Habits and Hustle - Episode 482: Mark Cuban's 5:30 AM Success Formula: How a Billionaire Structures His Day for Maximum Impact

Episode Date: October 3, 2025

Listen to the full episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThY-UBFtGK8  What does a billionaire's morning routine actually look like? In this Fitness Friday episode, I'm sharing an expert from my conversation with Mark Cuban about the daily habits and routines that fuel his billion-dollar empire.  Tune in to discover why Mark sleeps only 5-6 hours but takes strategic naps, how he processes hundreds of emails daily while still prioritizing family time, and the surprising workout that helped him meet his wife. This isn't your typical morning routine - it's intentional living from someone who's built multiple billion-dollar companies. Mark Cuban is a billionaire entrepreneur, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, and star investor on Shark Tank. At 64, he maintains his competitive edge through basketball, Zumba classes, and a vegetarian diet while building companies that disrupt entire industries. What we discuss: Why Mark Cuban Wakes Up at Exactly 5:30 AM Every Day The Email Management System That Keeps Him Accessible to Anyone How He Balances Billion-Dollar Businesses with Being Present for His Kids Why He Refuses to Take Meetings or Phone Calls (and What He Does Instead) The Sleep Tracking Strategy That Maximizes His 5-6 Hour Nights The "Sales Cures All" Philosophy That Built His Empire How Strategic Napping Became Part of His Success Formula Thank you to our sponsor: Therasage: Head over to therasage.com and use code Be Bold for 15% off  Air Doctor: Go to airdoctorpro.com and use promo code HUSTLE for up to $300 off and a 3-year warranty on air purifiers. Magic Mind: Head over to www.magicmind.com/jen and use code Jen at checkout. 99designs by Vista: 99designs.com/jen20  – click "Claim my discount" to get $20 off your first design contest.  Momentous: Shop this link and use code Jen for 20% off  Manna Vitality: Visit mannavitality.com and use code JENNIFER20 for 20% off your order Find more from Mark Cuban: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mcuban/  Find more from Jen: Website: https://www.jennifercohen.com/ Instagram: @therealjencohen Books: https://www.jennifercohen.com/books Speaking: https://www.jennifercohen.com/speaking-engagements

Hi, guys. It's Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle. Crush it. Hey, friends, you're listening to Fitness Friday on the Habits and Hustle podcast, where myself and my friends share quick and very actionable advice for you becoming your healthiest self. So stay tuned and let me know how you leveled up. Before we dive into today's episode, I first want to thank our sponsor, Therisage. Their trite panel has become my favorite biohacking thing for healing my body. It's a portable red light panel that I simply cannot live without. I literally bring it with me everywhere I go. And I personally use their red light therapy to help reduce inflammations and places in my body where, honestly, I have pain. You can use it on a sore back.

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Like, you're scheduled between the Shark Tank, all those companies, doing like these things. I mean, like, what time are you waking up in the morning? Six, five, 36. Like, what's the day? Like, give me a day in the life of you. Probably should admit this, but, like, I'll get up at 536, particularly during the school year and my kids are going to school. You have three kids, too. Yeah, 12, 15, and 18, yeah. Are you involved? Do you see these kids? Yes. How are you able to do all of this? I don't travel that much unless they're out doing stuff. Really? Right now, my middle daughter, Alyssa, is at camp. My wife and my youngest son, Jake, who's 12, are in Iceland right now.

They went on a trip because while I'm shooting Shark Tank, that's when they all know to go do their trips. That's a good idea. Yeah. And then my oldest is on a trip as well, so with our class. And so while we're shooting, they're gone. And so that's when I pack everything in. And then you do everything.

Yeah. But otherwise, you know, I can do one day trips here or one day trips there because, you know, I'd rather spend time with my family. So you are, like you spend a lot of time with your, you can laugh at both? Yeah, that's the best part of my life. Okay. So tell me the day, give me your daily. You wake up at, you said, six.

Yeah, just wake up, yeah, 536, do, you know, say hi to everybody, gives everybody going to school, if that's what's up, and then do my email, and typically get back in bed, do my email, get through any emergencies, go back, take a nap. Really? Yeah, hell yeah. So, wait, so you do the emails first before you do anything else, right? Yeah, yeah, just to get through. I thought that you'd said that a bunch of times.

