You can be on Entrepreneur’s cover!

Shark Tank Star Robert Herjavec: Don't Ever Expect a 'Balanced Life' The 'nicest' Shark says that with great success comes great sacrifice -- specifically downtime. The one exception he has to make: his kids.

By Kim Lachance Shandrow

entrepreneur daily

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Robert Herjavec, best known as the "nice guy" on Shark Tank, says his unlikely success comes at a steep price: his free time and basically all of it.

The dapper, sapphire-eyed serial investor is a master juggler. He has to be. The self-made millionaire clocks 12 plus-hour days on set, all while heading up a major Canadian Internet security firm and coaching the dozens of startups he invests in.

Related: Shark Tank's Robert Herjavec on Great Business Pitches and Why Sales Reps Need to Be Chameleons

Herjavec's jam-packed schedule doesn't leave much time for wrangling that delicate unicorn called work-life balance. He doesn't think it exists anyway. "Work-life balance is one of the biggest misconceptions people have," he told Entrepreneur.com. "It's not reality."

These days, Herjavec -- who fled the former Yugoslavia and emigrated to Canada at the age of 8 -- says he's working 24 hours a day and he's probably not exaggerating. "I'm laser-like focused and driven and you just gotta keep going. You have to figure out what's important to you, realize that everything has a price and make sacrifices."

Related: The Stars of Shark Tank on How to Dress for Success

And those sacrifices can be huge. Even though he's an always-on business leader and mentor, Herjavec also likes to identify himself as a father and family man. That means that no matter how hectic things are at his businesses, he will always sacrifice that time for his three kids. He did, literally, for three years straight when he traded a full-time communications industry executive position for stay-home dad duties when they were young.

"I may not have what people call a balanced life," Herjavec wrote in his book The Will to Win: Leading, Competing, Succeeding (HarperCollins , 2013), "meaning I'm not home for dinner every night at the same time. But my kids know I'm always there for them, and whatever else I may be doing, they are my first priority. The things I have achieved in my life are only of full value to me when I can share them later with my family."

Related: 6 Tips for Succeeding as Both an Entrepreneur and a Parent

Even when he spends time with his family, Herjavec is always on, never fully unplugging from work or his smartphone. "I run one of the biggest cybersecurity firms in the world, so I want to know if there's something bad going on and I want to know right now," he says. "If I don't have access to that, I get fidgety. I'm always on."

You can watch Herjavec in action on Shark Tank during the Season Six premiere this Friday, Sept. 26 from 8 to 10 p.m. ET/PT on your local ABC station.

Related: A Healthy Work-Life Balance is No Unicorn

Kim Lachance Shandrow

Former West Coast Editor

Kim Lachance Shandrow is the former West Coast editor at Entrepreneur.com. Previously, she was a commerce columnist at Los Angeles CityBeat, a news producer at MSNBC and KNBC in Los Angeles and a frequent contributor to the Los Angeles Times. She has also written for Government Technology magazine, LA Yoga magazine, the Lowell Sun newspaper, HealthCentral.com, PsychCentral.com and the former U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. C. Everett Coop. Follow her on Twitter at @Lashandrow. You can also follow her on Facebook here

Want to be an Entrepreneur Leadership Network contributor? Apply now to join.

Editor's Pick

Business News

From Tom Brady to Kevin O'Leary – See Who Lost Big in the Wake of the FTX Crypto Collapse

The crash exposed an $8 billion hole in FTX's accounts, leaving investors and customers scrambling to recoup their funds.

Business News

Mark Zuckerberg Says This CEO Is the 'Taylor Swift' of Tech

Meta's CEO posed with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on Instagram Wednesday.

Business News

This Highly-Debated Piece of Cinematic History Just Sold For Over $700,000 at Auction

The wood panel from "Titanic" is often mistaken as a door. Either way, he couldn't have fit. (Sorry.)

Money & Finance

5 Simple Wealth-Building Tips For This Generation's Forward-Thinkers

Explore practical finance tips for young professionals striving to overcome economic challenges.

Leadership

What We Have to Gain By Talking About Grief and Loss At Work

I lost my husband to cancer during Covid — here's how it changed how I lead at work.