MARK CUBAN
SECRETS OF SUCCESS
EPISODE 73
Continuing our 'Media Innovation' series, we deep dive into Mark Cuban in Episode 73 and listen to his techniques at staying successful, and being ahead of competitors.
Entrepreneur and professional sports team owner Mark Cuban has ventured into many diverse businesses. He made his fortune through the sale of startups MicroSolutions and Broadcast.com in the 1990s, and later became known as the zealous owner of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks.
Cuban has also invested in film production and has appeared on such TV series as Dancing with the Stars and Shark Tank.
SHOW OUTLINE
INTRO
How to stay ahead? Remember that there’s always someone working 24 hours a day TO TAKE IT AWAY FROM YOU
Mark Cuban's 5 Secrets to Success
MARK’S SECRETS
Quick and dirty rules for entrepreneurs? Sell, take your time, and don’t lie to yourself
3 essential rules for entrepreneurs
What are Mark’s practical tips to being financially stable
LEARNING V MENTORSHIP
Why he doesn’t believe in mentorships - you need to figure it out, and create a platform to do it yourself
The Real Reason Why Mark Cuban Doesn't Believe in Mentorship
Stay educated; make the effort and be a pro
Give People a Reason to Listen to What You Have to Say
OUTRO
What does Mark think about passion? Forget it
Don't follow your passion
TRANSCRIPT
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Mike Parsons: Hello and welcome to the Moonshots Podcast. It's an episode. It's a huge episode. It's a number 73 I'm your cohost, Mike Parsons, and as always, I'm joined by Mr. Mark Pearson-Freeland. Good morning, Mark.
Mark Pearson-Freeland: Good morning, Mike. It is another pretty sunny day in Sydney, isn't it? It's okay. A little bit overcast, but you know, as an English man, I quite enjoy this sort of weather.
What do you think?
Mike Parsons: Well, I, I can see you delighting in this. Uh, or terminal weather this fall weather of Sydney is very, it's a bit unfair. I don't think we should show off too much. Um, for those that are still enduring as slightly Chile, uh, wintertime in Europe or America. But Mike, there's a whole lot of warmth and energy on this podcast.
Um, we are going to continue our media innovation series. We just did Bob. I got. But for today we are taking a pivot into someone different, someone a bit challenging for us and someone who has many, many concurrent things with all those other innovators that we've studied who is going to bring us some new and fresh thinking today.
I'm glad
Mark Pearson-Freeland: I got to introduce him because he shares a namesake with me. It is Mr. Mark Cuban. He is a real powerhouse in the media space.
Mike Parsons: A lot of people
Mark Pearson-Freeland: will go into his career shortly. A lot of people are going to recognize him from shark tank as well as owning the Dallas Mavericks, which he bought in 2005.
But he was a real trailblazer in the media space, wasn't he? Mike? He set up the foundation of a lot of the businesses and verticals that I think we almost take for granted nowadays.
Mike Parsons: Absolutely. A leader,
Mark Pearson-Freeland: especially when they first came out and it was great digging into his background because he had so many different things going
Mike Parsons: on.
Yeah, he's, he's an absolute firecracker. Merck, that's for sure, isn't he? I mean, this guy, he brings energy in an abundance of staving.
Mark Pearson-Freeland: He's one of the most energetic, uh, audio clips and characters that we've probably profiled. In fact, I mean, we've had a lot of insights from a huge amount, well, this is episode 73, so from 70 to other innovators in the past, but I gotta say he is charismatic.
Energetic, you can almost
Mike Parsons: hear the passion
Mark Pearson-Freeland: coming out of every talk that he does, and that's, that's a lot of fun to listen to.
Mike Parsons: Yeah. He's, um, he's got a lot of energy and he's got a lot of naps because he was definitely a pioneer of really a streaming media, uh, way back in the day. So we're talking in the 1990s with broadcast.com that really was a full runner.
Of podcasting. It was a forerunner of Netflix, and he signed a nice little check, uh, with the guys, uh, for several years, billion dollars at Yahoo when it was acquired. And for those of you who don't remember that, in the nineties in the first.com bubble, he timed the sale of broadcast.com beautifully. And since then, what I love is he's gone on to do so many great things that you've mentioned.
And what I like about it. What's on offer for today is we're going to get into themes of energy. Um, how to, uh, not for a moment, sit on your laurels, but to earn everything. He is a competitor at heart. And he brings us some new thinking and doesn't be put off by his bombastic, goes get her attitude. Mmm. I think in here we've got a fundamental entrepreneur who really is a good guy.
It might be a bit tough on shark tank, but he really is a good guy, so we've got lots to learn. We'll eat. We've even dug up some fantastic financial wellbeing advice from him, some tips on how to save money and to build your own personal wealth. So this is going to be full of new themes. It's going to reinforce some of the.
All the things that we continually hear on the show. It's going to be a wild ride. But before we jump into my, I think we've got to give a shout out, Mark two, all of our listeners, we've put a big push and a big invitation out to our listeners to review the show and to write the show. Mmm. And I think we first want to say thank you.
Uh, because we've got so many ratings, the show has now been rated in the different podcast apps 92 times. A quick note to you all I left to, we hit the hundred. You can do it, but we've also had 24 reviews on all the different platforms. And the reason that this matter is it helps. Other new listeners discover the show and get to share in this sort of what we call learning out loud together.
Mmm. And I've got a Marvel at some of the usernames Mark that our listeners, they're like the best. I mean this, there's gotta be a business in this. They are fantastic. We're really grateful, aren't we? Mark.
Mark Pearson-Freeland: We really, really are. And we get so many lovely emails and you know the reviews from, well, I've called out boho snow pants before, but I've got to call out that name again.
What a great username.
Mike Parsons: Hang on from Canada. No, no less.
Mark Pearson-Freeland: Yes, exactly. Exactly. And all of you guys, you to send these amazing reviews, and just to build on what Mike was saying. The more reviews, the more interactions and so on that we get, uh, on this different podcasting, um, platforms. It does get the word out there. And if you guys are really, really digging what we have to say, we love it.
Thank you so much. We just want to spread the word. We don't. Mmm. We want to give everybody the chance to do this out loud
Mike Parsons: learning,
Mark Pearson-Freeland: you know, this is, this is what we do. So the more reviews, the more pushes,
Mike Parsons: uh, it's
Mark Pearson-Freeland: just going to help out other people find it out.
Mike Parsons: So thank you so much. So Mark. Yeah. I have to concur.
Super grateful. Let's push for another eight. Let's hit the big a hundred, uh, ratings in your favorite podcast-catching software. Mmm. And while you're old, jump into your, to your apps. Now let's read them up. Let's, let's get the energy going. Mmm. Mark, where should we start our market? Cuban adventure?
