Shark Tank Star Kevin O'Leary's Morning Routine - A Day in the Life of a Multi-Millionaire

I'm Mr. Wonderful here, and I want to talk about this week's episode of Ask Mr. Wonderful. It's inspired by an email question from Atlanta. I'm gonna read it to you; you see what I mean.

Hi, my name is Elizabeth from Atlanta. I'm one of your Instagram followers from way back in the early Shark Tank days, and I've recently subscribed to your YouTube channel with the whole Ask Mr. Wonderful thing. You recently posted an instant pic with your white underwear air-drying in your kitchen on hangers. How gross! And the whole place was a mess. What's with that? Are you going crazy in quarantine or something? And how are you living your life these days?

Okay, Elizabeth, now just one second on the underwear. Okay, here are the aforementioned underwear. These are not just any underwear; these are Swiss Zimmerli underwear. There are very few things I really, really indulge myself in, but these poppies, these Zimmerlis, are made from Egyptian cotton—absolutely beautiful! 78 bucks a pair. They're not cheap; they don't get any better when it comes to men's underwear. Now, I washed them in a delicate cycle in the washing machine, but there's no way I'm putting them in the dryer. It's gonna wreck this beautiful band and take the zing out of the Zimmerli, if you know what I mean. And these things are very package friendly. You want to keep them soft and cuddly. So there's method to my madness; I'm not crazy hanging those things up to air-dry. That's why I do it. That's how I always do it. I never put the Zimmerlis in the dryer; that would just kill them. That's crazy!

And yeah, the place is a mess, I agree, but it's organized chaos. I know where everything is here; I don't want to move it. I'll lose it if I move it. I want to keep it in the same place. It's not messy; it's laid out aggressively—that's what it is. And look, yeah, I'm in quarantine like everybody else, but I'm doing a lot of stuff during the day. So I love the question. Now that we've got the zero noise out of the way, I'm gonna walk you through a day in my life. I like the idea of a day in the life of quarantine. What's that like? So let's check it out; here we go.

[Music]

Okay, it's early morning, but the routine is always the same. I get up and around. Let's have a look at the time here… yeah, six o'clock. I think it's important to keep that routine. You gotta get up early, work out a little bit, and start the day.

And here we go. You know I don't endorse products that I don't use personally. I just don't want to do it. If I'm going to get a sponsor, which I have, you know, on my YouTube channel, I'm gonna use the product. I want to know all about it, and I want it to work for me. Why would I endorse it for somebody else if I don't try it on myself? You gotta eat your own cooking; I really believe that, particularly when it comes to throwing your name behind something.

Like in the wine business, I drink my wines; I make my wines. Same thing on any product I use or I show or put on the sponsor here; I want to know all about it. Now, I'm like any other guy; I really wasn't into skincare for a long time, but I am now, and I'll tell you why. I use a lot of makeup—a ton of makeup. This stuff is powder for television, and generally, I put it on. And I got a lot of real estate; you don't want to be shiny on TV. So I'm putting this stuff on my, you know, my golden dome a lot, and a ton of it under my eyes like this and around my nose and here where it gets shiny.

If you see people that are on TV, they look great on the camera. When you see them in person, they come off the set, they look like they're dead; they got so much makeup packed on. But that makeup's really crap for you; it gets in your pores and it agitates like crazy. So I got into a product—you know, T's Handley. It's a skincare system for men; they send you all the stuff you need. You don't have to know anything about all the different products, although you get plenty of them, and they tell you in order to use them.

The wash is a basic wash for your face, morning or night for me, and this scrub takes all the crap out of my pores. So let me show you how this stuff works. Wash is very simple; all you need is just a little warm water, put some on your hands, put it on your face—really refreshing—and then you just wash it off with water.

Then I'll show you how to use the scrub; the scrub's amazing. Now, you still don't have the dirt out; that's the first step. This is the stuff I really love—the scrub. It's got a little, you know, little particles in it or whatever, and this gets out the makeup and the dirt. Of course, I've asked the T's Handley people for a special deal for my viewers, and you'll find out more if you click on the link in the description. Skincare for men—who knew? I'm using it now because I want to keep looking like Mr. Wonderful.

