"STOP DOING THIS If You Want To Be SUCCESSFUL IN LIFE!" | Kevin O'Leary

I'm the mean shark. I'm not the mean shark. I'm the only shark that tells the truth. My wife's sitting there, and with my daughter, and he stops and says to them, "Hey, that guy from Shark Tank is sitting in the can, that [ __ ] Kevin O'Leary." And Linda says, "I know."

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Hey Mr. Wonderful, here in sunny Florida, beautiful day, really hot, humid. I just thought it would be a great chance to talk about a few topics that I've been getting a lot of questions about. But before we start, this episode of Ask Mr. Wonderful is sponsored by Tiege Hanley.

Now, I don't endorse products I don't use, and I don't really get into men's skincare that much, except I really care about taking care of my face and my dome. I call it the dome of desire because there's a lot of sun out here, and I'm outside all the time. Why not? That's why you're one of the reasons you hang out in Florida is to enjoy the great sunshine, the outdoors, beautiful ocean you can see here. But you can really damage your skin, including your neck; like you really get fried when you're biking.

So, Tiege Hanley is a subscription service. If you don't know anything about men's skincare, this is for you because everything comes in one box. You get—I go with the level one—it's 25 bucks, but everything you need. Now, I use a lot of makeup during the day, like this kind of anti-shine stuff. It gets in your pores, particularly around your nose. So there's a scrub, used twice a week, kind of pushes that out of your pores.

And then there's a moisturizer. The key to keeping yourself looking great is moisturizing your skin. So the PM moisturizer I use every night. And then, like, I haven't even done today's yet, but the AM, which is terrific. This is the day moisturizer. This is good because it's SPF 20, so that's going to protect against the sun.

So I'm going to do it right now. Here's the box. You can see it; really cool. I mean, it just comes—you don't think about it. It's great. And there's a special offer, by the way, for all of my subscribers. Just look in the description, click the link, and get the free toiletry kit you can put this stuff in. You know, I've got a couple of them; I use them when I'm traveling all the time, and you don't have to think about it.

But before I go out, I always put this on. So check this out; this is SPF 20, the AM. Start with the dome; if you have one, dome of desire, protect it. Always putting this on feels good, too. I don't like a lot of perfume; you don't get that here. It's just a basic moisturizer. Check this out for the neck, you know, because your V collar is going to fry you when you're on the bike or something.

I cycle all over the place here. I know this is an extended commercial, but I don't care. I got to put this on my face. Get it under your eyes; you don't burn your eyes, your nose, top of my ears, like that. The whole idea when you're in this center of tropical climate stuff is respect the sun because it can really screw you up.

And keep your skin moist; that's it, pretty basic. And of course, exfoliate it to get all the crap and the junk and the whole city pollution thing out of the way. There you have it; thank you, Tiege Hanley.

All right, now let's talk about something else. So I'm tired of being called the mean guy because I'm not. Being mean is different than telling the truth all the time, and I've said this multiple times. My mother taught me years ago, "Always tell the truth; you never have to remember what you said."

And I would argue that if you're truthful, you'll be more successful. And here's why. Okay, the whole idea—let me tell you a story. You know this whole Shark Tank thing? No one thought the show would work, and all that. Here we are going to season 13, and I'm the mean shark. I'm not the mean shark; I'm the only shark that tells the truth. That's why I'm being called mean, and I'm getting a little tired of it, frankly, and I'm pushing back a little bit because I think the truth has served everybody well over the last decade on Shark Tank.

But I remember early on when we were taping Boston Logan. I go into the—at least I think it was Boston Logan; so long ago was an airport. Anyways, I go into the men's room; my daughter and wife are waiting for me outside. And this guy—I'm doing my business, and this guy on my right keeps looking at me. You know, it's never happened before.

He probably looked at me three times, and he said, "Are you that guy on Shark Tank?" I said, "Yeah." Like, it never happened before. I said, "Gee, if somebody's finally watching the show besides a cat and a dog, this is amazing." That's what I'm saying to myself. And he says, "You're an [ __ ]."

I went, "What? Why would you say that?" He said, "Those two guys on last night—you took 51 percent of their business, and they're just starting out." I said, "Yeah, I gave the guys a quarter of a million dollars. They didn't know what they were doing, and I'm willing to work with them to grow their business, et cetera." He said, "That's just being too greedy."

You know, there we are fighting it out in the can. I said, "Look, a lot of stuff gets worked out in toilets, but not this deal. I'm happy with what I did." And he storms out. And I didn't find this out till later, but my wife's sitting there, and with my daughter, and he stops and says to them, "Hey, that guy from Shark Tank is sitting in the can, that [ __ ] Kevin O'Leary." And Linda says, "I know."

I'm not sure if she was trying to make a joke out of that, but the point is it goes to my whole theme about telling the truth. I didn't lie to the guy. I mean, he called me an [ __ ] for what? Because I'm trying to do a deal, a real deal where I’m trying to help a company out.

