"How do I get more?" — Shark Tank's Robert Herjavec reveals how he learned to generate great wealth from hard work

Shark Tank investor Robert Herjavec once found himself stuck in his professional life, struggling to reach the next level. Despite his relentless hard work, he was unable to achieve the success and wealth he aspired to.

In a February 5 interview on The School of Greatness podcast with Lewis Howes, Robert reflected on the challenges of building wealth, even with immense effort. He realized that to break free from his financial state, he had to push himself to achieve more.

The Shark Tank investor star eventually realized the importance of working smart. He believed that he would have to strive to get more worth and provide more value to his customer base.

"The first part was, 'Did I want more? Was that important to me?' And people misunderstand that. They're like, 'Ohh, yeah, I'd like more Ferraris'. It was never about more Ferraris, it was just about 'How do I get more. How do I get more value, more worth? How do I get a better life?'" he said.

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Shark Tank investor Robert Herjavec shares how he switched from working hard to working smart

On The School of Greatness podcast, host Lewis Howes pointed out that many people work 15-18 hours a day. However, despite their years of hard work, they were only making incremental growth and not the exponential growth that they believed they should.

Since Robert had once been in the same situation, Lewis asked him what key lesson helped shift his mindset about hard work and building great wealth.

In response, Robert shared a story about his father, who worked tirelessly, often taking on two shifts. Through sheer dedication, his father managed to pay off the house he bought.

While the Shark Tank star acknowledged that his father was a "super successful guy in his world," he made a personal decision early on—he would never work harder than his father did in his lifetime.

"Just because you work hard though doesn't mean you'll be rich. What it means is you won't be poor. And there's a fundamental difference between the blue collar poverty mindset and the wealth abundance mindset," he added.

Later in life, as Robert became more successful in his career, he realized he was stuck. No matter how much hard work he put in, he couldn't figure out how he could give more to achieve more success.

At that time, the Shark Tank star was sleeping four hours a day, was great at his task, and was driving his company as hard as he possibly could. Despite the hard work, he wasn't able to achieve the desired level of success he thought he could.

Eventually, Robert realized that success wasn’t just about working hard—it was about working smart. He understood the importance of increasing his self-worth, adding more value, and improving his life.

"So I said 'Yes, I definitely want more, why not? Why not me?' And so that was the first part. Big lesson for me though is you have to pivot. Hard work is absolutely foundational, but smart work is pivoting," he said.

Robert added that when he shifted from working hard to working smart, he realized that true success came from providing greater value to his customers.

"Value. What I learned is, that markets and people will pay for value, not for time. People will pay you for your knowledge, not for how long you've been doing it or the amount of hours you're gonna spend on it. And what I realized is I wasn't creating enough of that for my customers. And for me. I wasn't learning enough," the Shark Tank star concluded.

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Shark Tank season 16 episodes air every Friday on ABC.