Heroic Interview: How to 10x Your Life with Grant Cardone

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Life, an Optimal Living interview with Grant Cardone and Brian Johnson. Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to the Optimal Living Interview series. Today I am truly thrilled to be connecting with Grant Cardone. Among many other things, Grant is one of the world's leading sales experts. He is a New York Times best selling author and just an extraordinarily inspiring guy. Today we're going to talk about his book, the 10x Rule, which I absolutely love. If you are committed to living your highest potential, optimizing and actualizing, as we like to say, I think this is a must read. You cannot read it and not get fired up. Grant, I really appreciate you taking the time to chat and I'm excited to explore some big ideas.

Hey, Brian, I'm excited to be with you, dude. And really, really appreciate what you do and how you do it.

Right on. And yeah, thank you again for your support with your community. Let's just start at the top. So the 10x rule, what does that mean? Then we'll unpack some details.

Well, the 10x rule, you know, look, I write my books for me, okay. I don't actually write them for an audience. I'm always trying to figure out my problem. I'm trying to solve something I'm looking at in my own life. So in 2008, when the economy collapsed, I had, oh, I had three companies at the time. Yeah, I really had four companies at the time. And they were all, literally every one of them got in trouble. And so at that time, I wrote a book about, okay, how am I going to rework my whole deal here? And so over that, from 2009 to now, I've written five books. The 10x rule was the fourth of those books. And the 10x rule really was in this evolution of my problems, seeking to solve my own problems as an entrepreneur, as a father now, because I was just becoming a father in those years and being a husband and a guy that hires people, employs people and works with a lot of companies from, I've worked with the Pentagon, I've worked with Google, Allstate, Affleck, mom and pop stores across thousands of mom and pop companies. So I got to be on my game if I'm going to tell somebody, hey, I'm coming in here to help you solve your problems. I got to be on my game every day. But I was having my own problems. And basically 2009, 2010 and 11 really kind of showed me. Oh, man. A lot of my thinking was broken, Brian. It Was like, I wasn't thinking big enough. And the 10x rule is really about how could somebody take where they're at if. If they're making. If they're making $29 an hour or $15 an hour or $8 an hour or. You're not even hirable right now, by the way. I've been in every one of those situations. Or maybe you're making $150,000 a year now. So from nothing to 150 grand or a million, how would you take and 10x all that activity? And then while you're doing that, also 10x your marriage, 10x the kids, 10x your time off. How could I have everything? Because frankly, I get sick of hearing about. People talk to me about part time doing something part time. A guy pitched me the other day, hey, man, if I could just get your help part time. I'm like, dude, I don't do anything part time. Part time to me is like communism and the devil, okay? I'm an all in, all in guy. It's never paid off for me to be a dilettante or, Or a spectator or kind of halfway in. I've only got a payoff when I was all in all the time. And so the 10x rule was really about how could I literally expand my thinking and also 10x the activity necessary with the limited time that we all have.

How.

How could I 10x my activity, be more places, be more social, have more family, have more. I know it sounds impossible, but the reason it's impossible is because everybody's thinking they need to balance life.

This is great. I love your point. One of the phrases, I think it was Austin Kleon who wrote a great book called Steal like an Artist. He says all advice is autobiographical. Right. So this is. The fact that you wrote this for yourself is why I think it comes across so powerfully to. To those of us who are just committed to putting those final pieces in place so we can achieve what we want to achieve. And the subtitle is the Only Difference between Success and Failure. And you share that. This is what you've learned in your experience and studying greatness, et cetera. And then your energy is just palpable now in reading the book. And I want to share a quote and then drill into how to 10x our thinking and our action. But the lead quote in this whole book, for those of you who haven't read it yet, is. Is right after the copyright grant says anyone that suggests to me to do less is either not a real friend or very confused.

