June 15, 2021 • 47 mins
On making million-dollar bets and why humility is overrated.
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Speaker 1 (00:13):
I think that the term Karen has now morphed, maybe
into something different. I think that in the beginning, when
people were calling people Karen's, it was obviously very critical.
It would be a Karen seemed to be a blonde,
middle aged woman. She voted for Trump. She was labeled
(00:34):
to be a racist, and it was really like a
vicious sort of term. And somehow I feel like Karen
has morphed into being a middle aged woman. It doesn't
really matter who she voted for. I don't think it
matters what her religion is anymore, because I think before
Karen was Christian for some reason, I just don't think
she was a Jewish woman. And I think that now
(00:56):
Karen has morphed into a woman who likes to lodge plaints,
Like if a woman is the person who's staying at hotel,
I don't know, can we see another room or Hi, yeah,
can I get something else on the side, or can
I talk to your manager? Can I speak to a supervisor?
What's your term policy? I need a nonrefundable ticket. You know,
(01:19):
someone who's savvy, slash, annoying and wants to lodge a complaint.
That's what I feel like. It's morphed into because I
know that I was saying something and Paul, my fiance,
said to me, Okay, would you like to lodge a
complaint to Karen? So that's what Karen's become. And I
want to actually talk about that because I don't know
anymore who Karen is. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I never
(01:40):
knew the definition. I know some people who don't even
know what a Karen is, meaning, they don't even know
the term. I've said it to a couple of people
and they've said, what. So I thought it was like
really popular vernacular, like a really popular term, and I
think that maybe that's more on social media, but it's
not so mainstream, like it's not Karen is not Felicia yet,
(02:02):
whereas by Felicia, and I know Felicia is very out.
Felicia is not cool anymore. Felicia's being totally canceled, and
Karen is in. But I just don't have famous Karen is.
And I can tell you one thing. If Karen were Jewish,
she's Judy. Judy wants to lodge a complaint. Judy needs
to talk about no oil, no sauce, steamed broccoli, Send
(02:25):
it back, my eggs Benedict are not soft enough. My
burger is not cooked properly. This just doesn't taste right.
The meat is tough. I ordered medium rare, it's medium.
I would like a refund. I would like to speak
to your boss. Can I have your boss's name? That's Judy? So,
(02:45):
Judy is the Jewish Karen? Okay? Why is there no
male Karen? So? Who's Karen? Bill? Bill, Joe? And what
Bill and Joe is like? What just like? Is a
man who runs it up the flagpole, golfs and goes
on phishing trips with his buddies? Is that is that
(03:08):
Joe feels like Bill Bob? Is it Bob? Or is
it Bill Bob? Bob is the new Karen? Okay, Bob
is the male Karen. We have to get his profile down.
I think he golfs. I think he goes on fishing
trips his buddies. I think he, you know, likes to
go out with his bros and his buddies. It doesn't
(03:28):
say bros, he says buddies. I think he has a
cozy for his beer. I think he has a lake house.
I think he loves an excuse to go to a
Vegas corporate meeting UH sales management trip. I think he
loves the all you can drink, all inclusive hotel vibe
(03:49):
at at the bar and sits in the middle of
the pool and is loud and sing Sweet Caroline in karaoke.
That's Bob, Eat Bob. Meet Bob has a pair of Oakley's.
Meet Bob goes on a purely ski trip with his buddies,
and Meet Bob has Poker night probably right, doesn't Meet
(04:12):
Bob of Poker Night, and like Meet Bob's wife, Karen
is drinking chardonnay or rose at four o'clock with the
girls at the house, spilling the tea. Meet Bob has
sex with his wife three point to five times a
week and four point oh five times on a vacation.
What do you all think? What is the audience? Think?
(04:33):
Always right for you and subscribe And I like hearing
what you have to say from reading your comments, So
tell me is the male Karen Bob? This is going
to be a great one. My guest Today's grand cardon
(04:55):
New York Times best selling author, speaker, social media influencer,
and realist state mogul. He is the most famous person
that you've never heard of. That has so many contacts,
so many connections, so successful, so charismatic, and he started
from the bottom and now he has a portfolio of
(05:15):
assets worth over two billion dollars and trains others on
how to do the same. Today we talked about how
to create a business built for longevity. While humility isn't
a great characteristic, how to overcome fear surrounding money stemming
from childhood and the broken relationship rule. His energy is
contagious and I think you're going to love this episode.
(05:36):
I really did. So. My starter is I didn't know
whether to drink coffee or take a sedative because you
have the most energy. So we'll see afterwards what I
should have taken. So this is Grant Card, doone. Okay.
He is charismatic, he is energetic, He is passionate, driven, hungry, determined,
(06:03):
alive and doesn't stop. He is a business person. He
is a real estate mogul. He is a motivational speaker.
He is a husband, a parent, and he might be
the most famous celebrity that you've know. He's he's the
most famous celebrity you've never heard of. Okay, grand Card,
don't let me let me just say Bethany. I'm a
(06:24):
huge you know how much I love you. Okay, You're phenomenal.
Everybody loves Bethany. And number two, number two things I
want to say. It's just the fact that you said
I'm gonna live like that is a very nice compliment.
So thank you very much. Yeah, you are. It's it's electricity,
it's contagious, it's motivating. It makes sense. This podcast is
specifically and intentionally about started from the bottom hour here
(06:48):
game change or you're a visionary, you're a maverick. You've
done it your way. It's been non traditional. You are
you know, take no prisoners, no no explaining, no complaining,
no apologies, do it your way. And that's how people
really can learn because there are so many different ways
to the Promised Land, and you have your own trajectory,
and I want to humanize you and crystallize you and
(07:12):
sort of give people an understanding of who you actually
are and how you got here. So like, I want
to understand, first of all, how old are you? If
you don't mind me asking, I'm sixty three. That's not true. Yeah,
I was born in I Like, I was just asking.
It's a throw I swear in my life after you're
gonna say in your forties, your sixty three, Wow, holy
(07:34):
sh it. Okay, so that we can go onto this
placent does smoothies you eat every day later but okay, wow, okay,
I'll tell you the secret offline. I'll tell you the
secret one day. Sounds like it's sex, Okay, So we'll
go back to that later. Um, sex or masturbation. We'll
do that later. Okay. So grant they're the same thing,
by the way, okay, with the person you love the most.
(07:54):
I get it. And you do love yourself, which you should. Okay.
So where did you grow up and what's your family dynamic?
Your parents are upgramming your siblings. Yeah, so I grew up.
I grew up in Late Charles, Louisiana refinery town. So
you either were a refinery person there and you were
connected to the unions and did hard labor at the factories,
(08:16):
uh mostly the gas refineries hard labor, or you did
some kind of you know, a sales job. So my
dad died when I was ten years old. He had
made it firmly into the middle class from poverty. Both
of my parents were Italian descent. Their parents came over
My mother's father was born on the ship and never
(08:37):
had papers to live in the US, and so my
grandfather my mother's side, never had papers to live in
the US. So he lived a very dark life, like
he was under the radar, never had an employment situation,
probably never paid taxes, so everything was kind of on
the sly. And then my dad's side completely opposite. They
were shipbuilders from Naples, Italy. They came in settled in Madisonville, Louisiana,
(09:01):
and so my dad had this hard that this hard labor,
do it right, pay the price, work ethic. He's the
first person who went to college and became a you know,
life insurance salesman's stock broker, car salesman. He did all
that kind of stuff. But he really got into the
middle class. And at the age of fifty two, um
(09:23):
with five kids, he died. He died from a heart failure.
So that left my mom. My mom at the time
was I guess she was forty eight with five kids.
She had no this is back in the fifties, housewife.
You know, she had never earned money herself, never held
a job herself, and now she had to manage five kids.
Everything was paid off, the house was paid off, the
(09:43):
cars were paid off. The following week after my dad died,
my mom was selling the house, dumping everything. I'm ten
years old, twin brother were the youngest, and we're sitting
there watching. I'm watching my mom going to terra when
she should have been grieving because she's unloading stuff. And
so this became. You know, as I look back fifty
(10:05):
years back, this is this is what ends up making
me who I am today. I bet you had or
you have still have a bit of money noise. You
knew what it was like to feel scared and desperate
(10:28):
and not have it. And even if we have a
lot of money, you can have noise like where you're
moving things around and you've got to do that to
do this, And you have a lot of real estate,
You're into a lot of different things. Hey, have you
ever had any debt that you didn't want and be
Do you have money noise or noise in any area,
either family noise or food noise or any of that stuff. Yeah. Sure.
(10:49):
Between the age of fifteen, I was so angry that
my dad died, and I was so angry I couldn't
help my mom. Like I've been wanting to work since
my dad died. I'm like, I want to take care
of my mom. And that's been a driving force of mine.
I was raised by a single mother, Like that's who
I know. She and I were best friends, and I
could not help her. I could not get rid of
her angst. And that is that driver, that thing that
(11:11):
you see in me, like this guy just not start.
That's still in me. My mom's passed ten years ago,
but she was my best friend. She took care of me.
She was the one I went to first when I
had a success or failure, even as an adult, but
at the age of fifteen, I was so angry that
I didn't have a man in my life. Part of
why I created this foundation was for kids without fathers
(11:33):
because I wanted a dad. I wanted an uncle, dan,
a mentor, a coach. I wanted something. Someone dies, you
feel abandoned them, like they left you. And because Chelsea
Handler on this show said that when her brother died,
he said to her he was coming back to Martha's vineyard.
He was going away for a certain number of weeks
and he was coming back. He was gonna leave her
(11:53):
here with these people, meaning her other crazy family, and
that he never came back, and she was very angry
about that. Even the professional and logical, but people who
experienced loss can of relate. Yeah, but it was logical
for me because it took me two years to realize
my dad wasn't gonna show up. I was twelve years old,
and I'm like, he ain't coming back, broke. But then
I started, when are my uncle's gonna help me out?
(12:16):
If you've ever heard anybody refer to me as uncle
G I told this story one time and I said, dude,
I am going to be the uncle for others, for
the uncle that wasn't there for me. I had three
uncles and they never showed up for me, and I
don't off about it. So the next person that showed
up was a drug dealer, and he's like, i'll be
your coach, I'll be your mentor, I'll be your daddy.
And I'm like, let's go. And I went on a
(12:37):
ten year binge with drugs. I became a drug addict
between fifteen and twenty five. I was using drugs every day,
overdose three times, had eighty stitches put in my head
and face. Could easily be in prison right now or Dad.
I had three friends that got killed. I went to treatment.
