Alan Jackson might turn to Jimmy Buffett for advice on what to do around 5 o’clock, but grandson Jack appears to lean more toward another Buffett for counsel. Indeed, I suspect that Jack might have uncovered a secret that The Oracle of Omaha himself has kept close to the vest as he has accumulated billions over the decades.
Make no mistake about it, 5-year-old Jack loves to have fun, and I fully expect him to take a trip to Margaritaville some day. And even though I might be long gone by then, I can envision his impish grin and mischievous shrug as he intones: “Well, it’s 5 o’clock somewhere.”
Sooo, even though I’m positive that all work and no play could make Jack a dull boy, he took a serious entrepreneurial turn the other day when he decided to set up a lemonade stand. He took to the task resolutely, ignoring the intimidating element (Warren) Buffett’s Coca-Cola holdings might have offered to a one-stand man.
In that respect, Jack’s venture reminded me of one of (Warren) Buffett’s guiding principles: “Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful.”
Jack's version of the slogan: Be greedy when others fear that they might go thirsty.
Even though Jack’s was a solo venture, he had a firm business plan: 8-year-old brother Vincent made the sign, and Jack assigned him, as the taller of the two, to hold it aloft as a business magnet. Meanwhile, Jack the real business magnate, perched himself on a little stool, all the better to reach the money box he had decorated with lemons and dollar signs.
Although Jack allowed Mom to brew a mess of lemonade, he banished her to the sidelines thereafter. “If they see my mom,” he explained to her, “they’d think I’m a kid, and I want them to think I’m an adult.”
Ahhhhhh, deceptive advertising, banking on the fact that passersby wouldn’t guess that a lad a tad over 3 feet was a full-fledged adult, with arrested development, perhaps.
Times being what they are, and Mom being who she is, she didn’t want to leave her charges standing in the driveway with the potential of perfect strangers casing the juice joint. So she busied herself in the background, pretending to do yard work and such so she could keep an eye on them at the same time.
So there you have it: What would Warren Buffett do? The secret to success, the basic rule of Business 101, the capitalist mainstay: Don’t let your mom stand next to you if you want people to take you seriously as an adult and let you make scads of money.
And I bet — I just BET — that little Warren Buffett might have told his mommy, lo these many years ago, to go inside their humble Nebraska house so people would think he was an adult. Oh, I know, you’ve never heard that before, but you don’t expect him to reveal the real secret to his success do you?
Well, let me ask you this, then: Have you ever seen Warren Buffett’s mom lurking in the background around Berkshire Hathaway ventures?
I rest my case: The Sage of Omaha quite possibly dreamed up his slogan about greed and fear to hide the REAL secret behind his success: untying himself from mom’s apron strings.
Of course, Melissa rarely, if ever, wears an apron, but the gist is the same.
By the way, Jack and his assistant collected $6.95 in the lemon- and dollar-decorated money box.
Look out Warren Buffett; and move over, Jimmy Buffett. Jack, the Sage of Suburban Palm Beach County just might edge out W on the Forbes list and just might buy Margaritaville right out from under J.
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