Memoirs of GB Episode 95: The Greatest Gift

We all know about Warren Buffet, The greatest Investor & Big Bull of our times but there is a much inspiring story about his son Peter Buffet.

When Peter Buffett turned 19, his father Warren Buffett gave him $90,000 in Berkshire Hathaway shares. If Peter had kept them, CNBC calculates that today they would be worth over $200 million. Did he keep them? No, he sold them for something he saw as more much valuable: #Time.

?The $90,000 was inheritance money for Peter that Warren was keeping safe in Berkshire Hathaway shares.

?Peter recalls what happened on his birthday: “What to do with the money? I was a student at Stanford University; there were no strings attached. Fortunately, I’d had the advantage of seeing my older siblings burn through most of their cash.”

So instead, he dropped out of Stanford and decided to follow his dream of being a musician, using the money to “buy the time it would take to figure out if I could actually make a go of it in music.”

“With help from my father, I worked out a budget that would allow me to conserve my capital for as long as possible. I moved to San Francisco, where I lived very frugally - small apartment, funky car. My sole extravagance was in expanding my recording equipment.”

“I played the piano, wrote tunes, experimented with electronic sounds. Then I put a classified ad in the San Francisco Chronicle, offering to record all comers in my studio.”

“And I waited until a very important bit of good luck tracked me down one day in 1981, as I stood at a San Francisco curb side washing my crummy old car. A neighbour with whom I’d had nothing more than a nodding acquaintance happened by and asked what I did for a living.”

“When I told him I was a struggling composer, he suggested I get in touch with his son-in-law, an animator who was always in need of music."

"I followed up, and the son-in-law did have work for me. He’d been commissioned to create 10-second 'intersticials' - quick ads meant to flash a logo and establish a brand ID for a newly conceived cable channel.”

“I took the work. And the cable channel more than launched; it rocketed to the moon. It was called MTV.”

?Having created his own luck, Peter ended up with a full workload with MTV and other cable channels, and from there built his dream career in music. He’s released over a dozen albums, earned an Emmy Award, become a New York Times best-selling author and now gives back through the charity organization he started, the NoVo Foundation. Other than the $90,000 he got in inheritance and mentoring along the way, he got no further money from his dad.

?Asked if he regrets not finishing university and getting a high paying job as a CEO or investor, Peter says:

But I didn’t make that choice and I don’t regret it for a second. I used my nest egg to buy something infinitely more valuable than money: I used it to buy time.”

And that time led to his dream life.

?What about you?

What would you do if you suddenly had all the time you needed? The trigger for Peter was an inheritance. For you, it could be this crisis.

?This crisis has given us all more time than we have ever had before.

Peter says of his inheritance “Having that money was a privilege, a gift I had not earned.”

None of us earned this crisis either. But here it is.?

What if this crisis (Covid 19 Pandemic) was the greatest gift?

Yes, this crisis is leading to lives lost and to hunger and poverty. But if you have your health, shelter, and some food on the table, right now you also have the gift of time.

Peter says “There are many people who are privileged, either in terms of money, emotional support or some sort of unique talent or opportunity. But they fail to understand the value of time and instead try to rush into their destiny”

As a result, they end up “working jobs that may or may not be right for them, that may or may not be fulfilling.”

With this gift of time, what could you do now to create the life you’ve always wanted to live?

?Slow down, realign, and only then speed up again.

?“We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” - Joseph Campbell

?Godspeed

Dinesh Chandrasekar DC*

P.S: All views expressed here are my personal views and opinion and have no bearing to the organization I work

Source : Inspired from the Peter Buffett book titled?Life is What You Make It . Peter writes about the values he absorbed growing up as the son of Warren Buffett and his late mother, Susan Buffett, and the path he has pursued to identify and pursue his passions in life.

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