all the advice you can from adults who are willing to help out. If you have access to financial resources, be accepting. And if you don’t, be resourceful. This book will help you make the most of what you have, or be successful despite what you don’t have. Most of all, don’t be afraid to ask.
• ENTREPRENEUR
• O’SHARES FOUNDER AND CHAIRMAN
• STAR AND INVESTOR, SHARK TANK
MY FINANCIAL GROWNUP MOMENT
My financial grownup moment came during my final year of high school when my stepfather, George, sat me down and asked me, “What do you want to do with your life?”
I told him that I didn’t want to go to university. That I was going to be a photographer.
George proceeded to explain that “to be, or not to be” isn’t the question. The question is: What are you willing to do in order to be what you want to be?
MY LESSON TO SHARE
If your dream is to become a photographer, writer, or artist, you have to be willing to make a lot of sacrifices to support that goal. I simply wasn’t willing to take the risk of all the tasks and jobs required to support my dream of becoming a full-time photographer.
I wanted to make money, and lots of it.
Today, thanks to George’s advice, I’ve built a successful career that allows me ample time and resources for my real passion – photography.
FOCUS ON YOUR FINANCES TO ACHIEVE YOUR DREAMS
KEVIN’S STORY ILLUSTRATES a common and costly myth that often prevents young people from achieving their dreams – the myth that following your passion will necessarily pay. If you really want to follow your passion, find a way to pay for it.
Following your dream doesn’t necessarily mean that you should do that for income. It may mean finding a different way to pay for it, as Kevin does. And by the way, having interviewed Kevin a number of times and gotten to know him a bit, I can tell you that he’s enjoying himself in the paying part of his career as well. Making money is a lot of fun for him.
Be willing to make sacrifices to support your goals
Being a financial grownup means proactively focusing on your finances. Doing a good-enough job will allow you to follow your passion. Later in the book you’ll read some other stories of super-successful entrepreneurs who had passions that would never pay enough to be their primary source of income. Don’t cry for them. By following a profitable and financially more-realistic path, they are now able to achieve their dreams. Kevin’s co-star on Shark Tank, Mark Cuban, for example, is now the owner of the Dallas Mavericks. He’s one of the most outspoken and passionate sports team owners out there. He achieved that dream by making money as a driven and relentless entrepreneur. Use money to achieve your real dreams.
There are, however, passions that can pay. Many people truly love what they do to make money.
Like Kevin, Sir Martin Sorrell, who heads WPP, the world’s largest communications services group, also got advice as a teenager from an older mentor. His enthusiasm for the field of advertising is so strong that his passion and means of financial success did become one and the same.
• CEO, WPP
MY FINANCIAL GROWNUP MOMENT
I was 14 years old. My father used to run the radio and electrical retail division of a big industrial holding company, which was one of the first conglomerates in the U.K. He ran the retail division. Rather like Circuit City (That was!), but it had 750 stores throughout the U.K. And the guy who ran the holding company, which was an engineering company as well as retail, had a massive country house down in Sussex, I remember, near the White Cliffs of Dover. It was called Warninglid. We were at Warninglid walking around the estate and the man, whose name was Sir Charles Hayward, as he became known, said to me: “What do you want to do when you grow up?” (It was rather like The Graduate’s “plastics moment.”) And I said, “Please sir, I want to go into business.” And he said, “Well, if you want to go into business you should go to Harvard Business School.” And that sort of stuck in my mind.
Find something you enjoy
I was at Cambridge University in 1964, going to the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City. It was the “Lyndon Johnson Coronation,” as I called it. You had the poster outside the convention with the Barry Goldwater slogan saying “In Your Heart You Know He’s Right.” It was Goldwater against Lyndon Johnson one year after the terrible assassination of John F. Kennedy. And anyway we were there for the convention and the platform hearings in Washington, DC, and I decided that I would go up to Boston, while I was in the U.S. It was the year of the World’s Fair as well, in New York. I decided I would go up to Boston and register my application for Harvard Business School, which I did in 1964, and received entry in 1966. And ’66 to ’68 I was there, so that was the moment of awakening. That was The Graduate Dustin Hoffman “plastics moment.”
MY LESSON TO SHARE
My view is find something that you enjoy. The most important thing is to find something you enjoy doing from a career point of view. Not something that is work. In other words there is all this debate about work-life balance; I am not sure I buy that. Because if you can, find something that is almost like life, as opposed to work. In other words, a thing that you enjoy. So, for example, I worked for Mark McCormack, who founded and developed IMG and managed Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus at the beginning. What he did is sort of exemplary of what I’m talking about. He was a scratch golfer. He was at Wake Forest. He met Arnold Palmer. He thought golfers needed professional advice so he thought: Wouldn’t it be good – he was a lawyer – if he advised golfers like Arnold about golf and about their career. And since he was a scratch golfer it wasn’t work for him. As he used to say, it was fun. So you find something that is fun where that division between work and life is not apparent. You develop a reputation in that industry, as my father used to say. It doesn’t have to be a reputation such that Reuters would interview you. But you develop a reputation, you know, amongst peers, and then if you want to do something on your own, which I did when I was 40 years old (which was probably a little on the late side), you go out and start something on your own.
Don’t be in a hurry. You know the conventional wisdom is to flit from flower to flower. You know, get experience in many companies. I disagree with that. I think you should build a reputation with one company, build a career with one company, then if you fancy doing something on your own, having got knowledge or a reputation in that industry or particular industry, then go ahead and do it. I’m biased because I’m trying to run a company and build long-term brands, but I think focus, rather than flitting, is probably the best.
FIND MENTORS
