The SECRET To Living A MILLIONAIRE LIFESTYLE Explained!|Kevin O'Leary

Welcome to another episode of Ask Mr. Wonderful! As always, it starts with a question, or sometimes questions. This week, I mean, I love this! This is from Cindy Rose.

“Hi Mr. Wonderful! I got into your channel recently and I've watched the last seven episodes. You spend a lot of time talking about the traits of successful people, and for the most part, I have enjoyed the shows, but you really leave a lot out. What about diet? What about exercise? What about fashion? What about grooming? What about drugs? What about alcohol? What about sleep? I'm interested in where all these fit into a successful lifestyle. I really think you should take the time to answer these questions because I'm going to bet many other people want the same information.”

Okay, grooming. This is an interesting one. I feel that when you get up in the morning and you work out, you know my routine is I get up, I work out, I have breakfast. I get up pretty early. I get a lot of work done early on; I get my three things done. But before I go out, particularly if I'm gonna spend time outside, one of the problems I've got is I'm always putting on makeup. I have makeup on right now.

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!

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 going to 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 got to eat your own cooking!

I really believe that Tiege Hanley has a scrub that I've really started to use, particularly around, you know, my eyes and my nose. I mean, you know, it sounds crazy talking about this, but it actually has become part of my routine. The wash is a basic wash for your face, morning or night for me, and the scrub takes all the crap out of my pores. Skin care for men—who knew? I'm using it now because I want to keep looking like Mr. Wonderful!

And naturally, when I invite Tiege Hanley to be a sponsor of my video—because they use their products—I want them to give a little extra junior Sequoia to my base. I want them to give you a deal! I want them to give you something extra special. So they're sponsoring this video today; they're hooking up my viewers with a special offer!

Just click on the first link in the description to get a free, totally drop bag with your first box. So you know I do a shout out for their products because they work, and I hate perfumey stuff, and theirs isn't. So I don't want, you know, a smell coming off it. It's just clean, good stuff, so I'm, you know, a shameless endorsement for them, but it's good.

I bring it to the idea of grooming. I'll tell you why. In your career, in doing deals, and being an entrepreneur and being a leader, in being a great employee—whatever you're going to do—you want to walk into a room, and you want to feel good. You want to look good, and that involves grooming and fashion. Finding out what you like to feel like, how you want to present yourself.

When it comes to financial services, like shares and bean stocks and all the fintech stuff I invest in, and I'm in New York, I'm in LA, or I'm in Zurich, or I'm in London, and I travel to these places for business. I like the crisp suit look. I got a classic look; some people think I'm nuts. It's always the same. I got 25 of the same suits, 25 of the same shirts, 25 type ins, and 25 black ties. I vary my watches, as you know—they all have red bands.

I got a very broad collection of watches, but consistency is the red band. That's my thing. You know, I change my watch almost every day, sometimes three times a day, depending on where I'm going and what I'm doing. You know, I travel with watches, and I like to have a sort of a fashion look. People say, "Well, that's kind of nuts. Why would you need more than one watch? Why would you need to watch at all? Why don't you just use your phone? You can get the perfect time off your phone; it's always accurate."

I get that! I like the fashion statement. I like the art in the dial. I like the way it works with the cufflinks. So that's a grooming slash fashion thing, and you got to find your groove. You got to find your look. You can shake it up, but people get to know you about whether you've got that vibe, that fashion vibe.

You know, take Barbara Corcoran; I know about her. She always is dressed real sharp. I mean, she always looks spectacular. Lori, the same way. These women know how to present themselves, and they have a look. Barbara's different than Lori, but I'm just making an example of people I've been working with for 12 years. I know when they walk out—I'm not talking about on the Shark Tank set; you go to anywhere with either of them, and they are dressed to kill.

I get it. That's a certain persona that they're projecting; that's a certain look. I look around the other sharks—Damon is really into some eclectic style, but that's his thing. Then the Fubu guy—Robert has a West Coast-y, breezy kind of thing. These are all—and, of course, Cuban likes to just wear sweats because he's saying something with that. He can wear anything he wants; that's what he's saying. And I get that too.

But the point is, it becomes a little bit about who you are. I think you should spend some time thinking about it, and you don't need a lot of really expensive stuff. I always err towards buying something really good and having less of it. You don't need like 15 pairs of jeans; you need three fantastic pairs. You don't need 20 leather jackets; maybe you need two. I mean, that's my whole point. My suit thing, I like the consistency of my look, so I wear that.

