We Study Billionaires - The Investor’s Podcast Network - In-B-Tween : Warren Buffett and Bill Gates on Heroes (Investing Podcast)

Episode Date: July 1, 2015

In this episode, we research Warren Buffett and Bill Gates' opinions about heroes.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm

Hey, how's everybody doing out there? This is Preston Pish, and this is this week's In Between a Sode, and the title of it is role models. So one of the most important decisions a person can make in their life is the selection of their heroes and their role models. Whether you realize it or not, the role models that you select in your life are going to have a dramatic impact on who you are and ultimately who you become. So here's a fantastic response that billionaire Warren Buffett gave on this very topic. It's enormously important to have the right heroes in life, and then it's enormously important that they never let you down. And I've been unbelievably fortunate in having those heroes, perhaps a dozen or so, led by my father and wife. And they had a huge impact on me, but a number of other people have as well. And never in my life have I felt I was let down by them.

I tell the students, the most important job they have for most of them is going to be the teacher of their children. And you start out as your children's hero. And you don't get a second chance at living that role out. That child looks to you and forms its opinion of the world, its attitude, its behavior, starting with what they see in you. and I had enormous good fortune in that respect. I had in the investing world, I had Ben Graham,

I had my partner Charlie Munger who taught me all kinds of things. There are several members of our board of directors that have had a huge influence on my life. So it is important to have the right heroes and select them with care. But when you find them, you will be a better person

if you look at the qualities in them that you admire and then you say, why can't I have these same qualities? I mean, that's the beauty of wonderful heroes, is that you get to see an action behavior that inspires you, and then you have to ask yourself the question, why can't I behave in a similar manner? And you will be a better person because of that. So there we go.

We have it. As you can see, selecting your role models is extremely important, and there's Warren Buffett given his opinions on it. So it's really interesting because Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are really good friends. And in Bill Gates's autobiography, he says that the selection of a role model really comes down to three important parts for him. So that's what I want to talk about because I think everybody inherently knows that it's really important to have good role models. But how do you make sure that you select the right ones? And that's why we're going to go through Bill Gates's three points here.

So his first point is make sure your role model shares or has better. core values than yourself. So going back to Buffett, he has a quote. He says, 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. And I really like that quote because in today's generation, many kids and adults are attracted to these sports stars or TV personalities that have an enormous amount of fame, but maybe don't have the best values. And this is a very toxic fascination that people have. As a person continues to glorify these role model's actions, a small part of their subconscious mind accepts that behavior as being

acceptable. So I think that's why Bill Gates has this first one, which is make sure that you basically pick up and make sure that you find somebody whose values are better than your own. So his second point for selecting a great role model is that can the role model help you assess difficult business decisions? And it doesn't necessarily have to be business. It could be any kind of decision if you have a role model that's outside of the business realm. So if you have a role model that's outside of the business realm. So if you have a person that you work with locally, seeking their advice should be generally easy. But if you are looking for a role model that's maybe a public figure, like let's say it's Warren Buffett. It's a little hard to get access to Warren Buffett.

So I've found that the best way to do that is to read as much as you possibly can about this role model that you might have. And the more that you understand them and the more that you understand their thought process, you're going to have this intuitive understanding of how that person acts and how that person behaves. And then you can apply that to your own daily life whenever you're assessing different difficult decisions. And so the third one that Bill Gates highlights in his book is can the role model take you and more importantly your ego out of the decision making process? So this one's kind of hard because have you ever seen a friendly relationship between two people where one friend tells the other friend exactly what they want

to hear opposed to what they need to hear? That's what he's getting at with this point. you need to find that person that can tell you what you need to hear, opposed to what you want to hear. And a lot of that comes back at yourself. I know for myself personally, sometimes I might be a little hesitant to listen to people's advice, even though that I know it's best for me. And that's a flaw on my own behalf. And I think that the faster that people can realize that if they're not open to suggestion, and it can be any suggestion at all, the calmer you can be whenever you hear that suggestion,

and you just take it in and you let it sit and then you think about it, I think you're going to find that you surround yourself with people that are going to actually give you that truth more often because it's easier for them to do. So it's really a two-way street here. You have to improve on your own ability to listen to what people are telling you and not become emotionally charged whenever you hear something you might initially disagree with. And I think you also need to seek that person that is comfortable giving you that advice. And that's what Bill Gates is really hitting out with this third point.

All right, so that's all I got for you guys here in the middle of the week. I hope you guys are having a fantastic week, and we're just so thankful to have you a part of our audience. So have a good one.