Shark Tank's Mr. Wonderful Explains the Secret to Teaching Young Children a Work Ethic

Shark Tank’s Mr. Wonderful, Kevin O’Leary joins Barry Farber to discuss how to instill a strong work ethic and an understanding of the value of money in your children at an early age.

Episode Transcript

(00:05):
Hi, I'm Barrie Farber, andthis is in search of the magic tree.
What magic are we looking for?Well, if you think about a
tree, several things come to mind. One the roots, the foundation for

(00:26):
something great. Two the branches representingthe connection and continuation of our legacy as
we pass down the values and beliefsto the next generation. And three potential,
something that starts as small as anacorn and becomes a giant oak.
We're going to explore how we canbuild the mind, body, and spirits

(00:49):
of our children. How to raiseour kids with key traits like patients,
positive attitudes, courage, empathy,determination, and more. Join me on
this adventure as we talk to celebrities, athletes, entertainers, business leaders,
educators, brain surgeons, and moreabout the magic to building success at an

(01:11):
early age. Today, we havea very special guest, somebody I'm very
excited to talk to because if there'sanybody to give advice on how to raise
kids to understand the value of money, it's mister wonderful yep, Kevin O'Leary,
mister Shark Tank and the international bestselling author of several books, including

(01:33):
Cold Hard Truth on family, Kidsand Money. We have Kevin O'Leary.
Thanks Kevin for coming on the show, No problem, Thank you. My
feeling is all kids are diamonds inthe rough here they are, they're born,
and it's a lot more nurture thannature that I believe forms your kids
to be what they are. AndI wanted to know your take on how
do you teach them work ethic.I know you teach them at maybe four

(01:57):
or five years of age, butwhat are some of the key things about
teaching young kids about work ethic.You know, it's important within a family
because you know, you think aboutthe basic union of a family. Why
it was established, you know,thousands of years ago, is to form
an economic pillar that can sustain thefamily. That's nobody wants to talk about

(02:21):
it, but the bottom line is, you can't be successful in our society
unless you figured out a way tosupport each other. And so in the
agrarian societies, they had lots ofchildren so that they could help out on
the farm and grow food and distributeto other family members that were aged.
And all of that happened with theidea that there was an ethic of work
that some portion of the day youperformed a task to sustaining the family,

(02:45):
and it's no different today. Sothe idea that I had tried, and
I'm hopefully I was successful. Itseems that I was, is to explain
kids at the age of four andfive that time when you spend time working
on something, there's a reward forit. There's an economic reward for it.
You get paid for it, andthat money is yours and you do

(03:07):
what you wish with it, butyou can't live without it. Money is
a family member. It says atthe table every day with you. And
remarkably, in our society, fiftypercent of unions that break up and divorced.
And when I did, I wrotemy first book. I did a
lot of research on this. Thenfive to seven years, when the union
breaks up, it's not in fidelity, it's financial pressure. The reason marriages

(03:29):
fall apart is one partner outspends theother and they break the union of money
as a family member because they turnit into an enemy. They're in debt.
And so the whole idea with kidsis to get in their in their
universe, the idea that some portionof the day you're doing something that has
an economic reward, and that's whatI've used and that's what's been successful.

(03:50):
And how young did you start withyour own kids, Kevin three years old
by having them by reading to themstories about you know, there's lots of
great chick kids books to talk aboutthe ethic of family and work, and
so you have to go find thoseand you know, or convert them yourself.
But I when I my wife dida lot of the readings, I

(04:12):
was traveling so much, but weboth were on the same you know,
team about this. It was alwaysabout getting the kids to to get involved
in whatever those tasks were, particularlywhen they were growing up in Boston where
we have you know, traditional I'llgive you an example. Right at the
beginning of the first winter, whenthey were old enough to start sheveling snow.