Three of them died while I was in treatment, were killed,
were had bullets put in their heads. So that was
(12:59):
the life grant card owned thirty years ago. I was
the black sheep of my family. Nobody trusted me. My
family didn't trust me, my sisters didn't trust me. Nobody
wanted anything to do with me. I was the only
place I could get a job when I came out
of treatment was a car dealership. And I put my
life together. I quit using drugs. I didn't use any
more drugs for thirty eight years and never went back
(13:21):
to the drug thing. I left the treatment center. They said,
you will definitely be back, and I'm like, why am
I coming back here? I ain't coming back. And they're like, yeah,
because you want to be famous and you want to
write books, and you want to save the world, and
you've got these ideas you're gonna be rich and famous.
I'm like, yeah, dude, I'm gonna do all that ship
And they're like, anybody with that attitude will always come
back their treatment center. I said, bro, I'll never be
(13:41):
back here. I still remember the guy today, Paul. Paul
gave me the inspiration of my life saying you will
be back here, you will be a drug addict for
the rest of your life. You have a disease, I'm like,
this ain't a disease. I'm gonna flip this switch. I'm
gonna use all this energy and I'm gonna take this gift.
The ability to like be locked in on something than
to switch the addiction from disease to gift is what
(14:05):
I've used now for thirty years. Really can propel and
create everything that well. My partner and relief work is
Michael Caponi. He built big houses, like big million dollar
mansions in Miami. After he was a major club promoter
like Ingrid Caesaris and Madonna. He dated a lot of
models and he did a lot of drugs and he
was very addicted. He one day switched. He never went
(14:26):
to a meeting, he just flipped the switch. And he's
been to Haiti like sixty times. We've been all over
the world from the Bahamas. We've done a hundred million
dollars of relief in three years. He flipped it to
something else. Doesn't mean that that isn't like being addicted
to aid or something else, but good. I mean, you know,
what I mean, he's also spiritual. So that's a fascinating
if that's been channeling. Because a person, I guess an
(14:46):
addict has such energy and passion and drive for that,
they've got to get it, They've got to have it,
they have to do it. They wanted their singular focus.
If you can take that sort of addiction and the
singular focus on something else, it makes sense. Everybody has
the ability to be hooked into something to where you
lose sleep. Everybody's done it. When you fall in love,
you go to this. You don't need to eat, you
(15:08):
don't need to sleep, You just want to have sex
and fall into this person's face over and over again.
Bad breath is good breath, and you can't get enough
of it. Please sweat on me like you like sucking
into this, immersed into this universe where you forget everything else.
There is nothing wrong with that. Unfortunately, in our culture today,
anybody that goes all in on anything is somehow labeled sick, diseased, codependent, obsessive, compulsive.
(15:36):
I've been called O, D, D, A, C D, every
every like, every little acronym qute acronym in the world.
I'm like, guys, how about g I f T. That's great. Well,
I know what you're lying. I mean, I understand what
you're like. You know, I'm I'm not saying I'm like you,
but I'm one of these people. You and I are
very on it. There's no no I've got it figured
(15:58):
it out. I'm thinking all the time processing. I may
have a different style, but you know, there's a certain
thing inside many of us, and when it's not channeled,
it goes in the wrong places. Like even for me,
it's humor, and I need a place to put the
humor in the connectivity. For other people, it's just business
and numbers or data. But how do you sustain You've
been married for how many years? Sixty and seventeen years? Okay,
(16:21):
now you've been totally honest and vocal where you did
a clubhouse together about that. It's had its challenges. She's
open about it too. So what is the good, bad,
and the ugly? How do you sustain? I mean, there's
no perfect relationship. That's bullshit. You know. My best friend
was last night complaining about something going on in her marriage.
Has been married for decades. That's an accomplishment. My other
best friend has been married for decades. He's an extrovert.
(16:44):
Like everybody's got their ships. So we're not sugarcoating anything,
but I'm asking an accomplishment is being a team and
being with the same partner for decades. So you've been together,
you have kids. How do you make something work when
you have these big, driven personalities. There's so many different elements.
How do you make it work? What's some formula or
(17:05):
some elements or ingredients. Look, I don't know if I
have a formula. I know that, you know. The thing
for me always is I need to work on me,
not on her. You know, I don't need to work
on her. You know, she's not a nail. I need
to work on me. The only thing I can change
is me. Like when I change me, things get better.
(17:26):
And if she does the same thing, then good. But
I can't make her do that, right, I can't. You know,
she typically blames me for everything that goes wrong. You know,
I am responsible for everything that happens bad, and she
is somehow responsible for everything that happens good. It's just
the way it is, right, So this has been difficulty
in my relationship. I live in a very physical universe.
(17:47):
For me, the universe is a lot of gravity, A lot.
I think you can relate to this. There's a lot
of effort required for me to be successful. Her world,
she does not live in a world where there's effort.
She lives in a very ethereal um. She's an actress, right,
so that's our background in the arts, and and so
(18:07):
her world is a lot lighter than mine is. Mine
has a lot of gravity. You're the peacock. You're the
peacock relationship. Obviously, there's only one peacock. I don't know
about that. You've never heard of it. There's only one
peacock with the blooming feathers taking up the energy in
the room. You're sucking up the energy in the room.
And she's got some of it in her own way.
But she's very much takes up a lot of room
in a room. I'm speaking about more effort effort. I'm
(18:30):
in an effort ban and she is much more in
a kind of a life free. Oh, I'm just gonna
make this happen. I'm gonna secret it. She's gonna secret it.
She's gonna make it happen energetically, and you're likelinding to
make it happen. I am the law of action, and
she is the law of possibility, and and she thinks
she's making this ship happen. But I'm like, bro, none
(18:52):
of this ship's happening without like jet fuel, without refueling,
without pushing through, without like like it's like, my world
is tough. It's just my reality. I could be completely
spiritually unevolved and I'm just an idiot. But I'll tell
you this. It is a version of the peacup because
same thing with me. There can and should only be
(19:14):
one person driving in that way. So you're lucky that
you happen to find a partner who happens to be
able to play and role in this world, your crazy world.
She's beautiful, she's charismatic, she's a good your first lady
or you're you're the first husband, whichever you want to say.
But it can't be easy to live in this electric,
energetic world. How do you find downtime? How do you
find connectivity? How do you find spirituality? How do you
(19:36):
find peace? And like avoid of just anything relaxing. We
don't actually, you know, the game for us is the game,
and we're both very interested in our own spiritual development individually.
We don't believe in the rule is just a broken relationship.
I bring fifty, you bring fifty. We've got a quarter
(19:56):
is what you got? Like, you got broken people coming together.
Two broken people don't a whole. So we work a
lot on our spiritual development. Actually take time to get
away from each other and from our work and go
develop spiritually to understand that, you know, the things that
Elaine and I have in common are a great deal
more than the things we don't have in common. So
(20:16):
anytime there's an out and this, I just say, hey,
what's my grade? Like, Hey, you did this and you
did this. I'm like, what is my grade right now?
I failed those two things? What is my fucking grade
right now? Before God, by the way, I never pitched
perfect to anyone, So I never told her I was perfect.
I told her I would make our lives great, And
I just always go back to that thing, is our
(20:38):
life great? Right? You know? But but look, if we
spend time on the outpoints, we'll just go further down
the tube, the rabbit hole. So we have to spend
time on, Hey, what's working. How do we double down
on that? How do we make that more successful? We
got two kids now they're growing up, things change, like
we have to change. Is the game changes? What are
(21:09):
your kids like? Are they motivated? Do they care about business?
Are they free spirits? Will you allow them to be free? Speak?
My daughter is an artist. She's free. She's not like
me in that way. She's totally could be living in
Malibu in a band, you know, and I like that
she's like that. I'm not looking for her to be me.
So I want to know how you are with your kids. Yeah.
So our kids are nine and eleven. They're both very extroverted,
(21:30):
very social, extremely confident. But they get to do whatever
they want to do. Like, they don't have to be
in our business. They want to be a doctor. They
can be whatever they want to do. They're not entitled
to the money, they're not entitled to the company. If
one of them wants to step up and run things,
they can. If they don't, no problem. It's there are lots.
I don't want to force anything on them, so we
give them a tremendous amount of Now, your show, Undercover
(21:53):
Billionaire talks about building a million dollar business and dainty
days where you start with a hundred dollars. So I
want to get an to the show but I want
to talk about are you one certain that if right
now you just woke up tomorrow and had nothing, Like
you had the clothes on your back, you didn't have
a credit card that work, You probably didn't have credit
Could you right now kill it with nothing? Like starting
(22:16):
right now? But you're not grand card doing, you're not
famous like yeah, So look, this is what Discovery asked
me last year or January before COVID. Nancy Daniels caused
me and says, hey, would you be willing to do
undercover billionaire? I said, I'd be willing to fly out
to l A and talk to you about it. So
I fly out to l A. I meet with Discovery.
She's there. I bring a bag with me. There's a
true story, so I said. So Nancy explained to me
(22:39):
the show. She's like, we're gonna drop you off in
a city. You will not know the city until you
get there. We want to know if you can with
a hundred dollars. You can't use your name, can't use
your credit cards, cannot use your connections, you cannot call
your five employees. Okay, I can't use your social media.
You have to nail this. Only a boy from lake,
(23:01):
can you can you turn it into a million dollar
business in ninety days? And I looked at her. I
said I could not say that. I could have said that. Listen.
I reached down, I grabbed a bag. I put the
bag on the table. In the bag was one million
dollars in cash. I said, not only can I do it,
I'll bet you one million dollars. I'll give you one
(23:22):
million dollars and I'll buy the entire crew a new car.
If I don't hit the million it's and by the way,
I don't need your hundred dollars, and I'll do it
in less than ninety days. You cannot do it less
be famous? Now for real, Grant, what is the show?
The show airs April same week? Is my show? The
Big Shot with Bethany airs that same week? So okay,
(23:44):
let's keep going. I want to hear. This is fucking sick.
So this is pre COVID. Now I leave Mandalaid Bay
in Las Vegas on February. The first person to ever
do the show or the show has happened before. No, no,
the show was done by a guy named Glenn Stearns,
and Glenn didn't hit the target. Glenn's a cool dude.
He did not hit the target, of course not. But
(24:04):
there's one of the things that I told Nancy Daniels. Okay,
I said, Nancy, by the way, this is what I'm
gonna do. I'll bet you a million dollars. I hit
the million dollar mark, but I'm not going for a
million dollars. I'm gonna build a ten million dollar business
in under nine dead dead. I don't know what I do.
And the money is you are money. The money is now.
You are money. You have that money. You made ten
million dollars. The business that we build. This you found somebody,
(24:27):
of course, but somebody somebody, I don't know anybody. They
dropped me off from Pueblo, Colorado. Do you know anybody
in Pueblo? No? So this is this is what I'm doing.
I leave Mandalaid Bay. I was with Kevin Hart. I'm
interviewed Kevin Hart, John travel to Dana White, Floyd Mayweather.
We are twelve thousand person event. You've been to our events.