Dude, I love that quote, okay? I love that quote. Because my whole life, literally since I was. I don't know, even at eight or nine years old, I've had people tell me, slow down, be careful. You know, you can't do that. Don't touch this, don't touch that. I don't know how many young viewers you got, but I know how many of them still today tell me, dude. That's all I ever hear. Don't touch that. That's not your. Don't talk to strangers. Everything is. Don't. And over the years, every business that I started, my mom would always tell me, before I started a company, don't do that. And I kind of took it. I kind of took. She even told me not to go for the girl that I wanted because she wasn't interested in me. And I'm like, everything my mom told me not to do, I'm like, oh, I definitely got to do this. Okay? And so when people tell me I can't do that or don't do more or less is better. I'm like, dude, you're either very, very confused or you're the enemy. In some cases, I'm not sure what's worse, whether it's the confused person, which is my friend, my mom, my sister, that's confused, telling me not to do it, or the enemy, which says, don't do it because they don't want to compete with me. I think the confused person, in many cases, let's say the treasury person or the CFO of a company that tells the company owner, don't spend money. See, that person is very confused, because money is not a business's problem. It's the inability to reach new clients that is a bigger problem than money.

Well, let's talk about. The heart of being able to reach new clients is obviously tapping into that thing that's bigger than us and living with a high level of energy and commitment. And you used the word. I was going to ask you about this later on, but let's just jump to obsession. Then we'll come back to the practical how do we 10x the thinking action? But you talk about obsession, and you say, look, we need to view it as a gift, not a disease. And you define it and say, look, if you aren't committed, the definition that you share is the. The domination of one's thoughts or feelings by a persistent idea, image, or desire. Now, obviously, we can have unhealthy obsessions.

Yeah, yeah.

But there's the wisdom that you share of look, like, where else are you going to find greatness but being willing to commit and obsess to something that fires you up, right?

Look, if you're going to be a great golfer, you better get obsessed about it. Because the levels of greatness in the game of golf are so freaking severe that if you're not obsessed, you have no chance on talent to win at that game. Talent will not get you there. In most games, you have to be completely obsessed at a cellular level, like somebody, a junkie would. A drug. I gotta have this drug. I gotta have this drug. But that's a negative obsession. And just because you have a drug addict or an alcoholic or a gambling addict or some guy that's got whatever his problem is, doesn't mean I couldn't have obsessions that are healthy. And I think that we've taken this one word and like, okay, you know, all obsessions are bad. Well, no, they're not. No, they're not. I'm obsessed with my kids getting the best possible world education they can get. I'm obsessed with that. I'm obsessed with giving my children the most severe advantages they can get on this planet. I'm obsessed with me and my wife having a life where we are actually treated special. Even though that's not politically correct to say. Most people are like, I don't want to be treated special because you gave up on being treated special. I want to be treated special. I want the cop to pull me over and say, oh, man, it's you, man. Okay, bro, slow it down a little bit. See, I like that. Now, maybe I'm the only guy admitting that I'm obsessed with creating a phenomenal life. Because I believe this. If you're not obsessed with a phenomenal life, you end up with the other kind of life, which is average. And for most people, an average life is just a life that they've accepted, like I've over years. It's like a rock, you know, a rock just gets worn down by the ocean day after day. And finally one day, I started as this exceptional thing created by the universe, by some magnificent power. And then 40 years later, I'm just, yeah, it's all average, dude. Average family, average kids, average education, average house, average income. I got another 40 years left. My watch here, bro. It's going to be average. It's just going to keep freaking getting average.

I love it. And you say, you know, I suggest you become obsessed about the things you want. Otherwise you're going to spend a lifetime being obsessed with making up excuses as to why you didn't get the life you wanted and, and what you did for me too, as I read the book, is crystallize my own passion. And the other side of being special was to make other people special. Right. And to serve as profoundly as we possibly can. And I get goosebumps as I say that because that's the heart of what you're talking about here is, look, how do we give our greatest gifts and greatest service to the world? And you're not going to do that unless you're 10xing both your vision and your action and not resigning yourself to some weird entitlement state, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? Just go out, do the work required, create something extraordinary.

