One helpful clue for understanding this book is that this is the only official biography of Buffet's life, which means that even though Schroeder authored it, we readers can assume that Buffet's voice is still coming through as he helps his biographer to understand what his life was really like. Buffet looks back at his life, and the moments that speak most clearly about his destiny are his early business schemes as a young child.
First, there was hobbies and facts. Buffet is a naturally intelligent person with great curiosity along with an uncanny ability to memorize facts, and by age 8, he knew most stats about the baseball players of his time. This encyclopedic memory is part of his success in life, no doubt. Also, by age 9 he was reselling candy and soda for spare change. When he was only 11, he had saved nearly $4,000 in today's money, and by age 12, he maximized on his ability to earn money working for the newspaper, and before he was even old enough to get a day job, he was out-earning his school teachers.
In other words, there were two factors that Buffet and Schroeder's focus on to explain the billionaire's financial success: firstly, there was Buffet's natural skill for business and strategy. Then, there was his unrivaled appetite for success that drove him to work hard. There is a story in this biography about Buffet getting rejected by Harvard, which is a nice detail, because that means that when Buffet made his first $1,000,000, he did it having just been told that he wasn't good enough. Instead of letting obstacles hold him back, he just kept trying, learning from mistakes and making the most of opportunities by his discipline.