Mark Pearson-Freeland: But I hear the word revving.
I think of Mark Cuban, you know, I can imagine him as a little bit like a Tony Robbins. You know, he, I can imagine him really getting himself going in the morning. So we're going to start, we've got an action-packed show today. We're really getting into the thoughts are mindsets of this incredibly. UDL, but also charismatic guy, Mark Cuban.
So we're going to start with a little bit of an intro clip to figure out, okay. How do you stay ahead? You know, he's incredible, uh. Figurehead leader in this space? What does he have to say to us? How can I try to stay ahead in my space as well as everybody else's? You have tips for success.
Mike Parsons: One of them is work like there's someone working
Mark Pearson-Freeland: 24 hours a day to
Mark Cuban: take it from you because they are.
Right? Whatever. We have the sense that we go to work that we're in. We're irreplaceable, right? I do a great job. My boss told me I do a good job. People tell me I do a good job and we forget that there's a lot of people out there that don't have jobs that are looking to get your job, and so we tend to just get so caught up in ourselves and not think about the reality around us.
That's when you're working for somebody when it's your business. Oh boy. We know, right? This is the most competitive business there is.
Mark Pearson-Freeland: Again, there's
Mark Cuban: always someone trying to kick your ass.
Mike Parsons: All right, let's go to number two. It doesn't matter if the glass is half empty or half full. All
Mark Pearson-Freeland: that matters is you
Mike Parsons: are the one point water
Mark Cuban: It looks at situations and there's always a good thing is a bad thing, but. Really what it's about is are you taking control, right? Are you trying to control your own destiny? Are you doing, are you prepared? Is it half full? Is it half empty? It doesn't matter. You're pouring the water.
Mark Pearson-Freeland: The wisdom of Mark Cuban
wherever
Mike Parsons: I see people doing something the way it's always been done. That's just a big red
Mark Cuban: flag cause it's not original. Like Henry Ford useless have the same, you know, he said if I asked my customers what they wanted, they would have asked for faster horses. Right. And it's true, right? We just know what we know.
And when you see people just doing what they know over and over again, all you gotta do is ask yourself, what would I do differently?
Mike Parsons: That's
Mark Pearson-Freeland: what I'm talking about.
Mike Parsons: Yeah, I got a, there's so much in that Mark. There's, I don't know where to begin. I mean, you know, whether the glass is half full or half empty, make sure you're the one pouring it. I mean, does that not speak to ownership, taking ownership for your destiny for things that are gonna have it. And then I love this really practical thing when looking at ideas like.
What would I do differently is the question he asks when he looks at a problem and thinks about a solution. So don't just follow the herd. Do something original. Oh my gosh. Ma, what stood out for you? Like what's, what's the takeaway here, uh, from this first entree into the world of Mike?
Mark Pearson-Freeland: I think the,
Mike Parsons: the pouring the water,
Mark Pearson-Freeland: he's a very, very, Mmm, great analogy that you can.
Mike Parsons: Follow
Mark Pearson-Freeland: in your day-to-day life, you know, this, it's, it's quite empowering. At the same time, as, you know, motivating. I want to be that guy. It doesn't matter where there's half lost, half empty. I'm in control.
Mike Parsons: And
Mark Pearson-Freeland: for me, trying to, you know, gleam and learn from Mr. Cuban, that tells me, okay, well how can I take ownership of things?
How can I, Mmm? Take that away after the show today and the thing, okay, well. Where in my life and my career could I have that little bit more control? Do you know? And it isn't because I'm trying to take over necessarily, but it's how do you keep it on track? How do you have that empowerment to, you know, be a master, I suppose, of that space?
And then have that entree
Mike Parsons: as you, as you said. Hmm. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. I asked myself, I, Mmm. I really think about this ownership thing because what I noticed in myself sometimes is I can have a tendency to blame how this, so I really love the idea of always having a default two, uh, asking myself. How can I take ownership for the outcome and how can I ensure that I've done everything, not to ensure that I get the job done, but the those around me do two.
And I think that, um, it's not easy. Is it? Like when you think about taking, well, when we get past the idea of how you should take ownership and. Is it without a doubt? You can argue that Mark Cuban really does take ownership. He's a self-made guy. He's always working, always hustling. You don't get the feeling that he's enjoying the billions.
He's, he's making more products, building more businesses every single day. For me, I'm really challenging myself as I listened to this site. What does full and complete ownership look like? Because I think that is how much you've been has done it. He takes the responsibility for himself or his businesses for his organizations.
Mmm. How do you process this month, this idea of ownership?
Mark Pearson-Freeland: Well, well, just to build on that before we, um, before I tried to put it into my own words, it's something else that we're going to see in some of these other clips is. W w the reason why I think some people don't take ownership and sometimes aren't willing to step into the arena as, as our friend Brene Brown would say, is fear of failure.
If I am in control of pouring the water, aye, I might be afraid that some of it are going to get spilled. And I think what Mark Cuban is, is demonstrating. Again, we'll go through a lot of these in the show. It's okay because it's just important that you, you know what you're doing. You're in control. You want to be original.
You've got to be that. That's the innovator mindset. I think we've seen a lot of our innovators in the past.
Mike Parsons: That's interesting because you know, you could argue that that, that first part of what you're saying in referencing Brene is like, don't get stuck in your regrets. Don't get stuck in your failures.
Embrace them. Ask yourself, what is my story? I mean, that's what Michelle Obama did too. Like, what is my story? Own it completely. Um, and then start to make changes. And I love this idea of starting small. I, if someone's not exercising much, then just start with one short walk per week, and then the next week do two walks.
Right. Don't make it too big. And I think nothing beats having a dream or a vision for yourself. Mmm. And I think that helps you take ownership. And I, and I just want to do a bit of a sidebar here. Um, I've been obviously watching the last dance, uh, which is the Chicago bulls, a six championship documentary on ESPN and Netflix.
And the takeaway that I can share with you, Mark, and with our listeners is Michael Jordan. Easily the best basketball play in history. Michael Jordan may be the best athlete in history, but what underlies it is he took it, I'm going to shoot. He's when you see this documentary when you see what's behind it, or there is a desire for vision.
To be the best in the world at basketball. And then there is deliberate and purposeful ownership of that objective. Like he is not blaming, he needed to go through a journey to stop blaming teammates and to bring them into the process. But when he learned to be a team player. It was all on, and it was one of the greatest runs, in basketball history.
And what's so powerful is that Mark is teaching us the same thing. You have to own it. And I think that is such powerful learning out of all the things that he said, make sure you're the one pouring the glass a full half empty. Who cares? Life follows ups and downs. Go out and own it. And I think that's super powerful.
