Grant Cardone's Top 10 Rules for Success

Grant Cardone is a real estate investor, sales trainer, and founder of Cardone Capital who built a multi-billion dollar portfolio company and one of the largest sales training brands in the world. He went from battling drug addiction in his 20s and struggling to find direction after his father's death to controlling billions in real estate assets and becoming one of the most recognized voices in entrepreneurship and sales. Need motivation?

Watch the top 10 with Believe Nation.

And if you've been here before, drop a hashtag #believe in the comments below so I can feature you here in a future video. And if you're new, welcome to Believe Nation, the only channel that helps you believe in yourself daily, one video at a time. Okay, let's kick it off with rule number 1: set big targets.

I'm going to get the best shape of my life in 2026. What are you going to do? I'm going to get my finances in the best shape of their life in 2026. I'm going to make sure every one of my businesses or divisions are pumping. I want every graph up this year. I have strategies to do that. Both my health, my family and my business? How can I expand them all? Also this year, I want to start 2 new businesses, 2 new divisions. And why am I telling you all this? Because this is how you should be thinking. This is part of those 7 steps.

It's the targets.

The first thing that you have to do is get the targets right, because if you don't get the targets right, you're not going to do any of the work necessary to hit any of the targets because the targets are so small.

Well, number 2 is serve others.

When people talk about Grant Cardone's story 50 years from now, what chapter do you hope they start with?

I hope they start with the service chapter.

You know, I think a lot of people miss that, that we're serving people every day. Every day. Like when I was a kid, I lost my father and I wanted somebody to show me the way. And so I was very, very angry about that for probably, I don't know, a good 15 or 20 years of my life. I was angry that I didn't have somebody to show me the way. I promised one day, I said, one day I'm going to become somebody and I'm going to give other people what I didn't get given. I hope people know me as a man of service and somebody that cared about people I didn't even know, wouldn't even meet. I mean, I didn't know you guys were going to walk in here one day.

Yeah, you know, that's so super cool to me that I transmitted some energy, some, some intelligence in a whole different 26-hour flight away.

Yeah, like, I didn't know you. I didn't know it was going to hit you. You know how many people it probably hit that didn't respond, that didn't see it, that didn't look at it.

It hit you and at least you didn't like it, you know, which is a hit, by the way.

Because if it hits somebody and they don't like it, that means they saw it. And so the fact that you saw it, had a reaction, it was negative, no big deal. No interest or disagreement is interest. So that was cool. You know, that's cool that you saw it. And I hope other people, maybe when I'm not even here anymore, it's still transmitting on people to get them to think a little bigger.

Rule number 3 is learn how to market.

If you don't market, nobody knows you. If nobody knows you, nobody flows you. Nobody flows you, the income stops. The income stops, you quit hiring people. You quit hiring people, my business gets bad too, right? Because the economy gets bad. It's a wheel, the wheel of success. So you have to learn how to market. You have to become a marketing genius. I'm telling you, you cannot delegate this. You can't give it to a company. The number 1 job of the CEO of your company, the owner, the boss, you is to market yourself, to market yourself through success. I recently got rid of somebody in my company. Uh, that did a decent job.

He's like, why are you getting rid of me?

I said, because you didn't do an exceptional job, bro. He's like, yeah, but I did this and this and this. I paid you to do those things. And the problem is you've had so much turnover in your department that you're just giving me problems constantly. I don't want the turnover in that department. I want to know who's in this division. I want to walk in and recognize their faces and not walk in and say, I'm not going to even learn their name because they won't be here long enough. Okay, you're losing people. Okay, so I don't want to do that anymore. I did it 3 years with this guy. I don't want to do it anymore. Now that's a step. That's part of the success wheel. You have to know when to get rid of people. You also have to know how to bring people into your organization through your marketing. Marketing is not just for sales, it's for marketing to people and internally to make sure your people are excited and building a strong culture that's excited about your business.

Well, number 4 is keep showing up.

What's the hardest moment in your 20s when you thought it was over? You thought you was going to quit. When was that?

I mean, there was a lot of them, bro.

Like, just one.

Just one. You just want one?

Just one.

