EntreLeadership - Mark Cuban's Secrets to Success

Episode Date: June 16, 2014

Join us for an in-depth conversation with the one-and-only Mark Cuban, entrepreneur extraordinaire and passionate owner of the Dallas Mavericks. Cuban stopped by our studio to talk with Dave about life, his journey to becoming a business owner, his companies and what every business owner needs to do to become a success. Listen in and get inspired to win. http://www.entreleadership.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Charismatic, passionate, as integrity, humble, servant, inspiring, faithful, persevering, positive, flexible, driven. This is not about theory. This is about application. This is what you're trying to be. This is who we are that call ourselves leaders. I'm Dave Ramsey, and you're listening to the Entree Leadership Podcast. Hello, everyone. This is Chris Hogan.

I'm happy to be back with you. I have a guest in studio with me, Daniel Tarty. Mr. Tarty, how are you, sir? Good, man. How are you? I haven't seen you in a while. It's been a while. Been busy. Been on the road.

Been running. Taking care. I've been meeting up with other entrepreneurs and entree leaders out there in Wyoming and Las Vegas. All right. Excited. Been all over the place. Now listen, Dave had an opportunity to sit down with a very special guest.

And Daniel, I want you to tell us who it was and how was it. Well, Mark Cuban is the guy that Dave sat down with. And we've had a lot of authors. and speakers here on the podcast. But this was a fun one because Mark's got a lot of notoriety, obviously, in the sports world, most recently more famous for his regular appearances on Shark Tank. In fact, he's the shark of the sharks. You know, he's always front and center of all the action there.

And what a cool story. Him and Dave sat down and talked about how to take something from humble beginnings to, you know, the Great American Dream. They both have that in common. They both started literally on a card table. And to me, the story that Mark has is inspirational because it just speaks to the incredible opportunity in this country where if you have a dream, if you're passionate, if you can hustle and be smart and learn some things and grow yourself, you can achieve anything you want to achieve. And the only thing standing between you and your dreams is the story you tell yourself about why you haven't done that yet. And you're going to feel that from Mark as you hear Dave and him talk a little bit about this.

So this is a lot of fun. Yeah, it's an incredible podcast. Listen to this. Tune in. There's a lot of things in there about hard work and sacrifice, but you're listening to two successful people talk about their walk in leadership and in business. Well, guys, I get a man. My life is just good. I'm kind of privileged these days.

I get to run into very cool people, hang out with them, and actually find out sometimes I have a tiny bit in common with a few of them. And I got a superstar of business and leadership and entrepreneurship, for sure, joining us. this week and this month. Mark Cuban is with us to talk a little bit to you guys about winning in entrepreneurship, winning in business, some of the things he's got going on. And he dropped by, he's in Nashville doing some other stuff. So we talked to him in to spend a few minutes with us. Mark, thanks for coming by, brother.

Thanks for having me. I've always wanted to see the CASA here, you know, so it's great to see where the magic is made. Well, we are honored, honored, honored to have you, brother. Thanks for hanging out with us. Of course. Now, I love your story, and you and I were talking right before we, pick the microphones up about the whole broadcast.com thing because I was in the radio business

when that happened and we kind of watched from the sidelines drooling over what you did. But it starts a long time before that for you. I mean, I cut grass at 12 years old. My dad made me cut grass and I had 27 yards to cut. And you were a little business nerd like that too, weren't you? I mean, you were always into something as a kid selling something, weren't you? Yeah, that's an understatement. Like you, I was hustling. My first business was selling garbage bags door to door. And it started because my dad, I went to my dad and he was playing poker with his buddies and I was, you know, asking him for a new pair of tennis shoes, right, whatever the latest and greatest.

He's like, see those shoes on your feet? They look just fine. I'm like, but dad, you know, and he said, well, when you have a job, you can go buy whatever shoes you want. And so my dad's buddies who were probably drunk at the time playing poker. I said, well, I got a job for you. I've got these garbage bags that you can sell door to door. And so they were a box of 100 garbage bags. I'll ever forget, these thin blue things that charged me three bucks and I sold him for six.

And I took a sample and went around the neighborhood and no, everybody needs garbage bags, right? So I learned how to fill a need. I learned how to problem solve. How old were you? I was 12. I was 12. And no one said no to a 12 year old kid, you know. And so I had the world probably first and only garbage bag route.

