What To Focus On To Make $1 Million Dollars in 90 days | Grant Cardone

If you had 90 days, 90 days to make a million dollars, start with nothing. You started with nothing, and you can't use your name, Kevin O'Leary. What would you focus on?

Wow, well, that's a tough one, Grant. Like, that's a real tough one. Does it make sense to invest in a portfolio to spread it out, even if you're not comfortable knowing the type of investments, or do you just focus on those things you know and believe in?

Well, here's another lesson I learned from my mother that really worked for me over the years. She had a basic portfolio theory of diversification. She said, you know, in her day, there were only 10 sectors in the S&P. Today, there's 11 sectors. That new one is all about you, Grant. It's called real estate.

So there's 11 sectors in the S&P, including REITs and real estate. You never put more than 20% in any one sector, and you never put more than 5% in any one stock. That forces you to get diversified, and the market treats you better when you're diversified because you never know what's going to happen. Diversification gives you a lot of protection in volatile times or corrections or whatever because you don't know what the next hot sector is going to be.

But you're diversified. I'm a diversified guy. I never have more than 5%, and if a stock does become more than 5%, like my Tesla stock did, I simply sell it down to 5%. Keeps going up? Yeah, keep selling it down.

So we're taking cash. What would you say to me if I told you 98% of my wealth was in real estate?

No, I get it, and you're comfortable to do that, but you really, really got to work hard to manage a portfolio like that. You gotta know what you're doing. Now, maybe you can teach people to do that, but that's a very, very, very complicated way of doing it. If you want diversification, but if you're really good at real estate, nothing wrong.

And the reason that happened, you, Grant, is you were really successful in real estate, and it just dwarfed everything else.

You know, that's exactly what happened.

Yeah, I just don't have time to study this other stuff because I know how to pick a piece that's going to, you know, give me a kill. You know, it's going to give me... No, listen, I'm 30% in real estate. I'm cool with real estate. I got no problem, but I like to do other stuff, as I said earlier. I like a little diversification.

What does the person do? What's it from?

Deborah wants to know what does she do if she's just starting, and she's in her 60s. So if you're in your 60s, you're just starting, the easiest way to do it is, first of all, focus on paying off your debt. You really don't want debt. I don't, including credit card debt, which sometimes you pay 17% to 21% on. You gotta pay that down. When you're in your 60s, you've got to get rid of that.

So maybe you're not going out as much, maybe you're not taking that trip, maybe you're just being frugal until every debt's paid. And then you start putting it out there into an exchange-traded fund, which is what I like—diversification. Or, if you decide to get into real estate, you buy your first building, and you think it's got to be an income property, though. It's got to be an income property when you're 60.

Got to be an income. No land, no land, no speculation.

No, no speculation. You got to know, you got to, as I like to say, cash flow. Cash flow. Cash, cash is king. Or cash flow is king. Which one?

Listen, cash flow is king. You must make sure. I've got to send him a t-shirt, by the way.

What percentage—this is from Manuel Rodriguez Tartac—what percentage of your earned income would you invest in personal development?

You know, that's a great question, Grant. That really is. You should always be learning. You should always be doing things that keep your mind stimulated. And, and I don't care what age you are, you're always learning. So I think I'd put, you know, a maximum of 3% into that, like it's an expense, right?

You're not going to make any money on that, other than make yourself a better person. But I always say you're not doing that until you've paid down your debt. Everything's about getting rid of the debt. Get rid of the debt.

Yeah, I see. I would tell you, like, I would go into debt for my personal development.

Well, I can't get there. I hate that. I really, I think debt is evil. That's what I think.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You've been spending too much time with Dave Ramsey.

How much, how much debt—let me ask you. Google. Apple’s got 300 billion in cash right now. What do they got?

I know you guys... No, but I don't listen, Grant. Let me qualify that. I don't mind debt. I don't. I have debt on my real estate. I got mortgages on my commercial real estate. I got mortgages on my cold storage facilities.

I get that. I'm talking about personal debt.

Okay, yeah. If I, if I've got the cash flow to pay, like, if I can get a, you know, a great 3.5% or 3% or 200, 280 basis points, you know, on stabilized assets. If I got a facility that's spinning off cash, like my cold storage units, of course I got debt on it. But it can afford it because it's got cash flow.

Yeah, yeah. But let me ask you, what's a better investment than Kevin O'Leary?

