Transcript of Elena Cardone: The Mindset Shift That Built a Billion-Dollar Business | Entrepreneurship | YAPClassic New

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When you settle for normal, you're one bad day away from losing everything you thought you had. Today's guest is Elena Cardone, entrepreneur, author, real estate mogul, and the powerhouse behind one of the most influential family empires in the world. Elena built her success along her husband, Grant Cardone, and she's here to share exactly how. In this The App Classic episode, Elena gets real about overcoming a turbulent past, breaking through her limiting money beliefs and stepping into her role as the queen of a multi-billion dollar empire. You'll walk away knowing how to build wealth, protect your most important relationships, and start thinking bigger than you ever have.

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Let's get right into it with Elena Cardone. Elena, welcome to Young and Profiting Podcast.

Hello, Hala. How are you?

I'm doing great. I'm super excited for today's episode. Elena, before we dive into your journey, I did wanna get insight from one of your most famous quotes that I found. And you say that normal is the most dangerous condition you can be because it gives you a false sense of security. So drawing on your own life experiences, I thought this would be a great way to open up. How does normalcy generally hold people back?

Well, it holds people back because you don't strive to go further and to build up in abundance, um, either in mindset, finances, resources. When you think you're okay and you make sense of okay, it's, um, it's detrimental because it only takes one incident to come in and wipe it all out, whether that is an economic collapse or somebody in the family gets sick or, or dies or becomes incapacitated, the entire system becomes threatened and, and can't withstand. So that's why I say normal is so scary because you make sense of barely getting by, but you convince yourself that you're just fine and you have enough, you are enough, you've done enough, and then whoop, the blanket can get pulled out from under you.

Yeah. So I'd love to learn more about how you grew up.

Well, I grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana. Um, you know, I had a really great childhood. Um, I was kind of a tomboy. Um, and then one day my best friend across the street, she perished in a fire that unfortunately I was there. I witnessed the whole thing. It was devastating to me. And because I was so young and didn't know how to kind of cope with that, I went down this dark road of, um, self-medicating to try to just numb it and deal with it. So I feel like I wasted a lot of years trying to, rather than confronting. And, um, but out of that, what got me outta New Orleans was an acting career. I saw, okay, I can maybe succeed in an acting and modeling career. So I moved to Los Angeles at 17 years old. I knew no one. And just started to make it on my own. I thought anything is better than where I just came from, even though I love my hometown. It was just more than I could stand having to confront seeing that burned out empty shell of a house every single time I went in and out of my home.

So, so it just kind of got me to where I am today. I went to Los Angeles. I was an actress and, and a model for many years there until I met my husband Grant Cardone. And then we moved to Miami in 2012 and we've continued to build our lives from here. But that's pretty much my childhood in a nutshell.

From my understanding, you came from humble beginnings. How has your mindset changed about money? What are some of the things that you had to kind of disprove to yourself so that you could become the super successful person that you are today?

Well, I thought that money was only for a select few. Like I thought you had to, be really intelligent. I thought you had to have a college degree. I thought people like me just couldn't ever have wealth because that's not what I was born into. Um, also I, I grew up in my teen years, I joined kind of the punk rock society, you know, and, and in that mentality, rich people suck, they're greedy. So I had to overcome that. No, you can have wealth and not be greedy. You can have wealth and do great things. You, You know, you're not a bad person if you go out and create wealth. Um, so I had a number of these ideas. I never thought that I could make it this far. I never thought that I could, um, surpass Grant in money. Well, and I haven't to date, let's be fair, but at least now I've opened my mindset to the possibility that that could occur.

Yeah. And what really changed your mind? Was it when you went to LA and you saw how people lived and they had money and, and that kind of opened your eyes or what really? Flip that switch for you?

You know, really? Yes. When I went there, it started to open my eyes. I started to kind of grow up a little. I started to really align with, okay, that's not my beliefs. What are my beliefs? That was the groupthink back then with that group I was attached to. What, what do I really think about money? And, and then it was when I got with Grant who really started to have me understand the principles of money. And when, once I really started to understand money and how to apply it and not violate the policies on money, I started to really be able to have an abundance of it. You know, when I realized that, um, you know, money doesn't make you greedy. I realized when I had been thinking money makes me greedy, no matter how high or how successful I would go, something would always knock me back down because I had been having this mindset. If I got above this, I would somehow become greedy or an evil person. You know, like money makes you evil. Or so I would never allow myself to break up into here, but I didn't do it intentionally.

