Breaking Through Barriers to Success | 24 Minutes of Pure Motivation

If you're looking for ways to outwork everyone, not care what other people think, and get over hurdles, then this video is for you.

Once you taste some success, you realize it doesn't matter how many times you failed. Yeah. Right, you only have to be right one time, then everyone's always an overnight success, or, you know, this came easy to them. There's nothing you can't accomplish in life with the right amount of work. The challenge is, you know, are you willing to do the work? Sometimes you've got to be ready, fire, aim, and just bust through doors and figure, you know, you'll deal with the cons, you'll deal with the regulation or regulatory issues later.

Need motivation? Watch a Top 10 with Believe Nation. What's up? It's Evan. My one word is believe, and I believe in you. I believe you have an amazing gift inside you that I want to see explode out into the world. So let's take your motivation to a 10 and get you believing in you. Grab a snack and chew on today's lessons from a man who went from selling garbage bags at the age of 12 door-to-door so he could buy an expensive pair of basketball shoes, to being a billionaire entrepreneur, investor, author, and TV personality. He's Mark Cuban, and here's my take on his top 10 rules of success, volume 3. Enjoy! All right, coming up first, rule number 1 is outwork everyone.

Most people do a lot of talking and most people don't put in the effort. There's nothing you can't accomplish in life with the right amount of work. The challenge is, you know, are you willing to do the work? And the reality is most people aren't, but that's the opportunity, right? I mean, it's like people you know at school. Most people are lazy, right? They just, they barely get through it. And so that creates opportunity. I tell my kids that A, if they want something, they're gonna have to earn it. And B, if they don't work hard enough to earn it, I'm gonna sell them off as medical experiments. That's the line in our house, right? I'm gonna sell you off as medical experiments. You need money? Okay, we'll sell you off as a medical experiment. We can get you money that way. Go give blood. Dad, I'm 7. I don't care.

So I'm not so sure about the medical experiment part, but I love the fact that he's talking about hard work as being the opportunity. If you do the things that most people won't do, then you'll get the things that most people won't have. It's that simple. You got to work. Next up, rule number 2: go through the hurdles.

Steve Jobs said it best. Everything's a remix. You know, if you look at what Apple did, they stole a lot from Xerox. They stole a lot from different places. And, you know, the early days of of the PC industry, software industry, there wasn't a lot of regulation and it was just ready, fire, aim. You just went, went, went, went, went. You know, now there's different types of regulation. My biggest miss as an investor was because I paid too close attention to disruption, or I mean to regulation. So I had this guy send me an email. First, I had financed his last company, company called Red Swoosh, which did peer-to-peer file sharing. And he sent me an email saying, we're gonna disrupt the cab industry. And I'm like, that's a really good idea. And it's like, yeah, we're gonna call it Uber Cab, and we're gonna go around and just use an app so that people can hail a cab. That's why I called it Uber Cab, so you don't have to go through the, the intermediary of the taxi. And I'm like, this is great, but you're gonna have to fight all the taxi associations and all the transportation organizations in each city, in every state. You know, you just, you're, you know, and then I started talking about his valuation and I never heard back from him. The rest is history. He's still a jerk, but we're still friends. So you have, you know, and the point is when you're trying to disrupt something like Travis was doing, right, you know, and it's gotten him in a little bit of trouble, particularly recently, but you know, sometimes you've got to be ready, fire, aim, and just bust through doors and figure, you know, you'll deal with the cons, you'll deal with the regulation or regulatory issues later. And so, you know, he's obviously disrupted transportation. And he's trying to do a whole lot more than that, and he gets all the credit because where I saw regulation, he ignored it. And so if you really believe and you really have something that, you know, you think is going to happen and disrupt the world, you know, bring it to me. I won't make the same mistake twice. And then just go, you know, and bust through those doors and figure out how to get through the hurdles.

So one, I love the humbleness and I love how he shares a story of his failure and that he's overcome that. And now that's a— that past failure is a filter for him to not make that same mistake again. I love it. And two, it's not just regulation, it's everything. When you come up with a new business, there's lots of problems with it. There's gonna be people who will poke holes in it everywhere. There's lots of ways why it's not gonna work out. If you only focus on why it's not gonna work out, then guess what? It never will. But if you start focusing on the one reason why it will work out and go all in on that, That's when you start to win. Let's go to rule number 3, follow your effort.