Nothing.

Exactly. And that's what I'm going to say to you.

What about, what about this question? That's what I'm going to say. The young man that asked, would he borrow money for self-development? I'll be like you're the best investment.

Well, I see your point there, but if you don't, if you're lost, you don't know what you're doing, you should invest in yourself and find out a path. I mean, you—everybody—the thing, Grant, that I like about you is you push the idea of having a plan. You gotta have a plan.

You may not achieve your ultimate, ultimate goal, but you gotta go in that direction. If you're lost, you gotta have a plan. You gotta think about your own self and your family and your own nut and how much you're spending. You gotta have a plan.

Here's a great question from Rachel Black. Follow up to the last one. What about going all in on your own company rather than investing in ETFs or in a market?

The market wasn't giving me a return, so I went all in on my business. Do you think that's the right thing for them to do?

Well, the risk there is you're all in. And I get it. If you're in your 20s, I get it. I was all in in my company, 100%. But the minute I got diversified, you know, the minute I sold my first company, I diversified like crazy because you're betting.

There's a time in life where you can take huge risk, but you know when you get a family, you got a bunch of stuff that costs you money, and you're taking care of your kids, you got to get some diversification. You got to get some passive income. I mean that whole thing about passive income, that's serious, man. That is really important.

So your first wealth was because of the company that you sold, right?

Yeah, yeah. No, I listen. I had my wedding. My wedding, we couldn't even afford pizza.

Yeah, were you diversified when you built that company?

100%. No, listen, no, I was not diversified. I had 99.999% of my wealth in my company.

So the advice you give is actually different than the success.

Yes, but I'm telling you, if you're not going to run your own show, if you're not going to be an entrepreneur, you got to be diversified as you take money out of what your income is if you're an employee. But if you're going to be an entrepreneur—and that's a third of the population—then you're riding with the herd. Then you're doing some stuff where you're really, really, you know, taking some risk, and it's often rewarded.

If you want, I think you said it earlier, you know you can't—no one's going to give you 5 million bucks; it ain't going to happen. You got to go get it. Exactly. Exactly.

So now I got about 500 people right now asking about crypto because I think they think you're the crypto king or something.

Yeah, so what's the deal on the crypto? What's your opinion?

It's complicated as hell. It's volatile as hell. I have got 7% of my operating companies' portfolio in crypto now, but most of it's in stable coin—things where I can take USDC or DAI.

People, you got to learn this crypto stuff. You know, it's not that easy, but I basically stake it, which means I lend it out, and I make between 5.5% and 6%. So that's what I'm doing with crypto. I'm not doing the crazy stuff; I'm doing the stable coins. I got Bitcoin, I got Ethereum—it's 40% of what I got—and I got USDC, and I've got a bunch of guys on my desk that are now lending out crypto, making...

Well, I just wrote a contract today for 90 days. I got 6% on it.

What is the best way to raise capital for a self-sustaining energy project that's in the R&D stage?

There is a market for that now. Energy is controversial because the president has said he doesn't like what's going on with hydrocarbons, and so that's given a whole new life to sustainable energy—wind, solar, other ideas.

I think right now the most interesting way for a total virtual startup is to go to equity crowdfunding. That sector has exploded in the last two years because people that are interested in the things you care about invest beside you, and you can raise up to five million dollars on an equity.

There are multiple equity crowdfunding sites, and lots of my companies use that to raise money now because you're telling the story of your company, and you get people that are like-minded like you, and they become your shareholders. You don't have to go into the traditional venture capital space anymore; you can do it online.

Mr. Wonderful, I'm 57 years old—Downtown Jerry Brown. Okay, I'm 57 years old. I have less than 10,000 in savings. I own my own business. It grows this 1 million a year, 35% profits. What's a good basic plan to start growing wealth?

Wow, I like that story. That's pretty good. So, diversification. You know, your business is doing well; you're making money; it's profitable. Take some of that, and put it into something else—maybe some real estate, maybe some stocks, maybe some bonds—just so it's completely different than the risk of the business. Once you're profitable like that, of course you pay your debt down first, and then you get some diversification. That's a good story—that's a pretty successful person right there.

Nick Bigelow, where do we even start with no money to start?

Oh, well, look, if you have a job, you got to start putting 10% aside. Like there's, you know, if you're employed, you gotta do that. I mean, the whole life—even if, my whole thing is, even if you're employed, you can be an investor.