Yeah, I mean, for me, look. I mean I just look around, I look around on this planet. My dad died when he was 52 years old. He created a little middle class family for the household and that was it, dude. And then his heart blew up in his chest and I'm like, you know, I've been running out of time since I was 10 years old, literally. I've been waiting. I'm like, oh, life is short. And as I grow, as I mature, I find out, you know what the truth is, my dad didn't live very long. But life is too long for most people. Most people end up at the end of their lifetime, the last, the golden years with no gold, right? I got too much time and no money. And this is happening in the wealthiest country on planet earth is America. We where freedom is the choice, courage is our battle cry. And we have a middle class, a big giant middle class in America made of about 250 million people that can't even pay their bills today. It's a freaking off. It's just a terrible tragedy. So my goal is to inspire people like, look, you got to get out of this deal. The government can't get you out blaming China or India or whoever you want to blame, okay? Mommy, daddy, whoever you want to blame is not going to change the condition that's on this planet right now. If you want a better condition for you and your family, you got to figure out, you got to get extremely focused. You're going to have to get 10x about it. I mean, you're going to have to demand it from the universe. You have to demand that this become like something that the physical universe takes you serious about. Like, oh, this guy's not kidding. He really wants this.

I love that. The way you described. Just be present, be so committed and so intense and SO10Xing for SO long that the world knows you're not going away.

Yeah, exactly.

Then magic starts happening. I've shared that letter with my wife a number of times. So let's step all the way back then back to the 10x rule. There are two components to 10xing our lives, which is how we deal with all the challenges that you just Described. We need to 10x our thinking and we need to 10x our action. Can you describe to us what are some practical tips or our listeners can engage in detective.

So let's say I'm a kid playing baseball, okay? I played baseball when I was, until I was in college. And you see, the problem is the reason I couldn't make it is because I wasn't thinking about big leagues. Nobody told me to start. If somebody would have been telling me every day, do big leagues. Your big league material, okay, you could be in the big leagues. Instead, I was just thinking about playing baseball and I love baseball, okay? And I had little fantasies about, man, maybe I could be a catcher in professional football. But I didn't have anybody freaking like covering me up in this concept, this think. Because I didn't have a giant payoff. I quit. And the same thing is for money, right? If you don't have a giant payoff in business or economics, if you're just going to get by, you're going to give up on the deal because the think is not big enough. If you've ever noticed that people appear, your friends, maybe they don't appear very motivated and you're like, dude, where's the motivation, bro? When are you going to get excited? What's happening with you? 70 some percent of employees in America are disengaged. Why? Because the payoff, the payoff is so small, right? What's the payoff today? I get a paycheck, I go to Whole Foods, I give them my paycheck, I go home. What's the payoff in that? Dude, all I'm reminded of is there's no payoff. So unless the individual, the individual needs to really understand, unless the payoff is going to be enormous. I'm going to the moon, bro. See, I die to go to the moon, okay? I don't want to die going to the grocery store to get my last paycheck because the payoff is big enough. You get it? So first you got to change the thinking. Once the thinking gets enormous enough, giant, big, giant think, then you would actually build a plan equivalent to, hey, what would it take to become a billionaire today? I mean, this is a target that I have now. So my fantasy now is I'm going to become a billionaire in this lifetime, and I'm going to make it public. I'm going to actually stream it out. It's never been done before. And I'm going to show the public how to become a billionaire. From where I'm at right now, to do that, I need a huge, giant action plan that involves a lot of failures, a lot of misfires, a lot of starts, but I didn't have the fuel to finish. A lot of mistakes are going to happen, right? And then, who knows, man? Maybe I get halfway there. Even if I get halfway there, the payoff is enormous.

When you're in flow. I mean, I'm reminded I interviewed Steven Kotler, who wrote Bold with Peter Diamandis. And I love their line, right? You want to be a billionaire, solve a billion person problem. There you go. Serves profoundly. And then what he shared was, Steven Kotler is all about the rise of Superman and the science of flow. And his whole thing was, when I asked him, what's the number one way to get into flow where you feel great all the time, he said, risk. You have to be willing to put yourself out of your comfort zone and have what you're talking about, right? Something worth leaning into. And when you do that, there's no delayed gratification because you're feeling great every moment of the day. Right. And there happens to be, know the huge payoff that's driving you in so many ways. But there's the moment to moment to moment flow state that we experience in pursuit of that. Right?

Yeah. I mean, look, hey, here's the deal, man. Good for Steven. If he's. He's feeling good every second of every day, that is not my deal. Okay? Just so everybody knows.