But now looking back, it was because I had already had this, this barrier of what I thought was the threshold. And once I crossed it, I would become this evil, mean person. So in my life, I just always had a situation come and knock it out, whether, you know, it was an end of a career, an end of a job, an end of, you know, or, or a car needing repair or a house needing repair or a lawsuit or this or that. Something would come in and whack, whack, whack, where it would build up down the coffer to build back up. And it wasn't until I realized, wow, um, that's a very limiting belief that's actually holding me down. Can I just be open to the possibility that money could make me more generous? And I just changed that mindset just a little bit. And then all of a sudden I got to a certain amount where I thought, wow. 'Cause I remember the day when I, I had the goal of having $60,000 in the bank. Like I thought I was rich if I had $60,000 in the bank and I could never get to that.

Then I opened the viewpoint, then I hit the $60,000 and then I was like, oh, it's $100,000. That's the real number. And then I cracked the $100,000 and then I just opened I opened it up to, I'm just open to the possibility of, you know, money. And I don't have to make money mean all these other things. Money is money. Money's a currency. It's supposed to ebb and flow and it's an energy and I'm supposed to just use it. And how can I grow and multiply it? And that's all it means. It's just a resource.

Hmm.

I started to be able to have a lot of it. And then when I look around and I saw, wow, there's trillions of dollars, we're printing trillions of dollars, there's no shortage of money. Why can't I just go? As if I had my bucket in an ocean and scoop up some, some water. You know, like no one's gonna notice if I take a bucket of water from the ocean. No one's gonna notice if I scoop a billion dollars out of the trillions of dollars that are out there. If I decide to take a billion or a million or 100,000, it's not even gonna register. So why do I have this scarcity mindset and why do I make it any harder than walking down to the beach and scooping up water? It's only because I'm making it harder. But once you actually understand the certain philosophies that go around money and how simple it is, and it's not complex, the more that you can be actually of an abundance mindset and start having and attracting it.

I love that. I feel like you gave us so much wisdom in terms of how we can break out of this limiting mindset when it comes to trying to make more money and not being afraid of actually achieving the success that we dream of. I think a lot of us, yeah, are actually afraid of the outcome and that's why we don't go ahead and do the things that we need to do.

Or you just don't know the right things. You don't have the right information. Knowledge is power, right? So if you have the wrong information, what do you have? The complete opposite. So get around the right people, the right mindset, study the right people. It should be easy. It's not difficult.

So you just, uh, mentioned knowledge, right? Knowledge is power. From my understanding, you went to California when you were 17 years old. Which I guess means that you didn't go to college, right? So I'd love to understand your opinion on higher education. Do you think it's necessary? Obviously there's so many entrepreneurs like yourself, you know, Steve Jobs that didn't go to college that became extremely successful. But for the average person, like what are your thoughts in terms of higher education?

Look, if you wanna become a lawyer or a doctor, obviously you need to go to get a higher education and be very specified with that particular knowledge. But for anybody else, you, it's hands-on experience. It's getting in the field, it's doing it, it's action. We don't ask anybody here what your qualifications are. We are interested in, can you produce a result? Can, do you have the resources to self-educate, figure it out? You know, when Grant does a $200 million deal on an investment property that he's buying, this institutional grade property that Prudential or JP Morgan or Blackstone are also bidding on. They're not asking Grant, what's your college degree? And they're not asking to see his, uh, you know, at what age did you start speaking? And you know, what degree do you have and from where? And who do you know? It's no, show me the numbers in the account and how can you support this and how are you gonna take care of the asset? And you know, and can you pull this thing off?

Yeah, that's it.

They're not looking beyond that. So, you know, I, and Grant has said this, really, if you're going to go for higher education in a general field, go for one reason and one reason only. Meet the people. Mm-hmm. Go there and meet the, the Obamas, the, the Trumps, the world leaders, you know, go to meet the contacts that can collaborate with you in the future.

Yeah. I think that's great advice. So let's move on to talking about Grant and your relationship because I think it's really interesting. Um, your dynamic together and how you guys met even is an interesting story. So why don't we start there? Can you guys, can you share the story of how you guys met? Uh, because from my understanding, you weren't actually interested in him at first.

No, I wasn't. Yeah, we met in Los Angeles. I was on a commercial. I was shooting a commercial. It was in downtown Los Angeles, middle of the night. It was a night shoot. And Grant was friends with the director, so he showed up on the shoot. I see him in the trailer. It was like, hi, bye. I never thought anything of him. You know, not my type. Short, shorter than me. Like, just did not register. I was more into actors, musicians at the time. I'm in my 20s. Grant seemed like kind of a businessman. Just didn't register. Anyway, he gets my number from the director. He was like, no, you're not supposed to give somebody's number from the call sheet out to a random. And the director did. And then Grant calls me and we have this disastrous phone call. He's like, oh, it was just horrible. I don't even need to get into it, but it was horrible. And I decided, okay, this is the last phone call that I'm gonna have with this guy. What a joke. And, um, I hang up the call with him and he proceeds to call me twice a month, every month for the next 13 months with no return phone call.

