Episode 507: Robert Herjavec: The Mindset Behind Shark Tank-Level Success

1h 55m
How do you stay focused and steady when your work revolves around pressure, fast decisions, and a schedule that never slows down?

In this episode of Habits & Hustle, I sit down with Robert Herjavec, entrepreneur, Emmy Award winner, and lead Shark on Shark Tank, to explore the mindset and habits that keep him clear and effective when the stakes get high.

He shares the discipline that keeps him steady under pressure, the lessons that reshaped his definition of success, and how he protects his energy in a world that rewards noise. We also talk about the routines that anchor him, how he filters opportunities, the role curiosity plays in high performance, and what staying grounded looks like when visibility comes with real cost.

Robert Herjavec is a Croatian-Canadian entrepreneur, investor, and television personality. He founded BRAK Systems, one of Canada’s leading internet security companies, and sold it to AT&T Canada for $30.2 million. He is an Emmy Award winner, the lead Shark on Shark Tank, a cybersecurity expert, keynote speaker, author, and lifelong car enthusiast known for his approach to steady, forward action.

What We Discuss:

(18:45) Choosing discomfort as a real growth strategy

(20:01) How confidence grows when you say yes, fail, and improve 1 percent daily

(21:16) Why self-control is the performance skill most people ignore

(11:22) The real difference between millionaires and billionaires and why it matters

(25:47) The psychology of great sales and how curiosity becomes your edge

(31:05) How to parent with privilege and still raise kids with grit

(40:50) How he actually ended up on Shark Tank

(52:01) Why small interactions can change someone’s life

(59:17) The fitness fundamentals that matter after 60

(1:02:10) How he rebuilt his body in his 60s through routine and discipline

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Amp fit is the perfect balance of tech and training, designed for people who do it all and still want to feel strong doing it. Check it out at joinamp.com/jen

Find more from Jen:

Website: https://www.jennifercohen.com/

Instagram: @therealjencohen

Books: https://www.jennifercohen.com/books

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Find more from Robert Herjavec:

Instagram: @robertherjavec

X: @robertherjavec

TikTok: @realrobertherjavec

Youtube: @robert-herjavec

Press play and read along

Runtime: 1h 55m

Transcript

Hi guys, it's Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle, Gresham.

In this episode of Habits and Hustle, I sit down with Robert Hershevik, entrepreneur, Emmy Award winner, and lead shark on Shark Tank.

We explore, and he explores the mindset and habits that keep him clear and effective when the stakes get high.

He shares the discipline that keeps him steady under pressure and the lessons that reshaped his definition of success. We also talk about how he protects his energy in a world that rewards noise.

This was a really great episode. I loved talking to him.
We got along very well. Robert also is a big fitness fanatic, enthusiast.

So we talk all about fitness, the role that that Keystone habit had in his life and has in his life. This was a really great episode, you guys.

And I really hope you enjoy listening as much as I enjoyed having this conversation. Enjoy.

All right, you guys, I have one of my favorite

people on TV on the show today. It's Rob Hershavek.
He is the shark from Shark Tank that I've always loved, and I'm sure some of you agree.

And he's going to talk all about business, life, success, and we're going to get into it. And working out.
Oh, and of course. You're going to teach me about everything I need to know.

Absolutely. We're going to talk a lot about health, a lot about fitness, because he's also a fanatic in fitness.
So we're going to have to like kind of go back and forth with notes. So here we go.

Have you always been fit? I've always been very athletic. Do you think you're fitter now than when you were younger?

Maybe, but not because, but at the time when I was fit, like I was always known to be like super fit, even though I wasn't as fit looking right now because times changed.

You know, like I I wasn't doing as many heavyweights. I was doing like my endurance and stamina have always been like off the charts, like always.

But I've worked it. Like I noticed that when I started to exercise, I just actually, I just did a TED talk on this last.

So I, from, from when I, when I met you, I flew to Miami to do a TED talk on this exact topic, which is how I think like your SATs are not as important as your squat rack.

And I gave the differences between what I learned, you know, taking fitness seriously versus going to college. And I have two degrees.

So I use that as like a juxtaposition because I truly believe that like what it does for your brain and your overall like self-confidence like catapults your life beyond, right?

Beyond like a college degree that you learn, like going to Harvard or U of T or wherever. You know what I mean? Like to me,

it basically like rebuilds your brain to feel that you can actually do something. So, and if you don't, if you don't do it okay, you can do it again.

And it also like the right self-regulation, delayed ratification, it's way, right? It's way beyond discipline. I used to think fit body, fit mind kind of thing.
And I'm a big believer in time.

I've really got into, I've gone down this rabbit hole very deeply. I'm sure.

Doesn't it amaze you, though? So putting that aside for a second, I'm sure you've met lots of successful people. A few.

You meet a successful person who in Australia would call them a bumbalada. And it's a general term.
It doesn't mean just chubby or fat. It just means out of shape.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

In many ways, not just physically, but just like... Overall, mentally, yeah.
It's just a term people use.

How did you... Jackson, how do you align that in your mind? Somebody who's like that and highly successful.
I don't.

So I believe, and funny, because I saw you say something about this that was actually contrary. And I was going to ask you about it.
So I might as well just ask you now. Oh, should I introduce?

I'm going to introduce you.

No, but how do you do that? Like, don't, don't you find that?

I do. I find it interesting.
Well, this is, I don't understand.

So like, I believe that if you take, like, if you, get those life skills, soft skills that I believe that you do with like fitness, like staying staying in staying in shape, having discipline, the delayed gratification, patience, all these things that primes your brain for success in every other area of your life.

I really believe that, and I don't understand. I really believe that.
I think that, like, I agree with you. You're priming your brain.

I'm not saying that just because someone's fit, that they're automatically going to be a billionaire.

But I would argue that because they took fitness seriously, like create a practice of like consistency, positive habits, you know, taking care of themselves, it did ricochet into their professional life and their personal life better than it would have if they didn't.

So I used to believe that.

And I still believe that. Okay.

But

I do think that there are, and Mark has a great saying on this. Somebody, I forget how it came out, but somebody came on the show and said, oh my gosh, you should invest in me.
I'm really passionate.

And Mark said, Nobody gives a shit about your passion, right?

I want to know what you're obsessed with. Right.
Like, I want to know what you're truly every day wake up obsessed with.

I've met people who are not disciplined with their mental health, with their physical body, with their family. They're just not nice, good people,

and they don't take care of themselves, and they have no discipline that way. Right.

But they're insanely obsessed with a singular task in their business. Right.
A singular task.

A singular task. So they are in that field, the absolute,

absolute best. And I would say to some degree, I was like that when I got going with cyber.
Like I was like the guy. Right.
Hyper focused. Hyper focused.
Yeah.

And so I had a hard time with that because I'm like, well, you know, because to me, I can't be successful unless I have a level of discipline with my body, with my mind, with my family. Like

I can't, it's the Jekyll and Hyde thing. Like I can't be one way with you and then go home and beat my dog.
Like I like, exactly. I can't do that.
And so I really thought about that.

And what I realized was

success.

isn't just about the money you make. Exactly.
Success is your life.

So I used to think, oh my gosh, that guy is so much more successful than I am because he's worth, you know, a few hundred million more than me.

And then I looked at it and I said, I wouldn't give up everything for that life. Exactly.
And over time, it changed. And I said, yeah, I want to be wealthy for sure.

I mean, people that say they want to make a lot of money are full of it.

Yeah, exactly. Money makes your life easier.
Much, yeah. For sure.

But I also want to be healthy. I want to have a a great relationship with my kids.
So all of those things.

So to your point, I don't think you can be a rounded, successful person without that level of discipline. So exactly.
Did you agree with that? Well, 100%.

So you asked me initially, you said, what do I believe that, like with fitness, whatever. Because to me, success isn't just about how much money you have in the bank.
That's one piece of the pie.

You can be, I know a lot of very rich billionaires who are miserable, who are are like insecure, who are who have no friends, who are antisocial, who are overweight, who overall, just because you have money and you have financial success, that doesn't qualify in my books as being an overall successful, happy person.

But what agreed, what quality do they have? that got them to that level of success in business? Well,

maybe they're on the spectrum and they are hyper-focused. They're able to hyper-focus.

right right oh like look at elon musk there's nobody more successful technically than him it business or otherwise right like he is he is an absolute genius look what he's created but have you ever sat down with him i have right yeah do you know his life yeah i

so it's funny you say that my son so we we have twins right and Hudson and Haven. Good names.
Yeah, it's

Haven. We couldn't have kids, so it was a miracle we could.
And so I came up with Haven's name because she's a peace out of heaven. Oh, that's a beautiful name.
It was a gift from God.

That's beautiful. And then I was like, Okay, so what are we going to name the boy? Yeah.
And I was like, in New York, and I looked outside, it was the Hudson River. I was like, Hudson,

that's great, though. I feel like I should have put more effort into Hudson.
Well, that's what happens all the time. But he had a lot of challenges.
We're really worried about him.

ADHD, blah, blah, blah. And he hasn't been diagnosed or anything.
But to your point,

he has

unbelievable ability

for insane maniacal focus.

The challenge is you can't always direct where it wants to go. 100%.
Like he'll see a toy and two weeks later, he'll be like, I want that toy. Like I want that toy.
And he'll describe it in minutiae.

And I'm always like saying to Kim, if we can just channel that,

how great would that be for that part of his life? Absolutely. Because you cannot create something of value in business unless you are hyper-focused.
Right. You have to be hyper-focused.

You have to be. Exactly.
So some people have that ability because that's how their brain is wired. But for the most part, that doesn't, and I've seen like your son hopefully will not be like that.

But, you know, Elon has been, he has been hyper focused in that one specific area to the detriment of everything else in his life so to me is that really success because you're the richest man in the world or second richest or whatever do you think so i have a funny story to tell you okay i used to live in the bridal path yeah don't i was gonna tell you that i know you did and i know you did when i sold my first business for like 32 million dollars yeah like uh

first thing i did is i buy an eight million dollar house of course on the bridal path typical immigrant thing

and it was it made the front page of the globe mail it was the most expensive home blah blah anyway i got to know leslie dan

yes the is that is that leslie nova farm yes okay yeah and he lived right across the street and every quarter he'd have these dinners and he invite all the other rich successful people in the area as you can imagine yeah

And one day we're having dinner with all these guys and ladies. And I said to him, Leslie, I mean, he just sold his business for two and a half billionaires.

I said, Leslie, if I showed you 100 people, could you predict which ones are going to be successful just from meeting them and which ones aren't?

Could you tell me which ones are going to be millionaires and which ones are going to be billionaires or some level of wealth like that?

He said,

I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt which ones are going to be millionaires.

I can't tell you which ones are going to be billionaires because there's one factor to create that level of wealth that I can't pick up. And what do you think that factor is?

In his eyes, this is his opinion. The ability to millionaires, he said, if I meet you and ask you a few questions.

