Real estate investor Grant Cardone recently shared what he considers the biggest mistake people make with money, and it's not what you'd expect. Forget skipping the budget spreadsheet or letting credit card debt spiral. Cardone's talking about something else entirely, viewed through the lens of someone who's built serious wealth.

"Most people are not even thinking about scaling," Cardone said in a recent TikTok video.

Why Incremental Growth Falls Short

Cardone takes issue with the conventional wisdom of steady, incremental growth. If you're aiming for 10% or 20% bumps in your annual earnings, he thinks you're playing small. His background scaling wealth through real estate, businesses, and other assets has shaped this perspective.

"Last year, we did X. Now, we're going to do X plus 20%," Cardone said when describing the incremental mindset.

This approach typically involves looking at your best performing day or period and figuring out how to replicate it more often. For employees, it might mean shopping around for similar jobs with higher salaries or adding a side hustle to close that 20% gap. It's methodical, reasonable, and according to Cardone, leaving money on the table.

The 10X Scaling Mindset

Cardone advocates for something more ambitious. He wrote about the concept in his book "The 10X Rule" and expanded on it in his video.

"I did X, and I'm going to 10X," Cardone said when discussing his approach to scaling.

Getting to 10X isn't just about doing more of what already works. While a 20% increase involves tweaking and optimizing your current business model, scaling to 10 times your revenue demands fundamental transformation. Cardone points out that incremental growth strategies are fragile. A recession or unfavorable policy changes can wipe out that 20% gain pretty quickly.

Real scaling forces you to think completely differently. You might need to reinvent your entire business model, identify high-growth opportunities that aren't currently on your radar, or rapidly develop skills you don't have yet. It's about being more intentional with your time and hunting for parabolic opportunities rather than linear improvements.

The Business Owner Reality Check

Here's the catch that Cardone doesn't always emphasize enough: his scaling strategy really only works if you own a business. It's not just about effort or ambition. The structure matters.

Most employees hit a ceiling fast because they're paid by the hour or earn a fixed salary. There are only 24 hours in a day, and jumping to a higher-paying job is exactly the kind of incremental move Cardone criticizes. It's not a 10X transformation.

Starting a business is really the only way to scale the way Cardone describes. Sure, an investment portfolio can eventually outpace your active income, but that's not the same as scalable income growth. A side business can evolve into your main gig, and once you're making money from a business you own, the scaling playbook opens up. You can hire people to multiply your output, launch new products, invest more heavily in marketing, and deploy strategies designed to reach exponentially more customers.

Whether Cardone's 10X philosophy resonates depends largely on where you are financially and professionally. For entrepreneurs and business owners, it's a compelling framework for thinking bigger. For traditional employees, it's more of a reminder that true wealth building might require stepping outside the employee model entirely.