million four. You shouldn't. Like, why, why should you pay taxes on that million four when I, I don't. Why, why pay capital gains? What's the government got to do with your, the ownership of your own car? Okay, if you bought that shirt and sold the shirt for more money because people think you're famous, okay, you know, whatever, right? And you bought it for 80 bucks and you sell it for 300, you don't pay capital gains. Your bicycle, your motorcycle, your car, None. Nothing has capital gains except a house. And it shouldn't. And that's what Trump's open to, by the way, for all your Trump haters. They, they like the idea of trying some of this stuff. He, he pitched, pitched the accelerated depreciation two Mondays after I told them about it. He pitched it at Davos, and I heard that he's going to be signing an executive order to present to Congress this year.
Jack
So did he literally talk to his cabinet or whoever and say, hey, look, we need to.
Grant Cardone
No, that's not him.
Jack
Like, like. And then, so we're going to send someone over to Grant Cardone's office to get some ideas of what to.
Grant Cardone
He done. Talk to U.S. cabinet. He's like, bernie, go. You going down to Miami, Go. Good. Get down there, talk to some people down there. I got friends down there.
Jack
That's it. So he'll just send someone down.
Grant Cardone
He'll, he'll just, I mean, it's, you know, it's not that Trump just rolls like there's no Cabinet. Trust me. It could have been done at Mar Lago. And I want to get this housing thing, guys, Bring me some ideas. It'll be like this. Bring me ideas. Yes, Anything, anything works. I want housing to explode in this country without destroying the equity. Okay. I want rates down. I mean, he's been pounding the table about rates. He did the 50 year mortgage. He offered the 50 year. I think the 50 year backfired. Yeah. If it, if it was you, you agree with that?
Graham Stephan
Yeah, it didn't make any mathematical sense.
Grant Cardone
Dude, if you're going to do 50 years, do a hundred.
Graham Stephan
No, but it just, beyond a certain point, nothing. It was something diminishing returns. It costs you more.
Grant Cardone
It was a hundred dollars or something. Yeah, just to go to 100 years, bro, it really expands it.
Graham Stephan
100 years ago. Way more backlash, though.
Grant Cardone
Not maybe but if you, you got to sell it, you still got to sell it. You're only going to keep the house eight years anyway. Look, if a 30 year mortgage doesn't make a 15 doesn't make sense. A 30 doesn't make sense. A 50 and 100 don't make sense.
Graham Stephan
Just make it so that you could write off the full amount of house. That's it.
Grant Cardone
Don't buy a house. It's a terrible investment. It should come with a warning, like a black spot, black box label. This is not an investment. This is a pure liability.
Graham Stephan
When is it an investment? It can never be an investment.
Grant Cardone
This is not a, this is not a house house. What we're doing right here, right now, some guy's going to be driving his car down the street saying, that's a house. This is not a house. This is pretending to be a house that is now convert commercial business producing income for the sheer sake of producing income. Single family home does not produce income. It is not an investment. It should not be on your personal financial statement.
Graham Stephan
What about your house in Malibu that you purchased?
Grant Cardone
I was at the house yesterday. I met with the, the administrator of the EPA lies el building.
Graham Stephan
Do they, do they still want you to tear down the house?
Grant Cardone
Y. Yep, they want me to tear it down. If, if I spend $1 more than 50% of the assessed value of the house, not the land. If I spend $1 more than the assessed value to clean it up, to get rid of all the smoke damage out of the floors, the walls, the H vac, replace the kitchen, the rooms that were burnt, the roofing, blah, blah, blah. If I spend more than I think the number is like $2.5 million. Half of 5 million. If I spend more, $1 more, they want me to tear down the entire structure.
Graham Stephan
Who is tracking how much money you spend on the house?
Grant Cardone
The. Who knows, the permit process, anything I spend.
Graham Stephan
Yeah, but if a contractor says, hey, listen, we'll do this job for half the price and hey, maybe, you know, we work out a deal, you shout me out or good.
Grant Cardone
Yeah, but I mean right now, right now they're watching everything I do. So this is a FEMA rule. A FEMA rule. FEMA came in on the coastlines, by the way, the coastline of California is treated exactly as the coastline of Louisiana. So it said. And these, these rules, these FEMA rules were put in after the storms in New York. So New York, remember the big, the big floods there four or five years ago? FEMA came and said, emergency, Federal emergency will pay to replace Your house. But if your house, if you spend more than 50% of the value of the house, it was a smart rule for floods. If you spend more than 50, if it's a complete tear down because of the floods, then you need to rebuild that house so that it's above the floodplain in case of another flood. Because we, the federal government doesn't want to keep fixing flood damage. But Malibu doesn't have flood problem, okay? The state of California has never been under the threat of a flood after the fires. Fires and floods aren't the same thing as your viewer knows. But clearly FEMA doesn't understand. If I fix more than 50% of the value of my house because of the fires, they want me to destroy 38 pillars that are 36 inch wide concrete going 30ft deep into the ground. Planet bedrock. They want me to pull all that infrastructure out. They want me to take 26 inches. I have 8,000 square feet, 23 inches of concrete poured underneath my house as a platform that prevented this house from being burnt to the ground. They want me to pull all that infrastructure up and rebuild a new house. If I spend $1 more on a house that's never been, been violated by floods.
Graham Stephan
Do you regret buying the house?
Grant Cardone
Yes, of course. Like the why, why I regret buying my house in Golden Beach.
Graham Stephan
Why did you buy the house in Malibu? Because it just seems, it goes against like buying a house for yourself and California.
Grant Cardone
No, the California wasn't. We bought that house six or seven years ago. So they hadn't. I was going to go live there, you know, four or five months of the year, not pay income taxes. But if, if I, I wouldn't go there and buy today. Now that being said, that coastline, 18 homes next to me were burnt to the ground. The next house, house, there's me right here. 18 homes in between me next house is built to concrete. Everything in between was built to timber. I don't burn, he don't burn. Okay, then there's Larry Ellison, Larry's son. Like billions of billionaire row. Okay? On this side of the house on the east side, there's 80 homes burnt to the ground. All those homes are going to become 14 and 20, 15, 20 million dollar homes. This side's going to become 50 and 60, 70 million.
Graham Stephan
Did you see that? They're turning some of those lots into low income housing.
Grant Cardone
Not, not on the beach.
Graham Stephan
No, it was just.
Grant Cardone
No, no, it's impossible.
Graham Stephan
Just today.
Grant Cardone
Impossible.
Graham Stephan
They're doing Section 8 next year.
Grant Cardone
Yeah, no, it's impossible.
Graham Stephan
Does now when those Houses burn. When those houses burn around vertical buildings,
Grant Cardone
those should be vertical buildings like they're in Miami. I should not. This is for all the haters out there. My home, that's 10,000 square feet. Sheet. Should not. I should not. One family should not be allowed to live in that house. That house should be a vertical house of 50 different families.
Graham Stephan
Traffic would be an issue there.
Grant Cardone
Traffic's already an issue. And it's not as bad as it
Graham Stephan
would be if you had 50 residents per structure.
Grant Cardone
You think traffic's a problem in the GY strip, They're going to fix it. It's going to be unbelievable there.
Graham Stephan
But when properties burn around you and you have the only house left, does that make your house more valuable?
Grant Cardone
Yeah, I think it makes.
Graham Stephan
I mean, or less valuable because there's nothing around it.
Grant Cardone
Nice views. Good. Now views. Perfect.
Graham Stephan
I mean, realistically, there's nothing.
Grant Cardone
My next door neighbor. Yeah. Jay Stein and his wife. Okay, jay. Jay had $3 million worth of insurance. His home was worth 14 million. Mine's worth 40 or 50. Yeah. So I'm sitting next to him. He's half the lot. Lot. He's worth 15. Let's say he's worth 20. Whatever, he loses his house. There's no house there. He only had $3 million worth of insurance. Yeah. So he's out. He's. He lost whatever he lost. He's got to rebuild now. On top of that, he's got to rebuild. So he's got to rebuild. Let's say it cost him 10 to rebuild. Now he's got 13 in it. No, he's got 10. Seven. He's got seven. Less the insurance.
Graham Stephan
Yeah.
Grant Cardone
Now his house is probably worth 20. It's going to go up because it's brand new. But he's got to sell it to somebody that can only get $3 million worth of insurance on it. So who's that going to be? And I'm rich. Rich guys gonna walk in. I'll pay it. I'm only going to visit three or four times a year. All those homes, by the way. No, none of those are real property owners there. Except for the lady two doors down that's been there since she's 85. She's effed because she can't fix it. She didn't have enough insurance. She's not going to be able to spend the money. It's going to take her seven years to rent rebuilt. So it was a terrible investment. My home in golden beach was a terrible investment. This was a terrible investment. But it didn't none of it. None. At some point, you can do stupid.
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Graham Stephan
So what is your investing strategy then for this year?
Grant Cardone
Well, I'm in big transition as I was telling you. So I mean we're still buying real estate. So I, I only bought one deal last year. It was the worst year we've had to buy real estate. It was a big deal, 330, $230 million real estate with $100 million of Bitcoin. But it's the only deal I did. We're extremely disciplined. You know, I'm, you know. So we want to add real estate. Yeah, we want to add real estate and bitcoin. This real estate bitcoin hybrid, we want to continue to build that out. We think it's a financial vehicle that'll disrupt the REIT industry. We're going to move into the wealth business and create a mini Blackstone or Merrill lynch for to democratize to the mass affluent and provide insurance. Banking.
Graham Stephan
Is that like a family office style, multifamily office? Okay.
Grant Cardone
So for, for the masses. So we're, we're basically, we're already doing the consulting. We have about 15,000 customers. We're consulting in their companies, plumbing, H vac, dentists, chiropractors, small businesses where we're going in, helping them scale their businesses, taking care of their operations, looking at their 401 clan plans, their insurance plans is starting to consolidate all that. That's going to be a monster business.
Graham Stephan
And what was the logic behind adding bitcoin to real estate funds?
Grant Cardone
Yeah, so I've been tinkering with bitcoin for about, well since 2011. I came to this town to do a gig for this group that was a business that they only had bitcoin. And they wanted me to come in and speak. And I said, yeah, I'll come speak. And they said, we can only pay you in bitcoin. I'm like, I don't know what that is. Long story short, they gave me 115 bitcoin. I still have those today. And I got introduced to people bitcoin and I still own those bitcoin today they're worth 70 times 115, whatever that number is. 8 million. 8. 8.4 million. It's been worth 126, 115. And I started getting introduced to this, this technological money and bought a little bit when it was 16, bought some more at 30. Watched it go back to 15,000. Watched it go back to 60. Been playing with it. So last year, year, and this is what I said earlier, real estate's a heavy, very, very heavy. You cannot, I can't take my $5 billion and say be more today. I can't take the rents and magically say raise rents. I can't magically lower expenses on a property. It's very, it's a heavy. Yeah, it's like a railroad, right? You can't just move it. So I can't move the value. So I'm always looking for ways to increase the value of the real estate. I could pay, clean it, I could put a new roof on it, I could have a new pool, I could build a new theater, I could change the name, I could bring in new furniture. But all that stuff costs money. And I was like, or I could add bitcoin. Cost money to add the bitcoin. But I'm going to fuse the two together. So we started playing with models. January of 25, we found a 70, $85 million property that we bought for 72. And rather than just taking the 72 and a cheaper piece of real estate, I filled up the difference with bitcoin.
