The Hindu Business Line : Wit and wisdom of Warren Buffett

What is success? “Having people love you that you want to have love you,” says the Oracle of Omaha, Warren Buffett. Love is not something you can buy with money, he cautions. “Money, to some extent, sometimes lets you be in more interesting environments. But it can’t change how many people love you or how healthy you are.”

These are some of the quotes in the ‘completely revised and updated’ anthology of ‘wit and wisdom from the world’s greatest investor’ by Janet Lowe: ‘Warren Buffett Speaks’ ( www.wiley.com). The book classifies the sayings of ‘the Forrest Gump of finance’ into chapters on life, friends, investing and so on.

And he speaks with candour. For instance, Buffett’s message to his son Howard is simple: Be honest. “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.”

Never lie under any circumstances, he advises. “Don’t pay any attention to the lawyers. If you start letting lawyers get into the picture, they’ll basically tell you, ‘Don’t say anything.’”

Can work be drudgery? Not to Buffett, though. “Work for the fun of it,” he urges. “I am the luckiest guy in the world in terms of what I do for a living,” he declares. “No one can tell me to do things I don’t believe in or things I think are stupid.”

He describes his job, thus: “When I go to my office every morning, I feel like I’m going to the Sistine Chapel to paint.” He enjoys ‘the process far more than the proceeds,’ but he has ‘learned to live with those also.’

The most important factor at work, according to ‘the financial world’s Will Rogers,’ is to interact with people you like or admire. When recently speaking at Harvard (which had rejected him more than fifty years ago!), Buffett was asked by a student, ‘Who should I go to work for?’ Buffett said, “Go to work for whoever you admire the most.” Two weeks later, the dean called him and said, “What are you telling these kids? They’re all becoming self-employed.”

A chapter on ‘running a business’ begins with a lesson on communication. Buffett confesses to hitting blocks when writing the annual reports. “The block isn’t because I’ve run out of words in the dictionary. The block is because I haven’t got it straight in my own mind yet. There’s nothing like writing to force you to think and to get your thoughts straight.”

To overcome speaking blocks, Buffett invested $100 in a Dale Carnegie course, after he finished college. “Not to prevent my knees from knocking when public speaking but to do public speaking while my knees were knocking,” he reminisces.

Does the 77-year-old icon think he is too old to do what he is doing? “In a general sense, grey hair doesn’t hurt on this playing field,” he answers, cheerfully. “You don’t need good hand-eye coordination or well-toned muscles to push money around (thank heavens).”

To wrap up, here is a quick one-liner on why you should not take the performance of your stock personally. Why? Because, after all, “a stock doesn’t know you own it.”

Fabulous read.

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