Warren Buffett’s Secret to Success: Why He Doesn’t Follow Wall Street

Good morning, Believe Nation. It's Evan. My one word is believe, and I believe in people more than they believe in themselves. And my sincere hope is that if you see in yourself what I see in you, you'll be able to change the planet. So to help you on your journey, today's message is paint what you want. Over to you, Warren Buffett.

I wake up every morning, espresso keep me going.

I wake up every morning, What brings you the most satisfaction beyond family?

Well, my most greatest satisfaction is just staying in good health. When you're 86, I mean, you look at this a little different.

So you're in good health?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, I enjoy every day. I enjoy it.

What is it that you enjoy?

Well, I enjoy running Berkshire. I mean, if you get right down into my psyche, I mean, that's what I want to do. Yeah. No, it's, you know, it It's been my painting for 50-some years. I get to paint what I want. I don't have to do, you know, follow what Wall Street is telling me to do next quarter or something like that. So I own the brush, I own the canvas, and the canvas is unlimited. Now that's a pretty nice game, and I get to do it every day with people I like. I don't have to associate with anyone that causes my stomach to churn, you know? If I were in politics, I'd have to smile at a lot of people that I wanna hit, you know?

So I don't.

You just don't go to them. It's really, I've got a good deal, I'm gonna— I'm hanging on to it.

This is always a great reminder that you are in control of your own brush. You're the artist, you get to paint what you want, and you are in control of your brush. Where too often we blame other people. You might blame your boss if you have a job that you're trying to get out of. You might blame your circumstances. And as soon as you start blaming somebody else, it makes you feel good about yourself because it's not your fault anymore, right? So it's somebody else's fault, so I can feel better about myself. But as soon as you give away that responsibility, as soon as you give your brush to somebody else, then you're never gonna grow. It's hopeless. You're never gonna make the painting that you want. And so it always starts with you picking up your brush and owning your canvas. And that may not be a full-time thing, like, there's realities of the world. You might have a family, you might have kids, you might have a spouse, you might have big debt. There's lots of reasons, you know, that are slowing your progress. But you can still pick up that brush every day and paint something, right? You could spend 30 to 60 minutes every single day on your business, and if you did that, you'll start to see major growth in your business. What ends up happening is the, the pressures of life and everything else that's happening start beating down on you. You haven't scheduled in enough time to focus on your business. You don't set enough boundaries around to say, this is sacred time that I need to focus on doing Am I doing the thing that I say I wanna do? Right, if you have this big goal, you have to start matching your actions to the goal. You have to start taking action on the thing that you say you wanna do. You have to pick up your brush, and every day, start painting. And so for those of you who haven't gone full-time, or aren't taking enough action, schedule in the time in your calendar consistently, so that it's happening. So, you know, Monday nights at 9 o'clock, and Tuesday nights at 9 o'clock, or whatever the time is that fits best for your schedule, Make sure it's being put in there so you have time to paint. The other side are the entrepreneurs who start to get bored. The entrepreneurs who have a business, who've had some success, but then they've plateaued and they're kind of just staying here at the same level and not growing and not getting anything from it anymore. And a lot of these entrepreneurs, this is common, it's common to get bored of your business. It's common to then want to quit your business or to look for something else that you want to do because this business isn't giving you the satisfaction and the joy anymore. And a big reason for that is because you dropped the brush. Like, you stopped creating something new. You let the success that you've had in the past be chains that prevent you from moving forward. So I was talking to a YouTuber recently who was going through this, and he has a successful channel, he's trying to build it up, but he's had kind of flat growth, and he feels like he's making the same videos over and over and over again, and there's no variety in the content anymore, and he's not sure what to do about it. Should he sell his channel? Should he focus on a different business? Should he— Should he start up other joint ventures? Should he get into podcasting? Should he just go and do something else? And the reason why he's frustrated and bored is because he lost the creativity. He's not doing new things anymore, right? He dropped his brush. We have to pick it back up and just start to paint again and do something different. I love the series on my channel. I love making every new series. I'm constantly inviting new series in. If I don't like a series anymore, I'll drop it. Even if it's really popular, if I'm not enjoying it, I'm gonna drop it because I don't wanna come here and talk to you guys on a consistent basis about something I'm not passionate about. And so we're constantly trying new things, new series, new ideas. I'm constantly painting. My channel is not the same. Yes, we're making YouTube videos, but it's not the same as I was a year ago, and it's not gonna look the same as it will in another year from now, and 2 years, and 5 years, and 10 years. And so the key is to be constantly evolving as an entrepreneur, constantly picking up the brush, constantly painting new things. And if you go too long as a creative entrepreneur without painting, without expressing, without putting yourself into the business, and you just get stuck in a day-to-day grind of running the operations, you will get bored. You will crash. You will want to shut down. You will want to look to something else. You will want to sell the business. You will want to move on. And so if that's you, I'd strongly encourage you to look at how do I consistently to find new ways to pick up the brush and keep painting in my business. So the question of the day today is, I'm curious, how often are you creating new things for your business? How often are you expressing your creativity into your company? How consistent is that for you? Is it daily? Is it once a week? Is it once a month? Is it once a quarter? I'd love to hear from you. Leave it down in the comments below. Also, for people who leave comments within the first few hours of this video going live, you have a chance to win one of two daily prizes. I also want to give a quick shout out to Marcus Campbell. Marcus, thank you so much for picking up a copy of my book, Your One Word, and making the YouTube video on it as well. I really, really appreciate the support and the review, and I'm so glad that you enjoyed my book. Thank you guys again for watching. I believe in you. I hope you continue to believe in yourself and whatever your one word is. Much love, and I'll see you again tomorrow morning for another shot of inspresso.