(04:34):
That was their job and so itwould take them a long time,
and they'd have to do the frontand back steps, and they just got
into that mode after it's snowed.They knew what they were going to do,
and they got paid for it,and it wasn't a question about it.
They always did it. And Ithink that was very important and it
certainly, you know, worked outthat for both of them. They understood

(04:54):
at a young age, saving moneyand buying things with it and not wasting
and my grandparent, you know what, my parents would always support that idea
of doing something and rewarding them forit. I think it's a culture.
It's family culture. Now, that'sgreat advice. I love it, and
I'd love to focus on this question. You know, In Search of the

(05:15):
Magic Tree, which this podcast iskind of for the parents and teachers of
the children's story The Adventures of LittleBilly, in Search of the Magic Tree,
there's an owl, Lawrence the Owl, and he talks about patients.
You know, Little Bally has tohave patience to find the magic secret,
and you try to teach your kidspatients. What is the secret to teaching
your kids about patients? Yeah,you know, not everything works. And

(05:42):
I've tried to tell my kids asthey you know, got older, and
a good example my son. Youknow, I play guitar. I have
a large guitar collection. And guitaris not something that's easy to do or
learn quickly. You just can't.There's nothing you can do to accelerate the
time it takes to learn the chords, to develop a style, to learn

(06:04):
how to play leader rhythm, AndI explain him an early age. The
only way you're going to have aplayer is you're going to have to set
aside some portion of every day topractice. And it's a great analogy for
a work ethic. But also thatpatients, because in guitar you can't play
it unless you get callouses on yourfingertips, on your playing head. Otherwise

(06:28):
you just and the only way youget the callous is the practice. And
by maintaining your practice and playing everyday, you maintain the callous. It's
a fantastic way of understanding life.So any instrument, by the way,
violent, any string instrument base isa good example of patients. You can't
there's nothing you can do. There'snothing you can pay for that can accelerate

(06:53):
the patients. Not a thing youcan do. And if you want to
become a player, you're going tohave to practice. He learned that,
and now he's better than I am. I'm a believer in having kids play
an instrument. All my three kidsplayed a guitar, piano, drum.
They each played an instrument, andI learned how critical it was to be
patient when you're learning the fundamentals,the fundamentals of the basics and fundamentals isn't

(07:15):
always fun. I remember somebody whoowned a violin shop. He was an
engineer at AT and T and justhad a passion for violin. So instead
of retiring, he did that,and he goes, Barry, you want
to learn the violin. Let metell you something you should do for the
next thirty days, and every morningten minutes, every afternoon ten minutes.
That's it. Just do that anddon't talk to me about playing any kind

(07:38):
of notes. He said, Takethe bow and put it a millimeter away
from the string, don't touch thestring, go back and forth in the
movement of playing that string without touchingit, and do that over and over
it. He was teaching and talkingabout physiological memory that we need to learn
at an early stage to get thefundamentals right. So the tonation you play

(08:00):
the note. After that training,the tonation sounds great. And it's not
always easy. You get frustrated.Kids get frustrated when they're trying to be
patient and learn something. How doyou teach your kids about attitude, about
a positive resilient attitude and dealing withpeople and all the things that come about
when they deal with obstacles. Whatdo you do? What do you teach

(08:20):
about attitude. I've always thought thebest way to do that is at an
early age, start to explain tothem that people they're going to meet,
whether it's a school or you know, when they're with you or when they're
on their own, are all different. They're not the same, and just
because they're different, I don't meanethically, I mean personality wise. Everybody

(08:41):
has a different way of just communicatingand just because they're not like you doesn't
mean they're bad or good. It'sthey're different. And the whole idea of
tolerance around different ideas, whether youlike someone or you don't like them,
but you have to work with themor you have to cooperate with them to
get something done, is an ideaof a flexibility of understanding that not everybody

(09:07):
is the same and they never willbe. And what makes you successful in
life is finding the path of leastresistance. In any endeavor, you're trying
to find the path of least resistance. And if you can't cooperatively work with
people tolerate them, you will spenda lot of your energy in your life
not getting as far as someone whounderstands the concept of a more frictionless path

(09:28):
of least resistance. This is aconcept that's worked very well for me as
I teach in college now with entrepreneurs, the path of least resistance is the
one where you're cooperating with people evenif you don't like them, and it's
great leaders understand that, and individualsthat are successful in life are always finding

