I met Warren Buffett and learned 3 tips to become a better person

Jeffrey is a TIA Star Contributor and publishes high-value content that serves the Asian tech community. Read more from TIA Star Contributors here.

I recently took 20 Peking University students for a Q&A with Warren Buffett in Omaha. One of the most interesting parts was his comments on the importance of becoming the best version of yourself.

He started the discussion with a question: If you could invest in only one of your fellow classmates, who would you choose? If you could buy, say, 10 percent of the future earnings of just one classmate, who would you choose? What would you look for? Would you choose the person with the highest IQ? The person with the highest grades? The person with really successful parents?

His point was that you probably wouldn’t look at such things; you would think about personal qualities. Who is the most hardworking student? Who has the best daily habits? Who is the person that everyone wants to work with?

He went on to talk at length about how it’s important to become the person that other people would choose, becoming the best version of yourself over time. I came away with three lessons/tips on this.

Tip 1: Ask yourself ‘would this person hire me?’

Buffett talked about his friend Tom Murphy, previous chairman and CEO of Capital Cities (an American media company). According to Buffett, Murphy was someone that virtually everyone liked and was someone he said he would do basically anything for.

So how did Murphy do this? Why is he so well liked? Buffett didn’t make it clear, but my takeaway was that he excelled at getting out the best in people.

I’m not naturally good at this myself, as I tend to be inward-focused. But according to Buffett, one trick is to ask yourself, “Would this person hire me?” I have been trying this for the past week and I find it does work. In any conversation, it keeps me thinking about how the other person perceives me and if I am helping them. Have I brought out something positive in them? Am I being helpful? Am I acting in a way that they would be happy to have me on their team or project?

Tip 2: Don’t be someone that turns people off

Buffett raised another interesting question: Which one of your classmates would you sell short? This is a pretty funny and great question. According to him, you would probably sell short the person that turns you and other people off.

Of course as soon as he said this, everyone (including myself) immediately wondered “is it me?”

The takeaway here is that maybe you aren’t the person everyone would invest in, but you can definitely avoid being the person people would sell short. And it is great to ask, “Are you turning people off?” Are you turning them off with a couple of habits? A lot? A little?

Fortunately, avoiding this is actually pretty easy to do. It’s just a matter of not doing certain things.

Tip 3: You can get there step by step

During the discussion, Buffett made clear that these are all things that are under your control. You can be a jerk, be fair, or be short with people. Or, you can be patient and so on. These are all qualities you can develop. You can also easily avoid the qualities and habits that turn people off.