Trying to say that he was feeling great every second of the day, but that the state of pursuing your goals elicits flow, which is expensive. And there's obviously going to be the ups and the downs and all that good stuff. So just want to make sure I properly.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I just got to tell everybody. Well, then I ain't found the flow, okay? I got to tell you, I haven't found the flow because I don't.

You're in it right now. I'm going to. I'm going to call you on that. You're in it right now.

No, dude, but because, hey, I hate 80% of the stuff I do every day right now.

This moment.

No, no, no. I'm digging this. This Is fun, bro. This is fun, right? But, like, there's so much stuff. I just want people to understand this. You don't need to love every second of every day, okay? You don't need to love it. You don't even need to like it. I mean, I get sick. I was at the Pentagon talking to a bunch of troops in transition, and everybody was up there, the speakers were telling them, do what you love. When you get back in transition, you've served us in Afghanistan. Come back, find what you love. And I'm like, dude, that's bullshit. That's crazy. What are y' all doing, man? Look, you need to do what it takes, whatever it takes to take care of your family today. Most of what you and I have to do every day, we don't love. I mean, I start my day like this, okay? I start my day like, man, I don't even know if I want to get up this morning, dude. I don't want to get up, okay? Oh, my God, Brian. I don't want to get up today, dude. I want to sleep in. My little 6 year old comes and jumps in. She plays. I'm like, I just want to stay in here and just love on her all day. But you know what? I'm like, oh, I got to drive to work. I got to show up. And this is where the flow happens when. When you push through, when you push through the grind. And like, okay, I'm gonna show up anyway. Show up anyway. And then all of a sudden, and this is where I agree, I start creating, I start doing my deal, I start finding out who I really am. I start getting to exercise my creativity. And then I'm like, oh, dude, that's what I'm here for. I'm in my purpose now.

Yeah, I really appreciate the distinction. I completely agree, of course, that it's not about every single moment. Just do what you love to do. It's showing up whether you feel like it or not. And a lot of times it's going to be the not. But you develop the willpower and the capacity to actually do what you need to do. And in the process, we stumble upon flow more often than not. And I think from a high level, too, there's that, you know that dance, right, of you're driven, you know, in your life, you're flourishing. It's not necessarily that you're happy every single moment of the day, but flourishing, that higher sense of, well, being whole, holds it all, right? Of course, it doesn't feel fun when you go lean into something and it doesn't work out the way you want, which you talk a lot about in the book in powerful ways. And you just described with being a billionaire, well, of course you're gonna fall flat on your face more than anyone else is willing to do. And that's not fun. But you also know how to dust yourself off and get back to work. And that does feel. It's just that dance, right?

Yeah. And let me just say that, like, in the beginning, when you're trying to build something, sometimes, particularly when you don't have anything, like, I was 29 years old, and I was 25 years old, and I was broke. And by the time I'm 30, I'm like, oh, dude, I'm starting to find my legs. You know, I was actually very good by the time when I made a decision, okay, I'm going to learn how to do one thing well. Almost immediately, I started doing that thing well, okay, that time, I was in sales, and I hated sales. And I made a commitment. I'm going to get great at sales. And then Before I was 26 years old, I was like, dude, I'm a superstar salesman. It wasn't until I was 30, though, that I was like, you know what? I could actually make some money doing this, man. I could actually make a real. I mean, I could literally get some affluence, prosperity, a different style of living. I was driving a Toyota Camry. I'm like, dude, I could own a BMW one day. I'm like, maybe I could, man. It wouldn't be another four years before I buy one, because I was terrified. But the point of that is, like, when you start winning at levels that are more consistent with who you really are, you do become excited. Then there's a shift. There appears to be this monster shift where you now have more than you ever imagined you could have. At this time, I was probably 42, 43 years old. I had 12 years of accumulation. I'm talking finances, mostly finances and success, where people were telling me I was good at something. Right now it's like, okay, why am I doing this? It's a very, very confusing, interesting place. Because now I have money, okay? I got more money than anybody in my family at that time had ever dreamed possible, including myself. And this is part of the interest of the 10x rule, because if there's not a 10x think a new 10x think, you're going to become. You're going to start resting on your laurels, and the universe is going to come slap you across the head. And say, hey, wake up, son. And that's where I was at 42, 43. I rested on my laurels for a while and found out that's when 2009 hit and really woke me up to, hey, what are you doing, bro? What you've done. And this is the takeaway from that. What you've done in the past is not as important as, hey, what am I doing tomorrow? I need a purpose. I need a bigger purpose and expanding purpose all the time to keep me interested, particularly when you. You've hit it. I ran one more story. I ran into Floyd Mayweather the other day. You know, he just got paid $180 million on a fight. I can see the guy a little lost right now. Like, okay, what do I do now? I mean, it's a good place to.