(09:52):
the path of least resistance. SoI'm thinking of my own kids and raising
them at a young age, andthere's always that conflict between being parent and
being strict and not being liked becauseyou're going to do something that maybe is
discipline and hopefully we'll pay off inthe future, but it's frustrating because you
want to be their friend also,that parent versus friend. And I think

(10:13):
it's just such a critical time thatour parenting is a huge responsibility and you
need to share your values at anearly age so they understand work, ethic,
attitude, courage, empathy, allthe critical things that you want to
share when they're young. What doyou recommend, Yeah, I mean parenting

(10:37):
itself. The infrastructure of parenting iswhen you decide to have children, when
you're adopting, when you have thebiologically you're taking on an immense responsibility to
give them your values. So thatand that doesn't mean they don't pursue different
opportunities in life, but the coreof values that it failed. Parents did

(11:03):
not pass on values. They didn'tthey didn't spend enough time making sure that
they gave the fundamental building blocks totheir children that made their own lives work.
That if you can afford a family, you've done something right, because
a family is basically a business unit. That's what it is. And if
you're having children you can't afford,that's a different topic of discussion because you're
just giving them a very hard burdenin life. But parenting is really about

(11:28):
making sure that they have a moralcompass, They understand what the family values
are about, they know how towork with other people. And it's a
full time job for one or bothof you. And I've this is very
controversial. I've got myself to lotsof trouble about it. You know when
people say to me, well,you think it's okay that both parents work,
and my answer is no, notuntil you have passed on a fundamental

(11:56):
set of values to your children.That usually happens between the ages of seven
and nine years old. So thatmeans one parent should stay at home for
that seven to nine year period.And you know it may sound like a
bad idea, but it's not becausewhen you hire someone else that is not
your family to raise your children,that's when problems start. They don't have

(12:16):
the same motivation they have a nineto five. You're paying them to babysit
them. They're not teaching them anything. And it's a brutal conversation. But
if you're going to become a parentand you're listening to this, you should
one of you, doesn't matter whichone. You should commit seven to nine
years full time in parenting. That'sthe deal, and not go work somewhere

(12:41):
else. Just figure that out.Now. Look, you know not everybody
agrees with me. I don't careif this is the way I look at
it. That's how we did it. And I owe my wife forever gratitude
for doing that with both of ourchildren. She gave up her career.
But now we enjoy wonderful children thathave jobs that have what we think are
the funmentals to become successful in life, and when we support them every way

(13:03):
we can. And so I think, you know, for me, that's
the deal. I love that Kevin. I think that's so important, the
time that you spend at an earlyage with your kids, whether the father
or the mother, whoever does it, it's so critical to really share those
values and make them stick. Iwant to talk to you now about courage.
I want to talk to you aboutrisk taking and the courage and not

(13:26):
being afraid to fall or fail.How do you teach kids about courage?
Yeah, I did it a littledifferently. I talked about understanding failure.
It's important to know that you willdo things that won't work and you will
fail, but that should be alesson the whole idea. What happens over
My way of explaining this to kidswas, look, when you're young as

(13:50):
you are, you're missing something calledexperience. And what makes you more effective
and successful in life is learning frommistakes. And so actually what experience it
is is a whole series of mistakesyou made that you learn from that you
because you made those mistakes, youdon't do them again, because you have
the experience of what not to doit didn't work, and so experience is

(14:13):
worth gold. Experience is invaluable,it's it's precious, but the only way
you get it is by trying thingsthat will not always work. So it's
okay to fail because on the otherside of the balance, you're getting the
invaluable gold of experience. That's howyou sell Kevin. I love the dedication

(14:33):
to your wife, Linda, andit's all about family. And you know,
thinking about how you write a bookwith that much content, that much
rich content, what was that like? What was the work ethic involved in
getting that accomplished it? Going throughthat whole thing. I don't want to
say something about writing that book becauseI thought it was going to be easy
to do. It wasn't. Ittook me two years, and I because

