Prior to Warren Buffett, asset management seemed a pretty unlikely route to achieving folk hero status. However, not only has Buffett managed to defy any conception of what was actually possible for an investor by growing his fortune from almost nothing to about $80 billion in a single lifetime, but his folksy wisdom about the importance of living a balanced life has made him a beloved public figure.
That point really gets hammered home for readers of Alice Schroeder’s biography of the Oracle of Omaha when she covers Buffett addressing students at Georgia Tech. When asked what truly defined success, Buffett responded that it was actually really simple: love. Here’s what you should know about Buffett’s surprising tip.
Can’t Buy Me Love, or at Least so Says Buffett
Here’s the full quote from “The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life”:
“Basically, when you get to my age, you’ll really measure your success in life by how many of the people you want to have love you actually do love you.
“I know people who have a lot of money, and they get testimonial dinners and they get hospital wings named after them. But the truth is that nobody in the world loves them. If you get to my age in life and nobody thinks well of you, I don’t care how big your bank account is; your life is a disaster.
“That’s the ultimate test of how you have lived your life. The trouble with love is that you can’t buy it. You can buy sex. You can buy testimonial dinners. But the only way to get love is to be lovable. It’s very irritating if you have a lot of money. You’d like to think you could write a check: I’ll buy a million dollars’ worth of love. But it doesn’t work that way. The more you give love away, the more you get.”
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