Transcript of Episode 481: Mark Cuban's 5:30 AM Success Formula: How a Billionaire Structures His Day for Maximum Impact

Hi, guys. It's Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits & Hustle. Crush it. Hey, friends, you're listening to Fitness Friday on the Habits & Hustle podcast, where myself and my friends share quick and very actionable advice for you becoming your healthiest self. So stay tuned and let me know how you leveled Before we dive into today's episode, I first want to thank our sponsor, Therisage.

Their trilight panel has become my favorite biohacking thing for healing my body. It's a portable red light panel that I simply cannot live without. I literally bring it with me everywhere I go, and I personally use their red light therapy to help reduce inflammations in places in my body where, honestly, I have pain. You can use it on a sore back, stomach cramps, shoulder, ankle. Red light therapy is my go-to. Plus, it also has amazing anti-aging benefits, including reducing signs of fine lines and wrinkles on your face, which I also use it for. I personally use Theresage Tri-Lite everywhere and all the time. It's small, it's affordable, it's portable, and it's really effective. Head over to therisage. Com right now and use code code, Be Bold, for 15% off. This code will work site-wide. Again, head over to theresage, T-H-H-E-R-A-S-A-G-E. Com, and use code, Be bold for 15% off any of their products.

It's like your schedule between the Shark Tank, all those companies He's doing these things. What time are you waking up in the morning?

6: 00, 5: 36.

What's the day? Give me a day in the life of you.

They probably should admit this, but I'll get up at 5: 36, particularly during the school year when my kids are going to school. You have three kids, too. Yeah, 12, 15, and 18. Yeah.

Are you Are you involved? Do you see these kids? Yes. How are you able to do all of this?

I don't travel that much unless they're all doing stuff. Really? Okay. Right now, my middle daughter, Alyssa is at camp. My wife and my youngest son, Jake, who's 12, are in Iceland right now. They went on a trip because while I'm shooting Shark Tank, that's when they all know to go do their trips. That's a good idea. Yeah. And then my oldest is on a trip as well, so with her class. And so while we're shooting, they're gone. And so that's when I pack everything in.

And then you do everything. Yeah.

But otherwise, I can do one-day trips here or one-day trips there because I'd rather spend time with my family.

You are? You spend a lot of time with your-Yeah, of course.

You can wrap up? Yeah, that's the best part of my life. Okay.

Tell me the date. Give me your date. You wake up at, you said 6: 00.

Yeah, I just wake up 5: 36, Say hi to everybody, get everybody going to school if that's what's up. Then do my email. Typically, get back in bed. Do my email. Get through any emergencies. Go back, take a nap. Really? Yeah.

You do the emails first before you do anything else, right? Yeah. I thought that you'd said that a bunch of times.

I've got an iWatch like you, right? So I look at my sleep, right? Do you wear an aura ring or anything? No, I didn't get the- I'm surprised because you love all the- I love all the technology and stuff, but I just didn't get feedback. I tried a Whoop and just the data.

I didn't like that either. It was also cumbersome.

Yeah, it was pain in the ass, right? Terrible. Yeah. I get good data with this. Whoop wasn't awful, but I already had this, right?

Exactly. Then you're just constantly looking at all these different things on your- It's not just exercise stuff.

I can get stock prices and all that shit, right? Absolutely. I'll see how much sleep I got because you might feel okay. You know when you didn't sleep, but sometimes you don't know how How much sleep you got.

100%, exactly.

And so if I got my 200 deep deepest sleep, my two hours, rather, then I'm usually pretty good. Right.

So wait, what time do you go to bed at night?

Typically, anywhere from midnight to 1: 30.

Okay. And then you wake up around. Okay, so you get like you're in bed for five, six hours. Yeah.

And then if I didn't really get good sleep, then I get my email done. And go back to bed. Go back to sleep. Yeah.

Really? Yeah. I am so shocked.

Yeah. So I get an hour. I'm not one of these people that's just like, Oh, I just got to slug it out, whatever. Because remember, everybody's got to kiss my ass. Yeah, exactly.

I love you so much. Yes, they do.

They might say not, right? And I might not like it because I hate that. But everybody works to my schedule. Yes. It's like, tomorrow? Yeah, sure. Okay. Can you come over now? Sure. And I don't really do meetings or calls. I really, really don't because- It's a waste of time. Yeah. And plus, there's no record of it. It's not searchable because I have so much shit going on that I I want to be able to go back and look and say, Okay, when did Jen hit me up last? What were we talking about? What was the topic?

So you like to have it in writing?

Yeah, I like to have it so it's searchable.

Which is different than that dust thing that you're involved with.

