Warren Buffett's Top Rule: Don't Let COMPLACENCY Kill Your Business

Good morning, Believe Nation. If you want to run a great business, then I'm going to share with you a clip from Warren Buffett on what he says kills most businesses and how you can avoid it.

Well, what kills great businesses, if you look at— I do believe in looking at history. And I try to— I like to study failure, actually. My partner says all I want to know is where I'll die so I'll never go there. We want to see what has caused businesses to go bad. And the biggest thing that kills them is complacency. I mean, you want a restlessness, a feeling that, you know, that somebody's always after you, but you're going to stay ahead of them. You always want to be on the move. And when you've got a great business, you know, like Coca-Cola, which is— there aren't any like Coca-Cola, but— The danger would always be that you rest on your laurels, but I see none of that, obviously, at Coca-Cola. But that is the key, to compete the same way when you've got 1.8 billion servings being sold daily as when you were selling 10 a day. And that restlessness, that belief that tomorrow is more exciting than today, you just have to have it permeate the organization.

So this video reminds me of a friend of mine. When she started her business, she loved it. She was all in, she was networking, she was meeting people, she was landing new deals, she was getting new business, she was growing her company. She built it up to a certain size, and then for some reason she lost the passion. Her heart just wasn't into it anymore, and she started looking for other things to do. And I remember telling her, listen, if you don't love this anymore, then sell it. Find somebody to sell it to because you're going to get a decent price for where you're at now, and you don't have to worry about the responsibilities of this business, and you can go focus on doing something that you love. And her response was, "Yeah, I could sell it, but it's giving me passive income, and I just want to have this thing that I can put on autopilot and have somebody else run for me, and then I can worry about other things." Here's what always happens with entrepreneurs who try to put their business on autopilot. This. It never stays the same, it never goes up, it always declines. And whether that's a fast decline or a slow decline, it declines because you took your eye off the ball. Nobody's gonna care for it as much as you do, and you're now off to other projects projects, and so your business is going to decline. So my friend now, 2 years later, comes back to me and says, "Hey, I'm thinking about selling my business. I should have listened to you 2 years ago. What do I do now?" And I'm kicking myself because I wish that I was more forceful with her before. I wish that I really got that point home to her more because now she's 2 years later, her business has declined a little bit, and she can't get as good a price on her business as she could have before. So stop thinking about putting your business on autopilot. Stop being complacent about what you're doing. Pour your heart and your energy and your soul into your business. And if you don't love it enough anymore to put that kind of energy and dedication into it, then sell it off to somebody and get a return on it and move on to something else that you're passionate about. Believe. Thank you guys for watching. I'd love to know your thoughts. Can you run a great company and put it on autopilot? Leave it in the comments below. I'd love to hear from you. And if you like this video and you want to see more, don't forget to subscribe to the newsletter and the channel. Thanks for watching. Have an amazing day, and I hope to see you again as you start your morning tomorrow off on my channel with another inspirational video.