Your time is valuable.

Yeah, uh, I mean, there was— but there's not one. Like, I want everybody to know, like, there's not one struggle, you know? There's not one moment that you break through. There's like— you just got to keep showing up. Like, I'm still showing up today. I asked my daughter on the way over here, I said, you think we're gonna make it? And she starts playing the music to Succession.

Rocky?

No, the Succession music. She's like, oh yeah, we're gonna make it. My daughter's 16 years old, and she literally told me this morning, she's like, I think more about how to make this the next level. So the point is, like, I think the struggle is always there, the wonderment, the curiosity, hopefully, but the not knowing. You don't know. Nobody knows if you're going to make it or not. And so whether it was me trying to become, you know, I'm going to college and I'm like, am I, am I going to even pass college? Like, am I going to pass this law test? Am I going to pass this accounting test? I didn't prepare for it. I didn't study. So I'm like, you know, there's about a 70% chance that I could pass this test without studying, which is what I did. But You know, I wasn't learning anything. And then when I had my drug problem for 10 years, I'm like, am I ever gonna be able to quit this drug, you know, and stop using drugs? And then one day I finally did. But you don't know, you know, you bad relationships, you know, you're with somebody that you're like, I'm in a relationship, I like this person, but I know it's not gonna work. There's a million things that happen in a career. And I just would tell everybody, don't make too big a deal about anything that's happening to you right now. You're gonna look back later, hopefully, and you're going to be like, that was nothing. What was I even worrying about? Because if the dream's this big, you know, the thing you're in right now is probably not a thing.

What do you keep reminding yourself every time you go through those struggles?

Don't quit, man. Just don't quit, man. Don't quit. If you don't quit, you can win. The only way you lose this game is quitting.

Also, if you want to take real action after this video, I made a free worksheet just for you. It covers the top lessons from today, gives you space to write your biggest takeaways, and helps you build a simple action plan. It's 100% free. Just click the link in the description to go grab it. I'll see you there. Rule number 5 is fulfill your potential.

I grew up— my dad died when I was 10 years old. My dad was busy at work all day long, okay? He had 5 kids to fund. Uh, at 40— at 48 years old, he had his 4th and 5th kid coming. They had planned out their, their kids and their budget. This is back in the '50s, right, when you're managing money and people were responsible back then. And my dad's going to work every day. It's a single earner household. Mom's taking care of the family. Bang, she finds out she's pregnant with twins. He's 48. He just lost his job. Stress in the family. He's trying to figure out how is he going to make all this work. This was not a plan. Anxiety. 10 years later, my dad dies of a heart attack, of bad heart, heart condition. And now my mom has to figure out how 5 kids get funded. No income. So there's stress in the family, right? There's a lot of stress and anxiety. And then I lost my dad.

10 years later, I lost my older brother.

I get involved in drugs for 10 years. And then at 25, they're like, oh dude, you're manic, you're ADD, you're ADHD, you're bipolar, you're an alcoholic, you're a drug addict, you have a chemical imbalance, you have an addiction personality syndrome, into the genetic.

I'm like, you guys don't, look at my genetics.

How would you know anything about my genetics?

You haven't taken a blood test.

All these labels. They took me, you know, I wanted to get off of drugs. They put me on another drug. I think it was called, I don't know, it was one of those drugs they approve of, like a Valium. You know, it's supposed to calm you down, filter everything, slow your thoughts, take a moment. You react too quickly. Well, this is what I know today, okay? For you guys that are suffering from depression or any of these problems with focusing, you might not have a disease. In fact, you might have something that's called a gift. I believe this today with 100% of my beingness that I have a gift Being warned—

depression.

God warns me when I'm not fulfilling my potential. Okay, just consider this. Now, I'm not giving you medical advice, by the way. Neither are they. They're just repeating a bunch of bullshit so they could sell you a drug and keep you a drug addict. I'm not giving you medical advice, and I'm telling you they're not either. They're just regurgitating a bunch of garbage that hadn't been proven. And if you're suffering from one of these things, the ADDs, any of the labels, okay, just go back and ask them. The guy that gave you the label, go back and ask that dude, hey bro, show me how you validated that. Okay, well, and then they're going to start doing this well stuff. I guarantee it's going to open with well, well, it's in this book.