Espresso, keep me going.

I think you've got to find what makes you tick. And I think greatness comes from when you marry your passion with your job. Because I don't really think I have a job. I just, I love what I do. And I always say that to kids. I talk to a lot of kids. Who are at university and say, "How do I make a lot of money?" I say, "Forget the lot of money part.

Find something you're going to be great at and let the money follow you." So what is it about people who find their passion, who work hard and never make a dime? Well, they make a few dimes, but not enough. They never get there.

So, you know, Fanny, it's interesting because we have this conversation all the time. I live in a very affluent area and I have these quarterly dinners, or I used to with my neighbors. So at one point I had 20 guys, they were all worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and we asked that same question. Can you always be successful even if you love what you do and all the other stuff? And the reality is, as my dad said, if you work hard, right, you will never be poor in life. But just because you work hard doesn't mean you'll be rich. Sometimes you need to get lucky. But the reality is that the harder you work, it's true, the luckier you get.

So I don't really remember the exact day or anything, but when I was in college is when I started thinking about wanting to be an entrepreneur someday. So it was— I was not the kid with the lemonade stand. You know, I wasn't one of these kids who was always trying to raise money. I always wanted to be a scientist when I was little, but I also always loved computers. I like— I was lucky because at my age this is unusual to have access to a mainframe computer from my elementary school when I was in 4th grade. In 4th grade and quickly learned that there was a pre-programmed Star Trek game on that computer and then I never did anything except play Star Trek with the computer. So I don't know how formative that was. It certainly led, it certainly helped my Star Trek knowledge considerably. And, and, but I've always loved computers. Somewhere in college I started watching some of the people who were like setting up, you know, college pizza delivery services and, you know, the kind of the core entrepreneurs and thinking, you know, this looks like a really fun thing to do.

I mean, I really, really enjoy what I do. I really do. And I think, you know, a number of you probably are interested in consulting. I think my only advice, and I hope that I'm a few years older than you, so I have the right to give you a little bit of advice. But my only advice is pick something that you will thoroughly enjoy, whatever that may be. And I think if you do that, you know, you will, to answer the first individual's question, you'll probably survive in it. And potentially, maybe, you'll thrive in it. I mean, I usually don't say this, but, you know, if I wasn't paid a lot of money, I would still do what I do. I hope, you know, some of our managing partners don't see this program because my units may get cut, but I would still do what I do. You know, I'm surprised on a yearly basis as to what kind of money I make. I mean, I just am absolutely surprised. I would do it for a tenth of what I make. So, you know, just find something that you really enjoy and I think you'll thrive.