5 Millionaire HABITS You Can COPY FOR SUCCESS | Kevin O'Leary

Hi there. As is usually the case, this week's episode of Ask Mr. Wonderful was inspired by a question. This one from Zoe—really intriguing, loved that name by the way.

Zoe writes, "I watched your Ask Mr. Wonderful episode when you explained how you made your first million. I like the story, but it seems to me you surrounded yourself with a lot of successful people that helped along the way. I just graduated college and I am contemplating my next move, but after watching that, I know I need to work for myself too. So, I have to start my own business. My question is this: What are the characteristics of successful people? I'd like to know and maybe adopt these myself."

What I like about your question is you basically are talking about self-betterment. You're trying to learn from the characteristics of people that have proven themselves to be successful. I think that's fantastic. But I would also say that it's important to think, when you're starting a business, if you're going to take that entrepreneurial route, that you need to build a team.

Most successful companies are aggregations of teams, where one person's skill set augments the others. In other words, what I've learned—and you know, a lot of people think one person can do it all—you can't. Generally, people have something they're really, really good at, and they also have a huge deficit. In my case, I love sales and marketing, but I hate logistics. I hate making widgets. But I can't have a business if I don't make widgets, so I had to find a great widget guy and that kind of thing.

And as it turned out, it was a woman. So, at the end of the day, you need a partner that can build that team. I would highly recommend, if you're going to start a business, you want to find somebody that you really like in terms of their skill set—not just a friend or someone whose skill sets are fantastic.

So, I'm going to walk you through what I think really matters. You know, about what these—let's call it the five things of successful people. If you go look at any successful entrepreneur, even a politician or a preacher or a soldier—whatever—what makes them successful?

Number one on the hit parade: ambition. The desire to go somewhere. The myopic focus that there's something you're here for a reason and you want to get that done. Whatever that is for you, it's never work when you're pursuing your ambition. It's just who you are; it's your soul, it's your being. I think that's what makes great entrepreneurs or great leaders. They want to get up in the morning; they want to do what their ambition is telling them they have to do. Ambition is a drive. It's a vision. It sounds like you might have that, Zoe, which should be very interesting.

Number two—and this kind of is a little intuitive, if you think about it—you have to care about yourself. You have to have self-esteem. You have to believe in yourself, even if others around you don't, even if they doubt you, even if they think that you're wrong. You can't have that feeling about yourself; you have to have your own perception that you are right.

I'm not saying be belligerent, but that you are worth every ounce of your being, and that you respect yourself that way. Now, it doesn't mean you can't listen to other ideas, but you have to have a vision, a direction. If you don't know where you're going, Zoe, no one will ever follow you there.

I've said that countless times, and it remains true today as it will a thousand years from now. People want to follow those that understand the road, the direction. And you have to have that. You know, let me be trite about it: the kind of food you eat, the exercise, how you look, how you feel about yourself, how you dress, how you present yourself.

In the last few years, I've started to say to myself, “Well gee, you know, maybe I shouldn't—when I'm walking outside—should have some sunblock on.” That sounds crazy. No, but I want to feel good about myself. So I'm using, you know, a shout-out to my sponsor this week: T's Handley. I use their products because they don't have a lot of perfume; they have zero perfume in them. I don't like that smell.

And I like the—talk about what it takes to be successful: taking care of yourself and looking good is important, and I care about that. T's Handley is a skincare program, but it's not complicated. The stuff isn't overly perfumey; I don't like that. If I'm going to spend some time outdoors, like I am today, and I just finished shaving, I got to protect my skin. I don't want to get fried, and I got the dome of desire—I’ve got to cover that up because that can get burnt really easily.

So, I use the AM from T's Handley because it's 20 SPF—so sun protection and a moisturizer. You just apply it really easily; it doesn't smell. You know, I want to look good forever, if you know what I mean. I don't want to get too wrinkly, and you don't want a lot of sunburn for that. So that feels great.