People are always like, oh, you're such a risk taker. I'm like, I hate risk, man, I am terrified. And literally, it is terrifying, you know, taking that first step. For me, it was easier 'cause I got fired, but you know, it really, it's about preparation. You know, if what, we all go through this process, and tell me what you think, Chase. I mean, where you've got the idea, right? And you get that feeling in your stomach, and you get all excited, oh my God, then you talk to a friend. And the friend goes, "Oh, wow, that's pretty cool. I never heard of anything like that. I'd buy that," right? And then you talk to some other people, and then you do the Google search, right?

"Is anybody else out there?" Is anybody else doing this?

And you try 50 different ways. No one's out there. Well, the first thing I'll tell you is just because you don't see it on Google doesn't mean 100 companies haven't gone out of business doing the same thing, right? It may not be out— there's a saying in basketball, "You're open for a reason," which means you can't shoot so they're not guarding you, right? It hasn't been done for a reason because every company who's tried it has gone out of business. So the one thing I would tell you is be careful. But once you get past that, that stage, then what I always tell people is, one, is it something you love to do, right?

That's so true, because it's going to get hard. Like, it's really hard. It's going to get hard. And if you don't love what you're doing, then it's like that— when shit gets hard, that's when you're going to like, oh man, I'm going to fall in the towel, right?

Right. Because you don't know, right? And you don't have a sense for it. And I'm a real believer that each and every one of us has something we're good at, right? And you've got to figure out, is this something you're good at? I've always been good at selling. I found out I wasn't into computers when I was a kid. Then I found out when I started to teach myself how to code, it was like, oh, I like this. And I literally, I would sit there writing software, and I'd think, OK, I've been working 2 hours. I better get something to eat. And it's been 24 hours. It's just like, what the fuck? 24 hours? I mean, OK. That tells me you're clued in.

And it's not just what you care about. It's not just passion, because you should The circle's overlapping passion and aptitude, right? You wanna be good at something. Just because you love basketball—

Doesn't mean I'm gonna be any good at it, right?

Yeah, sure, you're 4. I mean, you can have fun at it, but if you're trying to make a business, a life, a living, then you should—

Yeah, and I always say, don't follow your passion, follow your effort. Effort. Right, so you might think you're passionate about playing basketball, playing the guitar, drawing, design, whatever, but where you spend your time is your better indicator, because that's typically what you're good at, and nobody ever quits anything they're good at. For sure, you know, when you're good at something, you, you tend to want to get better.

I'm not as bought in on this one. I think I've quit on things that I've been good at but I didn't enjoy. I think it's possible to have aptitude and be good at something but not love doing it and want to go off and do something else. And by the same token, I feel like if you love doing something, you can get really good at it much faster because you're willing to put in the work and the effort and the hustle. So it's still follow your effort, but I think it has to be matched something that you love. It's the number one rule. Number one rule in the book. Consistently, which includes Q, but is he on the COVID No, he's not on the COVID Is he even behind on the COVID He's not behind on the COVID But he's in the book. You have to do the thing that you love. And that will have to match up with where your time is being spent. If you love something but you're not putting in the effort, then you have to adjust your calendar to do something better for you. Let's move on, rule number 4. Create memorable experiences.

When people think about going to sporting events, and I'll use this as an example, You don't remember the jump shots after a while. You don't remember the home runs. You don't remember the touchdowns. You don't remember the score. You remember the experience. Yeah. You know, we remember who took us, our first game with our mom or dad. We remember how we felt when we won that game. You know, going to a sporting event, it's one of the few places where you're allowed to stand up and scream at the top of your lungs, and you're encouraged to scream as loud as you want. And if someone hits a game-winning jumper, You're hugging people and high-fiving people you've never seen in your life and you'll never see again. And you're walking out of the arena, you know, singing and chanting and screaming. And if you lose that game, you're bummed out. And, you know, the entire city or the entire school can be bummed out. So when we sell, when we sell the Mavericks, we don't sell basketball. We sell unique experiences. And so you've got to understand in your business exactly what the differentiation is. And what the compelling aspect of that business is. But, you know, think about what you do as a consumer. What is it that makes you make the choices that you make? Why do you buy a certain thing? Why do you shop a certain place? Why do you go to a certain website? Those are the keys.

