Peter Buffett, son of billionaire investor Warren Buffett, is an Emmy Award-winning composer, NY Times best-selling author and noted philanthropist. Currently, he is releasing socially-conscious music and touring his “Concert & Conversation” series in support of his book Life Is What You Make It.   

 

“How I got here doesn’t tell me who I am”
“Open Hearted Hand” by Peter Buffett  

What do you believe and why do you believe it?

We have been living out of stories that we’re told; Stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, stories history books tell us, the newspapers tell us, and our parents tell us.

We decide whether we believe in these stories or not, and build quite complex cases to justify our position. But where did these stories begin? 

If you look deep enough, every story comes from fear or fearlessness.

• History books: Stories written by the victors demonstrate this either by morals or by might. These stories are built around "us vs. them," and not just conquest of countries and people, but nature and spirit as well.

• Parents: Stories told to their children lived out as values and influences that are a direct reflection of what they needed—and did or didn’t get—as children themselves.

• Society: Stories told through a myriad of laws (spoken and unspoken), media and modes of behavior that define what a community values and aspires to.

We act and react out of the stories we believe in. We are constantly making choices—almost always unconsciously—from the basis of what we believe. We live in a constant state of reacting from what we "know" to be true or untrue.

This is our past—collectively and individually—animating us. "Telling" us what to do based on what we "know."

This is reflected in the frustration of the Occupy movement. Something’s wrong and it’s big. But what is it? Something in the story is off track.

Is it really 99 percent vs. 1 percent? Or is it 1 percent in all of us?

What we’re really looking for is a new story—a story to live in to. Not old stories to live out of.

This country was "discovered" as a commercial enterprise. Of course it’s devolved into a financial disaster! All you have to do is read the first quotes of Columbus to see where we were heading: 

"They willingly traded everything they owned ... They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features ... They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane ... They would make fine servants ... With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want."  

So now I’ll start the piece over with:

What do you know and why do you know it?

We know with our hearts. We know with our gut. Our body tells us what we know.

Our mind processes and decides based on old information.

It’s time to not be afraid. To listen again. And know that anything—everything—is possible.

It’s time to create the story we want to live in to. And become that story ourselves.

Visit www.peterbuffett.com and Change Our Story to learn more. 

Image courtesy of umjanedoan, licensed under Creative Commons.
 

Peter Buffett, son of billionaire investor Warren Buffett, is an Emmy Award-winning composer, NY Times best-selling author and noted philanthropist. Currently, he is releasing socially-conscious music and touring his “Concert & Conversation” series in support of his book  Life Is What You Make It .


I believe that words can change the world. 

On a personal level, when we say, “I hear you” or “I’m sorry” worlds can change. And inspirational or visionary words by leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. or Mahatma Gandhi have changed the course of history. In the world we live in now, it may be that the collective words of millions will shape the future.

The reason I’m writing these essays is to get conversations started. To find out what others are thinking and feeling. It appears to me that the Internet has allowed the full flowering of the quote by Anais Nin: “We don’t see things as they are ... we see things as we are.”

So who are we?

I can’t be the only one that’s overwhelmed by the amount of content available on the Internet. I’m also amazed by how much of it is consumed. I think that a common narrative will start to emerge out of the many millions of voices expressing themselves through comments sections everywhere ... seriously. Not unlike watching search terms rise and fall on Google, a tag cloud meta-narrative could start to define the mood of a nation ... or region ... or world.

My personal experience with this was when my book, Life Is What You Make It, was released. An article about the book was on the front page of Yahoo.com. Within a few hours about 3,500 comments were posted in reaction to the piece. No one (or very few) could have actually read the book. So whether it was a positive comment or a negative one, the comments really only revealed the feelings of the writer about the concepts the book explored. Attacks or praise for me were completed unfounded ... no one knew my story.

A few people went to my website and wrote to me more directly. I responded to two of the most negative to see if I became a human, would things change? And they did. One woman confided to me that she wasn’t angry—she was scared. She was raising two daughters alone, had pride in her work, and was let go like just another number. I represented something to her; what later became the "one percent" I suppose.

Every day we reveal who we are through the words we use and the actions we take. Actions generally do speak louder than words; for the most part they are more clearly understood.

Words can be confusing. Whether it’s definition or context—and probably a multitude of other reasons—words can get in the way of true meaning.

How accurate is the information contained in the words? How true is the feeling behind them? (a political season brings these questions out in spades).

But words can also unlock universal truths. And they are clearly the most direct way people who speak the same language can relate to each other. Whether it’s ordering lunch or considering the order of the universe.

Choose your words carefully. If eyes are the windows to the soul, words are a window to the brain ... and the heart.

And, of course, stories are just words strung together into a narrative. So if there’s a need to change some stories that don’t work for us—either individually or collectively—we need to study the words used and the definitions agreed upon.

What words do you think need a new definition? And what would that new definition be?

Visit www.peterbuffett.com and Change Our Story to learn more.  

Image by LouisvilleUSACE, licensed under Creative Commons. 

Peter Buffett, son of billionaire investor Warren Buffett, is an Emmy Award-winning composer, NY Times best-selling author and noted philanthropist. Currently, he is releasing socially-conscious music and touring his “Concert & Conversation” series in support of his book Life Is What You Make It . 

Welcome to what I hope is a regular blog. In a world that adds more content per second than we could possibly consume in a lifetime, here comes more.

Why? Because I keep hearing a phrase over the P.A. system at Penn Station and seeing posters at the airport that say, “If you see something, say something.”

I’m fortunate to have a willing publisher of my attempts to say what I see.

There may be a few things that make my vantage point unique. But it doesn’t make it special.  We all have stories. What I hope is that some of my experiences will start a conversation. I am painfully aware that comments can spin totally against one’s favor. This is where I’m a big fan of The Golden Rule. 

I’m actually always a fan of The Golden Rule. In many ways, that’s what this blog will be about.

A short history:

• I grew up in Omaha. My dad at the time, Warren Buffett, turned into the billionaire investor known as the “Oracle of Omaha” much later.

• I played piano through my entire childhood and adolescence. After a few years at college I realized that I had to follow the music.

• I engineered recordings for people, wrote a lot of music for commercials, film, TV, etc. I made a number of my own recordings for record labels and then my own label. And now I perform regularly with my Concert & Conversation that is in support of my book, Life Is What You Make It. 

I have had tremendous luck in many ways. But even with luck you have to make choices. And because of who my father has become, his choices and in return my choices have been elevated in the public consciousness for this brief period in time.

Hence the blog. Many of them will be written in conjunction with the release of a new song.

Ultimately I’m just taking the opportunity to be heard in case it can at all contribute to our constant evolution in some microscopic way (I’m desperately trying to humble myself enough to thwart a massive backlash in the comments section. Imagine me tip-toeing silently backwards out of the room).

Visit www.peterbuffett.com and Change Our Story to learn more.