Be lost in, but what's that higher purpose? What's pulling us to the next point?

Yeah, exactly. And that's why I walked up to him. He was on the telephone at a private airport. And I walked up to Floyd, get off the phone. I got to tell you something. He's like, man, I'm on the phone, man. I said, I know you're on the phone. Floyd. Floyd, me and you could help a billion people. 1 billion people on this planet, man. So I got his attention anyway.

Well, this. This. I'm going to quote you again. You say an interesting thing about success is that it's like a breath of air. Although your last breath of air is important, it's not nearly as important as the next one, right? So we're constantly evolving and actualizing and. Yeah, and 10xing, really. Right? And just getting to that next version of ourselves.

Totally. I need that next breath of air, man. I was on a scuba tank. I was on a scuba div In Cozumel, Mexico. I was on this drift dive, and I had this food in my vest, okay? And so I pulled the food out, right? And when I did, I opened the bag. It was a whole bag. Because I'm a 10x guy, right? So I don't bring one piece of bread with me. I bring the whole bag. I stole a bag of bread off the boat. I bring it down. I open it up, and when I did the whole freaking bag. I mean, fish. Thousands of fish came at me, and it fresh freaked me out. And I tried to protect myself from the fish, and when I did, there was so much noise and activity, and I'm tripping. I'm freaking out. I basically put my hands on the relief valves, and I dumped My tank. And I didn't know it. The whole time I'm sitting there protecting myself, and I'm dump. 10x and I'm dumping the tank. The next thing I hear is this. That sound. A scuba diver knows what it's like.

You don't want to hear.

More importantly, you know what it tastes like. Okay, it doesn't taste like the same thing. Something changes. And I could hear this sound, like, empty tank, baby. And I'm in, like, 60ft of water on a drift dive on an empty tank. And right now I'm thinking, man, the next breath of air is more important than the last one.

That's awesome. And obviously, thankfully, you recovered from that. Here we are today talking.

Yeah, you gave me a good reason to make out with this chick underwater.

All right, good stuff. 10x style as well, I'm sure. So let's talk action. So we've talked about that. I love bringing it back to you as a kid, right? The major league baseball player and I grew up in a blue collar, conservative family. All that right. There wasn't a whole lot of stretching of thinking. That's been one of my biggest practices is, as you would say, dude, what can you do? Stretch yourself here? Obviously, that's not enough. And you make it really clear throughout the book that it's unbelievably more important to match that 10x vision with 10x action. Can you talk to us about that?

Yeah, just, you know, this is a really difficult thing for people. I mean, I hear people constantly say, hey, how do I get motivated? How do I show up every day? How do I discipline the muscle? You know, I don't know that I know the answer to how somebody would actually do that, except I show up. I just show up. And a guy told me, a friend of mine, Dale. Dale Christensen, told me when I was 20. I guess I was 20. No, I must have been 32 years, 33 years old at the time. And he says, look, I was having a really hard time in my life. And he says, look, dude, you got to show up even if your eyes are bleeding. I'm like, what? And I like that. I like those really grainy. You know, those movies play in my head. I'm like, yeah, my eyes are bleeding, man. I got blood going down my cheeks. I'm going to show up anyway. That kind of gave me that brave heart kind of like. Yeah, you know, when he says freedom and they cut his head off, I'm like, yeah, that's the guy I want to be, dog. Take my head Off. But I'm going down with a voice. So I mean, that's the kind of. I've never trusted my talent. I've never trusted my good looks, even though I have them. Me and you both have that in common. B. And I've definitely never trust my past successes. The only thing I've ever really trusted, and I still do that today at 57 years old, is my ability to work, to show up, work early, work late. I probably still do 14 hour days on an average. And dude, I like working. It makes me feel good to work.