You know, I've gone overboard on watches, but that's just my own thing. But I'm trying to make a point about something here that becomes part of who you are. And it happens to you in your late teens; you start to get a feel for the way you want to project yourself, and I think that's very cool. I think it's really worth thinking about. Make that decision. Consult with others.

There's so much stuff online, obviously, but it's what makes you feel good. You know, that's what really matters. What makes you feel good? What makes you confident to walk out there and do your thing? That's how you should groom, and that's how you should fashion up. You kind of have to make up your mind how you want to present yourself. And if you're comfortable with the way you look, be cool with it. That's it!

I mean, look, it doesn't mean it's going to affect your performance; that's not the case unless you're some kind of fine-tuned athlete or something. But I also don't want to let it drag me down in terms of how I feel and how much energy I've got. I care about energy levels; that's what matters. If you're an entrepreneur, if you really want to run—you got to have some energy.

And sometimes—and when I mean run, I mean you want to run through your day. I don't mean running around; you can do that too as exercise. Energy, to me, and weight are somehow combined. And you know, like everybody else, I've tried dieting. I’ve tried all the apps. What I found works is you have to get into a lifestyle groove because weight is really a very simple equation: calories in, calories out.

And depending on how much you burn a day—whether you're burning 1600, 1800, 2100, whatever it is—you’re going to either gain or lose weight, but you want to keep constant weight. So you got to kind of think about that in the context of what you're eating all day long. Because maybe I want to only eat 2,000 calories a day; I don't want it to be 50 in wine. So I have to constrain myself in terms of how much wine I actually drink.

But my point is, if you get into a groove where you have to—me, I have a normal breakfast. I gotta eat something in the morning, right after I work out. And then I don't eat anything again until lunch. And it's those in-between periods of snacking and eating crap that's no good for you that really helps you keep weight off or packs it on over a long period of time. You've got to look at it that way.

I don't really buy into the super diet, taking all the supplements and all that stuff. I believe in good food. I believe in food in moderation, but I really want to be able to try everything wherever I go and just be pragmatic about it. You know, if there are certain things that you're allergic to or, you know, non-dairy and all that—and then everybody says to me, "Why don't you become a vegan?"

Well, I am a vegan! I'm a modified vegan. I don't eat meat on Tuesdays from breakfast till noon. Hey, it's my tip of the hat to vegans! I eat less red meat; I eat more fish; I eat more chicken. I moderate it all, but yes, I'm a modified vegan. I like to say that! Anyways, my point is, you got to eat well—not too much of any one thing.

And if you want to modify your weight, you have to do it over a really long period of time. Like, set a goal of losing seven or eight pounds in six months. That's my, you know—you— all these diets, you crash diet, lose, crash diet with that. That's all you can do is crash. You gotta just modify your eating habits slightly, and it has a big impact over a period of time.

Okay, so let me tie that to alcohol for a second because I want to talk a little bit more about that. And I like Cindy Rose's question about how this fits into a successful lifestyle. Let's talk about alcohol. Let me give you some do’s and don’ts just from my point of view. Okay, I'm in the wine business—I drink! But I never do it when I'm working. Why? Because it only takes one mistake, and you get canceled. And I don't mean just canceled off TV; you can get canceled out of life.

You've seen it happen. Social media is cruel. People get drunk; they say stupid things. Maybe you shouldn't tweet; maybe you shouldn't go to Insta when you're drinking. Maybe you should really think it through before you become public while you're relaxing. I'm not saying getting drunk, but just some rules about drinking.

Here's some other rules: I've interviewed thousands of people in my time. I've never hired anybody where I could smell alcohol on their breath. Not because I think they're alcoholics—not at all. In my view, this is a personal opinion—they didn’t take that interview very seriously if they had a drink beforehand, or maybe they had nerves and they couldn’t do the interview without having a drink. That also I don’t like.

In life, you're going to have to make decisions about this stuff and when you drink. And basically, for most stuff you drink, people can smell it. If no one else in the room has had anything to drink and you have, people are going to smell it. What does that say about you? In my view, not good things because you've done it during the workday.