Graham Stephan
Does it worry, does it worry you if bitcoin drops? Let's just say another like 50% and
Grant Cardone
then it's already dropped 50%.
Graham Stephan
Another 50%.
Grant Cardone
We, we, we bought 2000 Bitcoin last year and our average price is probably 92, somewhere between 88 and 92. So I'm underwater on the bitcoin now and it doesn't bother me at all because we're tied it, we tied it to a long term asset. Now if I believed bitcoin was going to zero. I would have never done any of this.
Jack
So you're just saying the difference in what you think of the, what you think the market price is of the property that you bought and then what you actually paid for it, you put that delta in bitcoin base.
Grant Cardone
The delta, the discount delta, like you could take discounts your whole life. Discounts don't turn into more value. Okay, you bought a car. Car was 90,000. You bought it for 80. You still have the same car, just cheaper.
Jack
And so on this specific, you're not
Grant Cardone
going to sell it for more money because you got a discount. It's still going to be worth whatever it's worth. It could be worth more or less. The discount's a discount. It's something you do one time. So rather than, rather than me buying the real estate cheaper, I bought a exceptional piece of real estate out of bankruptcy. By the way, we stole this piece of estate. Real estate. It was 230. The last one we did, we've been elevating these. We did five of them last year. The first one was, I think it was 88 million total 72 of real estate, 15 million of Bitcoin, so about 87 to 88 million dollars. So we have the two. We put them together in LLC, we fuse them together. The investors are now owning both of these, not one of these, still cash flows. And we add bitcoin from the, from the cash flow every month. Every month we cash flow about 250amonth there. 250,000. And we add Bitcoin. We've added Bitcoin at 90. We've added Bitcoin at 82. We've added Bitcoin this month at 66 or 62. Okay, so we keep adding bitcoin. Now we fuse these together to build vehicles, a bunch of these together. So our goal last year was to do 10 of them. We did five because I couldn't find the right real estate because I have to be, let's say, this real estate. The last deal we did was three. It was worth 350. And we paid 230, stole the real estate. So what I did was I, I paid this much for the real estate and I stacked the rest with Bitcoin. $100 million purchase, largest real estate bitcoin deal ever done on the planet. 230 for the real estate. 100 million in Bitcoin, about 10, 75 pieces. Put them in an LLC and the three of us invested in it. I paid for it and then I called you Guys up said, hey, you want to invest in this deal? Is it $230 million real estate that, that would take 350 to build it today. Would take 350 to build it. We could sell all these off, the units off as condos today for a million to each times 366. That's probably a $200 million score. And we still own our bitcoin, but we want to fuse them together. Because I want to take this product, I want to take this public to the public markets and compete against the REITs. So I, I compete against REITs. Real estate investment Trust, the Starwoods, the Blackstones, the Aval Camden's. They own most of these large complexes. When you're driving around town, you'll see these names. They own them. They're REITs. They were created in 1965. That, that rules 60 years old. Those rules have not changed for 60 years. And one of those rules is you must distribute 90% of your cash to your investors because it was a, it was a, it was a tax advantage structure. That hasn't changed in 65 years. Those, there's 190 REITs, they control $4.3 trillion of real estate. They control most of the commercial real estate in the country. Country. And they're underperforming. Okay? They were built for one purpose and that purpose. 65 years his age, no changes. Bunch of old white guys. They push all their cash out so they have no more cash to reinvest in their businesses. Tech companies do not push all their cash out. They pay a dividend about this big. Just enough to say they pay a dividend and they keep the rest of their cash to acquire companies. REITs don't work like that. They're both broken. So I am building something that competes against the REITs because the REITs can never come in and add bitcoin. We think, we think we take this real estate asset that would normally do 12% a year or 15, that's a good real estate deal, to 25 and 30% a year by combining the two together.
Jack
So what are the some of the main reasons you're bullish on bitcoin?
Grant Cardone
Well, I, I believe in the technology of money. I believe the technology. If, if I knew nothing, I'd be like, we're not going to a go. We're not going back to gold. Gold failed. If gold didn't fail, we wouldn't be trading in paper.
Jack
So then do you think that the US will adopt bitcoin?
Grant Cardone
I don't know. I Don't bitcoin back dollar or what.
Jack
What are like the main bull cases that you have for, for bitcoin?
Grant Cardone
Well, there's a, there's a number of things. I think that the technology, I think I underestimated that the Internet will one day send video or that you, the three of us would sit around and then you guys would clip a video and then other people would clip a video and then we'd end up up with 30 different pieces of video that would live into the future forever without a movie production studio. I, I never imagined that would ever happen. And I think that we're not imagining what's going to happen with the blockchain and with bitcoin. I think mortgages in the future will be tied to bitcoins. That a bitcoin on a single family home residence rather than buying PMI insurance which is garbage product worth nothing to the mortgage holder. The, the, the, the, the, the insurance insuring the mortgage against the guy that gave the mortgage to make sure it gets paid that 200 bucks or 400 bucks a month you're paying. That would be a much better investment for all parties if that was $400 a bitcoin in the future because it'll be a store value that will increase as we print more paper for sure.
Jack
And that's a possibility. But I'm curious in terms of what your bull case is right now for bitcoin. Like what integration do you see with bitcoin where it makes sense that that will actually be the future? Because that's like, that's sort of like a speculative, like you know, if this then that. But there is no like, like evidence at the current moment of bitcoin sort of doing that.
Grant Cardone
Yeah, a store value is good enough for me. That's fine with me. I don't, I don't need, I invest in real estate because I believe it's a store value and it retards against inflation. In the printing of money. Property values go up. If you print more money, concrete costs, labor cost, everything goes up. So I, I'm trying to convert, I'm trying to convert a piece of paper, fiat paper into something more that is resistant and will become more valuable in the future. I wouldn't invest in Nvidia. It's not what I do. I don't buy, I don't trade paper for paper. I'm not going to trade a pizza Fiat for another Fiat run by other companies. Okay, the third part of the bull me is with bitcoin I don't have A chairman. I don't have any competition. I don't have employees there. I have no payroll. I have no plumbing, no roofs, no H vac, no property taxes. I have pure technology. So the basis of the future of it is the technology of money. I don't think we go back to gold. I'm 60, 68 years old this month. I've never bought a piece of gold, never had anybody offer me gold or silver for the that fact for any of our products. I have had people offer us bitcoin for the last 13 years for our products and services.
Graham Stephan
Why do you think gold has gone up so much then?
Grant Cardone
Well, because I think people are scared right now. I think people see the US dollars getting banged, you know, they're worried about the US government printing money. I think that there's a bunch of geopolitical issues going on with China trying to make plays against us.
Graham Stephan
But why isn't that money flowing into bitcoin? Because I'm about 7% Bitcoin right now through the just a normal Bitcoin ETF, 7% of my portfolio. Yeah. And one of the narratives that I see right now is that bitcoin is failing in the sense that gold is now the store of value. It seems as though people are putting their money elsewhere and that we're printing more money. Bitcoin's going down, prices are rising. Bitcoin is going down. We see global turmoil. Bitcoin is going down. Store wealth, people have moved to gold. Bitcoin is going down. Part of me thinks how much of that is, is the narrative has changed on bitcoin versus are people just putting their money elsewhere?
Grant Cardone
Yeah, just flows. Baby Boomers scared. What are they going to go to? They've been, they've been for 60 years. They've been pounding gold, gold, gold, gold. It's 5,000 years old, man. So somebody said it's going to take 20 years for Bitcoin to be as a market cap, to be worth more than gold. I'm like, if Bitcoin in 32 years has a greater market cap. Thank you. Gold, that's a 5,000 year old product. So just new people coming in. How much gold do you have?
Graham Stephan
Few ounces.
Grant Cardone
Yeah. So you don't have 7% of your portfolio? No, no, it's nothing. So I have no gold. I, I have more ammunition than I have gold. So look, it's a bit, it's a gamble, you know, it's a bit of a gamble. It's about bit of a lottery ticket with the real estate if the bitcoin goes to zero and find out the whole thing was a, a big scam. I still have my real estate, still have my cash flow is. But bitcoin goes to a million dollars.
Jack
Is the bitcoin fund being, is it fine right now or like how is the.
Grant Cardone
Fantastic.
Jack
So how is it fantastic?
Grant Cardone
Well, how, how, how would I ever be in trouble if I paid cash for everything? So I paid cash for the real estate, closed the deal, paid cash for the bitcoin. We paid cash for 2,000 bitcoin last year. I paid cash for the real estate. Then we put a loan on the real estate for 140. So I owed $90 million on the real estate and nothing on the bitcoin. So put the, put the numbers together. I have $230 million of real estate hunt today we have $80 million worth of Bitcoin. It's not worth a hundred.
Jack
So then how are you making money personally on this deal?
Grant Cardone
Well, I don't make any money until we either sell the deal. I. Look, I don't make money on a deal until we call a promote. So until I sell a deal,
Jack
I
Grant Cardone
don't make any money. So all these guys on the Internet, like Grant Cardone's management fees, we're 1% fee going in. I get 1% when we buy the deal, Cardone Capital does. So when we sell the deal, we get 1.1%.
Jack
Okay, explain this to me.
Grant Cardone
So, okay, when I buy a 230 million dollar deal, I get a 1% fee, 2.3 million dollars.
Jack
Okay. And that's. Is that paid to you directly or is.
Grant Cardone
No, it's paid to Cardone Capital. Okay. I don't, I don't even get a salary from Cardone Capital. But whatever it flows through to me, I get money. At some point, I'm going to get money. Okay, we have a 1% fee when we exit the asset. So we exit the asset for $500 million. I'm going to get another $5 million. I have 35 employees over there. Okay. Our fees are less than Blackstones, so nobody can say my fees are too much.
Jack
But that's it. It's just that's. Those are the only fees that are involved.
