The End of an Era
Warren Buffett is passing the torch. At 94 years old and after delivering extra ordinary investment returns for 60 years, he announced last weekend that he will step down as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway and turn the reigns over to Greg Abel beginning next year. Warren Buffett has been called the epic compounding machine because each dollar he started with at the beginning of his investment career is worth about $365,000 today. $1,000 invested in his Berkshire Hathaway stock in 1964 is worth now about $13 million.
Regardless of your financial acumen and interest in business, the fact that you know who Warren Buffett is tells you all you need to know about his success. He has been to investing what Michael Jordan was to basketball, Muhammad Ali was to boxing and Marie Curie was to physics and chemistry: a once-in-a-lifetime star.
Warren Buffett’s success as an astute investor has been studied and dissected for decades; with the goal of uncovering the “secret” he must harbor away. I view him differently. I believe he was a great investor because of his timeless life philosophy. The same things that make people great at living life make them great investors, and Buffett’s advice spanned all elements of finding personal success. To prove my point, here are some of his quotes on all sorts of life challenges:
- On education and self-improvement: “The best investment you can make, is an investment in yourself… The more you learn, the more you’ll earn.”
- On budgeting: “Do not save what is left after spending, but spend what is left after saving.”
- On emotional intelligence: “If you cannot control your emotions, you cannot control your money” (I believe you can replace “money” with “relationships”, “professional success” and any number of important goals).
- On the company you keep: “Look for three things in a person. Intelligence, energy, and integrity. If they don’t have the last one, don’t even bother with the first two.”
- On keeping it simple: “You don’t need to have extraordinary effort to achieve extraordinary results. You just need to do ordinary, everyday things exceptionally well.”
- On procrastination: “The only question is whether you’re going to do it today or tomorrow. If you keep saying you’re going to do it tomorrow, you’ll never do it. You have to get on it today.
- On how to approach any type of risk in your life: “Never test the depth of a river with both feet.”
Humble, brilliant, patient, kind. Warren Buffett has always been about the greatest of human attributes. Investment success is simply a byproduct of a proper life philosophy.
Fun Fact: Warren Buffett and his wife live in the same home in Omaha, Nebraska that he purchased in 1956 for $31,500. I suspect there have been some home improvements since that time.