You. Well,
Mark Pearson-Freeland: I think the insight is once you take that ownership, once we take the ownership of being part of the Chicago bulls team or pouring a glass of water, it means that you're completely in control. And that's something that energy that you put into things, that's what you can control day today. So even if something was spinning out of control and it felt a little bit too much to handle, you know, uh, pressure in the public
Mike Parsons: or.
You know,
Mark Pearson-Freeland: somebody is saying something on social media, whatever,
Mike Parsons: whatever it might be. Your reaction
Mark Pearson-Freeland: as you've, you've said Mike, in the past, your reaction to things is what you can control.
Mike Parsons: So
Mark Pearson-Freeland: yes. How the passion and the time that you put into it, that's the energy that you, hello? Uh, in your hands. And I love this.
I do have ownership. I'm going to have to go and watch the last answer and see what a
That sounds great.
Mike Parsons: We might, we might need to do the last dance special episode.
Mark Pearson-Freeland: Yeah. So powerful. So
Mike Parsons: what's interesting about Mark Cuban is he takes that ownership and he channels that so much into entrepreneurship. And, um, as you can expect, he's got his signature, energy, ownership, tenacity, uh, that go get her attitude.
He's, he's total. Totally bringing it to life. And this next clip was him talking about some three essential rules for entrepreneurship.
Mark Cuban: I'm gonna give you some quick and dirty rules that every entrepreneur needs to be aware of. Number one, sales cures all. There's never been a company in the history of companies that's ever succeeded without sales. Anybody who's ever told you, don't worry about sales, you can grow it and then worry about sales later.
They're lying to you. It will fail. You will fail. You have to be able to sell, and you know who the biggest salesperson in your company has to be and you. The number two, selling is not convincing. Selling is helping a lot of people, particularly if you don't have a sales background or this is your first time in a sales think.
It's like, oh, I'm selling ice to Eskimos. Right? I'm doing something where I have to convince somebody to buy something they otherwise wouldn't buy wrong. That has nothing to do with anything. When you're selling, you're helping. They'll be. The whole concept of being a great salesperson is not about who can talk the fastest.
Even though I am
Mark Pearson-Freeland: talking kind of fast,
Mark Cuban: it's not about who can talk the most nonsense. It's about taking the time to understand the needs of the person you're selling to because if you can create a benefit for them if you can't show them why your product is going to be better for them and their life than the other options out there or what they were doing before, you are not going to have a company.
Mark Pearson-Freeland: The third.
Mark Cuban: The message is all entrepreneurs lie to themselves.
Mark Pearson-Freeland: We
Mark Cuban: all go through the same process. We tell ourselves this is the best. Everybody loves us and everybody. No one's going to not like my product. Of course, that's not true. What I like to tell people is when you have a company, when you're an entrepreneur, you have to figure out how to kick your own ass before someone else does it for you.
You have to look at your own company and be brutally honest with yourself and say, what. Do we do well,
Mark Pearson-Freeland: that's great,
Mark Cuban: but also be honest and say, what do we not do well? Where are our challenges, and then how can we improve them?
Mike Parsons: That's a big clip.
Mark Pearson-Freeland: There's a lot of good tips that Mmm. Just to, I'm going to, I'm going to propose something, Mike, and tell me what you think that okay. All three of those tips
Mike Parsons: come out
Mark Pearson-Freeland: of one core behavior. That I think Mark Cuban is, is demonstrating it.
Mike Parsons: Okay.
Mark Pearson-Freeland: He's talking about always be selling. You're saying it's okay to sell.
That's cool and no others,
Mike Parsons: right?
Mark Pearson-Freeland: And don't lie to yourself. I think all of those are coming from this insight of being aware, being knowledgeable. Hello? Uh, the awareness of your market, of your competitors, of your
Mike Parsons: product as well as your audience.
Mark Pearson-Freeland: Be aware of yourself. Be aware of your behavior and the way that you respond to things.
Again, similar to the first clip we got into, it's about ownership, but for me, this awareness, I don't know. What do you, what do you think? I feel like there's, there's something here than that. Won't let go of me.
Mike Parsons: Mm. I L I I think it, it stems in, don't guess no. And the way that you know, you've got something is to get out there and don't hide from presenting your solution to a problem.
And do you need to know? Don't guess, don't be optimistic. You need to know you're really solving a problem. And I think that this is what he's challenging us to do. Mmm. And I think inherently, there's a big tension in this because I think if you are an entrepreneur, you are by nature optimistic. Because you like creating something new, building something new rather than maintaining it.
But the challenge for us all is how to be objective when you're all going for it. You've invested so much. How can you call yourself out? I think the answer that he's presenting to us is because if you go out in the world and try and sell it if you talk to customers, you will find. Uh, the feedback that you need to make sure that you actually are providing the right thing.
And I think there's brutal honesty that he talks about is so important. I mean, if you, if you look at, uh, Eric Reese who's featured on the show and lean startup, he's the whole framework is born out of, and he spent several years. Many millions of dollars building a product that nobody wanted, and he would concur with my Cuban so much.
If he was listening to this right now, he would be nodding in violent agreement that he was never brutally honest about the product that he was building, and they managed to hire a lot of people and spend many tens of millions of dollars. And then realize, Oh damn, nobody wants it. Um, so that's Eric Reese from the lean startup.
If anyone's keen for a good book, I would very much head in that direction. But I think my question for you, Mark, is how when you're working on ideas and the stuff that we do for clients is all about ideas, opportunities for new products, new services, sometimes new companies. How, how do you make your, uh, how do you put a lens on your work to be brutally honest and objective and don't get it?
How do you avoid getting into the guessing game and subjectivity? Because there's a lot on the line. How do you try and keep yourself honest, man? Yeah.
Mark Pearson-Freeland: For me, it all stems out of subjectivity, where all the product of, you know, our experiences. I think there are two. Okay. There are two direct ways. That any of our listeners could be trying to replicate during their normal business.
The first one is, is the easiest. Talk to others. Talk to your colleagues, bounce around ideas. If you're thinking that your point of view is correct. Maybe it is, uh, go and talk to somebody else and express that. Get that dialogue going, get the conversation started. Because not only are you going to enrich your point of view and your experience by talking to others because they may illustrate something that you haven't considered yet.
You might actually be challenged because maybe you've, you haven't seen the whole picture. Maybe you're only seeing a part of the whole, Oh, the other part of it, and this is a little bit more. Mmm. Grounded in, Mmm, actionable work that you can do with your, your clients, your partners, and so on, is if you have questions around
Mike Parsons: a product or a
Mark Pearson-Freeland: the campaign of some kind, go and talk to your end-user.
Mike Parsons: Very, very simple.
