September 29, 2020 • 35 mins
On Mad Dog 20/20 and Trump.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hey, Bethany, what's going on? We can hear you, you
can we can here, but we can hear you. You
can't hear us? Correct, I cannot hear you. Um let
me find out, but I hear what do I want
to know? What you're eating? I want to me I'm
meeting my list of healthy cookie Sorry. Hi, this is
(00:39):
just be with Bethany Frankel, and I am so excited
to share the first episode on my new podcast with you.
I kind of wanted to start out by talking about
why I'm doing a podcast. There are so many podcasts
out there. I'm sure it's hard to even keep up.
And I had a brief stint on the radio, and
I will get into why that didn't work, because it's
a very I don't know if you'll think it's a
(01:00):
funny story, but it involves me throwing a drink on
someone during a Cold Play concert who was blocking the audience.
And she may or may not have been married to
Gary Cone, who was working for Donald Trump, who and
he her husband may or may not have been the
person doing the first round of funding for Serious Radio
(01:23):
where the show was. She may or may not have
been sitting in a group of wo with sequin tops
on in large diamond earrings blocking the audience and may
or may not have thrown orange juice on her. And
then my podcast, I mean sorry, Then my radio show,
which was in negotiations to be on pretty much every day,
sort of dissolved. So anyway, I digress. We can get
(01:44):
into that story on another day and many others. But
the reason I'm doing a podcast is because even when
I'm on reality TV, there is an editing process. It
doesn't mean that it's not real what you've seen. It
just means that there's a narrative that is not necessarily
what I'm trying to put right. It maybe about my
relationship to other people, or my work or my dating
(02:05):
or something that someone else is controlling. And when I
write books, they usually have just one topic that we're
talking about, and it's, you know, easily a year before
it gets published, and it's just it's it's still it's
it's the written word, it's not verbal. And so a podcast,
for me, I've just felt like I need a place
to vent, to rant, to discuss, to educate, to learn,
(02:27):
to be sort of just to have fun, to just
kind of get into it, honestly, I don't think people
are gonna like everything I have to say, nor agree
with me, but I'm excited to have this medium to
talk about. What I want to talk about are just
things that I think in my head that I know
would be wrong to say, But like I'm thinking in
my head, so someone else has to be thinking. One
(02:49):
of you is thinking the things that I'm thinking about
every day. And the truth is, because of social media,
everything's out there and this is a scarier time for
a person like me who's so opinionated and polarizing to
do this. So let's go. You know what I mean,
I'm not going to do anything interesting by cowering and
being nervous to to say how I really feel. So
(03:09):
this is what that's going to be. It's going to
be not about just what I feel. But I want
to have people on here that want to be in
a real conversation that I'm not just gonna ask them
how do you balance your work in home life? Like
I'm not asking things that you've heard already that are
just regurgitated nonsense. It's not just for people to come
on here and promote a book. I want to hear
what they think about different things. I want to hear
what moguls and people who are self made people have
(03:32):
started from the bottom now they're here, what they think,
what they do, what they eat, how they live, and
how their minds work. I want to get inside people's
minds and have different kinds of conversations, positive and negative.
Let's see what happens. I literally, I'm going to go
through this with you, so we'll figure it out together.
But I'm excited and I'm just into it, so let's
(03:53):
get into it. So today we're going to talk with
Mark Cuban, who I really do respect and admire and adore.
He's just fun. He's half a dick. He's just smart, brilliant, opinionated.
He's the owner of the Dallas Mavericks. He's a Shark
Tank host. He's the Shark Tank host. So you could
(04:16):
tell them all pissed them all off. I don't care.
He is the main guy to me. Mark and I
are going to talk about how people become a success,
whether it's through hard work and dedication or devouring and
analyzing all the information you can. And let me tell you,
Mark is an expert a devouring information. We'll talk about
how we raise our kids, the reality of being a
public figure on Twitter, and Mark is going to share
(04:37):
a story about President Trump that I don't think he
was even expecting to talk about. So here it is, guys,
my conversation with Mark Cuban. Overall, I have really really
invested in this podcast in a way that I don't
with other things. I'm a wing it kind of person.
But with this podcast, because I'm talking to serious people
(05:00):
who their time is so valuable, I take time to
just prepare and think about who they are and what
makes them tick. And I'm just honored to say that
Mark Cuban, who I'm friends with, is a guest on
today's podcast. So welcome Mark Cuban. Thanks for having me on, Bethany,
I'm excited to be here. Thank you. I really mean it.
(05:22):
I know your time is so valuable. You wake up,
what five o'clock in the morning. No, no, but my
time is your time, Bethany. You already know that, You've
always known that, So whatever you need, I can say
I know a lot of smart people, and I the
way that your mind works is so fascinating, and that's
one of the things that throughout this conversation I want
to get into because you definitely tick in a different way.
(05:44):
You're you have a different clock. I know about a
tenth of what you know about in business, and that's
not that's not me just like fishing, That's truthfully what
I really think. Because you have so much data and
so much information, and you do so much research, you
are always woke about every aspect of politics, business, sports,
like you're just you devour information. I know that about
(06:06):
I'd love to read. I mean that that's the absolute truth.
I mean. Part of what also has worked for me
is I learned early on. You know, I got fired
from a company selling software and I started my own company,
and what I learned very quickly was that you know,
all this information is available to everybody, but very few
people actually put into time to learn it or to
(06:26):
get to understand it. And that just became a habit
for me. You know, whether it's reading about businesses, companies,
stark market, stock market, technology, politics, whatever it may be.
I just tried, you know, two three four hours a day.
I'm reading and learning and trying to stay ahead and
get ahead and keep up. That's fascinating. So for you,
(06:48):
you're saying devouring information, which I don't do as much
as you do. I do my boyfriend does it as
much as you do. And I love to be around
people like you because you're the type person that would
like I could call and you would just send me
this information or tell me something, or just like crystallize
something into something so simple. We were on Shark Tank
and we were looking at this pillow company that I
was obsessed with because it was playing sleeping music through
(07:09):
the pillow. And you were like, you you go, so
you like the fucking pillow? Buy a pillow for a
hundred fifty dollars, you have to buy the company. And
it was just so like just something that like a
dad figure who knows everything and he's read everything you
would say. You were like, buy the funker, I'll buy
you the pillow. So what I want to say, though,
is the same way that you say reading all that information.
I always say, it's not about bills and whistles. It's
(07:31):
not about filter, it's not about Instagram, it's not about bullshit.
It's about hard work. You be Michael phelps you get
to that wall. You don't look to the left or
the right, You swim, you work, You don't think about
what everyone else is doing. You do what you're doing,
and you have conviction, and you know, it's a great
bethany because a lot of people always, I'm sure they
do the same thing with you, well what business should
(07:52):
I start? And I'm like, well, if you don't know,
you know, no one's gonna tell you. You have to
do the work you know, or will you mentor me
and help me. You've got to do the work. You've
got to learn because one of the greatest assets you
can have in anything that you do is being excited
about learning, because the only constant in this life has changed.
I mean, look at what we're going through right now
(08:12):
and that change. You know. Hopefully we get past the virus,
and I think we will, but there's there's gonna be
new things that come down, and you've really got you
can't just be ignorant to it all, you know, if
you want to be successful, you have to put in
the time to learn. Well, yes, I think so many
people are thinking of this as a horrible time, which
it is because obviously, you know, unemployment has never been
(08:34):
at these numbers and people are just it's upside down.
If you help, if you happen to have an online
education program that you were working on, you're you're you're
crushing the game, and if you happen to own commercial
real estate, you're fucked. But what that does is that
makes this a whole different playing field. Like some people
can just literally start from scratch, because a lot of
people are just bottomed out and rock bottom. So let's
get scratched, you know, because you know, traditionally, typically when
(08:59):
you started, come and you're competing with a bunch of
big companies that have a huge advantage financially experienced wise,
customer base wise. But now, because of COVID and because
the social unrest, because everything that's happened together with that
and all the tragedy comes with it, you know, the
big companies don't. They're trying to figure out just how
(09:20):
to stay in business. They're trying to figure out, you know,
what am I going to do next? They're trying to
figure out how to deal with the social change that's occurring.
