Written By: Brad Pedersen

Earlier this year, I was sitting with a coffee, enjoying my morning routine and reading Morgan Housel's The Art of Spending Money.  Suddenly I came across a quote that stopped me cold.

It was a quote from Warren Buffett, and I am not sure I have ever read anything he has said that landed with me like this.

"When you get to be my age you'll really measure your success in life by how many of the people you want to have love you actually do love you. The trouble with love is that you can't buy it. You can buy sex. You can buy testimonial dinners. You can buy pamphlets that say how wonderful you are. But the only way to get love is to be lovable. It's very irritating if you have a lot of money. You'd like to think you could write a check: I'll buy a million dollars worth of love. But it doesn't work that way."

I sat with those words and pondered them.

Here is a man in his mid-nineties, one of the most prolific investors and wealthiest people who has ever lived, looking back across a lifetime of extraordinary achievements and considering what was most important. The thing he most wanted to warn us about had nothing to do with company dynamics nor making poor investment strategies. Instead it was about how we truly value a successful life in a way that is beyond the financial metrics.

He went on to describe some of his wealthiest friends, men who appear to have it all: sprawling estates, private jets, even hospital wings bearing their names. And then he made a striking observation about them:

"The truth is that nobody in the world loves them. If you get to my age and nobody thinks well of you, I don't care how big your bank account is — your life is a disaster." 

This is the quiet tragedy of accumulating everything that the world applauds, while slowly losing the one thing that ultimately matters and cannot be bought: real, enduring love. 

If it is possible that a person can win outwardly and yet lose inwardly, then the scoreboard most of us are keeping is deeply flawed. And once you see that truth, it’s impossible to unsee it.

The Jerseys

Back when I was building my toy company, travel was simply part of the job; and weeks away from home were not unusual, they were expected.

There was one particular stretch where I had been gone for weeks, deep in Europe building out our business, and somewhere along the trip, I had a knowing feeling I could not ignore; my absence was being felt at home. 

My kids were teenagers, active in their sports and on the move in those years that move faster than you ever think they will.  My wife was doing double time, getting everyone where they needed to be, handling the logistics and carrying the weight of our family alone. We both knew it was the price we needed to pay at the time and deep down inside while I knew it was not sustainable I believed that when I hit a certain number or achieved a specific outcome…then I would slow down and make it up to them.

The problem was, the business never slowed down. Every year we grew, and with that the complexity and demand grew with it.  Matching last year was never enough, we had to beat it and I found that the demand on my time only increased with each new milestone.

On that particular trip, my UK partner offered up his season tickets to Manchester United. My daughter was a massive fan; her idol had played for that club and she adored everything about them. I knew immediately that I could not let the moment pass, even if I could not cut the trip short.

I called my wife and floated the idea. Her first reaction was that it was crazy; flying the family from Toronto to London for a weekend did not seem rational or responsible, and honestly, on paper, she was not wrong. But in my mind, this was a small way to begin making up for the weeks of absenteeism that had piled up without me fully noticing. After some back and forth, she came around; she could see that beyond the gesture, it was a genuine opportunity for our family to be together again after far too long apart.

I arranged to have jerseys shipped over to her in Toronto, and we set up what appeared to be a perfectly ordinary video call with the kids.. Nothing about it seemed out of the ordinary. Then, about halfway through the call, I said, "Hey, mom has a present for you, and it is something you are going to need this weekend." My wife handed them gift bags; they reached in and pulled out Manchester United jerseys, and before they could fully process what they were holding I told them, tomorrow you are getting on a plane to London, and we are all going to watch Manchester United play Everton.

The excitement along with tears of joy and the pure disbelief on their faces is something I will never forget!

We took the train up to Manchester, found our seats, and from the moment we walked into that stadium it was clear we were somewhere different. The Manchester fans and the Everton supporters were split into completely separate sections, divided by a human shield of police officers forming a corridor between them; it was unlike anything we had experienced at a sporting event back in Canada. 