And I had probably 20 customers and then I would just drag the boxes at different times as many as I could carry. you know, up and down my street and started making money that way. Yeah, that's fun. And, you know, but the biggest thing is, I think, and the biggest lesson is I learn how to sell. And I think what people forget, and I know you talk about it, when you know how to sell, you always have a job. Well, and, you know, there's a part of selling everybody forgets. And it's what I learned when my dad printed off business cards said, Dave's lawns. And he said, go knock on the closest 50 doors and tell them, you know, if you can have the opportunity to provide their lawn care needs.

He said, don't look at your feet and ask them, say, say, you don't want me to cut your grass. do you, right? But most of selling, a lot of selling is finding a need, filling it, but it's also that hustle factor. It's just freaking work. Yeah, you know, just dial the phone. Just knock on the door. I say it all the time. Every no gets you closer to a yes, you know, and it's a numbers game. I sit there with our MAV season ticket salespeople. It's like, it's a numbers game. Are you telling me that, you know, we have tickets that start of $10, that's less than going to the movies, that's less than going to McDonald's. You know, and I'll tell them. Are you telling me you can't convey the excitement in the entertainment of going to a MAV's game

And it's not worth $10. You know, and it's just a question of making the calls. Yeah, just hustle, hustle, hustle, knock, knock, knock, knock the doors. And, you know, once you learn how to do something like that, your dad did you a huge service. And mine did, too, in that regard. There's a confidence level you have after that. Yep. That, you know, I'm never going to be unemployed.

You know, I've never felt unemployed. I mean, I remember when I moved to Dallas, I was living six guys in a three-bedroom apartment and didn't have a job just had gotten there. And one of my friends said, yeah, I'm going down the unemployment office to sign up. Why don't you come? I mean, you'll qualify. I'm like, hell no, right? There's just no chance.

I'm going on government assistance. And because I knew that whether it was getting a job as a bartender or selling whatever it took that I could sell. And one of my roommates got a job going door to door selling burglar bars, you know, and not the nicest neighborhoods. And, you know, I weeks later got a job selling software, even though I never knew any thing about the software I was selling. I knew I could teach myself and I could sell. It does start that kind of basic. It's almost visceral. It's almost down in your gut.

Yep. That once you get that thing going, then you can parlay that to a more sophisticated business look. I mean, it's the same principle that runs the Mavs that caused the garbage bags to sell. Oh, yeah. There's no question, right? Because I think once you get the confidence to know that you can do it, right? You get the confidence. Like I teach my four-year-old, my seven-year-old son and seven- and ten-year-old daughters. You know, you look a person in your eye, you shake and you say deal, right? That's the only way a deal is made. And once you get that confidence, then the next step is learning to put yourself in the shoes of the person you're selling to, you know, and understanding that you're not trying

to convince them of anything. You're trying to show them that you're going to make their lives easier. And you're trying to show them that you understand what it is that makes their business life or personal life better and that there's no favors involved. It's something that that comes out as a win-win for everybody. At the end of the day, we're not really selling, we're serving. Yeah, exactly right. They're just finding somebody that needs us from help and we're helping them out. And in order to do it well, you have to do it. And if you're doing otherwise, stop doing it. Because you're screwing people. Exactly right. You know, because that comes back to haunt you, because you don't want to be looking over your shoulder every day to see if someone's mad at you.

And because you want referrals. Yeah. You know, if you can make that customer happy and people say, well, what made us to do you can sell so well? Why were you good at selling? And where I spent my time, other than the actual calling and everything, was preparing by understanding the business of the person I was selling to or trying to find out about the person I was selling to. And again, putting myself in their shoes and saying, okay, if this was my company, what would I do? What would I need to make myself more efficient, more productive, and more profitable? And those principles I've built all my businesses on.

Now, you and I are definitely cut out of the same cloth, entrepreneurally speaking. But I heard a quote from you. and that was one of the first times. I mean, I certainly knew who you were from the broadcast.com, the Mabs, all those kinds of things from the radio side of my world. But this probably has sprung up maybe even since Shark Tank. You said, you're quoted, let me see if this is right. You tell me if it's right.

If you're starting a business and you take out a loan, you're a moron. Yep. That's recent, but yeah, I firmly believe it. Yeah. I've been teaching people not to borrow money for a long time. Oh, I know you have. I know that. I know that.

So, I mean, where are you coming from on that? Why do you believe that? Because when you start a company, everything's going to go wrong, right? And it's not going to go exactly the way you plan. And you've got to be in a position to do whatever it takes, to survive, to make your customers happy, to make your vendors happy, and to be flexible. And if you take a loan, you're no longer the boss. Your customers are no longer the bosses. Your banker is the boss.