Yeah, and, you know, I've got an eye watch like you, right? So I look at my sleep, right? Yeah. Do you wear an aura ring or anything? No, that I didn't, yeah, I didn't get the, the, I'm surprised. Did you love all the technology and stuff? Yeah, but I just didn't get the feedback. You know, I tried a whoop and just the data. Yeah. I didn't like that either. It was also like cumbersome. Yeah, it was a pain in the ass, right?

Terrible. Yeah. And so I get good data with this. And yeah, whoop wasn't awful, but I already had this, right? You know, exactly. Like, then you're just constantly, like, looking at all these different things on here. Right. And it's not just exercise stuff. I can get stock prices and all that other shit, right? Absolutely. And so I'll see how much sleep I got, you know, because you don't really, you might feel okay and you don't, you know when you didn't sleep, but sometimes you don't know how much sleep you got. One hundred percent, exactly. And so, like, if I got my 200 deep deepest sleep, right, my two hours, rather, then I'm

usually pretty good. Right. Right. So, wait, what time do you go to bed at night? Typically, anywhere from midnight to 1.30. Okay. And then you wake up around. Okay, so you get, like, you're in bed for about five, six hours.

Yeah, and then if, like, if I didn't really get good sleep, then I can get my email done. And go back to bed. Go back to sleep. Yeah. Really? Yeah. I am so shocked. Yeah, so I get an hour.

Like, I'm not one of these people that's just like, oh, I just got to slug it out, whatever. Yeah. Because remember, everybody's got kissed my ass. Yeah. Right. I love you so much. Yes, they do. You know, they might say not, right?

And I might not like it because I hate that. But everybody works to my schedule. Yes. You know, it's like, tomorrow. Yeah, sure. Okay. Can you come over now? Sure.

Now, and I don't really do meetings or calls. I really, really don't because. Waste of time. Yeah. And plus, like, there's no record. it. I can't, it's not searchable because I have so much shit going on that I want to be able to go back and look and say, okay, when did Jen hit me up last? And, you know, what were we talking about? What was the topic? So you like to have it in writing. Yeah, I like to have it. So it's

searchable. Which is different than that dust thing that you're involved with. Yeah, well, dust is like a real-time version of a face-to-face conference. So with dust, it's important because there's certain business things that I want to talk about that we're not going to be face-to-face, but I don't want it to be an email. Right. I don't want there to be a record of a phone call. You know, because let's say we're getting ready to fire somebody or, you know, there's a lawsuit, you know, that, that I have to be sued a lot. No, hardly ever. Really? At your level?

Yeah, less than 10 times my entire life. And, you know, half of them were garbage. Yeah. That is, that's incredible, by the way. I've never heard of such a thing. Yeah, I mean, I just, like, wealth and I never sued people either. It's just not worth the hassle. I know.

It's probably like it's worth, it's like the time and energy and the money that it actually takes. It's not worth it. But, yeah. So I use Dust all the time. You can hit me up on their blog Maverick. You know, I answer questions just because I want to support the platform. But, you know, it's just because I want some things to be private. Yeah.

And, you know, with Dust, when you send a message, it auto, you can delete it when you want it or it auto deletes, but it's never stored on a hard drive anywhere. And so there's just no way to retrieve it, period, end of story. So I never even heard of this before I started like digging deep into your life. Like, I mean, I didn't realize, like, this is like a thing. Like, people are using it and it's, yeah. I mean, did you even know it existed? Oh, sorry.

Well, you've been around like eight years. That's why you know. But like, it sounded like Snapchat to me when I look. In some respect, but Snapchat still keeps everything, right? It might disappear, but it's on their server somewhere. That's right. Right. Same with Instagram and banish mode or whatever.

Right. Or the other ones, right? Telegram. You can set it to delete so the other people don't see it. But, you know, if there's a subpoena of because you were doing some business deal and somebody wants to get those records, it's still possible to get them. Oh, wow. Okay, so go about to your schedule. So you wake up at 6 o'clock. You do your emails. Take a nap if I'm tired. How long is the email part? Like a half an hour, an hour? No, an hour and a half, two hours.

