I’ve been reading a lot on Mark Cuban lately, yes, the Mark Cuban – owner of the Dallas Mavericks. You either hate him or you love him. I love him. But no seriously, I’ve been grinding it out pretty hardcore lately, putting in some solid hours and his writings and ideas on life, business, success and entrepreneurship just really struck a chord with me.
You see, I’m a little bit of a dreamer (which is great!) and you should be too. But the problem sometimes with dreamers is that they get too stuck in the dream. Mark writes about the fact that there is no substitute for hard work.
Mark Cuban began life as a bartender who taught himself how to program computers, then he got a job in sales for a computer company, then realised he could do the job better. This was after his boss chastised him for making him look like an idiot. Guy starts a little computer company that’s super customer focused, on the way meets another younger than him garage geek who had some computer parts he needed – this guy by the way turned out to be Michael Dell. Then sold that company for $6 million then started another company and sold that on to Yahoo for $2billion or whatever ridiculous number it was.
Point is is that Mark Cuban just grinds hard, he was in there day and night programming and figuring out what his customers wanted.
What are the keys to success? From the big man himself:
“People always talk about their dreams. You know, I think the biggest lie in all of business or all of mentoring is follow your dreams. If you think about it, we all have dreams. I started off wanting to be a baseball player. Then I dreamed of this, I dreamed of that…you realize that where you should go is where you effort takes you. You find yourself. I practiced baseball and basketball and loved it, but then I found myself spending more time with business and learning about business and running business or being involved with business. It really was my effort that drove me. So, I always tell people don’t follow your dreams, follow your effort. Where are you willing to put in the time? Where are you hungry enough to put in the time? Because that’s where you’ll get results.”
What drives you? What drives you night and day and makes you wish like you didn’t have to sleep to just keep going at it? Focus that power and then just do work. Put your head down and go for it because the one thing that all successful people have done is gone out there failed, failed again, failed some more, failed one more time and finally made it. They kept going at it because they were hungry. That’s ultimate purpose, these people didn’t just stay on their path, they completely walked off the path and beat their own.
The Shining Man. Path. Purpose. Masculinity.
The Shining Man 