On the exercise bike—you know this—I've been doing this for years; this is like a total routine. Research—I read it on the bike. Today, I'm doing my med. I'm an investor in this company. Remember, this is micro-dosing psychedelics as medicine, so I'm going to be interviewing the CEO later, but I want to read the latest research.

So get on the bike, fire it up. I just feel if you're gonna be in self-isolation, you gotta stick to the routine. I mean, that's what it takes. Some people say have cotton let that plane go check yourself up. So right now, we're just gonna let that heat, and then when it comes to a boil, we're gonna leave the eggs in for exactly nine minutes and then plunge them into ice-cold water.

Yeah, it's a lot of work, but I care about how my hard-boiled egg looks. Frankly, I don't want to see that dark blackness on the edge of the yolk, so I'm going to avoid that by doing this: out of the fridge into cold water and then let it heat and boil to nine minutes. There! I've let you in on a great secret—Chef Wonderful always wants a perfectly cooked hard-boiled egg. That's how you do it!

[Music]

So let me give you a little tour of the facility. Yeah, I know everybody calls it messy, but you know, there's functionality going on here. Yeah, I got some laundry drying there too, you know? But bottom line is I broadcast out of here; this is my social media kind of kitchen center. You can see all the equipment there, but I also broadcast to the networks. I have a network camera, and I stuck that in a bedroom, so we'll walk down here and have a look at it.

Yeah, I got short pants on and a suit top. Why? 'Cause I'm about to broadcast to the network; they're not gonna see it. I'm wearing flip-flops, but this is how this place works. So this is a bedroom; you can see the bed. It's a mess; it's got a bunch of stuff on it—lighting. I'm bouncing off a white ceiling for a good image. That's a network camera that's actually controlled out of New York. They can control it, so can I.

So this is actually a full network broadcast facility; this is the computer that controls it and also lets it be controlled remotely. This is the green screen background. So there's the Shark Tank set, and I could use that as a background if I'm doing a shoot for, let's say, ABC on Shark Tank.

But let me show you some other options. Let's say I'm gonna do a broadcast and talk about financial services. I can go up to where these images are stored and say, "Okay, let's do this; let's talk about the exchange-traded fund industry," and that's a background of a company I have an interesting called O'Shea Aers. And then we can go and look at something maybe a little more eclectic—let's find something like, oh, here's Dubai! This is the tallest building in the world. So I could be broadcasting with a Dubai background.

So let's see what that looks like. So here I am; I'm going to be in Dubai. And so I'm gonna go to the screen here, turn off the bars. So now we have the feed of the camera, and I want to adjust. Can you see me holding this little camera I'm shooting with? But here's the joystick—it lets me adjust the direction of the camera the way New York would be doing.

And you can see if that's moving, and so I'm going to center it and then I'm going to zoom in so that I only have a background. See how that works? Kinda cool, huh? Go up a little bit because my hips cut off there; there we go. There we go. So there I am in Dubai, and you can see another image of that. And felt the lighting; there's a little soft, so I could change the lighting as well.

Watch this; I'm gonna go over and because the lighting was set for social media norms off the ceiling, I'm gonna go direct LED lighting by just tilting these. Give you an idea of how the kind of network thing works. So that's a straight-on lighting; you can see where I'm gonna be sitting there and that background we're talking about.

Now look at the shot setting up for the network. There you go, and you see the much better kind of see the screen down here too. Yeah, and then they would further, with that camera over there, they would further enhance it or change it or change the coloration of it or zoom in, zoom out. I can do it with this joystick right here, but the network can do it too, and that is how a broadcast works. That is how you can broadcast anywhere in the world. I'm doing three of them today, so I think that's very efficient.

You know, it's a little funky chicken in terms of taking over a bedroom, but you know, it's part of this—I call it a studio, really. And then when I feel like it, which I love to do is if I'm gonna lay down a track—actually for this show you're gonna watch, I'm gonna write some music tonight, and I'm gonna mix it into this 24-track recorder. I've got three different guitars here, and if you’re into music, you know that like this is a really interesting guitar—a nylon guitar on an electric body, a Godin, which is a really interesting manufacturer.

