Grant Cardone says he felt like a fraud teaching business before he'd actually built one. He studied Brian Tracy, Tom Hopkins, and Zig Ziglar, then created Cardone University once he had real companies to back up what he taught.
I felt like a fraud. I felt like the guy on stage doing the, doing the speech, you know, when do I build a business?
A lot of your stuff, like you got to admit, is Brian Tracy. It's like, you know, like you've been heavily influenced by Brian Tracy.
Yeah.
Tom Hopkins, like Zig Ziglar, all the greats.
Heavily, heavily influenced.
I can obviously see that.
Yeah. But the strategy, strategies are different because one of the things I studied all those guys, by the way.
So did I.
So, so like Brian Tracy, Brian Tracy did. It didn't work for me. But, but, but to understand there was a system. Yeah, that's what worked for me. I needed a system. Now, you know, if you perfect those guys systems, you could actually, if you perfect their systems, like I did with Tom. Tom, Tom. I was probably 27 years old when I was studying Tom Hopkins. Yeah, hot potato. I knew all that, dude. I knew that verbatim. Like I could do it better than Tom and I'm better looking, so I could do it, but I could do it, man. I had it down. Right. Never saw him, never, never saw that guy live until I interviewed him a couple of years ago and studied his material off of CDs. I've spent so much money, like as.
Of investing in yourself.
Yeah. But then what I did was when you become a master, you know, then you can start creating your own content. Like Cardone University is not a mock, a knockoff of other people.
Definitely not.
You know, we flip like entire cycles. When you study something long enough, like you can perfect even on a master's work. And even people out there, like, if you studied my material long enough to where you're like, okay, that's his, that's his, that's his. And you just started perfecting on it, then you could actually create something new.
And nothing in the world is original. Right. And it's like it's through.
I don't know if I agree with that, but.
Well, like it's. You all come and getting inspiration from something that.
Well, there has to be something original. There has to be something original.
If you kept on going back since the dawn of time, maybe saying, you.
Just said, you said there's nothing original. There's got to be something original.
Fair enough.
Okay, so, but, but, but, but you see, like Brian Tracy and, and, and Tom. Yep. Those are guys that inspired me not to do what they did.
How so?
Because they never built businesses. If they were here right now, I'd be like, guys, you guys inspired me to create the empire I have.
Yep.
There was no way I am going to fly on a plane at 75 years old.
Yeah.
It doesn't even look good. Like there's a point where you just don't want to do that. Flying all the way across the world to pick up 25 grand. You slave. So then, and so that, that was some of the inspiration. I saw these trainers.
Yep.
Spending all their time training speakers. Speaking.
Yep.
Where's the business? Where's the company? And, and that's what happened to everybody in that space by the way before the Dan Lok's and all these guys before Instagram, all these guys. Businesses were slaughtered. Nobody was buying books and. And so it's like what are you going to do? This was my inspiration. I felt like a fraud. I felt like the guy on stage doing the, doing the speech. You know, when do I build a business? I was telling people how to build a business. I didn't have a business.