This goes back to our conversation about flow. It's not always fun. Yet there's this sense of you're doing what you're here to do and you're as focused and committed to spending the quality time with your family as you've mentioned a number of times. And it's not an either or thing, right? So many people think, well, if I do this, then what? And. And I work hard. I mean, I love to work, I love to create. And again, you've stretched me to think literally. As I was reading your book, I'm like, okay, so I was thinking I could do this. Really, what can I do? And how do I stretch myself? And at the same time, how do I become a better father than I've ever been, a better husband than I've ever been? And it goes together. It's not a mutually exclusive thing. And I think you make that point well right now and in the book. And it's just so important because it's an easy cop out to actually showing up and giving our best. Right?

Yeah. You know, just a comment on this, okay. As you talk about that, it reminds me of this guy. This guy sees me, says, dude, you're really cocky. I'm like, well, dude, at least you told me to my face. You know, because you know what? You know, most of the time the guy that says that's a coward. And then I know that the transition for you is like, okay, why are we talking about cocky? Because look, when you start showing up every day and when you start getting the confidence to show up early, stay late. Dude, when you're there making stuff happen when nobody else can, you are going to appear to be cocky to other people. Because it's the cocky guy, you know, the cocky guy, the Tom Brady. Everybody hates Tom. Why does everybody hate Tommy? B. Man, dude, the guy's got four rings, bro. The guy looks good. He's got the hot wife, he's got the big, he's got the mansion in The Hills. Why wouldn't you have all that right now? The issue here is why do people hate on Tom Brady? And who's the group that's hating on Tommy B or whoever's successful? Floyd Mayweather. Floyd Mayweather gets paid $180 million on a flight fight, and the first thing somebody's going to tell me is he's illiterate. He can't even read a book. I'm like, dude, you can read a book and you can't put together $18,000. So who am I to hate on success? However you got there, man, I need to acknowledge it, flow love and power to it and, and be like, dude, that guy's an example. Floyd Mayweather is an example for every inner city kid on this planet that it's possible to get out. If he blows it all, shame on him. Tom Brady is an example of a guy that's had a long career, appears to have a great marriage, has it all. I mean, that's what people call him. Tom Brady has it all. I'm like, dude, that's an example. That's not a bad thing. Why would I label him with cocky or arrogant or even the Deflategate thing? Come on, man.

So the thing that I got when you were describing your. You show up even if your eyes are bleeding thing, like, as you were describing that, what came into my mind was actually less cocky and more confidence.

Yeah.

I think I was talking to Mark Devine, the Navy SEAL commander.

Awesome guy, dude.

Right. And when I was reading his book, I think the Unbeatable Mind, he talked about confidence. And I looked up the word right, and confidence comes from the Latin confidere, which means with intense trust. So what I've seen, and as I listen to you describe that, what I hear you cultivating is intense trust. That it doesn't matter what happens, you can get kicked around, but you know that you know how to get up. And that intense trust in yourself to be able to show up no matter what is greatness. I mean, that's it, right? Like, that's. That's it. And that's maybe perceived as cocky by some, but I think the heart of that, and it might even be expressed as cocky by some. Right. But the heart of that is the power that I think we're talking about. That's right there for all of us for willing to show up and do what it takes day in and day out.

Yeah, dude. Hey, I really love that you look words up too, bro. That's awesome.

I got to tell you, see, I'M the nerd. I was the guy that was excited to read in class.

