Grant Cardone isn't exactly known for keeping things subtle. The high-octane real estate mogul and motivational speaker has long made headlines with his unapologetically bold takes, and his views on mental health labels are no exception. This time, he's turning ADHD and bipolar disorder on their heads—insisting they're not disorders at all, but misdiagnosed brilliance.
In November, Cardone posted a video to his official Facebook page with the caption: "ADHD is just misunderstood genius."
In the clip, Cardone appears on camera during an interview, explaining his belief that society pathologizes traits it doesn't understand. "ADD, ADHD, bipolar—all these manic kind of people—they've been labeled something negative by some fake doctor," he said.
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When the unseen interviewer chimed in to say he had ADHD, Cardone shut that down immediately: "No. You don't have it. You have gifts from God." He went on, "And the doctor said you have something we can't explain. Yeah—it's genius, punk. That's what that is. I have the ability to be interested and curious about a lot of things. And the fact that you don't get that is your problem—not my problem."
Cardone's not new to this stance. In 2019, he posted a similar video to his X account with the caption: "Being labeled OCD, ACD, ADD, ADHD is actually a blessing. There's this big gift sitting there waiting to bubble up, so don't medicate it and don't push it down! Give it a voice, let it be greatness and genius rather than something bad."
The video featured nighttime driving scenes, blurred city lights, and clips of people overlaid with Cardone's voice. "Look man, I've been labeled OCD, ACD, compulsive obsessive, COD, bipolar!" he said. "They wanted to put me on lithium, Prozac, all this medication. I mean, real, real like serious drugs." He recalled how teachers expected him to sit still for 45 minutes and listen to irrelevant lectures. "I just wanted to make some money, man."
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Eventually, Cardone said he stopped letting "average" people define him. "I'm gonna take this obsessive-compulsive—whatever this energy is that's been made wrong by society—and I'm not gonna suppress it anymore. I'm gonna use it." And in his view, those who carry these labels aren't broken—they're wired for brilliance. "People being labeled OCD, ADD, ADHD—I think they're geniuses."
Cardone is pushing people to rethink what their labels mean. He's not treating ADHD or bipolar disorder as defects. He's saying those qualities, when seen differently, can be tools—not weaknesses. If you're wired to chase multiple interests, stay energized, think fast, or resist structure, that doesn't make you broken. It might make you built for something else entirely.
To be clear, Cardone may wear many hats—investor, author, speaker—but none of them are "doctor." He's not advising anyone to skip their meds or ignore real diagnoses. Many people need treatment and support to live healthy, functional lives. And there's nothing wrong with that.
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But from Cardone's entrepreneurial lens, he's making a different case: use your wiring to your advantage. The same energy that makes it hard to sit through a lecture might be what pushes you to launch a startup, flip a house, or scale a side hustle into six figures. That hyperfocus people once criticized might be the thing that keeps you up late solving business problems or building passive income streams.
In a world that often tries to diagnose and contain what it doesn't understand, Cardone's message is unapologetically clear: don't let someone else's definition shrink your potential. The traits others see as "too much" might be exactly what sets you apart—and in business, different is often the key to winning.
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