I really love this one, and it's something we try to bring to Toronto Dance Salsa too. We're not just selling dance classes, but we're selling an experience, and people leave different, more confident, more enthusiastic, happier about their life than when they walked in. And it reminds me of the Maya Angelou quote quote where she says, and I'm paraphrasing, people will forget what you did, people will forget what you said, but they never will forget how you made them feel. And so if you could transform your business to be an experience, everything from the first phone call with you to the website to the email that they get afterwards to the actual using your service or product, you make them feel something, that's when you start to win. Time for rule number 5, don't care about the opinions of others.

Most people really are concerned about what people think about them. It holds them back. You never ever ever ever have. That's not a part of who you are. Is that your DNA, or where did that come from?

I don't know. I just never gave a fuck, you know? I mean, yeah, it's just once you get success in something, I mean, even when, look, I failed many times, and you learn from those failures that it doesn't hurt as bad as you thought, you know, that you can bounce back. And then once you taste some success, you realize it doesn't matter how many times you failed, right? You only have to be right one time, then everyone's always an overnight success, or, you know, this came easy to him, You know, you just, you just got to keep on grinding and, and keep on trying new things. And, you know, once you start feeling the success, you realize, look, it doesn't matter what the other people think other than my customers, other than my, you know, my partners, other than my employees. I care what they think. But, you know, from the outside looking in, I was always just so focused that I just never— I mean, I got distracted from time. I don't want to say never distracted, but, you know, I just didn't want anybody anybody else. I didn't want to think that how people saw me was a reflection of the job I was doing. You know, if my customers were happy, if my stakeholders were happy, I was happy.

I think if you want to stop caring what other people think of you, the answer is not to read a book on how to stop caring what other people think of you. It's to spend more time around people like Mark Cuban. It's to spend more time watching videos like this. The more you're in that environment of people who just do their thing and they don't care what others think about them, The more that's who you're around, the more that's gonna seep into you, and that's gonna be what you do. So you may not have been born with it, maybe Cuban was born with it, and that's why he is the way he is, but if you wanna bring that skill set into your own life, then I would start watching as many of those kinds of videos as possible to let it seep into your mindset. Time for rule number 6: be passionate.

You're not like the regular guy who owns a team who just, you know, sits on the sideline and his family come. You be involved. Oh yeah. You talk shit to the other team.

Oh yeah.

If you try to get them I sign with you, don't sign you. Call him all kinds of punk shit. You didn't sign with me. I'm like, Mark Cuban is on the front line with this shit.

Oh yeah, yeah, someone we talked about too.

I love it.

I just didn't care. Look, you know, I've been a basketball junkie my entire life since I've been 5 years old. And I just get into it. You know, we all have something, right? Where you're just like out of control, right? Passionate. Passionate, right? And it's always been basketball for me. I mean, During the game, I'm out of control, right? Those 48 minutes.

Right.

Any other time I'm like this.

I don't know about any other time he's like that, 'cause I've seen him on Shark Tank and he can get super passionate and I love it. And I think you can never accomplish anything great without a huge boatload of passion. You can't go off and accomplish a big goal, a big dream, a big vision without having insane passion and bringing the people alongside you as well who are passionate what they're doing. To. Now let's jump to rule number 7: do the work.

Some people just, they get on the show and they think, you know, I don't have to work anymore, I don't have to work as hard, or if I get an investor it'll be easier, and it never works that way. Or they just, they stop paying attention to detail. Yeah, right. I've had a couple companies where it's like, all right, you know, I'll hire people to do all the work. It's your company. It's your baby. You've got to do— if you're not going to do the work, who is? And I've always felt, in terms of leadership, that my job is to put everybody around me in a position to succeed. And if I'm walking around the arena here, I'm picking up junk on the ground. I'm helping customers. I'm trying to convey to everybody that there's not a job that you would do that I wouldn't do myself. And a lot of entrepreneurs that fail, they lose track of that. They think, you know, I'm the boss. I mean, I had a job one time and I was a horrible employee where, you know, the president of the company spent more time telling me how I should dress than trying to help me close sales. Yeah. You know, so you've got to do the work and that's key.

