Sounds completely unrelated, right? What does an American millionaire have in common with an egg donor in a surrogacy process?
If there’s something I learned from Warren Buffet, it’s that focusing is the only thing that will help us move forward in selecting the donor.
So what’s Warren Buffet’s 5/25 Rule? In short, it’s the challenge of focusing on something by removing other distractions. It works when selecting a partner through all the dating sites and apps, when choosing life goals, when selecting a job from among all the positions available in the market, and more - but also in our personal choice in the surrogacy process and in response to the question “what are the most important things to us in the egg donor?”.
Most of the egg donor databases have a lot of information about the egg donor. From physical information, which goes into unbelievable detail, to education, vocation, family, health, history, genetics, hobbies, preferences, relationships, and more. So how do you choose? Aren’t we missing out on someone better? What shouldn’t you compromise on?
So what’s Buffet’s story? The legend says that one day Warren Buffet turned to his personal pilot and asked him to name the 25 goals he’d like to achieve and then to circle only the 5 most important ones. So the pilot did just that.
“What are you planning on doing with the other 20 goals?”, Buffet asked. “I’ll pursue them at a lower intensity, but I’ll give priority to the 5 that are really important to me”, he responded.
“You’re wrong”, retorted Buffet, “the 20 goals that you didn’t circle are now the list that you have to avoid at all costs - you mustn’t dedicate any thought or effort to them, they are what will distract you and prevent you from achieving your 5 most important goals”.
So that’s how it is with us as well. Write down on a piece of paper everything that’s important to us. From small to big. And then use Buffet’s exercise to mark the 5 things you aren't’ prepared to compromise on, or at least the ones that are most important to you. This made it much easier for us to focus on our choice.
And thanks to Roy (Poshito) for the inspiration!