So look, try these products. I use them; the soap's fantastic, the scrubs and all that. I mean, the whole package ships to you. It's really easy—it's a subscription service. Look, what can I say? I like it. They got a great deal for my followers, so click on the link, try them, and yeah, good.

And I like it because that, when I finished shaving and I put on whatever I'm putting on, I feel I'm ready to go present myself. Sounds corny? You wouldn't believe how important that is, particularly if you're going to stand up or go in front of a lot of people. You want to feel good about yourself.

Number three: Then there's no real order to these in terms of weight, although I would say ambition is always going to be at the top of the list. But a willingness to learn and listen. You can't believe how many people can't shut up and listen. I learned that from one of my women CEOs years ago. She told me, "Kevin, you seem to spend 66 percent of your day talking and only 33 and one-third percent listening. Reverse that. Change it because you'll learn a lot more; you'll become far more effective if you just shut your mouth and listen to what's going on around you."

And she was right. Today, I really try and balance that out: two-thirds listening, one-third talking. So the willingness to learn comes from the desire to just absorb information. And it's really important. With that comes something that is extremely hard for entrepreneurs to do: have patience. That's number four. You've got to have patience.

You have to hold back; you have to wait and see what happens. You have to let things develop. You can't just jam everything; it doesn't work that way. You learn that through experience, and it's so important that you understand you must be patient with people. You must be patient with plans. I mean, you must be patient with, you know, everything. You can't get what you want right away; it just doesn't work that way.

People that are patient are incredibly effective because, in the long run, they get stuff done. You have to kind of sit back and assess things. That's what patience is—it's an assessment of your situation.

And I want to tell you something that is really important: It's number five. You are going to fail in life; everybody does. Something you want, you can't achieve? You fail. You must be able to start again. You must learn from the mistake. And it sounds so obvious, but you can't believe how many people say, "Oh, I tried it; it didn't work," and I just never pursued another opportunity again.

Great leaders, great entrepreneurs, great people learn from their mistakes, but they don't let it get them down. Great, great, great successful people are always saying, "It was a horrific outcome—really big mistake; lost, you know, 100 million dollars if you're a CEO or something." It was really bad, but I realized the mistake I made, and I started again. That kind of goes with the idea that you must be patient to be successful.

If you're an entrepreneur, you only need one great idea that takes you from being an operator to an investor, and that's solving someone's problem in the world and doing it a million times over. That's how great companies are created. But, along the way, you are going to have to use all five of these elements to keep you moving forward.

So, let's summarize again: it was ambition. Ambition is the driver; it's the engine; it's the machine that pushes you forward. Self-care—to feel good about yourself—do whatever it takes to put you as being a fan of you. Like making sure that you do not—you must appreciate yourself; that's very important.

Number three: you've got to have a willingness to learn, and that means shutting up and listening. Number four: you have to have patience. And five—very important—the ability to fail and start again. I guarantee you, Zoe, that you will find all five of these in any successful person you meet.

If you want to take on any of these attributes, it will be a good thing for you. I'm going to share a little trick with you and all viewers. You see these pencils here on my desk? I've got these all over the place. I got probably thousands of these. And this is the lowest-tech thing you've ever seen.

Sticking out during the day, here's one I just this morning. I write down things I have to get done. I know it's low-tech; there's all kinds of software that can do this for you. I don't care. I like pulling a pencil and simply writing down, "Oh yeah, I got to get that thing done." And just making that note.

I learned this from a very successful person years and years ago—my mother. And this note just sits here all day. And at night, if I haven't finished—and usually there's three or four I haven't done—I look at it and say, "Okay, tomorrow I will get this done before anything else. Before, you know, I go online, before I read anything, you know, before I watch television, before I make any phone calls or texts or anything, I'm going to get this thing done." And I stick it on the mirror on the right-hand side.

Number one: Record bass line for track fifteen. All right, so I found a piece of music that I recorded back in '89. I'm working on a documentary about watch styles, which I think you're going to find interesting when I finally get it finished, but it needs the music so the editors can work with the beat of the music.