You've got to be willing to do every job in a company if need be. You've got to be everything from the janitor to the CEO. If need be. Doesn't mean you don't want to bring on a team, but if need be, you'll jump in. You have to work harder than anybody else. Nobody else is going to care as much about your business as you. Nobody else is going to work as hard as you. And if you are not working hard, don't expect your employees to work hard. Nobody wants to work for a boss who's slacking off, period. They might for a short amount of time, then they're going to go leave because they want to be mentored, they want to grow, they want to learn, they want to make something of themselves, and they're not going to get that working for a slacker boss. You have to put in the work. Let's go to rule number 8, be innovative.

Getting in '95, a buddy of mine came to me and go, you know, this internet thing is starting to take off. There's no way to listen to sports on the internet. You gotta figure it out, you're the tech geek, you gotta figure it out. So I'm like, okay, we'll figure out a way to put audio on the internet. And so that's what we did. And so we started a company called AudioNet, started hooking up the technology, Started going to all these different radio stations, teams, and saying, "Okay, you know, you can't let anything outside of Dallas, anything outside of Pittsburgh, anything outside of wherever, you can't hear it or see it. Right now, we want to be able to listen like radio around the world." And they're like, "Cool." And so they gave me the rights to their stuff, and we went, started with a radio station in Dallas, hooked up an 8-hour VCR, had a server set up in my bedroom, and we connected it to the internet, figure it all out, and I would just go online to different places and say, look, if you're interested in Dallas sports, download this shit and go to this website called AudioNet. Within a month, we had thousands of people downloading a day. And this was like in 1995. And it just got bigger. No one had ever heard of streaming. Then it went from on-demand to live to concerts to games to everything to video. And then we went public, and during the big internet boom, And it was the biggest IPO in the history of the stock market. And then Yahoo bought us for $5.7 billion. And then fucked it up. But—

So that was like, was that like during the XM satellite series? Like all of that satellite—

Oh, before that. Before that. Before they were doing XM. This was like the idea of being able to listen to audio where people were like, what do you do again? Like the internet, audio and video? They had no fucking idea.

Clue.

And people were like, that's no one needs that. I got a radio, I got a TV, right? And I'm like, no, you know, this whole audio thing.

Wow.

Before they had Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we used to work with, with labels. Um, I remember I was talking to Jimmy Iovine and he goes, and we're trying to get music to put online, and he didn't really know what he didn't understand at that time. And so he goes, Mark, forget about that for a second. I want you to listen to this. Talk to this dude Marshall. And listen to this song. And he puts on "I Am," you know, and then Slim Shady. Yes, Slim Shady, right? And he gets this guy Marshall and he goes, "Call him Eminem." Wow. And so that's how we started working with them to get shit on the, you know, streaming on the internet with them. And we know the rest of the history on streaming.

I know the name of this point is being innovative, and he truly was. I think what I see from watching it is just a combination of the market and innovation with the passion. Like, why did he pick sports? Because he loves sports, because he loved Dallas sports. So he can make the conversations, have the relationships. He wanted to get it out there to the world, combined with there's a need, there's an opportunity, there's a way to be innovative. When you can mix the thing that you love with where there's an opportunity to market for, that's when you start to win. Let's go to rule number 9: read books.

I used to love to walk through bookstores when there were bookstores everywhere, and if there's something that caught my eye and I thought it can give me only one idea. To spend $30 to give one idea that could help propel me, make my businesses better, it was a bargain. The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need by Andrew Tobias used to get me all fired up. I'll read hours every day because all it takes is one little thing to propel you to the next level.

Anything that you think is interesting that relates to business, read it. You know, um, I, I tried to find books about entrepreneurs when I was young. I tried to find books about businesses. All my friends thought I was crazy, you know, "Why are you reading this? Why are you reading that?" And it's because I enjoyed it. So, you know, regardless of— you don't have to read the right books. If you read the things that are interesting to you, then you'll find things that you like to do. And once you find something you like to do, the goal is, can you be good at it? And if you can be good at it, then the next goal is, can you be great at it? And, you know, great things happen when you're great at something.

Although the point, I think, continuing to invest in yourself and learn is how you get better. It's how you escape your current environment and your current situation. Books are great. I've written 2 of my own, but I think there's a lot of ways you can learn now, right? It could be through YouTube videos. You're watching this, you're learning something, you're picking up from Mark Cuban. There's podcasts. There's just a lot of other ways to learn as well. And so I learn primarily through video. I'm just, I'm a visual learner. It's how I prefer to learn best. So figure out, like, reverse engineer how you learn best and then plan time so that on a consistent basis you're feeding your head with new ideas, with new knowledge, with different perspectives so that you can be the best version of you. All right, it's time for rule number 10, our last rule before getting to the bonuses. Be a shark.