No, I don't think you're the nerd. I think you're the passionate guy that wants to understand. Well, what did that mean? You know, all words are made up, but they do mean something. Somebody decided that confider meant something. And what did it really mean before we became a culture that we can't hunt, we can't fish? Literally. Literally. Just imagine if the grocery stores on this planet stopped. Nobody would even know how to get food. Man, we can't count anymore because I got a phone that counts for me. I can't. My wife cannot even drive across town six miles without getting lost because she is dependent upon Siri, who we've never met, and a GPS system. Like, what is happening? And the fact that you get a dictionary. You know, there's not a school in America that has a dictionary for every child. So these kids are like, make. You know, if you don't know what the word means, don't raise your hand. Just figure it out. That's what they were saying to me 50 years ago in school. Or 40 years ago in school. If you don't know what it means, just kind of plug it in. Plug it all in. Figure it. Kind of just piece it together. And then you wonder why people get out of college and can't even make a living. Okay? Can't even look a word up. So I really acknowledge the fact that you look words up. I've got a dictionary in my office right now. I look up everything all the way back to where it first came from. And I love that definition.

I appreciate that. I want to talk about one more word that I made up while reading your book. So you talk about the tortoise and the hare, and he said, look, this is a false story, right? Like, why are we talking about one guy that is nice and slow and steady, and the other guy that's all about it and gives up? He's like, add a third person into that, right? And you said that if we added a character that integrated both the tortoise and the hare's best qualities, they would smoke both of them. So we should call it smoked, right? So my. My joke was, we've got to create that character and call him Smokey, right? Who's the best of both worlds? Talk to us about why that's so important to Lean.

Dude, dude, look, the TARDIS in the hair. You know, I had a guy in New York, Charles Koppelman. Charles Koppelman. Like, he was that far from buying the Beatles entire collection and he got beat out by Michael Jackson. And he told me the other day, he's like, you know, Grant, we're working on this project. He's like, grant, you need to be patient. I'm like, hey, you know what, Charles? The last time you were patient, you lost the biggest freaking deal, not just of your life, but of freaking planet Earth's life. You lost the Beatles deal being the freaking tardis, dude. Okay? Patience is not a virtue. Patience is stupid. We live in a period of time where speed is the new Goliath, okay? It's the Goliath, the David combined. You want speed and you must be the TARDIS too. You got to be the hare, the tardis. And you got to be smoky. You got to be smoky. You got to be so freaking fast. You're just like, tell a transporter and.

You'Re never going to give up. So you have the steadiness and you have the discipline to do the things that keep you in the game. So you're not burning yourself out, right? You have the big fish and the big fish action, but you also know how to get a proper night of sleep, whatever that means for you. You eat well, you exercise and do the things so you can show up like the tortoise consistently, right? And there's that active, engaged patience where you're going to do whatever it takes for however long it takes. And you're also not going to wait in the meantime. Getting me fired up, dude, I'm getting.

Fired up just talking to you.

It's time to 10x. Can you share one more idea? You talk about how fear, and this is kind of related to your eyes bleeding thing. You can feel how you do this. You just show up, you don't wait, you don't hesitate. You said that fear is fed by delay, right? By preparing. And you share a great story about different people doing different things. Can you talk to us about how?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, for me, I mean, I don't know other people, but I have talked to a lot of people over my career. And to me, you know, fear's favorite food is time. And if I add time, and this has been true my entire life, since I was a kid in high school to right now, today, if I add time, my fear increases, multiplies with the amount of time I take. So I don't know if I set my watch this morning. Yeah, I guess I did. But sometimes I don't even set my watch. I just bought the watch because I thought it was pretty. Not because it's going to keep me, you know, the time. And when I add time to any gig, I want to talk to somebody. I want to get a selfie with a celebrity, you know, I want to go meet Brian Johnson. I want to grab him, talk to him, man. Dude, I need to do it quick as I can, okay? As quick as I can. I see Floyd Mayweather, I'm going to go interrupt him. I'm not going to add. I'm not going to sit and wait for Floyd to put the phone down. I'm going to be rude. I'm going to impose myself. I. I'm going to go do it right now. Because if I don't do it right now, here's the deal. I ain't doing it. I'm not going to do it because my fear is going to start adding. This is what my wife does. My wife makes a video, looks at it, sees if she likes it, she's adding time. Okay. Then she finds one thing she doesn't like and then she does another one. Well, by the time she's done doing that, I've already done three or four videos. If I do enough, I believe this, the quantity will sooner or later it'll breed quality. And most people never get to the quality because they don't get to the quantity because they add time.