To get to that level of success, what do you need? You need self-control. You need discipline.

you need good habits you need work ethic you need all the things your mom and dad probably show up on time be nice to people like those right right if you don't have those life skills at 20 or something you're gonna have a hard time so most of those people are gonna make it to some degree right and a millionaire is not that high a bar today right is that crazy isn't that crazy because i remember i was like oh my gosh if i could be a millionaire one day I know.

Like, no one really knew billionaires. Now they're like much more common.
Everywhere. I think there's, that's good and bad.
I do too.

So, but the factor to get to billionaire, what do you think it was? I think having the obsessive focus at the

detriment of everything else in your life. It's a good answer.

I would say

there's grades of millionaire, right? There's a million, there's 10 million, there's 100, 100 million,

500 million, and so on. His point was it's one factor, and it's luck.
Oh, for sure, luck. He said, You can drive your way to hundreds of millions, but to get to that next,

you have to have a certain amount of luck. And someone's going to get lucky.
You've got to put yourself in a position to be there. And some people never get lucky.
Never get lucky.

Do you think you got lucky? No, no, I think

I did it the hard way. I think

I

wasn't smart enough to realize I could have been lucky. Like I was one of the first people to get into cybersecurity.
Back. Oh my God.
In the 80s. Way back.
Yeah. And so I.

How did you even know about that? Like, how did you even get into it? I was smart enough to know to get into it. As I got into it, I used to sell these products, Checkpoint, Vitaly, all these things.

If I would have invested in those companies, I would be five times wealthier than I am. Right.
So why didn't I? I was luck presented it to me. Life presented me those opportunities.

I didn't take advantage of them. And I think about this a lot.
I think it was fear. I think just as a

immigrant, it was fear.

One, two, I didn't dream big enough. You know, Cuban and I had this conversation one time at dinner.
And I said to him, when you were 12 years old, what did you want to be?

He said, I want to be a billionaire. I want to own a basketball team and blah, blah, blah, blah.
Like it was like, boom, boom, boom. Right.

And it scared me because when I was 12, I just didn't want to be poor. Right.

And so I said to Mark, I said, let me ask you a question. When you get into something,

do you think it's going to work out? He says, a hundred fucking percent of the time. I said, come on.

Every time, every time you invest in the business, every time you get into something, you honestly believe you're going to win at it. You're going to win every single time.

He said, yes, without a doubt. And I thought, wow.
Because when I get into something,

I hope it wins. I'm confident, but I'm always thinking about protecting my downside too.
Right. So, because he's so high, he's so confident.
And he believes in himself.

His level of belief in himself

is so admirable. And it took me a while to understand

people like him. Yeah.

Because at first you take it as arrogance. Yeah.
That's how I took it. I'm like, I'm going to push this guy so arrogant.
Right. What I realized over time is it's hyper confidence.

And

I have hyper confidence now. I wish I would would have had it when I was younger.
It took me a long time to shed all the crap of my upbringing and, you know, all the stuff you go through.

But that's why I think anybody can do it. Because

you don't have to get lucky to be here. You can learn all these skills.
You know what's interesting though?

I believe that, and I talk about this actually too, that the only difference between someone who's super successful and someone who's not is the amount of belief that someone has in themselves to try over and over and over again, right?

Like, I do believe that to be true. I hope that's true.
Really? Yeah. I believe it.
Like, if I think it's okay, luck for sure, don't get me wrong. For sure, but I think there's another factor.

Okay, what's the other factor? I agree with you.

I didn't have that confidence. But, but, but listen, you had enough confidence to at least recognize cybersecurity.
Oh, I had,

yes, I had something else.

Pain.

So there's two things I think. I think there are people that are just born and develop an incredible amount of confidence.
That's Mark. Yeah.

Power to him. That wasn't me.
Like at 19, 20.

I mean, I couldn't get a date when I was in my teens. I was deathly afraid to talk to girls.
I was afraid of my own shadow. Like

I was consumed by fear of everything. The trigger point for me was the pain of my life.
Like I was just living in such a shitty way that I just said, I don't want to live like this.

Give me an example of what was shitty besides lack of money. Being bullied, not having anything.
My parents were poor. I hate to admit it.

I was really embarrassed about my, you know, my dad's a blue-collar guy, you know, and I wasn't mature enough to be proud of him. I was embarrassed of him.
Right.

You know, like my friends would come over, my dad's in his Eastern European, you know, Russian balaclava. And I'm like, oh my God, I'm such a loser.

But I remember so clearly thinking, I got to get out of this cycle. Like, I got to break this poverty, poor thing.
And I wanted to buy a house.

And I remember calculating how much capital you need to buy a house. And I realized working at a $50,000 job, I was never going to accumulate capital.
And so I said, I got to change. And that was it.

Like, I saw the future as clearly as tomorrow. And I knew the path I was on was never going to get me there.
So what was that first step?

Because I think if people listen to this or get inspired by this, if they're in a situation that's kind of like that, it's really hard to go. Like, it's always about people you're surrounded.

Like also a lot of opportunities are from who you surround yourself with, right?

It's easy to elevate when you have a lot of like very wealthy, successful people around you to like tell you about opportunities. What if you're not in that situation? Well, you raise a great point.

First thing is

I was in the pity me club. Okay.
Yeah. I hung out with everybody else who complained around the world.

So I complained and I realized, oh my gosh, all my friends are complainers. Why am I hanging out with these? Right.
right. And what did we talk about? We talked about how life had done us wrong.

So you've got to change that. Anything you think

subconsciously feeds your soul. No one is more powerful than their subconscious.
And I realized that I was programming my subconscious for failure because I was complaining.

I was calling myself a loser, like all those things. Step one was, I got to get rid of that thing.
So for me, I started saying yes to uncomfortable things.

So when I was at work and somebody had to do a presentation, I would be like, I want to be on the team, but no, I don't want to present. I started saying yes to stuff.

And

once you fail, you fail less the second time.

And I realized after like four or five really embarrassing, horrible things, it's not that bad. And the sun comes up tomorrow.
And as long as I'm getting better, the path will always be there.

And so just, you know, that 1% every day. Yeah.
Every time. And slowly over time, I just got that confidence to

where my confidence was greater than my fear. Right.
Because you just, you practice, you practice confidence. You practice failure.
Yeah. And you practice.

And that's, well, you can, you get to confidence by get to with, I think also following through on things that you say you're going to do.

There's all these things you can do to become more confident with. And you got comfortable with failing where it kind of didn't bother you as much, where eventually you became confident.

And I think that's part of it, because I think the greatest thing we learn in life to control is ourselves. Right.
I mean, in every way.

And so that was the journey. And I think I'm still on that journey.
But then there's a really quick pivot where you realize, hey, if I am way down on the totem pole of privilege, like I'm way down.

Right. Everybody around me has more.
And some of them had it given to them. Some people are smarter than me.
Some people are better looking. Like all the things.
All those things.

And I said, none of that matters. I just got to work harder.
And so it's not just about building your confidence. It's actually putting in the work.
Putting in the work. Right.

Like there's no gain without that level of pain. Right.
So I worked more than anybody else. I recovered faster than anybody else.
I was willing to try things more than anybody else.

More than anybody else. When I was in my 20s, I left a job where I was making 400,000 a year, which was, you know, in your 20s way back then.
Yeah. An extraordinary amount of money.
100%.

I left that. to start a business where I made nothing.
And it didn't matter to me. Right.
Do you know what I mean?

like I got so confident with myself that I got to a point where I was like, yeah, I'll make that one day again. Great.
Cause you believed in yourself. I believed in myself.

But a few years before that. You would didn't.
Oh my God. If I would have been making that kind of money in my early 20s, I would have never started a business.
Absolutely. Cause it's a trap.

That's like, that's the trap. But you like, so the cybersecurity, like, but I heard you mention before a couple of things that it wasn't even so much about the cybersecurity.

What you really honed is sales. Sales was like a very, that's really kind of that to me is like your superpower, right? You learned how to be a really good salesperson.
Adapt. So great point.

So I fell into cyber because my roommates. I moved out when I was 17.
So my roommate.

Where did you live in Toronto, by the way? At 17. Oh, right down by St.
Lawrence Market. Oh, my God.
Yes, yes, yes.

In government housing. Really? And the way I got into government housing is you could get into government housing if you did something for the community.

So I was always very good at accounting and math. So I used to do books for this government housing

thing.

And my roommate had the first

master's in computer science from the University of Toronto.

And he had applied for a computer science job. He didn't get it.
Long story, but I ended up getting the job. I asked him, can I apply? Blah, blah, blah.
So I fell into cyber.

What I realized very quickly, though, was everybody around me that I competed with. That's the one thing I think I was born with, adaptability.
Yeah. Oh, that's a very important skill, too.
Throw me.

And Damon on the show and I talk about this all the time. We're like, if you threw me in the middle of a jungle, I have a high degree of confidence I would survive.
Really?

And Damon and I had this conversation because we're adaptable. Yeah.
He's also adaptable. extremely adaptable extremely adaptable so i i

fall into cyber security right

and my adaptability looks around says everybody is smarter than me on cyber everybody is an engineer everybody has a degree in computer science right i can't compete head to head on technical knowledge right now.

Right.

What can I compete with? What are my competitors not great at that I can become great at quickly? And I realized social skills, sales. Yeah.
They sucked at it.

They didn't think, not only did they suck at it, but they thought it wasn't important. They thought people bought technology for the sake of technology.
For the product. Yeah.
Yeah.

Oh, we have a great product. People are buy this.

I thought, what if I could tell people the value of the product? So I leaned into sales and that's how I like

got to sales. So how do you get someone to say yes in a sales, in a sales call or a sales meeting? What's the number one thing to do?

Before I can teach you to sell, before I can sell you something, I need to find out who I'm selling to and what your need is. Great salespeople sell value.
Bad salespeople sell a product.

But part of selling value is to understand your need. So if you ever go in a sales meeting with me, the first half hour is a million questions.

It is the art of asking questions without you feeling like I'm asking you a ton of questions. Exactly.
You know, like I'll walk out of a meeting and

my sales reps at my companies would say, oh my gosh, you asked that person like a thousand questions. But if you ask the client, they would say, no, I don't.

No, I was, yeah. Yeah.

Really understanding the need. Because sometimes my product doesn't fit.
Sometimes it does fit. If I have a product fit and a product need,

I can position the value for you. So you're, so I believe, can you teach, can you, how do you teach that? Like you're innately good at being curious.
I'm curious too.

So that's why I can pick up on that. I'm so curious.
I drive my wife nuts.

We'll meet somebody and I'll ask about that. Oh, you do this? How does that work? Oh my gosh.
That's so, and she's like, will you stop?

I totally, I felt, I feel that because you walk in here like, I want to see your gym. Tell me what this is.
What is this? What is that?

But like, I like it because it's, I like that energy because I'm like that too. And that's how you, how you connect to people.
Like you ask questions. You, that's how you learn and connect.

And that's how opportunities happen. But don't you also feel like we have such an incredible life.
It is such a privilege.

One of my really good friends is a priest and he has a great saying, which is, there's two ways to lead your life, as though everything is a miracle or nothing is a miracle.