He'd leave a message on my answering machine, but I never thought he was like creepy, scary guy. It was just like a non-event. Just didn't think anything of it. He wasn't stalking me. It wasn't weird. I wasn't scared. It just, just wasn't anything I thought about, you know. And then eventually he became friends with one of my best friends at the time who I was hanging out with. So we kind of got in the circle. So then he starts showing up at, you know, the clubs and the restaurants that I'm at. And so I'm like, oh well, he's not so bad after all, you know. But I still wasn't interested. Um, but I liked that he could be around. I knew that he liked me, but he wasn't pushing himself on me. It was just like Cool. Like, I just, I just didn't wanna be put in that awkward situation, you know? And, uh, then he finally found out that I like to shoot guns. I was 10th in California for shotguns at the time. Anyway, he, he left a message and, um, and he was like, hey, I rented the, the shooting range. You wanna come with me?

And so I, that was the first call that got me to call him back. And I was like, okay, I'll go to the shooting range with you. And and then that's how we kind of developed a quote-unquote friendship. And, um, and, but he didn't push me, and we hung out like that for a few months. And then one day I was like, this guy is special, he's different, I've never had a guy like this before. And what does he see in me? Like, the way I behaved and kind of treated him would have made any guy like run away or say, oh, screw it, to hell with her. But he was just patiently cool, but not in a pathetic way.

Yeah.

One day I just like, my eyes just kind of opened and I was like, oh my God, like something really real is here in front of me.

Yeah.

And I'm, you know, I, I was at dinner and I was like, oh my God. And he's like, what? And I said, you're gonna make me fall in love with you, aren't you? And he was like, yes. Yes, I am. And we've been together ever since.

That's so sweet. So I wanna dig into something that you said, which is basically that Grant was much different than the other guys that you were dating before. And I'd love to understand what you mean by that. What, what kind of men were you dating before and how did Grant stand out?

Um, oh gosh. Well, I dated art, artsy guys. I dated actors, musicians. Um, so tattoo people. One, one of my, you know, the first big love of my life unfortunately was addicted to crystal meth. It led to some problems after we broke. I mean, problems while we were together. So much so that I had to break it off with him, not because I wasn't in love with him, but because there was just so many problems and drama that comes with somebody that's addicted to crystal meth.

Yeah.

After I break up with him, he ends up in jail for 3 years. So that's the type of people I was with, just drama in that art scene, drugs, alcohol, rock and roll. And Grant was very different. He didn't do drugs, he didn't drink. He was a businessman. He had his money together. He was just stable. Um, and I just, I just didn't know that world. I'm, I had lived in Los Angeles since I was 17, you know, by the time I met him, I was in my late twenties. I never, I never hung out with business people. It was always producers, actors, directors, um, musicians. It was always somebody in the arts.

Yeah. So the reason why I asked this question is because there's more single women out there than ever right now, partially because women are doing better than men right now in, in general. Like more women are starting to graduate college. Uh, it's, I think it's, uh, for every one man, it's two women graduate college. Women are starting to make more money. Women usually marry up and now women are starting to have to marry down, so to speak, because they're leveling up. And a lot of women being successful actually emasculate men. And so it doesn't, it's, it's not working out like it used to be. Marriage rates are down. And I guess what I'm trying to say is when you're looking for a partner, obviously nobody's perfect, right? I remember hearing you say like you thought Grant was short, right? And that might have, if, if you were, you know, not open-minded, you may not have embarked on this amazing journey that you went on because of something as You know, superficial, right?

Yeah.

So I just want your guidance on that because I think, you know, I have a lot of young listeners, women in their 30s. I have men that listen to me too. And I think a lot of people are fixated on this like perfect partner. And I wanna understand from you, uh, given that you guys are sort of like a role model couple, what do you actually need to look for in a partner? And how do you understand whether or not, you know, what you're looking for is either unrealistic or you're looking at the wrong things basically?

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Well, I don't think you should settle. I don't think you should compromise. What I would suggest is somebody write down, write, you, you wanna come up with perfect. You shouldn't deviate from that. Write the perfect person, you know? And, and you're talking about trivial. I wrote over 100 characteristics. This is before I got together with Grant, over 100 characteristics of what I wanted in the perfect man. And it started with 6'2" and green eyes. Every single item on the rest of the list was Grant except for the first two, 6'2" and green eyes. And I only said 6'2" because I had, uh, had other guys not want me to wear heels. It really wasn't because I had a consideration. And green eyes, I like green eyes. I should've just said charming and accepts me for my height.

Mm-hmm. You know what I mean?

