Mark Cuban, billionaire entrepreneur, philanthropist, and owner of the Dallas Mavericks, has achieved legendary success during his career.
As a go-getter for the money, Cuban found numerous business opportunities even as a child and teen. At 12 years old, Cuban sold sets of garbage bags to save up for a pair of shoes he wanted. During high school, the young entrepreneur earned extra dollars as a stamp and coin salesman, a story similar to the young Warren Buffett.
After graduating college, Cuban began a career and software and networking by starting his own consulting business, MicroSolutions, which he sold in 1990 for $6 million. Years later, Cuban and his friend Todd Wagner created Broadcast.com, an online streaming audio service. Yahoo proceeded to purchase the business for $5.7 billion in stock in 1999.
So, what is Cuban’s advice for success? Although he “[doesn’t] think there’s a default success for success,” there are certain things Cuban believes entrepreneurs and business leaders alike should abide by to put themselves in the “best position to succeed.”
Mark Cuban: Don’t follow your passion; follow your effort
Cuban warns against the conventional career advice of following your passion, and believes that it is “easily the worst advice you could ever give or get,” he shares in a blog post. Why? “Because everyone is passionate about something… those passions aren’t worth a nickel.” In an Amazon Insights for Entrepreneurs video, Cuban shares that he “used to be passionate about being a professional basketball player” until realizing “[he] had a seven-inch vertical.”
Instead of following your passion, Cuban advises to follow your skill set. “The things I ended up being really good at were the things I found myself putting effort into. A lot of people talk about passion, but that’s not really what you need to focus on… Because when you look at where you put in your time, where you put in your effort, that tends to be the things that you are good at.”
Cuban continues by explaining, “Nobody quits anything they are good at because it is fun to be good. It is fun to be one of the best… But in order to be one of the best, you have to put in effort. So don’t follow your passions, follow your effort.”
Target the right industry
The industry in which you apply your skill set is just as important as your skills themselves, according to Cuban. Cuban’s career serves as a great example for his own advice, as he realized through a college computer class he took that he was skilled in programming. That is when he knew to join the tech industry and apply his computer skills.
Mark Cuban at the Web 2.0 Conference 2005
“Work like someone’s spending 24 hours to take it all away from you”
Cuban advises outworking everybody to the best of your ability: “If you outwork everybody, if you try to be a little smarter than everybody, if you try to be a better salesperson than everybody, if you try to be better prepared than everybody, you’ve got your best chance.”
What’s one way of doing of outworking others? Learning about and expanding your knowledge of the field or industry. Cuban writes in his blog post that, “Most people won’t put in the time to get a knowledge advantage… I read more than 3 hours almost every day” because “it gives me a level of comfort and confidence in my businesses.”
“Work like someone’s spending 24 hours to take it all away from you.”
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