Warren Buffett is acclaimed for his financial know-how-and his success as a self-made billionaire.
Those who wish to imitate the businessman, the 94 -year -old investor and philanthropist should pay particular attention to the person they marry.
Buffett said that during a 2017 conversation with the co-founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates, he attributes his choice of spouse to have succeeded.
“You want to associate yourself with people who are the kind of person you would like to be. You will travel in this direction,” said Buffett. “And the most important person from afar in this regard is your spouse. I cannot insist too much about importance. ”
And his key to finding the right person to marry has much to do with beauty, character or a sense of humor.
“If you want to last a wedding, find someone with low expectations,” said Buffett Fortune At the top of the most powerful women 2015.
Buffett is the eighth richest person in the world and is worth around $ 152 billion, according to Bloomberg. The co-founder, president and chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway announced his retirement in May and appointed Greg Abel his successor. He married Susan Buffett in 1952 and had three children with her: Susie, Howard and Peter. Susan died in 2004 at the age of 72 after undergoing cerebral hemorrhage.
Two years after Susan’s death, Buffett married Astrid Menks, who was longtime friends of the buffetts. Curiously, all three were very close friends when Susan was still alive, and they even sent Christmas cards signed “Warren, Susie and Astrid”, according to the book by Roger Lowenstein 2008 Buffett: the manufacture of an American capitalist.
“Warren was emotionally captivated by Susan who was both his ideological mentor, his sexual goddess, his bridge towards social acceptance, and his therapist, which Warren would say later had each ” of the claws that his conservative mother had left in him,” wrote the columnist Jerry Bowyer in 2012 Forbes opinion. “She obtained money and an extraordinary quantity of” freedom “for a married woman.”
Even with a somewhat unconventional conventional history, Buffett has shared wisdom linked to love over the years.
Here are three tips he gave on love.
Choose the right person to get married
In the 2017 HBO documentary, “becoming Warren Buffett”, the legend of investments said that he had “two turning point” in his life: the first was when he got out of the uterus and the second was when he met Susan.
“What happened with me would not have happened without her,” said Buffett.
Buffett also emphasizes the marriage of the “good person”, which he found in Susan.
“Marry the right person. I am serious about it,” he said at an annual meeting of Berkshire Hathaway in 2009. “This will make more difference in your life. It will change your aspirations, all kinds of things. ”
Aim a lasting wedding – not happy
By going against the saying of the saying of the “happy woman, a happy life”, Buffett approaches personal and professional relationships with low expectations.
“If you are going to get married and want a wedding that will last,” he said at a university conference. “What quality are you looking for at a spouse?” A quality. Are you looking for brains? Are you looking for humor? Are you looking for character? Are you looking for beauty? ”
“No,” said Buffett. “Not necessarily the happiest marriage – or the one that Martha Stewart will talk about. You want a wedding that will last.”
Wedding before money
Even with more fortune than almost everyone in the world, Buffett said that money was not the best thing he ever received.
“Being given an unconditional love is the greatest advantage you can get,” he told MBA students in a 2008 speech.
This unconditional love of his wife Susan is what kept him motivated.
“What is incredible about love is that you cannot get rid of it,” he said during the 2008 conference. “If you try to give it, you find yourself with twice as much, but if you try to keep it, it disappears. It is an extraordinary situation, where people who push it absolutely, he fell increased.”
And although money can buy a lot of things – it is true that he cannot buy love.
“The problem with love is that it is not for sale,” said Buffett to students at the University of Georgia in 2001. “The only way to get love is adorable. It’s very irritating if you have a lot of money. You would like to think you could write a check: the more you get a million dollars.
A version of this story originally published on Fortune.com February 14, 2024.
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