Warren Buffett

Interviewer: Warren, how would you define true success? Warren Buffett: Well, I've said many times that if you get to be 65 or 70 and later and the people that you wanna have love you actually do love you're a success.

I've never seen anybody that reaches that age, I mean, I'm not talking about somebody that's in extreme poverty or pain or something, but I've never seen anybody that if they have a lot of people that love them, that is other than happy, and I've seen some very wealthy people that they give testimonial dinners to and name schools after and everything, and they're nobody loves them, you know?

Their own kids would say, "He's in the attic, he's in the attic," you know? They never came. Interviewer: What are, say, three pieces of advice you would give to people who are looking to succeed in business? Warren Buffett: Well, by far the best investment you can make is in yourself.

I mean, the. For example, communication skills. I tell the students that come that, they're going to graduate schools and business and they're learning all these complicated formulas and all that. If they just learn to communicate better, and both in writing and in person, they increase their value at least 50%.

And I mean, if you can't communicate, somebody says, you know, it's like winking at a girl in the dark. Nothing happens, you know, basically. And you have to be able to get forth your ideas and that's, that's relatively easy.

I did it myself with a Dale Carnegie course. Some people wish I'd taken a shorter course now in terms of my talking later on. But it's just hugely important.

And if you invest in yourself, nobody can take it away from you. I mean, you. And the second thing, which I'll get a certain criticism for not living it, but I do tell the, those students, you know, that if I gave you a car, and it'd be the only car you get the rest of your life, you'd take care of it like you can't believe.

Any scratch, you'd fix that moment. You'd read the owner's manual. You'd keep it garaged and do all these things.

And you get exactly one mind and one, and one body in this world, and you can't start taking care of it when you're 50. By that time, you'll have rusted out if you haven't done anything. So you should, you should really make sure that you just remember that you just got one mind and body to get through life with and to do the most with it.

Interviewer: What about life advice? Warren Buffett: Well, life advice is, you know, the most important thing, aside from the things I've talked about already, is really who you associate with. You wanna associate with people that are better than you are.

I mean, basically you'll go in the direction of the people that you associate with. And you wanna have the right heroes. You want people.

If you wanna emulate somebody, you better pick very carefully who you wanna emulate. And when. Obviously you can't pick your parents.

They're gonna have an enormous influence on you but you don't get a choice on that. But you get choices as you go down the line, and you who you admire, who you who you wanna copy. And the most important for most people in terms of that decision is their spouse.

It's also important in terms of a partner in business, but the partner in life is the most important one. You wanna pick a spouse that's little, that's better than you are. And then he or she and and you hope they don't figure it out too fast.