It wouldn't have pigeonholed me into being blind, right? Cuz I was looking for 6'2" and green eyes. So what I would say is write it all down, right? You want monogamy, you want ethically ambitious, all the traits, trustworthiness, monogamy. Wants a family. Write everything that you want, you know, that's gonna build me up, that's gonna support me, show active interest in the success of me, likes women and children, protects women and children. Write everything down. I wrote all of that. Has a great relationship, isn't drama, is proud to have me with him, you know, blah, blah, blah. Write every single thing on your list. But here's the catcher. When you write that list, cuz after I wrote all the list of what I wanted in a man, because before that I was like, I'm gonna be this dedicated single woman forever. I don't need a man for anything. That, and you know, I really thought that was gonna be my life. I didn't even get married until I was 30. So, you know, and I wouldn't have until Grant sort of proposed, and then I was like, oh my God. But anyway, so after you write the list of what you want, turn around.

If this actually became the man of your dreams, I, I saw when I wrote that list, I said, if this man actually exists, I could be with this man for the rest of my life. I wrote on there like sexually compatible, like, you know, adventurous, fun. We fall in love with each other for, you know, all the stuff that I wanted. If he existed, this man existed, I could be with him. But now if this man existed from his point of view, from the perfect man, what are his qualities? What does he want in a woman? And I wrote them down. He would want monogamy. He would want a, someone who doesn't excessively drink alcohol, doesn't do drugs, wants to have a family. You see what I'm saying?

Mm-hmm.

Like, is trustworthy, does what they say, isn't a drama queen, takes care of themselves physically. Trust me, every man wants that.

Mm-hmm.

You know, don't kid yourself. Don't be like, oh, he should love me just the way I am. Write what he would really want on his ideal scene. And when I did that, I realized at the time, this is back in time, right? 20+ years ago, I saw how off I was. I was, you know, excessively drinking alcohol. I was hanging out in the clubs. I didn't want a family. I didn't wanna be married. It wasn't until the, that list that I even considered it. So then I started to go work on myself. How can I improve myself rather than thinking I'm entitled to this perfect person? How can you get yourself in your own ethical moral code, how can you get yourself to be the woman that would, that man would attract? Do you know what I'm saying?

Totally.

I did that and that's when we kind of found each other almost immediately because I became comparable magnitude to the thing that I wanted. Now I could also speak on, you know, the emasculation and the this and the that of the men. And also let's have the woman take responsibility for her role in that only because I've been there and I did that.

Mm-hmm.

So I used to have, I'm this strong, independent, powerful woman. I don't, I never need and depend on a man for anything. I had all my own expenses. I dated a couple of these guys, right? They lived with me. I don't need you for anything. I made all my decisions. You don't tell me what to do. I'm doing this with or without you.

Mm-hmm.

I made more money than them. But guess what? That did that attitude of not wanting to be needed, or who wants to feel like that? I don't wanna feel not needed. I don't wanna feel in a relationship that Grant's gonna not include me and go do whatever and whenever. So that made it so they wanted to go out and like cheat because they wanna go be with a woman that does need 'em or care about 'em or, you know, is excited by them. They, I made it seem like I could care less. So I don't think that it's the fact that you make more money that emasculates the man. I feel like it's your attitude toward them and not including them in on the cycle. Not that you need to ask them how you spend your money, but it's a way that you treat them that's and there's a way that y'all can come together and work out who you are as a couple. Not just, I am this with or without you. Who are we as a couple? Who do we represent? Are we the winning couple? What are our goals? What are our dreams?

What do we wanna accomplish together? And then figure out who does what in the relationships based on your strengths and weaknesses, not male, female, on how you're gonna get there. Because if. If I'm the big breadwinner in the family and I'm the female, but I have this guy who's supporting me and setting up and getting me everything that I need to run all the behind the scenes operations so that we, me can get there. He's equally as valuable.

Mm-hmm.

You understand? So it's about figuring it out and not caring about what the outside world is, but how you each contribute to the win and to the success of both of y'all as a couple. Yeah, I've actually talked to couples where the woman is the big breadwinner and the guy is running the whole organization and her follow-up and administration, where she gets to go out and be the artist. And, you know, she's a sculpture, she's a famous person, whatever, blah, blah, blah. But you know what I'm saying? They don't have inner conflict because they have their thing worked out and so grooved in. They're, they're, they're intertwined with each other, going for goals together.

Yeah.

I feel like this is such a great segue to talk about your own experience with Grant. Um, I learned that you guys had a different dynamic before the 2008, uh, recession and after. And I think this illustrates exactly what you're saying so perfectly.

