Warren Buffett's Advice on Life is Worth The Weight of His Gold

Age is an attitude, not a number. But eventually your number is up.

Warren Buffett/WSJ

Country music giant Toby Keith released a song five years before his 2024 death called “Don’t Let the Old Man In,” a profound and poetic riff on aging. It’s more of an attitude than a number, he said.

Don't let the old man in
I wanna leave this alone
Can't leave it up to him
He's knocking on my door

The song wormed its way back into my ear today when I read a touching Wall Street Journal interview with Warren Buffett, the legendary investor who recently decided to hand control of the company he built, Berkshire Hathaway, to Greg Abel.

In a telephone call from his office in Omaha, Neb., Buffett told reporter Karen Langley he recognized that Abel brought more energy to the job than he could. That he had slowed. That too much time had passed. That little was left.

“There was no magic moment,” Buffett said. “How do you know the day that you become old?”

What a quote. It could be a country music lyric.

And I knew all of my life
That someday it would end
Get up and go outside
Don't let the old man in

According to Langley, Berkshire shareholders and admirers never doubted Buffett’s stamina or wisdom. But as he entered his tenth decade, Buffett started feeling his age.

“I didn’t really start getting old, for some strange reason, until I was about 90,” he told Langley. “But when you start getting old, it does become—it’s irreversible.”

Many moons I have lived
My body's weathered and worn
Ask yourself how would you be
If you didn't know the day you were born

For the record, the day Buffett was born was Aug. 30, 1930. That makes him 94.

Try to love on your wife
And stay close to your friends
Toast each sundown with wine
Don't let the old man in

I was born July 6, 1963. That makes me 61, creeping up on 62 and my first shot at Social Security. I’ve slowed some, intentionally so.

After decades of 60- and 70-hour weeks as a political journalist in Washington, I moved back home to Detroit in 2016 to be closer to my family, reconnect with my beloved hometown, and to find more balance between work and life.

Now I spend 25-30 hours a week as a communications consultant, advising clients I care about: thinking and writing for them. Convulsions here at Substack, which is both a hobby and political therapy, takes another 15 hours or so a week, mostly when the people who matters to me most are still sleeping.

The bulk of my time is devoted to those people, loving on my wife and staying close to my family and friends.

With any luck, I’ll keep this pace and purpose another decade or two.

I’m older and wiser. Wise enough to know every day is a gift, because eventually, no matter how much we might fight it, the the old man gets in.

When he rides up on his horse
And you feel that cold bitter wind
Look out your window and smile
Don't let the old man in

Toby Keith

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