Warren BuffettOne of the most popular posts on this blog is one where I describe contacting Warren Buffett using a postcard. I got the idea originally from Tim Ferriss’s book The Four Hour Work Week. Tim describes attempting to have a class contact a famous person only to have none of them succeed. I thought it would be neat to try myself to see what kind of result I got. Here’s how:

The target:

I chose Warren Buffett mostly due to his stature in the financial world along with his ability to rely on sound principles and no B.S. responses. At the time, according to Forbes he was still the second richest person in the world. That changed about a week after I got my response back from him.

How did I get him to respond?

I believe I made responding extremely easy, so easy, he could have felt bad not responding to if he didn’t have 2 minutes. I sent an envelope with a card that asked a simple question with a very brief introduction of myself and my mission. You can read the whole thing at the other post HERE.

In that envelope I also included a self-addressed stamped postcard. All he had to do was read the one paragraph letter and write a response on the postcard and drop it in the mail box. Pretty easy right? I didn’t waste his time because I know in the time it took him to accomplish all of that his net worth probably went up a few hundred thousand dollars.

How did I find him?

I knew that Warren Buffett had been a long time resident of Omaha, NE, for much longer than I have been alive. He also bought and lived in the same house for the last couple decades, so his address isn’t the world’s biggest secret. With the help of Whitepages.com and Google Maps (plus Streetveiw), I was pretty confident that he would receive my letter and quite possibly respond to it. He actually lives on the same street as his office building just further down where there is residential houses.That is why I used to Google Streetview to make sure I was in fact sending it to a house.

What did I learn?

First and foremost, just about anyone given the right circumstances will be willing to reply to a simple request, including the richest person in the world. I also learned that he was an actual human with thoughts and feelings replying to a direct question with a direct response. Sometimes I, and I am sure I am not alone in this, tend to think of some famous people as unreachable or on a pedestal. This isn’t the case. They are who they are and sometimes it only takes the right combination of variables to get a response from them. Not to mention the time invested in myself in pondering the most suiting question to ask that pertained to my life at the time. The funny thing was I knew the answer all along it just sounded different hearing it from someone else.

Would I do it again?

Yes, and I am currently.

Conclusion:

If you put a little thought into how you might contact someone you consider famous, it will surprise you how simple it could be. I can’t imagine how many people have showed up at Warren Buffett’s office or phoned in the hopes of getting a word from him, or how about all of the different authors and financial analysts who would love a little golden investment nugget. All it took was a postcard.

If you really would like to contact someone famous, I would take an hour out of one of your day and figure a way to do it. In the end, you will only learn more about yourself and someone else in your quest. If you ever do contact someone, you can always share your experience here.

(Image from nymag.com)

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