I asked Warren Buffett what it's like to be super rich, and we should all keep his answer in mind

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Who doesn't want to make a lot of money?

Money may not make people happy, but it surely will buy them some peace of mind. How much do you need in the bank so that you never have to worry again?

Usually people have an "I'm rich" number.

Maybe it's $1 million. Or $10 million. A UBS survey found that millionaires felt $5 million was the least amount of money you needed to feel wealthy. Once you get to $100 million, the question seems awfully irrelevant.

But what if you're worth almost $74 billion, like Warren Buffett? That would give you some pretty unique perspectives on what it's like to have a lot of money.

When I interviewed Buffett for my book "Work Smarts," I asked him what it's like to be super rich. Buffett is known to be a pretty optimistic person. I wondered if that was because he's one of the few people on earth who will never have to worry about affording anything. If you were sitting on a pile of money you couldn't possibly spend in your lifetime, I imagined you would be pretty cheery.

But he gave me an answer I didn't quite expect. He said money doesn't change you. It only makes you more of who you are.

"If you're kind of a phony to start with, you're going to be a bigger phony when you make a lot of money," he said. "And if you're kind of mean, you can get meaner as you make money. But if you're generous, you get more generous. I think money and age both tend to push you further and further into the direction in which you start. There are exceptions to that, but I think that's generally true."

I doubt many of us reading this, including me, will ever get anywhere close to Buffett's fortune. But what he says rings true whether you have $74 billion or $7,400 in your account. Money doesn't cover up your faults — it actually unmasks them. Keep that in mind as you pursue your riches.

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