Yeah. Well, we married in 2004. Again, I had it just ingrained in me. I wasn't trying to prove a point. It was just ingrained to me to be this strong, powerful, independent woman. Never depend on a man for anything. That was just what was always sitting there. I wasn't spoken, it just lived in me. So for the first 4 years, I mean, Grant and I had, I had my goals, he had his whole goals. We had never come together and said, who are we as a couple? What do we represent and where do we want to go together? It was always me, him. So I would go out and produce and he would go out and produce and we'd come home and fight and battle because I was like, you're not gonna tell me what to do. And I've lived on my own this whole time and you don't own me just because you have more money than me. And I'm not gonna make you a meal because you want a meal. I'm gonna make you a meal because I wanna make a meal. You know, just weird psycho stuff. I mean, this is the man I am married to and I am having issues with like making the man a meal.

Like that's, that's messed up. Like how about support? Like just feed somebody who's hungry, you know what I'm saying? Without making it mean this. So we fought each other. So we'd build, build, build and kind of tear it apart at night cuz we were playing small, bickering small. I was fighting, he was fighting tit for tat, who's gonna get to be the boss. Who's this? Who's that? After 2008, different story. I'm pregnant with our first child. We're under a lawsuit. Economic collapse occurs. We're on the verge of losing everything financially. Now what are you gonna do? Now I had to take on the big gulp and say, wow, you know what? Why can't I depend on the man that I trusted and loved enough to marry? Why can't I depend on him? Why does society wanna say, oh, you're codependent? Well, I am married. I am codependent on him. He is codependent on me. I show up for him, he shows up for me. I like that. I don't wanna do this game alone. I want to build with somebody. I want to be able to depend on somebody who's got my back and vice versa.

I had to go through all of this in my head. You know, I believe there's strength in numbers. You know, I believe in the power of two and the power of more, you know? So, so that's after 2008, I was like, okay, This is when I had the idea, who are we? Where are we going? What do we wanna build? What does our empire look like in the future? It was very, this was the vision, but it did not look like that back then. And I took a big risk and I said, I'm betting on you, Grant. I'm trading in the acting career. I'm gonna come in and run background support. I'm gonna have your back. I'm gonna make you a meal. I'm gonna do whatever it takes for us to get ourselves out of this. You know, you need me to this, that, boom, boom, boom. I got you. Make connections, have a vision, hammer you to get going. And not complain when you're out working too hard, never saying when's enough enough, just keep pushing. Let's go, let's go, let's go. Wins, celebrate the wins. Like, I'm gonna be your cheerleader. And that's what I did.

And that's when everything started to just go zoom, zoom. We started to make major strides. We were no longer fighting. I had a role and he had a role. And he doesn't show up 50 and I show up 50. I show up 100 and he shows up 100. That's how we do our relationship. Whether we're fighting, we're arguing, we're mad, we hate each other that day, it doesn't matter. I'm showing up in the relationship 100%. And so is he. And that's the way we've been able to be so successful.

Yeah.

And I definitely wanna get into, you know, what it means to build an empire and all that. But before we get into that, there's a recession that everybody says is coming up. And so I'd love to hear your advice in terms of how couples and like should deal with that. What should they talk about and get aligned with? Because a lot of people break apart when the going gets tough.

Right. You know, they should just become very aware we're in a recession. It's happening. Even if it doesn't just be there, go there. Okay. What do we need to do? Economize.

Okay.

Let's shut out all the excess spending, which you should anyway. You're violating one of the principles that we, we know about money. You know, get on the same page on money. Where, where are we gonna go? It's who's got my money?

Mm-hmm.

It's always a who, who's got your money? Who's gonna, who can you exchange products and services with? It's a who. People? How do you network? How do you get on the communication lines of the world? What can y'all do to meet? How can you do 10x the amount of work? You know, now's the time to pour it on, not retreat. Now's the time to be around a 10x mindset. Now's the time to stay away from toxic people and small-minded people. Now's the time to step away from the news and stop hearing the news. Accept it. Make your battle plan. Grant and I have 3 rules to money. One, You know how to earn it, right? Number 2, you know how to store it. Doesn't mean save. You save it in a bank, the money's going to zero. It's depreciating in value. Store it. And then number 3, you store it so that you can invest it into a passive income asset. That's what Grant and I have done. We earn income. All earned income either goes to self-enhancement, back into myself and my business, not back into Chanel, not back into Gucci, not back into a nice car.

Sacrifice. Pay the price today so you can pay any price in the future. That's it. Be strict. Be disciplined. This is what Grant and I did for a decade before social media, and you couldn't see us paying the price. We paid the price. What are you willing to give up in order to get where you wanted to go? We weren't doing fancy parties, dinners, no loaf time. We were working, hustling, right? Earned income either goes back into self, self-enhancement, business, the rest gets Stored. Okay. And that's it.

Boom, boom, boom.