Like I wake up every day and I think, I mean, I get to hang out with you today and then I get to drive to my amazing house that I was able to buy with

that I created from like nothing. How great is my life? Like it, I'm just so grateful for it.
And I'm so, I think curiosity also.

comes from your ability to be grateful and blessed and feeling like you're blessed. Really? Yeah.

I mean, I think it'd be, I think people could be curious and not feel so grateful, but I think that the combination is a killer combination. Well, I do too.
Right.

That's why I said earlier, I'm like, you and I have a lot of similarities because I do a whole thing on a cure.

I did a whole talk on curiosity because, you know, someone always, someone asked me, like, how do you teach curiosity? Like, if someone is not that curious, right?

How do you instill in someone the importance of being curious for their

like life success? And what did you you say?

Well, I said that I believe that people are either innately more curious than others, but I think if you're a two on the curiosity level, you can make it to a five or a six. Yeah, how do you do that?

And I think that you can, you, I think you start practicing. I think with anything in life that you want to get better at, you need to practice it.
Oh, couldn't agree more. Right?

Doesn't matter what it is. If it's Spanish, if it's the gym, if it's being curious, being likable, anything.
What I'm doing now with my seven-year-olds is I'm trying to instill curiosity. Yep.

So we'll drive down the street and they'll say, oh, I want to go to McDonald's. And I'll say, do you know McDonald's is a business? Like someone started that.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.

And they're like, what do you mean? And like, well, someone created it. And I said, you see those yellow logos? Like, why is it yellow? And they'll start thinking about it.

They're like, why is it yellow? I said, I don't know. Let's look it up.
Right.

Like, did somebody, I said, do you realize there's people who have businesses that do nothing but look at color and how it affects brands? And my kids are like, what?

And I'm like, yeah, you can have a job where your only job is understanding the effect of color on brand. And my kids are like, wow, this is so cool.
But I think it's the ability to ask questions.

It is the ability to ask questions, but the question is, so what you're doing with your kids is really smart, right? Because

you're kind of like feeding them information where they would be like, well, why? Well, why? Why? Like you are like, you're priming their brain for curiosity. I am.
I'm also,

you know, kids are hard,

as you know.

And

my general belief is leading by example. Yeah.

So see, you and I. Like they see me work out and you think

hopefully some of that rub off on them. Rubs off on them.
I had the best day of my year yesterday. I have to tell you about this.
Okay, tell me. So Kim, my wife, was on Dancing with Stars.

She was a guest judge. I had a speech in Vegas.
So I said to Hudson, who's seven, I said, do you want to go with me? He's like, sure.

So he's never come to one of my speeches. And I'm a pretty good speaker.
So we dress him up. He's got the little blue jacket like me.
He's carrying my notebook. We're holding hands.

It's the cutest thing. So we go there and he's meeting everybody.
I mean, he's super cute. So everybody's really nice to him.
So I say to him, you got to sit in the front row.

And there was maybe 3,000 people in the audience. It wasn't like big.
It wasn't small. So he sat in the audience and listened to my speech.
It was a fireside chat. 45 minutes.
Speech was over.

I go backstage. Someone brings him.
And

he comes up to me. grabs my arms and he says, Daddy, I'm so proud of you.
I mean, I was like, oh my God. Do you start to cry? I had tears.
You're crying right now.

I mean, it was like unprompted, like nothing. I was like, it wasn't even like, hey, what'd you think? Cause you know how you are after a speech.
You got to get out of there.

So I was like, okay, let's go. And he just stopped.
Like we were all hectic. He just stopped, grabbed my arm, and said, so proud of you.
So you, I love that positive. So now I think I'm super parent.

You are super. Well, first of all, that is the, I think saying that the word proud is such a nice word.
And it's like underrated.

underrated if someone says i'm very proud of you i love that that's a beautiful word from your child like that's a really really nice

we don't get a lot no we don't but that's a really nice that's really nice actually so you're you're basically okay so you're you've got two said but you got two obviously two twins do you have kids from prior prior to okay how old are those kids old like like 100 like how old yeah like in their 20s and 30s do they still live in canada they do well canada new york and vancouver toronto vancouver so you have three kids you have so you have five all together wow you got a lot of kids you know well

kids get to different stages once you get to an adult stage

well this is my question you're you're it's a different you're out there it's a different world but what i was going to ask you is like how you told me a little bit but You didn't grow up this way, but your kids have now grown up privileged and they are definitely becoming, especially the seven-year-olds and I'm sure obviously the other three.

How do you instill in a child

who doesn't have to be scrappy and have grit when their life is pretty comfortable? How do you instill those values now?

It's a great question. I didn't think about that.
I have a one of my really good friends has a 22-year-old son and his son just got very ill and is worried about his career.

And so the dad is sitting down with the son who's got to take some time out of his career because he's very ill. Right.
And he's worried, you know, like a 22-year-old, I'm going to fall behind.

My career is not going to

happen.

My friends are going to like accelerate ahead of me. Very driven family.
And the parents are very, very wealthy. And the dad said something, which I think is so powerful.

He said to his son, he said, the greatest privilege of our wealth is that you don't have to worry about making a living in your later years. Most people work

to survive.

Most people have to work and worry about what they're going to do in retirement, how they're going to live. Our wealth has given you that privilege that you don't.
So don't worry about the in-between.

Don't worry about falling behind a little bit. Do something that you're deeply passionate about.
Do something that you want to be great at.

And don't worry about time because we've given you that cushion for later on in life. So I think when you think about it that way, it gives you a certain amount of freedom.

to do things and take risks when you're young. That you otherwise wouldn't be able to do that.
That you would worry about career, taking a job you may not like, all those things.

But you give them bound, like restrictions.

Like, for an example, that's a great story if some, if, if the person had a lot of money, but if someone doesn't have, or they have a lot of money, but like, is what is that saying that from

this, that you're going to give your child

flexibility and freedom? Your question was, what am I teaching the kids of privilege? Number one, I'm teaching them you've got, first of all, you're privileged.

Like, that's that's there's no denying it like you're like kind of like telling it what it is. Exactly.
And I have these crazy friends who are like, oh no, we teach our kids hardship.

Like, we would never fly first class, all of us. You know, my wife and I fly first class and the kids fly economy.

And I'm like, that is such bullshit because you're flying to your 40 million dollar ski house in Aspen.

Do you think they get off the plane and go, oh my God, that was so hard. Let's go to our four.
Like, it's, it's, you cannot hide who you are in life to your kids. Kids are too smart.

But also, it's also stupid. It doesn't even make sense.
It's not even common sense. Like, you're right.
That is 100%. I've heard that so many times, right? They're putting the kids

in coach, but they have like a hundred million dollar like chalet back in right now. Or I'd never fly on a private jet as they pull up in their Ferrari.
Like, and I'm like,

how does that make any sense? It doesn't. So I think the first thing is you, you've got to recognize that

you are what you are in life. Yeah, that's 100% true.
The greatest lies in life we tell are the ones we tell ourselves. 100%.

So

when I was young, I used to think I was what I wasn't. And one day I just had to say, I'm nothing.

I'm good at these things, but I have a very long way to go and no one is coming to rescue me.

No, you're actually very impressive because you really are somebody who had literally nothing and built it on your own. Nobody gave you anything.

A lot of times when you really kind of peel back that little onion of people who've great, who've gotten to the place where you are,

they had some like family money that kind of like helped them a little bit. There was always something.

That's why I think I respect you so much. Like that's why to me, you being a shark, by the way, is really a great choice.
I think all the sharks are like that.

A lot of the, I mean, I don't know the background of every shark, to be honest.

That's why I think the show works.

Because, oh, interesting. When the show first started, you won't know this, but Mark Burnett was hired as the producer.
Yeah, I did know that. I told you.

ABC

owns the show for distribution. Sony owns the show.
They hire Mark Burnett to produce it. Blah, blah, blah.
ABC puts huge pressure on Mark Burnett to have celebrities. Really? Yeah.

So

I,

Gene Simmons, was going to be me.

Get it. I don't know if I'm allowed to say that, but it's 18 years, November 19th.
Oh, but who were the other ones that were supposed to be on? A bunch of really famous people.

Do you know the other ones?

There was talk of Magic Johnson being on the show, people like that.

Because ABC felt, I mean, think about that.

Now Shark Tank is Shark Tank. But 18 years ago, it was a business show with business people talking about business.

Do you know

I went to the Emmy Awards in our second season and people are like, oh, what show are you? And I'm like, Shark Tank. And people would say, oh my gosh, I love Shark Week on Discovery.
Oh, really? Yeah.

People did. Didn't know.
ABC was worried that the concept wouldn't work. And so they thought, you know, let's get a bunch of celebrities.
And to Mark Burnett's credit,

he said, no, we need real business people. Not that Gene and

Matt are, but we need real business people who made their name in business. That's the only way it will work.
And it became a juggernaut. So this is what I was saying to you earlier.

I didn't finish what I was going to tell you, but at the time that Clay Newbill guy was the executive producer, still is. I think it was the first season or second season.

And I had these shoes called these NGR shoes, which were these weighted shoes, okay, that were competing with all those other Tony shoes at the time, you know, those other like MBT ones that like imbalance.

And I was selling a shit ton of these shoes on my own. I got my money factored, and I'm a Canadian.
So I was like, really like.

I sold like 100,000 pairs of shoes on my own. Crazy.
And they were all over the press. I was giving them to all the celebrities.
And the whole premise of it was like, okay, you have these shoes.

So if you have weights in your shoes, it's going to, and they're evenly distributed. You can take that insole in and out.

It wouldn't put pressure on your knees or your hips because of the weight is on the heels, right? So he found out about it, called me up and said, hey, you know, do you want to be on shark tank?

You mean as a pitcher or as a shark? As a pitcher, like come and talk. He wanted me to pitch my shoes to the sharks.
And I was like, oh my God, that's so exciting. I was like, I was a kid.

I was so young. I was like young 20s.
Okay. I was like, oh my God, this is so exciting.
And it came down to the

last little thing.

And because I was Canadian, you couldn't do it. I couldn't, they wouldn't let me do it because I needed a special E-visa that I didn't have.
Right. And all the legal stuff was too difficult.

So I couldn't go on the show. And I was, it was a, I was so upset about that whole experience.

So.

Oh, and also 1% perpetuity for any, even if I don't make it. If I.
Yeah, we got rid of that. Yeah.
Thanks to Mark. Big thing.
Really? That was Cuban. that was cuban yeah

when cuban came on as a permanent shark that's the first thing he got us all together and he said guys we are never going to have real businesses it's

like who's going to sign up one percent and that one percent was whether you aired or not whether you aired or not that's what i'm saying so

my business partner who was not that much older than i was like he was 28 i think at the time or something He's like, I don't want to do this show because I don't want to give up 1%. Why would you?

Like, and we had this whole thing.

