Life is What You Make It

Review of Peter Buffet, Life is What You Make It, New York: Harmony Books, 2010.

When I attended the Credit Suisse Philanthropists Forum 2011 in Raffles Hotel, Singapore I received an autographed copy of a recent New York Times Bestseller book which was given to each of the 150 participants - “Life is What You Make It: Find Your Own Path to Fulfillment” by Peter Buffett. I admit that I did not know anything about the author before and he is indeed the son of billionaire investor Warren Buffett. Bill and Melinda Gates commented that the book captures Peter’s spirit, passion and values beautifully in reflecting on life’s purpose and opportunity.

What a privilege it was to hear him speak at one of the sessions of the Forum which was moderated by Sir John Major, a former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. How enlightening it is to read his book about his own examination of the way he manages his life – his passion, his wealth, and his commitment to philanthropy. He revealed the contours of his life’s journey given the fortunate and privileged circumstances that surrounded him and sought to motivate others in their own special situations.

It is a book about attitudes, convictions and values that shape every person’s life. His credentials is simply his own life that has forced him “to think long and hard about these matters.”

Peter recalls the opinion of his father about inherited wealth; “that the silver spoon in the mouth too often becomes the silver dagger in the back – an ill-considered gift that saps ambition and drains motivation, that deprives a young person of the great adventure of finding his or her own way.” Another principle that he got from his father is that parents if they have the means should give their children “enough to do anything, but not enough to do nothing.”

His own adventure as a teenager was a vague and confused one even uncertain about finishing high school. His parents approach was that the children could be whatever they wanted to be and they should follow their hearts or bliss wherever they led them.

When he was growing up his parents were not wealthy yet but had some influence to get him admitted to Stanford University although he realised that he did not deserve to be there because of his own academic record and interest. He was naturally curious and benefitted from the broad liberal education without a precise career goal.

At the age of nineteen he received his first family inheritance of about $90,000 in the form of stocks and was told that he should not expect more at that time. This became a challenge for him to use what was given to him. He could have wasted it by spending on luxuries and pamper himself. If he had done nothing and left it alone the stock would eventually fetch seventy-two million dollars. But he chose in what he said to spend the money to buy time.

The time is related to his decision to pursue a career in music. It is to have time and technologies to develop his passion for music. He moved from Omaha to San Francisco. He lived frugally and turned his small apartment to a recording studio and offered his services. He began to write music himself and looking for that distinctive “sound” which identifies his creative work.

He realised the true value of money. Money is replaceable. But what you have done with money in terms of experience, value, fulfillment are important. Peter was able to make his life and find his vocation. He became a composer of music for commercials and for the movies. His pinnacle of success was the “Firedance” scene in the Oscar-winning film, “Dances with Wolves.” He received also the Emmy Award as a composer.

The message that he wants to communicate is that “money should be seen as a spin-off of success, a side effect, and not the measure of success itself.”

He observed his parents who have grown very wealthy. His mother was still the “warm and giving person.” His father still worked “wearing his trance-like concentration along with his khaki pants and cardigans.” Money did not change them for making money was not the prime objective. He wrote: “My father worked extremely hard because he loved what he did, because it challenged and excited him. Money came eventually, but the passion and the curiosity were there from the start. Money followed: it never led.”

On Christmas 1999 Warren Buffett endowed a charitable foundation for each of his three children. Each was given ten million dollars and Peter and his wife Jennifer received further contributions from his parents and by 2004 the foundation they established grew to more than one hundred million dollars. In 2006 Warren Buffet deposited $37 billion to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He added one billion dollars to each of his children’s foundation. While protecting his career as a musician Peter became more involved in philanthropy.

Peter formulated some guiding principles in managing the Foundation that he gave the name “NoVO” which in Latin means change, alter, or invent. He accepts the classic definition of philanthropy according to its Greek roots: philo- which means love and anthropos which means humankind. “Philanthropy means nothing more or less than the expression of the love we feel for one another, the sense of solidarity that makes us want to share.” It is not all about money. All of us each in our way can share whatever we have in the spirit of philanthropy.

Another approach that he wants to avoid is “Philanthropic Colonialism.” It was the first time that I heard it being used when he made a passing reference to it in his presentation. Somehow it resonated with me in my explorations on Post-Colonial theology. I sensed the sentiment behind it which relates to colonial mentality. So I took the opportunity to go up to him and thanked him for his sensitivities. I must have surprised him that I was struck by what he said. Later I read his book that elaborated on this term.

Philantrophic colonialism is “the tendency of (generally) well-meaning outsiders to imagine that they understand the challenges facing local peoples better than the local people themselves. Imagine that they understand the problems, they further imagine that they can impose solutions. Not only is this arrogant and condescending, but it usually doesn’t work. So our approach would be to provide support for people who identified their own needs and evolved their own solutions.”

This was the historical folly of colonizers and missionaries who brought Western ideas, clothes, morals and religion itself to the colonies and trampled on local traditions and destroyed local cultures.

The premise that Peter works upon in his philanthropy is that people are equal. “If you believe in the dignity and value of any human life – including your own!- then you should recognize the equal dignity and value of every human life…But if people imagine that they are somehow superior to those they are helping, the result is not true kindness, but condescension.”

Peter continues to grow in his music and philanthropic work and wants to give more of himself and what he has with a grateful heart for the privileged situation in which he is in. He is clear “that all of us should be proud of our lives, because making a life is the one profound and sacred opportunity shared by every person ever born. Life is what we made it. No one else can do it for us; no one else has the right to tell us what it ought to be.

We make our own goals. We define our own successes. We don’t get to choose where we start in life; we do get to choose the kind of people we become.”

He concluded with the question: What are you waiting for?