Now, in Europe, sometimes when I go over there to do business around wine and I'm in with others in the winemaking industry, yeah, we drink at lunch. I mean, that's, you know, sometimes a Burgundy, or you know, if you're in Bordeaux—that's happening. But you're dealing with the craft of making wine, and you're in the wine business; it's slightly different.

I'm in New York City having a meeting with an executive or talking to a producer about something I'm working on in television at one in the afternoon. I'm not drinking. Just not going to do it. I can wait! And when the market’s over for me, my routine is 4 p.m. or 4:30. I've been doing this ever since I've been involved in financial services. Yeah, I'll go have a drink with somebody, and that's after the market's over. I don't drive anywhere after that!

But this thing with alcohol is kind of weird, and I'll tell you why I say it. I've got lots of friends that have completely stopped drinking altogether, and I know why. Not necessarily full-blown alcoholics, but it changed their personality. They were different people even after a couple of glasses of wine.

What would happen is the next day someone would say to them, “You know, hey, listen, you know last night, were you drunk? Do you remember saying this or that?” If that starts happening to you, alcohol is actually changing your behavior. If it happens consistently, and people comment about it to you, you could have a problem—not necessarily being an alcoholic, but letting something like that change other people's perception of you.

Alcoholism breaks up families, destroys wealth, causes huge fractions between friends—sometimes for lifetime periods. Nothing tastes that good that it's worth destroying your life over. I don't care what booze you're talking about—do not let alcohol define who you are. That's my advice on that!

Great segue into drugs! Okay, now drugs is a whole different ballgame. I don't do drugs because I don't like what it does to my abilities to process information. My day is packed with stuff that I deal with—sometimes it's problems, sometimes it’s opportunities. I don't want to make decisions when my thinking is altered.

Now, I know there's a huge debate about cannabis and the merits of it and all that; I never invested in cannabis. Why? Because all the companies that showed me deals never were able to separate the medicinal opportunities—should there be one—with CBDs, etc., and recreational. I don't invest in recreational marijuana because it's not legal in every state, and I do business in every state.

And there's something called the RICO statute, and it's a Schedule 1 narcotic. I don't want to fight with that stuff; I don't want to be involved in it, so I don't do it, and I don't invest in it. Someone said to me recently, “Hey, wait a minute, didn't you invest in psychedelics?” Yeah, I did. I have invested in a company called Mind Med, which does—it's now public, and it basically is doing scheduled trials with the FDA, level one, level two, level three, in microdosing psychedelics to see if in some way it can help with opioid addiction or anxiety or alcoholism and all these afflictions that there really haven't been any new drugs for in 35 years.

That intrigues me because it's legal, and it's not being done recreationally, but that's different than drugs. Same thing in that interview thing I talked about earlier. I said, “Okay, wait a sec. You come to me”—and this has happened—you know, sometimes very interesting engineers come in; I know they're stoned. I can smell it. If they’ve blown a joint, I’ve had it.

I can smell it; it's just me. The answer is no! I don't care if we’re in a state where it’s legal; I don’t like drugs because I’m pretty happy just marching on the way I am. I don’t want to change. But I also want to—I don’t take any risks. I don’t want to mess with stuff that messes with my head. Just a personal opinion.

And you can say, “Well, you know, I like to smoke a spliff once in a while.” I get all that. I'm just telling you what I do. Generally speaking, the people that I've known to be very, very successful—they get high on winning. They get high on moving forward. They get high on business and being successful.

I will say this about one drug that, you know, I've been around for years because in the television industry, you see this all the time—you see it in the bathrooms—whatever: cocaine. That's a bad drug! It's a bad drug in every way. I don't know anybody that's been able to manage that drug.

Anyone that I know that's gotten into it for a long period of time—it's been a real bad outcome, including death. Really sucks, but it destroys lives, discourages marriages, destroys businesses. I mean, talk about changing behavior—talk about unhealthy; I mean, it's just brutal. And I get people's attraction to it, but I don't believe that that's a drug that you can have a little bit of. That's not how that one works.

So you're going to have to make your own decision, but for me, I don't want anybody working in any of my companies that's doing coke because I know the outcome. It's never good! When I find out they are, I'm sorry. That's—you know, I try and get them help, but very often it's not a drug you can get off easily.

And I’m just—I’m just saying I understand addiction; I got it. But if you have a choice is what I'm saying? And we're still on the cocaine issue. You don't find cocaine associated with success; you just don't. You don't! Not over a short period of time or long period of time.

