Entrepreneurship, Business, Economy, Sales, and Real Estate Leadership Lessons from Grant Cardone
Grant Cardone is one of the most inspirational Real Estate and Sales Titans out there. I recommend watching a select few of his videos like the ones I posted below where he speaks truthfully and honestly about the situation of the American Economy. Grant has something important to say that is uncomfortable and unsettling to talk about but that I agree with.
He believes that if you want to be financially successful today, it is brutally hard because the middle class is slowly dying. The Covid19 Pandemic has put this into greater perspective with a few billionaires getting richer, and many people getting wiped out from the working and middle class and even small businesses and middle managers struggling. Although there are debates about income inequality and corporate taxation, and the ethics of the economic predicament we find ourselves in with these massive dualities, these economic cycles always repeat themselves with one common theme - the rich get richer and the middle class shrinks. Grant says “The Market Disciplines those who Cannot Discipline Themselves”.
And so the people who are not prepared mentally or financially always suffer especially during these cycles because the next cycle always gets worse for the unprepared but better for the prepared. After the Great Recession between 2007 and 2009, the economy got tougher for most people and after Covid19 in 2020 the economy got brutal for most people. Something else happened during this time however, that amplified the Big Shift. The people who continued learning, building skills and selling themselves online and trying to succeed in the new economy (the digital one) are now pretty successful. And these people can be in any industry, but they had to be obsessed and passionate.
They also had to be at the top of their game and constantly learning trying to get better. It could include anyone from a rapper, to an author to an entrepreneur to an executive but it definitely had to do with skills and the ability to sell them well. In fact, I think that the education system is outdated today and people have too narrow a view of what the perfect “insert candidate“ should like for any role. I personally think having multiple skills and being agile and a lifelong learner is critical. Now, they should be synergistic with your vision or purpose and there needs to be alignment with your goals and objectives within your industry.
But getting good at multiple things can only help, and at the very minimum at least trying to get better and better at skills such as networking, or digital marketing, copywriting, research, investing or technology can only help. Because many of these are lifelong and transferable skills. Personal branding is also crucial. People are changing jobs much more often today (especially digital natives and tech-savvy Millennials and Gen Z who live on the internet and are hooked to their screens and plugged in to influencers). Grant Cardone said that everyone should be doing personal branding and social media today because that’s the branding that carries over and in today’s noisy online world, individuals or companies that fail to market themselves well constantly will face challenges, as we continue to become more and more digitalized and networked online as a society. This is especially true if you are an entrepreneur, business leader, or a blogger/author.
Grant said in a 2013 video before this, but after the Great Recession between 2007 and 2009, that after Lehman Brothers collapsed and he lost his job, he didn’t have a name for himself so he immediately wrote his first book, making his brand, doing seminars, leveraging social media and got very serious about thinking for the long-term and competing in the new economy that was starting to become more digital after the advent of the Apple iPhone in 2007.
He also gives the right reasons for why this is. There are 3 components to this: the first is that many people come to America to go to college and join the middle class, but then end up staying in the middle class and stagnate by staying in jobs that they usually hate, are either not good at, passionate about or obsessed with, while the people at the top are playing a different game altogether, by doing things very differently in terms of thinking about taking entrepreneurial risks, learning multiple high-income skills, business-building, networking and long-term investing. People should not be dependent on one source of income from a job or a gig especially in today’s economy. People should try to build out multiple streams of income and cash flow and keep branching out as much as possible.
He also speaks about how digital technologies such as the internet, social media and smartphones have completely disrupted both the education system as well as the middle class and the pace of business. So people have to start thinking differently in the digital age and start using these technologies to their advantage. People also have to try to operate at their highest potential and start producing more than they consume, try to become thought-leaders and dominate their respective industries and become so great at what they do, whatever that is, that they become irreplaceable. And the only way to do that is to truly be obsessed, highly passionate and keep pushing through tough times and failures.
I think today, where things seem so cutthroat and fast-paced, people should try to dominate or improve their lives or education or businesses out of their personal passion and not out of what they think society expects from them. Grant Cardone says this as well. Sometimes you can’t listen to what mainstream media, mainstream society, your neighbors, your friends or your family are telling you. That’s because the world is no longer local and linear. Because of the internet the world has now become globalized and exponential so you have much more opportunities to compete in the marketplace by leveraging your passions. I think many of the titans of industry or many of the superstars we hear about who are winning or dominating their industry were genuinely passionate about what they did and genuinely loved it to grind harder than others and stick in the game longer and outlast others.
But why this framework of dominating the game is so valuable is because unfortunately it is very tough to rise above all the noise and your competition as well in today’s world because we are in a winner-takes-all economy across every sector and industry where a few top performers win big while the rest stagnate. And then it becomes exponentially harder to play catch up, so its good to always be in that mindset of giving it your all in whatever you are doing and trying to perform to your upper limits as long as you can do it sustainably and not burnout of course.
Grant has 2 popular sayings that I like “Be Obsessed or Be Average” and “Everything in Life is a Sale and Everything You Want in Life is a Commission”.
I think that goes back to his earlier point about how it’s easier to rise in your respective field or industry or whatever it may be if your absolutely obsessed about it. And it’s also crucial to know yourself, your skills and abilities, sell yourself, become well-known, respected and great in your field to rise above. And I think the other saying has a deeper meaning where in today’s world we are constantly being bombarded by subtle sales tactics even if it doesn’t seem like it. We are constantly being sold by other people’s dreams or other companies’ products, or the constant stream of news we should watch by the mainstream media. That’s why its much better to try to sell ourselves and our own dreams, our own companies’ products and the news that is relevant to us rather than just eating up whatever is thrown to us by the mainstream media or even by our own social media feeds and bubbles.
Consume content to genuinely learn what any given thought leader is saying, but more importantly, learn their mental models, and how they think rather than just what they say, because that will quickly allow you to start applying what they say. And then Grant also says to produce more than you consume. Instead of just watching content, reading books, going to seminars and conferences, following influencers on social media, produce your own social media content, run build your own social media channels and following, speak at seminars and conferences become an influencer in your space/spaces and become a social media influencer. And try to be the best, because it’s very competitive everywhere.
Grant Cardone has great advice on building large companies, scaling profits, hiring people, motivating and firing up prospective employees and customers, and building a great culture as well as driving his core vision, mission and purpose for young entrepreneurs or seasoned executives. He also has great advice for increasing sales and product marketing.
That’s why Grant Cardone encourages The 10X Rule and always thinking 10 times bigger in regards to everything you do in your life and business. 10 times in terms of the effort you put in and 10 times in terms of the results you want. He also encourages young people to think about valuing their time much more seriously, not go out on weekends drinking, drugging or being under the influence, start paying the price of hard work now in order to enjoy a better life and future later. Grant admits that money and financial or business success doesn’t solve all of our problems, but it solves many of them from being able to pay the bills and keep your head above water so you’re not living paycheck to paycheck and you have more time for yourself, your family, friends and if you have a business, money for the business and for your employees.