The Unexpected Actions That Hold Golden Lessons!
Image: 
Some people celebrate their victories by splurging on a pricey Rolex watch. Mark Cuban is not one of them. At the age of 32, soon after selling his first startup, MicroSolutions, for $6 million, he took off his watch and threw it away. Cuban shared this story at a SXSW conference earlier this month.
“After achieving financial security, I didn’t want to feel like someone else owned my time. Time is an asset that you can never get back. You can never truly own it, but I wanted to have control over it and spend it the way I wanted to,” said Cuban, who credited his father for inspiring him.
It is known that Cuban’s father used to work 60 hours a week at an auto upholstery company in Pittsburgh. Young Mark Cuban would occasionally accompany his father to work and learn about the value of money.
“That time was not spent learning about upholstery. It showed me that they had no future because time should always be spent serving others. My father wanted me to forge my own path,” he said.
When Cuban’s next company, the audio streaming service Broadcast.com, was acquired by Yahoo for $5.7 billion in 1999, the billionaire took an even bigger step to protect his time: he bought a private jet for $40 million to save time on travel.
“The private jet was my goal because the asset I value the most is time. What I can do is save time on commuting. It’s fantastic,” said Cuban.
Currently, Cuban still wears an Apple Watch to monitor his health metrics, but his view on time remains unchanged. The majority of his daily time is devoted to his family, the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks basketball team, the Shark Tank program, or his pharmaceutical company, Cost Plus Drugs.
“I can live life on my own terms, the way I want to,” said Mark Cuban.
A 2018 Harvard Business School study showed that valuing one’s time over money leads to increased happiness. This philosophy particularly resonates with Mark Cuban, who in a previous interview stated that wealth has never been his top priority.
“I always think about time. It’s what motivates me. How can I control my own destiny? How can I control my own time?” said Mark Cuban.
It is known that every morning, Mark Cuban spends an hour answering emails on his phone. In a recent podcast, he mentioned that this helps him reduce time-wasting phone calls.
“The thing that money gave me was freedom,” reminisced Mark Cuban, adding that he saved most of his money from transactions to live life at his own pace and pursue his interests without worrying about work and money in the future.
Besides valuing time, Mark Cuban is also an avid reader. In Bill Maher’s “Club Random” podcast, he emphasized that people over the age of 30 should read books every day, as not doing so limits their personal growth and professional careers.
“People who are 40 and older, even 30 and older, if they don’t read every day, they’re limiting themselves because they’re not expanding their minds. I tell my kids that people who don’t read live one life, but those who read live countless lives,” he said.
In fact, Cuban’s perspective is backed by scientific research. A 2016 study conducted by researchers at the Yale School of Public Health found that reading books for 30 minutes a day extends the average lifespan of participants aged 50 and above by more than two years, regardless of health, wealth, gender, or educational level.
Cuban himself is a voracious reader. In 2018, he told CNBC that he spends about 4-5 hours a day reading news, emails, and learning about domestic and international technology trends.
According to Forbes, as of April 1, 2024, billionaire Mark Cuban has a net worth of $5.4 billion. He is known as a prominent investor who has invested in various startups such as Luminaid and Mahmee, as well as being a “shark” participating in multiple seasons of the show, Shark Tank.
“What happened in the past taught me a lesson I will never forget: When you’re only concerned and chasing money, it never works efficiently,” he said.
Source: CNBC Make it