I like to read … why? To be entertained, to learn new things, and to stimulate thinking. Warren Buffett advice is a favorite reading of mine, especially when the articles deal with business innovation and leadership.
I have a set of six business leaders (Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs, Warren Buffett, Jack Welch, Tom Peters, and Peter Drucker) that I selected over a decade ago to be my silent mentors … they mentor through their writings and presentations.
Warren Buffett is the newest of those mentors.
Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did. Explore. Dream. Discover.
– Mark Twain
At a Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting in 2000, Warren Buffett spoke about the importance of choosing the right role models, saying that he often tells students:
“Just pick out the person you admire the most in the class, and sit down and write the reasons why you admire him… Nothing could be simpler than to try and figure out what you find admirable and then decide that the person you really would like to admire is yourself.
And the only way you’re going to do it is to take on the qualities of other people you admire.”
Related post: The Story and Zen of Getting Things Done
Yes … I admire and appreciate all of my silent mentors a great deal. They stimulate a lot of thinking and learning, but they both have a great knack for entertaining while they teach and silently mentor.
They also share many other common attributes that makes them such successful mentors for me.
I am a big fan of Warren Buffett and though I have been successful in the business world, the reason I am such a big fan is not why he was so famous.
Warren Buffett facts go way beyond his business and investing success.
To see his true wisdom and value, you must study the man. I group his wisdom and value into 7 interesting categories.
I will use these 7 categories to highlight Buffet’s true wisdom compiled from quotations and a compendium of lessons from many of his writings, articles, and presentations.
We use these thoughts regularly in our work with client teams.
Some amazing facts
One of the best qualities of Buffett from my perspective is that he is able to simplify complex ideas into quotes that stand the test of time.
He has spent his life dispensing advice to all who would listen, earning him the nickname of the Oracle of Omaha.
In the 1960s, this advice came about twice a year in letters to investors in his investment partnerships.
Starting a few years later, Warren Buffett’s wisdom was distilled through the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting and the annual shareholder letter, and in the past 20 years, Warren Buffett has become a household name through appearances on TV and interviews in magazines.
In his profile, Buffett remarks, “I don’t work to collect money. I work because I love what I’m doing.”
Speaking of his vast fortune and why he will give most of it away to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, he adds: “I have no use for it. Society does have a use for it. And it so happens that I’m in a business where lots of money comes in when I do it right.”
Buffett has never cared about luxurious possessions, and he still lives in the modest house he bought for $31,500 in 1958.
Warren Buffett … simplicity
Numerous greats including Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffett have attributed their success to focus.
Many people have long to-do lists and work on becoming more productive, when in fact, having a not-do list is more important if you want to do great things.
Warren Buffett examples … a simple solution
Warren Buffet, in an interview with CNBC, offered one of the best quotes about the debt ceiling:
“I could end the deficit in five minutes,” he told CNBC. “You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for re-election”.
The 26th Amendment (granting the right to vote for 18 year-olds) took only three months and eight days to be ratified!
Why? Simple! The people demanded it. That was in 1971 – before computers, e-mail, cell phones, etc.
Of the 27 amendments to the Constitution, seven (7) took one (1) year or less to become the law of the land – all because of public pressure.
Warren Buffett advice … life
One of my favorite words of wisdom from Buffett:
“You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don’t do too many things wrong.”
Buffett, who treasures his reputation for integrity, once told his son Howie:
“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think that you’ll do things differently.”
Warren Buffett … makes you think
Buffett always believed in sticking close to your strengths:
“Stick Within Your Circle of Competence”
This intense focus on playing to his strengths — and largely ignoring everything else — lies at the heart of Buffett’s success.
He once remarked:
“You have to stick within what I call your circle of competence. You have to know what you understand and what you don’t understand. It’s not terribly important how big the circle is. But it’s terribly important that you know where the perimeter is.”
Warren Buffett … top insights
Another memorable piece of wisdom:
“Hang out with people better than you, and you cannot help but improve.”
Over the years, Buffett has spoken eloquently about how much we’re influenced — both for better and worse — by the people around us.
In a fascinating interview with Gillian Zoe Segal, author of a new book entitled Getting There, Buffett warns:
“If you hang around with people who behave worse than you, pretty soon you’ll start being pulled in that direction.”
Buffett’s greatest role models were his father and Ben Graham, who taught him at Columbia University and became his mentor. In Roger Lowenstein’s book Buffett: The Making of An American Capitalist, Buffett remarks:
“The best thing I did was to choose the right heroes. It all comes from Graham.”
One of my favorite life-changing pieces of advice:
“always to live your life by an inner scorecard, not an outer scorecard.”
Buffett illustrated this by asking:
“Would you prefer to be considered the best lover in the world and know privately that you’re the worst—or would you prefer to know privately that you’re the best lover in the world, but be considered the worst?”
Warren Buffett advice … reasons for success
One essential secret to Warren Buffett’s success is that he continuously learns. Buffett is a far better investor today than he was 50 years ago.
As Charlie Munger, his lifetime partner has explained:
Warren Buffett has become one hell of a lot better investor since the day I met him, and so have I. If we had been frozen at any given stage, with the knowledge we had, the record would have been much worse than it is. So the game is to keep learning, and I don’t think people are going to keep learning who don’t like the learning process.
In his profile for The Great Minds of Investing, Buffett speaks candidly about the most important reason for his success: the love and support he received from his father, Howard Buffett, a U.S. Congressman whom he revered.
“My dad believed in me. What I basically got from my father is unconditional love. Unconditional love is huge in this world… Whatever I did, he was all for it. It didn’t matter how much money I made or anything like that.
It was just, ‘Do your best in whatever you take on.’”
My best piece of advice from Buffett was to commit yourself to a lifetime of learning.
