What drives people to greatness, whether on the field or as a founder? NFL edge rusher Micah Parsons has a two-word answer: “nonstop hustle.”

In his first four seasons in the league, Parsons has been a standout player for the Dallas Cowboys. We recently asked him which entrepreneur he’d most want to sit down with, and he named a fellow Dallasonian — billionaire tech investor Mark Cuban, who once owned the Dallas Mavericks and became famous through his role on Shark Tank.

We connected them as part of The Playbook, a series Entrepreneur cocreated with Sports Illustrated, where we pair entrepreneurial athletes with great business leaders. Our goal: Find out what it takes to succeed in two of the world’s most competitive fields of play — business and sports.

In this conversation, Cuban and Parsons talk about what motivates them, what keeps them focused, and the quotes that inspire them.

Related: Figuring Out What Success Really Means to You

Micah Parsons: How did you get into technology?

Mark Cuban: I got fired, basically. I was working at a store called Your Business Software. The more I got into it, the more I realized I could learn this technology stuff faster than most people. All of a sudden, I’m going out on sales calls. One day, my boss wanted me to come into the store. I’m like, “Look, I’ve got to go close a sales deal.” And he said, “No. You’ve got to come into the store.” I decided to close the deal. I bring him a $15,000 commission check — I figure he’s going to be happy. He fired my ass right there and then.

I decided to start my own thing. I called it MicroSolutions. I was 24, and I didn’t take a vacation for the next seven years. To me, it was like a sport. I made sure that I learned it as well as, if not better than, anybody else. We built that company up to 80 employees, $30-some million in sales. Profitable. And I sold it to H&R Block.

Parsons: So you did seven years of nonstop grinding.

Cuban: There was nothing more terrifying than not getting it done and doing it right. We never had to lay anybody off the whole seven-plus years. And I was broke. I lived in a three-bedroom apartment, and I had five roommates, and I had to sleep on the floor.

Parsons: And there was no going back home.

Cuban: My dad did upholstery on cars. He’d bring me to work and be like, “I want you to know what it feels like to work this job, so you never want to work this job again.” I’d always been entrepreneurial, but that’s motivating.

Parsons: Mine was more seeing my mom. I used to see her wake up at 2:30 in the morning, go deliver newspapers. And every Christmas break, she was like, “Hey, I need you out here with me. It’s the busiest time of year.” I’m up at 3 a.m., bagging the papers.

Cuban: There’s no days off, right? I always say there’s some 12-year-old or some 80-year-old trying to kick your ass in your business — always. You might think you’ve got it made, but it doesn’t matter how much money you have. Technology is changing. The world is changing. AI is brand new to just about everybody. So I’ve got to spend hours and hours and hours a day learning this shit. Because what happens if I don’t know it? Whoever does will kick my ass. And I ain’t letting nobody kick my ass.

Business is the ultimate competitive sport. The work you put in on your profession and your craft and your body, I’ve got to put in the same work.

What are you working on?

Related: Stop Wasting Your Grind — Why Having a Growth Mindset is the Answer to Hustle Culture

Parsons: I’m building myself for when I’m done with this game. You just never know — tomorrow you could blow your knee out and be completely done. I wanted to start my own podcast. Bleacher Report was like, “Do one season. We’ll see how you do.” It was one of the hardest years of my life. It was taking so much time. And then off that, people were like, “We should do a production company.”

I also started doing a series of Lions Den kids camps built off me, the Lion. I’m building my brand.

Cuban: There’s two types of entrepreneurs. There’s the income statement entrepreneur, like me — someone who has to start from the beginning and build from scratch. Then there’s the balance sheet entrepreneur, like you. You do the work, but you’re building your brand, and in exchange, you’re getting equity in different companies. And you keep on extending your brand into other areas where you can keep on growing your balance sheet. You bring who you are to a business, and that skyrockets it. But if it doesn’t work, you go on to the next one. That’s the best position to ever be in.

Parsons: I still wake up at 6 a.m., and I see my mom in her office typing. I’m like, “How are you up before me?” So now when I’m making my water bottles for the day, I’m like, “Oh, I beat her today.” I can’t wait to get to that point where I’m like, “Alright, Mom, you don’t have to beat me anymore.” I tell people my greatest flaw right now is I don’t have balance.

Cuban: You don’t need work-life balance. You need to just enjoy your life and go to where your heart takes you, where your brain takes you — to where you go, “I love this.” You’ve got this moment in time. You reach a level of success, and you realize: If you want to be the best, you work till exhaustion, right? It’s not like, Well, I’ll work till exhaustion when I’m 40. Father Time is undefeated. It ain’t going to work for you then.

It’s the same way with business for what you’re doing. The athletes that I see that have made the biggest mistakes are the ones that just thought, Hey, I’m making this money. I’ll play and then I’ll figure it out later. Those are the guys that get lost.

Parsons: My homeboy is like that. He’s like, “It’s all going to work out.”

Cuban: The minute someone ever says to you, “It’s all going to work out,” just because they don’t want to work, walk away. You’ve got to make it work. You hear it in sports all the time: The one thing in life you can control is your efforts. Bobby Knight, who was an old basketball coach from Indiana University, said, “Everybody’s got the will to win, but only those with the will to prepare do win.” I heard that when I was 18, and that stuck with me forever.

Parsons: I’m the same way with Denzel Washington’s line, “Without commitment, you’ll never start. And without consistency, you’ll never finish.” That’s on repeat in my head.

Cuban: I’ve got another one from Dirk Nowitzki: “How you do anything is how you do everything.” They’re silly clichés, but they’re true. Everybody I know that’s successful has this voice in their head where the minute things start to slow down or they’re not doing what they think they need to do, one of those sayings clicks in. “How you do anything is how you do everything.” That’s the voice in my head all the time.

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