But if you're starting from scratch, you don't have those
legacy problems that have to address. It's fascinating what you're saying,
because it's true, I haven't thought I know that intellectually,
but I haven't really thought about the big business. Those
are big cruise ships you're trying to move ocean liners
(09:42):
and like they're just trying to stay on the water.
And the other small companies are nimble. Their sports cars
they can navigate. So that's interesting. I like, you know,
they don't have capital, they don't have anything but their
pissing vinegar and hard work, and that starts small and
just takes off. I tell people, you know, we're when
we look back in twenty years, they're gonna be hundred
(10:03):
world changing companies that were created right now because people
had a vision for the future and what it should
be like. You know, we we've seen that happened so
many times. You know, look at social media. Facebook didn't
exist and then it did. Snapchat had an angle, right
all all of the big apps you know are relatively recent,
(10:24):
but you know, one day they didn't exist. You know,
mobile computing came along that, you know, mobile networking came along.
They took advantage of apps, and boom they became huge companies.
And we're gonna look back and say, Okay, you know
there's this business reset in and there were a bunch
of kids that came out and said I have a
better idea. Let's go in that direction and it worked.
(10:45):
That's really interesting. Okay, So Mark, it's you have five
thousand dollars, you have nothing, and you're not worried about
you don't have family, You're just you out as an entrepreneur.
What are you doing with? What are you doing tomorrow?
(11:06):
What are you What are you doing? So I wouldn't
even need the five thousand dollars. I'd get a job, right.
I don't care what the job is. I don't care
if it's a bartending job. I don't care if it's
sweeping floors. I don't care if it's working at McDonald's.
But I get it. I get a job, and then
from there I go to work trying to start a company.
You know, it's probably gonna be an online company. It's
probably gonna be involving Amazon Alexa and writing voice scripts
(11:31):
and just geeking out and helping people with ambient voice
because with all the COVID and everything, I think a
lot of people are going to gear towards touch free environments.
And that's when Amazon, Alexa, Google Home, Microsoft Coartana do so,
get any job and then the rest of the day
bust My ask to become an expert in and sell
(11:51):
a company built around mbent voice. All right, perfect, So
that you're basically saying old school, get off your ass,
go to go work or make some money, figure it out, yeah, okay,
pay Yeah. And I think there's this we we haven't
entitled vibe with people now and entitled sort of mentality
now because that's one thing about social media and all
(12:12):
these influencers that I don't love for our kids, because
they are watching people who are fifteen years old making
money just for like, you know, showing their asses and pictures.
And I think there's not a lot of showing like
just hard work in young people anymore. There's not a
lot of showing that. You know. It's all different though, right.
Let me look if if we were if if I
was twenty two and broke, you know, maybe I would
(12:32):
go to social media around you see if it works,
and if it doesn't, I wouldn't stop there. So I'm
not saying don't do it that. My ten year old
son is a perfect example. He streams, right, he streams
his games. He gets four users, four users, but he
just keeps ongoing back for more. Now, what what I
really get a jazzed about when he does it isn't
(12:53):
how many users he gets because he's ten, but all
the work he's got to do to figure out all
these platforms streamable right, you know, open broadcasting system. So
he's not like saying to me, Dad, would you do
this work for me? He's figuring it all out by
himself and with his friends. And to me, that's impressive.
Love that. Now, even if you know he doesn't make
(13:14):
any money from this, he's just the fact that he's
learning how to solve his own technical problems is huge.
I love that. And it's funny that you know, you
have a ten year old I have a ten year
old daughter, and they don't want us to help them.
They want to do it on their own because they
know that we have influence and power to get things done.
It's nice to see that. How do you raise rich kids? Like?
How do you do it? I mean, I have my
(13:34):
own philosophy, So how do you do it? Like you're
not gonna be like you want to go on vacations
and you have a plane, and so you're not gonna
just be like you guys walk, I'm flying, you know,
because because I worked so hard and you know, my
my personal thing is if you're a nice person and
you're a good person and you're you know, the world
is your oyster. If you're you just have to be
(13:55):
a good nice person. Otherwise I agree. I agree, because
we try to, you know, you try to an example
your kids watch how you treat people. And so that's
part one, part two. Yeah, I mean, look, we've got
a plane, we've got houses all over the place, so
they know they're spoiled at that level. But my wife
and I try to keep it as normal as possible
the rest of the way, you know, trying to talk
(14:16):
to them like adults, trying to you know, convey to
them that you know, this is a dangerous time. Sixteen
year old daughter, that is hard. You know, she the
minute she took fifteen, my wife and I got really
stupid and just trying to convey, you know, the importance
of some of these things and getting it to resonate.
And she's smart, she gets great grades and everything, but
(14:38):
she's also very social and she wants to blaze her
own path and she'll try to figure out things on
her own, and so we we just try to encourage
her to to keep on learning and be respectful of everybody.
But you know, it's definitely hard. I mean, the first
world problems for sure. But we're doing the best weekend.
But we put it in the oven and we hope
(14:59):
that the recipe turns out great. But I will say this,
I've been to your house. I've been to your You
had a milestone birthday party. It was a major party
and Stevie Wonder was performing and the Chain Smokers performed,
and it was an elaborate, amazing, gorgeous tent with all
these basketball players. And what I remember is you walking
around in a T shirt, like any T shirt that
(15:20):
I would wear, like that, I wouldn't. I don't even
wear that T shirt. It's like a random nothing weekend
T shirt, holding a bottle of like Boone's, like some
crappy Okay, You're holding a bottle of like crappy seven
eleven High School in Florida liquor that we probably was
four dollars, and like no one was watching. There wasn't
any like cameras or anything was You're you're really living
(15:40):
your life. And I watched you walking around just hugging
people like a big kid with that crappy liquor, with
your T shirt on, hugging your family, dancing like a
nice dork that just happened to be surrounded by all
like a handsome dor successful but you didn't wouldn't know
that in that moment, you didn't. It didn't even seem
like it was necessarily your party. You're just hanging out
like talking to everyone, and it made me so happy
(16:02):
because you definitely are real and down to earth and
when people see you, I'm sure they're very intimidated. I'm
sure some people think you're a dick because you're opinionated
and you're so polarizing. But I just said, I I
just that was my entire takeaway about the entire party.
You were just so down to earth and you just
there someone who happened to make a lot of money.
But you would have been living this exact way if
(16:23):
you were in a one bedroom apartment pretty much. Yeah.
I mean I was happy when I was broke. Um,
enjoyed my life. Um. And when you know what I
found is when you know you've been around a lot
of people that have made money too, and you know
if they were happy before they made money, they were
happier when they made money. If they were miserable before
they made money. They're just more miserable and miserable in
(16:44):
a different way after they made money. My friends from
high school from college were all there, you know, from
Shark Tank and the maths, and it was just so cool. Now,
unfortunately I don't remember half the night. I do, that's
the downside of mad Duck and Tito's vodka. But yeah,
(17:06):
it was. It was an amazing night. I'm so glad
you were there, And yeah, that was That was me
and my element and my kids were there too. That
was the first time and the only time really they've
ever seen me drink or drunk. So I told him
in advance that this is not how data usually is,
but at least not anymore. Um So, it's not it's
(17:27):
not how you are. When I go to l A
and I've done Shark Tank at the hotel, people are socialized.
People from the show are socializing at the bar, you know,
wheeling and dealing, and you're in your cut off workout
shirt eating some sort of lean protein in the restaurant
where everybody else is, but you're by yourself, and you're like,
go straight to the gym and then go to bed.