Grant Cardone
No, no, I'm telling you the rest of them we get a. On this particular deal, all deals are different. On this particular deal, we're giving 8% preferred to the investor and a 5050 split so I can make a load of money. On this deal, if this deal makes 500 million, I'll make, I'll make after I pay 8% times 6. Let's say I pay 8% a year. Let's say the deal doesn't cash flow and enough. I didn't pay any distributions. I owe the investors 8%. Let's go 10 years. So it's easy times 10. I owe 80% of all the first proceeds back to the investors. They get, they're a preferred investor. They get the first 80% and then we chop it up 50. 50. If it only does 8% a year, okay. By the way, it, it did better than treasury groceries. It matched the s and P500. If you took them all, not just the top seven, they would get the entire eight. And I, I made nothing in that deal. I bought it, I found it, I bought it, I paid for it, I managed it, I busted my ass. I'm the one responsible for distributions, etc. And I made nothing. Now if it does 40% though a year, which I think it does, then I'm going to make 40 times 10 years. 400% less the 80. We're going to chop up 320. I'm gonna make 160% and I had no money in the deal. I'll get rich in that deal. But that's not what I'm going to do this. I'm going to get rich. I'm going to put 10 or 15 or 20 of these together. I'm gonna bring, I'm gonna put the whole bucket together and I'm gonna bring it to Wall street and take it public. And that should happen this year. And that's how I get real rich. And I don't really get rich in that. We're just going to raise a bunch of money from the street, become a piece of paper. Cardone capital, become an investment vehicle. We might take our education company and add it. We might take the consulting company and add it. We might take 10x health systems and add it. Have a conglomerate, a cardone companies, bring them to the public market, turn into a piece of paper, raise billions of dollars and then I get, I, I get to become another version of myself.
Jack
And so. And so.
Grant Cardone
And then I'll have to quit doing podcasts, talking about 400 grand. It's not a lot of money.
Jack
Then it'll be $50 million. Not a lot of money.
Graham Stephan
What?
Grant Cardone
Yeah.
Jack
On, on the, I'm curious still on the fee side of things because I'm still not completely understanding. So from the perspective of the investor, the person that's like investing with you, those are the only Fees that they're exposed to is like, okay, if I want to put in a million dollars near fund, this is like the real estate and bitcoin fund, then immediately I will lose $10,000 to do that and then I put nine.
Grant Cardone
Why would you lose 10,000?
Jack
Well, it's the cost of. It's the asset management fee. So. Okay, sir, that's bad.
Grant Cardone
Bad word. Let me just say losing 10,000, $1 million goes into of that deal. Sure. 990,000 does not go in that deal. 100% of the money becomes an investment in that deal. Your position is $1 million. It is not 990.
Jack
Okay, so the position.
Grant Cardone
But, but when you run money through IRAs, it's going to get. Your million dollars is not a million dollars. They're taking their fee off of that. Probably a point and a half to 2%.
Jack
Sure.
Grant Cardone
But whenever you put money into Blackstone. Yeah, you put a million dollars into Blackstone. Your million dollars didn't get invested. They took their fee right there.
Jack
Okay.
Grant Cardone
If you go into a private offering today, let's say you got chance to go into, I don't know, SpaceX or ABTC or. That's Eric's company.
Jack
Yeah.
Grant Cardone
They're going to take their fee off.
Jack
It'll be through a fund that lets you invest into the private company and
Grant Cardone
be a million dollars. They're going to pull, they're going to squeeze off 35,000 or 75,000 plus some legal cardone capital. $1,000,000. If you put a million. When you put a million dollars in this case, we raised on that deal we ran raised 100. And what do we raise? 100 plus 9. 190 million. 190 million dollars is invested. We owe 190 back. Okay. I get a fee, 1% going in again. The property has to be able to support the asset. This is not a makeup startup. This is not a company that doesn't have earnings. This is a real estate asset. The day one, we have cash flow for me to. I'm not building something something, right. I'm not building the microphone saying we got a great idea for a microphone company. I need your money to build out microphones to then go sell them. Okay. This isn't a startup, dude. I'm buying a piece of an asset that is cash flow positive day one. I mean on this particular deal, this was in bankruptcy with Blackstone. Blackstone was the lender. Blackstone in the state of Florida. The lender cannot take over the property without bringing it to the courts and allowing the Marketplace to decide, okay, Blackstone wanted this asset. Trust me, they wanted it bad. Okay? I went to the courts and said I knew the asset. It was in my backyard. We, we've been tracking this asset for probably three years. I knew it was in trouble. The guy's been building it for 17. Like these things don't you know, they, they probably been thinking about taking over Iran for two or three years. It wasn't over a weekend. They decided, okay, this IR move. So I've been working on this asset for a long time. So when, when I saw it, finally, it's going to be in problems, I went to the owner and went to Blackstone. Couldn't get any support from the lender. They don't want to help me. They want it, okay? The, the, the, the, the debt they gave him was a setup to get it back from the seller, from the owner. I went to the owner and I went to the bankruptcy courts. I went to the bankruptcy courts as a said, I'm putting a stalking horse in. It's my right as a Miami, Florida, Florida resident to use what's called a stalking horse negotiation tactic where I'm going to set the bid on the asset. I bid $228 million. Here's a check for 20 million. I'm risking my money. There's no investors involved at this point. I'm putting all the due diligence, all the energy, all the risk into this thing. I'm going to buy this asset for 228 million, was our first offer. We ended up at 235. I'll give you $20 million check right now, Cash it, deposit it into an escrow account, and I will close 10 days after you award the deal to me with all cash, no due diligence. So now they have to say public announcement. They have to accept it. Public announcement. Grant Cardone put a stalking horse in there. They have to tell the marketplace. Now, you guys have until I think this case, it was May 15th to, to, to bid. They sent it out. Fourteen institutions showed up. All of them are big boys. It's a quarter of a billion dollars. Okay, so who's going to come? It ain't gonna be Johnny. And in his, you know, $400,000 income. Yeah, so, so, so he comes in, they come, the institutions come in, all the big builders, the big players. The Steven Ross is like tremendous amounts of super money, way bigger money debate. I'm competing with giants. They come in and say, yeah, dude, we can do the 228, no problem. That $20 million today. Yeah, we got to go to committee for that. If they're a big institution or a big REIT that you can't just swing in slinging like I do. You know, I'm a little guy dude. The only advantage I have in the marketplace is swag quick. It's speed. You know, I, I like is. It is a little bit of overconfidence. Like, that's my damn. This is my gear. My gear is I can do this deal. I don't know if I can do the deal. I don't even know if I can raise the money for the deal.
Graham Stephan
So what do most people get wrong about the way your business works?
Grant Cardone
They don't ask me like you guys did they do YouTube videos without.
Jack
Well, I mean, that's, that's the main thing is like, like nobody that has
Grant Cardone
any negative, negative comments about Cardone Capital or what I'm doing has ever interviewed.
Jack
Do you.
Graham Stephan
Do you allow them to reach out to you that if they wanted to discuss and ask is there an open channel?
Grant Cardone
Well, you. You guys have reached out to me. I've never not responded.
Jack
So what we'll typically do just so the viewer has an idea if someone wants to come on the podcast. So for example, this was a very.
Grant Cardone
Have I ever. Have I ever said you guys can't ask me about anything? No, no.
Jack
You've been fully transparent about everything. Which is. Which is really great.
Grant Cardone
Yeah.
Graham Stephan
Yeah.
Jack
Because some people are not. But for you. Yeah. You were just. You walked in.
Grant Cardone
If I ever asked for. Hey, guys, let's talk about what we're going to talk about first.
Jack
No, no, no. You didn't ask for a.
Graham Stephan
And I will say in. In from our last episode too. You didn't ask us to cut anything.
Grant Cardone
Yeah.
Graham Stephan
There was not a single thing where
Grant Cardone
you're like, people actually ask you to do this. Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, I would never. Do you. Look, I did it. Use it. The point is to the viewers, like, do you gonna make mistakes now. Now, should I say that? I don't know. There's nobody, nobody regulates what I say online. Nobody's allowed in my office to delete anything. We used to. We used to have that people be like, you can't say that we were raising money. We didn't know 12 years ago we started raising. Or 11 years ago we started raising money. And my office was petri. Because the SEC is like watching everything.
Jack
Okay. So the thing that we do here on the iced coffee areas, if we have someone on the podcast, what we will naturally do is look up like, okay, what are the main controversies with this person?
Grant Cardone
What are the main things? Yeah, that's where you get your G juice from.
Jack
Well, that's just what we should be asking questions. You don't want to tune into a nice coffee hour podcast and it'd just be like a lukewarm thing. Like, we're gonna do our best no matter what you may think. We truly will be doing our best for every single episode to touch on every. All the topics that you want. Sometimes we can, sometimes we can't.
Graham Stephan
Let's put like 20 hours of research in every single podcast we did on
Jack
this one because we found out yesterday we were filming it today, which we were very lucky to know that.
Graham Stephan
Yeah, but I've done, I've probably done at least 100 hours.
Grant Cardone
We're already very familiar with the last year.
Jack
And so, yeah, in doing this, this research in the time that we had, like, the main controversies surrounding you would just be mostly around the fee schedule for your cardone capital. People don't quite understand it. And I still like, don't even understand.
Grant Cardone
Well, God damn. What, what don't you understand, bro? So like, like, like What. What's your IQ?
Jack
My IQ? I would go like 70.
Grant Cardone
No, I mean, godamn. It's 1%. Let me, let me go over it again. It, it's, it's fucking simple. 1% times whatever was raised.
Jack
Mm.
Grant Cardone
When we buy it. What was, what was the. What did the mortgage broker charge me? 1%. Probably a half to 1%. What did the broker charge a half. 1%. What did the state charge me? All those become fees on that deal. Okay. There's a lot of fees. Not just me, other institutions, other. Other people involved in the transaction, Title, escrow, et cetera. Okay. Legal. Legal is, you know, probably on that deal was probably a hundred thousand dollars that gets added to that. That deal. Now we're all invested in that deal. I am, you are with the three of us split the deal three ways. We all have the same fees. We're sharing in that. I, in addition to whatever upside, I get a 1% fee that you didn't get when I bought the deal. I found it, I funded it, I negotiated it, and I went through all the. And by the way, you're going to hold me responsible for whether it works when we sell the asset. In that case, we bought that 230 million. Let's say we sell that asset. Asset for 100 million more than we paid for it. Just for simple math, I think we will by the way it was, it's worth a hundred million more to build it today. It would cost at least 130 million more to build it. I just happen to find a great deal and get it. If it made a hundred, I get a 1% fee when we sell it out of the hundred profit before we do our small split.
Jack
And is there no potential for fees between the two bookends?
Grant Cardone
If I refinance it, let's say seven years goes by and I take the refinancing, it's 140, and all of a sudden the asset's worth 500 million and I can borrow another hundred. I get a 1% fee when we return your equity. It's called a refinancing.
Jack
So that would be the only fee.
Grant Cardone
That's 1% to buy it, 1% to sell it, and a 1% refinance fee.
Graham Stephan
What about. What about the claim of like you can.
Grant Cardone
And by the way, you want me to. You want. Hold on, I'll do that. Okay, let's. We're not even talking about the bitcoin yet, okay? We're just talking about the real estate, okay? Because. Because again, you want the.