Mark Pearson-Freeland: Yeah. We've, we've done, um, a lot of work in our past careers around talking to customers. There's a lot of good tools online and we can talk about those later. Okay. For me, it's all around, let's just double-check with the actual people who are going to end up using that product.
Mike Parsons: Right, right.
I think I think you're absolutely right, and I think that you can start to see that brutal honesty. Mmm. And all that tenacious energy has led to him, you know, building not only a lot of products and a lot of companies, he's sold them, and he's made a great, uh, an enormous fortune. Uh, it has to be said over $5 billion.
Mmm. And obviously, he took not only his company, broadcast.com, and sold it, he then took the Mavericks. To win the NBA finals. So he's not a one trick pony. This guy, Mark Cuban. Mmm. And we have got some great tips, uh, coming up from him now. And I want everybody to realize that, where not only my Cuban, but there's a really strong, um, way of thinking about money and wealth and finances, which I think is really powerful.
Which is to frame the idea of getting financial stability and wellbeing as a means to creating options in life. I mean, let's be honest, Mark Cuban doesn't need to work anymore, but he chooses to. So it cannot be only about the money. And so what you'll see, not only in the previous clips but also in the future clips, there's a real driver, a bigger vision of what he's trying to do.
But before we get to all of those, what I really want to do is segway into some really. Simple financial advice from Mark Cuban that I think we can all take on board because, Hey, if he's made millions and if he's made billions, let's, let's listen now to how he manages his money and gives us his guide to getting rich.
Mark Cuban: Hi, I'm Mark Cuban and I'm about to give you some advice on how to be just a little bit richer than you are today.
Mark Pearson-Freeland: How
Mark Cuban: do you get rich? Rich is all relative,
Mike Parsons: but shoulder. Certain things you need to do
Mark Cuban: in order to put yourself in the best position to be rich,
Mike Parsons: the first thing you need to do
Mark Cuban: is live like a student.
When you get that first job, that's really cool. I remember looking at cars and thinking,
Mark Pearson-Freeland: I want this
Mark Cuban: car. Fortunately, I kept my junker
Mark Pearson-Freeland: number two, he
Mike Parsons: shouldn't use credit cards.
Mark Cuban: I remember bill collectors calling me every two minutes. You're better off using a debit card when you need to just not use cash.
Mark Pearson-Freeland: Number three is saving up six months’ income.
Mark Cuban: If you don't like your job at some point or you get fired or you have to move or something goes wrong, you're going to need at least six months’ income. Then what I would do is probably put it into the cheapest SPX, standard pores mutual fund that I could find.
Mike Parsons: If
Mark Cuban: you're a true adventure and you really want to throw the hail Mary, you might take 10% and put it in Bitcoin or
Mark Pearson-Freeland: Ethereum,
Mark Cuban: but if you do that, you've gotta pretend you've already lost your money. And it's like collecting art. It's like collecting baseball cards. It's like collecting shoes. You know,
Mark Pearson-Freeland: something's worth
Mark Cuban: what somebody else will pay for it.
It's a flyer, but I've limited the 10%.
It's so hard to make a return on regular investments that you're better off when you see a sale. So for instance, if we, hopefully we're all using toothpaste every day, a couple of times a day, and we're going to go through to toothpaste every month, whatever it may be, you're better off buying two years worth of toothpaste when it's on 50% discount.
That's an immediate return on your money and your reusable consumables that you have to have when they're on a huge sale on Amazon. Buy em, cause chances are their prices are going up. But that's a real savings that you get to put in your pocket. Negotiate it using cash. I tell people all the time, if you're out, you're going to take a yoga class and they want to charge you $30 and say, look, I got 20 you know what?
Take it. Negotiating with cash is a far better way to get a return on your
Mike Parsons: investment.
Mark Cuban: I used to love to walk through bookstores when there were bookstores everywhere, and if there's something that caught
Mark Pearson-Freeland: my eye and I
Mark Cuban: thought he can give me one idea to spend $30 to give one idea that could help propel me, make my business.
It was better. It was a bargain. The only investment guide you'll ever need by Andrew Tobias used to get me all fired up. I'll read hours every day because all it takes
Mark Pearson-Freeland: is one
Mark Cuban: little thing to propel you to the next level.
Mike Parsons: Nice works
Mark Cuban: when you're nice to people around you, when you're caring, when you're empathetic, they're always going to get more results.
Running a company is not easy. It's hard, but the one thing that you can control in life is your effort.
Mark Pearson-Freeland: It's a, it's a long clip. It's full of really, really actionable tips.
Mike Parsons: But, uh,
Mark Pearson-Freeland: it's very good, isn't it? I mean, I'm getting a lot
Mike Parsons: of
Mark Pearson-Freeland: things that I can try and replicate during my day-to-day life. I can be obviously a little bit more considerate when it
Mike Parsons: comes to
Mark Pearson-Freeland: my finances and spending and
Mike Parsons: so on.
Mark Pearson-Freeland: Well, actually the three things that I wanted to, you know, call out and see, uh,
Mike Parsons: how
Mark Pearson-Freeland: I could try and do this more regularly.
Mike Parsons: Ah,
Mark Pearson-Freeland: sales. I love the fact that he's bringing up sales is very, very human. It's very, very, uh, he's like one of us, which
Mike Parsons: is
Mark Pearson-Freeland: great. A little insight. Despite it being able to, or the Dallas Mavericks, he'll still look for a good sale on Amazon, uh, books.
He's a really, really key one there. So when we are thinking about all of our innovators, let's use bill Gates for example. He is. Famous for the amount of work or me and at a time, he puts into reading books. He really becomes, absorbs in all sorts of different topics and touch points in verticals and his insight from Mark, the books of bargains.
How good is that? That's something that I can go home and do. I can immerse myself in dozens of books. I can just be like a sponge.
Mike Parsons: Yeah. I mean, you just, you, you, you can, you can look at the several tips that he gave us there and, and each of them we can, we can learn something from. The other thing is you can here how complete.
He is in making progress in doing new things. Everything from books to working hard. Oh my gosh. When was the last time you heard a billionaire talking about the toothpaste being on sale on amazon.com like seriously? Like when, when did you hear this? Right? When
Mark Pearson-Freeland: never.
Mike Parsons: So I think he, I think here is that he's opportunity to.
For, he sees growth in every opportunity and every challenge that comes by in all parts of his life. And you can tell that he is just continually, Mmm. Propelling himself to the next. Thing and everything are viewed by return, uh, on investment. I think what you can see here is the ultimate entrepreneur, the ultimate hustle of what it takes to build wealth.