Here's a classic '69 Telecaster. I've talked about how tough this is—such an unforgiving thing to play, but it has such an amazing sound. Drum—this is an old-school drum machine, but I also use a software product called EZ Drummer, which is absolutely amazing. You basically lay down your tracks—some of you who are into this—and you can actually, you know, write a drum sequence and play it and sort of say, "Well, do I like it or not?" I'm thinking a sort of, yeah, kind of a jazzy thing. That's gonna be the groove for this piece I'm doing for this show—for this episode, Ask Mr. Wonderful.

I'm still working on it. I like to mic my own amp because I want the room tone. A lot of guys will go right into the board; I don't agree. You really want to, you know, think about old-school when you're talking about this. I'm using this really interesting Tascam analog to digital. I mean, it's easy to use and it's really great for laying down; it has a Bluetooth interface, so you can put EZ Drummer to it.

For those times when I just want to hang, here's the balcony. David John came to visit me; we did some social distancing. We sat about six feet apart, and we had masks on. We just watched the ocean roll by like you are right now.

Oh, one last thing—a lot of cooking, a lot of cooking, a lot of frozen goods. But today, I'm going to probably do a salad with some tortellini. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking about, and I put my whites on to cook just for the old routine—the old Chef Wonderful thing. But it's a little messy, but you know. And yeah, my Japanese fishing pants are drying. I don't like to put those in the dryer either; I want them because they're silk, and they're beautiful, and I wear these Japanese fishing pants pretty well every day.

Oh, and I love to have some work; they just, you know, they last a long time, and they're beautiful. These are the new Love Pop greeting cards, which are actually bouquets of flowers for Mother's Day. I'm going to be sending my wife one of these—kind of cute, huh? But, oh, here's another Shark Tank product; these are actually water lily seeds that are pop—way better than popcorn. I'm gonna be selling these on QVC in the next couple of days, but that's kind of a tour of what's cookin' so to speak.

Oh yeah, Benji Locks—are those another Shark Tank deal? That's locked that you can actually open with your fingertip. Let's grab one. This thing is one—look, I've got it—the CES Innovation Award! Check it out—third year in a row, Benji Lock.

So it's actually a lock that you can program your finger in to shift—this one I have programmed yet, but we'll see. Yeah, it opens right—that open with my thumb. I probably put my index finger and my thumb finger into it. I just think it's just terrific; I use them on the bike all the time.

Oh yeah, this is a cool bike. These guys in Miami made me—I don't own the company; I paid for it, but I just love it. It's a Mr. Wonderful; I cruise all over Miami in this thing. Yeah, it's great! And of course, I've got my M95 mask right here, and you got the tour. You definitely got the tour!

All right, guys, I gotta get back to work. I hope you liked that tour. I know it's messy, but it's organized chaos. Hi, everybody! I really hope you enjoyed that kind of snapshot of a day in the life of a quarantine dude.

Now, the thing about being in quarantine or isolated like this is you can't let it turn into Groundhog Day. You got to do different stuff; you have to shake up the routine a little bit. Yeah, it's important to work out and focus on the things you've got to get done every day, but you gotta have a little difference to it. Maybe take a bike ride, run, or something; just get out for a while. Do whatever you have to do to keep it interesting.

Now, if you're an entrepreneur, and I know lots of them, you gotta stay focused on your customers right now. You want to make sure they remember who you are and your employees; that's the DNA of your business.

And today, we have all these wonderful technology tools to use. This is what's so unique about this pandemic; we have some really interesting ways to stay in touch with each other even if we're isolated. And that's important for business, no question about that. But the key is you gotta enjoy your life—every day of it—even though sometimes it gets a little crazy.

Anyways, look, my friends, stay safe and remember—we're all in this together. You've heard that a thousand times, but it's so true. And don't forget this: wash your hands. Until next time, Mr. Wonderful! And by the way, stay wonderful!