I'm like, please, it'd be so great but most businesses that so i was like down that whole rabbit hole were like that i'm not going to give up one percent if i'm on the if i'm not even airing why would i do that that's yeah they got rid of that in season three could you say hi to clay for me i wonder if he remembers me from like 18 years ago that would be hilarious

he's a great guy he was so nice i really liked him

but In fairness, in Hollywood, everyone's nice to you. That's there's no meeting that doesn't start start with your grace.
Yeah, that's true. A bunch of bullshit.

I've learned my lessons over the years. The Visa story.
So Kevin and I started on the show in Canada. Yes, Dragon's Dead.

It wasn't the same people, though, was it? Like, was it nice? It was Jim Tra Living. Yeah.

It was Canadians you would know. Yeah.
But nobody else would know. Nobody knows.
Yeah. So Kevin and I did it.
And a funny story you won't know.

So I had this high-tech business selling to enterprise, very very serious, suit and tie. I'm a very serious person.

Yeah.

And I get on Dragon's Den and it starts to become a bit of a hit. But you know, Canadians don't care about celebrity.
They don't. Yeah.

So I'm competing against IBM and I start hearing that IBM is going around telling customers, oh, Robert's great. His company's great, but he's gone to Hollywood.
He's on a TV show.

And I hear this and it offends me. And I'm like, what are they saying? I'm not a real business guy.
Screw them.

So I,

so I quit the show. You did? I'm sitting down with Kevin and I'm like, I don't need this celebrity bullshit.
I'm a real serious business guy. I'm going to quit.

So Kevin says, let me take you out for dinner. So I tell him the story, tell him why, true story.
And Kevin and I are really good friends. He looks at me, he says, you're a fucking idiot.

You have no idea how huge this show is going to be and what it can do for your brand. And because it'll lift your brand, it'll lift your business.

And I looked at him, and he was so like, and you know, Kevin is like, You're a fucking idiot! Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, it wasn't like, can I tell you something? It was like,

he was so confident and adamant about it. It scared me to the point that, what if he's right?

And I didn't quit. You didn't quit.
It became this. So then I'm skiing in Alberta and I get a phone call from Mark Burnett.

And I'm like, hello. And he says, hi, this is Mark Burnett.
I'm thinking, oh, this bullshit, it's not Mark Burnett. He says, we're filming Shark Tank.

And I say, what's Shark Tank?

He says, it's the American version of the show. It's going to be huge, blah, blah, blah.
We really want you to do it. I'm like, wow, this is great.
Can you be here by tomorrow at five?

And I didn't have a visa to work in the States. And so I say, oh my gosh, I'm going to be a huge celebrity in the States.
Yes, I'm coming. I hang up, get a call from him an hour later.

He says, hey, I just found out you're Canadian. Can you get a visa? So I call a lawyer.
I can't. I call Mark.
I say, I'm sorry, I can't do the show. I can't get a visa, but I'd like to work.

Mark says, leave it with me. He got me a visa in two hours.
He did? Yeah. I wonder if you used Ralph Aaron Price.
Do you know? No, no, he got me like an 01 visa. An 01 visa.

In like two hours, and I flew to L.A.,

found out they had already started filming with Kevin.

They thought the dynamic was challenging. It's a hard show to film.
People always think it's so easy to film. No,

it looks hard. And even though Kevin is so dominating and the other folks were brand new at it, they were watching, Clay was watching the Canadian version with Kevin and I.

I said, we have to get that guy. So I got on it because somebody didn't work out in the last minute.
Really? Yeah. And that's how I got on Shark Tank.
I guess Gene Simmons was busy, actually.

I'm just kidding.

So would you say that Kevin would be your favorite shark? Like, who is your favorite shark? Don't worry. No one will leave.
No,

you know, it's really true. I love all the sharks.

You love every single one of them. I love every one of them.
Like, I have the world of respect for every one of them. I will say, in the 18 years we've been doing it, whenever

I've had a hard thing happen to me in my life, the first person that's reached out is Mark. Really? Yeah.

Like, first person to send me an email, or he never calls. Like, the guy just doesn't talk on his smoke.
But he does email. He's the fastest person to email, though.
I can tell you. I understand it.

It's unbelievable. Like, I get, I know how busy I am.
You know how how busy you are. If I emailed him right now, he'd get back to me in 10 minutes.
Like, I don't get it.

Do you want to hear the most crazy story? I was on my treadmill. I emailed Mark.

I'm like, hey, you know, when we met, like, we met at some like, I don't know, TED Talk type in, not that, but something similar, like some conference, like whatever.

And he's like, I want to come on your show and blah, blah, blah.

I emailed him like a month later. I'm like, hey, by the way, you know, we talked about this, blah, blah, blah.
I'd really love to schedule you to come on the podcast.

He's like, I'll be there tomorrow. I'm like, okay.

Wow. He's like, what time? I'm like,

I don't know. Remember? I'm like, 11.
He's like, great. Give me your address.
I'll see you then. He's a great guy.
Within five minutes. He emailed me in five minutes.

But you know, Damon is a great guy. Barbara hasn't, I think, like, I,

my priest friend also has another great saying,

which is, you'll never find anything in life as fascinating as another human being. That's so true, though.
It's so true.

Everybody has a story. Everybody is layers.
And so every one of the sharks has an amazing story, like Barbara's story, Damon, Kevin, everybody.

See, how many people come up to you and say you're their favorite shark, though?

A lot. But I always take it with a

people come up to me and they say, you're my favorite shark. They say to me, you're the good-looking one.
You're the sporty one. You're this.
And I always say to them, it's a very low bar. No,

I will say, though, and I'm not just saying this because you're sitting here, but I feel like you are like the fan favorite. People love Mark Cuban.
I'm not going to lie.

Like, I mean, Mark is actually great on this. Like, because he's so savvy in how he even responds to the people.
He's great on the show. He's amazing.

Besides Mark, though, like you are the one that people want to do the deals with, I feel. You're the one that's most heartfelt.
People like you the most.

Like, even when I said that you're coming on the podcast or whatever, so many people are like, oh, he's my, literally, like, oh, he's my favorite. Like, oh, I love that guy.
Thank you.

And, you know, it's, I'm so happy. Watch me never get the rest of the people on my show now.

I'm so grateful for it. Like, I was just somewhere.

And it goes in waves, right? Like, depends on what you're wearing and where you are out. But for whatever reason, I was in Newport and we just got mobbed with people.
Really? Mobbed.

I was wearing a jacket and a shirt. So it's, you know, it's kind of like oh, so.
If you're wearing a t-shirt and walking quickly,

people don't notice as much.

And so anyway, I was being mobbed and I was trying to have a business meeting with this guy. And he said to me, oh, doesn't that bother you? And I said, absolutely not.
Absolutely not.

Not in the least. You appreciate the fact that.
I said, I remember being.

that person and how excited I would have been

that somebody of any element of privilege or power would take the time to spend with me. Because the moment may be transient to me,

but may be permanent to them. That's 100% true.
How many times in our life do we have a moment that means everything to us? Yep. May not mean anything to that person.
100%.

And so I always think that's a responsibility. But the great thing is, I think all the sharks are like that.
Like, I think we're all so grateful for what the show's done for.

You know what's interesting? Because I think you're 100% right.

Because whoever was mobbing you at that show when they came up to you, they called their friends after and they were so excited to see you. They're like, oh my God, you won't believe who I just saw.

Like it made their day, their week, their month.

You never know. You never know.
I was, oh, I got to tell you this story. It was incredible.
Just last week, where was I? In Atlanta or somewhere.

And this woman came up to me and we were chatting and blah, blah, blah. And she started to cry.
And I was like, oh my gosh. And she goes, no, no.

She goes, I just, I remembered when I first met you 10 years ago. Oh, wow.
I had, I had

just landed and I was walking through the airport and I was at the airport for some reason. I don't know why.

And I came up to you and you spent like 20 minutes with me. Really? I just started my business.
I asked you all these questions and you were, she made candles or something.

What I didn't tell you was my dad had just passed away. and I was coming back from the funeral and I was an absolute mess.

And you spent 20 minutes with me and how much that meant to me. So you never know.
You don't know

the pain someone is living. So you don't.
If we have the opportunity to be nice to another human being, why wouldn't we? I totally agree. And I love that you said that.

I see how emotional you're getting because even when you were telling me that story, like

what I came with is, you know, it's so people like you're in someone's home every day or every week or whatever.

Like, it may be like you, you probably have so much meaning in some of these people's lives that you literally made, like, they could have been like on the verge of whatever. And they saw you.

You never know. And because they saw you and you were kind to them, I bet you that, like, like that tweaked somebody somewhere.
It's so funny, though, and you'll know this being Canadian. Yeah.

The

relationship to celebrity in America, it's different than anywhere else in the world. Totally different anywhere else.
Totally. Yeah.

Like, you know, in Canada, Dragons then became one of the highest-rated shows in Canadian history. Yeah.

People would recognize me, but it would be rare that somebody would ask for a photo. Really? I'm sure.
Yeah. And I'd go to a restaurant and people would be like, oh my gosh, we love the show.

We love you. You're great.

And I'd be like, yeah.

And they'd be like, do you have a reservation? Right. They don't even care.
Down care. Damn care.

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I don't know anything about this stuff. Like the only thing, I take no supplements, I take nothing.
I'm just going down this journey. The first thing I'm taking is creatine.

Okay, I have a whole bag of stuff for you, guys.

I have creatine in this bag. I'm going to teach you everything.
First of all, I cannot believe you don't know this stuff. Okay, this is Magic Mind.
This is a healthy performance shot.

So, you know, a lot of people take all these like junky energy things. This is.
I don't take any of that. Well, you don't but a lot of people do.
So this is the ingredients are super clean.

They're like, it's basically like

no, ashwagandha. There's turmeric.
There's a little bit of the caffeine comes from green tea. It's

yeah, okay, me too, of course. It's like twinsies over here.
But nothing unhealthy. No, this is why like no calories.
No. I think there's like 30 calories in this.
Can you take that?

Is that going to be okay? I'm okay with that. You can just write them, put them in your FitPal.
Okay, wait, wait, wait. We had to cheers each other.
That's how it works. Drink the whole thing? Yes.

And then you're going to be really focused and super alert. So here we go.
Cheers.

It tastes good, too.

Yeah, it doesn't taste bad. No, they're really good.

That's really good. No, I'm telling you, they're like delicious.
I wouldn't be like, I wouldn't be even like talking to you. Where do you get them?

You can get them at Aero One. You can get them.
I love Air One.

You do? Yeah. You don't like it? You don't like it? I love it.

Of course you do. I'm surprised you don't have a tent in the back back over there or like a little bunk.
I know I should. You should.
I'm surprised you're not an investor in it. They're delicious.

They're really, really good. They're super clean.
They're very good. Where else do they get sold? I think they get sold now at like maybe Whole Foods, but mostly online.
They're crushing it.

Oh my God. These are all brands, by the way, that like they never went on Shark Tank, but they should have.
This is slate. This is going to sell for a couple billion.
I'm not joking.

They're like on a crazy trajectory.