Anyways, the years roll on, okay? And here's what I've learned. Do you think it's better—I'll ask you. Do you think it's better that somebody sitting in front of you, you know their idea is not going to work? It could be on Shark Tank; it could be anywhere. You know it's not going to work.

And then you say that, and they say, "Well look, will you give me a quarter of a million dollars? Will you fund my business? Will you give me 50,000? Will you give me a million?" Whatever the number is, and you say, "No, no, I'm not going to do that, but I think you're doing a great job." You don't need my money. Or you just keep going. "Maybe you can mortgage your house," or "I think you're terrific."

Being an entrepreneur is wonderful without ever saying to them your idea sucks, it's going to go to zero, and you're gonna wipe out your family—that's what I would say. That's what I do say, and I get—I get, you know, people pissed off at me for that.

Meanwhile, everybody else is saying, "Oh, Kumbaya, Kumbaya, you're so wonderful," but I'm not giving you any money, and you're not helping them out at all because you're basically not telling them the truth. An entrepreneur should be able to tell the truth. You should be able to speak to them honestly; they should be able to take it in, and they should be able to fail.

Even, I mean, maybe they're coming to you at the end of the deal after three years; nothing's working out. And my rules are very simple: if you can't make money after three years, it's a hobby; it’s not a business. I don't know why people give me crap for this; I mean, it's so reasonable.

But the point is, you tell them the truth, they absorb it, they think about it. At least you're dealing in the truth, and you're not lying to them. But keep going and mortgage your house and all that. But the reason I think it's more efficient is you only have so much time to be successful, and you don't want to waste it.

There's nothing worse than wasting time. Thirty-six months—that's enough time to figure out if a business is going to work or not, right? Point one. Point two, you wanna be successful? Work with people that can achieve goals.

Also, in other words, find executional skills—men or women—that you can work with that when you set a goal, you say, "Okay, we’re going to get to a million in sales in six months," that they can actually do that. Because if you surround yourself with people, even if you don't like them, that can actually execute, be given goals, and execute, that's a big deal.

My whole life, I've learned that lesson. I've always tried to surround myself with people that have executional skills that are better than me at some things. Particularly, like, I don't like making widgets; I hate logistics and manufacturing. It sucks. I don't like it.

But I find people that know how to do it and are willing to set goals and achieve them, and I compensate them very, very well for that because I want them to stay. I'm a marketer; I'm a salesman. I set goals; I achieve them. I try and do it consistently.

The greatest thing about sales, about identifying talent, and sales to achieve success is consistency. Don't set goals that they can't achieve, but set goals that they agree to, and let them achieve them consistently.

Consistency in sales lets you allocate your capital properly. If you know you need so much inventory because you know you can hit your sales goal every quarter, you allocate that capital. You don't waste it; you don't build more than you need. Cash is precious; you can't burn it up.

There's nothing worse than saying, "Oh yeah, we can hit this crazy high sales goal, build the inventory for it, and not sell it." And the inventory goes stale, and you kill the money. That kind of thing—that's what I'm talking about.

Do you have to love somebody to work with them? Do you have to like them even? No! You have to respect them. I'll say it a third time: you have to respect them. That's what matters—respect.

Because they're able to achieve goals; that's what matters.

All right, something else I think you should think about. The world is changing a lot. This whole idea of nine-to-five is being thrown out the window. Why? Because about 15% of the population is never going back to the office.

So think about changing the way you work. In other words, if somebody says to you, "Look, I really want you to be sitting at your desk nine to five," you say, "Why? Why is that important? Why don’t you just give me a goal for the week to achieve, and I'll work whenever I want?"

That's the way I work now, anyways. I get up at two in the morning and do stuff. There is no nine to five anymore; there's a goal, there's a task, there's something you have to get done, and you've got X amount of time to do it.

That's the new normal; that's the way the world's going to work. So you want to kind of adjust yourself to think about, "All right, I can do this; I can get this down." But I may change my mode of operation. Maybe I'm going to work at two in the morning; maybe I get up at five; maybe I have a snooze.

All these things have changed. I'm really goal-focused; I really am. If I have to get something done by five o'clock that day, I get it done by one o'clock. I don't wait to the deadline. Maybe I get up and do it first thing.

I block my days off into 30-minute chunks, and I get it done. Try it; it works. It doesn't matter what you do; it doesn't matter what you do. If you basically say, "These are the five things I'm going to nail today," and I'm not going to let anything get in the way, watch how productive you'll become.

Watch how you'll achieve your goals. Watch how people want to work with you. Watch how they'll want to be part of your world. People respect work, but they really respect execution. Excellence, and above all, they love consistency.

And above all that, they respect honesty. Even though it's really hard to be honest all the time, suck it up and do it; it'll serve you well your whole life. Remember what my mother said; you'll never have to remember what you said.

Why? Because you told the truth in the beginning. What's more damaging than anything in business or in a relationship? Getting caught in a lie. Don't do it.

If you liked that video, wait till you see my next one. Don't forget to click right over here and subscribe.