Graham Stephan
The.
Grant Cardone
God, that's your partner. You want me to make money. Because if I'm making money, you're making money, okay? So when we refinance it seven years from now, that's our goal. One of our goals in this project is I would refinance the asset. We put a hundred million to buy it for round numbers. Just the real estate, forget the bitcoin. We also raised 100 million for the bitcoin, so we'll leave that aside for now. So a year from now, I'm like, hey, guys, I got great news. What? What? I refinanced the project for me to refinance. That means it had to go up in value for me to refinance it, Pay off the old mortgage, get a new one bigger, and then return everybody's money. Here's your 33 million. Here's your 33 million. And I get my 33 million. Okay. By the way, I get a little one point and I'm going to get anything above that hundred, hundred did I return to you? I get a split on guys, I didn't just do a hundred. Here's your third. Here's your third. Here'S my third. I got another 100. And you're like, God damn, bro, did you sell the bitcoin? No, bro, we still own the bitcoin, okay? I get half the bitcoin. I'm sorry. Half the upside of that hundred, I'm gonna get. I'm gonna give you guys 50 million to split and I get 50 million, you got all your money back plus 25 million. 25 million. And I got 5 50, okay? Because on this deal it's an 80, it's a 8% preferred and a 5050 split. That means if it took seven years, you earned 8% a year while you waited to get back your hundred and another 25 million. And you're like, grant, did you sell the property? No, bro, we still own it. Well, Grant, what's my membership in it? One third. One third? One third. I didn't dilute suit you. I returned all your money. I made money. You made money. You got your cash flow, you got your 8%. And not like Blackstone, not like the institutions in the REITs. They would pay you your hundred back, say bye bye, and they would own that asset. We still own the asset. We did that twice last year. Twice last year. I returned 47% on one deal. Fund one. We returned 100% of all the money invested to our investors. Investors annualized nine years at 47% a year. Fund one, fund two, it was 27%. This is after all the fees, all the splits off the promotes. See, this is what these guys that do videos that are clickbaiting me, they never get actually get into the numbers.
Jack
This is great. This is why we like to ask the questions and why a lot of people believe when they come on the podcast that it's not in their best interest to let us ask whatever question.
Grant Cardone
But that's not true. It's always in the best interest to be transparent, Parent. Okay, now we're not going to change the minds of those out there that want to clickbait my name. You're not, you're not. I'm not trying to change your mind, dude. I love you guys, by the way. All you punks. I love you guys. You got. I know. I, I, I, I understand. Keep playing the game. Clickbait my. Say whatever you want. Use the thumbnail. Don't, don't, don't make accusations that aren't true when you know they're not true. Because I, you know, if you have anything, I will come after you. But I'm, I'm telling those guys right now, do your thing, dude. Do your thing. Just don't go into defamation, because the moment you move into defamation and own something, if you own any property, I'm going to come get it from you. And if you don't Own anything. Play your game. Because I'm not going to sue anybody that doesn't own anything because there's nothing to get.
Jack
Why don't you make videos directly addressing those people?
Grant Cardone
Too busy. Too busy posting fake.
Jack
I just imagine the roi.
Grant Cardone
I had an investor the other day call us, man. I'm really concerned about this one guy that's doing videos, and you should go respond to him. I'm like, bro, I. You know, the firemen don't stop for every barking dog on their way to a fire.
Graham Stephan
It's rule number one of the Internet, man, is you can't respond to everybody. And once you start doing that, then everyone else is like, oh, he's gonna respond.
Jack
Yeah, that's just not true. Though I would agree. You could say it's a barking dog, but what if it's another house on fire on your way to a house dog? Dude, I'm just saying. I, I do think that, like, this
Grant Cardone
is actually not a barking dog. This is fleas on a barking dog.
Jack
That's fair.
Grant Cardone
So you, you got to pick. What? No, look, the last time I was here, I was also involved in $100 million defamation suit that was very public with John Leisure, that was a CEO of T Mobile. Very big and very nasty and very noisy. So why would I do that? I initiated that and then leave this other thing alone. It's a business. It's a business strategy. She. This is what Trump's so good at.
Graham Stephan
What was the outcome of the T Mobile lawsuit?
Grant Cardone
Well, I can't say what it was. Just, you know, we, we, we. Everybody's good now. Okay, so.
Graham Stephan
And you're happy, you're happy with the out it was.
Grant Cardone
I'm very happy with it. I'm thrilled. So, you know, okay. Very, very happy. Look, I don't start anything that I'm not going to finish, and I don't start anything that I'm not to going a win. Like I, It's a, you know, it's very important that if you're going to walk into a battle, you, you know, you can. You, you need to come out of that battle. Like, you don't want to battle forever. And coming out of winter is really important. So don't start some you can't finish and where there's not a positive outcome and hopefully a positive outcome for everybody, not just my side. The perfect scenario is be I win, they win, we all win. And, But I can't get into the exact settlement of the numbers and all that just because we're both sworn to Confidentiality. Yeah.
Jack
So one thing that's heavily debated online.
Grant Cardone
Yeah.
Jack
Is people can't figure out your net worth which I am sure you probably are very amused by. You see all these articles, oh, it is speculated he's worth 400 million. It's speculated he's worth 1.6 million.
Grant Cardone
Like yeah.
Jack
Why do you think people have no idea what you your worth?
Grant Cardone
And because I'm private. Because I'm a private. I'm a private individual so I'm not publicly held. So Forbes is never going to list my. I mean unless I went public. If I went public tomorrow, I'd be on a Forbes list.
Jack
What do you have to lose by going public with that information?
Grant Cardone
Well, I mean public is a publicly traded.
Jack
But I'm saying by disclosing that I should say.
Grant Cardone
Well, because Forbes is not going to go do an audit at their expense of my privately held companies and their value. Like the people that are talking about my network, they, they don't. They'd have to know what 10 XL systems work. They'd have to know what my position is in 10 XL. And then they'd have to know what Cardone Ventures is worth. Then they have to know the income, the gross revenues of my Cardone educate, the Cardone training technologies, the education portal and our net profits. Then they'd have to know what Cardone Capital, the investment vehicle is worth because it's worth more money than probably the other thing. 3 because it continues to raise money long term sticky money for long periods of time. It's the most valuable of all the companies. Probably second. Yeah. F first and then 10XL system. 10XL system is going to be worth probably $4 billion. But. And then the fifth company would be my holdings and all the real estate. So now who's going to go do an audit on all those things?
Jack
Fair enough.
Grant Cardone
Why, why, why do I need to do it? I know what the net worth is. And by the way, I know the net worth is a. It is a complete vanity number. Okay? It's, it's too low. The Internet is lower than it is. But the vanity. It's a vanity number. If I told you right now is $1.7,388,000 and 929 bucks today. It's a vanity number. None of it's, none of it's even split expendable because it's all tied up in it's all illiquid assets.
Jack
Could you answer this? Are you a billionaire?
Grant Cardone
100 no, I can't, I can't tell you 100 that I am. Because it's more than that. So you're asking the wrong question. How much more?
Jack
Is that the right question?
Grant Cardone
It's over. If I could liquidate the assets, but I can't. So it's like, again, we're back to vanity numbers. Like, what, what, what's, what's, what's the purpose? It's more than I ever dreamed it would be. It's the lifestyle, and it's less than it should be, so. And it's less than it will be.
Graham Stephan
So. We just heard someone say that if you have a hundred million dollars.
Grant Cardone
Yeah.
Graham Stephan
You could basically do 95% of the stuff that a billionaire could do.
Jack
Is that true?
Grant Cardone
That's not true. What, you had both of them and you can't. You can't.
Graham Stephan
What do you get at a billion?
Grant Cardone
There's things I can't do, dude. There's things that I cannot do.
Graham Stephan
What can't you do?
Grant Cardone
I can't go buy yacht tomorrow. I know, I know, I know. The boat I want. I can't buy what I want.
Graham Stephan
What do you want?
Grant Cardone
I want a 375 foot fetch ship.
Jack
How much will that cost?
Grant Cardone
It cost probably $400 million.
Graham Stephan
Why not?
Grant Cardone
And, and another. Another 40 million a year.
Graham Stephan
Why not just lease?
Grant Cardone
Because I want it to be. I want it to be mine. I want it to be mine exactly the way I want. I don't. I mean, I could. Dude, like, like I've done three summers like that, you know, that's cool. But I mean, it's something I want. Right? Right. Like, why do you want to go to Korea?
Graham Stephan
It was a good deal for points.
Grant Cardone
Yeah, I know, but, but that's the only reason it was.
Graham Stephan
I haven't been. But you know.
Grant Cardone
Yeah, I know. But at some point, you. At some point, the deal doesn't matter. It's what you. There's some things I just want. Right. And, and it doesn't mean it makes sense. I mean, how much do you have
Graham Stephan
to be worth to be able to buy a $400 million yacht?
Grant Cardone
Yeah, it's a good question. You know, you need, you need, you need 400 million because you want to pay cash for it. And then you need to be able to say, hey, is there a way to write that 400 million off? Because I would put it in the charter and I'd probably use it 10 weeks of the year and chart it the rest of the time. Because I want that big spank in the beginning, if I can. If I can get that. And I'm not sure I can. Some people believe I can, some people think no. And then you got to figure out, okay, how do I make sense of $40 million, 3.3 million of negative cash flow a year, and you didn't earn any money on the 400 million because this boat's going to zero.
Jack
Yeah.
Grant Cardone
All boats go to zero. Planes go to zero. Everything goes to zero. Now, I think there's a world that we live in right now where we're going to go from 3,000 billionaires to probably 9,000 or 10,000 billionaires. Billionaires. And those guys are going to walk around the planet with an economic footprint that is so massive, they're all going to want boats. They're. They don't want. They don't want a charter. They're like, bro, I want my boat with my toys with my name on the pillows. Like, you're talking about immense amounts of money. Trillion dollars just hit Miami. Mark, Ellison, Griffin, both Google boys. Like, the list goes on and on. A trillion dollars hit Miami in the last five or six weeks.
Graham Stephan
Weeks, yeah.
Grant Cardone
Trillion dollar footprint. Like, that's. That. That trillion dollars will be. Those guys will be worth $2 trillion here in the next five or ten years or less because their money is just going to just explode. So I think you need. I don't know, dude. I can't make sense of it. I just talked myself out of the boat because I. It's, it's. It's because it's so impossible. It's like I'm never going to be worth enough money.
Graham Stephan
I'm going to say that's probably 10 billion to come. It's at that level. You just have to be able to write a check and not pay attention to it and not have you.
Jack
Because you run the numbers.