You spoke at my thirty thousand person event. We had
(24:49):
that event that year in Las Vegas. I literally leave
Kevin Hart. I go shave my head in my penhouse,
get on my plane. I put on this pair of
pants right here that have on. I have to t shirts,
two pairs of pants. They give me an old pair
of boots. A new phone, has no contacts. They take
this phone from me. Okay, we flow my plane to Lamar, Colorado.
(25:13):
I'd drive two hours in a piece of ship. Truck
is a terrible truck. You'll see the show. You'll see it.
And I get to Pueblo at three o'clock in the afternoon.
The sun's gonna go down in three and a half hours.
I have no water and no food and no place
to sleep. Okay, now watch this over ten days. I
don't spend one penny in ten days. The first thing
(25:34):
I did when I got to Pueblos I took the
hundred dollars and brought it to the bank and dropped
it off, opened a Welsh fargo account and got rid
of the hundred dollars. And discoveries like, why are you
putting this money in the bank. I'm like, because I
don't need a hundred dollars. I don't need anything. I
don't I don't need a dead Benjamin Franklin, you know.
And so they're like, we need you to spend that money.
(25:55):
I didn't spend that money for eight four days. I
never spent did no. I eat beans and rice for days.
If you made money, but you couldn't take any of
the money you made, if you made it all this money, Yeah,
whatever I wanted to do, I could do. You can't
break the law, but anything else is on the table.
I'm dying. I love this. This is amazing. Audience can
actually binge the entire series on Discovery Plus because it's
(26:16):
sitting there right now. I can watch it now. Yeah,
you can watch it right now Discovery Plus. If you
have six dollars. I have six dollars and I'm gonna
watch it with Paul. I'm freaking out. I can't wait.
This is so exciting. Wow. And the reason I did
the show was because of your question. The number one
question people ask me is if you weren't Grant Cardonne,
if you didn't have all these people following you on
social media, if you didn't have the money in the
plane and all this stuff, could you make it all
(26:39):
over again? And this show is going to prove to
you you don't need money. You do need a strategy.
You know, you don't need to be in your own
little hometown that actually might be a benefit to you,
and it doesn't take a long time. Cuban said he
doesn't need the five said, I give it. If you
had to start over, I give you five. That he was,
I don't need the five thousand. He said, the same thing.
It's so interesting. This is why the show is interesting
(26:59):
because some of the questions I asked people who have
done it in very different ways, compelling ways interesting. Don't
get dressed up in a three piece suits in a
cubicle like whatever it is I'm saying. I'm talking to charismatic,
interesting people and they all say similar things that are
so crazy. Like so he was like, I don't need
your money, Like I would take the five thousand. He's like,
I don't need the money. I would go, I would
get a job because the money is not what it's about,
(27:20):
is what you're saying. It's not about the money. I
always say, it's never about the money, but it's ultimately
about that. And you know it's about the money. So
you know you've done a lot of reality shows. You
know a lot of that is not reality. This I
can promise you I was there for the entire time.
I never got any help. This was not produced. Everything
that happened happened. I lost two to multimillion dollar deals
(27:43):
because I got discovered. Because part of the deal is
if I get discovered. Okayd all right. So Mark Cuban
is the person who said that I'm one of the
great branders of all time, and I'm telling you you
would give me a run for my money. I mean,
there's something we should do together. I don't know what
it is. It I told you I want to produce
a show with you. Yet let's go. Let's go, girl,
Come on. So now I understand why you're the top
(28:05):
crowdfunder in the world, raising five hundred million dollars in equity.
So now it's all making a lot of sense. You
have a hunger and a drive. So do you think
it's really what you saw in your father and just
the lack thereof in your mother or do you think
it's inside Do you think it's just inside of you?
Just baby, I was born this way, like auga says,
(28:26):
and look, I might not be right on this, but
I think that everybody has the potential to do something
much greater than they're doing. I know, since I was
a little boy, I had this like, I know I
can be somebody. You felt it, yeah, And I think
if everybody was honest, if you weren't so tired to
this idea that humility is such a great characteristic, which
I'm not sure that it is. If you look up
(28:48):
the word in the dictionary, it's not a very appealing
word to be humble is not like, it's not something
you would want your kids to be if you look
the word up in the dictionary and just didn't assume
what it meant. But I think, quietly secret everybody thinks
they have something in them the special. And I just
happened to be one of those people that keeps telling
people I know, dude, I know, I know I'm supposed
to be somebody special. I know I'm supposed to do
(29:10):
something significant and important, and and I have just held that.
I think if my dad was here today, because he
did really well by us, but I think he would
look today and say, hey, I went for the middle
class and he got the middle class. And now, based
on how things turned out that my mom was having
an unload stuff the next week, he would not feel
(29:31):
like he actually set our family upright. I have certain goals,
but and I'm taking this thing into the end zone.
I can feel it, I know it. This business of mine,
I've doubled down. I've gone back to the tables. I've
split my aces. I already made a lot of money
and was on the cover of Forbes, but I decided
not for the money, for the game, for all of it.
But then you get into it and you're like, all right,
the money's a label for it, you know, the philanthropy
(29:53):
is a good thing that you can do to give back.
It all kind of becomes these these sort of goal posts,
and yeah, the end zone is my all those set
your goals high, you know, if the impossible as possible.
But do you believe as a percentage of luck? What
what percentage are you lucky? What percentage are you smart? Well,
I'm not a lucky guy, So I'm not lucky on
the tables. I'm not lucky with the races. That's not
(30:15):
been my deal. If anybody at the table is gonna lose,
I'm probably gonna get the worst hand I've I've sat
there with where the fucking cards were So with me,
I'm like, God, damn, how do I keep getting a fourteen?
I don't know, Maybe it's a mental thing. But it's
why I love real estate, because real estates to me,
is like a no brainer thing by the same kind
of assets over and over. I have to have the
(30:36):
cash flow and time. Time becomes my friend. So as
long as I have enough time, I know if I
can sit at that deck long enough. In a real
estate deal, it's just when do I make a triple
or a quadruple. So your favorite business is real estate
of all your businesses, sounds like you're passionate about it. Well,
my favorite. My favorite business is helping people because it's
just that thing pays in so many ways. So I
(30:57):
love doing those conferences. But the real estate is the
thing that will outlive me. I mean, both of them
are gonna live longer than me. The real estate could
live a hundred years after me and take care of
the investors and our family and our charities. Our charities
are set up to be paid fifty years after I'm dead.
Every month like clock work out of cash flow. But
(31:18):
you know the books and the programs and the webinars
and Cardon University I've helped, you know, I can't go
anywhere today where some young kid twenty two years old man, uncle, gee,
what's going on? Man? You change my life? So you
know that stuff feels really good too. So is there
a number? Like, for me, being totally transparent, the number
just represents what the thing is, you know. But the
Skinny Girl brand, which is a hundred million dollar brand,
(31:40):
which for me is a you know, a big deal,
and it's still sort of new, and I only have
a couple of people working you know with me in
my infrastructure. It's just like three or four people. So
I'm proud of that. You know, no debt. I own
a hundred percent of it, all of that. So the
goal is to take that and all the brands to
be like, you know, a billion dollar brand or of
several hundred million dollar brands. So that's a goal. Like,
(32:00):
that's sort of that's the end zone. Doesn't mean I'm leaving.
It just means it's a nice major thing to sort
of work towards. And with the philanthropy, we did three
unti million dollars, I'd like to take that getting too.
Three UNTI million dollars and three years getting two billion
dollars doesn't sound that far if we I mean, because
now once you do it, it becomes exponentially once you
get on the board. Once you have a hundred million
(32:22):
dollar business, you can have five hundred million dollar business
in a second. So what is your goal post? You know,
what's the point of all this? What do you guys
want when you look at a lane and do you
have the same goals? Do you say we're gonna do
this and then what happens? Okay? I would love to
take card own capital to forty four the number not five.
Four is my lucky number. Well, I started. My first
goal in real estate was to own twenty units. We
(32:45):
have nine thousand. That was my first target was twenty units.
I wanted to make ten thousand dollars a free cash flow. Okay,
that was like okay, if I can get there, I'm done.
My first deal with thirty eight units, it was twice
what my whole goal was. So then, as you know,
once you start winning races, you're like ship man like
not only that, if you're going to do it, like
(33:05):
if you're going to open up a restaurant. Of course,
it's not easy to say to someone who only has
the money to open up a small restaurant. But I
was speaking to Mark Packer, who owns all the marquees
and the tows and all that. And when we were
sitting in this restaurant, dirty French, I said, this would
have been a great space, and he said I was
offered the space. But if I'm gonna open something, I
might as well open something big that can generate a revenue.
Because it's gonna take the same amount of time and
(33:26):
effort to do a tiny restaurant and the same amount
of aggravation and liability than to do a big restaurant.
So what you're saying is it's gonna be the same
thing for me if I do a relief effort, and
it's it was just as hard to get a hundred
pairs of rain boots for Texas as it is now
to do fifty million dollars in Ppe. So why not
just go all the way, same energy, same effort. It
(33:49):
might not even be harder to go bigger. It might
actually be harder to go smaller than it is to
go bigger. I know. I remember, for twenty years I
built a business is big enough to take care of
our family and not big enough to take care of
other people's families, And that business was harder to operate
than the company I had today. Running a business with
(34:10):
three people was harder than running a business with five.
I believe you. The small management of people is a suck.
It sucks you. Yeah, I agree, And there's no big payoff. Okay.
And this is the problem with the middle class. The
middle class is the most overlooked, punished, and oppressed group
of people on planet Earth. It's not people in poverty.
They get attention every day that things aren't fair. Everybody
(34:31):
knows that. And the super rich they never have a problem.
Things go bad, it gets better for him. But the
people in the middle that are just getting by. They
got two cars, they got a nice little house. They're
worried all the time. By the way, you can tell
their word, because they're saving money for retirement that may
never happen. They may not even live to that day.
They're saving money in the banks, and the banks pay
(34:51):
them nothing. I mean, the whole thing, the big scam
in America is the middle class is someplace of freedom
when the truth is is just enough until it not.
And that's where my mom and dad lived. That's how
I grew up. I grew up in this constant fear
of my mother. She's constantly clipping coupons, looking for the
best deal, buying a used car when we should have
(35:12):
bought a new car, you know, moving homes because she
was worried about the maintenance. So that kind of built
my whole, like, Hey, I don't want to own a home.
I want to own three units. I'll rent where I
live and own where other people rent from me, and
I'll buy my dumb watch out of not earned income.
But right, So, who are your three best friends? My
(35:33):
three best friends? Man? Do I have three best friends?
I don't know. You have one best friend? Uh No,
probably a lot of friends were not a best friend.