And you're left with no doubt, Mmm. That he thinks about it all the time, but he's also working on it. All the time. And I think that's the greatest lesson that we can take here. This guy is no bystander. He's not a passenger in life. He's firmly in the driver's seat, and he is for good, bad, or otherwise.
He's going forward, isn't he?
Mark Pearson-Freeland: He is. He's unpretentious. You know, he, he knows where he wants to go. This is presumably behavior that he's been doing ever since. If first got into business selling garbage bags when he was 12 you
Mike Parsons: know? Yeah. Being okay,
Mark Pearson-Freeland: financially stable, and he's demonstrating this behavior of an innovator, which is, look for those little opportunities.
You know, those things around you. How everything, yeah. Adds
Mike Parsons: up.
Mark Pearson-Freeland: He's aware of. The market. Um, and ultimately, you know, what we're seeing in all these clips so far is he's playing to win.
Mike Parsons: Oh yeah.
Mark Pearson-Freeland: You know, he, he obviously works hard, but he's not afraid to count the pennies as well. He's, totally exposed to all of it because he, yes.
The exit, he loves it.
Mike Parsons: Well, there you go. That's the first half of the show. And we've already taken so much from it is being brutally honest. He is looking, uh, to make progress financially in every part of his life. And he's doing it with some great values of hard work and learnong in his own. Special.
Right. But more than anything so far, I think what he's given us is this idea is that you're the one pouring the water, whether it's half full or half empty. That glass, you are pouring the water in it. And I, and I think this is really important, particularly in a time now where there's a lot of uncertainty around us.
Mmm. Take a moment. Take control of your life. This is what we're learning from Mark Cuban and what we've got coming up is we've got some great thoughts on learning. We've got some great phones on mentorship and also some controversial thoughts similar. To that of count Newport about the following passion.
That's all to come in the show, but before we go there and Mark every show, we make show notes. We produce a ton of content on Instagram and Twitter and Facebook everywhere. Uh, where should people go if they want to launch into the universe? Okay. The moonshots podcast.
Mark Pearson-Freeland: You can launch your way into the stratosphere by visiting moonshots dot I O everywhere.
Uh, everything that we learn, all of our show notes, as Mike pointed out, as well as, some useful links, transcriptions, and the show itself can all be found on moonshots dot. I O.
Mike Parsons: Nice. So get typing, uh, hit the internet, and you're going to find a lot of goodies at moonshots. So IO. So now, halfway through the journey into the world of Mr.
Energy himself, the true Maverick. Mark Cuban. I mean, it's not surprising that his team is the Mavericks. I mean, there is no more appropriate name for a Mark Cuban basketball team. Then the Mavericks. Now we're going to enter sort of a different space, some different ideas. We get into actually hear from Mark.
Why actually doesn't believe in mentorships. And that's really interesting because mentorship is often a big theme of personal growth and learning. And certainly what, uh, we heard in our previous show is that Bob go was willing to take mentorship either directly. Or indirectly, he would learn from the people around him.
And, um, so it's really great that we've been able to find this clip. This is Mark Cuban talking about mentorship.
I think what you said a few minutes ago about
Mark Cuban: that, that
Mike Parsons: one of the
Mark Cuban: things you notice or the and
Mike Parsons: that you
re
Mark Cuban: recoil against is the idea that,
Mike Parsons: many entrepreneurs say, I need a mentor.
Mark Pearson-Freeland: An advisor, I need a coach.
Mike Parsons: I need you to tell me what to do. Right. Rather than getting dirty with it. So my
Mark Cuban: question is,
Mike Parsons: what role in your businesses do advisors play and do you turn to people and when do you do it?
Who do you think is smarter than you?
Mark Cuban: I always try to hire people that are smarter than me and that compliment my skills. Skillsets. Like I'm a, I'm a ready fire, aim guy, and I always try to partner with people that are very anal and perfectionistic. Kind of balanced me out or have a skillset that I don't have.
But once I'm going, I mean, I would go to events and like this and listen and learn and go to conferences. And when I get the opportunity, I'll ask questions, but I can't ever say ever where I've said,
Mark Pearson-Freeland: I'm going to
Mark Cuban: call this guy and just see what he thinks where this woman, and just ask. It's just not my style.
I mean, because at some point I'm going to have to be responsible for whatever that knowledge is. And also. Benefit of being in the technology business. And it's, it's a benefit because there's always something new coming. And I've always had the attitude that whatever it is, so if it's virtual reality, if it's the Oculus rift, it's new to everybody except the people who invented it.
And so at first base, like everybody else, and then it's just a question of effort of learning it as well as everybody else. So other than going to the originator of the idea of concept, product, service, whatever, I'm tied with everybody. And having the opportunity to learn it. So I'll just put in the time to learn it.
So from a tech perspective, and that's always served me well because once you understand these different products, you understand how they fit together. And it also helps you make decisions and understand what will work and what won't work. I mean, you're
Mike Parsons: kind of the definition of a self-made man,
Mark Pearson-Freeland: but
Mike Parsons: where are there people in your life
Mark Cuban: who you considered mentors?
Mark Pearson-Freeland: No,
Mike Parsons: really. I,
Mark Cuban: one guy worked, got a job out of college at a company called Tronics 2001. To franchise the computer. The television repair industry didn't have a long future, but it was a job and a guy named Larry who just would tell me the best advice that I've probably ever gotten, because I'm always go, go, go.
Even back then, and he was like, Mark, I want you to do one thing for me. When we sit in a meeting, I want you to take your pad of paper and your pen and up in the right hand corner, just write down the word. Listen to this day, that's what I'll do. I'll write down the word, listen to. We just to shut the hell up and see what they have to say.
But that's as close as I've come because again, I just, to me, by figuring it out, that creates a platform for me to go forward.
Mark Pearson-Freeland: It's a good, it's a good one. So the, again, there's a lot of. Lots of wait in all of these clips that we have from Mark, actually, they're full of good little tips that we can start to
Mike Parsons: replicate,
Mark Pearson-Freeland: especially that writing lesson in the top of a piece of paper.
I think that's one that I'm going to start doing, actually. Mmm. But for me, it's, it's controversial or it's going against what I think. We have seen in, in recent history of gravitating towards mentorships and looking for opportunities to learn from others, but actually it's not too surprising hearing it come from Mark.
This is the guy he's telling us. Forget about whether it's glass half full or glass half empty. Own the water, pour your own.
Mike Parsons: And this
Mark Pearson-Freeland: ownership, again, is, is starting to come through this responsibility of putting in the time and learning it yourself. This is an innovator who has been in a number of different verticals, you know, ranging from technology all the way through his sport.