Oh my gosh. Okay. So that's from like 6 to 8 p.m. Right. But when I'm-in-bad you're doing Yeah. Just laying in bed, whatever. Okay. And then go get my list of cookies. Yes. Some water. How about coffee? Do you drink coffee? No, I'm not coffee drinker. No. Sometimes sometimes I'll drink tea, but usually just water. And then if I have a anything to do, then I'll just go do it. If it's Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, I try to set time to go play basketball, then back about 2 p.m. and back to my email. And no matter where I'm at, if I'm eating, whatever, I'm always doing my email. Always. Yeah. I cannot believe how accessible and easy. It's unbelievable. Like, if I email you, I will get it, if I don't get a response

in like the five, 10 minutes, I would think, I think, oh, he's just going to like, he doesn't care. Yeah. That's probably true. Typically that's true. Either he just deleted my email or like something was actually wrong with you because you were so accessible, like, unbelievable. Yeah, I take pride in it because, you know, unless someone's just like being annoying or pitched me or whatever, then I just block them, which is a great feature that you email added, you just hit block. It's a great one, actually, you're right. But, yeah, then I'll try to respond.

So then, okay, so you go back to bed, if not, then you have basketball. When do you work out? Because I thought, like, I guess I was wrong. I set my move points to try to get 1,000 move points a day. Okay. And that typically gets me to 3,000 calories. day. Really? Yeah. Oh, wow. Okay. Well, if you eat, besides the list of cookies that I know you're obsessed with you. You know, I've got a woman who makes me natural foods, right? So you're a vegan,

right? Just vegetarian. Vegetarian. Yeah, so I like eggplant. So I put cheese on eggplant. Oh, okay. So my little version of eggplant parmesan, but I use my fitness pile to track all of my, everything and I eat. So I try to keep it to 2,000 to 2200 calories. Okay. And so you can never get the calories exactly right. I know, and the tracking is never exactly right. It's a round. Yeah, so it's a close enough approximation that it works for me. Right. And it keeps me good.

I try to make sure that I get enough iron because I'm vegetarian. So, you know, I'll typically at lunch or maybe after the cookies, I'll get one of these little cups of rice Krispies. And that is one serving plus a little bit, 140 calories, but it's got like 70% of the iron. Right. And then iron absorb better if you drink it. if you have it with vitamin C. So I'll drink a glass of orange juice with it. Oh, so you're doing all.

So basically, when did you become a vegetarian? Like four years ago. Is it because of a health situation? No, not an issue just because I wanted to feel better. You know, supposedly it reduced inflammation. I've had both my hips replaced, you know, I'm still playing basketball. So I'm going to be sore and, you know, so it makes me feel better. Do you feel better?

Oh, yeah. It's night and day. Really? Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I don't eat meat or, you know, sometimes I'll eat fish, like if I'm starving, I have no choice. Yeah. But typically I won't.

And then, you know, I won't eat fried foods, and I try to avoid sweets, which is almost impossible. So my strategy is to always have a thing of Alyssa's cookies out. So when my kids have all the garbage on the counter, then I can grab an Alyssa's. So you really are, like, that obsessed with these cookies, because I've heard you talk about them, too. Like, that's how I was for like a good year about these cookies. They are that good, though.

That good, yeah. Do you eat mush, mush, whatever you want to call it? Mush in the fridge, too. You have that, too. And then, okay, so let's get back to the extra. So you do, you're an investor maybe in Rise Nation or you're not an investor in Rise Nation. I love Rise Nation. Yes. It's a hard workout. Yeah. You get to go your own speed, right? Right. But it's a versatile climber is like, it's also like. But you know, the beauty of it,

one is low impact. Yeah. You know, so you're not going to feel your joints. You're not going to hurt that at all. It's full body too. Yeah. And it's full body, right, because you're moving legs and and arms. But, you know, when you first start, you know, in a 30 minute class, you might get a thousand steps. Yeah. And then you build it to 1500. Then you build it to 1,000, then 3,500, then 3, then 4,000, right? And then the superstars can do more. But your cardio, like, I don't get tired when I play basketball anymore. Right. Because, you know, I can go in a Peloton bike and just crank through 30-minute class or 45-minute class. Do you do Peloton then, too? Yeah. Okay. So you do everything. You're very, like, you're very versatile. Well, just accessibility, right? So if I'm on the road,

sometimes there's not going to be a versatile, you know, there's not going to be a rise nation there. So I'll do Peloton, either the treadmill or the bike. And lots of times when I'm doing the bike, I try to go, if I'm just cruising, I try to hit the 180 average output or 190. And if I'm really pushing, I'll try to do 200, 210. Wow. And then, you know, just, you know, but, you know, it's great. It's a great workout. I want to show you something.