That's very interesting. What if somebody's going with your wife
that's serious and you're upset about it and you want
to talk about it, who do you call? I would
never talk to anyone about my wife. I would go
handle myself. I wouldn't call you and say, oh my god,
(35:54):
me and Elena hadn't had sex in three weeks, or hey,
me and Elena I had to fight. I don't need
your opinion about me and Lena that. I would never
involve a third party in one of our different problems.
Trusting people, No, I don't trust people with I would
not give that issue to you. I don't think it's
fair to you. I don't think it's fair to Elena.
I need to go handle myself. I would go handle
(36:14):
myself with my church and say, hey, I got some
issues here. But do you go to Elena to tell
her like the thing that happens, the exciting thing that happens,
the deal that happens that the show you got the show?
Did you call her first? When I was doing Undercover Billionaire?
I mean, I watched the first two minutes of Glenn
Stearns doing that show, and I'm I called Elena because
Discovery said, hey, just go watch the first episode. I
(36:35):
watched seconds. I call that we're doing this show, and
it was we doing We're doing this show. But that
doesn't sound collaborative, But it is collaborative because we know
different people are in charge of different things in the household.
I like that. So you're it's where the fish are,
the fish were there, You're we're going. The team is moving.
There's not two decision makers on certain things like finances.
(36:56):
There's one decision maker. Interesting, there's one core her back,
there's one coach. There's one guy running that play. If
she's kicking the field goal. I'm not kicking and I
have no opinion about anything. If she's running X, she
runs X, and we were lane or wrong or lane
or right. So you're rabbit Craft, she's Belichick, and you're
just like not, you're do any different things. But yeah,
(37:17):
that's right. There's never two cooks. And that's a good
note forever on at home, by the way, that because
everyone wants to be so collaborative and that might not work. Okay,
I like that because what that does is that adds
time and it adds doubt. If I got a call in, hey,
do you think I should buy this deal? Well, man,
if I don't know, maybe I shouldn't be buying the deal.
How long did that take to build up? Did you
start that way? Or that's an evolution? Like is that
(37:37):
from the beginning? No, No, we got married in two
thousand four, two thousand and eight. We had to get
our ship together because two thousand and eight, like the
honeymoon was off. Now the band aid been pulled, and
we were just in this honeymoon stage of being married
and weren't really taking life seriously until the global economic collapse,
where it's like Okay, who's running what she quld be
(37:59):
in an interest In two thousand eight, She's like, okay,
I throw in the towel on the active thing. I'm
on board with you. You have a better chance of
taking us to the finish line than I do. That's
changing now, right. I like that? Like Jesse, It'sler said
that everyone This is another iteration of the show is
the relationship aspect, you know, always focus on the dynamic
because it doesn't matter about the other ship if you
(38:19):
can't hold your relationship together. So one of the things
he was saying was that they check in with each
other and they could make an appointment for like how
are you what's going on with you today? Not like
how is your day? But I mean like are you good?
Are we good? Like they check in with each other,
and that he lets her be her and fly and
she lets him be him. So I like, I'm learning
a lot through all these shows about business and different
(38:42):
ways but also relationships and yours. Isn't definitely right or wrong.
It's just one method for the toolbox, and checking in
could be another method. You might use that from now on,
Like I might use that from now and but I
might use your method. I like the toolbox of relationships. Yeah. Yeah,
And you might ask me three years from now, I
might say, how all that ship I told you the
other day with ridiculous? It was stupid by the way.
I've changed my mom many times in my career, and
(39:04):
I think it's important that people look back and say, Okay,
I don't do that anymore. Exactly, you're checking in with
the relationship and what's working, things don't work. Yeah. I
agree with you on that. You grow out of a house,
you grow out of certain techniques, grow out of food
you're reading, grow out of health, health things, you're doing workouts.
So you do all these motivational conferences, largest business conference
in the world, thousands of people worldwide. They're massive. I've
(39:26):
been there. I went there. I spoke in front of
forty people people at the Marlin Stadium. I didn't know
where I was. But I walk out and there's a
car and like fireworks and explosions. I'm like, where the
fund am I? So it's a world and I want
to do something with you because there's these worlds and
people don't know about that. Like you're just uncovering, you're walking,
(39:47):
You're like, there's the people at the Marlin Stadium Super
Bowl weekend, like what is going on? So obviously you
have a massive reach. You have speak to motivators all
the time. Who are the top three speakers that you've
had or seen or experience, like people that are just
electric and really motivating. Kevin Hart was phenomenal. It was
so easy because I'm very much a stand up guy.
(40:09):
Everything is for me? Is what's it called when you
do stand up improv? Yes? So that conversation was extremely
easy with me. Here's a guy that's a black comedian.
Everybody knows who Kevin Hard is, you know, and he
probably wants to be more businessman. I'm a businessman that
probably wants to be a comedian, you know. So, but
the thing that we had in common was this personal
(40:31):
comfort with making mistakes and just you know, just ripping
with an audience. Um. I literally like like the thing
that probably that I'm most scared of it. I would
love to do improv at a comedy store about money.
Guess what, No one knows this, No one, My best
friends don't know this. Okay, I am going up into
(40:52):
a comedy club in New York City and doing stand up.
So for many people. That's as crazy as you shaving
your head and going to pay. Well, I'm standing up
in front of the audience that doesn't know I'm coming.
The club doesn't even know it's me, and they keep saying,
we've had Jerry Seinfeld shop here Kevin Hart unannounced, which
is a lot of people's phones. But who is this person?
So I'm not Kevin Harden. I'm not Jerry Seinfeld. But
(41:13):
it's going to be a shock, and I'm doing it.
I keep looking at Paul, I'm looking doing this and
so what I did? How long were you doing? As
long as I want? I mean at minimum five minutes,
but I might do ten minutes. I mean, I'm just
gonna wing it, but I'm not winging have something to say,
but I'm not. I'm not gonna psyched out. And you
can text Kevin Hart because this was an idea I
had and I've documented it all, meaning just I've written
(41:34):
it down. I emailed and texted and received from every
single one of them, which is shocking. You know, in business,
if you asked ten people for money for PHILANTHROPI or
to do something for you or whatever, you're gonna get
like I can't or don't or write it forward to
my book. I can. I will. Every single person I'm
gonna tell you the names responded to me with passion
and good advice and takeaway. Kevin Neil and Ellen Degenerous,
(41:58):
Chris Rock, Whitney Hummings, Kathy Griffin called me for a
half hour shell Boto bridget evert like major legit comics.
But Kevin Nalen wrote me a one page email. You know,
Chris Rock gave me a whole blurb, like I just
wanted three tips, three tips on doing stand up for
the first time or any time, and so ask Kevin Hart.
(42:19):
Because they were all different, and like the show, they
all like had commonalities but then dissimilarities. You could pick,
like you could listen to Grant cardone and listen to
how he does business to take two things or one thing.
So I'm finding these threads in the show and it's fascinating.
Good luck, good luck, because five minutes can feel like
like sixty minutes if it's not going well. So why
(42:42):
would you keep thinking about I'm just gonna get up
and do it, you know, but I'm taking it seriously,
you know, I'm not just winging and like, oh, funny.
They know that. What's interesting about it is that what
I recognized in speaking to all of them is it's
an art form and it's a craft. So they're passionate
about it. And the fact that I'm not asking them
like help me be fun me. I'm not asking them.
I didn't ask them for jokes. I want to know
(43:02):
about the art form. So they gave different advice, whether
it was breathed just breathed, which is like okay, or
like Chris Rock said, know the first and the last
thing you're gonna say the middles of flow, you know,
like so great? Yeah, so all right, I want to
just hear your life mantra and then let you go
because you're very busy. You know, my life mantra is
(43:26):
success is your duty. That is my battle cry. It's
not an option. Everybody can have it. You know. Everybody
needs it. Your charities need it, your community needs it,
and the people that are watching you need it. People
are watching everyone, and if you're winning, there watching, and
if you're losing, their watching, and if you're just getting by,
(43:48):
everybody knows it. So I mean, you know, I just
want to make a difference. That's why we do these
big conferences like they do make a difference. You ask
me my three top speakers, so Kevin, I love being
with Kevin. Let me see who else. I mean, I've
had so many great like unbelievable. I had Don. People
said our last conference it was phenomenon. Don is the
seventh wealthiest Black American, and I just loved it. He's
(44:10):
a banker guy, So we go from a comedian to
a banker, right. And I'm trying. What I'm trying to
do in those conferences is I'm really trying to erase
the line between entertainment and business, because I don't think
there should be a line there. And then the third
most craziest speaker I've ever met is a chick name stop.
I wasn't fishing grow Okay, well that was I wasn't
(44:31):
fishing at all. I've only done it a couple of times.
We've had you twice. Man. That's I will tell you
this is a truth. Success and success comes in many
different shapes and places. And I will tell you that
I've done this podcast now many times. I think we've
aired probably thirty episodes, and in unexpected places. I had
a great conversation with Dana White who you know, I
(44:52):
had a great conversation with Sandy Hagar. You'd think, I mean,
I had a great conversation with Hillary Clinton, but it
wasn't like you know, the same is that this was.
I think this was my best podcast because it was alive,
it was electric, it was funny, it was unexpected, it
was humanizing. This conversation represents why I'm doing this and
I value your time. And I just for the record,
(45:12):
I think you were excellent. Like I I'm like a
Ted You're the best. You're a Ted X today, Swear
to god ten X. Come on. It's because every time
I'm with you, I'm better. It was wonderful, so fun Okay, bye,
thank you so much. So that was amazing and interesting
and unexpected and alive, and I knew we'd have a
(45:35):
great conversation. But this podcast is about bringing to light
people who are undeniably successful in anyone's opinion, like, no
matter what they are, started from the bottom. Now they're here,
they have created something, they have something to share. This
is a toolbox for success in relationships, in business and
(45:56):
human dynamics and the human condition and the human behavior.
And you know, these people are unexpected. But I choose.
There's no scientific process here. I'm laying in bed at
night and I think to myself, I want to have
Grand Cardona, or I'm watching the Steve Madden the Shoot
Mogul documentary and I text him, I want to have
you my podcast or someone interesting and entertainment or the
automobile industry or apparel like it's just about what's going
(46:21):
to give you the tools and the wisdom and the
insight for your own success. So this podcast is by
far my favorite media platform and my favorite project I
work on. It's just authentic and true to me and
the stories I want to hear and the takeaway for
(46:41):
all of you in life and in business. So I'm
so grateful. That was wonderful and it was a perfect
example of the unexpected. Thank you all for listening. Remember
to rate, review, and subscribe, and we will be talking
again soon. Yeah. Just Be is hosted and executive produced
(47:05):
by me Bethany Frankel. Just Be as a production of
Be Real Productions and I Heart Radio. Our managing producer
is Fiona Smith and our producer is Stephanie Stender. Our
EP is Morgan Levoy. To catch more moments from the show,
follow us on Instagram at just be with Bethany
I think that the term Karen has now morphed, maybe
into something different. I think that in the beginning, when
people were calling people Karen's, it was obviously very critical.