And it's inspiring or empowering, perhaps to hear somebody who's as busy as Mark Cuban. TV shows as well. He still takes the time to become a professional ads, the area that he's involved in. So for me, in my day to day job, because occasionally we do go into different sectors ourselves. In business, it's an a, it's a call out that Mark's making, which is.
Don't just look to other people to be the best, uh, knowledge source in the room. Don't look for others too. Keep you informed. You can still do that, but actually putting your own time to go and learn to go and read, to go and be exposed. And I think that's, it's a nice, it is. It kind of pushing us away from this mentorship model and into a sort of DIY space.
What do you think Mike.
Mike Parsons: I love it because he's taking nothing for granted. And he's celebrating the Cal pneumo craftsman approach, and he's like, take full ownership. Go out. And really, I love the fact that he writes a listen in the top of the page, and that's basically the only good mentorship. Um, he's received.
But what you hear here, and I think this is really important, he's, he's quite prepared. Two. And things. He doesn't believe that he is entitled to have some Grandmaster, some Gandalf like figure come and explain the world to him. He's quite happy to go and work it out himself and he's hungry to do it. He's tenacious to go and do it.
And frankly, he doesn't have time for mentorship because he's too busy learning. I like this because when I think about, Mmm. The facts. That's my, one of the greatest ways that I have learned has been through doing this show, learning out loud with you, with Chad, with all of our listeners. This has been, it's such a wonderful journey, not only to share ideas, but for me to learn myself.
I'm not waiting for Mark Cuban. To pick up the phone and call me and explain everything to me. I'm prepared to go out, decode what's happening and ask myself, well, how can I do it too? So I think this is really powerful for everyone listening to the show is learning is your choice. You're in complete control of it.
Go out and learn like crazy. And I think I've been guilty of sort of waiting for the ultimate mentor to come and find me. Maybe I need to go fine. The knowledge and the wisdom myself,
Mark Pearson-Freeland: and I think we can all do that. I think you're quite right. It's very easy. It's waiting is one of the easiest things we can all do.
Mike Parsons: Uh. It's
Mark Pearson-Freeland: also one of the most dangerous things we can do.
Mike Parsons: Right?
Mark Pearson-Freeland: Time. Time is important to get back. You know, you lose money.
Mike Parsons: Sure.
Mark Pearson-Freeland: You can probably add it back if you're lucky. If you lose your job, you can work hard at getting another one. And you know, if you, if you lose time though, that's the most valuable assets that we have.
Mike Parsons: So, so using your inner Mark Cuban Mark, the question is. How do I stay educated? How do I make the essay and be a pro?
Mark Pearson-Freeland: Well, for me, there we, we're living in a time when I would argue it's never been easier to learn. We have dozens of platforms,
Mike Parsons: uh, around us
Mark Pearson-Freeland: in our day to day world in our pockets. Even
Mike Parsons: they even celebrated quite a good one on our last show.
If you remember Mark,
Mark Pearson-Freeland: we did. We did.
Mike Parsons: In fact, hang on, hang on. What, where should people go if they want to get some innovation tools, tools for entrepreneurs?
Mark Pearson-Freeland: I highly recommend everybody. Two, if they are. Being inspired by Mike and I talking about learning in this episode to go and check out a product that we make or bottom up.
Dot. IO. It is an online learning, uh, platform and a repository full of classes. And he notes around a lot of different skills, including design thinking, rapid prototyping, as well as some case studies of our favorite businesses that are out there. Mmm. So using that as a, as a perfect launching off point.
You can, all of our listeners could go to bottom up the IO right now, sit down and learn something within the hour. They're bite size courses, and I could go on to my podcast app of choice and find, again, a plethora of of great content on that, including from
Mike Parsons: bottom up skills.
Mark Pearson-Freeland: And I'd say that actually learning is only, you're only going to learn.
If you take ownership of your time and put it towards that thing.
Mike Parsons: Hmm.
Mark Pearson-Freeland: Wouldn't you agree? You're in control?
Mike Parsons: Yeah. Yeah. And when you're, when you're, when you're, uh, able to pull this all together, uh, you can do this just like Mark Cuban because what he does is when he walks in the room. He wants to know that he's got something to offer.
This is not dissimilar to Bob Iger who researches and prepares for his meetings. Let's have a listen now and see how much Cuban, here's people I reasoned to listen to what he has to say.
in
Mark Cuban: terms of being audacious and being boisterous or being controversial. The first thing you have to realize is nobody wants to hear what you have to say until you give them a reason to want to hear what you have to say. And for me, each industry that I've been in, whether it was the computer reselling industry and systems integration industry, when I had my.
Solutions or now into, you know, digital privacy and shrinking your digital footprint with cyber dust. Each time I've made the effort to go out and connect to the media within that industry, whether it was trade publications or in the case of the Mavericks, ESPN and television networks. And I've really, really worked hard at trying to be as educated about that industry as I possibly could be.
And position myself as just that, being very educated in that industry. From there, you know, I picked up the same from a guy named Randy Galloway, who was a radio host in Dallas for a long time, and he always said, you always got to check your whole card. And what I, I've used the media to always go out there and, and put out a hypothesis or put out an idea or put out a perspective.
Not being afraid to be wrong, knowing that if I am wrong, worst case, I'm going to learn. And from that it led to a lot of people think I was a little bit thinking I was a little bit crazy because I would put out suggestions and thoughts that made perfect sense to me that other people thought couldn't possibly be right, but gave me also the opportunity to hear their feedback, to see if I'm right or if I was wrong.
Mark Pearson-Freeland: That connects very well with. The clip that we were talking about earlier. Well, you can learn from others by having this dialogue, but also listen and research. You're in product with customers. What I liked about that though, and this is a good inside that I personally will take away. Yeah. Put into my
Mike Parsons: career aside from
Mark Pearson-Freeland: working hard, is knowing to have the confidence.
To go out, make the effort, put in the time to learn and be educated, but not to be concerned or worried or disappointed. Maybe that's the word
Mike Parsons: if I'm wrong,
Mark Pearson-Freeland: because if I'm wrong,
Mike Parsons: I will learn.
Mark Pearson-Freeland: Mm. And that's
Mike Parsons: a Oh cool. Yeah. And I think, I think that, uh, the way to build on that is to try, this is a nice little mantra to try and make every conversation an opportunity for you to give a gift.
Hmm. Maybe it's a tip. Maybe it's an idea. Maybe it's a book to read. Imagine if you, each meeting you had today. You just started with the idea, I'm going to listen and then I'm going to see if I can give one little bit of helpful advice, and that's what I like to call, like it's a little gift or it's a book or it's a link to something on the internet that might help them get the job done.
And then imagine if you did several meetings a day. Okay. In each of those you gave a gift and then every day of every week you did that. I imagine. Every week, 52 weeks of the year. Every time you're in a meeting or a conversation, you just had this mindset of how can I give a gift in this meeting, in this conversation, and look.