(17:48):
And I think people like to hear that that people
who are successful are really no hard don't get me wrong, right,
I mean, but over time, you know, you know, it's
just harder to go out. Now, the more visible and um,
the more recognizable you are, the harder it is. But
back before anybody knew who I was, you know, it
was a different beast. But things change. Same. Well, I'm
(18:08):
nine HOMEBODI temper cent lunatic, and when that temper cent comes,
no one knows it's coming, and it's like, get out
of the way. Yeah, exactly right, exactly exactly. So I
mentioned this earlier, but I want to come back to it.
(18:29):
Do you think you're polarizing? You know, it really depends
on the circumstances and context and so on social media, yes,
because I don't give a funk, right, I'll say what's
on my mind and what I think is right. But
that's what twitters for. I like to go on Twitter
and say things that I know will upset people because
I want to see the response. And particularly now, over
the last four years, things have become so partisan that
(18:52):
whatever side you're on, everybody else is going to hate you.
Here's the thing that's crazy. One side of the world.
Every it's free and freedom of speech and everyone should
be allowed to be who they are. And you say
something about any issue, whether it's political or even just
what you feel about someone's hair, you know, or what
someone's choice for business or the name of their company,
(19:15):
and you get true. You always have to remind yourself
that that Twitter is not real world. You know, Instagram comments,
YouTube comments are not real world. That's where people get
all kinds of courage. Exactly. The funniest part is on Twitter,
in particular, when you look at the people that talk
ship to you. They never have their picture or real
name ever, are just random pictures or avatars or whatever.
(19:39):
Because then you know, and that just tells you they're
not there really to voice an opinion. They're just there
to talk ship. Yes, but at times I do enjoy
the medium because it's like a forum for people to
express their opinion. I mean, people talking to each other
and getting into arguments with each other. Sometimes I like
to sit back and just watch it because you're getting
(20:00):
bird's eye view into different perspectives. Exactly. There's a sportswriter
in Dallas, Randy Galloway, and you always used to talk
about checking your whole card, right. Things you think you
know and things you think you believe in, but unless
you have somebody else question them, where you open them
up to questioning, you don't really know. And so you
always want to have people question you and and check
(20:21):
your whole card. And that's what I like to do
all the time. I agree, And sometimes Instagram, Twitter, etcetera.
They can be the place to do it when everyone's
not yelling at each other and bullying. I can't handle
the negativity and the bullying, and I can't deal with
the people that are afraid. I mean, there's so many
celebrities right now who are just terrified to say anything. Yeah,
but there's sometimes you know, we do get afraid every
(20:42):
now and then to do certain things right because for
most people, a tweets is just a tweet. For us,
it's not right. When you have a big enough following,
you know, you know that they're a it's gonna be
picked up as a headline. And when the headline is
getting picked up, half the half the articles are gonna
be taken out of context. Be you know, there's there's trolling,
which is fine, like you said, people battling each other whatever.
(21:04):
And then there's organized trolling, you know, where all of
a sudden, you're gonna get a million your mentions are
going to have a million, you know, replies, and you
can't even use Twitter or you know, your inbox, your
email inbox or whatever, your phone number is going to
find its way out. So there's different things, and so
there's different ways. But generally, like if it's just normal topics,
(21:27):
I'm the same as you fucket right, I'll say whatever
is on my mind. And I kind of liked the
battle and I want to engage, you know, and let's
just go. Yeah, I get it. I mean I'm the
same way. And not too long ago, you actually had
a short Twitter feud with Ted Cruz. Do you know
him personally? Have you met him personally? You've never met him,
So the only the only connection I had to him
(21:47):
was during the twenty six team primaries. I came out
and said something positive about Trump and I said I
was an ABC guy. Anybody but Cruise and his office
sent me an email saying he'd like to get together
and I'm like, fine, I'll get together with them. I
don't care, you know, and then they sent that I
suggested time, and it was like what about the Sunday night.
(22:08):
I'm like, dude, that's Valentine's Day. And he's like, well,
why don't you bring your wife over and you can
have dinner with Ted. I'm like, I'm not going to
bring my wife over to have dinner with Jed Cruise
on Valentine's Day? You know, So that was my only
exposure experience with him. If you saw him in person,
would you laugh it off? Would you both shrug it off?
(22:29):
I won't care, Like, yeah, it's not personal right as Twitter,
it's not personal. It's Twitter. That's a good tagline, that's funny.
And then did you know Trump in another life? Drump
for almost twenty years? Because I would see him wanting
your approval, like someone like you is his kind of person.
You're in sports, you're wealthy, yeah, no question, you're a gangster.
(22:50):
So what would happen if you saw him? Like, what
happened if you saw him? Well? I was in the
White House last year, right, and I didn't know how
he would respond to me. I was there talking about
healthcare project I was working on with Jared Kushner and
and Jared was like, well, the boss wants to see
you in the oval. Office. I'm like, okay, kind of surprised,
and I walked in, he goes, hey, Mark, And that's
(23:12):
that's who Donald is. You know, Donald is what what
can you what can you do for me? Now? And
that's my whole relationship over twenty years. It's been, you know,
we're having a feud, but then he thinks I can
help him. And if you say something nice, you're his
best friend and do you mind working with them? And
that's just who he is. And look, personally, I don't
have a problem with the guy now. Professionally as the president,
(23:34):
I think he's an idiot. You know, I've never thought
he was smart in talking to him, but I know
a lot of smart people that I can be friends with.
But just at one quick antidote, while I was in
there for that meeting, and it was twenty minutes, we
talked about a bunch of things, and you know how
he is, he just jumps from topic to topic, you know,
just randomly, and went through all that. And as I
get up to leave, I was wearing one of the
(23:56):
tom forces that I wear in Shark Tank and he
goes Mark, and I turned around and I go, yeah,
because you look good in that suit you've been working out. Thanks,
that's hysterical. All of a sudden, Trump's wearing tom Ford suits.
That's hysterical. What percentage do you think he's lucky? And
what percentage do you think he's smart? I think it's
(24:19):
zero percent. Well I shouldn't say zero percent smart. Um,
he's you know, he's got a good skill set on
picking properties. I'll give him that. You know, the Trump
the bond wock Teller abuilding turning into Trump Tower, Um,
the Grand Hyatt Um. Now you know most of those
buildings were while his dad was still alive. I don't
know if you had a chance to read the Mary
Trump book. I just finished it. It's incredible. Okay, okay,
(24:42):
he doesn't even rip him, and she didn't doesn't even
rip him nearly as much as you might expect. Just
give some some feet, some behind side, and some some backstory.
And you know, while his dad, if you look at
all his biggest successes, you know, in terms of building,
they were while his dad was alive, and his dad
was rate at building great. And you know Donald was
(25:03):
smart enough to use that as a resource and let
his dad handle the things he didn't know. But everything
since then you can't really point to a lot of
successes other than maybe, you know, the post office hotel
and maybe the print and maybe getting into the to
the White House. I don't think he planned on that.
I don't think that was one of the successes. I
think that was an accident. I don't think everything that,
(25:26):
you know, even when I talked to him, like I
came out when he first started to run, I said
Donald Trump was one of the best things ever to
happen to politics, because he speaks his mind. He basically,
I basically said, he doesn't give a funk, right, he's
not a politician. And I had no inkling that he
might win. And so we would talk all the time
after I said that, because I was, you know, supporting him,
you know, because again I didn't think he would win.
(25:48):
And then as I started talking to him more about things,
I asked some questions about real estate, and he didn't
really understand the financial side of real estate, you know,
talking about return on investment, internal to return, stuff like that.
Didn't you know, couldn't engage on that at all, you know,
And it was just clear that he wasn't somebody who
learned about anything. And that's where we kind of had
(26:10):
our falling out, but you know, he said to me
one time, you know, I don't know if I'm gonna win,
but you you should run for presidents someday. And so
he actually was the first person ever tell me to
run for president. And that's fun. But he just I
didn't get the sense that he thought he would win.
