Real estate investor Grant Cardone says these 3 money lessons will bring you real wealth. Which ones do you follow?

Moneywise

Tue, December 23, 2025 at 5:25 AM EST

5 min read

Grant Cardone attends Gateway Celebrity Fight Night 2024 on April 27, 2024 in Scottsdale, Arizona. — Photo: Phillip Faraone/Getty Images for Gateway For Cancer Research

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To understand wealth — not only how to earn it, but how to preserve and grow it — younger Americans can turn to the advice of those who have gone through a rags-to-riches success story and achieved financial freedom. Someone like Grant Cardone.

The multimillionaire real estate entrepreneur sat down for an interview on author Lewis Howes’ podcast, The School of Greatness, and shared the top lessons he would teach his kids about money.

Here’s a closer look at Cardone’s biggest financial tips — and how younger Americans can adopt similar disciplines in order to generate more income.

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1. Money is a people game

Cardone revealed that the biggest lesson he would teach his kids is that “money’s a people game.” This sentiment echoes the adage that “your network is your net worth.”

Put simply, meeting people and expanding your social circle — including those who are wealthier and more successful than you — can lead to more opportunities and, potentially, better financial outcomes.

You may have a tough time befriending a billionaire, but that doesn’t mean you can’t expand your circle of trust to include those with financial expertise.

Consider connecting with a qualified financial advisor who can help you grow your wealth.

Research from Vanguard shows that working with a financial advisor can add about 3% to net returns over time. That difference can become substantial. For example, if you started with a $50,000 portfolio, professional guidance could mean more than $1.3 million in additional growth over 30 years, depending on market conditions and your investment strategy.

Finding the right advisor is simple with Advisor.com. Their platform connects you with licensed financial professionals in your area who can provide personalized guidance.

A professional advisor can also help you determine how many years you have left to invest before retirement and assess your comfort level with market fluctuations—two key factors in building the right asset mix for your portfolio.

Through Advisor.com, you can schedule a free, no-obligation consultation to discuss your retirement goals and long-term financial plan.

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2. Don’t lose money

Cardone echoed a famous quote from investing legend Warren Buffett: “The first rule of an investment is don't lose [money]. And the second rule of an investment is: don't forget the first rule. And that’s all the rules there are.”

Losing money while investing is difficult to recover from. For instance, if you lose 20% on a $1,000 investment, you’ll need a 25% gain in order to get back to $1,000.

Meanwhile, any dollars you lose in investing reduces your ability to take advantage of opportunities that come along. Losing $200 on a bad investment is $200 less than what could have been better spent growing elsewhere.

Read more: Warren Buffett used 8 solid, repeatable money rules to turn $9,800 into a $150B fortune. Start using them today to get rich (and stay rich)’

If you want to avoid bad investments, opting for safe investment vehicles, like a certificate of deposit, is one way you can grow your money with peace of mind.

You don’t always have to put away large sums to move toward your savings goals. Ten dollars a week could make a difference – if you’re smart about what to do with your spare change.

One of the easiest ways to invest is to open a self-directed trade account with SoFi. This DIY approach allows you to invest with no commission fees, plus, for a limited time, you can get up to $3,000 in stock when you fund a new account.

SoFi is designed to help you learn investing as you go, with real-time investing news, curated content and the data you need to make smart decisions about the stocks that matter most to you.

3. Invest with risk in mind

“If you get 7% or 8% on your money every year, you’ll be so rich when you need it,” Cardone said. “If you don’t lose it.”

Investors need to balance risk and reward; however, they’re often susceptible to chasing rewards while exposing themselves to too much risk.

Another study published in Nature revealed that the probability of an investor’s bankruptcy increases with the frequency of their leveraged trades.

Unfortunately, investors have accumulated more than $809.431 billion in margin debt to trade stocks as of May 2024, according to FINRA.

Active investors also tend to seek out other relatively risky investments, such as leveraged exchange-traded funds and cryptocurrencies. Yet, they also know that a diversified portfolio ensures reduced risk of over-indexing on any one asset class.

For instance, you could use Moby, an investment research platform launched by former hedge fund analysts, providing easy-to-understand investment advice. Every week, Moby rounds up their top three stock picks and delivers them straight to you — and without too much financial jargon.

So far, the platform has already helped over five million users uncover stocks before they deliver multibagger returns.

Moby’s success speaks for itself. The platform’s stock picks have outperformed the S&P 500 index by an average of 11.95% over the past four years. And that’s on top of the S&P’s already consistent annualized returns — about 10% a year, on average, since the index’s 1957 inception.

Real estate investor Grant Cardone says these 3 money lessons will bring you real wealth. Which ones do you follow?