Grant Cardone
You lost. The 10 billion needs to earn at least 5 or 600 million a year. That's how these guys are doing. They're like, okay, I'm going to pay it back every month. I'll pay. I can pay it off. Like, so, you know, you need a lot of money, dude. You need a lot of liquid assets that are, that are rolling. Or you.
Graham Stephan
Yeah.
Jack
How badly do you want it, though? Because what I want, you talk me
Grant Cardone
out of it pretty quick. You just t me out of the whole thing.
Jack
What I wonder is, like, if this requires you to grind away for five more years of your life to be able to benefit.
Grant Cardone
This doesn't require grind. This, this is, this is when you have to.
Jack
You're trading time and energy resources.
Grant Cardone
This is when you have to trade the grind to for a play. I can't be Grant Cardone the grinder and get that boat. I have to be Grant Cardone. Smart public markets. Everybody that owns these boats is public. Every one of them. They're all public. There's no not public. They're all public. The fatigue does all of them. Dude, Facebook, Jeff. They all own these big boats. Why? They leveraged paper. They turned an idea into a company. Company became a piece of paper, people. Paper became explosive to tens of millions or hundreds of millions of owners. That value goes up as they continue to report good news. And that's the achievement. You know, now you're hanging out with a bunch of guys that you have something in common with. You have the best and worst thing they've ever done. Done. Buy a boat.
Jack
Aside from buying a boat, is there any other thing that you want to spend a bunch of money on? For example, that watch is crazy.
Grant Cardone
No, I hate this watch.
Graham Stephan
Why? Are you serious?
Grant Cardone
Hate this.
Graham Stephan
And why do you wear it?
Grant Cardone
Because it went with my jacket, so I brought it on this trip. Yeah, I hate this watch.
Graham Stephan
What do you not like about it?
Grant Cardone
Because it was a terrible investment.
Graham Stephan
How much?
Grant Cardone
I bought three Richards and I hate all I knew when I did it. You know, there's some things that you spend money on. You're like, I'm never spending money on that. Like, it's just kind of a moral thing. I knew this was stuff stupid. I knew the timing was wrong. That market was hot. I'm like, it's going to pull back. Why did you do it? I wanted to watch. Dude, how. How stupid can you go?
Graham Stephan
But why?
Grant Cardone
Well, you know, there's a song written called Cash Flow, and it has my voice in the song. In the. In the song, it says, how stupid can you go? You can go as stupid as your cash flow. This is a stupid investment. But I paid for it out of passive income.
Jack
How much did you pay for that watch?
Grant Cardone
I. I forget. I'm best.
Jack
You don't even want to know.
Grant Cardone
No, not really. It's probably worth more. It's probably worth more than it was then.
Graham Stephan
But do you not like the watch because it went down in value or do you?
Grant Cardone
I. I don't like it because it represents crazy watch.
Graham Stephan
Could I see it?
Grant Cardone
It throw it.
Jack
Dude.
Grant Cardone
It represents.
Graham Stephan
You're not supposed to throw.
Grant Cardone
It represents house.
Graham Stephan
Dude.
Grant Cardone
It is.
Jack
You're just tough. How much is that watch, Graham?
Grant Cardone
It's got to be 400, 500.
Graham Stephan
Yeah, I was going to say maybe like 300. Low end.
Jack
It could be five.
Graham Stephan
They have so many models of Richards.
Grant Cardone
But I owned another one, a black one that was a million dollar watch, big watch. And it was stolen from me.
Graham Stephan
Do you have insurance?
Grant Cardone
Off my arm. No, I didn't have insurance. But look, this. A whole total hype deal. Okay. Like there's no gold. No. You know, this, this is junk. Yeah.
Graham Stephan
But it's the engineering and the precision
Grant Cardone
of the watch that people look at. Think so? I think it's a terrible investment.
Jack
It's not even moving.
Graham Stephan
Yes, it is.
Jack
Oh, it is moving. Sorry.
Grant Cardone
Yeah.
Jack
I don't know how to read it. There's too much stuff going on on the face.
Grant Cardone
Yeah. So anyway, but, but it represents to me a. A, a bad choice, a poor choice. You know, it's not me. This is not what I would do. Now there's a paddock. I own a green paddock.
Graham Stephan
Oh, I've seen that one. That was the one you were talking about, that watch.
Grant Cardone
I don't regret buying that watch.
Graham Stephan
Yeah.
Grant Cardone
That's 11 of 25 in the world. It'll be worth. I'll give it to my kids. I'm not giving this to my kids. Like 20 years from now. Nobody is going to want this.
Graham Stephan
This Richard, the one on selling.
Grant Cardone
I probably should. Yeah. It's a great idea. I have. I have two boxes of watches. I wouldn't buy any of them again.
Jack
What would you say is your worst investment of all time?
Grant Cardone
The worst investment of all time would have been I bought Lehman Brothers for a dollar and it went to zero.
Jack
So you made, you made an infinite loss.
Grant Cardone
I lost $1 million. Not infinite.
Jack
Oh, I thought you said you bought it for $1.
Grant Cardone
I bought it for $1. I bought a million dollars. I made it $1 and went to zero. I lost a million dollars.
Jack
What was the best investment you've ever made?
Grant Cardone
One of the best. For me or for my investors?
Jack
For you.
Grant Cardone
I bought a. I bought a.
Jack
Well, like the largest net worth gain.
Grant Cardone
The best investments I've ever made were the companies that we, we have. Because I started. I bootstrapped everything.
Jack
Okay.
Grant Cardone
10x health system. We paid a million and a half for that company. It's probably, probably worth today. It's probably worth $4 billion. We paid a million dollars out of future revenue and we own 99% of the company. So that was a great deal. But it hadn't. It hadn't. It hadn't seen fruition yet. The. I bought a piece of real estate in Florida. I put 15 million down. I sold a House pulled money out of a business business and crash retirement accounts. To buy this one piece of property, I paid 15 million. I paid 58 million for the property. I put a 43 million dollar loan, put 15 million dollars down. That piece of property's worth with 15 in it is worth 250. And it cash flowed every month, every year for 13 years. I've refinanced it three times. Times I've taken 15 back plus another 55 million back. Plus I just got 60 million back. So I've taken out all my money plus 130 million, still own it and it still cash flows. That's probably the best deal ever did. This will be the kid. Do you still think that I give my kids.
Jack
Yeah, you own it all.
Grant Cardone
Personally, I own 91% of that asset. My, my brother and my sister own some of it. But I'll probably pass that on to my kids. If my kids are listening, if they're nice to me, I'll always.
Jack
How much do you spend per month? Personally?
Grant Cardone
Not much. I don't spend a lot of money.
Jack
What do you think you spend per month? Like fifty thousand, a hundred thousand dollars a month?
Grant Cardone
Yeah, maybe.
Jack
You don't know if it like you, you have no idea how much money you're spending per month.
Grant Cardone
Well, I mean I could figure it out pretty quick right now I don't, I don't have a mortgage on the house.
Jack
Like what's on the Amex statements?
Grant Cardone
Oh, that's. Most of that's going to be run from the through the company. So it's all business. This trip I'm on is a business, business trip. So I have a secret meeting tomorrow here in town that I can't talk about. You'll know about it on the 13th of this month.
Graham Stephan
But it's funny, I asked about it. You wouldn't even tell me.
Grant Cardone
It'll be all over the media on the 13th. I didn't know what it is, but it's a secret meeting that I'm sworn
Jack
she bought the Hard Rock.
Grant Cardone
No, no, no.
Graham Stephan
That'd be crazy.
Grant Cardone
That, that's something I wish I could do. Like I would love to own one of these big places. But I'll leave that to.
Graham Stephan
I could see you as a casino owner like a Steve when like, like
Jack
you know how much you spend per month.
Grant Cardone
Oh yeah. So what do I spend a month?
Jack
Like your wife, your kids?
Grant Cardone
Well, I mean I get, I get notices. $27, $42. You get notices for that still everyone. My kids credit cards are tied in my.
Graham Stephan
And what do you look at, just the dollar amount or what?
Grant Cardone
I hit my wife yesterday. I said, who the hell keeps hitting this goddamn account for 127 65?
Jack
Who was it?
Grant Cardone
She's like, oh, I'm buying Sabrina some clothes for this event she's going to do. I said, okay, okay, Approved.
Jack
At what point?
Grant Cardone
Like, like my. Yesterday, Elena hits me, hey, I got a bid to clean the deck up on the house. It's. I got One bid at 8,000, another bid at 12,000. I want to go with the 8,000. Is it approved? I'm like, yeah, it's approved. But I even said, hey, don't do the stain. It doesn't need to be stained.
Graham Stephan
That's funny.
Grant Cardone
She's like, it's more money to sand it. I've already done it. I said, I don't think they can stain right. She's like, oh, yeah, they can. I said, okay, case approved. So I don't know, I don't know.
Jack
What dollar amount do they need to run it by you before spending the money?
Grant Cardone
It depends on who it is and what department. Like the ad budgets that Jared runs.
Jack
This is you personally, just personal stuff.
Grant Cardone
Oh, that's supposed to run everything by me, you know, so even like parking.
Graham Stephan
Listen, valet is park and dog.
Grant Cardone
No.
Jack
And you don't give them like a certain budget per month that they can or can't spend.
Grant Cardone
Well, who are you talking about?
Jack
Like your family, like the.
Grant Cardone
No, no, no. I didn't understand that. My wife has her own money, so she, she, she has her money and my kids have their money. So my kids like, hey, I need some money for. Dude, you got money? Dude, don't call me. They kids never call me for money. They call their mom. That's why I keep seeing these credit cards, things, because the mom always does. They will never call me for money because they know I'm going. Say, you got your own money.
Jack
And how are your kids making their own money?
Grant Cardone
Because they invest. You know, they had a salary to work for the company. I thought we talked about this last time. But the kids have a salary. They have a responsibility. They haven't gotten their salary this year. And if they're watching, they haven't done what they contracted to do, so they won't get their salary.
Graham Stephan
Would you ever fire your kids if they're not doing a job?
Grant Cardone
100%. And then would you hire them back? Everybody. No, not now. Now look at one shot. Yeah, dude, I, I, I, I had a text message you went out today. Hey, both of the kids are not performing their duties, don't pay them this year.
Graham Stephan
So are you worried about violating some labor law?
Grant Cardone
Just go back. No. Look, if you can't abuse your kids, who can you abuse? Right? So and if you can't write your kids off, like, like every family should be writing their kids off as a write off as a tax deduction. Deduction. Not I can't write off an allowance. So if I give my kids 500 bucks a month, it's an allowance, it's an entitlement. It's like it's a gimme. You can't write that off. But if I give them 500amonth as a salary, but then they have to
Jack
pay tax on it.
Grant Cardone
That's right.
Graham Stephan
Yeah.
Jack
So it's a way that you can, you can.