And I've heard from other people are close to him
that he didn't think he would win either, So that's crazy.
(26:31):
I thought he was gonna win because he was a
very disruptive person running this free marketing campaign that you
couldn't even put a monetary value on, where people couldn't
stop a watch, and that says a lot about society
now where people are into fame, and that's scary because
it's becoming a marketing campaign and you know about branding
better than anyone. Well, you know, it's interesting. It was
(26:52):
interesting with Donald um. Well, let me put a different way.
One of my friends in Texas explained it to me
best when I said, look, I know this guy. He's
not smart. You know, I don't He only cares about himself.
You know, he's going to put himself ahead of the country,
which effectively is what he's done. Um, I said, why
are you voting for him? And he goes to me, Mark,
let me tell you something. This guy's mid fifties. You know,
(27:13):
textans relatively successful. Because Mark, let me tell you something.
I've been voting for politicians my entire life. And you
know where they've got got me and know what they've
done for me? Nothing? You know the definition of insanity.
I'm not voting for a politician. And that I think
is what Donald walked through and walked into. And I
think I don't think he created a movement. I think
(27:34):
he found a movement and wrote it. And I guess
he deserves credit for that. But um, you know it
was timing to timing and business you know better than
anything in relationships. At that moment in time, it was
the anything but campaign, anything but what we've been doing.
Let's do something different and let's shake up the snow boat.
And but I will say, it's interesting because you're in branding.
(27:54):
I don't think any of his shark tannic ideas have
actually made it. Like if he had pitched you the
suits of I don't know that's what that was. Desperation.
You don't put your name on all that garbage and
knowing you have no control over it unless you're desperate.
Look at Trump University, look at Trump Soho, look at
Trump Panama. These are all things that ended up ripping
people off Trump Foundation. When you're desperate and you have
(28:17):
you know, you're just trying to find anything. You see
what happens to celebrities as they start to decline, right,
and they stopped making money. You know, anybody who offers
any amount of money to put their name on something,
they say yes. And that's what we're Donald Trump exactly.
That's a great point because I know how you are
with your businesses and you're literally gone on the phone
eating Alyssa's cookies, which is a shark tank business. But
(28:39):
I have to be integral, integraly from my core involved.
And by the way, Donald Trump, his his way is
a lot like some of the housewives, and that you
could tell him to go fund himself and then he
forgets about it the next day. That's an interesting quality
that some of the I'm not like that, you tell
me to go funk myself, We're done forever, so forever.
I'm Sicilian in that way, I will be or like
(28:59):
you know, religious to you that will rip their vests
and like we're done. But one of the housewive said
to me, I'm researching white white space. I don't even
know what it's like, where Like people will say I've
heard people at HSN say to me, there's white space,
meaning like it's there's a void there. We're not doing
anything in that category. Yeah, yeah, yeah, But it's so
(29:19):
people you don't go hunt for that. You have something
inside of you that drives you to do something good
as something you can't just pick a space and say, oh, look,
there's nothing there, I'll go fill it. Right, It's got
to be something that is part of you that you
love and that you know you know and you make
it work. You've got to know your ship, right because
just it's not like there's no competitors that can't just
go into that space as well. Well, that's why Shark
(29:41):
Tank is amazing because it shows people how hard it
really is. I Mean, the truth of the matter is
it's about the execution of an idea. So that's that's
the thing that people don't think I have this great idea.
I'm like, who cares, what are you doing about it?
And what do you have to back it up. So
I think that's one thing that you and Shark Tank
really are relentless about and people need to know. I'm
(30:01):
sure you hear it all the time. I have this idea,
like you just said, and when I just hear that,
I just immediately turn off right. Or if I get
an email to starts, I have this idea, I just
hit the lead because ideas are easy. Everybody has got
business ideas. Everybody. There's no human in this country that
hasn't had a business idea that they've gotten excited about.
But ninety nine of those humans didn't do shit about it.
(30:23):
And that's the difference. You know, it's get off your
ass and what's your driving plan to get to the
finish line? And you may get derailed, but you need
to have a good plan because the second someone else
smells your idea, they're coming in with it. And everybody's
had the same idea whatever. I always say those Winklevoss
twins that whether they created Facebook or not, it was
a copy. Mark Zuckerberg executed them. These guys like let's star.
(30:46):
You can't whine about what doesn't happen. Everybody copies everything
you do, and everybody copies everything I do, So don't whine.
Keep going, Steve Jobs, Steve Jobs that everything is a remix. Yes, yes,
as I say in my cocktail segments, yes plane. Okay,
So I could talk to you for five hours, but
I need to let you live your life without me.
(31:06):
And um, I do want to tell everybody that you
and I did do a rendition of m Paradise, Paradise
by the Dash for Light. We did do that with
karaoke and it's probably like an eleven minute song cotton
Mouth like dying when you get We committed to that,
but we committed. And I like being a duet with you,
So maybe we'll be a duet on something in this
(31:28):
my time. Okay, So the last thing I'd like to
ask you about is whether you have any mottos, something
that you live by. I have a few that I
try to remind myself of, and I'm just asking all
my guests if they have a motto that might be
helpful to the listeners. How you do anything is how
you do everything. Sales cures at all, and the one
(31:50):
thing in life that you can control is effort. Those
are my three little models that I always try to
remind myself. Wait, what is sales cures everything any business.
There's no business that has ever existed about sales un
let's you know. And if you can get out there
and close and make customers happy and generate revenue, you're
going to succeed. If you don't have sales, you're not
going to succeed. Fabulous. So I love you. You are amazing.
(32:15):
You are funny, you're charming, you're smart, you're humble, You're
you can be a dick, which I like to You're
impossible but yet totally possible. I love being on Shark
Tank with you. I love that I miss you on there.
I'm missing you know. It's a good sparring, it's a
good stack down. And I love people who don't back down,
but not just not back down, but can back up
(32:36):
what they're trying to accomplish. So good. So I cannot
thank you enough. I I really I just value you
and I appreciate you, and You're going to be part
of making it successful for me. So I'm very grateful.
So thank you so much much pleasure. Thanks for having
me on, Bethany, and I hope you get to hang
out soon me too. Big kiss to you and your family.
Take care, So that was interesting. I'm really enjoying this
(33:01):
so much because I know Mark Cuban. We've spent a
lot of time together, but I don't know a lot
of that about him. So I'm exploring with you, we're
doing this together because you know, you talk to people,
You talk about bullshit, the weather, the pandemic, a restaurant,
you have a drink, you laugh like, you don't really
get that deeply into it because sometimes it's tiring, and
when you're social, you're not really kind of getting into
(33:24):
how it all works and how someone's mind works. And
so I'm loving that I know a lot of these
people personally, which is why the show is very personal
to me and really important to me, but that we're
just getting such a unique perspective of from people, and
that you know, Mark Cuban is such a visionary and
such an interesting person, and we just got him so
(33:48):
open and honest and just free. So I love that
this is fun and interesting, but hopefully it's educational and
takeaway that is really you can really apply these things
to your daily life and thoughts and the way that
you navigate yourself in life and in business. So thank
you all for being here. And for listening. I love
(34:08):
it so deeply and continue to listen and subscribe and
leave comments on Instagram on Twitter. We're here to listen
and make sure to tune in next week Talk Soon.
Just Be is hosted and executive produced by me Bethany Frankel,
(34:30):
Brail Productions and Endeavor Content. Our managing producer is Samantha
Allison and our producer is Caroline Hamilton's Corey Proventure is
our consulting producer, with the ever faithful Sarah Katanac as
our assistant producer. Our Development Executive is naintre Roy. Just
Be as a production of Endeavor Content and Spoke Media.