And when things are going well, it's easy and things seem to work. But when you hit any adversity like every startup does, the priority becomes, you know, take care of your banker. And that is the antithesis of putting your customers first. Don't follow your passion. Follow your effort. Everybody talks about finding your passion and following it. You're going upstream on that one. What do you mean?

Yeah, a lot of people don't like when I say that. You know, we all have a lot of different passions in our lives. I'm passionate about sports. You know, when I was 12, it was okay to want to be a baseball or basketball player. Yeah. You know, I've been passionate about different types of music over the course of my life. But what I found was it was different areas that I put my time into. And in order to be successful, I believe in order to be successful in a business,

it's you've got to find something that you love to do, but be great at it, right? And what ends up happening in order to be good at something or particularly great at something, it takes time. And I think people sometimes are shocked when they just look and analyze where they spend their time. It's not always with their passions or it's rarely with their passions. I still play pickup basketball, but that's not where I put my time. When I was 16, 18, 20, 22, 24, I was passionate about a lot of different things. But I found that where I put my time where I could be good at something. And, you know, whether it was selling, whether it was being an entrepreneur, and I think if people took an inventory and said, okay, where am I putting my time? Where can I be good at something?

That's really where you're going to find your success. And just because we're passionate about something doesn't mean you're going to be good at it. Doesn't mean it's going to be great for business. And then flip side of that is once you find something and you spend time at it and you realize you're good at it, it turns into a passion. And so I think I tend to take it the other way rather than, well, just if you're passionate about it, everything's going to be okay. Yeah. It's almost a dream world thing when you do that. You have to develop. Everybody asks about the, you know, I didn't start out in radio. I didn't think I was going to be in radio. And did you think you'd be doing this. Did you think the show would be this big? Well, of course I did.

It wouldn't be freaking doing it if I didn't think it was going to get big. But, but I haven't, did I understand how much work it was going to be? No. No. When we started, it was like something to do. It was a job and we could help people. and then it evolved into a career and then it evolved into a calling but you probably never saw it thought okay this is my passion creating the Dave Ramsey show right no I never sat down somewhere else

somewhere else and like you love this or you love that you know you're into all these different activities but you find yourself spending all your time creating this and as it started to grow it became a passion you know I like that you're saying that because you run into

I just did a graduation commencement exercise the other day and I run into these young guys and gals coming out of college and they're a little bit paralyzed because they don't know what their passion is and everybody says follow your passion they're going I don't know what it is. I don't know what it is. You know what? And I tell kids

you're not supposed to know yet. Yeah. You know, and especially in this day and age, you know, when we were coming out of school, it was find a career. And if you were lucky, you were going to spend 30 years with that same company and get a pension and, you know, live happily ever after and, you know, take the

Winnebago and go on vacations with your wife and seven kids. It's different now. Everybody's a free agent And, you know, I always tell kids you spent those four whatever or however many years paying to learn. And now when you get out of college, it's time to get paid to learn. And you don't need the perfect job. You don't need to find, you know, figure out exactly what you're going to do with the rest of your life. Because you're not going to do that.

Right. And you don't know what it is, right? Whatever it is you start in is not where you're going to end up. Exactly right, especially these days. And so, you know, I got a job as an intern. working at an accounting firm. I started off as an accounting major. And they had me doing audits where I was counting carpet rolls and all this other stuff.

And I realized right there and then I was not destined to be an accountant. And so I didn't make a lot of money. That's just shocking to me. Oh, yeah. Then I wouldn't want to be the car. Of course. I can't even imagine you in that job. Now I can't.

But back then, you know, I wanted a career. I wanted the job. And the idea of working for a big, you know, big, back then accounting firm, you know, they paid a lot of money, relatively speaking. And so, and I knew at some point I was going to start my own business, but I wanted to learn the language of accounting, the language of business, which was accounting. But in any event, you know, you're not going to know what you're going to be when you grow up. You're only 22 years old. And that's the time to go out there and get paid to learn as much as you can about as many

different things as you can until you find something you can be great at. I get so frustrated today with people feeling like that this or that, whether it's the government or whether it's the economy or whether it's the business environment or you can list out a whole long list of woes. But there's a whole group of folks that have decided that Horatio Alger is dead. Oh, hell no. That this idea that you can't start today. I mean, maybe 20 years ago you could. Maybe then when Mark Cuban was doing broadcast.com, but today the opportunity is gone. You and I are both big proponents of the American dream, but if you believe it's alive, why do you believe it's alive?

