The tried and tested Ten Rules for Success by Warren Buffett, one of the greatest investors and most successful businessmen in the world. As of March 2019, Warren Buffett has a net worth close to US$ 85 billion.
Down times in life are in fact ideal periods for introspection, self-analysis, self-improvement, and course corrections. When things are going well for people, it is quite normal for them to be convinced that they are the ‘doers’ and that their success is a result of their smartness, talent, ability, and work. This belief builds ego in them, which in turn has the power to cause intellectual blindness, avarice, selfishness, miserliness, ruthlessness, and also the fear of losing what they believe they possess. However, when calamity strikes them in business or in their career, they realise that the good things that happened to them all the while actually happened on their own and that they simply benefitted from some unknown factor in their lives, which some people might call luck, that they feel they don’t possess anymore. On the other hand, wise people who possess great wealth and always achieve tremendous success in the material world not only know the secret to amass wealth, but they also know how to protect their wealth by guarding themselves against all the negative traits mentioned above that usually come along with success.
One such wise person is Warren Buffett, who is one of the most successful and richest businessmen in the whole world. He does not believe in pomp and show and never wastes money. Even after becoming a billionaire, he still lives in the same ordinary house he bought in 1958. He is a noted philanthropist who has announced that he will give away 83% of his wealth to charity. He has stated that he would not leave behind any significant amounts of wealth for his children because he does not want the money to make them feel like doing nothing. He respects money to such an extent that he would not spend a single cent on something unnecessary.
Some of his frugal habits include driving the same ordinary car for many years, starting his day with breakfast costing about three or four US$ at a local restaurant, enjoying hobbies that are not expensive, entertaining friends like Bill Gates once in a while, but never throwing extravagant parties.
Should you have been facing unexpected financial difficulties, you must be presently wishing for good opportunities in life for you to be able to earn back all that you lost, achieve more success than ever, and regain all the glory that your destiny snatched away from you in such a shocking manner. My suggestion to you would be to tell yourself that your situation will change once your mind changes. After having faced difficulties and troubles that you find so hard to solve, your ego must have either left you completely or must be on the verge of freeing you from its clutches over your mind. This is the perfect time for you to prepare yourself to attract and channel wealth back into your life. You could start the process of preparing yourself for the new period of abundance by promising yourself that you would not visit astrology sites again and corrupt your mind by reading their general predictions! Instead, make it a point to watch at least one or two videos of talks by successful people every day. You could search for videos on Warren Buffet and watch them. If it is wealth that you wish for yourself, you will surely be positively influenced by his speeches.
Carefully read Warren Buffett’s Ten Rules for Success given below not just once, but about three or four times every day. This is because you need to remove all the negative energy that must have accumulated in you in the past and replace it with positive energy and a winning attitude. The ten rules need to become your normal style of thinking and working. They must enter your psyche and become your core philosophy of business and handling wealth.
Assuming that today you sincerely start believing you are on the final stretch of the tough period you have been going through and make it a point to follow the advice given by Warren Buffet, it should not take you more than a few months before you find yourself rising again. However, remember one important Mantra of the man who happens to be one of the richest three in the world: FRUGALITY. Never throw money—not even a cent.
Read below, Warren Buffett’s Ten Rules for Success.
May you attain great prosperity and share your abundance with others like great, successful people do.
Warren Buffett’s 10 Rules for Success
1. Reinvest Your Profits
When you first make money, you may be tempted to spend it. Don’t. Instead, reinvest the profits. Buffett learned this early on. In high school, he and a pal bought a pinball machine to put in a barbershop. With the money they earned, they bought more machines until they had eight in different shops. When the friends sold the venture, Buffett used the proceeds to buy stocks and start another small business.
2. Be Willing to Be Different
Don’t base your decisions on what everyone is saying or doing. When Buffett began managing money in 1956 with $100,000 cobbled together from a handful of investors, he was dubbed an oddball. He worked in Omaha, not on Wall Street, and he refused to tell his partners where he was putting their money. People predicted that he’d fail, but when he closed his partnership 14 years later, it was worth more than $100 million.
3. Never Suck Your Thumb
Gather in advance any information you need to make a decision, and ask a friend or relative to make sure that you stick to a deadline. Buffett prides himself on swiftly making up his mind and acting on it. He calls any unnecessary sitting and thinking “thumb-sucking.”
4. Spell Out the Deal Before You Start
Your bargaining leverage is always greatest before you begin a job – that’s when you have something to offer that the other party wants. Buffett learned this lesson the hard way as a kid, when his grandfather Ernest hired him and a friend to dig out the family grocery store after a blizzard. The boys spent five hours shoveling until they could barely straighten their frozen hands. Afterwards, his grandfather gave the pair less than 90 cents to split.
5. Watch Small Expenses
Buffett invests in businesses run by managers who obsess over the tiniest costs. He once acquired a company whose owner counted the sheets in rolls of 500-sheet toilet paper to see if he was being cheated (he was). He also admired a friend who painted only the side of his office building that faced the road.
6. Limit What You Borrow
Buffett has never borrowed a significant amount—not to invest, not for a mortgage. He has received many heartbreaking letters from people who thought their borrowing was manageable but became overwhelmed by debt. His advice: Negotiate with creditors to pay what you can. Then, when you’re debt-free, work on saving some money that you can use to invest.
7. Be Persistent
With tenacity and ingenuity, you can win against a more established competitor. Buffett acquired the Nebraska Furniture Mart in 1983 because he liked the way its founder, Rose Blumkin, did business. A Russian immigrant, she built the mart from a pawnshop into the largest furniture store in North America. Her strategy was to undersell the big shots, and she was a merciless negotiator.
8. Know When to Quit
Once, when Buffett was a teen, he went to the racetrack. He bet on a race and lost. To recoup his funds, he bet on another race. He lost again, leaving him with close to nothing. He felt sick—he had squandered nearly a week’s earnings. Buffett never repeated that mistake.
9. Assess the Risks
In 1995, the employer of Buffett’s son, Howie, was accused by the FBI of price-fixing. Buffett advised Howie to imagine the worst- and best-case scenarios if he stayed with the company. His son quickly realised that the risks of staying far outweighed any potential gains, and he quit the next day.
10. Know What Success Really Means
Despite his wealth, Buffett does not measure success in dollars. In 2006, he pledged to give away almost his entire fortune to charities, primarily the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He’s adamant about not funding monuments to himself – no Warren Buffett buildings or halls. “When you get to my age, you’ll measure your success in life by how many of the people you want to have love you actually do love you. That’s the ultimate test of how you’ve lived your life.”
Tavamithram Sarvada 