Warren Buffett is pretty much a legend in the American business-investment community.

And, at the age of 81, it’s sometimes easy to forget that even he had to start out somewhere.

But recently, Warren revealed in an interview that the decision he made at the age of 25 was the turning point of his life and the start of all his success.

According to Warren, as a young stockbroker, fresh out of college and living in Omaha, he used to send securities-investment ideas to his idol, Benjamin Graham, who ran one the first hedge funds in New York and wrote Warren’s favorite investment textbook.

Eventually, Benjamin offered Warren a job and Warren moved out to New York to work. After about a year, Warren’s mentor told him he was retiring and wanted him to take over the business, but Warren turned him down and moved back to Omaha.

The young Warren had accrued enough savings, and he decided to essentially “retire” at the age of 25 and live off investing his own money, along cutting expenses by living frugally in Nebraska.

"I thought, I’ll go back to Omaha, take some college classes, and read a lot -- I was going to retire!" Warren said. "I figured we could live on $12,000 a year, and off my $127,000 asset base, I could easily make that. I told my wife, 'Compound interest guarantees I’m going to get rich.'"

But then, while living it easy in Omaha, friends and family began to ask Warren to help them invest, so he started a partnership with them to pool resources for investing in companies, which would eventually become Warren’s powerhouse holding company, Berkshire Hathaway.

“Although I had no idea, age 25 was a turning point,” Warren said.

Jeez, when we were 25, our big life-changing decision was switching to sugarless Red Bull.