Lessons from Billionaire Warren Buffett: Spend less than you earn, avoid toxic people and activities, and keep learning throughout your life

Since 2012 I have attended Warren Buffett and Charlie Monger Berkshire and Hathaway’s shareholders meetings. The shareholders meeting brings together Presidents of Investment Funds, Family Offices, VC, and Hedge Funds. Additionally, corporate leaders such as Bill Gates and Tom Cook are always in attendance. The lessons emerging from these meetings represent the most effective accelerator for personal growth, and we should all apply the two billionaire investors and wisdom as they have been instrumental to their unparalleled success and happiness.

During the shareholder’s meeting, CEO Warren Buffett and vice chairman Charlie Munger gave away as usual business and life advice during Saturday’s annual meeting on May 6th. Munger’s “great lesson in life” is to cut out toxic people who can hinder your path to success.” Munger continued and said, “It’s so simple to spend less than you earn, and invest shrewdly, and avoid toxic people and toxic activities, and try and keep learning all your life, and do a lot of deferred gratification”. If you do all those things, you are almost certain to succeed according to the two guru investors. Similarly, Buffett commented “I’ve never known anybody that was basically kind that died without friends,”. “And I’ve known plenty of people with money that have died without friends.” This is the typical advice that has been recurrently shared by the two partners over the last ten years during their shareholder’s meetings. 

What strikes me about the duo’s partnership, is that they built a multi-billion-dollar business based on friendship, removing unethical people from their team, and making kindness and focus the driving force of their empire building. As Munger puts it, toxic people can threaten your path to success. Monger said during the meetings on Saturday, “The great lesson of life is get them the hell out of your life and do it fast”.

Invest in yourself: Invest in yourself has been the most common recommendation throughout the last 10 years shareholder’s meetings. That means essentially to look at yourself as the most important asset you have control over. Once, you realize that you will start using the limited amount of time you have every day to ensure that you become smarter, more focused and happier. In order to do that you need to remove activities and people that don’t add value to your life, spend less than you earn, and continue to learn more every day. Ultimately the more you learn the more you earn.