Well, first of all the reasons I do Shark Tank. You know, it's the number one show on all of television and watched by families together. And the one thing I hear, without exception, everywhere I go now, is I love Shark Tank because I watch it with my kids and my kids are starting to understand and get into business. I mean, my 10-year-old daughter came home a couple months ago, all upset. I'm like, what's matter, Alexis? And she was upset because someone else in her class had started a business before her. And so she was like, you got to help me, Dad. You got to help me.

I'm like, I'm going to show you what you can do from there. You've got to do it and figure it out. And everywhere I go now, there's kids that are coming up to me and asking me about their ideas. I get emails, kids pitching me their ideas. The American Dream is alive and well. And I don't care what anybody says. There's no shortage of ideas. There's no shortage of me getting pitched ideas.

And in the tech business, what's changed dramatically. And technology always seems to lead, right? You know, whether it's now, 10, 20, 30 years ago. When we started audio and edit that's turned into broadcast.com 20 years ago, I had to buy these big servers, right? Rooms full. Rooms full of servers, right? And they were very, very expensive.

Internet access was barely existent and expensive. Now, with a laptop, a phone, and a wireless broadband connection, and, you know, an Amazon account, you can start any type of technology business that you want. And kids recognize that. And so the marginal cost to create a business is just your time and imagination. And even the cost of failure has dropped significantly by 99%. And so the American Dream is very much a lot. and well and I think it's going to do it to accelerate well and to me with Facebook is free

Twitter is free YouTube is free Craigslist is free and Pinterest Instagram are free and these are ways to access your customer instant free continuously shut up yeah this is the best time to be alive ever ever you know in the history of the world it's the best time to start a business you know I always tell the people you know you don't live in the world you were born into and what I mean by that is that whoever's born today when they're 20 or my four-year-old son, when he hits 20, he's going to look back when he was four and go, oh, my God, how barbaric was that? Yeah. You know, we're going to find personalized medicine change in our lives.

You know, we're looking at the cost of health care now and is presuming that we're going to stay on a straight line and everything's going to be done the same way. And that's craziness. You know, for my son Jake, or maybe not when he hits 20, maybe it's when he's 30. the concept that we go to a drug store and buy over-the-counter allergy medicine and it has a warning sign that says you might be the one unlucky schmuck that dies from this will seem barbaric because with him they'll take a little blood prick and all of a sudden out of a 3D type printer will come a little pill that's geared perfectly for his allergies or you know personalized just for him and so the whole concept of medicine is going to change dramatically um and And so this idea that, you know, it's impossible to start a business or there aren't opportunities or the ideas aren't there. There's, it's the same as it was 10 years, 20, 40, 50, 75, 100. Your biggest limitation is your time, your imagination, and whether or not you've got the courage to do it.

Now, you're working on a bunch of different things all the time. Always. But one of the things we were talking about before we walked in here is this app. Tell me about this thing. Right. The app that I'm working on kind of got my attention right now is an app that we created called Cyberdust. And what it is, it's a messaging app, kind of like WhatsApp or texting, but when you send a message to someone else who also has the CyberDust app, 30 seconds after you open it,

it's gone. It disappears. It's never to be seen again. It's never saved. It's not retrievable in any way, shape, or form. Because everything now can become public and anything can be published, I've really made an effort to shrink my digital footprint. And I'll give you a better way of explaining it. Everybody in this world, when you send a text, the minute you hit send, you no longer own that text. Yep. Yep. Dave Ramsey sends the text. It'll be on somebody's blog. Yeah, right there and that. It could be on a blog. It could be a Twitter. It could be Pinterest, Tumblr, whatever it is. And then not only have you lost control of it when you hit send, but wherever it's posted, you no longer own it there as well. And the most innocent thing

can take on a completely new context. So for business, you know, what was just an idea in exchange of ideas can be, oh, look, you stole my idea and you posted it or, you know, you didn't protect it. And when you forwarded it in a text to somebody that you just wanted feedback from or with kids, like when my 10-year-old about to turn 11-year-old daughter, she's a great kid. But someday she's going to send a text to some boy who's going to keep it and say, look, see what she showed me. And then forward it on whatever new medium is out there. And so I want to be able for her, for my business, for anybody who's out there to be able to say, we want to keep our digital footprint to as close to zero as possible. And this extends into so many other areas.

You know, over so many years, we've worried about cookies when we go to different websites. Cookies are nothing anymore. When you, who you follow on Twitter, who you follow on Pinterest, who you follow on Tumblr on Facebook, that starts to define your profile. Who you reply to, who you retweet. what things you pin on Pinterest. All those things are being collected to create a profile of Mark Cuban, of Dave Ramsey, of everybody out there. And so starting with CyberDust, you'll see us come out with a lot of tools that say it's time to go back and start deleting a lot of those things.