Grant Cardone
Like in my case, what I do is I paid them, I paid them one fee a year. I think, I think the number's 50 grand. 50 grand a year they get. Now I could give the, the fifteen year old a fifty thousand dollar check but it wouldn't be a responsible thing for me to do. So how do I control that? I take the 50 grand. I say this is you were paid 50 grand. Better for them to pay taxes than me.
Jack
Yeah, yeah.
Grant Cardone
And then I take the 50 grand and I divert it to Cardone Capital so they become an investor in my project.
Jack
Do they want to.
Grant Cardone
I get a 50, I get, I get a one point.
Graham Stephan
One point when they buy.
Grant Cardone
By the way, at one point my kid and my, my wife. And by the way, you'd paid the same one point. You're saying this, Everybody's preferred in that, in the case of the last deal they would, they're all invested in that deal. By the way, every one of my family members are invested in that deal. My brother, my sister invested in those deals and my kids and I want pointing on the way in and on the way out. Okay? So watch what happens now. That money then goes to Cardone Capital and it, if it pays cash flow, then that's what they live off of. So let's say they invested 50 grand into that project and it paid 5% a year. They're only going to get 5%. 25, 2500. Was that 25, $200 a month. So how much can they spend a month? How stupid can you go? You can go as stupid as your cash flow. So they can spend $200 a month off that one investment. Now Sabrina's got like $8,000 a month coming in because she's invested in every project. So she could spend eight grand a month. She's 16 years old. Old, done with high school. She gets 8,000 every single month. Papa, I want a cardier pan. I'm like, buy it yourself. You got your own money.
Jack
And she does.
Grant Cardone
I know what she's got. I know what her net worth is. And she's like, n. I don't want that bad. You buy it for me.
Graham Stephan
When do you think she's going to be a millionaire?
Grant Cardone
Well, she already hit it.
Jack
Yeah, well, she's getting 8,000amonth, so. A hundred thousand dollars.
Grant Cardone
There was another deal. There's a deal that I talked. I can't talk about. There's a private deal that I can't talk about. But she, as part of this transaction and negotiations, earned a million dollars. Wow.
Jack
Earned $1 million.
Grant Cardone
$1 million in one deal. She was 14 years old.
Jack
What did she do with them?
Grant Cardone
I can't talk about it more than that. But it was. I've mentioned it already in the interview today. I. I'll give you that hint.
Jack
Okay.
Grant Cardone
And. But I can't go into the details of how. What she did.
Jack
She did.
Grant Cardone
I mean, it's nothing. Nothing weird. I mean, but it was something brilliant.
Graham Stephan
Did that change her mentality when it comes to.
Grant Cardone
Well, yeah, because the next year, last year, she owed $400,000 in taxes. I said, but you understand, you have a million dollars, you can only use 600. She took the 600 immediately and invested it. And I said, she's like, why don't I invest a whole million? I said, because you. You got a 400, 000 tax bill next year. It's actually going to be 3, 8. Why she doesn't have the tax.
Graham Stephan
Why wouldn't you have her get something where she gets bonus depreciation on that? And then.
Grant Cardone
Because she needs. In that case, she. She just couldn't get enough to get it. And she's not a professional. Real. She's not. She doesn't. She doesn't fall under 469. That. The 469.
Graham Stephan
That would be the first thing I do is get. Get her to qualify real estate.
Grant Cardone
Yeah, you're probably right. Yeah. We didn't do that. So, you know. And. Wow.
Jack
What kind of car did you end up getting?
Grant Cardone
We got her a Tesla.
Jack
Okay. Model. Which one?
Graham Stephan
Why?
Grant Cardone
What's the entry level?
Jack
That's what I. That's where you got picked up in.
Grant Cardone
Yeah, yeah. It's a great car. Yeah. Yeah, I did that. Really. Just support Elon.
Jack
Do you talk with Elon?
Grant Cardone
No, I never Have.
Jack
Do you talk with Trump?
Grant Cardone
I have, have or do I have and do.
Graham Stephan
Yeah, they did the interview together.
Jack
So you. Yeah, but like, yeah, but when I. Sure, but like, does that mean, mean that, you know, you could shoot him a text and he'll like, I could. What's the last conversation you guys had?
Grant Cardone
Christmas Day.
Jack
What did you say or what did he say?
Grant Cardone
Just tell him he's doing a great job. My wife was like, why are you calling Trump on? The President called him. Yeah, on, on, on, on, on Christmas Day. I said, because probably nobody else will.
Graham Stephan
That's true. If he's getting one phone call that day, you know his fund's not going to be blown up.
Jack
And what did you just say? Merry Christmas.
Grant Cardone
Christmas.
Jack
Like, hope you're having a great day.
Grant Cardone
Yeah. He says, wait till you see what I do this year. That's hilarious. Yeah, yeah.
Jack
Interesting.
Graham Stephan
Who do you go to for advice, man?
Grant Cardone
Look, I study a lot, you know, like, I don't really go to anybody and say, what would you do? I mean, I, my friend Bob Duggan, that's taken a number of companies public. I've asked him for advice. I've sat down with Michael Saylor probably five or six times about our real estate bitcoin I hybrid. So I've gotten a lot of input from, from, from him. I've met last year, we met with eight banks. I don't think it's the kind of advice you're talking about. Who do I go to for like mentoring or whatever. But most of what I do now is I'm reaching outside of my own network to say, hey, I need to go find out what is. The people at bank of America know Jeffrey Horvitz created, is probably responsible for every REIT that was created in this country. It's $4 trillion. If I, if I could get 5%, like, that's what I'm like. How do I get 5% of a 4 trillion dollar market? That'd be 200 billion. Now I can buy, now I can buy anything I want. I could have two boats, dude, I could have one over there and one over here because now it doesn't matter. But, but. So I'll go meet with Jeff. I'll go. I'm trying to get access to those kind of guys to say, hey guys, guys, look what's broken. How do I fit in here? So we met with eight banks last year. That gave me tremendous, a bunch of great feedback about what I could do to really scale up.
Graham Stephan
What's your best piece of non financial
Grant Cardone
Advice, you know, value your family, like play as a team. You know, there's times where I forgot that we were a team. Like, like if I could go back and fix stuff. Like, I mean like Elena has been so beneficial to me, to kids. I used to say, man, I, I don't regret waiting but some ways I wish I'd done it earlier with the kids and the wife. I wasn't ready though, so it wasn't, doesn't matter because I wasn't ready to have a wife and I wasn't ready to have kids. But that team and solidifying that team and honoring that team and knowing your team and you know that is the most valuable thing.
Jack
Yeah.
Grant Cardone
And the other thing is the money. Really? Really. Look, I can, I can think back times in my life where there were happier, funner times than, than just the big, just the life, you know, the, the, the, the, the creep up the other, the, the, the piece of advice I would give people. When you're on the grind up, dude, love it. Because one day you're not going to have that and you're going to miss is so painful, it's so nasty. Nasty. And. But if you can live through it and get through it, you're going to look back on that time and say that was the richest part of my life was the richest part of my life was on the grind up when it was 18 hour days. Getting up at 4 o' clock in the morning, scared, terrified, not sure. Feet hurt. You know that those, those times were so rich that you can't buy it with watches and cars and planes and. But no matter how many times I say that it going to, it's still painful. Yeah. And it's not fun and most people don't get through it. But if you get through it, you're going to look back and say like somebody asked me, would you rather win a billion dollars or earn a billion dollars? And I, I'd be like, dude, I'd rather earn a billion. Because the first one's not, you can't do the first one again. You can do the second one again. See, it's easier to earn a billion dollars than it is to win it.
Jack
At what period of time in your life were you most motivated?
Grant Cardone
Well, I would say that if you asked me that the last time I was here, I would say probably when I was 35 or 40 and then, but the last time I felt that was when I did a five day fast about two months ago and I felt like I was 28 years old again on the fourth day, I was so motivated, dude. Like, I felt like I was, I was all of a sudden this electrical, you know, unit that was just popping off.
Jack
How long did it take for that to kick in?
Grant Cardone
It was on the fourth day.
Jack
Why do you think that happened?
Grant Cardone
I did a three day fast. Three weeks later, I did a five day fast. I did a three day fast.
Graham Stephan
You look like you've lost a little weight.
Grant Cardone
Oh, thank you. Yeah, thank you. I'm. I'm probably just cutting up a little bit.
Graham Stephan
Yeah.
Grant Cardone
So I did a three day fast. My sister called me and said, hey, I think I have cancer. They want me to come back in. They found a spot on my lung. I said, okay, good. When you going back in? She's like, I. In two weeks. I said, no, you're too good. Okay, I'll. I'll get you to the MD Anderson. Two weeks. I said, well, we're gonna do. It was on a Friday. What we're gonna do right now is we're gonna start a fast. And I said, you're gonna do a 72 hour fast and you're gonna freaking just. She's like, what do you mean we're gonna do? I said, I'm gonna do it with you. I mean, I'm in Miami, you're in Houston. I'll do it with you. And we're gonna do it. We're gonna do a 72 hour fast. She's like, how do you know it's gonna work? I said, I don't know if it's gonna going to work. I don't, I don't know. I just know this. If you starve your body, the cancer has nothing to live off of. You give a shot, man. I've seen some on the Internet. They say fasting might work. Cost nothing. Let's try it. Do I need to get a doctor's? I'm your doctor right now. We're going to do this. Let's go. Call me Dr. G. Okay. So anyway, she agreed to the fast. I'm like, maybe I'll just lie to her, not do the fast. And I'm like, I got to do the fast now that I said I would do the fast. But I, I had 800 people in town Friday, Saturday and Sunday. And I'm like, I gotta fast and speak to these people and go to their lunch and vip. Anyway, I did it. So if you ever want to fast, just stay busy because it, it's really easy if you're busy in front of a lot of people. But I had to Produce on my feet for 20, like, eight hours a day every day while fasting. And it was easy and I felt great. Three weeks later, went by my wife. My wife. My sister, by the way, didn't have cancer. She was cleared three, three. Three and a half weeks later. I said, okay, I got to try a five day fast and see what happens on the fourth and fifth day. And the fourth day was like. It was like a thousand X.
Jack
You working out, Fasted?
Grant Cardone
Yeah. Huh. I did coffee and tea and water. No supplements. None of our supplements.
Jack
Is that like a common response to fasting for that long, long?
Grant Cardone
Like, what was that?
Jack
What was the hardest day?
Grant Cardone
Probably the hardest thing. It's a bit of a mind, right? You're like, I'm gonna stop eating. And you're like, oh, damn, I want a donut. Like, almost instantly you're like, ah, I want something to eat first. It's a weird. It's a weird mental trip. The second day is a little hard because the body's craving food. If you just deny it, then it's going to go consume whatever's left in body. The. The third and fourth day were like, piece of cake. On the fifth day, though, the fifth day, I didn't actually finish 100. 100. What is it? 5 times 24 is what, 120. On the fifth day, my body like, hey, we want food now, dude. The. The. The. My. I was getting signals from my body at about 110 hours. There's no upside from here. No. There's no benefit of going another 10 hours. Just do your thing.
