Kevin O’Leary is a Canadian businessman, author and television personality. He co-founded O’Leary Funds and SoftKey. From 2004 to 2014, he appeared on various Canadian television shows, including the business news programmes SqueezePlay and The Lang and O’Leary Exchange, as well as the reality television shows Dragons’ Den and Redemption Inc. In 2008, he appeared on Discovery Channel’s Project Earth, and since 2009 he has appeared on Shark Tank, the American equivalent of Dragons’ Den. May his quotes inspire you to be a shark so that you may attain your dreams.
1. “I like to take risks. That’s how I make money. But they are calculated risks.” Kevin O’Leary
2. “Business is war. I go out there, I want to kill the competitors. I want to make their lives miserable. I want to steal their market share. I want them to fear me and I want everyone on my team thinking we’re going to win.” Kevin O’Leary
3. “What are the most important qualities that make a successful entrepreneur? The ability to communicate. The ability to express your idea with certainty. That’s how you become a leader even if you are unsure, your ability to explain your vision and your direction is the attribute you need the most. Articulate your idea in 90 seconds or less.” Kevin O’Leary
4. “Nobody has a monopoly on good ideas.” Kevin O’Leary
5. “There is a discipline required as an entrepreneur about working to optimize the business. There is no balance in life as an entrepreneur. You can’t expect to work 9 to 5 that’s never going to happen. You have to expect that it is going to consume your life for a period of time. That’s the downside, but the upside is that you buy yourself freedom in perpetuity.” Kevin O’Leary
6. “Here’s how I think of my money, as soldiers, I send them out to war everyday. I want them to take prisoners and come home, so there’s more of them.” Kevin O’Leary
7. “I’m not trying to make friends, you wan’t a friend? Buy a dog. I’m trying to make money.” Kevin O’Leary
8. “Don’t cry about money, it never cries for you.” Kevin O’Leary
9. “It pains me to see good entrepreneurs chase bad opportunities.” Kevin O’Leary
10. “We need physical exercise to prepare our brain for long periods of concentration.” Kevin O’Leary
11. “I’m not planning on giving my kids any of my wealth. They know when their education is over, I’m pushing them out of the nest. The bird you see dead under the nest is the one who didn’t think about the future.” Kevin O’Leary
12. “Money has no grey areas. You either make it or you lose it.” Kevin O’Leary
13. “The best motivator in the world is money and if that doesn’t work try more money.” Kevin O’Leary
14. “You’d rather own gold; not the miner.” Kevin O’Leary
15. “Money equals freedom.” Kevin O’Leary
16. “You’re dead to me.” Kevin O’Leary
17. “Money is my military, each dollar a soldier. I never send my money into battle unprepared and undefended. I send it to conquer and take currency prisoner and bring it back to me.” Kevin O’Leary
18. “So much of life is a negotiation – so even if you’re not in business, you have opportunities to practice all around you.” Kevin O’Leary
19. “When you’re an investor, you can look at the quantitative and qualitative elements of an investment, but there’s a third aspect: What you feel in your gut.” Kevin O’Leary
20. “Working 24 hours a day isn’t enough anymore. You have to be willing to sacrifice everything to be successful, including your personal life, your family life, maybe more. If people think it’s any less, they’re wrong, and they will fail.” Kevin O’Leary
21. “There’s only one side with me You get the right side. You get the correct version of the facts.” Kevin O’Leary
22. “Nobody forces you to work at Wal-Mart. Start your own business! Sell something to Wal-Mart!” Kevin O’Leary
23. “I keep a constant diary of where I’m at and why I’m there.” Kevin O’Leary
24. “Building fast-growing globally competitive companies is tough.” Kevin O’Leary
25. “I have had some great successes and great failures. I think every entrepreneur has. I try to learn from all of them.” Kevin O’Leary
26. “I don’t mind rude people. I want people that I can make money with, so if their executional abilities are good, and they’re arrogant and rude, I don’t care.” Kevin O’Leary
27. “I keep anywhere between 5 to 10 percent of my net worth in venture ideas.” Kevin O’Leary
28. “Being an employee is a bad outcome. You want to avoid that. Being an employee is never a good outcome. That’s just an opinion.” Kevin O’Leary
29. “I’d rather invest in an entrepreneur who has failed before, than one who assumes success from day one.” Kevin O’Leary
30. “I want to go to bed richer than when I woke up. The pursuit of wealth is a wonderful thing, but the thing is you you have to be honest about it, you have to tell the truth.” Kevin O’Leary
31. “I’m starting to think about things that I want to do, things that are fun.” Kevin O’Leary
32. “I think a book is your calling car, your business card.” Kevin O’Leary
33. “If you can’t even acknowledge your failures, how can you cut the rope and move on?” Kevin O’Leary
34. “What matters is that you achieve success and become free. Then you can do whatever you like.” Kevin O’Leary
35. “I’m not a tough guy. I’m just delivering the truth and only the truth and if you can’t deal with it, too bad.” Kevin O’Leary
