Kevin O’Leary lives a life most people could only imagine.
He became a multi-millionaire after selling his business to Mattel, in 1999, eight years after he founded SoftKey. O’Leary earned millions from an investment in self-storage eight years later. He then launched O’Leary Funds – a mutual funds company – and O’Leary Ventures – an early stage venture capital fund.
Montreal-born Mark Cuban has appeared on several Canadian TV shows in the past 19 years. He is best known for his role as a judge on Shark Tank where he judges entrepreneurial funding pitches alongside Mark Cuban.
Kevin O’Leary, who has four Emmys to his credit and a net worth of $400M, is living a pretty good life. At least from the outside.
Kevin O’Leary posted a scathing remark on Twitter.com three days ago:
You may lose your wife or your dog. Your mother may even hate you. All of these things are irrelevant. It is important to achieve success and freedom. “Then you can do anything you want.”
I’m sure that Mr. O’Leary’s priorities are different from mine.
It’s interesting to see what strangers think on Twitter. You may come across something like this. O’Leary’s not the only one. For many, O’Leary simply spoke the quiet part.
This outlook is dangerous and at best dismal.
Here are some thoughts.
O’Leary says, ” It’s important to be successful and free.
Merriam-Webster defines freedom as the absence of coercion or restriction in action or choice.
When you define “success,” a success that is defined by an abundance in money as the North Star for your life, then you create your own prison. The drive to accumulate more and more and more is the only thing that can control your life.
This brings me to the next point.
O’Leary was criticized for his support of Sam Bankman Fried, the founder of a now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange, even though it is likely that he stole millions of dollars from investors.
Mr. Mr. Wonderful defended his role as spokesperson for the company and stated that, given the opportunity, he would again invest in Bankman-Fried. When I read the reports, my first thought was ” Why ? ? Why not simply distance yourself from this mess or, better yet, issue an apology?
A few days later I asked myself a much more important question: why did you take the money? You’re worth $400M and you called bitcoin a useless currency as recently as May 2019. So why did you take the money in the first place?
Integrity is quickly discarded in the endless pursuit of “more”. If your integrity could be bought for $15M you would take it.
Maslow’s hierarchy describes how our wants and needs evolve. It starts with the most basic needs for survival and moves up to our aspirations of self-actualization.
The same principles apply to wealth.
Money is one form of wealth, but we tend to confuse it with wealth. It’s actually the most basic. Knowledge, time, relationships, health and experiences are all more valuable.
Money, like shelter, food, and water, offers decreasing returns as we scale up. Once you’re financially secure, focus on more rewarding forms of wealth.
Would you, if you were well fed, sacrifice your self-esteem and sense of purpose in order to eat more? No, of course not. How often do you sacrifice your relationships or experiences to get money?
” What’s important is that you succeed and become free is just a game. This is just one man’s opinion. This thing doesn’t have any rules. You can choose not to play the game if you do not want to. You don’t even have to play games you don’t want to.
Status games, prestige games, comparison games, “success” games. All of them are optional. It’s important to consider which games you should play before aiming for the gold.
5) An excess of “success”, in one area, almost always leads to a deficit elsewhere.
The 10 wealthiest men in the world have had a total of 13 divorces. Buffett, Musk and Gates all have somber private lives despite their entrepreneurial and financial success. Naval Ravikant said once, “Envy was an illusion. The part of a person we are envious of does not exist without the whole person. “If we’re not willing to swap places with them completely, then there is no reason to be jealous.”
Extreme success on the outside is often accompanied by internal turmoil. Most often, those who are most visible don’t live the best lives. Just better at hiding their skeletons.
6) If you are rich in other aspects but lacking in relationships, your life is at best hollow and at worst depressing.
You may achieve “freedom” and “success”, but at the cost of your family or friends. Is it worth the cost? I don’t believe so. What is the point in having the whole world if there’s no one with whom to share it? Would you like to live in a castle for one person if that meant being king?
We are nothing without the experiences we share with those who matter most to us. It’s impossible to put a value on it.
7) Unchecked ambition is often the precursor to misery.
If you ignore the first six, then you will likely suffer from number seven.