Hi, Manny. Okay.
So this is basically, do you like chocolate milk? Yes. Okay.
I mean, for obvious reasons.

Yes. Yeah.
So

this is basically, it tastes exactly like chocolate milk. It's a protein drink.
There's only 100 calories. There's like, how many, this one has 20 grams of protein, one gram of sugar.

It is like on a scale, it's on a rocket ship. Is it for recovery? No, it's just like a protein.
It's like basically drinking like chocolate milk, but it's a protein drink.

So you can drink it before, post-war. What does the protein do for you?

Well, it helps with, it helps build lean muscle mass, helps maintain lean muscle mass as we get older rob do we lose protein we lose muscle mass so like it's really important for people can't i recover that by doing more weights you so you should be doing a lot of strength training which i am which you are and you should be

you're saying i should be supplementing that with protein you should be definitely

increasing your protein and creatine is a great thing you should be doing for well obviously for recovery and of course for performance it'll it'll it will give you a better workout workout, but also it will be great for your overall recovery.

But the reason why people are now taking creatine as much as they are, and you're seeing all the like hype around it, is because it's the number one most researched supplement on the planet, and it's great for cognitive.

So, people as they get older are taking five grams, ten grams. Well, that's why I read about it.

It's really cognitive, the cognitive, but be very careful with the supplements because I take something called Momentous, it's super clean, it's third-party tested, it's it's it's the most test you take it instead of creatine no it is creatine but i'm saying the it's the creatine that i take it's called creature you're saying this is by momentous i will send you some yeah it is it's a very clean

clean creatine that the way they make it

it's it's it's very that the standards are i know the standards are so high so you're saying protein will help me maintain muscle mass protein will will

help you maintain also lifting heavy, also creatine. Those are the three things that you can do.
Oh my gosh, this tastes great. Delicious, right? It's delicious.

I mean, I'm telling you, they're on a rocket ship. Like if they would have went on shark tank, you guys all would have been like basically

competing now everywhere. I mean, they're in now 20,000 doors.
They, you know, they're in 20,000 doors. They are selling everywhere.
So what they did was, this was the starter kind of

the OG. Now they have a can that's bigger, that has more protein,

more protein in it. But people love it because there's zero sugar or one gram of sugar, plus the pro, you get so much protein in this.
It's really good. Is 20 grams a lot? 20 grams is a good amount.

The other thing for your, when, when you're doing all of your, you know, your journey now with supplements, do you ever take Shilajit? never even heard of it oh my gosh there's a company

shilajit it's i think it's it's super clean also and it's like really good for you it's great for your immune system all these things the company that i love is actually out of australia they are called mona vitality oh my gosh you got to send me that i'm going to send you all i have a whole thing with for you because i i knew that you're into fitness so i was going to like give you all my favorite stuff i was always into fitness but like i was telling you like i didn't think i could get fitter Lies.

Exactly.

You were wrong. I was so wrong.
Completely transformed my, my body, my

muscle, my strength, everything. Four things for me.
Okay. One was cardio, but I loved cardio.
Yeah. But I only did cardio.
Really? Never did weights ever until about a year ago.

How much cardio were you doing? I was probably doing three, four miles a day running. I always run.
I run every day. Yeah.
Now I run seven miles a day. So I've upped that.
Seven miles every day?

Every day. Okay.
How long does it take you to do seven miles? Depends how I feel. Okay.
It doesn't matter the speed. Right.
What matters is finishing. 100%.
I agree.

The best runs are the ones where I don't feel like it.

I've had runs where I get up there and I'm like, I'm not running today. And I have this little voice in my head that says, you know, first I go through a lot of excuses.
It's raining.

I don't feel like it. I'm sore.
But eventually I get to this point. And this voice in my head says are you a fucking loser

and when that voice comes in oh i could be bleeding with a broken bone i'm gonna finish so it depends on the time good for you like a really fast run for me would be eight minute miles oh that's good that would be really fast a slow run would be like 10 minute miles okay but are you so varies are you always running outside no okay no sometimes we're on the tread and i watch something on tv just get bored with it.

The thing that so cardio, okay, and then I started doing weights. I never did weights, and then I went to this trainer, Chief Brabon, in Australia, who's incredible, completely transformed.

But the other two, which I also kind of focus on, was eating, eating the right stuff. Right.
So now I also do fasting, which has really helped me maintain. What kind of fasting are you doing?

I eat a meal on Sunday at dinner, and then I don't eat again until Tuesday at lunch. Oh, every week.

Every week? Every week. And then I think about the next day.
So if we were having lunch today,

I won't eat dinner tonight. Or if we were having dinner, I never have breakfast.
If we were having dinner, I wouldn't eat lunch. So just try to balance it.
So you really have two meals a day? At most.

At most. Yeah.
And then the last one, which has made the biggest difference, is sleep. Sleep's a big one.
I never slept before. I used to be that guy that was like, oh, I'll sleep when I'm dead.

I only need three, four hours. And I probably did when I had nothing and had to build the business.
But now to work at this level, I need seven, eight hours sleep. Like I, I just can't.

Like I ran like a maniac this morning. I ran up runion.
I counted. And then I ran another seven miles.
Like it was great.

But I got seven hours of sleep. I couldn't have done that.
So wait, what time? So I want to, I want to get into your whole routine, but hold on. I want to just make, say, something about your fasting.

Have you ever tried something called Prolon? You never heard of it. You never heard of Prolon either.
No. So, a lot of, this is another one of the most, most science-backed diet.

It's basically fast-mimicking. Do you know what that is? The fast-mimicking diet? Okay.
It's a five-day program and you are eating on it, but very minimal.

You're having like olives, you're having some crackers. You're having some soup.
It's like a drug. No, it's like a, they give you like this five-day kit.
I have one.

I'm going to give one to you if you want to try it. It's a five-day kit.
So it's, it's all

your stuff one day, day one, day two, day three.

Oh, I think my wife took it. I'm sure she did.
She goes through phases where she really wants to drop extra weight. And then she'll do it.
And she'll do it. Prolon.
Prolon. It comes in a white box.

A white box.

Kim's done it. Did she like it? It worked.
It does work because you know what it does? It takes out all the sins.

What do they call the synthetic cells in your body, but the longevity benefits? So, is it better than fasting? People say, I mean, listen, it was basically created by this guy named Dr. Longo.

And it was,

it's down to such a precise science of how they put it together where people have had

incredible results. And people do it quarterly.
So they do it once every like three or four months to kind of, and the cognitive benefits are like off the chain.

So a lot of doctors prescribe it to like their patients. A lot of like biohackers do it for that like longevity thing.
Try it. I'll give you one thing.

You have a plane. You can fit the bottom.
My thing is really about, I've read a lot about aging. Obviously, everybody wants to live longer.
Yeah. Well, everyone wants to live healthier.
Right.

And it's calorie deficit. I agree.
Like there's so much research on calorie deficit for aging. So I'm really focused on that.
I'm really focused now on trying to get to a lower body fat percentage.

Lower than you are now? Lower than I am now. Stop.
You're so. But I find it

so

hard to go from like 13% to like 9.

Yeah. Because it just, you know, it's hard because I think we go out, you have social.
Social. Like, that's the thing.
Like, like if I'm on my own, when I travel for business on my own. You're fine.

I'm fine. I never feel.
any pressure to have a drink or eat extra. Yeah.
But, you know, when I'm I'm out with friends. I totally agree.

It's really, it's like, and also when you're down to this, like this level, to fine-tune like two pounds, that 1% is

hard as an understatement. It's easy when you have a lot of weight to lose or when you're like not as dialed in.
But when you're dialed in to get that last three pounds, four pounds, it's impossible.

So for me,

I want to be healthy and live long. Yeah.
Like that's number one. Yeah.
Number two for me is

the seven-year-olds. Yeah, of course.

When we moved back to Canada, this never happened to me in LA. So we lived in LA for a long time.
We moved to Canada. I'm at a playground.

And this woman comes up and says, oh my gosh, your grandkids are so cute.

I lost my fucking mind. What did you do? Well, what do you do? You say thank you.
And, you know,

you're such a nice guy. In my mind, I'm going badly crazy.

My greatest fear is to embarrass my kids. Oh.
My greatest fear is that I'm going to like,

so Hudson's seven,

and what will be like, you have a 13-year-old, right? 12, almost 13. They're really cognizant.
at that day, probably 12, 13, 14. Right.
Yeah. So I'll be, what, I'm 63 now.

And he'll another six years. I'll be close to 70.
My biggest fear is I pick him up from school and his friends say, hey, grandpa came to get you.

So I am absolutely lootly determined to cheat time and stay as young as possible and be the fittest person

in that room for them.

That drives me. I totally.
I don't know if that's vanity or arrogance or a combination of all of them. By the way, who cares? Yeah, who cares? I agree with you 100%.

I also, I'm going to give you also truniogen, which is NAD. Have you heard of that? No.
Oh, my gosh.

Are you under a rock? You're working out like a fiend. You have all these trainers.
I've heard of NAD. But truniogen is the one, it's NR.
You got to make sure you're taking the right.

How do you know all this? This is my life, my whole life. I'm like obsessed and passionate about all of this.

And I've researched researched everything and I speak to anything that I find to be interesting out of curiosity. I go down that crazy rabbit hole and I talk to the best experts in the world.

I like talk to the best doctors in the world. And because I'm like curious and also skeptical, I get everyone's opinion.

I try it. I'm a guinea pig.
I also believe most things are bullshit.

So I literally have dialed in, like, I, and I have people here every day sitting when every day, whenever I do this podcast, telling me about like their cocktail of things that work and

most things, 90% of things are, are nonsense.

I think there's, there's 10% of things that actually do move the needle, but you have to be super consistent and the fundamentals have to be in place, which is what you eat, moving your body like a lot.

I think you got to move your body a lot. Not just, I'm not a believer in, like, I just do 20 minutes a day.
You need to be doing more. Right.
And multiple times a day.

I rather you take a two hour workout and break it up into like five pieces during the day than just work out once. Right.
I'm always like, work, work. I'm always like, you can do more.

You can do more.

We can all do more. 100%.
Yeah.

Because the number one key to not aging or to living your healthiest, longest life, you can be taking every supplement in the world, but if you're not exercising and you're not moving your body multiple times a day, you're not going to get there.

I really believe that. There's always another level.
Don't you think? Like, you can always do you can always just push it just a little bit.

I was going through this phase where I was like, really working out, and I had dinner with Gawkins. Yeah.
Oh my gosh, how was that? He's a nut.

Unbelievable. I have the world of respect.
Oh, but I walked, I mean, it was like a four-hour dinner. Like, you know, he's so fascinating.
He's fascinating. Fascinating.
But I walked out there.

I'm like, I'm such a loser.

I'm not doing anything. Well, but the point is,

you can do more. You can.

But he's a psychopath. He is a psychopath.
He's a psychopath. Doesn't amaze you.
Like, you look at what nationality are your parents? Jewish. From where? Oh, from my mom's from, my mom's Israeli.

