By Caroline Yablon | Reporter
Number-one sales trainer in the World Grant Cardone enlightened an audience of Baylor students with his talk “How to Build a 10X Career Outcome” at Paul L. Foster Campus for Business and Innovation Wednesday evening.
Grant Cardone was humble talking about his successes and advice for students on how they can build a successful career, but he was also truthful with his past mistakes that he made in college, and he shared how they have now shaped him into the person he is today.
He said that he had a drug addiction that started around when he was 16-years-old and lasted until he was around 25-years-old. He said he tried to quit 10 times a day during his nine-year journey with drug addiction. Then finally, one day he said he woke up and said “today we’re quitting” after many attempts to quit, and that’s when he said he started to put his life back together.
Grant Cardone, however, does not do this work alone; he works alongside his wife of 14 years, Elena Cardone. Although they both have different roles in the company, she said they work together as a “tag-team,” which she said makes their relationship work because it helps eliminate any kind of competition between each other.
“That’s why we don’t have trouble trying to compete against each other, or each trying to be the boss — because I have a department and he has a department,” Elena Cardone said.
She then emphasized how important it is for a person to know their role in any kind of relationship.
Grant Cardone said money does not equal happiness, but money can change the conditions around a person.
“If you are going to be unhappy, I would strongly advise that you have money to go along with your misery — at least the money, if you are unhappy, will buy you some options and opportunities,” Grant Cardone said.
Grant Cardone said budgets and saving money can hold a person back from becoming wealthy because the money is not going anywhere.
“If you have a budget, your chances of getting rich get down to almost zero,” Grant Cardone said.
He said money is only good if it’s used. A way that Grant Cardone said he multiples his money is investing his profits into more business –– like real-estate.
Grant Cardone suggests finding personal weaknesses and learning to love them in order to find a job that will lead to riches,
“If you want freedom, if you want a great job, if you want respect in the marketplace, it will be because you were willing to do things no one else was willing to do — including a job you hate,” Grant Cardone said.
When Grant Cardone graduated college with his accounting degree, he said he couldn’t find a job and ended up selling cars. He worked at the car dealership for two years and said he did not know what he was doing. He wanted to change the way the sales industry operated. At 26-years-old, Grant Cardone made a commitment to himself to push through and master sales with the plan of quitting after he got good. But when he got great at sales, he said he couldn’t go to any other industry, so it became his career. He made himself love sales, and now is known as the number one “sales trainer” in the world, according t Forbes.
His website says he works with small companies and Fortune 500 companies to grow sales by finding overlooked opportunities and customizing the sales process to be more effective. He has worked with companies like Google, Sprint, Aflac, Toyota, GM, Ford and thousands more.
Grant Cardone told students to find a person that they would want to work for instead of just picking an industry to work in. He then advised them to make a list of five people to work with who could change their lives forever. He even encouraged the students to put him on the list and call him.
Grant Cardone said that he has a passion to be there for people because no one showed up for him when he was in college.
“I made a commitment that if I ever got myself in a position in my life to help other people, I will. I’m going to do for other people that wasn’t done for me,” Grant Cardone said.
Some qualities that Grant Cardone said to look for in a person are: a person with a purpose –– someone on a journey; someone with “fuel in their tank” – money, ideas and energy; and someone with courage – a person that will accelerate, make the calls when needed, stand in front of the room, and have the courage to do things that they don’t want to do.
