Warren Buffett: The Life and Business Lessons of Warren Buffett

by George Ilian

“Never give up searching for the job that you’re passionate about. Try to find the job you’d have if you were independently rich. Forget about the pay. When you’re associating with the people that you love, doing what you love, it doesn’t get any better than that.” — Warren Buffet

To strive every day to be a better person and and take personal responsibility for all of your decisions whether they are good or bad, or successes or failures, and to not view your failures as such, but rather as lessons you learn and profit from.

“The best education you can get is investing in yourself. But this doesn’t always mean college or university.”

“It’s better to hang out with people better than you. Pick out associates whose behavior is better than yours and you’ll drift in that direction.”

“You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don’t do too many things wrong.“

Creating a business, particularly in a still struggling economy, can seem like an almost impossible feat. But if you have an idea, the know how, and the willingness to work hard, creating your own business isn’t as unachievable as you would think it is.

“You’re neither right nor wrong because other people agree with you. You’re right because your facts are right and your reasoning is right – that’s the only thing that makes you right. And if your facts and reasoning are right, you don’t have to worry about anybody else.”

“Look at market fluctuations as your friend rather than your enemy; profit from folly rather than participate in it.“

“Somebody once said that in looking for people to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. And if you don’t have the first, the other two will kill you. You think about it; it’s true. If you hire somebody without [integrity], you really want them to be dumb and lazy.”

“Most people get interested in stocks when everyone else is. The time to get interested is when no one else is. You can’t buy what is popular and do well.”

Buffett is the type of investor who actually needs to see how the business operates and how its employees interact and enjoy their work.

Buffett knows that a business is only as good as the people who run it and operate it. For him, a solid reputation in the world, and just not on paper, makes all the difference. This belief has served Buffett and his business decisions for well over sixty-years

“It is not necessary to do extraordinary things to get extraordinary results.”

“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.”

What Warren Buffett’s life has taught us, more than anything else, is that a life of passion is also a life of obsession, and that the two walk hand-in-hand. When you are living a life of passion and obsession, there are no limits. There are no time clocks or time off, no vacations, no bosses breathing down your neck to perform, because with obsession, there is no boss, there is only you. There is only your obsession and wanting to work on it day after day as a means of perfecting it and making it fully your own.

If this is you, if you have found your passion, the very thing that makes you jump out of bed every day eager for it to start and disappointed when it comes to a close because you feel you still have so much more to do, count yourself lucky, because you are a true rarity. Although living a life of passion at times may feel like a burden because of various roadblocks and limitations. But if you stay true to yourself and your passion, eventually you will find yourself doing exactly what you want to be doing if you remain persistent and true to your vision of your future and career.

Read, give yourself time to sit and think, experience life, and constantly pursue your education whether it is in a classroom, or in the classroom of experience.

The point is to constantly strive to make yourself a better person who cares deeply and passionately about family, friends, work, life and to eventually achieve all of your goals no matter what they are.