And my.

Was she born in Israel? Yeah. So I was born in like Eastern Europe, Croatia, Yugoslavia.
I ask you because, like in that world,

people didn't exercise. No, they didn't.
No. Like when I was my, I'm now older than my parents before they passed.
Oh, wow. Yeah.
And they passed from cancer a long time ago. Both of them did.
Yeah.

But when they were in their 50s, they were old.

Yes. Like they were old.
Like, I don't know if my dad was here, if he was here in his 50s, he would say he was old, but but he looked old he moved old

he oh i need a rest yeah like i will not like i have friends who nap and i'm like are you kidding me i can't with those people i know like i can't even i can't even i cannot with these people are taking these day naps and by the way it's a super popular trend right now and all these sleep doctors are saying yeah and i have all these friends who are like yeah like napping is a really good thing who is napping in the middle of the day who's time

but don't you think people today? Yes, 100%.

Well, have you ever seen those memes with gold, the golden girls? How the golden girls look like they're like 150. And like, you see these people now.
Like, people,

I think, like 50 is like the new 30 or whatever that is. Like, 30 is the new 50 or whatever that thing is.
People, like, by the way, looking at you, you just said you're 63 years old.

I almost like fell off the chair. Your face is like, you could pass for like 20 years younger.
I love you so much right now. No, it's true.

Like, that's why when that woman said that about your kids, like I don't think you look, you look great. Oh, thank you.

I think I look great, but what are you doing for your face? Have you gotten a facelift? Be honest. No, I haven't.
And I'll tell you what I am doing. Okay, what are you doing?

22 years ago when I got on TV for the first time. Okay.

I mean, I naturally have great skin. My grandmother was 99 when she passed.
Not a single wrinkle. Yeah.
Incredible.

So I get on TV 22 years and the makeup artist says to me, oh my gosh, you have amazing skin. Do you use moisturizer? And I'm like, for what?

She goes, oh, if you put a little moisturizer on every day, you'll always look like this. I use moisturizer twice a day, every single day.
That's it? That's your big, that's your big secret?

Every single day. Which kind of moisturizer? When I tell you, every single day.
I mean, like, there are days where I'll forget to brush my teeth. I will not forget to put moisturizer.
Really?

That's how strong my vanity is. I love it, though.
It works.

What kind of moisturizer is it, though? I also learned that I switched the type of moisturizer every few months. So your body

is activated. Right.
So I try a stronger one, a weaker one. Okay, which one are you using now? I forget what it's called.
My makeup artist, Jeralyn, got it for me. It comes in this tube.
It's amazing.

Do you know what you would like? I'm like telling you, Young Goose is another one that's really cool. What is that? It's another, it's like a beauty.

I use their serum and I use their, they have like NAD in their stuff.

there i don't know i like it i've been using it a lot the other thing you should be using is a red light mask by theraisage kim just got one by therisage no a red light mask does it work i i mean listen i i think i mean in fairness you're what 28 31 i'm 29 actually thank you for thank you very much for for recognizing that yes um i think

I think it works because I'm doing everything else.

So it's hard to know what everything is, but it's one of those things where there's enough stuff saying that like it helps with fine lines and wrinkles, and I'm going to do it anyway because it's very, it's not invasive.

So I wear it for like 20 minutes a day and I wear the Therisage one. It's a big trend.
It's a huge trend. Kim loves it.
She's 45. She does.
Which one is she using? I don't know.

I'll give you one to give to her that I have an extra. She loves it.
Okay. She's got one.
One of her friends is. I wonder.

Which one is it? Out of Australia. Something.
How old is Kim? She's not 64. No, are you kidding? Well, no, I thought that was like 25.
No, no, I was going to say she's 28 too, isn't she? Like 28, 29.

Yeah. No, how she's like in her 40s? No, no, she's going to be 50 next year.
Oh, she is. Okay.
She's 49. She's amazing.

I haven't seen her since the Babes for Boobs. I told you.
She was on Dancing with the Stars yesterday. I know, but she's as a judge.
Yeah. Who is the new host of that show?

Alfonso, who is amazing, and Julianne Huff. Oh, those are the, that show is still on the air for crying out loud.
34th,

it last week's show. You're going to die when you hear this.
Last week's show had more viewership than the next three networks combined. They've doubled their ratings over a year ago.

They've had 50 million votes. Are you serious? It's on fire.
Why do you think everybody in TV is talking about dancing with stars? Because nobody understands. Everybody has a theory.

Okay, what's the theory?

They've really leaned into social media. Yeah.

And they've attracted a brand new audience. I was running in Newport on on the boardwalk and, you know, these young girls came up to me and they were like running.

They're like, oh, love Shark Tank, blah, blah, blah. All they want to talk about was dancing with the stars because they followed me on Instagram.
They knew Kim was going to be on it. Are you serious?

That's all they want to talk about. They want to talk about Shark Tank or business.
And they're all business students. They just want the show is on fire.
It's incredible.

Well, first of all, dancing is hotter than ever, number one. Number two, Alex Earl was on recently, who's on.
She's still on.

I thought she got, I don't know. That other one, Hilaria, was on the show too.
She got voted off. She got voted off.
Thank God. Alex is on it.
Alex is on it. So

how far is she down the road? Like, how many more people do they have to go to? I think they're in week four. So they have a long way to go.
They do. Yeah.
Well, she was. Did you watch last night?

I don't watch a dancing with Alex. What is her name? Alex? Alex Earl, isn't that? Yeah.
Her dance? I mean, she did with her stepsister. Unbelievable.
Like,

watch it on streaming it's on hulu and disney really yeah it's it'll blow your mind so i like when i was on it yeah the quality of dance that's another thing that's changed oh yes they used to have lots of emotional stories they always had a patsy like me

the quality of dancing this year is it's like watching a broadway show every week it's unbelievable so right so they elevated the the the quality of dancing they took out some of the emotional stories that juggernaut still have that okay but they've upped the dancing dancing they've upped the host they changed the hosts who was it before tyra banks tyra banks was a host of the show yeah for two years are you serious yeah she wasn't a dancer and she's great but she wasn't a dancer

and she kind of made it more about her as a host. I don't mean than a meme.
No, it's probably true. Yeah.
She was such a powerful, overwhelming host

that the focus was was on her hosting. Whereas, I think Alfonso is an amazing host, and he knows that he won the show.

Yeah, he was a good, don't you remember when he was on like uh different strokes and he would do his little dance or Carlton

and also Fresh Prince. That's what I meant.

Not Different Strokes, but yeah, I mean, I feel like that show also brings on people who have like some type of presence that they then they get their audience too, and they're constantly doing that.

So, they've leaned into social media, like the Mormon wives, two of the women from that are on it.

okay that's why have you ever seen that show never have you started watching it with kim and i don't get it it's huge huge huge but i'm not are you into reality tv i don't have the patience to be honest i don't have the patience for any tv but i i appreciate and respect people that can create a brand today.

Oh, 100%.

The Kardashians. You know, we got to know Chris Jenner because she used to live in our old area.
Oh, yeah, right. I have the world world of respect for her.
Oh, she's and that whole family.

Like, it's anybody who can create, you know how hard it is to create a brand. Oh, my God.
There's so much noise today. If you can stand out today, power to you.
But guess what?

People didn't know this. Now I think they figured it out.
But the work ethic that these people have, the Kardashians have, they work 24-7. And that mother is a juggernaut.
Like that woman is

constantly

brilliant. And they keep on like bringing on a new version.
like everyone's having a kid, and then the

sister.

Who do you know that's ultra-successful that doesn't have an insane work ethic? No, that's what I'm saying. Do you know anybody?

No, other than people who were handed something and then they kind of just kind of kept it going, doesn't count, it doesn't count, right?

You have to, and I think there's something to be said for the fact that you have to have an obsession with it.

You have to be your work ethic has to be so on point that if that combined with all these other things, that's when you really kind of somebody asked me one time: if you wouldn't have sold your company for hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars

and still had it, would you be happy? And I said, Absolutely,

you would be, yeah. I loved my company.
I mean, I didn't have to worry about paying bills, I was well off, I wasn't ultra wealthy, but I would have been happy. I love my business, I loved my business.

How much did you sell the other business for? We sold the one business, sold the first business for $265,000. Oh, no, that was the first business? First business sold for $265,000.

And I took that money and paid off my mortgage. Okay.
Typical immigration. Exactly.
Very, very responsible. If I wouldn't have done that, I would have never started the second business.
Oh.

Because I fear. Yeah.
Right. But fear.
I paid off my mortgage in my early 20s. And I'm like, oh my gosh, I've won it life.
Yes. Like, it's never going to.

When I sold that business for $265,000, I went home, paid off my mortgage, and I had this moment of elation thinking I've done it.

And then I had this moment of depression thinking, it will never be better than this in life. I will never make more money than I've made this year.
Wow. That's how limited my

limiting belief is. Then I sold the next one for 34, I think it was, or 36, I forget.
And then the next one, we end up selling for 500 million. Oh, that's it.
I didn't found that one. I was

running it for someone. And then the last one is about a billion because it's still active and I still own a big chunk of it, but I sold my portion of it for.
So are you a billionaire or not?

I'm not in America. I am in Australia, which we always joke.
Yes, that's hilarious.

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So let me ask you this. From the companies on Shark Tank, how many have you actually invested? How many companies have you actually invested in? And then which one has actually done the best?

So we've probably invested and currently have about 42.

Oh, okay.

And

because some go away, some come, some get sold.

The best one

is probably

for me,

Tipsy Elves or a company called Sandcloud. And how well are they doing and what are they? So Tip Sales is inappropriate, ugly Christmas sweaters.

I remember that one. That was, you invested in that one? And how is that doing? Oh, they'll do over 100 million this year.
It's incredible.

And the Sandcloud guys make these beach towels like from Turkey. They make these beautiful beach towels.
It's not just, and they'll do like 80 million this year.

It's not just so much about their success. It's that they're such lean businesses.

Like these people have no retail presence, very little inventory, and it's three guys selling online. And so, how much of those each do you own? I forget.
Like, it's like irrelevant.

Yeah, like a little bit. And are you actually involved in these businesses? Like, what, how do you do that?

That's the biggest challenge for the show. Okay.
Tell me. When we had five businesses, we were very involved.
Right. Right.
Right. Of course.
And when I had time, I was really involved.

Now that I've actually sold my business and stepped away from it, I just, I don't want to be that involved. That's the hard thing.

And so I'm going through this thing where I feel guilty because it's not that they need money. If they just need

very few businesses fail or succeed because of lack of capital. I mean, you know that.
If you have a great business and you get more money, you're going to do better.

If you have a bad business and you get more money, it's not going to change anything. Right.
And so a lot of these businesses need guidance. And we just, I just don't have that time.

So that's exactly, I totally understand that. So it's like, if it's one thing, if it's just money, because you could just write a check, but they actually need support in other ways.

And it's hard when you're. So that's why we, I like to invest.
Like we're, I'm investing in AI. Cuban and I just did a deal with an AI company out of Australia.
From Shark Tank or outside?