Or when you post a Twitter, set a time for it to expire, right? And so we'll have an app that does that. When you send a message, don't use traditional text, use CyberDust and make sure they have CyberDust on the other side too. So that is gone. and if you screenshot it, well, it tells you you screenshot it, and you can take whatever action that's appropriate. Tell us about the book, How to Win at the Sport of Business. Yeah, I've been writing blog posts for 10 years now,

and over the course of years, I've tried to have conversations like this where I explain to people what I think it takes to be successful, or at least my perspective of it and what's worked for me. So I took a lot of those blog posts, and I massaged them and created this book, called How to Win at the Sport of the Business. And it's just blown up.

It's being used in schools. It's been on bestseller lists off and on, you know, since I've published it. And I think a real key to that's been limited to, I only charge $3 for it for the ebook version. Because, you know, for me, it's not so much important to make money from it, but it is important to get the word out. And I include my email address in it, so I get all the feedback from people. And it's done really real and I'm proud of it. That's fun. That's fun.

All right, we're talking to all these entrepreneurs, a million of them listening right now. And I'm convinced that those of us that have that bent, we have like an idea every 20 minutes. Every time you take a shower, every time you go for a run, every time you go for a run, it's always there's always another idea. Exactly. And, you know, if I have people come in, they want to bring an idea to me or they, I'm sure they do it 10 times more to you, especially with Shark Tank. And I just, you know, want me to sign an NDA, all these things. Guys, I don't need more ideas. I need people that can do something with an idea.

First of all, I won't sign an NDA. Yeah, I don't either. Right. Just take it off because I might already thought of it before you got here. Or somebody might come up and pitch me something else and I don't want you coming back and sue me. Yeah. Because we're in such a litigious society. Exactly.

So talk about the difference between having a good idea and actually doing something with it. Yeah. I mean, look, all of us, like you said, have ideas. And we've all got that feeling in the pit of our stomach. Oh, this is it. Then you talk to 10 of your friends and family and they tell, oh, that's a great idea. You should do something. They lie.

Yeah, right? Exactly. It's not a good focus group. No one's ever talked about a baby and called it ugly, right? Until they left. Until they left, right? Damn, that baby. Anyways, but yeah, and I always tell people there's a little line that's in front of every potential

entrepreneur. And 99.9% of people are afraid to cross that line and actually start the business because there's so much risk. And so I think what I try to convey to people is that, hey, you've got to understand where you are in your personal life cycle, right? Starting a business for a 12-year-old, 18-year-old, 22-year-old, even a 24-year-old is a different perspective than if you're 30 with a family or 40 with a family or 50, right? And it kind of goes on the end. If you're 18 to 24 and hopefully you weren't dumb enough to have a mortgage or have a big-time car, right? You live like a student still. you can try anything and start anything and it should be easy.

And again, it's never, it's never about the idea. It's about the execution and turning it into a business. And you should be willing to take whatever time it takes to prepare yourself to create the company. If you've got a lot of expenses and you've got a lot of considerations, then it's going to be a lot more difficult. But it all comes down to the same thing. Ideas are easy. You've got to be willing to take the time to be an expert. on whatever it is that idea conveys, whatever type of business that's going to be,

and to be the smartest person in a room when it comes to that idea, before you even begin to start that business. When the idea is laying on the table in front of you, how many iterations with all the different things you've done over the years? How many iterations does it go through before we put it in quotes and call it a success? Oh, a success? Yeah. Oh, a thousand.

I mean, it never stops. It never stops, right? No successful business ever stops iterating. There's always, I always tell people, there's always someone out there trying to kick your ass. And the smart business person tries to kick their own ass, right? Because you try to, you know, there's competitors out there trying to poke holes, you know, in your product or service with your customers. You know they're looking at your company saying, okay, how can I beat them? And so you've got to put yourself in their shoes, the shoes of your competitors and say, okay, how can I always improve my product?

And however many iterations as it takes, that's what we have to do. Like with the out with the cyber dust app, you know, I have one of my companies that's going through the development process with me. And they're like, okay, we're going to put together this roadmap and it's going to be four months for this version. I'm like, no, right? We're teaching somebody a new approach to digital footprint. We're going to have to iterate every two weeks. You know, it's going to be, you know, a race, you know, to make sure that we get out there because if this has any success whatsoever and it's had a great success in the three months it's been out, someone's going to try to kick her ass.

