These tenets helped Buffett achieve success — and can help you get there, too. : Warren Buffett may be worth tens of billions, but he still lives simply, and his strategies for smart investing and amassing wealth aren't too complicated either and hold up even during these tough times. But if it's so easy, you ask, why aren't more people as incredibly rich as Buffett? Because his approach takes the kind of discipline, patience and instinct that many people either don't have or are unwilling to develop. Buffett's first key to prosperity has little to do with picking stocks.