Graham Stephan
What was the first meal you had?
Grant Cardone
Had what? What did I eat? Ribs. People are like, oh, don't go in heavy. I'm not. What do you think people did a hundred years ago? You go five days, you had to fast because there was no food. It's in the middle of winter. There's nothing to kill. People fast all the time. You finally get a kill. What do you. Oh, we can't eat.
Graham Stephan
It's a little.
Grant Cardone
Do some broth. That's some stupid eat. Everybody eat. Ate. Like, feast. So. Yeah.
Graham Stephan
Interesting.
Grant Cardone
Yeah.
Graham Stephan
When it comes to family, I have to say the big takeaway from our last podcast was how good of a relationship you have with your children. Yeah, I want that relationship if I have a daughter.
Grant Cardone
Yeah.
Graham Stephan
I want what you have with Sabrina.
Grant Cardone
Yeah. Thank you.
Graham Stephan
Like, because I just saw the way she looked at you.
Grant Cardone
Yeah.
Graham Stephan
And the way you treated her and saw her and wanted to, like, push her out of her comfort zone. I really admired that.
Grant Cardone
Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. It's like if you took everything away from me, you know, it'd be the kids, man. Done. Like, even. Even more than my. You know, I don't want my wife to hear this, but. Because we. I wouldn't have the kids without the wife, but my wife's been a great choice for me. But the kids, man, there's nothing richer.
Graham Stephan
How do you do. How do you raise good kids like that?
Grant Cardone
Well, you know, it's always like, okay, is this going to always work? You know, I'll keep waiting for the other foot to fall off. You know, the. The shoe to fall off. Okay, maybe they're going to turn on me. You know, they're 16 and 14 now, so, you know, I invest time with them, man. I spend a lot of time with. I changed my whole schedule. I have never not taken their phone call. If they called in right now, I'd take the call. I bring them to meetings with me. I create stuff with them. You know, only had 10 years with my dad, and I had. I'll bet you I didn't have 10 days out of 10 years. And. And I just, you know, like, I'm gonna. I'm gonna spend time with these kids. That's why we homeschooled them. We didn't homeschool them because we thought it was good for them. We thought it was good for me.
Graham Stephan
Really?
Grant Cardone
100%. I'm like, I get to see him in the morning. I'm not going to drive. We were driving them to school. I'm doing the drive to school. So that. That's not quality time. You know, they're six and eight years old. You're missing the best. The best moments of the life. You're driving them to school to what, to go to prison? And then I got to go pick them up on their schedule. And then we went to the school, and I said, I want to take my kids out of school for three months. You can't do that. I said, well, you. What do you mean, I can't do that? How about this? How about I just take them out forever? We took them home and started homeschooling. And so when I leave in the morning, they're there. When I come home, they're there. Or I say, hey, go to work with me. So right now, they're working on two programs, but anytime they're home in Miami, they're going to be in the office with me making calls, calls, listening to calls.
Graham Stephan
What values do you try.
Grant Cardone
They've been in. They've been in they've been. I had a guy named Johnny. This worked for me for years. Sabrina, no, Scarlett was sitting there. Johnny came in. I said, johnny, I need this, this, and this. None. He's like, starts giving me some. And I'm like, hey, what the are you talking about? I forgot she was there. I said, I'll smoke your ass right now, get you the out of here. You've been here. I don't want any backlight. And she's watching all this, this. And then she watches me go back and say, johnny, man, I might have overreacted there. And he's like, no, you didn't. It was right. I was acting like a dick. I said, you ain't right. You were. Never do that again. And Scarlett got to see all that. And she got to see me go back and talk to him. And she got to see him come back and say he was wrong. You know, Sabrina was in a. In one of these very, very big negotiations. Big m. Massive deal. She got to watch all the parts of it. People are getting emotional. People are accusing people. Sabrina and Scarlett were both in bank of America, bank of America, Wells Fargo, J.P. morgan and Goldman Sachs meetings where we were talking about taking the companies public.
Graham Stephan
She.
Grant Cardone
They're in these meetings listening to all these extremely intelligent people, and their job is this. Your job's to take notes. They both have to take notes. And they're just sitting there. The bankers at the end are like, what did you guys write about? And I said, you write down everything you don't understand. You write. Write it. Anything you don't understand, you write it down, the word, and we'll go back and look them up later.
Graham Stephan
Wow.
Grant Cardone
So that's. You know, I. I invest a lot of time with them, man. And in some ways, it. It's overpowered me being a better husband because I've thrown myself so much into being a parent that, you know, like. Like there's sometimes there's not enough left over to say, I. I need to be spending that same time on my marriage and with my wife and honoring her and spend. And including her. So it's got a little bit of a trick, you know? Yeah.
Jack
Do you think that your kids are happier this way, or do you think that there's a part of them that. Like a part of a child?
Grant Cardone
He always goes there. What?
Jack
I don't know.
Grant Cardone
How do I know? How do I know which way they'd be?
Graham Stephan
You could ask. You could ask them, enjoy.
Grant Cardone
And they're happy, but they have nothing to compare to. So look they, they, they lost a lot of stuff by being homeschooled. They're, they're not poor to soccer, soccer team, they're not cheerleaders. They're not part of the, the, the, the club, whatever clubs they're doing today. So they don't, they don't get all that.
Graham Stephan
Do you think it's worth it to let them explore some of those things just to have that experience?
Grant Cardone
I mean, you know, they're 16 and 14. Like they're exploring stuff. They, they, they, they. You know, they're. I know their kids, their friends. Thank you. I know their friends are all Talking about whatever 14 year olds talk about. You know, Sabrina's dating, so how I know what I was doing when I was 15.
Graham Stephan
Yeah, what's that like?
Grant Cardone
Dude, it's like, okay, bro, you just gotta, you just gotta like understand she don't grow up without growing up, so you gotta wish for her to grow up, you know? Like, I don't, I always say I don't want to get older. Yeah, yeah, Grant, you actually want to get, get older because if you don't get older, you die. So my kids got to grow up, they got to grow through it.
Graham Stephan
Do you do background checks on the, like, if she's gone on a date,
Jack
put a PI on the guy, she's going out?
Graham Stephan
I think it's right.
Grant Cardone
You think it's smart, right?
Graham Stephan
Yeah, I, dude, if, if I were you, I probably would be doing.
Grant Cardone
Yes, of course.
Jack
Sounds like something.
Grant Cardone
Would you do a background check? Would you do a financial check on the f. On the family members?
Graham Stephan
Probably not. A financial. What you would think that maybe they put the guy up to dating your daughter so that everybody wants.
Grant Cardone
Are you kidding?
Graham Stephan
Like, you know, maybe not the financial check, but I, I do like a criminal background.
Grant Cardone
You just not. You're just not.
Jack
So what if they checked every box but they came back as broke?
Grant Cardone
Yeah, well, you can be with them, dude, you, you're not, you're not. Those kids aren't getting any money. Like, why, why would I would tell my kids, look, why are you buy. Why are you, you with a God that can't produce?
Jack
Well, it's a kid.
Grant Cardone
It's like, it's like my kids produce. Well, so who's paying for lunch? Who's paying for lunch? Who's paying for lunch? Let me ask you that.
Jack
And so you'd be livid if your daughter went out with a guy and
Grant Cardone
she paid for lunch over and over again? 100% if it, if it becomes. I'm like hey, guys, like, who's paying for lunch? I ain't paying for it. I already told everybody I'm not paying for it. So you got. You got 8,000amonth. Scarlet's got maybe 3 or $4,000 a month. Okay? You guys are going to deplete funds here. You're with a kid that can never pay you. You're with a kid that can't be. In exchange, he's not going to even feel good about this. He's going to feel like you're a little here in a little bit, he's going to resent you. Okay? You. You never want to have that much power in a relationship where you're paying for everything. So when. When we go to lunch, sometimes my kids pay. I'm like, you guys pay for lunch? How much is it? I don't know. It's your bill, it ain't mine.
Jack
It sounds like having kids was a good financial decision for you.
Grant Cardone
You get the money back in my kids, like, every time a bill comes with. When I'm with my kids. Ok, okay. I'm like, you want to pay for it or you want me to pay for it? Okay, good. I'mma pay for it. I'll pay for this one. But you tell me how much we should tip the. Tip the waiter. Well, how much should I tip? I don't know. How good was. He wasn't very good at all good. Put zero and you send. You give it to. To. To the. To the. To the waiter. I wanted to tip the guy, by the way. Tell him I wanted to tip him. But you didn't because you thought the service sucked. In all those exchanges, however they turn out, she's learning something, you know, Scarlett, on the other hand, is like, I want to give him 20%. Said, do you want to give everybody 20%? Because it's my money. Let it be your money. Let's see how much you want to give. And then they're like, see, they learn. They don't learn by me telling them.
Jack
You know, what's interesting is I asked you if you'd be okay if your wife made more money than you, and you're like, well, good luck, basically.
Grant Cardone
Yeah.
Jack
And you're raising a daughter that will likely end up making a lot of money. She's already made millions. And so 100% in the dating marketplace, like, if she will realistically be the breadwinner in whatever relationship she ends up getting into. Correct. Or. Or false.
Grant Cardone
Maybe not. I mean, no, she said she will be. She could marry up.
Graham Stephan
Yeah.
Grant Cardone
You know, she. And she should, by the way, if she's watching this, both of them, I would highly recommend they both marry up.
Jack
And would she then give up on like, to be a mother, give up on all of her business ventures, the stuff she's doing with you in order to then be to able a mother?
Grant Cardone
No, that's up to her. You know, it depends on the deadbeat she's with, you know, so. So you.
Jack
How hard is it to like the guy that your daughter's going on a date with?
Grant Cardone
Not hard.
Jack
Okay.
Grant Cardone
Not hard. He's a likable, likable enough guy, you know, but, you know, the question in now is like, whose name? I've always had this conversation with him. Oh, interesting. Whose name you going to keep? I really would appreciate if you guys would keep my name on the brand here and not Sabrina Cardone. Jefferson. Sabrina Cardone, period. Like, no, don't add a name.
Jack
And should he take Cardone?
Grant Cardone
Good for me. Why not?
Graham Stephan
Dude, more branding, dude.
Grant Cardone
Now, now, now. And. And by the way, I don't want to put you guys in a bad situation. You got. You got to have a prenup, Okay? I didn't do. Do one. I don't have a prenup.
Jack
But do you wish you did?