Stored, stored. Then you get enough income-producing asset. We created a fund, Cardone Capital. Anyone can invest accredited, non-accredited. You can invest with us and have a piece of this from day one income-producing asset that either delivers a dividend monthly or quarterly, depending on how you came in as an investor. And that money. Okay. And that money, number 3. The passive income is what you spend on your Gucci, in our case planes, cuz we've amassed such a mass fortune of it, or an extra home or a this or a that. That's what, but until then we're in sacrifice phase. So if you can get into alignment on those 3 things and know how to do your finances and make agreements on, you know what, now's the time we're gonna dig in. And even if we don't financially grow in the next last year, but we grow spiritually, we grow in awareness, we grow with investing in whatever it is that you do in your business. You invest in your network that when the floodgates open, you're so far ahead of everybody else because you've had your discipline in for the last year. You know, people always ask me, what would you do if you lost all your money?

I'm like, yeah, so it wouldn't take me nearly as long to get it the second time. The first time, why? Because you can't take away what I know you can't take away my connections. You can't take away my, my intelligence, my, my grit, my confidence, my discipline. You, you know, that's been earned. So now is the time to get together and say, you know what, now is the time where we can get stronger, where we can fortify. Others are going to fail. Let's make a commitment to be the winning couple. Let's make a commitment to get on the other side of this so that we can help other people who are just like us. Start with a commitment, reaffirm it every week. Have your little your meetings to powwow to keep each other energized. Set small goals along the way, small little targets that you can hit along the way to feel good.

Yeah. So your story is so fascinating because a lot of people would think that you might be upset that you're leaving behind such a great modeling and acting career, but actually you ended up still being in the spotlight, being very famous, and almost, it's like you took a different path to get to the place that you wanted to be. And to me, that's such a powerful lesson because a lot of people are so fixated on this one outcome of this is what I need to pursue my dream. This is the one outcome. But really there's so many ways you can get to what you really want, which I think for you is like making an impact, you know, that's right. Being known.

Right.

And so I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.

It follows commitment, you know, and once you make a commitment, and you're open to the possibility. And once you know what you want, you know your purpose, you all of a sudden you can start to see opportunities everywhere. And when you get out of the little tunnel vision, in my case, for me, I thought the only thing I knew how to do was an acting career. What else can I do? I never went to college, never thought I was one of those smart chicks. You know, I thought that was the only thing I, I had my whole identity wrapped up into it. It was very hard to make the move. And exactly what you said now. As I just made this commitment. I've used everything along the way. I've just used it all. But if I had that closed mindset, I wouldn't even be able to see, you know? I use now that I was able to support Grant and to turn that into my superhero. That is my power. I don't, I'm not ashamed by that. Other women have, in my case, I'm only speaking about my case. So I'm assuming that because I feel it, there have to be other women out there that feel the same way.

But in the beginning, you know, I was this power woman. I moved to Los Angeles. I was the actress. I was this, I was that. To come and then take a support role and figure out what all of that means, like, ah, you can kind of wanna shrink and shrivel. I was like, no, I've gotta own this. I am the support. I did do this, own it. And now I'm on the forefront empowering other women owning and, you know, I'm building a real estate group with eXp where I have over 730 agents in my organization. I'm helping other powerful people build their empires. So how? By doing the same thing that I did for Grant, offering infrastructure, mindset, and support. Stop trying to fight it. These are your assets. Just embrace them and use them.

Yeah.

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So I'd love to understand, first of all, what is your definition of an empire? And then I wanna understand what your, your role is and Grant's role in this empire.

So an empire is really a mindset. It's about thinking big enough, abundantly enough, big enough, require expansion, empires require people. No one can build an empire alone. So it's a metaphor for, for your life, right? This isn't the solopreneur, this is the empire. And my role, of course, in, in every empire that you have, you should be the king and the queen of your empire. And there's empires within the empires. You know, my executive assistant, she gets to be the queen of her empire. And as the king and the queen, like, that means our relationship is the sacred of the entire empire, meaning I don't go to my friends and I, I, I metaphorically call them the chambermaids in this book as an example to say, if you're with the queen and you're with a king, and that's the top, how could you go to anyone below you and ask advice about being with the king when they've never been with the king? They can't give you the advice. And why are you nattering and criticizing and complaining the king? And why would the king do that for the queen? And when you were allowed to seek your own counsel with each other and you protect each other, you're able to— the, the rest of the empire filters down and follows suit.

So, so now I can work out my disagreements with my husband in private, and I don't have to have dumped onto my friends that now have a negative outlook with him. I make up with him, they still have the negative outlook. Then I get with them, they have the negative outlook. I have to defend them, or they bring up something that I've already hashed out, and then I go home and refight all over again. Why? I don't do that. So an empire is about abundance. It's abundance in confidence. It's abundance in resources, finances, people. It's abundance on the mission. It's about wearing the crown, something that greater than yourself. It's about, it's about something in your purpose being so important that you can be willing to feel scared or sad or, um, lazy, but you'll still do it anywhere because you have to do it for the crown, for the people, for the purpose, for the cause. It gets you going. It's being willing to think bigger than just yourself. Yeah.