There's like a thing. Have you seen the hit axle before? Uh-uh. I'm going to show this too. You're going to love it. A lot of the athletes are using it and sports teams use it. I'll show it to you. It's like a side thing.

But so you're doing, how many times a week would you say you work out, besides the basketball? Six, you know, well, basketball's a workout. It's a huge workout. Yeah, yeah, it's a workout. But, so one or the other, six times a week, sometimes seven. Do you still work out at Lifetime Fitness? Yeah. You do?

That is so funny. We don't have any here in L.A. Really? No, and they should bring it because it's the best gym. It's nice. As long as they have a basketball court. It's a huge basketball. And they have every piece of equipment.

Yeah, they got everything. I'm telling you, the West. And I take Zumba classes on Saturday morning. Do you really? Hell yeah. Oh my God. That is so fun. And, you know, because way back when when I started, it was like three guys and

80 women. And so it's just the ultimate, yeah, just the ultimate distraction. That's actually a great, that's a great place for guys to go to meet girls. That's where I met my wife. At a Zumba class? No, no, no, playing basketball. Yeah. Oh, you're saying Zumba class? That is how, are you been married for what, 20 years? 20 years, yeah. Wow. And so, okay, so let's get back to the, this is with entrepreneur. Let's ask some more entrepreneurial questions since we should probably do that. So would you say the number one, not to pivot that hard, but like, would you say the number one reason why people are failing then is because their lack of ability to work hard and to kind to dig in? What would it be? No, I'd say they're misguided and they sell themselves. They lie to

themselves when they start. Right. Oh, I think this business is good. Everybody goes through that same process with a new business. You know, hey, what do you think about this idea? Right. Then you go on Google and you look at, oh, I don't see it. It's great. Of course, no one tells you that it's not there because 50 companies have failed doing the same thing. And there's nothing left to show that they died. But, you know, then you get excited. You check with your friends. And then they try to raise money. Yeah. That's what screws them up, right? Raising money is not an accomplishment. It's an obligation. Yeah. You know, if at all possible, you want to start just organically with sweat equity. Those are the best businesses because you get to, you get to retain 100% of it. Right.

You know, and there's no rush. And then the second mistake people make is they push the top line instead of the bottom line or gross margin dollars. Yeah. You know, it's like, oh, I'm a million in sales. like that's an accomplishment or 10 million where like if you've raised funding you have your quote unquote KPI's right right or what's the new one QOKs or something there's something ridiculous that QKP I don't know they always come up with these acronym what is it QKP I don't know just some one I started seen and so everybody's like oh yeah you know and they think it's an accomplishment if you're doing I went from one million to five million in sales okay that's somewhat great but what matters is what's your gross margin right because

if you're in that hamster wheel where you're growing but you need to keep on raising money to grow. Right. That's not good. No. If you see what's happening now when people can't raise money, you're done. You know, and while others have said, well, you know, I've, you know, raised 30 million or 50 or $100 million, unless you have a really good reason, you know, that your relativity space and you need to raise money because you're building, you know, 80 foot tall 3D printers. Yeah. Right. You're not going to do that out of your basement. But for most entrepreneurs, it's something where it's an arbitrage on their time. Yeah. Right. Here's, I can do this more efficiently than Jan or Mark can. So it's worth for Jen or Mark to buy this product or service from me so that they can use their time more

efficiently. So you'll pay, so, you know, effectively I'm so efficient that my cost to do this is $10. You value it at 25. I sell it at 18. We're both happy. Yeah. Right? Most people sell an arbitrage on their time. And, and, but they don't, that's basically what their product or services, but they don't look at it that way. They look at it, say, okay, I'm creating this, you know, I'm going to open up my own training facility, right, because I'm a personal trainer and I have 40 clients and I need a place to take them. Why not open my own? I'll get six others or I have a beauty salon and I'll get, you know, I'll have slots for eight other stylists to come in and rent a spot. Right. Right. They don't think it through that. You've got to make money at this stuff, right?

