Important Lessons on Entrepreneurship from Warren Buffett

In 2008, Forbes named Warren Buffett as the world’s richest man with his fortune estimated at $62 billion. At 15 years old, he purchased his very first pinball machine and his good fortune began there. He was known to have invested in the stock market and buying different companies; thus making himself very well known in the investment world. Despite it all, Warren Buffett remained a well-grounded man. He found no reason to forget his humble beginnings and this made him truly respectable in the field of entrepreneurship; and he imparted twelve life lessons that people can draw some inspiration from.

12 Life Lessons from Warren Buffett

Embrace your talent. The world is ever changing; and these changes will bring about so many obstacles not only to the world but also to your life. Economies will go through years of suffering and it will recover in time; through that bout, your saving grace will be your talent and your passion. You should be able to find a way to channel your inner talent, especially during the hard times. You can easily make use of your talent to open doors for; therefore embrace it and do not be afraid to use it.

The end does not justify the means. Many are blinded by their hunger for money, success and power. A lot of people are too blinded by their hunger that they are willing to break the rules and hurt people in the process. They compromise relationships for their eventual gain, thinking that money is the only thing that matters in the world — but that is not true. The end does not justify the means; you cannot celebrate success if it is obtained in a very dishonest way. Do not destroy yourself in your journey towards success; the easy way is not always the right path.

Live life with passion. Passion is the purest form of motivation and no one can steal this away from you. If you follow your passion and you do things that you most passionate about, you will realize that everything will naturally fall into place.

Do not expect the world to grant favors for you. It is different to put your hopes on yourself and to set your hopes up, expecting the world to give you everything you need. Set your expectations to a lower level, so you will be constantly surprised. Do not be unrealistic about your hopes and keep things simple.

Offer things that your customers need. There are so many things that you can sell, so many services that you can offer to the people, but not all of them are exactly right for them. Know the people who you wish to deal with and find out what they need. Do not offer something that you do not believe in, yourself, because it will hurt you in the future. As an entrepreneur, your priority is to provide service to the people around you.

Open yourself to learning new things. There is no better way to improve your situation but to constantly live life moving forward, and attaining to learn new things all the time. Treat the day before, as a learning experience, and wake up tomorrow smarter than you are now.

Never trade your reputation for money. At any point in your life, you will face failures. Losing a lot of money can be downright frustrating, but at the end of the day, it is nothing. Money can easily be earned again and you can step back up. A good reputation, on the other hand, is harder to regain once you have stained it; therefore never trade your reputation just be able to acquire a big fortune. In the end, the reputation that you have established for yourself will be the one thing that will see you through it all; so treasure it.

Do not be afraid to be different. Nothing is wrong with wanting to be yourself; and doing things your way. Just because the rest of the world does not approve of what you do, does not mean that you should start worrying. Staying on the less road traveled, as a matter of fact, gives you more room to shine. Give yourself a chance to explore things on your own and open yourself for some excitement.

Be in competition with yourself. It is nice to be competent because it will drive you to do better, but it can sometimes be unhealthy to focus your attention on keeping up with what your competitors are doing. Instead, be in competition with yourself and train yourself to keep your pace up, all the time. The truth is, it does not really matter what the other people do or think, as long as you are in control of what you are doing.

Anticipate failures. No one can predict the future but you can assume that failures and mistakes are inevitable. When you are drawing out plans for yourself; try to list the things that can go wrong and think about ways to deal with it. Although it may be truly impossible to predict the future, you can easily cushion your fall by preparing for the pain to come.

Do not be afraid to leave your comfort zone. Take risks. Do not be afraid to let go and to go forward because doing that will only limit your chances of succeeding. There is so much outside that you can experience, but you need to first be prepared to take the challenge on. You may make mistakes, and things can always go wrong, but your courage will be rewarded in tenfold. If you make mistakes, treat them as learning experiences and endeavor to stay away from it in the future.

Find your own path. Do not let others dictate your actions for you. Define what is right and wrong and do not let others influence you. You can easily find your own path to success; you do not need to follow the crowd to be able to get there.

Success is sweet and everyone who starts something on their own wishes to achieve success for themselves. Warren Buffett was a simple man who began to dream without realizing that his dreams can come true. Do not be afraid to join the race and take things one step at a time. There is so much that you can do, but first of all, you need to be able to prepare yourself for it.