Really?

What's in the book? Okay, by the way, if I put him in the book, I'll find he's got a disease. They didn't do a blood test, they didn't do a chemical test, they didn't do a hair test, they did nothing. There is no gene test for any of these problems. Okay, America has more depression than any other country on planet Earth.

Why?

Because we sell it to the Americans every day. All you got to do is turn your TV on. 2 out of every 3 ads, 2 out of every 3 ads on Fox, CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, CBS, or pharma ads— do you have depression? Do you suffer from anxiety? Do you have stress? Yeah, I have stress, bro. Okay, I'm down in the gym right now. I don't want to be in the gym. I know I should be in the gym, I should be working out, but I don't. I work out 2 days and then I can't follow up. Okay, I was excited about my workouts at the beginning of the year and now I can't get in there.

Is that depression?

No, it's not depression.

It's an indication you don't feel good about yourself because you're not doing the things you need to do. Consider this warm— this is depression or anxiety is a warning from God. Hey, get busy. Get back on purpose. Get back to work. Get back to doing shit you don't want to do. Okay, see, if I'm anxious about a speaking engagement, it doesn't mean I have anxiety. It means go practice, bro. Go practice it.

Go do it.

Like, how would you not have anxiety about something you've never done before? Like, like, let's say I'm not a dancer, I don't know how to dance, and my wife's like, let's say she says, hey, we got to do dance classes and then we're going to dance in front of other people. Dude, I am going to experience the warning from God that you hadn't done enough practice. And even once I practice enough and then get in front of a bunch of people, I'm still going to probably have anxiety because I haven't practiced in front of a bunch of people yet. So all I'm telling you, and please share this with somebody that needs it, your, your brother, your son, your mom, your dad may not have a disease. They may have a gift, a warning from God. Hey, go serve purpose. Go, go serve other people. Go be a purpose. Go be a more, a greater purpose.

Well, number 6 is discipline your free time.

Whatever you focus on, what you spend the most time focusing on is what you're going to do. Now, all that being said, let me just say, when I was 15, 16, 17 years old dude, I was spending 3 and 4 and 5 hours a day playing games. I'd go to the— we didn't have these, I didn't grow up with this. We had to travel to the bowling alley and we would spend hours. I'm talking about 4 and 5 hours a day after school going to the bowling alley and playing Asteroids. Have you ever even played the game? Yeah, it's a little triangle, it shoots We played for hours, dude, like 3, 4, 5 hours at a time. We had to bring quarters in there. We'd put quarters in the machine. We'd steal the quarters 'cause I didn't have any money. So we'd steal 'em from mom, steal 'em from the closets, grab quarters anywhere we could. And then we'd go play Asteroids. I wasted thousands of hours doing this. And I could have been studying, learning. And that's what I would do today. Like, I would tell you guys, like, man, when you're down, when you have free time, like, discipline the free time so that you're learning something. You're pulling content in from people, not these people, not the influencers on, on the internet, but from the guys that own boats. I'm talking about the, the OGs, people that have banked something, built something from nothing and kept it. That's the other thing I would tell you. I would not, I would not learn from these new guys. I'm not saying they don't have something to teach you. I'm saying they haven't proven that they can stay in the game.

Yeah.

And you know, the Warrens and the Jeffs and these guys that have like been 30, 40 years— like, I've been, I've been running this game for since I was 15 years old. So like, what is that, 50, 52 years, bro? 52 years. No bankruptcies, no bust out, no convictions. I didn't snitch on anybody. I never busted out. I've transitioned from 20 years old to 30, 30 to 40, 40 to 50, got hit with social media in my 50s. I'm like, you're 50 years old and you get hit with social media, you're like, what the hell is that? And I'm like, oh yeah, that's my— boom, I grabbed that thing, bro, and I learned how to play it. I didn't do what most of my 50-year-old friends said, I don't have time for that. I, I said, that's YouTube, that's my buddy, and Facebook, that's my friend. I'm gonna figure out Instagram, TikTok.

Rule number 7 is keep on hustling.

