It's the most important thing in life

Warren Buffett is one of the richest people in the world, but money is not an important factor in measuring the quality of his life.

In 2017, when Bill Gates, co-founder of Buffett and Microsoft, shared the stage for a lecture at Columbia University, a student asked the following question: "Is there an important life lesson that you learned about relationships through your personal experiences? "

"Well, it's a very important question, you'll go in the direction of the people you associate with," Buffett said. "It's important to partner with people who are better than you."

Buffett, who has just turned 89 on Saturday, August 30, 2019, has given similar advice in the past.

"By and large, when you reach my age, you will really measure your success in life by the number of people you want to love that you really love," he said in 2001 during a speech at the University of Toronto. University of Georgia.

"I know people who have lots of money and who carry honorary dinners and hospital wings bearing their name, but the truth is nobody in the world loves them," he said. Buffett. "If you reach my age in life and nobody fits you well, no matter how big your bank account, your life is a disaster, it's the ultimate test of your life."

Of all the people who love you in return, the most important person by far, according to Buffett, is your wife. "I can not stress enough how important it is," he said in his 2017 conversation with Gates.

In the HBO documentary 2017 titled "Becoming Warren Buffett", the billionaire said he owed some of his greatest qualities to his first wife, Susan. "I was very very lucky.I was an unbalanced man.And it took a while, but she stood there with a little watering can and fed me and I was very happy. changed, "he recalls.

In many ways, Susan helped Buffett to become the man he is today: she interested him in civil rights and feminism, encouraged him to become a public figure and give more of his money. in his lifetime.

Although they have never divorced, Susan is distant from Omaha and the two have remained very close, according to the documentary. She also helped orchestrate Buffett's relationship with Astrid Menks, with whom he married after his death. (Buffett and Astrid tied a knot on August 30, 2006, the same day he turned 76 – and have been together for 13 years.)

During their conversation at Columbia University, Gates, who is a longtime friend of Buffett, said, "Some friends bring you the best of yourself, so it's good to invest in These friendships is really thanks to Melinda and realized, okay, the investment of these people is well worth it because you are always there to help them and vice versa. "

Gates also commented on his marriage with Melinda last year, in a live chat on Facebook: There is some intensity when we raise a family together, but "we are very lucky because we usually see things are the same, our goals are very similar. "

In many ways, Buffett's words of wisdom are very similar to the warnings we received from our parents when we were young so as not to hang around with the bad crowd.

Buffett's own experience with his friendships and love is proof that the people we let into our lives – the ones who truly love and care about us – are the ones who drive us to live successful, happy and significant.

The researchers have even discovered that people with a strong support system (your friends and life partners) are less likely to suffer from depression and social isolation, which has been associated with fewer good results in health.

That's more than enough reason to consider Buffett's advice by thinking about the strength of your personal relationships by asking yourself questions like: Do the people who matter to me really like me back? Do they make me a better person?

As Gates has already said: "It's a metric as good as you'll find it."

Tom Popomaronis is a trade expert and proud to be from Baltimore. He is currently Senior Director of Product Innovation at Hawkins Group. His work has been featured in Forbes, Fast Company and The Washington Post. In 2014, he was named one of the "40 Under 40s" by the Baltimore Business Journal.

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