(14:56):
I really wanted to write it fromthe experience on the thing i'd learned with
my wife and raising our family.And I did work with editors and ghostwriters
after, you know, I'd sitdown at night and write from eleven till
maybe one thirty in the morning,and I'd try and pound out a chapter
and I would go to bed thinkingit was great, and then i'd send
it to my editors and they'd say, this is total crap. You kind

(15:16):
of start again and it's it's it'sreally you know, and I try and
explain when I was trying trying tobring into that chapter, but that whole,
Catharsis is the whole. The firstone was so hard, it took
so long. It was a monsterhit. Yeah, I mean it was
number one and it's still selling todaybecause it's a fundamental pouring of truth,

(15:37):
at least my truth about how itworks. And I'm glad I did it.
And the next two were easier.But you know, I've tried to
build a series of lessons about lifefor anybody to read. It doesn't mean
you you about you. You liveby the creed of this book. It
just gives you some ideas about whatyou should and shouldn't do based on experience

(16:00):
and the things I've learned and allthe research I did about marriage and the
first book, and all the lawyersI talked to and divorced lawyers, and
it was really really I learned alot, and I think it's a good
read. Kevin. I'm reading yourbook now, and I just love the
part where instead of telling your kidsabout a bedtime story, you're reading them
a book. You're actually talking tothem about banks and how the banks,

(16:21):
you know, take your money andwhat they do. And I just think
that's amazing. You know. Oneof my kids, Sam has been a
big fan of years, for yearswatching you on Shark Tank, and all
my kids asked me this question.It goes, what was it like raising
kids and traveling as much as youdid when they were young. Was there
anything that you were able to teachthem or take from those journeys and the

(16:44):
travel experience that you shared with yourkids in an early age. Yeah,
when I learned growing up in allthese countries because every two years, my
dad worked for the ILO part ofthe United Nations, so we'd move every
twenty four months, so at Cyprus, Cambodia, Tunisiiopia, Germany, France,
Switzerland. That it gives you alot of tolerance for culture. You

(17:06):
learn that people are not the same. They believe in different things, they
run their lives differently, and youhave to respect that. I remember living
in Attis Ababa, the capital ofEthiopia. I met Hailey Selassie when he
was alive. I met Paul Pottand Cambodia with Sienook was king there.
I mean, and those cultures gaveme a real respect for how the world

(17:26):
works, and it's made me amuch better investor because I understand that I'm
I'm willing to go invest in realestate in Cambodia because when I was there,
he had just come off being aFrench colony. So I learned how
to cook there. I became achef French fusion cooking. So all of
these experiences were great for me asa young person. And so what I've
been doing with my family, I'mvery fortunate to be able to say to

(17:48):
them, look, you know,where where would you like to go this
weekend? Let's get together as afamily. Pick anywhere on Earth and I'll
take you there. And so we'vebeen revisiting these places. We've gone back
to Cambodia, back to time ILand, back to Switzerland, back to
France, and as a family,now I can show them where I grew
up, and I think it wasa great experience for them and certainly for
me. And I consider myself,you know, a global investor. I'm

(18:12):
a citizen in Ireland of Canada andrecently just got my Amerate citizenship for the
United arat Emirates. So you know, because I invest in all these countries
and I do business there, andI want to be part of their culture,
and I want to show respect byearning my citizenship. So for me,
it's it's really the journey, andit's I'm passing it to my kids

(18:32):
while I can so, and Ireally enjoy doing it. Kevin O'Leary,
mister wonderful, Thank you so muchfor coming on the program today. Anybody
out there really want to extend thebenefits of this program to some additional knowledge,
pick up his copy of Coldhard Truthon Men, Women and Money also
that relates a lot to this show, Cold Hard Truth on Family, Kids

(18:56):
and Money. And you can goto Kevin O'Leary dot com to see more
of what he's doing. And obviouslyyou'll see him on Shark Tank, but
just turn on your TV. He'llshow up every time. Kevin, it's
been a pleasure. Thank you somuch for coming on the program and sharing
your words of wisdom. Really greatto have you. Thank you very much,
appreciate it. To take care ofmuch friend. Blah bye.