And so we've got to kick our own ass and continuously reiterate to stay ahead of the race. I think sometimes people get stuck on their prototype. If they do get past idea, they get the prototype and they're like in love with it. Right, right, right. And you need to shoot that thing. As many times as you can, right? And you've got to sell it. And you've got to sell it, right?

People think, okay, I've got a prototype. Then they've got to go out there and get a customer. So what's next? You know, I get that all the time. I've got the idea. You know, I put $5,000 of my money in or $500, whatever it is, and I've got a prototype. I've got the startup of the business. I've got, you know, a first pass of it.

What's next? You know, do I need to raise money? No, you find customers. Because if you can find, if it's really of significant value, your customers will help you with the money. Sure, I'll buy one. You know, I'll commit to one when you're ready to release it. And now you've got a customer, and that helps you fund it.

I mean, I do that with businesses today. Go find customers. And if you can't find a customer for that product, that tells you all you need to know. My daughter and I just finished a book that's become very successful, smart, money, smart kids. Congratulations. Thank you. And one of the things that caused us to move that direction is working with the businesses and our Entree leadership brand, teaching businesses, doing what we're doing right now, talking to business owners and entrepreneurs. I'm finding a ton of those guys and gals.

They go out there. They start from nothing. they go from garbage bags to success, from lawn cutting to success, and they worry about how to not ruin their kids. Amen. How are you not ruining your kids? That scares the hell out of me. Their health first, and then they're not growing up to be jerks second, you know.

I mean, how do you ride on a private jet and not be a jerk when you're grown up? Right. Because you and I don't want to raise kids that are a reality show. No, that's exactly right. It's so well put. You know, I realize that there are going to be certain things that I look at that just I shake my head, you know, like my kids being used to going on a private jet. And kind of freaking out when they have to fly commercial for whatever reason. But I make them, they have chores, chores, they have things they have to do, they have responsibilities.

You know, we don't have butlers. We did get a chef just recently. But even then, he just makes food and we serve it and we eat it as a family as if my wife had cooked it. But we have help during the day with the three kids, not at night, unless it's a Mavs game because our kids can't go to the game, right? Because it's a school night. But other than that, it's Tiff and I. And we try to be as normal as possible.

On the weekends, we have someone come to help in the morning, Saturday morning, so we can run our errands. After that, it's just us as a family. My son started a t-ball. His t-ball and his clubs just like everybody else is. And my girls are in dance or tennis. And, you know, I just, you know, it scares me so much that I really, I think I probably go to the nth degree to make sure that they're not spoiled.

You know, I'm not the dad that comes home with a ton of gifts because I feel guilty or whatever, you know. You don't see the latest and greatest of everything, you know. My son has to earn his way to be able to download an app. You know, it's just, we just try to be as normal as we possibly can. and, you know, try to make sure that they recognize they have to respect everybody. And I say it all the time to them that, you know, because somebody recognizes your dad or, you know, somebody says something about what we have that doesn't make you special, it doesn't make me special. It just means, you know, we've got something that somebody else has and, you know, everybody's got

something you don't have. I got to tell you, we pounded ours so hard on not playing the Dave card. That's what we called it. Yeah. And I just did my son's graduation. They let me speak at the commencement. He just graduated from college. And I was meeting the professors, you know, some of the professors before we walk in together and all this stuff.

And they were going, I had him three times in class. I didn't know he was your kid. He never played the day. He was so afraid to because he knew he'd get pounded. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, look, my wife, like on Facebook, she's under her maiden name, right? When we make reservations, and part of it's because the price goes up when they hear my name.

you know and so my wife calls it using the C word right so if we need to get something or get someplace she'll use it but um but yeah we it always works one way or the other doesn't it you either get a get treated nicer and a little bit better or or they just completely decide they're going to take you the cleaners yeah and they'll try to take advantage of you and um you know we tend to go eat at the same places all the time so people get used to us and it's no big deal and you know after the first couple of times they'll take pictures and then it's done and um but you Yeah, that's my greatest fear. You know, after my kids' health, it's, you know, making sure they have as close to a normal life as possible.

And look, they're still young enough that, you know, they haven't shown any of those tendencies yet. And from what their teachers tell us that, you know, they're as normal as they possibly can be. And we've got them in the school that, that we think, you know, conveys that. They're respectful. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah.

If any of my kids act disrespectfully to anybody. for any reason. I mean, like my middle daughter sometimes gets an attitude. That's the middle one. Yeah. And so, you know,

if it's like, you know, she drops something and she'll expect someone to pick it up after her, I'm like, I'm waiting, right? You know, it was like, she's right here and there were tissues right here.

