Jul

24

A story almost too powerful for words

Filed Under Uncategorized 

Friends,

For nearly a month I’ve been wanting to retell this story, but it kept being too darned simple to tell. Mind you, the story is utterly fantastic — in the Disney sense of unimaginable, and in the everyday sense of wonderful! Yet, I could find no real twist, no complex-yet-simple hook to hang it on. I still don’t have that hook, so I will just tell the amazing story that you likely read about last month:

Warren Buffett announced that he is giving approximately $30 billion to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He says that they’ll be better at giving it away than he would, and he enjoys what he’s doing more than he would enjoy creating a big foundation. This enormous gift from the second richest man to the richest man is not all that surprising if you’ve followed Buffett:

He is a fan of the estate tax, saying that dynastic giving is a form of welfare to the heirs. (His advice to the wealthy: give your children enough to do anything but not enough to do nothing.)

He still lives in the modest home in Omaha that he bought for $31,500 in 1958.

He drives himself to McDonalds for cheeseburgers and drinks Cherry Cokes. He does have a plane, which he refers to as “The Indefensible.”

Buffett is an iconoclast; he just does what he thinks is right, and he’s pretty smart about doing it. He’s also quite humble about what he does. So, it’s unlikely there will be a Warren Buffett University or even a Warren Buffett Foundation! Makes you want to write a “big” anonymous check, doesn’t it?

I didn’t have a shiny hook to hang this amazing story on. What about Buffett’s philanthropic leadership strikes you? Does it illustrate ways in which you want to . . .

Lead with your best self?!

Dan

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