Kevin O'Leary says the best career advice he got were 3 things Steve Jobs told him

Canadian billionaire and former Shark Tank investor Kevin O’Leary revealed the most important career advice he got from Apple founder Steve Jobs. While speaking in an interview with The School of Hard Knocks along with fellow investor Robert Herjavec, O’Leary said that the most valuable career advice he ever got came from Steve Jobs.

O’Leary recalled Jobs’ blunt but brilliant guidance, “There’s only three things you have to get done every day. That’s called the signal. Everything else that stops you from getting the three things done is the noise.” O’Leary also admitted that he initially pushed back, calling Jobs’ ‘nasty’ and also questioned that why he should believe him. Jobs’ response was simple ‘Trust me’.

Steve Jobs’ philosophy of separating signal from noise

Steve Jobs’ philosophy of separating signal from noise was central to his leadership at Apple.

In a famous 1997 appearance ay the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, Jobs also stressed that “focusing is about saying no.” He also cut numerous low-priority projects in order to concentrate on a few core categories, a decision that ultimately fuelled Apple’s turnaround in the personal computing space.For Canadian billionaire O’Leary, this principle of Jobs’ became a hallmarked of his own career. He co-founded SoftKey Software Products in 1986, later sold to Mattel for $4.2 billion in 1999, a deal that made him wealthy despite being disastrous for Mattel.

Since then, O’Leary has built his brand as “Mr. Wonderful” on Shark Tank, where his blunt style has made him a household name.

Discipline and purpose

Herjavec, who joined O’Leary in the interview, agreed that focus and discipline are common traits among the wealthiest people. “I’ve never met somebody with great wealth who doesn’t have great purpose,” he said. O’Leary added: “Billionaires don’t care about money. They’re on a mission.”The idea of limiting daily priorities aligns with modern productivity research. UC Irvine professor Gloria Mark, in her book Attention Span, found it takes an average of 23 minutes to refocus after an interruption. O’Leary’s routine of picking three priorities and treating everything else as friction mirrors this science-backed approach to maintaining focus.Beyond Jobs’ anecdote, O’Leary and Herjavec urged younger audiences to learn AI and learn how to sell — two skills they believe will define future success.