Yeah, dust is like a real-time version of a face-to-face I understand. So with dust, it's important because there's certain business things that I want to talk about that we're not going to be face to face, but I don't want it to be an email. I don't want there to be a record of a phone call. Exactly. Because let's say we're getting ready to fire somebody or there's a I have to- You get sued a lot? No, hardly ever. Really? At your level? Yeah, less than 10 times my entire life. And half of them were garbage.

That's incredible, by the way. I've never heard of such It's worth it. It's worth it. It's worth it. It's worth it. It's worth it. It's worth it. It's worth it. It's worth it. With your wealth and success.

I never sued people either. It's just not worth the hassle.

I know. It's like the time, energy, and the money that it actually takes.

It's not worth it. It's not worth it. But yeah, so I use dust all the time. You can hit me up on their blog, Maverick. I I answer questions just because I want to support the platform. But it's just because I want some things to be private. And with dust, when you send a message, you can delete it when you want it or it auto-delete, but it's never stored on a hard drive anywhere. And so there's just no way to retrieve it, period, end of story.

So I never even heard of this before I started digging deep into your life. I didn't realize this is a thing. People are using it and it's... Amir, did you even know it existed? Of course. Oh, sorry. That's been around like eight years. You're a genius. That's why you know. But it sounded like Snapchat to me when I looked.

In some respect, but Snapchat still keeps everything, right? It might disappear, but it's on their server somewhere. That's right. Same with Instagram in banish mode or whatever. Or the other ones, right? Telegram. You can set it to delete so the other people don't see it. But if there's a subpoena because you were doing some business deal and somebody wants to get those records, it's still possible to get them.

Oh, wow. Okay, so go back to your schedule. You wake up at 6: 00, you do your emails.

Take a nap if I'm tired.

How long is the email part? Like a half an hour, an hour?

No, an hour and a half, two hours. Oh my gosh. Okay. That's from 6: 00 to 08: 00 PM. In bed, you're doing it. Yeah, just laying in bed, whatever. Okay. Then go get my Alyssa's cookies. Yes. Some water.

How about coffee? Do you drink coffee?

No, I'm not a coffee drinker. No. Tea? Sometimes I'll drink tea, but usually just water. Then if I have anything to do, then I'll just go do it. If it's Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, I try to set time to go play basketball, then back about 2: 00 PM and back to my email. And no matter where I'm at, if I'm eating, whatever, I'm always doing my email.

Always? Yeah. I cannot believe how accessible and easy... It's unbelievable. If I email you, if I don't get a response, In 5, 10 minutes, I think, Oh, he's just going to... He doesn't care. That's probably true.

Typically, that's true.

I was going to say, either he just deleted my email or something was actually wrong with you because you were so accessible. Like, unbelievable.

Yeah, I take pride in it because You should. Unless someone's just being annoying or picked me or whatever, then I just block them, which is a great feature that you email add. You just hit block.

It's a great one, actually. You're right.

But yeah, then I'll try to respond.

Then, okay, so you go back to bed. If not, then you have basketball. When did you work out? Because I thought-I set my move points to try to get 1,000 move points a day.

Okay. That typically gets me to 3,000 calories a day. Really? Yeah.

Oh, wow. Okay. What else do you eat besides the Alyssa cookies that I know you're obsessed with, too?

I've got I'm a woman who makes me natural foods.

Because you're a vegan, right?

Just vegetarian.

Vegetarian?

Yeah. So I like egg plant, so I'll put cheese on egg plant. So my little version of egg plant parmesan. But I use my fitness pile to track everything that I eat. So I try to keep it to 2,000 to 2,200 calories. And so you can never get the calories exactly right. I know. The tracking is never exactly right.

It's a round. Yeah.

So it's a close enough approximation that it works for me, and it keeps me good. I try to make sure that I get enough iron because I'm vegetarian. So typically at lunch or maybe after the cookies, I'll get one of these little cups of Rice Krispies, and that is one serving plus a little bit, 140 calories, but it's got like 70% of the iron. And then iron is absorbed better if you have it with vitamin C. So I'll drink a glass of orange juice with it.

So basically, when did you become a vegetarian? Four years ago. Is it because of a health situation?

No, not an issue. Just because I wanted to feel better. Supposedly, it reduced inflammation. I've had both my hips replaced. I'm still playing basketball, so I'm going to be sore. So it makes me feel better. Do you feel better? Oh, yeah. It's night and day. Really? Yeah. I don't eat meat. Sometimes I'll eat fish. If I'm starving, I have no choice. But typically, I won't. Then I won't eat fried foods, and I try to avoid sweets, which is almost impossible. My strategy is to always have a thing of Alyssa's cookies out. When my kids have all the garbage on our counter, then I can grab an Alyssa's.

