Driving home from an evening meeting I was listening to “How I Built This,” an NPR interview show (and podcast) with entrepreneurs. This particular episode was a fascinating discussion with and story about Mark Cuban. Mr. Cuban is well known for being on Shark Tank and owning the Dallas Mavericks.
He became wealthy via a few business endeavors, the biggest one being the invention of streaming audio on the Internet. He said this came about because he wanted to listen to University of Indiana basketball games while living in Texas.
But, the point of this memo is something the host, Guy Raz, asked Mr. Cuban. At one-point Cuban was in his 30’s and a multi-millionaire. Raz asked why he didn’t just “retire” and not work. This is what separates entrepreneurs, good business people, and those who love what they do from the pack of people whose top dream is retirement. The reporter had a hard time understanding why a rich person was still driven.
I know firsthand about this because my dad went from the former group, as one of the most dedicated employees a firm could want, to the latter group after his company did something underhanded to a group of employees, including him. After he died I found a letter to his boss detailing how much sick time, vacation, and other “off days” he had, how he would use them to determine the date he could stop working, and have his retirement kick-in on his 62nd birthday.
Most, if not all, of the people reading this love what they do or are in the process of finding that something they’ll love. It really is a mindset.
“Normality is a paved road; it’s comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow on it.” Vincent van Gogh