It would be a Karen seemed to be a blonde,
middle aged woman. She voted for Trump. She was labeled
(00:34):
to be a racist, and it was really like a
vicious sort of term. And somehow I feel like Karen
has morphed into being a middle aged woman. It doesn't
really matter who she voted for. I don't think it
matters what her religion is anymore, because I think before
Karen was Christian for some reason, I just don't think
she was a Jewish woman. And I think that now
(00:56):
Karen has morphed into a woman who likes to lodge plaints,
Like if a woman is the person who's staying at hotel,
I don't know, can we see another room or Hi, yeah,
can I get something else on the side, or can
I talk to your manager? Can I speak to a supervisor?
What's your term policy? I need a nonrefundable ticket. You know,
(01:19):
someone who's savvy, slash, annoying and wants to lodge a complaint.
That's what I feel like. It's morphed into because I
know that I was saying something and Paul, my fiance,
said to me, Okay, would you like to lodge a
complaint to Karen? So that's what Karen's become. And I
want to actually talk about that because I don't know
anymore who Karen is. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I never
(01:40):
knew the definition. I know some people who don't even
know what a Karen is, meaning, they don't even know
the term. I've said it to a couple of people
and they've said, what. So I thought it was like
really popular vernacular, like a really popular term, and I
think that maybe that's more on social media, but it's
not so mainstream, like it's not Karen is not Felicia yet,
(02:02):
whereas by Felicia, and I know Felicia is very out.
Felicia is not cool anymore. Felicia's being totally canceled, and
Karen is in. But I just don't have famous Karen is.
And I can tell you one thing. If Karen were Jewish,
she's Judy. Judy wants to lodge a complaint. Judy needs
to talk about no oil, no sauce, steamed broccoli, Send
(02:25):
it back, my eggs Benedict are not soft enough. My
burger is not cooked properly. This just doesn't taste right.
The meat is tough. I ordered medium rare, it's medium.
I would like a refund. I would like to speak
to your boss. Can I have your boss's name? That's Judy? So,
(02:45):
Judy is the Jewish Karen? Okay? Why is there no
male Karen? So? Who's Karen? Bill? Bill, Joe? And what
Bill and Joe is like? What just like? Is a
man who runs it up the flagpole, golfs and goes
on phishing trips with his buddies? Is that is that
(03:08):
Joe feels like Bill Bob? Is it Bob? Or is
it Bill Bob? Bob is the new Karen? Okay, Bob
is the male Karen. We have to get his profile down.
I think he golfs. I think he goes on fishing
trips his buddies. I think he, you know, likes to
go out with his bros and his buddies. It doesn't
(03:28):
say bros, he says buddies. I think he has a
cozy for his beer. I think he has a lake house.
I think he loves an excuse to go to a
Vegas corporate meeting UH sales management trip. I think he
loves the all you can drink, all inclusive hotel vibe
(03:49):
at at the bar and sits in the middle of
the pool and is loud and sing Sweet Caroline in karaoke.
That's Bob, Eat Bob. Meet Bob has a pair of Oakley's.
Meet Bob goes on a purely ski trip with his buddies,
and Meet Bob has Poker night probably right, doesn't Meet
(04:12):
Bob of Poker Night, and like Meet Bob's wife, Karen
is drinking chardonnay or rose at four o'clock with the
girls at the house, spilling the tea. Meet Bob has
sex with his wife three point to five times a
week and four point oh five times on a vacation.
What do you all think? What is the audience? Think?
(04:33):
Always right for you and subscribe And I like hearing
what you have to say from reading your comments, So
tell me is the male Karen Bob? This is going
to be a great one. My guest Today's grand cardon
(04:55):
New York Times best selling author, speaker, social media influencer,
and realist state mogul. He is the most famous person
that you've never heard of. That has so many contacts,
so many connections, so successful, so charismatic, and he started
from the bottom and now he has a portfolio of
(05:15):
assets worth over two billion dollars and trains others on
how to do the same. Today we talked about how
to create a business built for longevity. While humility isn't
a great characteristic, how to overcome fear surrounding money stemming
from childhood and the broken relationship rule. His energy is
contagious and I think you're going to love this episode.
(05:36):
I really did. So. My starter is I didn't know
whether to drink coffee or take a sedative because you
have the most energy. So we'll see afterwards what I
should have taken. So this is Grant Card, doone. Okay.
He is charismatic, he is energetic, He is passionate, driven, hungry, determined,
(06:03):
alive and doesn't stop. He is a business person. He
is a real estate mogul. He is a motivational speaker.
He is a husband, a parent, and he might be
the most famous celebrity that you've know. He's he's the
most famous celebrity you've never heard of. Okay, grand Card,
don't let me let me just say Bethany. I'm a
(06:24):
huge you know how much I love you. Okay, You're phenomenal.
Everybody loves Bethany. And number two, number two things I
want to say. It's just the fact that you said
I'm gonna live like that is a very nice compliment.
So thank you very much. Yeah, you are. It's it's electricity,
it's contagious, it's motivating. It makes sense. This podcast is
specifically and intentionally about started from the bottom hour here
(06:48):
game change or you're a visionary, you're a maverick. You've
done it your way. It's been non traditional. You are
you know, take no prisoners, no no explaining, no complaining,
no apologies, do it your way. And that's how people
really can learn because there are so many different ways
to the Promised Land, and you have your own trajectory,
and I want to humanize you and crystallize you and
(07:12):
sort of give people an understanding of who you actually
are and how you got here. So like, I want
to understand, first of all, how old are you? If
you don't mind me asking, I'm sixty three. That's not true. Yeah,
I was born in I Like, I was just asking.
It's a throw I swear in my life after you're
gonna say in your forties, your sixty three, Wow, holy
(07:34):
sh it. Okay, so that we can go onto this
placent does smoothies you eat every day later but okay, wow, okay,
I'll tell you the secret offline. I'll tell you the
secret one day. Sounds like it's sex, Okay, So we'll
go back to that later. Um, sex or masturbation. We'll
do that later. Okay. So grant they're the same thing,
by the way, okay, with the person you love the most.
(07:54):
I get it. And you do love yourself, which you should. Okay.
So where did you grow up and what's your family dynamic?
Your parents are upgramming your siblings. Yeah, so I grew up.
I grew up in Late Charles, Louisiana refinery town. So
you either were a refinery person there and you were
connected to the unions and did hard labor at the factories,
(08:16):
uh mostly the gas refineries hard labor, or you did
some kind of you know, a sales job. So my
dad died when I was ten years old. He had
made it firmly into the middle class from poverty. Both
of my parents were Italian descent. Their parents came over
My mother's father was born on the ship and never
(08:37):
had papers to live in the US, and so my
grandfather my mother's side, never had papers to live in
the US. So he lived a very dark life, like
he was under the radar, never had an employment situation,
probably never paid taxes, so everything was kind of on
the sly. And then my dad's side completely opposite. They
were shipbuilders from Naples, Italy. They came in settled in Madisonville, Louisiana,
(09:01):
and so my dad had this hard that this hard labor,
do it right, pay the price, work ethic. He's the
first person who went to college and became a you know,
life insurance salesman's stock broker, car salesman. He did all
that kind of stuff. But he really got into the
middle class. And at the age of fifty two, um
(09:23):
with five kids, he died. He died from a heart failure.
So that left my mom. My mom at the time
was I guess she was forty eight with five kids.
She had no this is back in the fifties, housewife.
You know, she had never earned money herself, never held
a job herself, and now she had to manage five kids.
Everything was paid off, the house was paid off, the
(09:43):
cars were paid off. The following week after my dad died,
my mom was selling the house, dumping everything. I'm ten
years old, twin brother were the youngest, and we're sitting
there watching. I'm watching my mom going to terra when
she should have been grieving because she's unloading stuff. And
so this became. You know, as I look back fifty
(10:05):
years back, this is this is what ends up making
me who I am today. I bet you had or
you have still have a bit of money noise. You
knew what it was like to feel scared and desperate
(10:28):
and not have it. And even if we have a
lot of money, you can have noise like where you're
moving things around and you've got to do that to
do this, And you have a lot of real estate,
You're into a lot of different things. Hey, have you
ever had any debt that you didn't want and be
Do you have money noise or noise in any area,
either family noise or food noise or any of that stuff. Yeah. Sure.
(10:49):
Between the age of fifteen, I was so angry that
my dad died, and I was so angry I couldn't
help my mom. Like I've been wanting to work since
my dad died. I'm like, I want to take care
of my mom. And that's been a driving force of mine.
I was raised by a single mother, Like that's who
I know. She and I were best friends, and I
could not help her. I could not get rid of
her angst. And that is that driver, that thing that
(11:11):
you see in me, like this guy just not start.
That's still in me. My mom's passed ten years ago,
but she was my best friend. She took care of me.
She was the one I went to first when I
had a success or failure, even as an adult, but
at the age of fifteen, I was so angry that
I didn't have a man in my life. Part of
why I created this foundation was for kids without fathers
(11:33):
because I wanted a dad. I wanted an uncle, dan,
a mentor, a coach. I wanted something. Someone dies, you
feel abandoned them, like they left you. And because Chelsea
Handler on this show said that when her brother died,
he said to her he was coming back to Martha's vineyard.
He was going away for a certain number of weeks
and he was coming back. He was gonna leave her
(11:53):
here with these people, meaning her other crazy family, and
that he never came back, and she was very angry
about that. Even the professional and logical, but people who
experienced loss can of relate. Yeah, but it was logical
for me because it took me two years to realize
my dad wasn't gonna show up. I was twelve years old,
and I'm like, he ain't coming back, broke. But then
I started, when are my uncle's gonna help me out?
(12:16):
If you've ever heard anybody refer to me as uncle
G I told this story one time and I said, dude,
I am going to be the uncle for others, for
the uncle that wasn't there for me. I had three
uncles and they never showed up for me, and I
don't off about it. So the next person that showed
up was a drug dealer, and he's like, i'll be
your coach, I'll be your mentor, I'll be your daddy.
And I'm like, let's go. And I went on a
(12:37):
ten year binge with drugs. I became a drug addict
between fifteen and twenty five. I was using drugs every day,
overdose three times, had eighty stitches put in my head
and face. Could easily be in prison right now or Dad.
I had three friends that got killed. I went to treatment.
