I Don’t Agree with Kevin O’Leary on Everything, But He Nails These 4 Points About Getting Rich

Well-known for this tough talk on money, Kevin O’Leary, also known as “Mr. Wonderful” from Shark Tank, has become synonymous with his no nonsense outlook on working hard and getting rich. Of course, it’s not always as easy as Kevin says, but there is no question that he can make a lot of sense. 

When it comes to money, Kevin’s reputation prioritizes profit above all else, including sentimentality. Mr. Wonderful has no time for feelings when it comes to getting rich and this has earned him both detractors and fans. 

In fact, quotes like this one: “You should always think of your money as soldiers – send them out to war and try to get them to return with prisoners” explain how Kevin sees money as a tool to be deployed to get maximum returns. 

The Quote

In Kevin’s quote above, you have to think of the “soldiers” as your money, which you will strategically deploy, through smart investing, to achieve gains. “Send them out to war” is essentially Kevin saying that you must take some calculated risks with your money to achieve strong returns. 

“Return with the prisoners” basically signals that if you do everything else right, your money should not just come back to break even but with additional profits, as if you have “captured” more money. 

Profit Over Everything

There is no question that Kevin wants you to build up a nest egg, at least $5 million according to him, if you want “personal freedom. “You have to get to a place where you have $5 million in the bank.” In this 2023 YouTube clip, rest assured that Kevin isn’t talking about real estate or stocks, just cold, hard cash. 

Rest assured that Kevin doesn’t believe you should hoard your money because you’ll never earn anything if you do. Instead, Kevin’s unapologetic view is that money should be working for you, and if you work right, this money is for winning. 

Mr. Wonderful has often shown his disdain on Shark Tank for “hobby businesses” that don’t look to turn a profit. While he loves his royalty deals, he’s almost always the first investor on the show to be point blank and call out a founder for saying that either their pitch or their business strategy shows no signs of turning a profit. 

It goes without question that Kevin doesn’t appear to be interested in doing good in this world, which only makes him richer. You might want to try and balance both, where you can find both personal fulfillment and profit. This will never be Kevin O’Leary, and while his ruthless tactics in the Shark Tank can often feel cold, in some cases, it may be necessary.

On the other hand, it’s okay if your philosophy is to be more practical and purposeful with your money, as both this strategy and O’Leary’s can work in today’s market. 

Building Wealth With Mr. Wonderful

When it comes to building wealth, Kevin O’Leary has done well for himself. If reports are accurate, his net worth will be nearing around $400 million in 2025. Kevin had to be disciplined to get here, and he is now more than willing to share his strategies for building wealth. 

15% of Salary

One of Kevin O’Leary’s biggest claims to building wealth is to invest 15% of your salary in a 401(k). Of course, he has a quote around this: “Take 15% of your salary each week, or every two weeks when you get paid, and put it into an investment account, and never touch it until you turn 65.” Kevin is confident that this strategy can help you become a multimillionaire. 

Invest Early

Another smart tactic O’Leary swears by, which he learned from his mother, is investing early. According to O’Leary, his mother invested 20% of every paycheck from her early working days as a teen in a clothing factory. 

His mother also insisted that he save at least 10% of every birthday check he got from his grandmother. This level of discipline helped him see good habits early on, so as he got older and found more money, he didn’t have to create new habits for investing money. 

Be Very Disciplined

In many ways, one of O’Leary’s best tactics for building wealth is to be very disciplined about your investment strategy. One of the ways he recommends this approach is to take $100 every week and invest it over a long period. O’Leary believes that if you do this, with $100 every week, and let it grow over the next 30 or 40 years, without touching any of the money, you’ll be a millionaire in your 60s. 

Cut Unnecessary Spending

Another helpful Mr. Wonderful tip is to listen to his advice “People don’t need a lot of the crap that they buy.” According to a recent OnePoll for Ladder Life survey, Americans spend as much as $18,000 annually on non-essential items. 

It’s safe to say that not all of this spending is wasteful, but if this were Mr. Wonderful talking, he’d be saying that if you cut this number in half and invested it over the next 30 years, you’d compound your money significantly and get more joy out of that then useless junk. 

The bottom line is that Mr. Wonderful’s wealth-building tips are based solely on logic and not emotion. His guidance is that if you are willing to follow this advice to the letter, you can end up well off. 

Potential Blind Spots

When you think about potential blind spots, we’ve seen some of these play out in real life. Take Bombas, for example, a Shark Tank proposal that Mr. Wonderful disregarded in his typical way because it lacked profitability. 

In this case, it proved that Mr. Wonderful isn’t always Mr. Perfect as Bombas is now a super successful brand with strong sales and a terrific social media presence. This example shows that Mr. Wonderful sometimes can overlook short-term profit and his obsession with immediate success against the idea that some businesses and wealth-making moves may take longer to pay off. 

Embrace The Wonderful

Ultimately, even if you don’t agree with everything he says, Mr. Wonderful will be right more often than he’s wrong. This is hard to ignore for someone who has made success after success in his life. As an individual, you should consider Kevin O’Leary’s advice sound in that it can work, though it won’t work every time and for everyone. 

If you have the means to follow Mr. Wonderful’s advice and save every month, you likely will be able to have a more successful retirement. In this regard, Mr. Wonderful’s advice is, well, wonderful. However, you also have plenty of surprises and emergencies, so follow his advice on having an emergency fund and at least three months for those “just in case” moments. 

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