So you really are that obsessed with these cookies because I've heard you talk about them, too. That's how I was for a good year about these cookies. They are that good, though. They're that good, yeah. Do you eat mush, mush, whatever you want to call it?

Yeah, I have mush in the fridge, too.

You have that, too? Yeah. Okay, so let's get back to the exercise. You're an investor, maybe, in Rise Nation, or you're not an investor.

I'm an investor in Rise Nation. I love Rise Nation. Yes.

It's a hard workout.

Yeah. You get to go your own speed, right? Right.

But it's a versa climber. It's also like- But the beauty See of it, one, it's low impact.

So you're not going to feel your joints. You're not going to hurt that at all. It's full body, too. Yeah, it's full body because you're moving legs and arms. But when you first start in a 30-minute class, you might get a thousand steps. And then you build it to 1,500 Then you build it to 2,000, then 3,500, then 4,000, right? And then the superstars can do more. But your cardio, I don't get tired when I play basketball anymore. I can go on a Peloton bike and just crank through 30-minute class or 45-minute class.

Do you Peloton then, too? Yeah. Okay. So you do everything. You're very versatile.

It's just accessibility, right? So if I'm on the road, sometimes there's not going to be a rise nation there. So I'll do Peloton, the treadmill or the bike. And lots of times when I'm doing the bike, if I'm just cruising, I try to hit the 180 average output or 190. And if I'm really pushing, I'll try to do 200, 210. But it's great. It's a great workout.

I want to I'll show you something. There's a thing. Have you seen the head axel before? I'm going to show this to you. You're going to love it. A lot of the athletes are using it, and sports teams use it. I'll show it to you. It's a side thing. How many times a week would you say you work out besides the basketball?

Basketball is a workout. It's a huge workout. It's a great workout. Yeah, it's a workout. So one or the other, six times a week, sometimes seven.

Do you still work out at Lifetime Fitness? Yeah. You do?

That's where I play basketball, yeah.

That is so funny. We don't have any here in LA. Really? No. And they should bring it because it's the best It's nice.

As long as they have a basketball court.

It's a huge basketball, and they have every piece of equipment. They got everything. I'm telling you, the West... Here?

I take Zumba classes on Saturday morning. Do you really? Yeah. Hell, yeah. Oh, my God.

That is so fun.

Because way back when, when I started, it was like three guys and 80 women. It's just the ultimate distraction.

That's smart. That's actually a great... That's a great place for guys to go to meet girls.

That's where I met my wife.

At a Zumba class? No, no, no.

Playing basketball. At that gym, yeah. At a Zumba class?

You've been married for what? 20 years?

20 years, yeah. Wow.

Okay, so let's get back to the... Since this is with entrepreneur. Let's ask some more entrepreneurial questions since we should probably do that. Would you say the number one, not to pivot that hard, but would you say the number one reason why people are failing then is because their lack of ability to work hard and to dig in? What would it be?

No, I'd say they're misguided and they lie to themselves when they start. I think this business is good. Everybody goes through that same process with a new business. Hey, what do you think about this idea? Then you go on Google and you look at, Oh, I don't see it. It's great. Of course, no one tells you that it's not there because 50 companies have failed doing the same thing, and there's nothing left to show that they died. But then you get excited, you check with your friends, and then they try to raise money. That's what screws them up. Raising money is not an accomplishment, it's an obligation. If at all possible, you want to start just organically with sweat equity, those are the best businesses because you get to retain 100% of it. There's no rush. Then the second mistake people make is they push the top line instead of the bottom line or gross margin dollars. It's like, Oh, I'm a million in sales. Like, that's an accomplishment or 10 million. Where if you've raised funding, you have your quote unquote KPIs, right? What's the new one? Qoks or something. There's something ridiculous. I don't know.

They always come up with these acronym.

What is it?

I don't know. Just the one I started seeing. And so everybody's like, oh, yeah. And they think it's an accomplishment if you're doing, I went from 1 million to five million in sales. Okay, that's somewhat great. But what matters is what's your gross margin? Because if you're in that hamster wheel where you're growing, but you need to keep on raising money to grow.

Right.