Three of them died while I was in treatment, were killed,
were had bullets put in their heads. So that was
(12:59):
the life grant card owned thirty years ago. I was
the black sheep of my family. Nobody trusted me. My
family didn't trust me, my sisters didn't trust me. Nobody
wanted anything to do with me. I was the only
place I could get a job when I came out
of treatment was a car dealership. And I put my
life together. I quit using drugs. I didn't use any
more drugs for thirty eight years and never went back
(13:21):
to the drug thing. I left the treatment center. They said,
you will definitely be back, and I'm like, why am
I coming back here? I ain't coming back. And they're like, yeah,
because you want to be famous and you want to
write books, and you want to save the world, and
you've got these ideas you're gonna be rich and famous.
I'm like, yeah, dude, I'm gonna do all that ship
And they're like, anybody with that attitude will always come
back their treatment center. I said, bro, I'll never be
(13:41):
back here. I still remember the guy today, Paul. Paul
gave me the inspiration of my life saying you will
be back here, you will be a drug addict for
the rest of your life. You have a disease, I'm like,
this ain't a disease. I'm gonna flip this switch. I'm
gonna use all this energy and I'm gonna take this gift.
The ability to like be locked in on something than
to switch the addiction from disease to gift is what
(14:05):
I've used now for thirty years. Really can propel and
create everything that well. My partner and relief work is
Michael Caponi. He built big houses, like big million dollar
mansions in Miami. After he was a major club promoter
like Ingrid Caesaris and Madonna. He dated a lot of
models and he did a lot of drugs and he
was very addicted. He one day switched. He never went
(14:26):
to a meeting, he just flipped the switch. And he's
been to Haiti like sixty times. We've been all over
the world from the Bahamas. We've done a hundred million
dollars of relief in three years. He flipped it to
something else. Doesn't mean that that isn't like being addicted
to aid or something else, but good. I mean, you know,
what I mean, he's also spiritual. So that's a fascinating
if that's been channeling. Because a person, I guess an
(14:46):
addict has such energy and passion and drive for that,
they've got to get it, They've got to have it,
they have to do it. They wanted their singular focus.
If you can take that sort of addiction and the
singular focus on something else, it makes sense. Everybody has
the ability to be hooked into something to where you
lose sleep. Everybody's done it. When you fall in love,
you go to this. You don't need to eat, you
(15:08):
don't need to sleep, You just want to have sex
and fall into this person's face over and over again.
Bad breath is good breath, and you can't get enough
of it. Please sweat on me like you like sucking
into this, immersed into this universe where you forget everything else.
There is nothing wrong with that. Unfortunately, in our culture today,
anybody that goes all in on anything is somehow labeled sick, diseased, codependent, obsessive, compulsive.
(15:36):
I've been called O, D, D, A, C D, every
every like, every little acronym qute acronym in the world.
I'm like, guys, how about g I f T. That's great. Well,
I know what you're lying. I mean, I understand what
you're like. You know, I'm I'm not saying I'm like you,
but I'm one of these people. You and I are
very on it. There's no no I've got it figured
(15:58):
it out. I'm thinking all the time processing. I may
have a different style, but you know, there's a certain
thing inside many of us, and when it's not channeled,
it goes in the wrong places. Like even for me,
it's humor, and I need a place to put the
humor in the connectivity. For other people, it's just business
and numbers or data. But how do you sustain You've
been married for how many years? Sixty and seventeen years? Okay,
(16:21):
now you've been totally honest and vocal where you did
a clubhouse together about that. It's had its challenges. She's
open about it too. So what is the good, bad,
and the ugly? How do you sustain? I mean, there's
no perfect relationship. That's bullshit. You know. My best friend
was last night complaining about something going on in her marriage.
Has been married for decades. That's an accomplishment. My other
best friend has been married for decades. He's an extrovert.
(16:44):
Like everybody's got their ships. So we're not sugarcoating anything,
but I'm asking an accomplishment is being a team and
being with the same partner for decades. So you've been together,
you have kids. How do you make something work when
you have these big, driven personalities. There's so many different elements.
How do you make it work? What's some formula or
(17:05):
some elements or ingredients. Look, I don't know if I
have a formula. I know that, you know. The thing
for me always is I need to work on me,
not on her. You know, I don't need to work
on her. You know, she's not a nail. I need
to work on me. The only thing I can change
is me. Like when I change me, things get better.
(17:26):
And if she does the same thing, then good. But
I can't make her do that, right, I can't. You know,
she typically blames me for everything that goes wrong. You know,
I am responsible for everything that happens bad, and she
is somehow responsible for everything that happens good. It's just
the way it is, right, So this has been difficulty
in my relationship. I live in a very physical universe.
(17:47):
For me, the universe is a lot of gravity, A lot.
I think you can relate to this. There's a lot
of effort required for me to be successful. Her world,
she does not live in a world where there's effort.
She lives in a very ethereal um. She's an actress, right,
so that's our background in the arts, and and so
(18:07):
her world is a lot lighter than mine is. Mine
has a lot of gravity. You're the peacock. You're the
peacock relationship. Obviously, there's only one peacock. I don't know
about that. You've never heard of it. There's only one
peacock with the blooming feathers taking up the energy in
the room. You're sucking up the energy in the room.
And she's got some of it in her own way.
But she's very much takes up a lot of room
in a room. I'm speaking about more effort effort. I'm
(18:30):
in an effort ban and she is much more in
a kind of a life free. Oh, I'm just gonna
make this happen. I'm gonna secret it. She's gonna secret it.
She's gonna make it happen energetically, and you're likelinding to
make it happen. I am the law of action, and
she is the law of possibility, and and she thinks
she's making this ship happen. But I'm like, bro, none
(18:52):
of this ship's happening without like jet fuel, without refueling,
without pushing through, without like like it's like, my world
is tough. It's just my reality. I could be completely
spiritually unevolved and I'm just an idiot. But I'll tell
you this. It is a version of the peacup because
same thing with me. There can and should only be
(19:14):
one person driving in that way. So you're lucky that
you happen to find a partner who happens to be
able to play and role in this world, your crazy world.
She's beautiful, she's charismatic, she's a good your first lady
or you're you're the first husband, whichever you want to say.
But it can't be easy to live in this electric,
energetic world. How do you find downtime? How do you
find connectivity? How do you find spirituality? How do you
(19:36):
find peace? And like avoid of just anything relaxing. We
don't actually, you know, the game for us is the game,
and we're both very interested in our own spiritual development individually.
We don't believe in the rule is just a broken relationship.
I bring fifty, you bring fifty. We've got a quarter
(19:56):
is what you got? Like, you got broken people coming together.
Two broken people don't a whole. So we work a
lot on our spiritual development. Actually take time to get
away from each other and from our work and go
develop spiritually to understand that, you know, the things that
Elaine and I have in common are a great deal
more than the things we don't have in common. So
(20:16):
anytime there's an out and this, I just say, hey,
what's my grade? Like, Hey, you did this and you
did this. I'm like, what is my grade right now?
I failed those two things? What is my fucking grade
right now? Before God, by the way, I never pitched
perfect to anyone, So I never told her I was perfect.
I told her I would make our lives great, And
I just always go back to that thing, is our
(20:38):
life great? Right? You know? But but look, if we
spend time on the outpoints, we'll just go further down
the tube, the rabbit hole. So we have to spend
time on, Hey, what's working. How do we double down
on that? How do we make that more successful? We
got two kids now they're growing up, things change, like
we have to change. Is the game changes? What are
(21:09):
your kids like? Are they motivated? Do they care about business?
Are they free spirits? Will you allow them to be free? Speak?
My daughter is an artist. She's free. She's not like
me in that way. She's totally could be living in
Malibu in a band, you know, and I like that
she's like that. I'm not looking for her to be me.
So I want to know how you are with your kids. Yeah.
So our kids are nine and eleven. They're both very extroverted,
(21:30):
very social, extremely confident. But they get to do whatever
they want to do. Like, they don't have to be
in our business. They want to be a doctor. They
can be whatever they want to do. They're not entitled
to the money, they're not entitled to the company. If
one of them wants to step up and run things,
they can. If they don't, no problem. It's there are lots.
I don't want to force anything on them, so we
give them a tremendous amount of Now, your show, Undercover
(21:53):
Billionaire talks about building a million dollar business and dainty
days where you start with a hundred dollars. So I
want to get an to the show but I want
to talk about are you one certain that if right
now you just woke up tomorrow and had nothing, Like
you had the clothes on your back, you didn't have
a credit card that work, You probably didn't have credit
Could you right now kill it with nothing? Like starting
(22:16):
right now? But you're not grand card doing, you're not
famous like yeah, So look, this is what Discovery asked
me last year or January before COVID. Nancy Daniels caused
me and says, hey, would you be willing to do
undercover billionaire? I said, I'd be willing to fly out
to l A and talk to you about it. So
I fly out to l A. I meet with Discovery.
She's there. I bring a bag with me. There's a
true story, so I said. So Nancy explained to me
(22:39):
the show. She's like, we're gonna drop you off in
a city. You will not know the city until you
get there. We want to know if you can with
a hundred dollars. You can't use your name, can't use
your credit cards, cannot use your connections, you cannot call
your five employees. Okay, I can't use your social media.
You have to nail this. Only a boy from lake,
(23:01):
can you can you turn it into a million dollar
business in ninety days? And I looked at her. I
said I could not say that. I could have said that. Listen.
I reached down, I grabbed a bag. I put the
bag on the table. In the bag was one million
dollars in cash. I said, not only can I do it,
I'll bet you one million dollars. I'll give you one
(23:22):
million dollars and I'll buy the entire crew a new car.
If I don't hit the million it's and by the way,
I don't need your hundred dollars, and I'll do it
in less than ninety days. You cannot do it less
be famous? Now for real, Grant, what is the show?
The show airs April same week? Is my show? The
Big Shot with Bethany airs that same week? So okay,
(23:44):
let's keep going. I want to hear. This is fucking sick.
So this is pre COVID. Now I leave Mandalaid Bay
in Las Vegas on February. The first person to ever
do the show or the show has happened before. No, no,
the show was done by a guy named Glenn Stearns,
and Glenn didn't hit the target. Glenn's a cool dude.
He did not hit the target, of course not. But
(24:04):
there's one of the things that I told Nancy Daniels. Okay,
I said, Nancy, by the way, this is what I'm
gonna do. I'll bet you a million dollars. I hit
the million dollar mark, but I'm not going for a
million dollars. I'm gonna build a ten million dollar business
in under nine dead dead. I don't know what I do.
And the money is you are money. The money is now.
You are money. You have that money. You made ten
million dollars. The business that we build. This you found somebody,
(24:27):
of course, but somebody somebody, I don't know anybody. They
dropped me off from Pueblo, Colorado. Do you know anybody
in Pueblo? No? So this is this is what I'm doing.
I leave Mandalaid Bay. I was with Kevin Hart. I'm
interviewed Kevin Hart, John travel to Dana White, Floyd Mayweather.
We are twelve thousand person event. You've been to our events.