Saving money is ridiculous. You guys shouldn't save your money. You should take your money— like, this is what I— the game I've been playing since I was 31 years old, and nobody knew I was doing it. I was calling on you I was getting money from you, and you were funding all my real estate. And that's why I was hustling so hard. I was doing 300 days a year. I'd get $5,000 from you, $4,000, $9,000, $3,000, $2,000 on any given day. The price could have been anything, you know. If I needed a real estate deal, I'd call you guys. Hey man, buy some of my shit, you know. Well, what is it this week? Oh, it's a G-Pod, you know. Anybody buy a G-Pod from me? G-Pod was basically, basically what a G-Pod was, it was Apple came out with that little The little tiny thing.

Nano.

Nano.

Yeah, the Nano. So I took all my videos, put it on the Nano, and called it a G-Pod. This is in 2010, man. Half of you guys were out of business, okay? I said, you got to get the G-Pod, the new G-Pod, man. All my videos are on the G-Pod, right? And so some of you guys would buy it. I'd take the 9 grand and I'd invest the entire $9,000 in real estate. All of it. Always broke. Never had any money. Didn't have fancy cars or Gucci or nothing.

I wasn't traveling.

Anytime I travel, I'd come travel to you. I'd go up to Winnipeg in Thanksgiving because we didn't have Thanksgiving in Winnipeg. The Canadians don't do that there. So I'd go there, pick up a bag, come back, buy some American real estate, and just buried in a real estate and stay broke all the time.

Well, number 8 is take action.

This is a cycle of a business.

I'm going to take one little idea and I'm going to turn it into a business.

$80,000 a year to go to Stanford, Harvard, MIT. Or Yale and never learn this process. This is a true story. I'm going to write the Millionaire Booklet.

Watch what I do.

I'm driving home from downtown Miami. It was a charity event, and I gave some money to help this charity that night. And I'm driving home, and Elena's like, I'm so proud of you, Grant. You did such a good thing tonight. I get home and I'm like, I'm going to write a book tonight, How to Become a Millionaire. Most of you would sit down and start writing the book. What I did next was write an offer. I'm like, okay, this book is going to be $19.95. I'm going to sell it for $9.95. It's going to be a preorder. I'm literally calling Sherri at midnight. Hey, get me a landing site right now. We're going to call it The Millionaire Book. And Sherri's like, you can't write a book. You're under contract with Penguin Random right now, and they get your next book. I said, did we agree to a book or a booklet? She's like, a book. Book. I said, good. Don't call it The Millionaire Book. Call it The Millionaire Booklet. Okay, if that don't work, we'll call it The Millionaire Pamphlet. Okay, let them sue me later. In the mind, the mind says, oh, I gotta write a book. And you want to think you need to finish a product. I don't think I need to finish a product. I need to start selling books. Okay, now I need to market this book. Well, Grant, the book's not finished right now. Okay, ain't nobody coming to your house at 12:30 at night to get the book. I start advertising, I got a book. So you guys won't do that. You're like, but I don't have a book. I got a book. I got time. Nobody expects to get the book in an Instant, I had a landing page up. See this landing page? We added the video the next day. So idea, offer, market. Notice I haven't written anything. Now I'm going to sell it. I'm gonna close. The fifth step will be to deliver a service. So what am I going to do here? Right here, you gotta write your book. Okay, I have this idea at 11 o'clock at night. At 11:20, I think we got our first order, 20 minutes after it. And then I go online and say, hey guys, if you could help me translate my new book into Arabic, Hebrew. Can you please do this for me? And I'll give you credit for the translation. 38 languages in 30 days.

And I paid a whopping zero.

More importantly, I got the word out on this new book. Now I got to write the book. By 1 o'clock in the morning, 1 AM, the book was finished. Now you're like, man, how do you write a book so fast? Because I was selling books fast. Honesty, integrity, and ethics, they have power. I commit to people. By accepting their money. The moment people start giving me money, I'm like, oh, I gotta deliver now. If you're a good person, you should have good things coming your way. If you don't have good things coming your way and you're a good person, that's because something in your business cycle is broken.

Rule number 9 is work hard.