(34:52):
This episode was mixed by Sam Bear And To catch
more moments from the show, follow us on Instagram at
just to View is Better
Hey, Bethany, what's going on? We can hear you, you
can we can here, but we can hear you. You
can't hear us? Correct, I cannot hear you. Um let
me find out, but I hear what do I want
to know? What you're eating? I want to me I'm
meeting my list of healthy cookie Sorry. Hi, this is
(00:39):
just be with Bethany Frankel, and I am so excited
to share the first episode on my new podcast with you.
I kind of wanted to start out by talking about
why I'm doing a podcast. There are so many podcasts
out there. I'm sure it's hard to even keep up.
And I had a brief stint on the radio, and
I will get into why that didn't work, because it's
a very I don't know if you'll think it's a
(01:00):
funny story, but it involves me throwing a drink on
someone during a Cold Play concert who was blocking the audience.
And she may or may not have been married to
Gary Cone, who was working for Donald Trump, who and
he her husband may or may not have been the
person doing the first round of funding for Serious Radio
(01:23):
where the show was. She may or may not have
been sitting in a group of wo with sequin tops
on in large diamond earrings blocking the audience and may
or may not have thrown orange juice on her. And
then my podcast, I mean sorry, Then my radio show,
which was in negotiations to be on pretty much every day,
sort of dissolved. So anyway, I digress. We can get
(01:44):
into that story on another day and many others. But
the reason I'm doing a podcast is because even when
I'm on reality TV, there is an editing process. It
doesn't mean that it's not real what you've seen. It
just means that there's a narrative that is not necessarily
what I'm trying to put right. It maybe about my
relationship to other people, or my work or my dating
(02:05):
or something that someone else is controlling. And when I
write books, they usually have just one topic that we're
talking about, and it's, you know, easily a year before
it gets published, and it's just it's it's still it's
it's the written word, it's not verbal. And so a podcast,
for me, I've just felt like I need a place
to vent, to rant, to discuss, to educate, to learn,
(02:27):
to be sort of just to have fun, to just
kind of get into it, honestly, I don't think people
are gonna like everything I have to say, nor agree
with me, but I'm excited to have this medium to
talk about. What I want to talk about are just
things that I think in my head that I know
would be wrong to say, But like I'm thinking in
my head, so someone else has to be thinking. One
(02:49):
of you is thinking the things that I'm thinking about
every day. And the truth is, because of social media,
everything's out there and this is a scarier time for
a person like me who's so opinionated and polarizing to
do this. So let's go. You know what I mean,
I'm not going to do anything interesting by cowering and
being nervous to to say how I really feel. So
(03:09):
this is what that's going to be. It's going to
be not about just what I feel. But I want
to have people on here that want to be in
a real conversation that I'm not just gonna ask them
how do you balance your work in home life? Like
I'm not asking things that you've heard already that are
just regurgitated nonsense. It's not just for people to come
on here and promote a book. I want to hear
what they think about different things. I want to hear
what moguls and people who are self made people have
(03:32):
started from the bottom now they're here, what they think,
what they do, what they eat, how they live, and
how their minds work. I want to get inside people's
minds and have different kinds of conversations, positive and negative.
Let's see what happens. I literally, I'm going to go
through this with you, so we'll figure it out together.
But I'm excited and I'm just into it, so let's
(03:53):
get into it. So today we're going to talk with
Mark Cuban, who I really do respect and admire and adore.
He's just fun. He's half a dick. He's just smart, brilliant, opinionated.
He's the owner of the Dallas Mavericks. He's a Shark
Tank host. He's the Shark Tank host. So you could
(04:16):
tell them all pissed them all off. I don't care.
He is the main guy to me. Mark and I
are going to talk about how people become a success,
whether it's through hard work and dedication or devouring and
analyzing all the information you can. And let me tell you,
Mark is an expert a devouring information. We'll talk about
how we raise our kids, the reality of being a
public figure on Twitter, and Mark is going to share
(04:37):
a story about President Trump that I don't think he
was even expecting to talk about. So here it is, guys,
my conversation with Mark Cuban. Overall, I have really really
invested in this podcast in a way that I don't
with other things. I'm a wing it kind of person.
But with this podcast, because I'm talking to serious people
(05:00):
who their time is so valuable, I take time to
just prepare and think about who they are and what
makes them tick. And I'm just honored to say that
Mark Cuban, who I'm friends with, is a guest on
today's podcast. So welcome Mark Cuban. Thanks for having me on, Bethany,
I'm excited to be here. Thank you. I really mean it.
(05:22):
I know your time is so valuable. You wake up,
what five o'clock in the morning. No, no, but my
time is your time, Bethany. You already know that, You've
always known that, So whatever you need, I can say
I know a lot of smart people, and I the
way that your mind works is so fascinating, and that's
one of the things that throughout this conversation I want
to get into because you definitely tick in a different way.
(05:44):
You're you have a different clock. I know about a
tenth of what you know about in business, and that's
not that's not me just like fishing, That's truthfully what
I really think. Because you have so much data and
so much information, and you do so much research, you
are always woke about every aspect of politics, business, sports,
like you're just you devour information. I know that about
(06:06):
I'd love to read. I mean that that's the absolute truth.
I mean. Part of what also has worked for me
is I learned early on. You know, I got fired
from a company selling software and I started my own company,
and what I learned very quickly was that you know,
all this information is available to everybody, but very few
people actually put into time to learn it or to
(06:26):
get to understand it. And that just became a habit
for me. You know, whether it's reading about businesses, companies,
stark market, stock market, technology, politics, whatever it may be.
I just tried, you know, two three four hours a day.
I'm reading and learning and trying to stay ahead and
get ahead and keep up. That's fascinating. So for you,
(06:48):
you're saying devouring information, which I don't do as much
as you do. I do my boyfriend does it as
much as you do. And I love to be around
people like you because you're the type person that would
like I could call and you would just send me
this information or tell me something, or just like crystallize
something into something so simple. We were on Shark Tank
and we were looking at this pillow company that I
was obsessed with because it was playing sleeping music through
(07:09):
the pillow. And you were like, you you go, so
you like the fucking pillow? Buy a pillow for a
hundred fifty dollars, you have to buy the company. And
it was just so like just something that like a
dad figure who knows everything and he's read everything you
would say. You were like, buy the funker, I'll buy
you the pillow. So what I want to say, though,
is the same way that you say reading all that information.
I always say, it's not about bills and whistles. It's
(07:31):
not about filter, it's not about Instagram, it's not about bullshit.
It's about hard work. You be Michael phelps you get
to that wall. You don't look to the left or
the right, You swim, you work, You don't think about
what everyone else is doing. You do what you're doing,
and you have conviction, and you know, it's a great
bethany because a lot of people always, I'm sure they
do the same thing with you, well what business should
(07:52):
I start? And I'm like, well, if you don't know,
you know, no one's gonna tell you. You have to
do the work you know, or will you mentor me
and help me. You've got to do the work. You've
got to learn because one of the greatest assets you
can have in anything that you do is being excited
about learning, because the only constant in this life has changed.
I mean, look at what we're going through right now
(08:12):
and that change. You know. Hopefully we get past the virus,
and I think we will, but there's there's gonna be
new things that come down, and you've really got you
can't just be ignorant to it all, you know, if
you want to be successful, you have to put in
the time to learn. Well, yes, I think so many
people are thinking of this as a horrible time, which
it is because obviously, you know, unemployment has never been
(08:34):
at these numbers and people are just it's upside down.
If you help, if you happen to have an online
education program that you were working on, you're you're you're
crushing the game, and if you happen to own commercial
real estate, you're fucked. But what that does is that
makes this a whole different playing field. Like some people
can just literally start from scratch, because a lot of
people are just bottomed out and rock bottom. So let's
get scratched, you know, because you know, traditionally, typically when
(08:59):
you started, come and you're competing with a bunch of
big companies that have a huge advantage financially experienced wise,
customer base wise. But now, because of COVID and because
the social unrest, because everything that's happened together with that
and all the tragedy comes with it, you know, the
big companies don't. They're trying to figure out just how
(09:20):
to stay in business. They're trying to figure out, you know,
what am I going to do next? They're trying to
figure out how to deal with the social change that's occurring.