You spoke at my thirty thousand person event. We had
(24:49):
that event that year in Las Vegas. I literally leave
Kevin Hart. I go shave my head in my penhouse,
get on my plane. I put on this pair of
pants right here that have on. I have to t shirts,
two pairs of pants. They give me an old pair
of boots. A new phone, has no contacts. They take
this phone from me. Okay, we flow my plane to Lamar, Colorado.
(25:13):
I'd drive two hours in a piece of ship. Truck
is a terrible truck. You'll see the show. You'll see it.
And I get to Pueblo at three o'clock in the afternoon.
The sun's gonna go down in three and a half hours.
I have no water and no food and no place
to sleep. Okay, now watch this over ten days. I
don't spend one penny in ten days. The first thing
(25:34):
I did when I got to Pueblos I took the
hundred dollars and brought it to the bank and dropped
it off, opened a Welsh fargo account and got rid
of the hundred dollars. And discoveries like, why are you
putting this money in the bank. I'm like, because I
don't need a hundred dollars. I don't need anything. I
don't I don't need a dead Benjamin Franklin, you know.
And so they're like, we need you to spend that money.
(25:55):
I didn't spend that money for eight four days. I
never spent did no. I eat beans and rice for days.
If you made money, but you couldn't take any of
the money you made, if you made it all this money, Yeah,
whatever I wanted to do, I could do. You can't
break the law, but anything else is on the table.
I'm dying. I love this. This is amazing. Audience can
actually binge the entire series on Discovery Plus because it's
(26:16):
sitting there right now. I can watch it now. Yeah,
you can watch it right now Discovery Plus. If you
have six dollars. I have six dollars and I'm gonna
watch it with Paul. I'm freaking out. I can't wait.
This is so exciting. Wow. And the reason I did
the show was because of your question. The number one
question people ask me is if you weren't Grant Cardonne,
if you didn't have all these people following you on
social media, if you didn't have the money in the
plane and all this stuff, could you make it all
(26:39):
over again? And this show is going to prove to
you you don't need money. You do need a strategy.
You know, you don't need to be in your own
little hometown that actually might be a benefit to you,
and it doesn't take a long time. Cuban said he
doesn't need the five said, I give it. If you
had to start over, I give you five. That he was,
I don't need the five thousand. He said, the same thing.
It's so interesting. This is why the show is interesting
(26:59):
because some of the questions I asked people who have
done it in very different ways, compelling ways interesting. Don't
get dressed up in a three piece suits in a
cubicle like whatever it is I'm saying. I'm talking to charismatic,
interesting people and they all say similar things that are
so crazy. Like so he was like, I don't need
your money, Like I would take the five thousand. He's like,
I don't need the money. I would go, I would
get a job because the money is not what it's about,
(27:20):
is what you're saying. It's not about the money. I
always say, it's never about the money, but it's ultimately
about that. And you know it's about the money. So
you know you've done a lot of reality shows. You
know a lot of that is not reality. This I
can promise you I was there for the entire time.
I never got any help. This was not produced. Everything
that happened happened. I lost two to multimillion dollar deals
(27:43):
because I got discovered. Because part of the deal is
if I get discovered. Okayd all right. So Mark Cuban
is the person who said that I'm one of the
great branders of all time, and I'm telling you you
would give me a run for my money. I mean,
there's something we should do together. I don't know what
it is. It I told you I want to produce
a show with you. Yet let's go. Let's go, girl,
Come on. So now I understand why you're the top
(28:05):
crowdfunder in the world, raising five hundred million dollars in equity.
So now it's all making a lot of sense. You
have a hunger and a drive. So do you think
it's really what you saw in your father and just
the lack thereof in your mother or do you think
it's inside Do you think it's just inside of you?
Just baby, I was born this way, like auga says,
(28:26):
and look, I might not be right on this, but
I think that everybody has the potential to do something
much greater than they're doing. I know, since I was
a little boy, I had this like, I know I
can be somebody. You felt it, yeah, And I think
if everybody was honest, if you weren't so tired to
this idea that humility is such a great characteristic, which
I'm not sure that it is. If you look up
(28:48):
the word in the dictionary, it's not a very appealing
word to be humble is not like, it's not something
you would want your kids to be if you look
the word up in the dictionary and just didn't assume
what it meant. But I think, quietly secret everybody thinks
they have something in them the special. And I just
happened to be one of those people that keeps telling
people I know, dude, I know, I know I'm supposed
to be somebody special. I know I'm supposed to do
(29:10):
something significant and important, and and I have just held that.
I think if my dad was here today, because he
did really well by us, but I think he would
look today and say, hey, I went for the middle
class and he got the middle class. And now, based
on how things turned out that my mom was having
an unload stuff the next week, he would not feel
(29:31):
like he actually set our family upright. I have certain goals,
but and I'm taking this thing into the end zone.
I can feel it, I know it. This business of mine,
I've doubled down. I've gone back to the tables. I've
split my aces. I already made a lot of money
and was on the cover of Forbes, but I decided
not for the money, for the game, for all of it.
But then you get into it and you're like, all right,
the money's a label for it, you know, the philanthropy
(29:53):
is a good thing that you can do to give back.
It all kind of becomes these these sort of goal posts,
and yeah, the end zone is my all those set
your goals high, you know, if the impossible as possible.
But do you believe as a percentage of luck? What
what percentage are you lucky? What percentage are you smart? Well,
I'm not a lucky guy, So I'm not lucky on
the tables. I'm not lucky with the races. That's not
(30:15):
been my deal. If anybody at the table is gonna lose,
I'm probably gonna get the worst hand I've I've sat
there with where the fucking cards were So with me,
I'm like, God, damn, how do I keep getting a fourteen?
I don't know, Maybe it's a mental thing. But it's
why I love real estate, because real estates to me,
is like a no brainer thing by the same kind
of assets over and over. I have to have the
(30:36):
cash flow and time. Time becomes my friend. So as
long as I have enough time, I know if I
can sit at that deck long enough. In a real
estate deal, it's just when do I make a triple
or a quadruple. So your favorite business is real estate
of all your businesses, sounds like you're passionate about it. Well,
my favorite. My favorite business is helping people because it's
just that thing pays in so many ways. So I
(30:57):
love doing those conferences. But the real estate is the
thing that will outlive me. I mean, both of them
are gonna live longer than me. The real estate could
live a hundred years after me and take care of
the investors and our family and our charities. Our charities
are set up to be paid fifty years after I'm dead.
Every month like clock work out of cash flow. But
(31:18):
you know the books and the programs and the webinars
and Cardon University I've helped, you know, I can't go
anywhere today where some young kid twenty two years old man, uncle, gee,
what's going on? Man? You change my life? So you
know that stuff feels really good too. So is there
a number? Like, for me, being totally transparent, the number
just represents what the thing is, you know. But the
Skinny Girl brand, which is a hundred million dollar brand,
(31:40):
which for me is a you know, a big deal,
and it's still sort of new, and I only have
a couple of people working you know with me in
my infrastructure. It's just like three or four people. So
I'm proud of that. You know, no debt. I own
a hundred percent of it, all of that. So the
goal is to take that and all the brands to
be like, you know, a billion dollar brand or of
several hundred million dollar brands. So that's a goal. Like,
(32:00):
that's sort of that's the end zone. Doesn't mean I'm leaving.
It just means it's a nice major thing to sort
of work towards. And with the philanthropy, we did three
unti million dollars, I'd like to take that getting too.
Three UNTI million dollars and three years getting two billion
dollars doesn't sound that far if we I mean, because
now once you do it, it becomes exponentially once you
get on the board. Once you have a hundred million
(32:22):
dollar business, you can have five hundred million dollar business
in a second. So what is your goal post? You know,
what's the point of all this? What do you guys
want when you look at a lane and do you
have the same goals? Do you say we're gonna do
this and then what happens? Okay? I would love to
take card own capital to forty four the number not five.
Four is my lucky number. Well, I started. My first
goal in real estate was to own twenty units. We
(32:45):
have nine thousand. That was my first target was twenty units.
I wanted to make ten thousand dollars a free cash flow. Okay,
that was like okay, if I can get there, I'm done.
My first deal with thirty eight units, it was twice
what my whole goal was. So then, as you know,
once you start winning races, you're like ship man like
not only that, if you're going to do it, like
(33:05):
if you're going to open up a restaurant. Of course,
it's not easy to say to someone who only has
the money to open up a small restaurant. But I
was speaking to Mark Packer, who owns all the marquees
and the tows and all that. And when we were
sitting in this restaurant, dirty French, I said, this would
have been a great space, and he said I was
offered the space. But if I'm gonna open something, I
might as well open something big that can generate a revenue.
Because it's gonna take the same amount of time and
(33:26):
effort to do a tiny restaurant and the same amount
of aggravation and liability than to do a big restaurant.
So what you're saying is it's gonna be the same
thing for me if I do a relief effort, and
it's it was just as hard to get a hundred
pairs of rain boots for Texas as it is now
to do fifty million dollars in Ppe. So why not
just go all the way, same energy, same effort. It
(33:49):
might not even be harder to go bigger. It might
actually be harder to go smaller than it is to
go bigger. I know. I remember, for twenty years I
built a business is big enough to take care of
our family and not big enough to take care of
other people's families, And that business was harder to operate
than the company I had today. Running a business with
(34:10):
three people was harder than running a business with five.
I believe you. The small management of people is a suck.
It sucks you. Yeah, I agree, And there's no big payoff. Okay.
And this is the problem with the middle class. The
middle class is the most overlooked, punished, and oppressed group
of people on planet Earth. It's not people in poverty.
They get attention every day that things aren't fair. Everybody
(34:31):
knows that. And the super rich they never have a problem.
Things go bad, it gets better for him. But the
people in the middle that are just getting by. They
got two cars, they got a nice little house. They're
worried all the time. By the way, you can tell
their word, because they're saving money for retirement that may
never happen. They may not even live to that day.
They're saving money in the banks, and the banks pay
(34:51):
them nothing. I mean, the whole thing, the big scam
in America is the middle class is someplace of freedom
when the truth is is just enough until it not.
And that's where my mom and dad lived. That's how
I grew up. I grew up in this constant fear
of my mother. She's constantly clipping coupons, looking for the
best deal, buying a used car when we should have
(35:12):
bought a new car, you know, moving homes because she
was worried about the maintenance. So that kind of built
my whole, like, Hey, I don't want to own a home.
I want to own three units. I'll rent where I
live and own where other people rent from me, and
I'll buy my dumb watch out of not earned income.
But right, So, who are your three best friends? My
(35:33):
three best friends? Man? Do I have three best friends?
I don't know. You have one best friend? Uh No,
probably a lot of friends were not a best friend.