It was like, Daddy, will you get me a Kleenex? And I'm like, no, your legs work. I use, save my dad, you're okay,

they working? Get your butt over there, and you get it, and you get it back. I love it. Where'd you grow up? Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Ah, okay. All right.

We've got entrepreneurs and leaders that have been running businesses a long time or short time. They're old, they're young, they're successful, or they're just starting. What one thing do you want them to take away from this podcast? You've got to grind. You know, you've got to do the work. That starting a business doesn't mean you have more control of your life. It probably means you have less control of your life. That you don't own this company.

Your customers own the company. that there are no shortcuts. Everybody thinks you start a business, you're on the grave train, and only amazing things are going to happen, when in reality it's far more work. In reality, you can never let go. In reality, if you're not dreaming about it every single night, you're probably not as committed to the business as you need to be.

And so my message always is there's no shortcuts. You've got to grind. toughest boss you'll ever work for us yourself yeah oh yeah or i actually a customer were your customers right yeah he's a slave driver yeah that's fun mark Cuban thanks for spending time with his brother's honor to meet you yeah same here david thanks for having me i'm really enjoying it as always very cool chris that was a lot of fun uh shortly after that interview a few of us popped in and and had a brief lunch with mark and the thing that fascinates me is about how he still brings it every single day and I asked him, I said, Mark, look, you've made all the money, you've done all the big deals, you have the notoriety, yet you still crush it every day.

The intensity the guy plays with relative to his capacity just to sit back and relax. It just blows me away. And I said, why do you still, like what drives that? Like, what is, you know, getting you out of bed every day, basically? And he said, well, when I was a little kid at night, we would play basketball in my driveway with me and my buddies in the neighborhood. And we'd play as late as we could until our mom's called us in and said, it's time to go to bed. And my head would hit the pillow at night and all I could dream about was getting out there the next night and beat my buddies. And he said it a little bit more colorfully than that. But basically, he said, I just wanted to win, you know. And he said you get to a certain point where, you know, in business, you got to survive initially.

got to pay the bills, you've got to get to a certain point where you're providing for your family and meeting certain goals. But at some point, there's just this game that you play that, like, you just got to get back in the game. And around here, we talk about the mission. You know, Dave certainly has reached a point in his lifestyle where it's no longer about the next dollar, but there's a game we're playing. There's a mission that we're on. There's something that matters that if we don't get out of bed in the morning, then the enemy takes over. And that could be the marketplace, that could be the competition, you know, whatever, whatever thing that you've got to do, if you're not doing it where you're playing to win, you're going to lose.

Yeah. Well, and I think society will tell us that you shouldn't be obsessed, you know, that you shouldn't be. And I think there's a difference between being focused that you are almost obsessed. You're obsessed with winning. And I think Mark is definitely that way in his businesses. He's all out. He doesn't go part of the. the way. And I don't think that entrepreneurs and entree leaders out there have to make excuses about wanting to win. You don't have to apologize for that. No, and I think a lot of the focus, a lot of times is on money and what does winning do for the business owner, but the guys who really get it and the guys we've worked with who have incredible stories and continue to play out all

the time, regardless of how many millions they've made, their focus has shifted from what the business does for them and into what does the business do for more employees we can hire? What does it do for more customers we can serve? What does it do for the marketplace that we can add value to? And if that's not where your mindset is at, now, you need to have financial goals. Don't get wrong. But if your mindset is not, how can this business be a vehicle to deliver value to more people that we could hire and to more customers that we can serve? You're not going to last long to begin with, are you? No, and that's where Dave says that the business, it becomes bigger than you. That's right. It becomes bigger than the team.

And the thing that I respect about Mark Cuban is his leadership. I've watched him over the years with his team. And I think this is a valuable lesson for our listeners out there because he is in tune with them. He's connected with them in the locker room. He's cheering for them at the game. He's probably the loudest cheerleader that they have. And I think for entree leaders out there that that's a key lesson.