So one of the things that I'm curious about is how you get your children involved in this empire. It's, it's very interesting that you guys bring them up on stage. You don't see many successful couples even putting their kids on camera, but you guys have decided that your entire family is going to be this role model family in the limelight.

I wanna understand how you get buy-in from your kids to come along this journey.

Well, I've just, um, indoctrinated them from when they're very early, very young. You know, I've always, tried to respect them as spiritual beings that are in little bodies. Not that they're adults, not that they've earned adult rights, but that they're spiritual beings. They're not children. They can understand. Not like dumb, you know, but like that they can actually understand. So I've communicated, look, Grant and I are superheroes and we wanna make a difference for the better and we wanna impact lives. And, and Grant wants to, you know, help financial literacy and help people take care of their finances and It helps their families. And you know me, I wanna restore the family dynamic to society and I wanna empower women because I believe we're powerful and we can make a difference and make change on the planet. And so do you wanna be a part of that? We ask them, we don't make them, we didn't decide, we invited them to participate. Do you wanna be a part of this team that makes a difference for the better? Yes. Yes. I wanna be a superhero. You know, they're little, right? Great. This is how you can do this.

You can show up with us at events. You can dance on the stage. You can pass out the flyers. You can, you know, sometimes when we have to leave you behind because we have to go do an event, when you're okay, when the nanny is watching you and I don't have to worry about you, and I can give to that audience and then they can take it home and then they can go make their lives better for their kids. You're contributing. Do you realize you're not there, but you're contributing because you let us go distraction free. That is a way you are exchanging with us.

Mm-hmm.

So I under— I let them see that they can exchange from a very young age. And now, as you can see, you know, they're 13. Sabrina's on a trip with Grant today about meeting with a very big group, uh, uh, for apartments and whatnot. And she does the Real Estate King with them and they do 10X Kids and they're putting together a show, Mini Moguls together. And you know, they speak at Grant Cardone Foundation. To other children. Like, you know, they're— they've taken an active role because they've been allowed to contribute and exchange with as much as they're willing to do.

I feel like that's so beautiful.

So you want to help your kids? Yeah, want to help, you know, like it's just understanding that, you know, it might not look like in the form that you're used to. So, you know, from a very young age, if the kid sees you on the computer all day long and they come over and they start pounding on your computer, as difficult as it may be to not be like, stop it, what are you doing? You just ruined my document. But being and having the intellect enough to realize the kid is coming over who loves you so much and is trying to contribute. They're trying to help you by pounding on your computer. They want to contribute. So, you know, from a young age it was, oh wow, thank you so much. Wow, that was amazing. They're like, yay. You know, you feel all great. And you take your computer and undo all the little marks that they made and, you know, continue. But it's allowing— it's, it's about parents recognizing, like, even a smile or a performance or a dinner they want to make you. I remember they made us dinners and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or whatever.

It's like, it's allowing them to, to discharge that debt that they feel. Can you imagine? A kid has been given everything. They can't do anything. They want to feel even from young ages that they are self-determined, that they can do things, that they can give back and they can contribute. And it's important for parents to recognize and allow their children to contribute.

Hmm.

I love that.

So my last question before we start to close this out is really about you being a role model. Um, you know, people think it's easy to just get on camera every day to always sort of make the right decisions. To always, you know, hold yourself with a certain amount of honor and grace. But it's not easy to be a role model. I know that I've got a lot of fans on LinkedIn, for example, and sometimes I wanna respond to a mean comment or di— but then I remember I'm a, I'm a role model to so many people that are looking up to me. And you have it, you know, a hundred times as most people. So I'd love to understand how you deal with that.

Oh, so that's very easy. Like, you know, you mentioned wanting to respond to somebody. I have all those impulses this too. Um, what helps me in those situations, it isn't really necessarily that, um, and I should maybe look and say, wait, I'm a role model here, but I don't. What I do is I go, look, my purpose is so big. I'm trying to restore the value of family dynamic to the world. I'm trying to empower women to empower themselves, to empower their families, their communities. Like, I, and, and I, I feel like so far from having that goal achieved on this planet that I can't waste a second. If, if that's the goal, and then every time somebody says something negative about me, I go chase it down, what am I doing right now? I'm going down this rabbit hole. That enemy, that hater, has now successfully distracted me from achieving my target because I'm off my target and I'm on to them, and now I'm flowing somebody like me, somebody like you who has power, who has influence. Now I've put my attention, your attention, your power onto them, and I'm flowing them power, even if it's a negative comment or whatever.

