Warren Buffett’s Advice For Young Entrepreneurs
Warren Buffett says that his favorite audience to talk to is young people, and that if he wasn’t an investor, then he’d be a teacher.
As the third richest man on the planet, we should be be taking his advice no matter what age, as this man has been making money since the great depression and hasn’t slowed down.
Here’s some advice he’s given to young people to improve their future:
#1. Invest In Yourself
Before you learn to invest in businesses, you must first learn to invest in yourself, you cannot hope to go out into the world and solve problems if you can’t solve your own personal problems.
So not only must you invest time into learning about yourself and where you can improve but you also need to invest money into your education, whether through traditional education or self-education with books and programs. Don’t stop learning.
Investing in yourself should always be your main investment because you are the foundation of your company and nobody else will make your dreams happen for you.
#2. Never Risk Important Things For Unnecessary Things
There are many people who will risk their futures over one night of fun, and it is never worth it. The future is something you can always work towards and make better but one night of fun is soon over and whatever fatal mistake you made is here to stay.
You can look at this more broadly and apply it to your business, there are times where you can make a quick buck at the risk of your reputation but it’s not worth it because in the future you could make that amount regularly.
This is advice is all about practice restraint in the face of temptation in the form of instant satisfaction. Keep up this practice and you will learn that true long-lasting satisfaction can be gained from it.
#3. Get Rid Of Bad Habits As Soon As Possible
If you have any bad habits and you are still young, now is the best time to get rid of them because as you get older they will be significantly harder to break.
“The chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.”
- Warren Buffett
Everyone knows what they are addicted to and where their bad habits lie, so face up to them and work hard everyday to get rid of them.
#4. Don’t Use Credit Cards
Credit cards should never be used unless you want to gather a large amount of debt upon yourself, of course there are exceptions, but for the most part credit is the exact opposite of investing.
Using credit is like paying someone borrowing money from your future self, if you are spending the borrowed money on some short lasting luxury instead of an asset, then you are financially incompetent and should shred your credit card.
Credit is really meant for people with established businesses to get some extra leverage, and when regular people use it; it’s like they’re borrowing money from a loan shark, you will usually have to give back more than you borrowed when not having enough is what made you borrow in the first place.
Long story short, if you don’t have the cash to buy something don’t buy it.
#5. Work At A Job You Love
This is probably the most important advice because if anyone is qualified to tell us this, then it’s Warren Buffett.
He makes so much money that he has realized that it isn’t the most important thing in life, actually enjoying your life is the most important thing.
If you spend all your time chasing paper then what is it for? You may have a lot of money but you won’t have the time to spend it, so make the choice to do what you love and find a way to make a business out of it.
You’ll never work a day in your life.
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Originally published at https://forgefinancialfreedom.com on November 5, 2019.