It's a work in progress for me, but this is sort of a really powerful mindset on how to give people a reason to listen is if you listen first and then you always, I understand and acknowledge what they've said and then say, Hmm, okay, well, if you're trying to do that, have you thought about this? Have you read this?
Have you seen this? Hmm, I like that. So make every conversation a gift. It's,
Mark Pearson-Freeland: it's a real challenge actually because aye, I'm going to try and do the same. To build on your point, Mike, I'm going to challenge myself. Two, go into my day to day conversations with, with. Friends, family and colleagues, and see how I can give them a gift.
Well, what, what would be a, what would be a, a format of the gift in your mind that you've, that you've been doing so far? Is it a, like you say, a book recommendation? Is it a tip on how to be more productive?
Mike Parsons: I think it can be all of those things, but those all assume that you've done. A diagnosis of a problem together.
You've both agreed that the solution looks like this. Then you say, okay, well how are we going to get that done? But sometimes the gift might be actually reframing the problem. Let's say somebody says, Mmm. You know, Mmm. I'm trying to run a faster mild. Okay. Yeah. And they say, Oh, I've been training so much.
Um, and uh, yeah, I just can't get a faster than, uh, five minutes per kilometer. Okay. No. They might might say, do you know any techniques I could use? Like, is it my arms or is it my knees or legs or whatever. And I mentioned all this, this cause I'm into running at the moment. So what would be interesting is you might say, Oh look, you should do these things.
Always look into the horizon. Always keep your head up, don't stoop over. Make sure you Stripe at the front of the foot. Those would all be technique things. But maybe the gift you can give is if you truly listen to them, you might say, well, maybe your technique is fine. Maybe you're training too much. Well, maybe you're doing the wrong distances in training.
Maybe you're not giving your body time to rest. To me, that moment, is it equal to that of, Mmm, if you give them a, a book, a tip, a link, or an idea on a solution. Sometimes it's actually reframing the problem. And a lot of the time when I talk to people, I often find they've been talking in their own head or they've been in an organization where the group think is, Oh, the problem is this, the solution is this.
And then if you ask more questions around the diagnostic, you ask them questions on, hang on, what is the real problem here? And then do the classic Toyota five whys. Oh, that's the problem. Why is that the problem? And then why and why and why you often get to the source of the problem. I think your gift can be helping them reframe the problem and that you can imagine someone in that meeting to use the running analogy might be like, Oh my gosh, I've never thought about whether I should do.
Uh, the sequencing of a long run, and then the next day, a short run. Then the next day, rest day, I never thought of it. I've just been running heaps and heaps and it just, I've maxed out. I can't go faster. So then they say, well, I wonder, then they reframe the question from how do I improve my arm action when I'm running two?
Well, how do I train better? And that will, even though it's another question that will feel like progress, because. They've actually made a step in a new direction. They've reframed the problem and they can already start to feel, Oh my gosh. So now I just need to find some good information on training programs and how I should sequence the days and how I should group together the activities and how I should level them up.
That's as much as a gift, as a good book.
Mark Pearson-Freeland: Mm. Good work. I love it. It's the, it's the context. This is around. So not just the technique, but context around what that problem might be. There's somebody bringing up, or the conversation that you're having. I mean,
Mike Parsons: to link it back
Mark Pearson-Freeland: to, to miss the Mark Cuban, you know, he's, I think where he would agree with you and yours.
Mmm. Advice here. Mike is. To make the effort to work hard too, to listen to that other person and to think about it from a, okay, well, I'm in control of how I react to this individual's conversation. How could I, as a potential educated individual in this scenario? Mmm. Add something to it. It's the awareness again, coming back in.
And that's great. I think Mark Cuban would totally agree with this. Reframing the problem. Again, it's a, and innovation and innovators behavior, isn't it?
Mike Parsons: Yeah. And someone who just wants to get the most out of life. Right. Um, because what's crazy is if every conversation is a gift, then people will want to work with you.
Mmm. In terms of your colleagues, uh, you'll a delight and support your family and friends. And you know, in the end we all have clients. And then you, then you really do become the trusted advisor if you're continually moving things forward with good advice. And I think when we look at moving forward in life.
One of the things that Mark is teaching us about is don't wait around for our mentor. Right. And what's very related to that type of thinking is what we've heard from Cal Newport, which is, Mmm, don't follow your passion. And the crazy thing is as different. I mean, you couldn't get two more different people than County Newport who we love and Mark here and who we love, but they intersect at the same point around this thought.
So the question becomes a Mark Cuban is about to tell us if we don't follow our passion. What do we follow?
Mark Cuban: One of the great lies of life is follow your passions. Everybody tells you, follow your passion. Follow your passion. I used to be passionate to be a baseball player. Then I realized I had a 70 mile per hour fastball.
I used to be passionate about being a professional basketball player. Then I realized I had a seven inch vertical. There's a lot of things I'm passionate about a lot, but you know what? The things I ended up being really good at was the things. I found myself putting an effort into. A lot of people talk about passion, but that's really not what you need to focus on.
You really need to evaluate and say, okay, where am I putting in my time? Because when you look at where you put in your time, when you put in your effort, that tends to be the things that you're good at. And if you put in enough time, you tend to get really good at it. And if you put in enough time and you get really good, I'll give you a little secret.
Nobody quits anything they're good at because it's fun to be good. It's fun to be one of the best, but. Better to be one of the best you have to put in effort to. Don't follow your passions, follow your effort. I'm gonna give you one other secret. The one thing in life that you can control is your efforts.
Mark Pearson-Freeland: Hmm. And it all comes back around this idea of ownership, this idea of being in control of. Areas that you, uh, you know, this is again, you know, like you say, it links back to our friend, the cow. It is approaching life in that slightly different equation. And that's going to be something that I'm going to trying to action as well instead of, and, you know, eventually talk to friends and colleagues and so on about it too, instead of waiting four.
An opportunity or Mmm behavior to come up. And that enables me to be a baseball player or a basketball player instead of I'm going to spend my time being proactive. I'm going to evaluate what I'm, uh, enjoying doing. And I love this. What you enjoy. Equals what you're good as. You know, you're going to spend
Mike Parsons: more time.
That's right.
Mark Pearson-Freeland: Do that
Mike Parsons: because, because there's a, there's a thinking here, um, that like, let's take the conventional wisdom that Mark Cuban is breaking here. We have heard a lot over the flight deck is follow your passion. Well, listen, aye. Like. A sport, but that doesn't mean like I'm really passionate about some sports.