But if you're starting from scratch, you don't have those
legacy problems that have to address. It's fascinating what you're saying,
because it's true, I haven't thought I know that intellectually,
but I haven't really thought about the big business. Those
are big cruise ships you're trying to move ocean liners
(09:42):
and like they're just trying to stay on the water.
And the other small companies are nimble. Their sports cars
they can navigate. So that's interesting. I like, you know,
they don't have capital, they don't have anything but their
pissing vinegar and hard work, and that starts small and
just takes off. I tell people, you know, we're when
we look back in twenty years, they're gonna be hundred
(10:03):
world changing companies that were created right now because people
had a vision for the future and what it should
be like. You know, we we've seen that happened so
many times. You know, look at social media. Facebook didn't
exist and then it did. Snapchat had an angle, right
all all of the big apps you know are relatively recent,
(10:24):
but you know, one day they didn't exist. You know,
mobile computing came along that, you know, mobile networking came along.
They took advantage of apps, and boom they became huge companies.
And we're gonna look back and say, Okay, you know
there's this business reset in and there were a bunch
of kids that came out and said I have a
better idea. Let's go in that direction and it worked.
(10:45):
That's really interesting. Okay, So Mark, it's you have five
thousand dollars, you have nothing, and you're not worried about
you don't have family, You're just you out as an entrepreneur.
What are you doing with? What are you doing tomorrow?
(11:06):
What are you What are you doing? So I wouldn't
even need the five thousand dollars. I'd get a job, right.
I don't care what the job is. I don't care
if it's a bartending job. I don't care if it's
sweeping floors. I don't care if it's working at McDonald's.
But I get it. I get a job, and then
from there I go to work trying to start a company.
You know, it's probably gonna be an online company. It's
probably gonna be involving Amazon Alexa and writing voice scripts
(11:31):
and just geeking out and helping people with ambient voice
because with all the COVID and everything, I think a
lot of people are going to gear towards touch free environments.
And that's when Amazon, Alexa, Google Home, Microsoft Coartana do so,
get any job and then the rest of the day
bust My ask to become an expert in and sell
(11:51):
a company built around mbent voice. All right, perfect, So
that you're basically saying old school, get off your ass,
go to go work or make some money, figure it out, yeah, okay,
pay Yeah. And I think there's this we we haven't
entitled vibe with people now and entitled sort of mentality
now because that's one thing about social media and all
(12:12):
these influencers that I don't love for our kids, because
they are watching people who are fifteen years old making
money just for like, you know, showing their asses and pictures.
And I think there's not a lot of showing like
just hard work in young people anymore. There's not a
lot of showing that. You know. It's all different though, right.
Let me look if if we were if if I
was twenty two and broke, you know, maybe I would
(12:32):
go to social media around you see if it works,
and if it doesn't, I wouldn't stop there. So I'm
not saying don't do it that. My ten year old
son is a perfect example. He streams, right, he streams
his games. He gets four users, four users, but he
just keeps ongoing back for more. Now, what what I
really get a jazzed about when he does it isn't
(12:53):
how many users he gets because he's ten, but all
the work he's got to do to figure out all
these platforms streamable right, you know, open broadcasting system. So
he's not like saying to me, Dad, would you do
this work for me? He's figuring it all out by
himself and with his friends. And to me, that's impressive.
Love that. Now, even if you know he doesn't make
(13:14):
any money from this, he's just the fact that he's
learning how to solve his own technical problems is huge.
I love that. And it's funny that you know, you
have a ten year old I have a ten year
old daughter, and they don't want us to help them.
They want to do it on their own because they
know that we have influence and power to get things done.
It's nice to see that. How do you raise rich kids? Like?
How do you do it? I mean, I have my
(13:34):
own philosophy, So how do you do it? Like you're
not gonna be like you want to go on vacations
and you have a plane, and so you're not gonna
just be like you guys walk, I'm flying, you know,
because because I worked so hard and you know, my
my personal thing is if you're a nice person and
you're a good person and you're you know, the world
is your oyster. If you're you just have to be
(13:55):
a good nice person. Otherwise I agree. I agree, because
we try to, you know, you try to an example
your kids watch how you treat people. And so that's
part one, part two. Yeah, I mean, look, we've got
a plane, we've got houses all over the place, so
they know they're spoiled at that level. But my wife
and I try to keep it as normal as possible
the rest of the way, you know, trying to talk
(14:16):
to them like adults, trying to you know, convey to
them that you know, this is a dangerous time. Sixteen
year old daughter, that is hard. You know, she the
minute she took fifteen, my wife and I got really
stupid and just trying to convey, you know, the importance
of some of these things and getting it to resonate.
And she's smart, she gets great grades and everything, but
(14:38):
she's also very social and she wants to blaze her
own path and she'll try to figure out things on
her own, and so we we just try to encourage
her to to keep on learning and be respectful of everybody.
But you know, it's definitely hard. I mean, the first
world problems for sure. But we're doing the best weekend.
But we put it in the oven and we hope
(14:59):
that the recipe turns out great. But I will say this,
I've been to your house. I've been to your You
had a milestone birthday party. It was a major party
and Stevie Wonder was performing and the Chain Smokers performed,
and it was an elaborate, amazing, gorgeous tent with all
these basketball players. And what I remember is you walking
around in a T shirt, like any T shirt that
(15:20):
I would wear, like that, I wouldn't. I don't even
wear that T shirt. It's like a random nothing weekend
T shirt, holding a bottle of like Boone's, like some
crappy Okay, You're holding a bottle of like crappy seven
eleven High School in Florida liquor that we probably was
four dollars, and like no one was watching. There wasn't
any like cameras or anything was You're you're really living
(15:40):
your life. And I watched you walking around just hugging
people like a big kid with that crappy liquor, with
your T shirt on, hugging your family, dancing like a
nice dork that just happened to be surrounded by all
like a handsome dor successful but you didn't wouldn't know
that in that moment, you didn't. It didn't even seem
like it was necessarily your party. You're just hanging out
like talking to everyone, and it made me so happy
(16:02):
because you definitely are real and down to earth and
when people see you, I'm sure they're very intimidated. I'm
sure some people think you're a dick because you're opinionated
and you're so polarizing. But I just said, I I
just that was my entire takeaway about the entire party.
You were just so down to earth and you just
there someone who happened to make a lot of money.
But you would have been living this exact way if
(16:23):
you were in a one bedroom apartment pretty much. Yeah.
I mean I was happy when I was broke. Um,
enjoyed my life. Um. And when you know what I
found is when you know you've been around a lot
of people that have made money too, and you know
if they were happy before they made money, they were
happier when they made money. If they were miserable before
they made money. They're just more miserable and miserable in
(16:44):
a different way after they made money. My friends from
high school from college were all there, you know, from
Shark Tank and the maths, and it was just so cool. Now,
unfortunately I don't remember half the night. I do, that's
the downside of mad Duck and Tito's vodka. But yeah,
(17:06):
it was. It was an amazing night. I'm so glad
you were there, And yeah, that was That was me
and my element and my kids were there too. That
was the first time and the only time really they've
ever seen me drink or drunk. So I told him
in advance that this is not how data usually is,
but at least not anymore. Um So, it's not it's
(17:27):
not how you are. When I go to l A
and I've done Shark Tank at the hotel, people are socialized.
People from the show are socializing at the bar, you know,
wheeling and dealing, and you're in your cut off workout
shirt eating some sort of lean protein in the restaurant
where everybody else is, but you're by yourself, and you're like,
go straight to the gym and then go to bed.