That's not good. No. If you see what's happening now when people can't raise money, you're done. And while others have said, well, I've raised 30 million or 50 or $100 million, unless you have a really good reason, your relativity space, and you need to raise money because you're building 80-foot-tall 3D printers. You're not going to do that out of your basement. But for most entrepreneurs, it's something where it's an arbitrage on their time. I can do this more efficiently than Jan or Mark can. So it's worth it for Jan or Mark to buy this product or service from me so that they can use their time more efficiently. So effectively, I'm so efficient that my cost to do this is $10. You value it at $25. I sell it at $18. We're both happy. Most people sell an arbitrage on their time. But that's basically what their product or service is, but they don't look at it that way. They look at it, say, Okay, I'm creating this. I'm going to open up my own training facility because I'm a personal trainer and I have 40 clients and I need a place to take them, why not open my own?

I'll get six dollars or I have a beauty salon, and I'll have slots for eight other stylists to come in and rent a spot. They don't think it through that. You got to make money at this stuff. It's not just about top line, it's bottom line. And I think that's where most entrepreneurs make their mistake. And if you get caught up in growth, you can grow yourself out of business. And most people don't realize that.

It's true. Also, do you think that people... I feel like it's become the sexy thing to do now, the word entrepreneurs. I hope so. It's hot and sexy. It's because of you, actually. Shark Tank has made it much worse.

No, but Shark Tank has definitely... But if 90 % fail, 10 % could change the world.

Yes. And let's The cost plus is going to probably change the world.

I always tell entrepreneurs, when I talk to kids, I always tell them, just ask yourself a question, why not me? Why can't I be the one that just changes everything? Because one of them is going to. That's true. And Even though some might feel entitled, some might not do the work, some may be lazy and not realize how much work is involved to be an entrepreneur, that happens. You're going to find the same thing if you're a carpenter, a videographer, an editor, where some people don't do the work and the great ones do. This is cliché now, but I say it all the time. It doesn't matter how many times you fail, you only got to be right one time.

You have a lot of these good-I know. I love them. How you do anything is how you do That one I stole. That one really wasn't yours. Hold on. I have one here that I really liked. Hold on a minute. Which one was it? Because you have so many good ones. Most people don't put it. Which one was it? Practice until you can't... That one, I'm not sure. I stole that one. Was that nick Saban, actually? Practice until you can't get it wrong? No, that's been around for a long.

Yeah, that's been around a long time.

Which one's selling? That one on selling.

Oh, Sales Cures All. Yes. Yeah, that one's mine.

That's yours? So basically, what you mean is, if you can sell, then that's all it really matters, right?

Then you're gold. Yeah, you're good. Because no company has ever succeeded without sales.

You need sales, no matter what.

Otherwise, you're out of business before you start. Exactly.

Sales Cures All. So does that mean that you have to be a good salesperson as well? Yes.

Because if it's your baby and you don't love it enough to be able to sell it or figure out how to sell it, it's awful tough.

Well, look at you. You're already established and you're going on all these things promoting these companies that you're involved with. Most people don't have that ethic to do that work ethic. They get bored. They think they're good for it now. They don't want to do it.

I don't do a lot of these, but-Not a podcast, but you're out there talking about whatever. Look, I've got a platform that most people don't have. Well, yeah, for sure. But it brings up a good thing.

I need more dollars than most people. Yeah, right?

That's a whole other story. But I wasn't always in that position. Right. And so even back in the day when I had MicroSolutions, my first company, after I got fired, one of the things I learned, I learned a lot from companies I got fired from. Most of them, it was like, what not to do. I had my boss that fired me, a guy named Michael Humecki at the software store. H-u-m-m.

Exactly. At the software store. I love it.

Anyways, that went out of business three months later. You fucked up, Michael. Yeah, he sure did. Yeah, thank you for doing it. But he would never go on sales calls.

He would never... See? He probably thought he was too good for it.

He was a CEO. Yeah. And I had another job, same thing. David, I forget his last his name out. But he told me where to buy a suit when I was buying my suits, too, for $99. That's great. My shirts, I would wear buttoned-down shirts, but I bought them at this place called The Clothes Horse, which is all resale. I went five years before I bought my first business shirt that someone hadn't worn before.

Oh, really? Yeah. Wow.

I like that. But I learned you got to sell. Because in my experience, the CEOs, the owners, the founders that didn't sell, they all failed. Yeah. With no exceptions, 100% of them failed. When you're just starting and it's just you, who else is going to sell?

Nobody.

That leads to another mistake entrepreneurs make. They try to hit hiring home runs. So the minute they hit a roadblock, I'll hire a new marketing person, or I'll hire a new head of sales, thinking that, Oh, this person is amazing. No one's ever hired somebody and said, They suck really bad. I found the most amazing person. Why did they leave their last five jobs? Oh, they were amazing, but...

That's such a good point. See, I love how your brain works. It's so practical and common sense.

It's pragmatic, yeah.

It's common sense, but common sense isn't so common.