So my advice to you: don’t mess with it! It's that simple. If you can completely avoid it, do that. If you have to try it, be very cautious and conscious of where it takes a lot of people to a really bad place.

Okay, last on Cindy Rose's list was: What about sleep? Now I never thought about sleep; it was not a big deal to me. Sleep when you can get some rest. Then I joined this group called the Longevity League; it's a bunch of entrepreneurs that gather together every couple of months. Sometimes it's a Zoom call; sometimes it's a dinner, depending on what city they're all from—different places.

So sometimes they meet, you know? But they're interested in understanding how to maintain a really healthy lifestyle, both for balance of work, you know, in life, and everything else. But there are certain things you can do that are very, very healthy, and one of them is sleep.

Now I never really got into it, but REM sleep, deep sleep, how much sleep—you know, I used to think I don't need eight hours of sleep. Well, you do! Actually, it really, really helps you become a much better and more productive person. Now there are all kinds of devices on the market—um, you know, there's watches. I don't wear those electronic watches; I wouldn't be seen dead with one. I prefer the art of a handcrafted piece, obviously.

But there's rings and other things, and you put them on—this is one of them. It basically tracks your sleep, and there's dozens of devices you can choose—whatever you like. But the point is, monitoring sleep is really interesting because you start to realize certain things about your lifestyle.

I'm really good at taking a 20-minute snooze in the middle of the day when I'm traveling somewhere, and I'm in a car, you know, back of a limo or—in my plane flying somewhere. I would have thought that's the same valuable sleep that it would be in the middle of the night; it's not.

Now, one of the things about sleep you should know—and this is I found this out just, you know, by just monitoring my own sleep—I love wine! I'm in the wine business; I've talked about that a lot. I love to drink wine with dinners; it turns out the later you drink any alcohol, the more it screws up your sleep.

Which is heartbreaking for me, because I just love wine! And I've had to modify a little bit: instead of, you know, drinking wine—let's say I'm gonna have dinner at eight o'clock or something—or even worse, it's gonna be much later, because Miami where I hang out quite a bit, it's a very late lifestyle; sometimes dinner's at 11. I don’t drink at 11 o'clock at night anymore because it totally screws up my sleep.

It reduces my REM sleep and reduces my deep sleep, and you can see the results off any device that monitors your sleep—it's brutal! So you know, maybe you have a drink at six or seven. I mean, I don't know if you can do this, but I'm just telling you—over a long period of time, screwing up your sleep every night because you're drinking is really stupid—that's my view.

So you have to modify; maybe your weekends you ignore this, but at some point, you really don't want to mess up your REM sleep and your deep sleep with alcohol. That's the one big change that I've put into my life, and it's really helped me quite a bit. It gives me a lot more energy in the morning. You'd be amazed how fantastic you feel after a solid eight hours of sleep with a good cycle of deep sleep and REM sleep.

I mean, you get up bouncing out; you're just ready to take the world on—it's fantastic! What screws that up? Too much alcohol late at night or any alcohol, really, close to when you go to sleep. I don’t—it’s just the way it is! I mean, you know, technically you'd be better off drinking wine at nine in the morning, which is crazy—not recommending that. But you want to get it as far away from when you're sleeping as you possibly can.

Either you give up alcohol completely—which I'm not prepared to do because I'm in that business—or you modify your use of it. So I've got a couple of reasons for this: the sleep thing. I don't want to do too many calories, knowing it's 160 calories a glass. So maybe a couple of glasses of wine—three maxerino; that’s max, because that’s a ton of calories!

But it takes a toll on your sleep. So that’s kind of a little bit of a snapshot about how, for, you know, Cindy Rose, all these things fit together. You're going to find that successful people have one way or another dealt with drugs, dealt with alcohol, worked out the whole sleep thing, and figured out grooming and fashion. They found a path to all that, and they made a lifestyle choice. You can too! But it's got to be conscious.

You're going to want to do that! And for the guys that are, you know, constantly worried about their weight—ah, get over it! I mean, look, as long as it doesn’t make you unhappy about the way you feel about yourself, you can be any body style or any weight—that's cool! But if you want to modify it, which seems to be an obsession with about a third of the population, you have to change your lifestyle.

