Yesterday was a big day for Levo League. Warren Buffett, the legendary, amazing, and iconic (insert more strongly descriptive words) participated in our Office Hours and answered your queries, which were monumental. He provided us with some excellent advice that we could apply to both our professional lives as well as our personal lives.

Confront Your Fears

He said he was petrified of public speaking when he was younger. He could have tried to avoid it, but instead, he embraced it head-on. It eventually altered his life after he took a Dale Carnegie public speaking course. It is incredibly important to learn how to communicate in life if you want any hope of success. If you can’t talk to other people, you’re not reaching your full potential.

Play Bridge

I am confident that the game of bridge is about to surge in popularity. Buffett described playing bridge with a partner as an ongoing character-building exercise, saying: “Bridge is a partnership game—almost like dancing. You have to be attuned intellectually to the person you’re playing with and bring out the best in them. They also need to do the same for you…not all couples achieve that level of understanding and communication. We like to play against married couples sometimes because when they get mad at each other during the game, they stay mad.”

Read Katharine Graham’s Personal History

Buffett could not have said it better himself. “It’s a completely honest book. I called her after reading it and told her, ‘You wrote the book that I had hoped you would.’” When her husband committed suicide in 1963, Katharine Graham took charge of The Washington Post Company which had been previously controlled by her father, Eugene Meyer. From 1969 to 1979, she was also the publisher of the newspaper. According to her obituary, “Mrs. Graham’s imprint was the product both of her values, which suffused the paper, and of the crucial decisions she made about its leadership and direction.” 

Read a Lot

Buffett also notes that he enjoys reading. “I read at least five or six hours a day… a lot of it is relevant to my work, but I genuinely like it… I just love obtaining more knowledge and growing Berkshire.”

Dr. Konstantinos Arfanakis and his colleagues from Rush University Medical Center and Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago discovered that if people keep their brains occupied later on in life, they tend to have more positive outcomes.

Arfanakis said, “We discovered that elderly persons who frequently challenged their cognitive abilities had higher microstructural integrity in brain white matter than those who did not. Since the microstructural integrity of white matter declines with age, our findings suggest that late-life cognition may be maintained by continuing to engage the mind.” In other words, keep learning new things throughout your life!

Don’t Do Anything You Don’t Like to Do

This is such a basic yet wonderful piece of wisdom. But I think that many of us find it difficult to do so. As Buffett stated, he spends his time enjoying playing bridge and talking with friends because he’s in charge of his schedule and only does things that bring him happiness.

Don’t Be Intimidated by Your Male Co-workers

The Wizard of Oz, as you may guess, is a favorite reference of Buffett’s. “You know, the males—there’s a lot of the Wizard of Oz in us. [Look] behind the curtain and you’ll find out that it wasn’t quite that imposing,” Buffett remarked. You may have to deal with some large-headed folks; nevertheless, keep in mind that they are only utilizing a microphone behind a curtain at the end of the day.

What was your biggest takeaway from yesterday’s Office Hours with Warren Buffett? Tell us in the comments below!

If you want to ask Warren Buffett for advice, it’s not too late! Follow him on his Levo League profile and send him a question.

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