Grant Cardone
Yeah. Uhhuh. Yeah. It. It was a mistake. And. And I'll tell you why in a second. These guys will not be given money if they. If they. If they don't have prenup. So you guys can not have a prenup, but you're not going to get any of my money. You will be excluded from the wheel if you don't have a prenup. So that takes the pressure off of them to do it. Now, why do I regret not getting a premium prenup? First of all, I trusted Elena explicitly. She's not a gold digger. She says she is, but that she doesn't mean it like that. She means she wants the best out of everything and she wants us to do well. And she knows that I'm ambitious and I want to do well, but she wasn't with me for the money. In fact, the money turned her off. She thought it. It meant she was going to lose some power because I had money and I wasn't rich. I mean, I was. I. I was doing all right, but I wasn't, you know, I wasn't super rich. And so I'm just like, yeah, we'll figure it out later. That's the problem with the prenup, okay? You either get an agreement or you leave it where there's no agreement. You understand? So when you don't have a prenup, the beautiful, beautiful thing about a prenup is you now agree it's not about money. And as time goes on later, as people have problems and difficulties, there's this thing hanging over you. Like, we're going to have to figure out whether this is about money or not. And now we got to negotiate something. This should have already been negotiated.
Jack
I love how like transparent you are with these things. Or at least like the fact that you have unique opinions outside of the Overton window that you've just came to on your own, maybe with some exposure to different information and stuff, but you just have your own var.
Grant Cardone
What is Overton? What. What does that mean?
Jack
Overton window?
Grant Cardone
Yeah. What does that mean?
Jack
It's a term for the stuff that, that's within the Overton window is the stuff that's more socially acceptable.
Graham Stephan
Think of group think that most people views.
Jack
Well, it's not that. It's. It's what is socially or social acceptable or not socially acceptable opinions or beliefs to have. So it's not even group think. It's just what is. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. So like you have opinions that are outside of the Overton window is what I would say. And, and you just are totally. Look, and it's in your own unique way and they, they seem to serve you pretty well.
Grant Cardone
I'm not saying I'm right about any of this. I'm right for me up to this point and the point where I'm like, okay, that wasn't right anymore. Anymore. Like I used to buy value add real estate. We don't buy that anymore. You know, it's not what I want. Right. It's not the asset class I want, but it doesn't. It was, you know, I, I bought one unit to start with. I wouldn't do that again. It was stupid. It was ridiculous. It's not necessary. I bought a single. I bought a single family home. But I was like, people like, oh, he doesn't take his own advice. I was, I was rich. Like, was stupid. I'm telling. The watch was stupid. Stupid. You know, See, this is the problem with the watch in the, in the Rolls, the colonance. I don't. I got rid of all those cars. I regret every $400,000 car I bought because now my wife loved the cars. She loved those. Okay? My, my partner, Brandon Dawson and Natalie, they love that. I don't like it. I don't like the way I feel when I roll up So I don't know if it's a shame thing or lack of self worth or I don't. I don't like the message it sends to the marketplace. Like, I forgot I had this watch on until you brought it up. And now I'm like, oh, the audience needs to watch. Some young guy out there is going to be like, I gotta give me a Richard, you know? No, you don't, dude, don't get a Richard. No, get a Rolly. You don't need either one of them. They're. They're meaningless. But you know what I'm saying? Like, sometimes I feel like it sets the wrong example.
Graham Stephan
But do you feel like people need to go through that to learn that lesson and buy the things and get the houses and the cars and the watches?
Grant Cardone
No, you don't have to. I mean, you have to if you're an idiot, but if you're a wise person, you would learn by somebody else's mistakes. Anybody can learn from their own mistakes. Like all these people say, oh, I learned more from my losses. You should learn from somebody else's losses, not from your own. You know, a wise person would learn. You went down this path, he went down that path. His path didn't work, yours did. I should follow you, not him. But people don't do that. I got to do it my own way. And they go off on a third.
Graham Stephan
So what. What things can you buy then that have the most value that you think spend money in these ways?
Grant Cardone
This is worth on your health? I mean, yeah, any investment in yourself is a good investment. Church time, community time. Like the five years I got out of a treatment center for drug addiction. I spent every single day. I don't think I missed a day for five, five years helping other people get off drugs. That time will. That time will always come back to me. Always. Because I can tap into that anytime I want to know. I can help people, real people, like people that are hurting. So anything, any events, the seminars, going to podcast, watching. I probably do. I probably watch. I'll watch every. All in podcast, podcasts.
Graham Stephan
Those are great.
Grant Cardone
They're interviewing people.
Graham Stephan
Yeah.
Grant Cardone
That none of us have access to. You know, that. That is so deflationary that I get to listen to the giants of the planet as many times as I want, by the way, because I could listen to it one time, second time, a third time, a fourth. I'm gonna pick up so much stuff. Like, I'll do. I'll do one of those every day while I'm working out. And it starts Turning on. You know, I start like, I start becoming this. I feel bigger after I listen to them. I'm like, look what these guys are doing, man. And they're talking about. I don't even know. I like I have to look words up and tokenization in the blockchain and you know, AI generation and like I don't even know what they're talking about. Yeah, humanoids. Like, yeah. What is a humanoid? I don't know.
Graham Stephan
I was telling. Watch Chris Camillo's podcast.
Grant Cardone
Yeah.
Graham Stephan
He was saying the same stuff as Chris Canillo, but humanoid robots.
Grant Cardone
I think everybody has a robot for we. You know, the Tesla proves that to me. So people are worried about it replacing plumbers. I'm like, it's not replacing plumbers for 20 or 30 years. It's if ever. But Elon, I don't think it's three years. He's going to give me a robot. I'm going to overpay for it. But I'm going to have a security guard at my house. My wife loves having we. We had full time security for years when we were doing our live events and, and we had reason to have them. I will have a. I don't know if it's humanoid, but there will be a robot providing security at my house 24 7, 365 and probably going to be able to do some other chores. You know, that's a no brainer. Everybody could have them armed. Security.
Graham Stephan
Yeah, I think it's going to come to that.
Grant Cardone
That's, that's a no brainer.
Graham Stephan
What if your daughter wanted to marry a robot
Grant Cardone
dude? That's why out.
Jack
Would you be okay with that?
Grant Cardone
No.
Jack
What if he was a good guy?
Grant Cardone
I don't. No. Can't do a robot, dude. Can't do a robot.
Graham Stephan
I just think eventually the robots are going to get so good they're going to be indistinguishable from people and they will have whatever personality matches what you are looking for in a partner.
Grant Cardone
Yeah. That's crazy. That's crazy. You got too much free time on your ass.
Graham Stephan
This is Gary Vee believes that people are going to have relationships with robots and AI. It's, it's only a matter of time. They're going to be marrying robots.
Grant Cardone
Yeah.
Graham Stephan
So you wouldn't approve of that?
Grant Cardone
No.
Graham Stephan
Okay.
Grant Cardone
Yeah. Because you know, the spiritual, I mean is the robot spiritual? I don't. It doesn't seem like it.
Graham Stephan
All I gotta say is thank you so much for your openness. No.
Grant Cardone
Yeah.
Graham Stephan
You got your time, you got It.
Grant Cardone
You got it. Tune in to the 13th. It's a local thing that's going to happen here in Las Vegas on the 13th. It'll be announced on 13th. March of the 14th.
Jack
Deal.
Graham Stephan
I'm looking forward to it.
Grant Cardone
So that's the secret thing. Okay. And it'll. It'll kind of surprise you what it, what it is. It's out, out of the box of anything we talked about, so.
Jack
Well, this was a blast. Thank you so much for letting us know that you're going to be in Town and 100%. We'll revisit this in a year or two. We'll do another episode three guys, let us know what you thought of the episode. Thank you so much for tuning into the podcast.
Grant Cardone
Yeah.
Graham Stephan
Oh, also, I just want to say big thank you to the members. We're now posting, posting membership videos for you guys. We're taking phone calls from members, so if you want to call in, they could call in. We're going to answer their questions. We're getting really interesting questions. One guy is dating two girls and. And has to figure out which one he wants to date exclusively.
Grant Cardone
Add a robot to figure it out a third.
Graham Stephan
So with that said, make sure to join. Really appreciate it. We'll link to your information down below. Thank you for your openness, transparency, everything.
Grant Cardone
Thank you.
Jack
Also, guys, you can listen to us on audio only. We're on everything from Apple, podcasts, Spotify, you name it, we're on it out. The link is down below in the description as well. Thank you guys so much for watching. We really hope you enjoyed the episode and we have some phenomenal news. As a cherry on top, we have a banger episode coming out this next Sunday.
Graham Stephan
Even better. But that episode is ready to watch right now. Early access with no ads, no cuts for channel members. So feel free to join and you'll be able to watch the episode right now. Here's a quick sneak peek.
Grant Cardone
Turn on the lights.
Jack
So what was the final amount that you won in Beast Games?
Grant Cardone
2.
Graham Stephan
$5,106,000. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done.
Jack
What would you criticize about Beast Games?
Graham Stephan
The truth is, what I won won't
Grant Cardone
end up in my pocket.
Graham Stephan
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Hosts: Graham Stephan, Jack Selby
Guest: Grant Cardone
Date: April 5, 2026
Episode Theme:
A candid, wide-ranging conversation with Grant Cardone about personal finance, money mindset, the realities of real estate investing, the future of AI-driven entrepreneurship, family, public controversies, and lessons from a polarizing career.
This episode dives deep into Grant Cardone’s philosophies and experiences with wealth, investments, controversy, and personal life. The hosts probe Grant’s public persona, scrutinize his business practices, and explore what motivates, frustrates, and inspires him. Whether discussing the future of housing, his unconventional views on money, controversies around Cardone Capital, or how he raises his children, Grant offers unfiltered opinions with trademark bravado.
| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote / Moment | |---|---|---| | 00:42 | Grant Cardone | “Showing the plane can appear to be arrogant to some people. Overconfident.” | | 01:01 | Grant Cardone | “No, I don’t play up. There’s not a play up.” | | 13:14 | Grant Cardone | “If you have a million dollars, you’re as close to broke as possible.” | | 16:07 | Grant Cardone | “I’m not interested in saving money, I’m interested in earning more money.” | | 18:32 | Grant Cardone | “I would become an AI consultant. I would have 10 clients each pay me $8,000 ... I’d make a million dollars year one.” | | 21:19 | Grant Cardone | “It’s not even the rejection...You hate being ignored.” | | 88:12 | Grant Cardone | “It’s fucking simple. 1% times whatever was raised.” (on Cardone Capital fees) | | 92:50–93:37 | Grant Cardone | “Don’t make accusations that aren’t true ... if you own any property, I’m going to come get it from you.” | | 113:12 | Grant Cardone | “You can go as stupid as your cash flow.” (lesson for his children) | | 118:03 | Grant Cardone | “When you’re on the grind up, dude, love it...You’ll look back and say that was the richest part of my life.” |
For listeners short on time, this episode delivers the full Grant Cardone experience: candid, aggressive, occasionally controversial, and always focused on playing bigger and thinking differently.