For me, dieting just doesn’t work! You know, and it doesn’t really work for most people. Starving yourself, making yourself miserable—really stupid! Changing your lifestyle; small modifications. Watch over months how you shed the pounds.

So we talked about a lot of stuff on this. I've dealt with all these issues myself; I've kind of found my path. Bottom line, let's end it this way: you want to get up in the morning and feel great about the day you're going to be in, whatever it is you do. And so much of that is based around things you have control over: what you eat, what you drink, the drugs you take, you know, how much sleep you get.

You were gifted with control over those things in many, many, many ways, and it's really up to you to make the decision to do it or not. But that's the part I like the most about Cindy Rose's question. Pretty well everything on that list she can do right or she can do wrong. And so can you!

You know, I got to admit, I love doing this because I think we're kind of—I’m learning! I’m reading questions; it's a back-and-forth thing! Keep them coming; I really enjoy it! Take care, my friends!

The one thing about food that I want to point out is it can be a fantastic opportunity for friends and family. I love to cook! Yeah, Chef Wonderful—I’ve made a business out of that! Cooking itself can be an absolute—guess what? I love to do with family and friends is make pizza, and it’s just a party! It's really healthy food because you decide what you're putting on it.

I love to knead dough! I love to just work with it; I love to make pies. It's just—it’s fun as can be! And I probably do it every week, wherever I am. And believe it or not, I invite all kinds of people I do business with to come over, and we have a gas doing it! Food can be fun, and it can be great for business, and it can be healthy. Hey, what's wrong with that?

Hey, Chef Wonderful here, and you know I love to make pizza! You know what makes making pizza even more fun? Your own wood-fired pizza oven—Bertello! It’s a Shark Tank deal; I did it! I love the product, but I also like making pizza. So we're going to do it together!

The first thing you have to do when you make pizza is get all the fixin’s ready. Now I've got pineapple; I've got cheese; I've got olives! Yeah, I chopped these all up myself—little green pepper. I like to do the mushrooms full size because I'm an artist. The key to tomato is paper thin because you're augmenting the sauce. And of course, onions together—you can make any pizza you want! That means you need the dough!

I've been letting it rise; look at these puppies! These are standard dough that I picked up at the grocery store. I'm going to cut it in four to make 10-inch size personal pizzas. What I'm doing is I'm taking just standard pizza dough that I got at the grocery store, and I'm basically cutting it into four.

I'm not cutting into the wood here; I'm just severing it into four units, and that's going to give me basically a 10-inch personal pie in the eye. You want to have a little flour here because that's how you stop it from getting too sticky in your hands. This is what you're doing; you see that? It's very simple, and it's fun!

The great thing about pizza dough is you let it rise under a little towel, and then you just kind of get—think, you’re thinking, “Okay, I'm thinking 10 inches!” You can let gravity help you get your 10-inch. That's going to be a 10-inch because it's about a quarter—a little flour on there! Be generous with the flour, and then just start rolling it up!

[Music] I see you're ripping me off on my idea with the olive oil. Actually, Dad, I'm pretty sure this was my idea! Oh, each chihuahua! It's been on for about 20 minutes, and the great thing about this oven is it uses—listen—propane! It's a propane, but you can also put wood chips in it!

Check this out! You throw in a wood chip, and it's going to smoke into the dough. You're going to taste it later—right inside the pie! See that smoke coming out? That is gorgeous! You know what would go great with this pizza? Some O’Leary Fine Wine—the Cabernet Sauvignon, the Pinot Noir, or the Chardonnay, which I’m having right now! I love Chardonnay pizza; it just goes so well with the cheese!

One second, let me have a quick sip. Oh, it’s just nectar! I love the Chardonnay! You know, my wife helped me blend this; it's absolutely spectacular! Now the moment of truth. Let’s take one of these slices of pie with all the cheese dripping down—oh, delicioso maximuso!

That is the best pizza I’ve ever made! The cornmeal gives that little texture; it gives that little run on the tongue. And then of course, the splash of delicious—the meats, the sauces, the cheeses together, the crispiness—just perfect! That little olive oil on the crust—Bertello pizza oven, wood-burning combined with gas technology, and all of your favorite ingredients, and you too will make a pizza—delicioso maximuso!

See you soon! Get your Bertello, and let's make pie! Chef Wonderful, signing out! How's the pie?