Want to Raise Successful Kids? Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffett Say This

This is an article about Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett, and a simple insight they've shared that can help kids become much more successful in life.

(If you find this useful, I hope you'll download my free ebooks: Jeff Bezos Regrets Nothing, Warren Buffett Predicts the Future, and How to Raise Successful Kids, 7th Edition).

Let's go straight to insight Bezos and Buffett have articulated so often. Then, we'll summarize the main point, add a few brief caveats, and add three short guidelines that make the whole thing more attractive and practical for a younger generation.

'2,300 percent'We'll start with Bezos, if only for the reason that his name comes alphabetically before Buffet's. Here's what he had to say back in 1997, when he was asked how he got the idea to start Amazon.com:

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"I came across this startling statistic, that web usage was growing at 2,300 percent a year. ... And I picked books ... [after compiling] a list of like 20 different products."

Bezos has kept to this story almost verbatim for more than two decades.

"Anything growing that fast, even if its baseline usage was tiny, it's going to be big," he said in 2018. "I looked at that, and I was like, I should come up with a business idea on the Internet."

To sum, it all came down to recognizing growth, and then building an idea around that growth.

'Not like the Olympics'

Next, an indelible quote from Buffett -- making the same point, but in a different situation.

For context, Buffett's company, Berkshire Hathaway, has its roots in a 19th-century textile company that Buffett bought in the early 1960s. Even while Buffett invested in other, more profitable industries, he held onto the failing textile business for two decades.

Finally, he gave up and closed down the mills. He's talked about this lesson many times, but here's an apt quote:

"The interesting thing about business, it's not like the Olympics. You don't get any extra points for the fact that something's very hard to do. So you might as well just step over one-foot bars, instead of trying to jump over seven-foot bars."

What was the 7-foot bar? The textile industry, because it wasn't growing. Much easier to go after one-foot bars, like the burgeoning insurance industry that became Berkshire's biggest concern.

Go toward growth

Synthesize both of these perspectives and what do you get? Short, practical advice for people who are just starting out in the world. It comes down to something like this:

Or perhaps even better:

Go toward things that are growing.
It applies whether we're talking about starting careers, or building businesses, or exploring life, or choosing where to live or what passions to pursue.

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