You know, this concept of work, that the wealthy don't work hard. I hear this constantly. You know, rich people don't work hard. You know, rich people, rich people work smart. That, that you got to be kidding, right? Rich people take all the vacations. It's not true. The rich people don't take all the vacation. The vacation industry, the vacation industry literally is built off the middle class, not the wealthy. Now, you might not like this concept, but I'm going to tell you the truth. There's a report that just recently came out, okay? One of the most controversial issues surrounding inequality is work effort. This is a concept of why do the rich get richer and those people that don't have or don't have enough keep sliding down the scale. And that's what I do in these Grant Rants is I'm talking to the middle class about, look, do you see it disappearing? It's going away, okay? The middle class is getting erased. I came from the middle class and I see what's happening to it. What we used 20 or 30 years ago or 40 years ago to build a middle class is not working for us today. For instance, work hard, okay? You see, there's this concept that no, you don't need to work hard, you just need to work smart. If you work smart, get the right connections, you'll get rich. That's not true. This is what it says in this article. I found this in the Wealth Report. Do the wealthy work harder than the rest? You might wanna Google it. A new study offers evidence that higher education, and therefore higher earning, okay, Americans do indeed spend more time working and less time on leisure than poorer income groups, okay? It's been validated in this study. It says, in fact, while income inequality may be growing, which it is, leisure inequality, time spent on enjoyment, okay, time spent on enjoyment, is growing in a mirror image. What is that saying? People that are actually making less money and less wealth are actually spending more time in leisure. Why?

Because of myths.

You were taught a myth. You were taught this concept of enjoy, my life. You know, I gotta enjoy my life. I need to enjoy the day. The wealthy don't think like that. I'm telling you, the most successful people don't think about enjoying life. I gotta enjoy. They think about luxury, man. They think about the big bang. They think about the big, big win, not the little 2-day vacation. What they do is they'll suffer their whole life so they can go on vacation later when there's wealth for 2 and 3 months at a time.

You get it?

Work hard, okay? Work hard. It is a myth that you're not gonna work hard. I'm working harder today than I ever have in my life. Most people only work hard enough that they're always working. You get it? Most people only work so hard that they feel like they're always slaves. Remember this, anytime you feel like a slave, you've let somebody else be your master. Do you know what I'm talking about? Junk, people buy junk, people go on vacations, people waste time. And they don't have any money. Don't let that be you.

And number 10, the last one before a very special bonus clip, is study success.

This is what I did for 25 years, from 25 to 51 years old.

Spent my most valuable asset, time, to get money. Terrified, terrified every second of every day.

That's, that's really what's driven me the whole time, was terror.

Like, when you don't know, you're going to be scared.

Yeah.

So I'm going out to get money. I won't spend any of it because I'm terrified if I can't, I don't know how to get more. I'm worried I can't keep getting more. So then I get the money and then I rush off and spend my most valuable asset, time, again to bring it to the bank. Yeah. And then they go multiply it. Dude, they're telling me to save it and they don't. And so when I quit listening to everybody that's got an opinion about money online or my neighbors or my uncles, and I started saying, What are they doing?

The banks.

When I quit studying the influencers and started studying the banks, Goldman, JP Morgan, KKR, there's just an endless list of these guys. You start studying those guys. Elon, study Elon. Elon doesn't keep any cash.

He thinks the whole thing's a joke, which he's probably right.

So what does he do? He reinvests everything. He's not paying debt off. He's accumulating debt. But Apple has debt, Google has debt, Facebook has debt, and they have cash reserves that are the biggest cash reserves on planet Earth. They could pay cash for everything, but they don't.

Why do they get debt when they have all this cash?

Exactly.

Why do they do that?

Because if I take, man, you got a little whiteboard right here, man, god dang, okay?

So if I take, Apple just did this, okay?

I want to make a $90 billion purchase.

Purchase. I want to make it 90. And they're like, yeah, we got the cash for that. In fact, we have cash plus another 50%. Yeah, we got plenty of cash to do this.

Okay.

And then one of their people says, okay, bro, you do that.

That is not a tax deductible event.

