The Art of Doing One Thing for 60 Years
Warren Buffett retired from Berkshire Hathaway today.
He’s 95 and had been leading Berkshire since he was 35.
What motivated Warren Buffett to keep going for so long?
It’s hard to imagine doing one thing—investing—for 60 years.
Yes, he’s made an absurd amount of money, but saying it’s “the money” is reductionist and feels unsatisfying.
The same goes for other extrinsic motivators like fame and praise.
Extrinsic vs. Intrinsic Motivation
Extrinsic motivators are tangible rewards like money, food, and shelter. At their most basic level, but not always, they’re derived from a biological need.
Intrinsic motivators, on the other hand, come from a higher place. They’re things like self-actualization, meaning, and values.
If it’s not the extrinsic motivators that motivated Warren Buffett, then it can only be the intrinsic motivation that kept him going.
This is in line with the best science on human motivation.
Above a baseline threshold where extrinsic motivators power us, you need intrinsic motivators. Once your basic survival needs (and a little buffer for safety) are met, intrinsic motivation takes over.
According to Edward L. Deci, the originator of the term intrinsic motivation, and popularizers like Daniel Pink and Teresa Amabile, intrinsic motivation comes down to five main drivers:
Autonomy
Mastery
Purpose
Belonging
Progress
If an activity (again, above a certain extrinsic motivation threshold) has the above characteristics, then it likely can be done for the sake and pleasure of it, rather than for need of an external reward.
Warren Buffett’s Intrinsic Motivation
With this context, when you look at Warren Buffett’s 60-year investing career it makes perfect sense.
Autonomy
Warren Buffett has always been the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway and operated it out of Omaha, Nebraska. It’s unprecedented for a titan of the financial industry to avoid the pull of Wall Street. Working from Omaha enabled Warren Buffett to operate autonomously, never being sucked into the pull of power and status of New York. His environment gave him autonomy.
Mastery
Investing, in all its complexity, challenged Buffett to continuously learn to keep his edge. Warren Buffett is known for reading more than any investor, writing more than most investors (in his famous shareholder letters), and developing his temperament over many market cycles. Investing was Buffett’s primary way of pursuing mastery.
Purpose
Warren Buffett is the godfather of value investing. And although he didn’t invent it, he is the person most synonymous with it and has benefitted the most from it. (Coincidentally, value investing is an approach to investing where you seek assets that are trading below what you think their intrinsic value is and holding them long term.) Value investing gave Warren Buffett a long-term purpose. He became a champion of the underdog but strong company, helping companies scale and promoting them to great effect.
Belonging
Investing and running Berkshire Hathaway gave Buffett connection and belonging. With Berkshire, he met his long-time partner and best friend, Charlie Munger. Munger played a mentorship role in Buffett’s life and helped him through the ups and downs of owning companies through many market cycles. When things got tough or were going well, Buffett turned to his most trusted partner, Charlie Munger, for companionship.
Progress
Lastly, Berkshire Hathaway was the ultimate vehicle for progress. Through his work on Berkshire, Buffett became the most successful investor by nearly any metric. Investing, and investing well, helped Buffett make progress toward his life’s ambition.
Doing One Thing
Warren Buffett’s run at Berkshire is inspiring.
When you look back at his career, the ingredients of an intrinsically motivating career were all there. He had autonomy, the opportunity for mastery, meaning and purpose, connection and heaps of progress.
These are the drivers that enable someone to do one meaningful thing for 60 years.