- If the person you're dating makes you choose between them and your business, pick your business.
- Kevin O'Leary told that to a startup founder whose fiancée was threatening to leave him.
If the person you're dating forces you to choose between your business and them, you should probably cut them loose, Kevin O'Leary says.
The "Shark Tank" star was teaching a class some years ago when a college student posed that exact dilemma to him, O'Leary recalled in a clip from the "Impaulsive with Logan Paul" podcast that was recently posted on his social media.
The student said he was running a software business from his dorm with $5 million in annual free cash flow. "I don't hear a problem," O'Leary quipped.
"That's not the problem: My fiancée came to me today and said that she's going to leave me," the student said. She was upset because he wasn't spending any time with her family and wasn't free on weekends, he explained. "I just can't because I'm so busy and I've got to keep my business going, I've got to graduate my degree. What do I do?"
The rest of the class waited in rapt silence for his answer, O'Leary recalled. "Wow. OK. I'm not Dr Phil but let me give you some advice here: Which one is easier to replace — the girlfriend or the business?"
The celebrity investor said the student had to ask himself that question as he was "making $5 million and every woman in this class now knows this. I'm going to guess that if you can't work this out, you're going to just do fine."
"She's not the right person if she's not supportive of this journey you're on," O'Leary continued. "You're obviously going to be wildly successful, you're going to get somebody else."
O'Leary said his blunt advice sparked a 45-minute debate about how people value their time and what's important to them. He argued that entrepreneurs should seek out partners who understand and support what they're doing "because that's ultimately how you're going to be personally free one day."
The business guru known as "Mr Wonderful" said he would have loved to check on the student a couple of years later. "I bet you he's making a fortune, and I'm sure he's got plenty of options."
O'Leary told a similar version of the tale in an interview clip he shared in June on LinkedIn. In this telling, the student said he worked every weekend and through the night so he had no time for his fiancée, and she had given him an ultimatum: choose her or his business.
"Listen, let's be pragmatic about this," O'Leary replied. "Which is easier to replace? Your business, or your fiancée?"
The Canadian multimillionaire has doled out plenty of memorable advice over the years. He's warned couples not to combine their finances, cautioned against lending money to family, urged people not to wait too long before getting married and having kids, and recommended buying fewer but higher-quality products with greater resale value.