What we should do is we should go keep this and go borrow $90 billion. Really? At like 0.005%. Like They're gonna pay a half of 1% for this debt. Maybe they pay 1%, who cares? They're like, I don't care, it's a tax deduction anyway.

Interesting.

So now they have the best of both worlds. They have their cash and they have debt. Now, back when I was growing up, this debt would cost 10, 12, 15, 18%. It's so cheap now. This debt, 'cause we print money. Money is not scarce like our parents told us. Like, when I was growing up, I bet you I heard, I heard at least from my mother from the age of 10 to 15, if I didn't hear this 500 or 1,000 times, I never heard it once. We don't own the electric company. Turn those lights out, boy. I still have that going on today. My dad, my mom told me my dad would, because he worked so hard, dude. He was so like, oh, I finally got it.

I finally made it.

Now I gotta protect it. He got stuck in the second piece, keeping it. It's an emotional keep. And so it's not a rational thing because you're hoarding now. Still today, man, it's tough for me to buy blue jeans if they're not on sale.

I'm like, this is stupid, man.

I'm just going to wait.

Right.

You know what I'm saying? But it's really stupid that I even worry about it.

Right.

And I'm not saying on the come up, I think you should worry about it.

Right.

But there needs to be where you can turn that switch off.

I told my wife when I got with her, I said, look, I'll do anything for you except one thing. I will not give up on my dream. If I gotta surrender my dream, I, I'd rather be alone because if I abandon my dream, I'll abandon you.

I truly believe that. I see so many people, man, they give up their dream for the wife.

They give up their dream for the husband.

They give up their—

and then, and then the wife and the husband get together and they have kids and then they give up their dream again cuz of the kids. And I said, the day we have kids, we cannot blame the kids for not going after our potential and our dreams. If we ever have kids, when we were getting together and she wasn't ready to have kids, she wasn't even ready for me. And, and so I knew she was the right person for me. And I'm like, look, I'll give you anything. Monogamy. I'll never cheat on you. I'll never jack around on you. I'll, I'll take care of you. I'll, I'll provide you with a life that you can only dream of.

This was 12 years ago.

I mean, this was way before Grant really hit full Grant. And, and which she's really, um, added to and made it easier. But, um, I said, look, if you, if you, if I got to be less than who I'm meant to be to be with you, can't give you that. So I said, I got books in me. This is before I'd ever written a book. I said, I got books in me. I'm going to do the biggest events in the world. I'm going to do a TV show, okay? I will, I will be known by millions, if not billions of people. And I will leave a legacy. And, and, and that, that has been with me before I ever met you. And I'm not giving that up, cuz if I give that up, I'll give you up. I think it's priorities. It's, I think it's, you know, watching my dad die and, and he did everything right. Everything. He worked hard, saved his money, paid his debts off, respected his name. He was respected in the community. He did everything right. And when he died, My mom had to, my mom had to start hustling and shuffling and scared. And she was, he did everything right and it didn't work. So when I saw that, when I saw my dad was, my mom was having to sell my dad's dream house a week after he died, I'm like, something's wrong with the game he's playing. So I've been challenging the game the whole time. Like, oh, my dad was taught, he was taught the wrong rules.

Mm-hmm.

And he played by the rules and it still didn't get him out. It's the middle class mythology. You know, it's, it's the idea that I'm gonna have just enough. So since then I've been challenged, really looking at everything that masses of people believe in.

Family first. You know, this thing, people throw that around all the time.

I'm blessed.

Everybody says they're blessed. Yeah, but you're not. Go prove it.

Mm-hmm.

Go prove we're all blessed.

Go prove it.

So these are some things that I just like, like the dream thing. I'm like, is family first or was my dream first? Well, in my case, my dream was before my family.

And congratulations, you're one video closer to who you're meant to be.

I believe.

For 10 more amazing rules from Ryan Serhant, check the video right there next to me. I think you'll love it. Continue to believe, and I'll see you there. Ryan Serhant is a real estate mogul, TV personality, and author best known for his role on Million Dollar Listing New York and as the founder of Serhant, a top real estate firm. He went from struggling to make ends meet as a young actor in New York City to becoming one of the