Nasty Habits of Bill Gates, Elon Musk & Mark Cuban

All three had to break some seriously bad habits before they became successful.

Of course, now all three are billionaires.

Is there something we can learn from them?

How did they successfully ditch their bad habits?

Bill Gates was a huge procrastinator in his younger years, so if you find yourself putting things to the last minute you are not the only one, and you are actually in pretty good company.

The Microsoft co-founder was such a procrastinator that after two years in an undergraduate program at Harvard University he simply dropped out.

After dropping out, he soon learned that in the real business world there are deadlines and they must be met. The buck has to stop somewhere.

Gates didn’t receive many words of praise for getting things done at the last minute, so he had to reverse his habit. He had to become organized and get things done on time.

The key is to not get sidetracked and stick to a set schedule.

If you’re having a hard time snapping out of procrastination, ask yourself “Is this making me any money?”

This might be just what you need to snap yourself out of it.

Elon Musk is a caffeine addict. The Tesla founder would cope with putting in long hours by drinking copious amounts of caffeinated beverages.

Back in the day, it wasn’t uncommon to find on his desk eight empty bottles of diet coke from one day.

Elon still enjoys his pop but will only have one or two a day now.

He was also once thought to be an incurable coffee addict. Drinking so much coffee, he felt he was always “wired for sound”, Musk said, “Id get over caffeinated and it wouldn’t be good,”

Caffeine addiction is a real thing and can bring on a whole slew of problems.  Increased anxiety, elevated stress levels, fatigue, and impaired sleep, which leads you to drink even more coffee.

Today Musk doesn’t rely on coffee to function but you will see him with a good old glass of water.

Mark Cuban bad on communication

In any business, good communication is key. Cuban learned in his early 20’s that yelling to get his point across was not effective.

Cuban and co-founder Martin Woodall started MicroSolutions and would often butt heads.

The two drove each other more than a little crazy in those early years, with finger pointing often a common means of assault.

Cuban soon learned that yelling increased stress levels, Cuban said, “When you increase stress, the people around you, productivity, profitability and competitiveness decline.”

A good leader gets their ideas across with the practiced ability to receive opinions and criticisms from those around them.

Many of us lack this skill but luckily it’s something that can be effectively learned.

Good habits will help propel your business forwards; bad ones can sink your company.

At the end of the day, good habits help us make better decisions and will bring us ever closer to the success we want.