It's not just about top line, it's bottom line. And I think that's where most entrepreneurs make their mistake. And, you know, you get caught, and if you get caught up in growth, you can grow yourself out of business. Yeah. And most people don't realize that. It's true. I also, do you think that people, like, I feel like it's become like the sexy thing to do now. The word entrepreneurs, like I hope so. I hope so. Right. Because of you actually, the Shark Tank has made it much worse. No, my shark tank has definitely, but, you know, if 90% fail, 10% could change the world. Yes. And like the cost plus, it's going to probably change the world. Yeah. You know, I always tell entrepreneurs, you know, or when I talk to kids, I always tell them, you know,

just ask yourself a question, why not me? Why can't I be the one that just changes everything? Because one of them is going to. That's true. And even though some might feel entitled, some might not do the work, some may be lazy and not realize how much work is involved to be an entrepreneur, that happens. You're going to find the same thing if you're a carpenter, a videographer, an editor, where some people don't do the work and the great ones do.

Yeah. And, you know, but this is cliche now, but I say it all the time. or how many times you fail. You only got to be right one time. You have a lot of these. Yeah, I know. I know. I love, I love them. Like, well, how you do anything is how you do everything. Yeah, that one I stole. Yeah, that one is. That one really wasn't yours. Hold on. I have one here that I really liked. Hold on a minute. Which one was it? Because you have so many good ones. Most people don't put the one. Which one wants it? Practice until you can't. Well, that one, I'm not sure. I stole that. Was that Nick Sabin actually? Practice until you can't get it wrong. Yeah, that's been around a long time.

Oh, which one's selling? You have one on selling. Oh, sales cures. all. Yes. Yeah, that one's mine. That's yours. So basically what you mean is, like, as long as you can, if you can sell, then that's all it really matters, right? Then you're gold. Yeah, you're good. Right. Because no company's ever succeeded without sales. Right. You need sales. No matter what. Otherwise, you're out of business before you start. Exactly. Sales here's all. So does that mean that like you have to be a good salesperson as well? Yeah. Yes. Because if it's your baby and you don't love it enough to be able to sell it or figure out how to sell it, it's awful tough. Well, look at you, right like you're already established and you're going on all these things promoting these companies

that you're involved with like most people don't have that kind of ethic to do that work ethic they get bored they think they're too good for it now they don't want to do it i don't do a lot of these but you know podcast but you're out there like you know talking about whatever whatever yeah well i mean look i've got a platform that most people don't have well yeah but but it brings for sure yeah but it brings up and i think more dollars than most people yeah right that's a whole but i wasn't always in that position right And so even, you know, back in the day, when I had microsolutions, my first company after I got fired, like, one of the things I learned, I learned a lot from companies I got fired from. Most of them, it was like what not to do. You know, I had a boss that, my boss that fired me a guy named Michael Humecki at the software store.

And H-U-M-E-M. Exactly, at the software store. I love it, yeah. Anyways, that went out of business three months later. You fucked up, Michael. Yeah, he sure did. thank you for doing it. Yeah. Um, but like he would never go on sales calls. He would never, see? He probably thought he was too good for it. He was a CEO. Yeah. And I had another job,

same thing. Guy and David, I forget his last name out, but, um, he told me where to buy a suit when I was buying my suits too for $99. Oh, that's great. You know, and I was my shirts, I would wear, um, buttoned down shirts, but I bought them at this place called the clothes horse, which was all resale. So like, I went five years before I, I bought my first, you know, business shirt that someone hadn't worn before. Oh, really? Wow. I like that. I learned, you know, you got to sell. Because in my experiences, the CEOs, the owners, the founders that didn't sell, they all failed. With no exceptions, 100% of them failed. And, you know, when you're just starting and it's just you, who else is going to sell? Nobody. And that's the other,

you know, and that leads to another mistake entrepreneurs make. They try to hit hiring home runs. right so when the minute they hit a roadblock i'll just hire a you know i'll hire a new marketing person right or i'll hire a new head of sales um hoping that oh this person's amazing no one's ever hired somebody and said they suck really bad of course right oh i found the most amazing person why they leave the last five jobs oh they were amazing but right um that's such a good point see that's what i love how your brain works it's like exactly it's so true it's so practical and common sense it's pragmatic yeah right common sense but common sense but Common sense isn't so common.