One shark is out. Dave has two offers on the table for his early education software platform, Brightworks. Wheel. However, things have become heated in the tank after Dave suggested Sharks go in on an offer together.

You tell me, what do you think you need from the rest of the line here?

Are you serious?

Are you really that clueless? No, I'm just— I'm seriously— are you really that clueless? I haven't heard you speak up, Mark.

I'm listening, right?

I gave you a great offer. I don't know if you're confident or not. So if somebody else wants to speak up right now, they should. Chris, I'm taking the offer. I just want to know if we're going to team up with anyone. You're taking the So you're not even listening to anything else? No, I'm saying I want in with Chris. Chris is gonna add a ton of value. I wanna know if anyone else wants to join the deal. I've got some pending questions.

Yes.

What else do you need from somebody else? And is anybody here nominating themselves as bringing something to the table?

Let me just say, first of all, I don't need to nominate myself.

I'm listening.

Right, so I don't need to convince Chris of anything. I have no problem with Chris and the value he brings, the other companies he has, right? When he assigns his name to it, it holds a lot of street cred in his little part of the world. Once you get outside of that little bubble called Silicon Valley, it doesn't mean shit. As far as I know. If you want to create a brand value so that somebody who's working in Texas, Pittsburgh, Maine, Florida, and wants to have an extra level of confidence to say, you know what, this was validated by somebody that we trust, somebody we know has a track record, your job gets easier.

Thank you guys so much for watching. I hope you enjoyed. I'm gonna say rule number 4, create memorable experiences, is my personal favorite just because it's applicable to my businesses, especially Toronto Dance Salsa, as we're trying to move from not just teaching dance moves but creating an amazing experience for everybody who comes in. I'd love to know from you, do you agree? Is rule number 4 your personal favorite, or is there one that's better? Let me know, leave in the comments below. Now I made this video because Risto Parn asked me to, so if there's someone you'd like me to profile in a future top 10 video, Check out the link in the description. You can go and cast your vote on the request line. And finally, I want to give a quick shout out to Michael from Chart Your Trade. Michael, thank you so much for picking up a copy of my new book, The Top 10 Rules of Success, and taking that picture, putting up on Twitter, and having it as an early Christmas present for yourself. I really appreciate all the love and support, man, and I hope you enjoy the read. So thank you guys again for watching. I believe in you. I hope you continue to believe in yourself and whatever Your one word is much love. I'll see you soon.

My best business is, you know, solve problems, reduce stress, make people's lives easier, because that's what we all look for, right? In school, you want to get through class, you want to get good grades, and you're looking for the best way to do that. When you start a business, you want to make your customers happy. You want to make it so that they don't think about going anywhere else. But again, you always got to think about your own consumer experiences. What is it about— what is it that you look for? And that tends to guide you. Would you buy from your own company? You know, and you got to be honest with yourself because not all companies are going to be great. But my most successful companies understand that.

If you're a true adventurer and you really want to throw the Hail Mary, you might take 10% and put it in Bitcoin or Ethereum. But if you do that, you've got to pretend you've already lost your money. And it's like collecting art, it's like collecting baseball cards, it's like collecting shoes. You know, something's worth what somebody else will pay for it. It's a flyer, but I'd limit it to 10%.

So how do we as innovators and creators and everything about this conference bring the country together? What do we do?

Just be yourself, right? I mean, I agree with Adam, you know, don't try to change— one of the mistakes I made in the election is I tried to change people's minds, and that was a mistake, right? Just accept Accept, you know, people are going to disagree, you know, they have their reasons, but if you're a disruptor, if you're an entrepreneur, if you have a dream, if you have a vision, go out and do it because when, you know, when you're doing positive things, when you're creating positive results, there are a lot of people who benefit and, you know, the wider you can spread it and the bigger it can get, the better it is for everybody. Raise your standard.

Apple at the core.

Its core value is that we believe that people with passion can change the world for the better.

Not one drop of my self-worth depends on your acceptance of me. I don't ever give up. I'd have to be dead or completely incapacitated.

Hey, Believe Nation, if you want to see my all-time favorite top 10 rules of success, I have a very special secret video for you. These are the individual clips that I have personally learned the most from and applied to my life and my business. Check the link in the description for details.