As the match began, the stadium began to sway as the fans began to sing together.  Thousands of voices became one in a crescendo of chorus causing the hair on the back of my neck to stand straight up. 

But the moment that mattered most came when we were given the chance to go down to the pitch. I watched my daughter kneel down and pull a few blades of grass from that turf, and the sparkle in her eye, knowing she was standing in a place she had only ever dreamed about, was something no amount of money could have manufactured.

The Lesson I Keep Relearning

Every January, I disappear into the backcountry of British Columbia.

Cat skiing, snow biking and long epic days amongst the mountains, in deep snow, making amazing memories with good people. It is one of my favorite times of the year and I spend months planning and preparing for it.

Thanks to Starlink, I can stay connected even deep in the wilderness, which means I have never really had to choose between the mountains and my work. But this past January, something else was competing for my attention.

As the month moved along, I started to notice something I had been too busy to see. I had been away a lot, and when my wife mentioned her upcoming ladies trip to California and we compared calendars, the math was uncomfortable. We were not going to see each other for several weeks.

That said I still had a full schedule and I had already paid in full to go on another cat skiing trip that I had attended for many years. 

And I am embarrassed to admit that my first instinct was to go especially since the trip was paid in full and there was no refund. 

However something in me shifted. Maybe it was the quiet that comes with being in the mountains or maybe it was Buffett's words still rattling around in my head. Whatever it was, I made a different call. I cancelled the ski trip and booked a flight to San Diego instead.

What happened on the other side of that decision was one of the best weekends Kelly and I have had in years. Nothing extraordinary on paper; just two people, unhurried, fully present with each other celebrating life in one of our favorite cities. 

The Equation We Have Backwards

Some lessons you learn once; others you have to keep learning until they finally take root. 

My take away from both of these experiences is what I am learning about what love without a finish line actually looks like in practice. It is not the grand gesture, though those matter too; but the ongoing, daily decision to keep showing up, keep discovering each other, keep starting again. Real love is not something you arrive at; it is something you tend to, the way you would tend to anything living that you do not want to lose.

Every time we choose presence over productivity, every time we put down the armor and simply show up as we are, we are making that choice. We are saying to the people who matter most,” I trust you with the real me, and I am not going anywhere.”

Most of us, without ever meaning to, organize our lives around achievement and then try to fit the people we love into whatever space happens to remain; and in doing so, we quietly reduce our most important relationships to something transactional, something that serves the life we are building rather than being the whole point of it.

But Buffett is telling us the equation is backwards.

The money, the success, the things we spend decades building, all of it should be placed in service of love, not the other way around; because the real measure of a wealthy life is not what ends up on your balance sheet, but how many people, at the end of it all, genuinely love you back. The men he described, the ones with the hospital wings and the private planes with nobody who truly loved them, did not set out to end up there; they just kept choosing the wrong thing, one calendar decision at a time, until one day the distance became too great to cross.

We all carry a deep desire to know and to be known; not for what we produce or what we have built, but for who we actually are. That kind of knowing is only possible when we stop performing and start being present; and the cost of it is not money. It is the willingness to show up without hiding.

The Manchester United trip was the right call and so was San Diego. Most of us already know what the right call looks like; the question is whether we will keep making it before it is too late to matter.

So this week, sit with these (possibly) uncomfortable questions:

Where are you still telling yourself you will slow down and truly show up once you hit a certain number or reach a certain outcome?

Who in your life is quietly doing double time and is under appreciated, while you are away building something?

What would it look like to stop performing for the people closest to you and simply be present with them?

If this landed, pass it along to someone who needs to hear it; and if you are ready to explore what it looks like to build a life truly rich in this kind of wealth, come find us at Full Spectrum.

And follow Brad Pedersen and Vijay Krishnan for more LinkedIn content like this!
 

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