So good. And as a guy who is a continue to recover perfectionist, this is one of my primary rules. We have something called Fizzi F I S I F it, ship it, it's good enough. And that whole idea of, look, you're never going to make it perfect. Get to market, get to market again and again and again and improve in the process of an astonishing level of consistent quantity. Right?

That's right. Bill Gates said, hey, if you can't make it good, make it look good.

And then get back to work and just polish, optimize, etc. Etc.

Yeah. And he knew in that that if the company would sell enough products. Okay. That sooner or later, over time, they would build a quality product. It would just get to market, get to market fast. And. And then you will. If you're a good person, which most people are, then over time, you're going to figure out how to improve that product anyway.

Well, if you're working like you're talking about, if you have that big goal, if I want to reach 10x, whatever I'm currently doing, right. And help that many people and do this quality of work and reach my potential, et cetera, and I'm willing To do whatever it takes, however long it takes, diligently, patiently, persistently, you're bound to be successful. How could you not improve on that? And then every time the doubt comes in, your eyes bleed and go back to work. That's a hard.

Exactly. And you're going to have a billion people scrutinizing you anyway. So you know, it might be in your best interest to deliver a quality product. Otherwise you're going to have a billion people calling you.

Well. And the good news is that when you suck, no one knows you anyway. So that's the time to go suck. Right. And there's no overnight success. So that's right, no audience. Go do your poor performances and get better. Right?

Yeah, exactly.

One more thing. Goals. You write the years daily. You talk about how important it is. If something is important to you, you reflect on them often. Is that still a practice of yours?

Yeah, I try to write them down every day. I didn't do it this morning, but if I can, I try to write my goals down in the morning, at night. I still have. I actually could go do it right now after lunch since I didn't do it this morning. But what I'm focusing on when I'm writing my goals is not things to do. It's not calls to make. It's big, giant goals, probably most of which are unachievable in this lifetime. But they keep me excited about a future. Like why am I sitting in a chair right now? Why am I going to make some phone calls this afternoon? Why am I going to pursue this difficult thing because of this long term goal over here. I'm going to try to write my goals down 700 plus times this year. Once in the morning, once at night. And there's one exception to that. I'll also write them down. Anytime I fail. I use this little thing called a 10x planner. I built it for me where I can write my goals right here in the morning and again at night before I go to sleep. First thing and last thing.

Right on. All right, well, I'll match that. That's awesome. Is there anything from your book that we haven't talked about that you think we should talk about?

Dude, I'm working on Obsessed now. I'm moving on to my next book called Obsessed. I'm going to give people permission to be completely freaking. I'm going for the addictive personality audience, the maniacs, the crazies, the wackos.

Right on. When is this book coming out?

It looks like we got a deal. So I think the Published release date is going to be maybe June of 2016, so pretty soon.

All right, well, I can't wait to see that one and hope to be able to connect again on that. I like to wrap up these chats with one final question, which is for someone who's passionate about optimizing their lives and you could only give them one piece of advice, what would that one piece of advice be?

Dude, you got to, like, I don't know, one piece of advice on how to optimize your life. Do your life. Don't do a job. Don't do a marriage, don't do a family. Do your life. My life includes all that. So when people say, hey, how do you balance everything? Dude, I'm doing my life. You understand? Work, business. What I'm doing is my life. This is my life right now, and I'm doing it. I don't balance. I don't try to do the balance your life thing. I think it's just another activity to do.

Right on. Grant, I appreciate you for our audience. Best place to find you GrantCardOne.com I know you're doing a ton and they can tap into your wisdom and your growing network of wisdom, right?

Yeah, dude. Even a better place to find me is GrantCardoTV.com GrantCardoTV.com we got a lot of tremendous amount. 30 different entrepreneurial shows a week there.

Amazing. Right on the 10x rule. As you can tell, Grant is just living an inspired life. Fired up. And if you enjoyed this chat, you're gonna love the book. Go get it. And Grant, once again, thank you for your time. I'm thrilled to be connected. I look forward to. Forward to playing together.

Hey, Brian, thanks a lot, buddy.

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