Warren Buffett: How to Deal with Toxic Family Relationship | Berkshire 2023
[Transcript]
BECKY QUICK
Both of you have said before that the most difficult problems in life are always people problems.
“And one of the key lessons you have learned to be able to live a happy life and a successful life is to stay away from negative people. My question is what to do if those negative people are your families, the people (LAUGHTER) whom you can’t simply stay away from?”
WARREN BUFFETT
Yeah. You minimize it. But you can’t, no, I mean, there’s no question about it. And Charlie gave an answer I thought was master of tact the other day when he says, “You always ought to interact with people who behave well.” He says, “Of course, you have to make some exceptions for your family.”
But (LAUGH) it’s true. And, you know, you really, I don’t know what it’s like to have, you know, a drunken, you know, bully-ish, probably father, but parent, just generally. I mean, you know, how do you handle it? It’s very interesting that the MacArthur family, the very famous John MacArthur, the man who set up the MacArthur Foundation, he had five kids.
And four of them turned out to be superstars of one sort or another, and then they had this crazy, itinerant, drunken father. But they all decided that the thing to do was to get the hell out of the house.
And so, he had this, the father of the MacArthur Foundation that did that along with three of the siblings out of five.
So, you know, I was lucky, I mean, and Charlie was lucky that, I mean, our fathers saw plenty of shortcomings in both of us, but, you know, they would still be there for us.
And if you have one that won’t be there for you, you know, it’s a very tough problem. And I think one way or another I probably would have gotten through with that, if I had that situation, but I think my life would’ve been a lot different.
(Source: https://buffett.cnbc.com/2023-berkshire-hathaway-annual-meeting/)
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[YAPSS Takeaway]
If you can't avoid, then minimize.