Uh, I really love, uh, rugby. Really enjoy basketball and cricket. It doesn't mean I should be a professional right player. I love music. But I chose not to be a professional DJ. Um, and what's really important is my journey when I was deejaying full time is I actually lost, um, of my passion for the music because it became a job and not my passion anymore.
And so I think what both Mark Cuban and Cal Newport are challenging us to do is to find another source, which is what you're good at. What were you like to put your effort? And my question for you is, Mark, how do you know when you find something you're good at? Where do you, what's the market that all of our listeners can be looking for when they're asking the same question?
I think. It comes down
Mark Pearson-Freeland: to a desire, two spend time doing it. So rather than, Mmm. Having this dream that is in the back of your mind, I think what shows, Mmm. Whether you're good at something and whether you enjoy it is when you have an opportunity to go and do that thing. Let's say it's, uh, logging on to bottom up to IO to, uh, yeah.
Learn something new about design thinking. I think, yeah, that feels our listeners with as sort of excitement, I think excitement can, can, can be one of those indicators, then that's probably something that, that you enjoy doing. I think. Yeah. Ultimately though, it comes down to this inner motivation. If you can be, if you can motivate yourself, like Mark does to go out and.
Be educated in different sectors, in different verticals,
Mike Parsons: then you are a learner.
Mark Pearson-Freeland: You are an innovator. You're constantly, Mmm. Learning those new skills. And I think that's a good indicator as well.
Mike Parsons: But let's go deeper though. Think about today. When do you know, uh, if we're not following our passion and he's saying, follow your effort and your energy, how do I know Matt?
How do you know when you're actually, when you've actually got something. That you should pursue if it's not passion. What does this moment of goodness look like with energy and effort?
Mark Pearson-Freeland: I mean, it's, it's a good, it's a hard one.
Mike Parsons: I aye. Let me give you a thought starter. I think the thing to look for is when you feel a state of flow. When you feel so comfortable, even though the challenge might be a little bit stressful, that you're not worried about failure, you're keen to succeed, you're keen to do something well you face. An objective, you face a deliverable, but you relish the opportunity to beat in the moment and doing it.
For example, when I'm up in the morning and I'm just writing, that's when I know and there's no interruption. And I just get idea after idea and I build, this is a state of flow. When, um, even though despite. The energy that's being used. It feels effortless. It feels exciting. There's no worry about failure.
It is Hewitt desire to enjoy, to thrive in the very moment. You know, when people talk about losing themselves, I think this is a marker when ever you feel yep. Regardless of the objective and the challenge, you feel so comfortable. In the moment. So I, my question for you, Mark, is, when are the moments that you feel, not daunted by the challenge, but just thoroughly thriving in the moment?
Think about in your work where, where do you feel like, what are the moments that you're really thriving?
Mark Pearson-Freeland: I think getting under the skin of a, a problem with a client perhaps. So if there's a particular challenge that.
I think, in fact, I probably won't because ultimately my point of view might be subjective. Yeah. I think it's figuring out, okay, well what might be the process to help answer that question? So I think there's a logistics flow to it. You know, I quite enjoy. Getting into the habit of, okay, well where might I start?
What might that look
Mike Parsons: like from a to B?
Mark Pearson-Freeland: And I think that's where my flow kicks in and I start getting into that constant, it's almost like your, you're jogging at a pleasant pace, isn't it? You know, your Moraine, it's constantly, uh, being energized. It's not necessarily sprinting like a, like a puppy necessarily.
Instead, it's a constant state of Zen. Like. Attention. I suppose.
Mike Parsons: So. So what I encourage you and all of our listeners to do is ask yourself, when am I in moments that I feel like I'm thriving? I'm relishing the challenge. It feels. Effortless. Even though I'm working hard, it feels effortless. I think that's how you find, follow your energy.
You follow your efforts, and you can find this state of flow. And if you pour yourself into those, um, and look to spend more time, create more opportunities where you're in that state of flow. In fact, if you want to take four Mark Cuban. He would say, design your day. Design your life around. Those moments, maximize the number of moments where you're, do putting effort and energy into the things that create a state of flow where you feel like you're thriving.
And I think what's so important is to avoid the trap. Okay. I like music and sport, so I'm going to be a DJ at night and a sportsman during the day. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Follow your effort. Follow your energy. Oh my gosh. Mark. We are, we are getting like serious high level learnings from my Cuban, the Maverick himself.
I mean, cool. We are getting it because this guy is and really serving it all up on the show today. We know. Then he, for all of these Maverick energy, he starts every meeting writing, listen, and he's not waiting. For others to teach him, he will teach himself and he's going to take ownership four. The outcome.
Cool. Mark. It's a big show.
Mark Pearson-Freeland: And actually I have a feeling that we could probably carry on talking about Mark Cuban. You know, he's had such a busy career. Sure. But actually all the lessons that we've talks about, I think, I think we could go on, I mean, the thing that I'm going to take away, uh, personally is.
Apart from, obviously, as you say, that the challenge of when do I get into a good state of flow is
Mike Parsons: how can I
Mark Pearson-Freeland: be in control of my time? How
Mike Parsons: can I
Mark Pearson-Freeland: own the opportunity to learn? Two, have something to offer
Mike Parsons: to every meeting
Mark Pearson-Freeland: and, uh, you know, born out of your, uh, your new behavior, Mike, of giving a gift. I think that's a nice way to ground it.
Mike Parsons: So I'm going to work
Mark Pearson-Freeland: from now on with that in my mind.
Mike Parsons: Fantastic. Fantastic. ladies and gentlemen, if you thought our media innovation series had come to an end, you're wrong because we have one more, and this is going to potentially be the biggest. We're going to go into the world of Netflix and listen to their founder, CEO, Reed Hastings in our next show, and I love Reed Hastings.
He has not only. Done great stuff with technology. Not only has a, uh, created one of the greatest new media empires. And recent times, but he is also had done it through a huge focus on culture in the organization. And I think we have a lot to learn in the next show to episode 74 where we wrap up our media innovation series with.
Reed Hastings. Are you fired up for read Mark?
Mark Pearson-Freeland: I am. I'm very, very fired up. Reed's going to be a particularly interesting one too, to get into. I know he's a little bit involved in schools and politics as well, and I'm sure he's got a wealth of stuff that we can gleam and learn from him. So count me in.
Mike Parsons: Fantastic. Well, there you have it, ladies and gentlemen. What a show. A surprise Maverick, a little bit out of left field teaching us that it all really comes down to following your effort and just taking ownership and working hard every single day. Mark, I want to thank you for all your help putting the show together and being here together with me to learn out loud, to share everything we can from these great, innovative.
It is an icon. Wait until the next one. Mark, thank you to you. Thank you. To all our listeners. That is a wrap of the moonshots podcast.