That's very interesting. What if somebody's going with your wife
that's serious and you're upset about it and you want
to talk about it, who do you call? I would
never talk to anyone about my wife. I would go
handle myself. I wouldn't call you and say, oh my god,
(35:54):
me and Elena hadn't had sex in three weeks, or hey,
me and Elena I had to fight. I don't need
your opinion about me and Lena that. I would never
involve a third party in one of our different problems.
Trusting people, No, I don't trust people with I would
not give that issue to you. I don't think it's
fair to you. I don't think it's fair to Elena.
I need to go handle myself. I would go handle
(36:14):
myself with my church and say, hey, I got some
issues here. But do you go to Elena to tell
her like the thing that happens, the exciting thing that happens,
the deal that happens that the show you got the show?
Did you call her first? When I was doing Undercover Billionaire?
I mean, I watched the first two minutes of Glenn
Stearns doing that show, and I'm I called Elena because
Discovery said, hey, just go watch the first episode. I
(36:35):
watched seconds. I call that we're doing this show, and
it was we doing We're doing this show. But that
doesn't sound collaborative, But it is collaborative because we know
different people are in charge of different things in the household.
I like that. So you're it's where the fish are,
the fish were there, You're we're going. The team is moving.
There's not two decision makers on certain things like finances.
(36:56):
There's one decision maker. Interesting, there's one core her back,
there's one coach. There's one guy running that play. If
she's kicking the field goal. I'm not kicking and I
have no opinion about anything. If she's running X, she
runs X, and we were lane or wrong or lane
or right. So you're rabbit Craft, she's Belichick, and you're
just like not, you're do any different things. But yeah,
(37:17):
that's right. There's never two cooks. And that's a good
note forever on at home, by the way, that because
everyone wants to be so collaborative and that might not work. Okay,
I like that because what that does is that adds
time and it adds doubt. If I got a call in, hey,
do you think I should buy this deal? Well, man,
if I don't know, maybe I shouldn't be buying the deal.
How long did that take to build up? Did you
start that way? Or that's an evolution? Like is that
(37:37):
from the beginning? No, No, we got married in two
thousand four, two thousand and eight. We had to get
our ship together because two thousand and eight, like the
honeymoon was off. Now the band aid been pulled, and
we were just in this honeymoon stage of being married
and weren't really taking life seriously until the global economic collapse,
where it's like Okay, who's running what she quld be
(37:59):
in an interest In two thousand eight, She's like, okay,
I throw in the towel on the active thing. I'm
on board with you. You have a better chance of
taking us to the finish line than I do. That's
changing now, right. I like that? Like Jesse, It'sler said
that everyone This is another iteration of the show is
the relationship aspect, you know, always focus on the dynamic
because it doesn't matter about the other ship if you
(38:19):
can't hold your relationship together. So one of the things
he was saying was that they check in with each
other and they could make an appointment for like how
are you what's going on with you today? Not like
how is your day? But I mean like are you good?
Are we good? Like they check in with each other,
and that he lets her be her and fly and
she lets him be him. So I like, I'm learning
a lot through all these shows about business and different
(38:42):
ways but also relationships and yours. Isn't definitely right or wrong.
It's just one method for the toolbox, and checking in
could be another method. You might use that from now on,
Like I might use that from now and but I
might use your method. I like the toolbox of relationships. Yeah. Yeah,
And you might ask me three years from now, I
might say, how all that ship I told you the
other day with ridiculous? It was stupid by the way.
I've changed my mom many times in my career, and
(39:04):
I think it's important that people look back and say, Okay,
I don't do that anymore. Exactly, you're checking in with
the relationship and what's working, things don't work. Yeah. I
agree with you on that. You grow out of a house,
you grow out of certain techniques, grow out of food
you're reading, grow out of health, health things, you're doing workouts.
So you do all these motivational conferences, largest business conference
in the world, thousands of people worldwide. They're massive. I've
(39:26):
been there. I went there. I spoke in front of
forty people people at the Marlin Stadium. I didn't know
where I was. But I walk out and there's a
car and like fireworks and explosions. I'm like, where the
fund am I? So it's a world and I want
to do something with you because there's these worlds and
people don't know about that. Like you're just uncovering, you're walking,
(39:47):
You're like, there's the people at the Marlin Stadium Super
Bowl weekend, like what is going on? So obviously you
have a massive reach. You have speak to motivators all
the time. Who are the top three speakers that you've
had or seen or experience, like people that are just
electric and really motivating. Kevin Hart was phenomenal. It was
so easy because I'm very much a stand up guy.
(40:09):
Everything is for me? Is what's it called when you
do stand up improv? Yes? So that conversation was extremely
easy with me. Here's a guy that's a black comedian.
Everybody knows who Kevin Hard is, you know, and he
probably wants to be more businessman. I'm a businessman that
probably wants to be a comedian, you know. So, but
the thing that we had in common was this personal
(40:31):
comfort with making mistakes and just you know, just ripping
with an audience. Um. I literally like like the thing
that probably that I'm most scared of it. I would
love to do improv at a comedy store about money.
Guess what, No one knows this, No one, My best
friends don't know this. Okay, I am going up into
(40:52):
a comedy club in New York City and doing stand up.
So for many people. That's as crazy as you shaving
your head and going to pay. Well, I'm standing up
in front of the audience that doesn't know I'm coming.
The club doesn't even know it's me, and they keep saying,
we've had Jerry Seinfeld shop here Kevin Hart unannounced, which
is a lot of people's phones. But who is this person?
So I'm not Kevin Harden. I'm not Jerry Seinfeld. But
(41:13):
it's going to be a shock, and I'm doing it.
I keep looking at Paul, I'm looking doing this and
so what I did? How long were you doing? As
long as I want? I mean at minimum five minutes,
but I might do ten minutes. I mean, I'm just
gonna wing it, but I'm not winging have something to say,
but I'm not. I'm not gonna psyched out. And you
can text Kevin Hart because this was an idea I
had and I've documented it all, meaning just I've written
(41:34):
it down. I emailed and texted and received from every
single one of them, which is shocking. You know, in business,
if you asked ten people for money for PHILANTHROPI or
to do something for you or whatever, you're gonna get
like I can't or don't or write it forward to
my book. I can. I will. Every single person I'm
gonna tell you the names responded to me with passion
and good advice and takeaway. Kevin Neil and Ellen Degenerous,
(41:58):
Chris Rock, Whitney Hummings, Kathy Griffin called me for a
half hour shell Boto bridget evert like major legit comics.
But Kevin Nalen wrote me a one page email. You know,
Chris Rock gave me a whole blurb, like I just
wanted three tips, three tips on doing stand up for
the first time or any time, and so ask Kevin Hart.
(42:19):
Because they were all different, and like the show, they
all like had commonalities but then dissimilarities. You could pick,
like you could listen to Grant cardone and listen to
how he does business to take two things or one thing.
So I'm finding these threads in the show and it's fascinating.
Good luck, good luck, because five minutes can feel like
like sixty minutes if it's not going well. So why
(42:42):
would you keep thinking about I'm just gonna get up
and do it, you know, but I'm taking it seriously,
you know, I'm not just winging and like, oh, funny.
They know that. What's interesting about it is that what
I recognized in speaking to all of them is it's
an art form and it's a craft. So they're passionate
about it. And the fact that I'm not asking them
like help me be fun me. I'm not asking them.
I didn't ask them for jokes. I want to know
(43:02):
about the art form. So they gave different advice, whether
it was breathed just breathed, which is like okay, or
like Chris Rock said, know the first and the last
thing you're gonna say the middles of flow, you know,
like so great? Yeah, so all right, I want to
just hear your life mantra and then let you go
because you're very busy. You know, my life mantra is
(43:26):
success is your duty. That is my battle cry. It's
not an option. Everybody can have it. You know. Everybody
needs it. Your charities need it, your community needs it,
and the people that are watching you need it. People
are watching everyone, and if you're winning, there watching, and
if you're losing, their watching, and if you're just getting by,
(43:48):
everybody knows it. So I mean, you know, I just
want to make a difference. That's why we do these
big conferences like they do make a difference. You ask
me my three top speakers, so Kevin, I love being
with Kevin. Let me see who else. I mean, I've
had so many great like unbelievable. I had Don. People
said our last conference it was phenomenon. Don is the
seventh wealthiest Black American, and I just loved it. He's
(44:10):
a banker guy, So we go from a comedian to
a banker, right. And I'm trying. What I'm trying to
do in those conferences is I'm really trying to erase
the line between entertainment and business, because I don't think
there should be a line there. And then the third
most craziest speaker I've ever met is a chick name stop.
I wasn't fishing grow Okay, well that was I wasn't
(44:31):
fishing at all. I've only done it a couple of times.
We've had you twice. Man. That's I will tell you
this is a truth. Success and success comes in many
different shapes and places. And I will tell you that
I've done this podcast now many times. I think we've
aired probably thirty episodes, and in unexpected places. I had
a great conversation with Dana White who you know, I
(44:52):
had a great conversation with Sandy Hagar. You'd think, I mean,
I had a great conversation with Hillary Clinton, but it
wasn't like you know, the same is that this was.
I think this was my best podcast because it was alive,
it was electric, it was funny, it was unexpected, it
was humanizing. This conversation represents why I'm doing this and
I value your time. And I just for the record,
(45:12):
I think you were excellent. Like I I'm like a
Ted You're the best. You're a Ted X today, Swear
to god ten X. Come on. It's because every time
I'm with you, I'm better. It was wonderful, so fun Okay, bye,
thank you so much. So that was amazing and interesting
and unexpected and alive, and I knew we'd have a
(45:35):
great conversation. But this podcast is about bringing to light
people who are undeniably successful in anyone's opinion, like, no
matter what they are, started from the bottom. Now they're here,
they have created something, they have something to share. This
is a toolbox for success in relationships, in business and
(45:56):
human dynamics and the human condition and the human behavior.
And you know, these people are unexpected. But I choose.
There's no scientific process here. I'm laying in bed at
night and I think to myself, I want to have
Grand Cardona, or I'm watching the Steve Madden the Shoot
Mogul documentary and I text him, I want to have
you my podcast or someone interesting and entertainment or the
automobile industry or apparel like it's just about what's going
(46:21):
to give you the tools and the wisdom and the
insight for your own success. So this podcast is by
far my favorite media platform and my favorite project I
work on. It's just authentic and true to me and
the stories I want to hear and the takeaway for
(46:41):
all of you in life and in business. So I'm
so grateful. That was wonderful and it was a perfect
example of the unexpected. Thank you all for listening. Remember
to rate, review, and subscribe, and we will be talking
again soon. Yeah. Just Be is hosted and executive produced
(47:05):
by me Bethany Frankel. Just Be as a production of
Be Real Productions and I Heart Radio. Our managing producer
is Fiona Smith and our producer is Stephanie Stender. Our
EP is Morgan Levoy. To catch more moments from the show,
follow us on Instagram at just be with Bethany
Host
Bethenny Frankel
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