(17:48):
And I think people like to hear that that people
who are successful are really no hard don't get me wrong, right,
I mean, but over time, you know, you know, it's
just harder to go out. Now, the more visible and um,
the more recognizable you are, the harder it is. But
back before anybody knew who I was, you know, it
was a different beast. But things change. Same. Well, I'm
(18:08):
nine HOMEBODI temper cent lunatic, and when that temper cent comes,
no one knows it's coming, and it's like, get out
of the way. Yeah, exactly right, exactly exactly. So I
mentioned this earlier, but I want to come back to it.
(18:29):
Do you think you're polarizing? You know, it really depends
on the circumstances and context and so on social media, yes,
because I don't give a funk, right, I'll say what's
on my mind and what I think is right. But
that's what twitters for. I like to go on Twitter
and say things that I know will upset people because
I want to see the response. And particularly now, over
the last four years, things have become so partisan that
(18:52):
whatever side you're on, everybody else is going to hate you.
Here's the thing that's crazy. One side of the world.
Every it's free and freedom of speech and everyone should
be allowed to be who they are. And you say
something about any issue, whether it's political or even just
what you feel about someone's hair, you know, or what
someone's choice for business or the name of their company,
(19:15):
and you get true. You always have to remind yourself
that that Twitter is not real world. You know, Instagram comments,
YouTube comments are not real world. That's where people get
all kinds of courage. Exactly. The funniest part is on Twitter,
in particular, when you look at the people that talk
ship to you. They never have their picture or real
name ever, are just random pictures or avatars or whatever.
(19:39):
Because then you know, and that just tells you they're
not there really to voice an opinion. They're just there
to talk ship. Yes, but at times I do enjoy
the medium because it's like a forum for people to
express their opinion. I mean, people talking to each other
and getting into arguments with each other. Sometimes I like
to sit back and just watch it because you're getting
(20:00):
bird's eye view into different perspectives. Exactly. There's a sportswriter
in Dallas, Randy Galloway, and you always used to talk
about checking your whole card, right. Things you think you
know and things you think you believe in, but unless
you have somebody else question them, where you open them
up to questioning, you don't really know. And so you
always want to have people question you and and check
(20:21):
your whole card. And that's what I like to do
all the time. I agree, And sometimes Instagram, Twitter, etcetera.
They can be the place to do it when everyone's
not yelling at each other and bullying. I can't handle
the negativity and the bullying, and I can't deal with
the people that are afraid. I mean, there's so many
celebrities right now who are just terrified to say anything. Yeah,
but there's sometimes you know, we do get afraid every
(20:42):
now and then to do certain things right because for
most people, a tweets is just a tweet. For us,
it's not right. When you have a big enough following,
you know, you know that they're a it's gonna be
picked up as a headline. And when the headline is
getting picked up, half the half the articles are gonna
be taken out of context. Be you know, there's there's trolling,
which is fine, like you said, people battling each other whatever.
(21:04):
And then there's organized trolling, you know, where all of
a sudden, you're gonna get a million your mentions are
going to have a million, you know, replies, and you
can't even use Twitter or you know, your inbox, your
email inbox or whatever, your phone number is going to
find its way out. So there's different things, and so
there's different ways. But generally, like if it's just normal topics,
(21:27):
I'm the same as you fucket right, I'll say whatever
is on my mind. And I kind of liked the
battle and I want to engage, you know, and let's
just go. Yeah, I get it. I mean I'm the
same way. And not too long ago, you actually had
a short Twitter feud with Ted Cruz. Do you know
him personally? Have you met him personally? You've never met him,
So the only the only connection I had to him
(21:47):
was during the twenty six team primaries. I came out
and said something positive about Trump and I said I
was an ABC guy. Anybody but Cruise and his office
sent me an email saying he'd like to get together
and I'm like, fine, I'll get together with them. I
don't care, you know, and then they sent that I
suggested time, and it was like what about the Sunday night.
(22:08):
I'm like, dude, that's Valentine's Day. And he's like, well,
why don't you bring your wife over and you can
have dinner with Ted. I'm like, I'm not going to
bring my wife over to have dinner with Jed Cruise
on Valentine's Day? You know, So that was my only
exposure experience with him. If you saw him in person,
would you laugh it off? Would you both shrug it off?
(22:29):
I won't care, Like, yeah, it's not personal right as Twitter,
it's not personal. It's Twitter. That's a good tagline, that's funny.
And then did you know Trump in another life? Drump
for almost twenty years? Because I would see him wanting
your approval, like someone like you is his kind of person.
You're in sports, you're wealthy, yeah, no question, you're a gangster.
(22:50):
So what would happen if you saw him? Like, what
happened if you saw him? Well? I was in the
White House last year, right, and I didn't know how
he would respond to me. I was there talking about
healthcare project I was working on with Jared Kushner and
and Jared was like, well, the boss wants to see
you in the oval. Office. I'm like, okay, kind of surprised,
and I walked in, he goes, hey, Mark, And that's
(23:12):
that's who Donald is. You know, Donald is what what
can you what can you do for me? Now? And
that's my whole relationship over twenty years. It's been, you know,
we're having a feud, but then he thinks I can
help him. And if you say something nice, you're his
best friend and do you mind working with them? And
that's just who he is. And look, personally, I don't
have a problem with the guy now. Professionally as the president,
(23:34):
I think he's an idiot. You know, I've never thought
he was smart in talking to him, but I know
a lot of smart people that I can be friends with.
But just at one quick antidote, while I was in
there for that meeting, and it was twenty minutes, we
talked about a bunch of things, and you know how
he is, he just jumps from topic to topic, you know,
just randomly, and went through all that. And as I
get up to leave, I was wearing one of the
(23:56):
tom forces that I wear in Shark Tank and he
goes Mark, and I turned around and I go, yeah,
because you look good in that suit you've been working out. Thanks,
that's hysterical. All of a sudden, Trump's wearing tom Ford suits.
That's hysterical. What percentage do you think he's lucky? And
what percentage do you think he's smart? I think it's
(24:19):
zero percent. Well I shouldn't say zero percent smart. Um,
he's you know, he's got a good skill set on
picking properties. I'll give him that. You know, the Trump
the bond wock Teller abuilding turning into Trump Tower, Um,
the Grand Hyatt Um. Now you know most of those
buildings were while his dad was still alive. I don't
know if you had a chance to read the Mary
Trump book. I just finished it. It's incredible. Okay, okay,
(24:42):
he doesn't even rip him, and she didn't doesn't even
rip him nearly as much as you might expect. Just
give some some feet, some behind side, and some some backstory.
And you know, while his dad, if you look at
all his biggest successes, you know, in terms of building,
they were while his dad was alive, and his dad
was rate at building great. And you know Donald was
(25:03):
smart enough to use that as a resource and let
his dad handle the things he didn't know. But everything
since then you can't really point to a lot of
successes other than maybe, you know, the post office hotel
and maybe the print and maybe getting into the to
the White House. I don't think he planned on that.
I don't think that was one of the successes. I
think that was an accident. I don't think everything that,
(25:26):
you know, even when I talked to him, like I
came out when he first started to run, I said
Donald Trump was one of the best things ever to
happen to politics, because he speaks his mind. He basically,
I basically said, he doesn't give a funk, right, he's
not a politician. And I had no inkling that he
might win. And so we would talk all the time
after I said that, because I was, you know, supporting him,
you know, because again I didn't think he would win.
(25:48):
And then as I started talking to him more about things,
I asked some questions about real estate, and he didn't
really understand the financial side of real estate, you know,
talking about return on investment, internal to return, stuff like that.
Didn't you know, couldn't engage on that at all, you know,
And it was just clear that he wasn't somebody who
learned about anything. And that's where we kind of had
(26:10):
our falling out, but you know, he said to me
one time, you know, I don't know if I'm gonna win,
but you you should run for presidents someday. And so
he actually was the first person ever tell me to
run for president. And that's fun. But he just I
didn't get the sense that he thought he would win.