No, no, no, outside. Like real businesses.
How much of Shark Tank, like how many of these things actually end up falling through? Because like, you know, you can make a deal on 50%. 50%.

Is it based on just like bad financials or what? It's changed. Okay.
So at the beginning, 50% didn't close because we'd find out crap. Like in season two,

we asked the guy for his financials. I'm not making this up.
He sent us a box of receipts. No way.

That doesn't happen anymore because there's a whole vetting process now.

Now they don't close because people just wake up and they figured out the Shark Tank hack, which is it's, it's a great show. You get so much brand presence.
Do I really have to close? Right.

So people become short-sighted. There's tremendous benefit to closing a deal with us because you get the follow-ups, you get the ongoing stories and so on.

But people look for that one-time hit of being on the show. Right.
And so they, why would they even do it? Yeah. So Mark told me that he does the most deals of the show.
Do you think that's true?

100%.

And I used to do deals with Mark. And what I've learned is there's, there's the good Mark, and then there's the, I have so much friggin money, I don't have time to even think about it, Mark.
Yeah.

So a couple of deals we've done when I look back, because he has an amazing team. They do all due diligence, everything.
Yeah. We invested in a couple of things.

And I think we each put in like half a million dollars in this thing. And then a year later, I'm like, hey, this thing isn't that great.

He's like, yeah, I probably shouldn't have done it. It's only half a million dollars.
And, you know, like half a million dollars is still half a million dollars.

Like, like, I could buy a really nice car with half a million dollars or do something else with it. To him,

half a million dollars to Mark is, is probably like, I don't know, $10,000, $20,000 to me. I was going to say, like, it's like insignificant.
Insignificant. So, yeah, he does.

Mark is the full embodiment of that show. Yeah.
Like, he's invested millions in these businesses. Who has not?

Who has not, who's been the least person to invest? Like, do you guys ever talk about that? Like,

does it matter? I think Kevin does a lot of royalty deals, which are great in their own way, but no, I mean, you have to invest a certain amount. Who's your favorite guest shark?

Who's my favorite guest shark? I mean, gosh, there's been so

many.

Jamie, founder of Ring. Oh, I love him.
Jamie Simmons. And you gave him, you guys didn't even give him a deal.
We didn't. That was so

excited. He's become a really good friend of mine.
I love him. And he has a ski place near my ski place.
So we've become really good friends. And he's just a great, great human being.

He's such a nice guy. I like him so much.
Have you met him? I have. He's also in YPO.
Maybe he's not in it anymore. He was in a chat.
He's back at Amazon now.

He is? As what? I think he runs their consumer division. He runs free.
Yeah. But I he's brilliant.
He's brilliant. And I remember when he didn't get a deal, and I was like, you guys are so stupid.

That guy is like amazing. In fairness, it was called Doorbot.
Stupid shit. It was.
Yeah. Oh, that's too much.

I always say if it was called Ring, I would have invested in it. He would have invested in it.
He's really smart. And he also has a nice way about him.
I liked his personality. He lives here in LA.

I know.

We have a lot of similar friends. That's why I'm saying I know he's a nice nice guy and a good guy and all the things.
Great guy. But I was going to, I'm surprised he went back to Amazon.

But even though he sold the company for over a billion, I think he had a lot of investors. I don't know how much he actually made of the billion.
That's the other thing people don't realize.

It's not always what you sell for. Yep.
It's what you get to keep. Exactly.
And a lot of these businesses raise a lot of equity. Every business I've sold, I own 100% of.
Really? Yeah.

I've never raised that much money. I've never raised any money until I sold the last business.
Well, I didn't raise it. I sold it.
But I've never raised money.

And I have lots of friends who sold for 2 billion, 3 billion. Yeah.

But they owned like 6%

or 8%.

So

that's what we always say to people.

Don't get enamored by the top line.

Get enamored by the bottom line. That's 100% true.
How much time are you spending now doing the other stuff for your brand? Because I've noticed you on social media way more. You're doing that.

You do a lot of speaking. That's how I met you

at the speaking thing for Entrepreneur. What other projects are you doing and how much of your time is spent on like speaking and media and branding now?

Probably that's another thing I did when I left my company. Right.
I leaned into working out. Yeah.
And I leaned into social media, not knowing where it was going to go. Right.

You know, sometimes you got to go down the road. You know, it's good to go down the road.

I want to go down the road. I don't know what's at the end of the road, but I know it's a good road to go down.
And so we're really trying to understand the impact of social media. Yeah.

And it's working. I mean, I have people that come up to me now and say, oh my gosh, I love your YouTube channel.

And I'm like, oh, thanks for watching Shark Tank. They're like, I don't watch Shark Tank.
I just really.

So it's, you know, the power of YouTube today and Instagram I mean all of that stuff is unbelievable the reach and the direct communication with your consumer yeah is off the charts so I'm not sure quite what we're going to do with it but we're really working it do you like how so how much time do you spend on it and do you like like are you on there daily do you do it or do you have someone else do it I don't do it someone else is doing it for you When I did the Australian version of the show, there was a young guy on there.

He's 26 years old. He had a product called the Udi Think Blanket with Arms.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. He sold $600 million of this.
So he says to me, If I had your brand, I would be a multi-billionaire.

You should work with my social team. So I started working with his social team.
This guy out of, gosh, I want to say Thailand that moved to Australia. He's got this little team.

He's incredible, Charlie.

And we, when I started with him, we had 700,000 followers across the different platforms. We're now now at over like 6 million.
Really? Yeah. What is he doing? Clips? Well, every

format is different. Right.
LinkedIn is different than

YouTube, than everything. And so he does a really good job of doing all of that.
I mean, he writes some scripts. I write some scripts, but he films it, puts it together, everything.

So how do you do, how do you do it? Are you, do you have like scheduled days a month? Like I'm doing three, you're doing three days of shooting. And then they kind of used to.
Yeah.

and then i realized it's a full-time job yeah so for six months i did it i do it like three times a day i wake up i'm like okay from 9 to 10 30 i'm filming content yeah 12 to like and then six months later i'm like okay stop this is right it's like it takes over your life i don't want to do it that much so i go through phases i need to be more disciplined about it but i need now i need to know what's at the end of the road Yeah.

Now we've grown it enough. I need to see where it's going.
Well, how much much longer are you going to be on Shark Tank? Like, is it just, is it like evergreen at this point?

Like, are you, do you have a contract that's going to go until you're 102? Like, what's the plan?

I don't know. It's 18, 17 years.
They just moved our time to Wednesdays at 10, which isn't great.

Why do they do that?

They feel that we can help the ratings on Wednesday because we're a draw. We're

a big show. People love that show.
I don't know. Like, everything, everything comes to an end.

Like, how many shows have been on the, we've done, I think, 400, 500, 600 episodes. I'm on TV three hours a day with the repeats

CNBC. When I'm traveling, you guys are on a marathon.
Like all the whole time. You know, when I do a speech, I always say to people, oh, thanks for watching Shark Tank.

When you get back to your town, you'll see me on TV.

100%. It's true.
No, no, I don't know. People always laugh.
And I'm like, it's true. You'll see me on TV.
It's 100% true. I'm not like just two days ago I was away and that you were on for five hours.

I think I'll always be, as we we all will, be the guy from Shark Tank. I think 20, 30 years from now, when I die in some horrific motorcycle accident.
Don't say you don't drive a motorcycle, do you?

I may not have a license, but I do ride a motorcycle.

Stop it. You love health.
But I'll always be the guy from Shark Tank. You will always be.
Damon Will and Kevin.

Or, yeah. I mean, Kevin for sure.
And Kevin's another one that you,

he's synonymous with Shark Tank. 100%.
Yeah. You know, Kevin is doing a big movie now.
Kevin is? Yeah. Doing what?

He's a supporting actor in a big Hollywood feature. It comes out December 25th.
I forget what it's called, but it's with Timothy Chalamay. He plays Gwyneth Paltrow's husband.

Kevin O'Leary? Yes. He's an actor.
He's great in it. Stop it.
Couldn't be happier for him.

Kevin loves being Kevin. Yes.
Kevin loves

the

aura of all that. Is he really that person, though? Yes.
He's really that guy. All of us are that guy.
All of us are what you see, which is why the show works because we're horrible actors.

We'll accept Kevin. We'll see.
Yeah, right. Exactly.
But it's his dream. I'm so happy for him.
Like, this is, this is

the journey. That's what I find.
I've been seeing him on these commercials or like these ads. He's in Dubai doing some kind of

clinic or something. We never,

the speeches, we never saw that. When I got Dragons, then in the second season,

someone offered me a speaking gig, and I was like, Why would I go speak for somebody else? That's ridiculous. Yeah.
And then they said, Oh, they're going to pay you. I'm like, What?

How much? And they're like, $5,000.

I'm like, Are you kidding me? Someone's going to pay me?

That is.

None of us saw this business. And in America, it's such such a huge business.
Well, you have a few. Like yesterday, I was speaking at the

National Beer Distributors Association. Great group of people, multi-generational businesses, big businesses.
All they do is distribute beer. Was this the Vegas one you were telling me about?

The 3,000 people? Yeah. That's a lot of people for that kind of thing.
It's huge. Are they paying you a lot more than 5,000 now, I would imagine? Yeah, they're paying us a lot more than 5,000.

But do you do more than key? I know that you do these fire sides. Do you do a keynote? I do go.
You do the keynote.

happy to do a keynote i don't know what your experience is we find yeah is a fireside for a corporate event is better i personally think it's more engaging because it's interactive so i always say get your ceo or your cr or your cmo yeah to do a fireside with me because it's closer and your people can see them in a different light it's great i think you're right i mean people like keynotes it's more i think it there has a much more of a cachet to it.

Like, oh, this one's keynote, you can maybe charge more.

They think, or that's what is happening. Fire sides are easier for us, right? Because you can just be yourself and people can ask you questions and you can just like kind of like, you know, babble.

Yeah, right. It's much easier.
Like, when I get, when I have to do a keynote, I get more anxious and nervous. Do you do a lot of them? Lately, I've been doing, I've done three TED Talks, which have

a lot. Yeah.
Like I told you, I just finished my last one. It's not even out yet, like a week ago.
So they, it hasn't even come out yet on the fitness and stuff I was telling you about.

My first one went crazy viral on asking, basically being bold and asking for what you want in life. That catapulted all my business stuff.

So like that got me into like every sales room because it was about teaching people how to be bold and ask for what you want.

And I created this whole thing called the 10% target, which is like getting comfortable with failure. I'm telling you, you and I have a lot in common.

So that was like the first juggernaut with the TED Talks, which got me all the speaking stuff, like banks and investment, you know, private equity companies and any sales. Do you have an agent?

Like, do you go? I have a bunch. Listen, I don't have an exclusive.
I'm going to tell you the truth about agents. Okay.

I have not yet found one agent that has been helpful for me. Yeah.
Like most of the things I do myself, people usually, it's, it's kind of incoming.