As a leader, you want to get out the pom-poms if you have to. But let your team know that you're behind them, that we're in this boat together. And see, it's a difference because a lot of people are acting like bosses. That's where you have somebody working for you. But when you're a leader, you have people that work with you. And I think the difference in that shift is a psychological one as well as just a way of leading people. And it makes a huge difference. And so if you want to be a leader that makes an impact on your team, get in the boat.

with them. Let them know you have their back, and I promise you they'll have yours. Well, and obviously, we're advocates of staying plugged in. If you're losing the head game, if you're feeling burned out, grab a book, listen to this podcast, listen to another podcast. We're not the only game in town, and we're not afraid to say that. There are tons of free resources and incredible events and training out there. If you want to run a business, if you want to lead, if you want to grow yourself, you live, if you live in the United States and you're here in this, you live in the best country in the world to be able to do that. You don't have any excuses. And so several things that we've got coming up this fall to help you grow, some events and things going on. Obviously, our Master

Series event that we do a couple times years, November 9th through the 15th, that one's almost sold out, but you can still get some room. Sorry, you can still get a ticket to that if you act quickly. That's the five-day event that you teach at. Dave teaches personally his whole playbook on business. It's an intensive event that we do here at our office. It's a deep dive into everything about entre leadership. And people can sit down with our leadership team and ask them questions. You can bring people from your office in and totally indoctrinate them. And you know, Daniel, I don't think people understand how much access they get to the leaders and Dave.

Well, we shut down the company in a lot of ways that week to put on this event. We've got about 70 people on our leadership council. Dave's got eight people on his operating board and several VPs and executive directors who clear the calendar that week so that they're available for on-site mentoring and Q&A. And we limit this event to 150 people. So just hear that. If you're out there, if you're a leader and you've wanted to sit down with other high-level leaders of a successful organization, Entree Leadership Master Series is your opportunity to come sit

kneecap to kneecap with people that are not just talking about it, but they're doing it and they're winning. So it's an incredible opportunity. Yeah, check that out. You can go to ontareleadership.com and learn more there. The platinum section is sold out. The executive section where you get to do the one-on-one mentoring sessions. We have a few of those left if you act today. Also, we're doing all of our one-day events have launched. So it will be all around the country. You'll be speaking at those as well as Dave and Christy Wright from our team. Check those out. And then a special event that we've never done before called Business Gets Personal. And- Are you allowed talking about? Are you allowed about that yet. Yeah, no, we're talking about it, man.

All right. All right. Come on. So Dave had this dream of doing this kind of this one-time event where he and a couple of other premier speakers in their space got together and just did a dynamite, unprecedented type of an event. And so the two guys that Dave selected are Seth Godin, who world-renowned marketer, The premier marketing blog on the planet. If you're not reading Seth Godin and you have any marketing responsibilities, you're completely missing the boat. And he's got tons of great content out there.

Seth is going to be on stage and Gary Vaynerchuk, who both of these guys we've had on our podcast before. Gary Vaynerchuk is wide open. Full throttle, similar to Mark Cuban in that sense of just nonstop hustle all the time. He is a social media and marketing genius. He's the expert on social media. His social media landscape is changing. daily. What I like about Gary is he didn't just write a book five years ago based on what social

media was at the time. Well, he actually did do that. But he's come back around and written new books and new resources and new blogs about how to stay relevant in this rapidly changing landscape, how to use social media marketing for your business. And a lot of business owners go, we don't really do social media. We're not really in that space. That is deception. That's exactly right. If you don't have a social media game plan today, it would It'd be like five, it'd be like 20 years ago saying, hey, we're not going to do email, right? It'd be a similar thing. Like, it is here.

It is here to stay. It is how the next generation is going to communicate, how they're going to buy things, how they're going to, you know, interact in the marketplace. And so that'll be fun to hear from Gary Vaynerchuk on that front. Now, when is that event, Daniel? That's October the 2nd. That's going to be in New York City at the Lincoln Center right on Columbus Circle in the heart of Manhattan. A beautiful venue, one day event. This is a high-end event.

We've got the A-team. But for that one day, you will get not only an incredible inspiration from Dave about leadership and how to treat people and how to grow a team and build a business, but you'll have the marketing component from Seth. You'll have the social media component from Gary. So if you like social media, if you like marketing, if you're thinking about how do I sell my product or service, how do I go to market, how do I grow my profit,

and how do I put a team together that's going to help me do that? There's not another event that's better. Well, the simple fact that you have these three thought leaders in one location is an incredible opportunity for people to sit down and really pick the brain and hear these thought leaders talk about their specialized areas. It's an incredible event, October 2nd again, and check it out. Daniel, where can they go to get more information about tickets? The event is called Business Gets Personal.

Go to Dave Ramsey.com. Click events and look for. business gets personal. You can register there. The access that you're going to have not only to the talent on the stage, but to the people in that room, being around like-minded people who are excited about growing their business and their team, you know, it's priceless. So be sure to book that. That's filling up quickly and it'll be full probably within the next month or so from once the podcast airs. Fantastic. Now listen, you all, stay plugged into this Entree leadership stuff. Keep learning and keep leading. And until next time, grow yourself.

Grow your team and grow your profits.