The whole thing is you got to save 10% of what you're making. I've been saying that forever. That's my mantra. When, you know, like when I sit like a yogi on the floor with my legs crossed, I say save 10%.

What are some things, Kevin, that people can do to increase the income in the job that they're in?

Get a promotion. I'll tell you how you do that. You go and see your boss and say what... People should understand, when you're working with somebody, all they care about is how do you make their job easier, not your job. What can you do to make them more successful? They're happy to pay; they're happy to actually get out there and pay you more if you're doing your job to make their job easier.

Always figure out what you can do to make your boss more successful, and he'll give you a piece, or she'll give you a piece of what the upside is. That's how it works.

Yeah, yeah. That's why I tell people quit asking for a raise and ask for a piece.

Yeah, exactly.

I got an opportunity to invest in a big company like Facebook, Apple, and so on through an insurance company program. Do you see that as a clever move?

Me? I don't have enough information to understand what they're saying, but would you rather invest in those companies that you own?

I'd rather invest in the companies that I own. I mean, you know, that's it. I don't want some insurance company in the middle of my investing. They're probably taking a fee.

Do Francisco, do I focus first on paying my debt, or do I start to invest right away?

Debt. Unless it's attached to real estate, a hard asset. If you got debt on real estate, a mortgage, that's okay. But if you just have personal debt, and you're paying 17% to 21%, you get rid of that first. You can't make 17% to 21% in the market, and that's what the—why am I an investor in every credit card company? Because they make 17% to 21% of people who don't pay their Visa bill or their MasterCard bill or whatever they got. That's why I invest in those things.

But you can't make that in the market; the market's going to give you 7%, 8%. You got to pay your debt down.

Kevin, do you agree that it would be, you know, the easiest way to invest in or to earn passive income is simply like in the real estate game is simply to invest with somebody that's already buying passive income?

But yeah, of course. I mean, look, if you, like you specialize in passive income through apartments, I get that, and that's a really good business if you know what you're doing. You gotta know what you're doing. I mean, if you're going to get into real estate, you better understand what you're doing because there's location, location, location that's very important.

The actual deal itself, the terms of the mortgage, all that stuff matters. If you don't know what you're doing, you've got to go through it a different way. But real estate has been a great investment for a long time, but I really like residential now much better than commercial.

Well, what I've done is I've reduced my exposure to commercial real estate and retail real estate and increased my exposure to residential real estate. That's what I've done.

And how would you do that? Would you invest?

Well, I mean, you can do it through REITs. I actually own physical buildings. So it's sort of the trend is people, you know, I thought I’ve got portfolio companies now—34 private companies—and we thought last year at the end of last year that 15% of our employees weren't going to come back.

Well, I was wrong about that; it's 55% aren't coming back into the office. More than half are not coming back—the accounting, compliance, logistics people. So we need less office space and more residential space.

We need more residential office space where people are building out their garage to be an office or, you know, figuring out that third bedroom into an office or the second bedroom.

The world's changing, Grant. I don't have to tell you that; you're in the real estate game. I own 10,000 units now. We have people that are in one unit asking for the unit next door to it to office out of.

Yeah, I mean, I think that is what's going on in America in a really big way. So that shows you you're better off in the residential game than you are in the commercial game.

If you had 90 days, 90 days to make a million dollars, what would you focus on? Start with nothing. You started with nothing, and you can't use your name, Kevin O'Leary. You got to put a wig on and a mustache.

Wow, I probably would fly to Singapore and do something.

Don't have any money?

Any money? You can't even... That's a problem. But that's a tough one, Grant. Like, that's a real tough one. I probably go find... I've always been a salesman, so I would find a job where I can sell something because I can sell.

And I would go do that, and I'd take that money and I'd find an investment I could put it into. Because I was always top quartile in sales. I still sell. I'm still a sales guy—that's what I do. I like it. My father was Irish; he was a salesman. My mother was Lebanese—they're very, you know, entrepreneurial. I'm a sales guy.

So, if I had nothing, I was naked on the street, I'd wrap some cardboard around my, you know what, and I'd go get a sales job.

A little piece of cardboard.

Okay, so now the audience wants to know who could sell the most—Grant Cardone or Kevin O'Leary?

Come on, there's only one guy's going to win that, Grant. That's Mr. Wonderful, 100%.

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