Three Sharks Walked Onto My Cover

At a Glance

• Three Shark Tank stars have covered Resident Magazine: Barbara Corcoran, Daymond John and Kevin O'Leary.
• Founder Michael Travin met Barbara at her apartment, shared a stage with Daymond and ran into Kevin at a Miami Beach pool bar.
• Each meeting left him with a lesson, including Kevin's advice to "suck it up."

Over the years, three Sharks have been on the cover of Resident Magazine: Barbara Corcoran, Daymond John, and Kevin O'Leary.

I met all three of them. Not one of the meetings went the way cover stories usually go.

We met Barbara at her old apartment for the cover. I expected over the top; she is Barbara Corcoran, after all. It was not over the top. It was warm and cozy.

Her husband had his own area of the apartment, and he stayed in it. She was warm and sweet, and happy to share everything we asked her. No performance, no entourage. Just a woman who had built an empire, sitting in a comfortable apartment, telling the truth about how she did it.

It was Daymond's cover party, thrown by Resident, and I shared a stage with him. In front of everyone, I told him we had something in common: the same thyroid cancer.

He was surprised. Afterward, we spent time talking about it: not about business, not about the show. Two men who spend their lives being watched, comparing notes on the one fight nobody sees.

People think a cover is about the photograph. Sometimes it is about what two people recognize in each other.

Kevin O'Leary, I met by accident.

Debbie and I were staying at the Cadillac Hotel in Miami Beach. Kevin was renting an apartment next door, at the Mosaic, and we bumped into him and his wife at the outdoor pool bar, completely random.

Kevin noticed Debbie's Paul Newman watch and called us over. Then he recognized my Daytona. His wife told us she was an interior designer, so with Debbie's work we had a lot to discuss.

Here is the funny part. Kevin had just been on the cover of Resident. I was no longer at Resident. I had been pushed out of the magazine I founded, and his cover party was the next week.

I told him.

He said (I am paraphrasing, but barely): "Oh well. Suck it up."

Barbara taught me that real success does not need to shout. The most powerful person in the room was sitting in the coziest apartment, being kind.

Daymond taught me that everyone you meet is carrying a fight you cannot see, and that saying yours out loud, on a stage, is sometimes how the real conversation starts.

And Kevin? Kevin taught me that nobody is coming to rescue you. He was right, in his way. I did not suck it up. A few years later I paid $10,000 to buy my magazine's name back, and I rebuilt it with my son.

But I will give Mr. Wonderful this: nobody ever motivated me by being nice about it.

Michael Travin, Founder & Owner, Resident Magazine