I have some random people who help me right here and there, not random, but people who help me. But I don't have any exclusive agent.
Yeah, same. Yeah.
Same.

I was with a very big agency, which I'm sure you know has three letters. And

many, many, many, many years ago. And

my agent actually turned out to be someone who was an alcoholic who was stealing from me. And the agent, see, didn't do anything about it.

I had to sue the people who, like, I had to like get my money myself. That gave me a really bad taste in my mouth.
So I just kind of like ended up doing things myself and then having other people

is inbound.

it is inbound show is so popular well you i mean also

you probably have so many like requests it's a question of saying yes or no like you don't need an agent you i mean right i don't maybe you do to maybe get you other things but you probably have a really i'm i'm also not starring in a movie with Glynn Paltrow, let's be fair.

Does he have an agent who goes on that? Yes. Do you want an agent? I can get you an agent.

Are you sure? I just don't want that. You know, I go through phases where I'm like, I'm sure you, oh, I should do more.
I know. What I really want to do, I think, is start another tech business.

I love operating business. Really? Yeah.
I'm actually more fascinated with operating than I am with investing. You know, maybe you and I are better matched than not because that's my problem.

I'm looking for an operator. Maybe you can help me and my business.
I love to operate. That's what I want to do.
I want to start another business.

There's nothing more beautiful to me than creating something from nothing. Wow.
To create a business that didn't exist. Like my last business had a thousand employees.
That's a lot of employees.

Started with one.

Like started with one.

It took 19 years, but we got to a thousand people. We operate all over the world.
And I have to tell you, every time I walk through the door, there's a sense of pride I had.

Like, we yes, I totally understand that. It's my name on the door.
Like, I just,

I love that. I love that.

Do you have it in you to do another business with all the exercise you're doing that takes up about four hours a day then you have i don't know the travel that's right i go through phase yeah i was gonna say because i remember how shitty and hard it is yeah zero to five million is a lot of yeah when you play in the big game billion thousand employees it's really hard to go back to the minor leagues.

Right. No, I have to.
And I think I could do it. I think enough time, if I'm honest with myself, do I have enough passion and drive to do all the shitty things you have to do when you're starting?

Yeah. And stay motivated? Probably not.
Yeah, but you're not really starting. I mean, this is just like, you've done it already.
This is just another kind of.

True. You know what I mean? I mean, I could buy a business.
Like, I think ideally, I need something that's already going. Right.
And like, you can kind of, because like you

make it faster. Right.
Like you already have a lot of momentum. So you can probably pull in people to help you with a lot of the minutia stuff.

And you can, you can do a lot, you know, like it's like you're not really starting to get it. But I love my life.
I love it. That's what I'm saying.

That's what I'm saying.

Today, the only thing I had going on was you and

an amazing run. Like, I love that.
Right? I mean, it is pretty amazing. You have a nice life.
Yeah. So, I don't really want to give that up.
And how often are you?

When are you shooting Shark Tank again? Is it down for the season? June. We only film, like, we used to film June, September.

Now we only film June. We only film like eight days.
Oh, my God. That's all? Didn't Mark tell you that? No, I didn't ask him that question.
Yeah, we film, we make like 25 episodes in eight days.

Yeah, I don't even know. It's the easiest gig in the world.
When I was on Dancing with the Stars, I was on it for 84 days.

And that's how you met your wife, obviously. Was she your partner for the thing? Yeah.

Also, I wanted to ask you something about your wife in Dancing with the Stars because I heard you once talk about how your mom's favorite show was Dancing with the Stars. 100%.

Like, do you think subconsciously, like, that was kind of also you wanted to go on the show for your mom? You met,

you married the girl from the show. There's a lot of psychology.
Somebody just asked me that question. I thought,

I think the dots in your life never connect until you look back.

So, my mom, Little Eastern European woman, loved the show. Like,

everything

her life wasn't was that show. Wow.
Beauty, pageantry, blah, blah, blah.

She gets ill, she gets ovarian cancer, and she goes in the hospital. She's there for a year.
Every Monday, I go to the hospital to watch Dancing with the Stars with all the other ladies.

Near the end, she's watching the show, and she says to me, Robbie, you're so beautiful. Why you not be on show?

So I say to her, if they ever ask me, I'll do it for you. 10 years

before Dragon's Den came along in Canada. Like, not even like,

like,

how would I ever get on TV? Wow. But I say to her, if they ask me, I will do it for you.
Fast forward 10 years later, I'm auditioning for Dragon's Den. I don't know I'm auditioning.

So one of the things they do is they put you in a room like this with green screens, and then a producer throws all these questions at you to see how you react.

First question they ask me: well, they asked me a bunch of, you know, what was the weather like just to throw you off. But the key question they say is, why do you want to be famous?

And you got to answer really quickly. Like, you, they want to know, can you react? You know, this, you know, TV is snippets.
So they're like, blah, blah, blah, blah. Why do you want to be famous?

Without even thinking, I say, so I can get on dancing with the stars. They laugh.
I laugh. Don't even think about it.
There is no U.S. show at this point.

Fast forward five years later, I get on Shark Tank. Shark Tank becomes this huge hit.
Fast forward another 10 years. The producer calls me and says, Hi, it's Dina Katz.
Would you like to be on yes?

Without even, like, she didn't even finish the sentence. I'm like, yes.

Would you like no more details? I'm like, it doesn't matter. Think of those things.

Sometimes your life

is just a journey you have to take and believe in the outcome i love that

incredible i love it but you're and then i get on i meet kim

we have these incredible children and this incredible life

here's a story you won't know kim wasn't on the show what do you mean so they asked me be on the show.

They gonna, they say, who would you like to be partner with? I don't, I don't watch the show. I don't know.
So I'm like, it doesn't matter. So they're going to partner me with somebody else.

So I happened to be in LA and I realized, you know, I had gotten divorced. I was single.
I was miserable. Like, you know, most guys at that age get divorced.
They're dating everybody.

I went the other way. I just started working 23 hours a day.
Like I became the most miserable hermit-y guy. And then I realized, oh my gosh, maybe

they think I'm still married. Like maybe I'm that role on the show.
So I call up Dina and I say, hey, the show means everything to me, but I want to take you guys out for dinner.

So I go to her house for dinner. I tell her this painful story about my divorce.
And like I said, I'm not married. Like I'm single.
And I just want to be honest with you guys.

And I realized you may not want me on the show after that, but just wanted to be honest with you guys. She's like, no, we'd love to have you on the show.

As I'm leaving, Dina turns to her husband, Jerry, and says, that is the man Kim is going to marry. She calls Kim, who's now living in Australia.

She's never been married, tired of living in LA, never having met anybody. She says, I'm done with California.
I'm moving back to Australia. She moves back to Australia.

Dina calls her and says, I need you to come back for one more season. Kim says, no, I'm done.
I appreciate it. Dina says, you have to trust me.
This will change your life. True story.

If Dina was here, she would tell you the story within five minutes. Are you serious? So Kim comes back and we meet.
But

all those things, who would have ever thought? That's why, you know, people like, people think that their life has to be a script. People think you have to have a business plan.

I've never written a business plan. You've probably never written a plan.
Action

is

than theory, always.

And your life is not theory. Your life is going.
Like, well, we're sitting here. We're losing time.
You just got to go. Like, I always think how fortunate for all those things.

Wow. That's a great story.
It's a true story. It's incredible.
That's an amazing story. That's amazing.
How lucky was Kim? Oh, yeah.

Oh, my God. How many years ago was that? 11 years ago.
11 years ago. Yeah.

Wow. That's a great story.

It's, yeah, that's why, you know, to your point, I have a great life. Like, I'm so happy with where I am.

Don't know if I want to go back to

the trenches. I mean, that's why I left my company.
I mean, I sold a business for, you know, a ton of money. It was a big business.

And when you sell to equity, they're always like, oh, you don't work for us. You work for you.

But you work for them. You work for them.
And of course you do. Not that they were bad.
They were great guys, but I worked for them. 100%.

And I realized, oh my gosh, I'm wealthier than I've ever been. And it's the first time in my life I'm working for somebody else.
And I just missed that. I missed my own direction.
I missed.

I hated being second guest. And again, they were great guys and are great guys.
They couldn't have been more supportive, but I still hated that. 100%.
I wanted to fail on my own.

I wanted to succeed on my own. I wanted to go left when I wanted to go left.
I wanted to go right. You wanted to call the shots for your life.
I wanted to call the shots. And

that makes perfect sense. And it worked for me.
So it's, you know what it's like? It's when you have a certain amount of success, it's hard when someone else second guesses you.

You want to go. I love, I totally agree with you.
My gosh, how long have I had you here for? I have no idea. Like two hours.
Wow. All right.
We got to go. Okay.

Well, first of all, I loved this podcast. Can you come back again? I'm serious.
Can you like come back? I love you. You are, I was saying when you were, you were like a bundle of energy.
Oh, my gosh.

You are. That's why you're, you're, it's, I'm, I, it's because you gave me this drink.

First of all, did you like it? I did like it. I'm going to put some in your bag.
You are incredible. You have been my favorite shark because I was, you know what? You did not disappoint.

You are as charming and as kind and heartfelt as you see on TV. I swear.
And I'm not just saying this. And I did not say that to Mark, actually, to be honest.
And I love.

No one has ever accused Mark of being charming. I was going to say, right?

And I'm not going to either. You like, you're, I want you to be back on the show and we have to work out together.
Oh, let's do that next time. Okay, now I'm not joking.

But I need time because, of course, the alpha in me is going to want to work

harder than you. And I feel like you could probably do more pull-ups than I could.
How many posts can you do? I do three sets of 10. That's good.
Can you do, are those chin-ups or real pull-ups?

I can do both. Oh, good.

Okay.

Okay, guys. How many can you do? I can do a few.

Can you do more than 10? Maybe.

Don't want to do a competition? No. Because

I saw your post the other day. You are ripped.
Which post are you talking about? I posted something with you doing a, you were just doing one, but your form was perfect. Thank you.

That's another thing. People take shortcuts and working out.
That's what I've learned. Like, if you're going to do a pull-up,

do a dead hang and then pull up. That's 100%.
Like, I see guys at the gym and they're doing these swinging pull-ups. I'm like, please.
And also, I think it's also people have to be asymmetric. What

women do is they focus on their lower body and they forget about their upper body.

But in order to like look symmetrical and to look like you're fit, you need to work your shoulders and your back so you have that V taper. And then it works so much better.

And men tend to work their upper body and forget about their legs and then they look like chickens. Like, right.

So it's like you have to do, you've got to balance it out and be strong everywhere or else you're really strong nowhere. Just because you have a strong bicep doesn't make you strong, right?

Like I still need more time to work.

Okay, well, follow him. He's amazing and watch Shark Tang.
Not like you really care, but you know. I do care.
I think you have enough. I want everybody to watch.

I know, but what I'm saying is, like, I think you have so many watchers already, but more. The more you're always have more.
You can always have more. You can always have more.
Exactly. All right.

Thank you.