The 3 principles 'Shark Tank' investor Kevin O'Leary used to build his investment company came from his mother

"Shark Tank" investor Kevin O'Leary is also the cofounder and chairman of investment fund manager O'Leary Funds.

In his book "Cold Hard Truth on Men, Women & Money," he explains the "core principles on which [he] built O'Leary Funds":

1. Never invest in a security or stock that doesn't pay a dividend or interest.
2. Always save a consistent portion of your income.
3. Spend the interest, never the principal.

Where did he get that criteria? From his mom.

O'Leary writes that his mother "hammered this home to me every payday," after years of investing according to those three points.

When she died, he was surprised to see that despite her lack of investing aggression, her portfolio "outperformed everything," he writes. "The day I saw my mother's portfolio is the day I stopped buying stocks that didn't pay anything to shareholders. Overnight, this became the only way I wanted to invest."

He explains that O'Leary funds is "a family of financial products now worth over $1 billion," and that its philosophy, "Get Paid While You Wait," is "exactly what my mother did."