Mark Cuban got famous by glorifying entrepreneurship.
Founding a startup became sexy, so television created shows like Shark Tank (that made Mark famous) to attract more business wannabes. Before we go any further…
This is not a billionaire hit piece. Sorry. I’m not your guy.
Mark Cuban has done plenty of good in the world. He’s a clever business men with strong principles. I particularly love what he’s done in Web3. But Mark’s philosophies around work and productivity are ridiculous.
You don’t need to outwork everybody in this recession or become obsessed with getting rich to live the good life.
“You’re not going to outwork me”
Yuck! I just vomited in my mouth after I heard Mark say this.
Why do males (boys) think working is a football game, where whoever makes it until midnight in the office gets a Super Bowl trophy. You want people to outwork you.
Working the hardest doesn’t make you the smartest.
The highly intelligent workers spend 4 hours a day in a flow state and then bugger off to hang out with the family and recover from the intensity of the work they did.
“If you don’t work hard, then somebody else will”
Let them Mark.
That person will burn out. That person is delusional and doesn’t understand the true meaning of productivity. The best ideas come to us when we experience boredom or disconnect.
The problem is being bored has been outlawed by TikTok.
If there’s a spare moment we look at our phones because we can’t bare to face the reality that silence brings.
All this hard work p*rn only makes the problem worse. When is it okay to feel again? Because I can’t feel anything when I’m drowning in work and haven’t had a holiday in 2 years.
“Your competition are out there trying to take you down”
Ohhh please Mark…seriously.
This isn’t a Saving Private Ryan war movie with Tom Hanks. Calm down. Not every person around you is your competition. The only real competition is yourself. To survive this recession you want to focus on being better than you were a year ago.
If that makes you rich then good for you. But if it doesn’t then there’s much cooler stuff in life than Lambos and back-to-back angel investments.
Some of us just want to chill the heck out and enjoy life. We don’t want competition. We see fellow humans with lives to live doing the best they can to make it through the recession and survive record-high prices.
This fake enemy of “competition” only makes life and work worse.
“If you’re really good you’re going to inspire them to work harder, faster better”
No Mark. Soz.
If you’re really good as a leader you’ll shut up about working hard and treating people like cogs in your personal profit machine. You’ll treat them as humans. You’ll show some emotional intelligence.
Most of all, you’ll see that silly statements like this are created by an out-of-control ego. That’s why I don’t watch Shark Tank anymore.
Too much ego, not enough humanity.
Good leaders will inspire people to help each other out in this recession and stick together. Good leaders will be there for those who get unexpectedly laid off and need support or a simple reference.
I don’t want to work harder, faster, better. That’s what caused my mental health issues from 10 years ago in the first place.
Truth: we want to work less.
Entrepreneurship is ridiculously glorified
Like we’re all Marvel superheroes. Seriously, relax Max.
I used to write about entrepreneurship but it became so cringe that I stopped. Too many WeWork Adam Neumanns. Not enough care.
So now when I write about online business or entrepreneurship, I use the side hustle label instead. It feels more human.
The glorification has to stop. Thinking we’re all going to be billionaire Elon Musks that send rockets to Mars gives us false hope. Most of us won’t be startup founders that employ hundreds of people.
And that’s okay.
Glorification is the real p*ndemic. Less selfies. Less bank account screenshots on the little birdy app. Less talk of the next Uber.
We’re freaking tired of it.
Business doesn’t need to be so serious and full of ego to be fun and change the world in the process. You can just take a chill pill, you know.
“Work like someone’s trying to take it all away from you”
I know people who’ve had it all taken away from them.
I’m one of them. I lost my successful startup in my 20s. It nearly ruined me. I kept thinking, “I will never make it all back again.” And I didn’t.
Best freaking thing that ever happened to me.
When you lose everything you discover who you really are. That unintelligent entrepreneur ego you develop dies an instant death. Humility comes back so relationships get reborn.
The meaning of money changes too. You stop chasing it like a dog running after a shank bone.
Losing everything isn’t an idea to fear.
Here’s a better strategy than outworking nobodies
(It’ll help you thrive in this recession and get wealthy instead of rich.)
Work smarter
Overworking is donkey work.
You don’t want to be a frontline over-worker for your entire career. Instead of working hard for no reason, note down what work you currently do. List all the tasks and processes.
Divide the list into “keep doing” and “consider outsourcing.” Break each task into a series of steps. Systematize the process as you go.
Then either hire a digital employee like Zapier to do some of the manual tasks, or get a virtual assistant in the same country you live.
Smart not hard.
Diversify as if your big break could burn in hell
Working hard on one single opportunity is where people go wrong.
Opportunities can suddenly die. Going all in carries enormous risk. The smart way instead of working hard like a Mark Cuban groupie is to look at where your income comes from and add more income streams.
If you have a job then you’ve got one customer: an employer.
Sell the same work skills twice and add 2–3 contract customers after hours. Then slowly over time reduce your hours at your main job and work for multiple customers.
Forget company loyalty
Mark secretly wants his employees to worship him.
But that’s a dumbass move. As soon as times get tough layoffs go exponential. The fake idea that companies care about you is the real issue. They don’t. A business is designed to maximize profit and pay you the least in the process.
To care or overpay you goes against capitalist philosophies (that run the world). May as well face the harsh truth.
I used to be a loyal bank jockey. Then I saw the truth for myself when the bat virus struck and jobs got destroyed faster than I piss after a night on the booze.
So what I recommend is to start being disloyal now, because your employer will happily cheat on you with a better candidate who can easily replace you. Go on LinkedIn and mingle with recruiters and hiring managers. If anything goes wrong at work then simply make your move.
Be loyal to yourself and your family. Nobody else.
Outwork this instead
What Mark doesn’t say is that instead of outworking people you should outwork inflation.
Inflation is how the time you’ve been allocated to live on earth is slowly eroded away. If you don’t constantly think about inflation, then every minute you work harder to get paid less for the same work.
Outwork inflation by getting a financial education.
Make money online and get a side hustle
This is how you eventually move away from having to outwork everybody.
The internet creates leverage over time. The same effort today produces exponential results in the future. And there are still whole places on earth that are not all online yet.
Figure out how you can make money online rather than endlessly work hard.
Final Thought
Overworking is the dumbest idea in the world. Don’t listen to the billionaire football jocks on this topic.
There’s more to life than working hard. Use this recession to thrive by prioritizing diversification, online income streams, time to think while being bored, and financial education.
That’s how to get wealthy rather than burnout-rich.