And this thing I recorded in '89 does not have any bass, and I didn't play bass back then. Now I do, so I'm going to go back in the studio and lay down the bass track for track fifteen.

Number two: Reconcile foreign currency. I have investments over in Europe, and each month I reconcile the currency to figure out how much of the performance was gained or lost by the change in the currency rates. So I want to do that this morning. It's important to get that done for last month because, you know, if you don't have that information, you can't make moves.

And number three: Tape questions four and five for Tax Hive. Tax Hive is a new business I've got involved in as an investor and also as a spokesperson. This is a company that helps small businesses with their taxes and payrolls—very important in my portfolio companies. So I'm recording some messages, and four and five have to be done today. So I'm going to go in the studio and record those. Great.

That's the one before I do anything else today. These three puppies are going to get done, and that is how you get super productive. You don't let anything distract you; you don't take a phone call, you don't read emails, you get the things done that you made the priorities the night before.

Do it every day; try it. It's fantastic. Look at this low-tech—low-tech—you write it down on a piece of paper, stick it on the mirror. Come on, it works! You can't believe how productive you become with this simple trick. It's incredible; it's absolutely amazing. It just drives you forward because you're getting it done, you're getting it done, you're getting it done, and you're doing it day after day after day.

I don't stop on weekends; it's every friggin' day. I do it every single day and they can be all kinds of different things, but they're things you got to get done. Could be something you're doing with your significant other; could be something you're doing in art; it could be something you're doing for business. It doesn't matter.

It's one of those things. Try that trick; it's probably the best thing you can learn from this week's episode anyway. So I love the question. Thank you very much!

Until next time, talking about characteristics of successful people, I've always believed that you need to mix yin and yang together. You know, business is so binary. I've said this a million times: black and white. You make money, you lose money. Arts are chaos.

So if you're, you know, whatever it is—whether it's photography, whether it's music—if you're going to pursue a business track, you also have to nourish your other side, your artistic side. And so that's why I always tell people, if you play something, stay with it. Or, you know, if you're a photographer or painter, whatever, do that.

So recently, you know, my family's pretty musical. My son’s a wicked guitarist, and he was learning the lead to "Hotel California," which is a tough—it’s not easy to play. And you know, it’s iconic. He was listening to the record and working on it, and he said to me, “Dad, I think this is capoed up two frets.”

And I said, “Not another. No, no, no. They didn't use a capo when they laid down 'Hotel California.'” The capo is the thing like this; you clamp it across your guitar frets, and you can play a hierarchy. I said, “No way! They’re not using a capo on this.” He said, “No, I think they are.”

So we get in a bit of an argument. And then I remember I just got back from shooting "Shark Tank" a couple of seasons ago, and I’d love to hang out at this restaurant called Craig's. And I think Joe Walsh wants a piece of it or something. But anyway, he was sitting there. So I just went over and said hi. We were talking about "Shark Tank," and it was fun.

I thought to myself, “Why don't I just text Joe Walsh and get this argument over with?” Just in case he answers me. There's my text: "Joe, Kevin O'Leary here. My 20-year-old son Trevor, who is now an amazing guitarist, is learning 'Hotel California' on a six-string with a capo. I told him that the song is not played with a capo. Sorry to bug you, but who's right?" I'm thinking the guy’s never going to respond to me.

But Joe Walsh is a nice guy. Anyway, seconds later, here he comes back: "You're both right! Don Felder's opening of the song—the descending line—was done on a capo 12-string to voice it higher. All the guitar work except that was done on non-capoed standard tuning six-string electric."

Hope that helps! Best, Joe. I love that; it really helps. So we all got to get there. We did "Hotel California," and yeah, I'm using a capo. Basically, we’re both right, but Trevor was right about, you know, it was being voiced higher. Listened to his lead on it; this is one of the first takes he ever did—it's fantastic! The guy's good.