And I've heard from other people are close to him
that he didn't think he would win either, So that's crazy.
(26:31):
I thought he was gonna win because he was a
very disruptive person running this free marketing campaign that you
couldn't even put a monetary value on, where people couldn't
stop a watch, and that says a lot about society
now where people are into fame, and that's scary because
it's becoming a marketing campaign and you know about branding
better than anyone. Well, you know, it's interesting. It was
(26:52):
interesting with Donald um. Well, let me put a different way.
One of my friends in Texas explained it to me
best when I said, look, I know this guy. He's
not smart. You know, I don't He only cares about himself.
You know, he's going to put himself ahead of the country,
which effectively is what he's done. Um, I said, why
are you voting for him? And he goes to me, Mark,
let me tell you something. This guy's mid fifties. You know,
(27:13):
textans relatively successful. Because Mark, let me tell you something.
I've been voting for politicians my entire life. And you
know where they've got got me and know what they've
done for me? Nothing? You know the definition of insanity.
I'm not voting for a politician. And that I think
is what Donald walked through and walked into. And I
think I don't think he created a movement. I think
(27:34):
he found a movement and wrote it. And I guess
he deserves credit for that. But um, you know it
was timing to timing and business you know better than
anything in relationships. At that moment in time, it was
the anything but campaign, anything but what we've been doing.
Let's do something different and let's shake up the snow boat.
And but I will say, it's interesting because you're in branding.
(27:54):
I don't think any of his shark tannic ideas have
actually made it. Like if he had pitched you the
suits of I don't know that's what that was. Desperation.
You don't put your name on all that garbage and
knowing you have no control over it unless you're desperate.
Look at Trump University, look at Trump Soho, look at
Trump Panama. These are all things that ended up ripping
people off Trump Foundation. When you're desperate and you have
(28:17):
you know, you're just trying to find anything. You see
what happens to celebrities as they start to decline, right,
and they stopped making money. You know, anybody who offers
any amount of money to put their name on something,
they say yes. And that's what we're Donald Trump exactly.
That's a great point because I know how you are
with your businesses and you're literally gone on the phone
eating Alyssa's cookies, which is a shark tank business. But
(28:39):
I have to be integral, integraly from my core involved.
And by the way, Donald Trump, his his way is
a lot like some of the housewives, and that you
could tell him to go fund himself and then he
forgets about it the next day. That's an interesting quality
that some of the I'm not like that, you tell
me to go funk myself, We're done forever, so forever.
I'm Sicilian in that way, I will be or like
(28:59):
you know, religious to you that will rip their vests
and like we're done. But one of the housewive said
to me, I'm researching white white space. I don't even
know what it's like, where Like people will say I've
heard people at HSN say to me, there's white space,
meaning like it's there's a void there. We're not doing
anything in that category. Yeah, yeah, yeah, But it's so
(29:19):
people you don't go hunt for that. You have something
inside of you that drives you to do something good
as something you can't just pick a space and say, oh, look,
there's nothing there, I'll go fill it. Right, It's got
to be something that is part of you that you
love and that you know you know and you make
it work. You've got to know your ship, right because
just it's not like there's no competitors that can't just
go into that space as well. Well, that's why Shark
(29:41):
Tank is amazing because it shows people how hard it
really is. I Mean, the truth of the matter is
it's about the execution of an idea. So that's that's
the thing that people don't think I have this great idea.
I'm like, who cares, what are you doing about it?
And what do you have to back it up. So
I think that's one thing that you and Shark Tank
really are relentless about and people need to know. I'm
(30:01):
sure you hear it all the time. I have this idea,
like you just said, and when I just hear that,
I just immediately turn off right. Or if I get
an email to starts, I have this idea, I just
hit the lead because ideas are easy. Everybody has got
business ideas. Everybody. There's no human in this country that
hasn't had a business idea that they've gotten excited about.
But ninety nine of those humans didn't do shit about it.
(30:23):
And that's the difference. You know, it's get off your
ass and what's your driving plan to get to the
finish line? And you may get derailed, but you need
to have a good plan because the second someone else
smells your idea, they're coming in with it. And everybody's
had the same idea whatever. I always say those Winklevoss
twins that whether they created Facebook or not, it was
a copy. Mark Zuckerberg executed them. These guys like let's star.
(30:46):
You can't whine about what doesn't happen. Everybody copies everything
you do, and everybody copies everything I do, So don't whine.
Keep going, Steve Jobs, Steve Jobs that everything is a remix. Yes, yes,
as I say in my cocktail segments, yes plane. Okay,
So I could talk to you for five hours, but
I need to let you live your life without me.
(31:06):
And um, I do want to tell everybody that you
and I did do a rendition of m Paradise, Paradise
by the Dash for Light. We did do that with
karaoke and it's probably like an eleven minute song cotton
Mouth like dying when you get We committed to that,
but we committed. And I like being a duet with you,
So maybe we'll be a duet on something in this
(31:28):
my time. Okay, So the last thing I'd like to
ask you about is whether you have any mottos, something
that you live by. I have a few that I
try to remind myself of, and I'm just asking all
my guests if they have a motto that might be
helpful to the listeners. How you do anything is how
you do everything. Sales cures at all, and the one
(31:50):
thing in life that you can control is effort. Those
are my three little models that I always try to
remind myself. Wait, what is sales cures everything any business.
There's no business that has ever existed about sales un
let's you know. And if you can get out there
and close and make customers happy and generate revenue, you're
going to succeed. If you don't have sales, you're not
going to succeed. Fabulous. So I love you. You are amazing.
(32:15):
You are funny, you're charming, you're smart, you're humble, You're
you can be a dick, which I like to You're
impossible but yet totally possible. I love being on Shark
Tank with you. I love that I miss you on there.
I'm missing you know. It's a good sparring, it's a
good stack down. And I love people who don't back down,
but not just not back down, but can back up
(32:36):
what they're trying to accomplish. So good. So I cannot
thank you enough. I I really I just value you
and I appreciate you, and You're going to be part
of making it successful for me. So I'm very grateful.
So thank you so much much pleasure. Thanks for having
me on, Bethany, and I hope you get to hang
out soon me too. Big kiss to you and your family.
Take care, So that was interesting. I'm really enjoying this
(33:01):
so much because I know Mark Cuban. We've spent a
lot of time together, but I don't know a lot
of that about him. So I'm exploring with you, we're
doing this together because you know, you talk to people,
You talk about bullshit, the weather, the pandemic, a restaurant,
you have a drink, you laugh like, you don't really
get that deeply into it because sometimes it's tiring, and
when you're social, you're not really kind of getting into
(33:24):
how it all works and how someone's mind works. And
so I'm loving that I know a lot of these
people personally, which is why the show is very personal
to me and really important to me, but that we're
just getting such a unique perspective of from people, and
that you know, Mark Cuban is such a visionary and
such an interesting person, and we just got him so
(33:48):
open and honest and just free. So I love that
this is fun and interesting, but hopefully it's educational and
takeaway that is really you can really apply these things
to your daily life and thoughts and the way that
you navigate yourself in life and in business. So thank
you all for being here. And for listening. I love
(34:08):
it so deeply and continue to listen and subscribe and
leave comments on Instagram on Twitter. We're here to listen
and make sure to tune in next week Talk Soon.
Just Be is hosted and executive produced by me Bethany Frankel,
(34:30):
Brail Productions and Endeavor Content. Our managing producer is Samantha
Allison and our producer is Caroline Hamilton's Corey Proventure is
our consulting producer, with the ever faithful Sarah Katanac as
our assistant producer. Our Development Executive is naintre Roy. Just
Be as a production of Endeavor Content and Spoke Media.
(34:52):
This episode was mixed by Sam Bear And To catch
more moments from the show, follow us on Instagram at
just to View is Better
Host
Bethenny Frankel
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