Like, can you imagine the flow of power you just gave them and how much they receive by pulling you off of your agenda? So I don't engage because I can't afford to engage. I am so busy trying to get my mission accomplished, that That saves me. Now, if somebody tries to, and it's a rare circumstance, the real enemy who, who tries to threaten my family, our staff, our investors, somebody who's really evil intention, not somebody that's just gonna say I look like, oh God, what, what do they call me? A drag queen. They say I look like a drag queen, whatever the people they want, or, or, or say that I'm a gold digger or trophy wife. They try to say these, which all of which I use to my benefit in the end. But you know, I'm not talking about comments like that. I'm talking about real threats or those, those people. I am not afraid to come off of my post, you know, my job. And I'm not afraid to make an example out of them and for all to see because I want people to know I do fight for my friends.

I do fight for my group. You're not allowed to harm me, my family, my people. It won't happen on my watch. And it only happens about maybe once every 5 years, but I'm not afraid to stab those people in a public arena because I don't want, I want people to know what the threat is for coming after me and my group. But that's rare. The haters, they're like barking dogs on a, on a, on, on the wheel of a fire truck. Like, is the fire truck who's trying to put out a fire gonna stop to kick the dog away from biting to tire? No, you're gonna keep going and the dog's gonna tire out. And all the haters do because they can't even match your energy. They don't. All the energy that they have is to try to bring you down.

Yeah.

You know, and when that fails, they peter out.

Yeah. I love what you're saying. You're basically said, saying save your energy for when it really matters and all that little stuff, just let it slide off your back because you don't wanna feed your energy. Give them your good energy.

No. Right.

Because that's what they want. They, they wanna bring you down.

That's right. And the best revenge is to flourish and prosper. Yeah. It's the best revenge. It's the best for all involved. The, when the more you succeed, the less hate you have for those people, you know? And, and it actually heals you from actually wanting revenge, you know? And you're doing good for the world. So the solution to everything is to flourish and prosper.

So Elena, I wanna be respectful of your time. I know we have just a couple minutes left. So I end my interviews with the same couple of questions. The first one is, one, what is one actionable thing that our young and profits can do today to become more profitable tomorrow?

Profitable. Um, you know, stop studying the self-proclaimed experts and really start getting mentors. Study the big guys, the big guys. Study what is Elon Musk doing? How do they take on debt? What do, how do they use debt? How do they. What are they, what are they doing? Like model them. What are the greats doing? So find the people and study what they're doing. Study the people that have the statistic in the area of which you want to succeed in and go deep on everything that they do. Learn everything that they do and stop trying to get pieces here and there and just study it deep until you master that one thing. Hmm.

I love that advice. And what is your secret to profiting in life? And this doesn't have to be related to financially profiting, can be profiting in relationships, for example, anything.

Um, the secret to profiting for me, um, is I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm huge on this. I don't live from the past into the present. That's normal. I don't like normal. I live from the future to the present. So I look at where I wanna go, who I wanna be, who I wanna be around. On what do I want in my life? And I reverse engineer and take the actions necessary in order to become that person that I wanna be in the future. Mm-hmm. And so that's where I'm always looking from. I'm, I'm, I'm living from now, from my future self, not my past. Um, when I disconnected from that, I really started to profit and have gains. Otherwise, you know, I, I was looking at the past. I don't wanna buy this program cuz the last program didn't work and I failed. Well, I'm not the same person. Maybe I do the new program in a new unit of time, and this time it works. Every time I compared myself to the past, or this relationship's not gonna work 'cause the last relationship didn't work. Everything from the past, the past, I could never get ahead.

Once I finally said, this is who I am, I wanna know about finances, I wanna be a good speaker, I wanna be confident, I wanna be competent. Every single course I've done since then has worked because I go, I need to have X, Y, and Z. Once I get through, check, check, check. Check, check, check. Then I get to be that girl, that girl that I want. So every single thing that I do has impact, meaning I know it's gonna work because I see who I'm supposed to be. I just have to get through the checklist of all my action items and then I get to have. It is a complete game changer.

I love that you're bringing this up. I just had a conversation with Ben Hardy and our whole conversation was about future self and he told me something. That I wanna just share with my listeners really quick because it's, it's related with what you just said. Basically, it's like you're not your future self yet. You're not your past self. We only are who we are in this moment. Your past self is dead. People who hurt you in the past, they're not the same people anymore. They've had new experiences. They think differently. They're doing different things. They have different jobs. It's literally the person who broke your heart, the person who fired you, you can't stay mad at them because they're not the same person. That person doesn't exist anymore. Exist anymore. So the past doesn't even matter anymore. And if you spend your time there, you're never gonna get to where you wanna go. So all you can do is be in your present self and work on your future self.

So true. It's been a game changer for me. I like that advice.

Thank you so much, Elena. I really appreciate having you on the show and, uh, thanks for coming on.

Oh, it's been an honor. Thank you so much for having me and introducing me to all your amazing audience. Thank you.