Warren Buffett on Charlie Rose - May 2007

Follow the Leader

(connect-world.net)

What ever happens to our heroes and heroines? Most, if not all, kids have heroes that they look up to and want to be when they grow up. Whether it's a superhero, a character on a television show, a sports figure, or someone they know.

As kids grow up, they lose sight of their heroes, probably because most of them mature and wouldn't want to be seen carrying a Batman or Scooby-Doo toy, understandably. But regardless, everyone needs a hero to model for different aspects of their life. It's easy to attempt to be the best at something when you are doing things like the best. If you want to enhance your life, take lessons from the people that are the best at it.

If I want to be a good investor, I look to greats like Warren Buffett, Benjamin Graham, Eddie Lampert, Bruce Berkowitz, Monish Pabrai, etc. If I want to be a more generous person, I look to philanthropists like Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and John D. Rockefeller. If I want to be a great public speaker I look to Dale Carnegie, Steve Jobs, and Steve Ballmer. If I want a good sense of humor I look to George Carlin, Dennis Miller, and many others. Modeling these people will help you drastically and makes life a lot easier. They have found a way to be excellent at something and can be your teachers as you grow.

Some suggestions I would suggest on how to learn how your heroes did it would be to read their biographies, wikipedia, websites, books that they have stated they have read or are reading, atricles and books they have written, online videos, and DVDs.

It's not really that hard to be good at something. You just need to be passionate and focus and model what the greats are doing or have done.

My Recent Book Readings

I have completed reading a few books over the last few months.

1. Security Analysis (Classic 1940s Edition) by Benjamin Graham and David Dodd
   
2. The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss
   
3. The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham (my second time reading it)
   

Security Analysis (Classic 1940s Edition)
To date, Security Analysis (Classic 1940s Edition) is my most accomplished reading. This 841-page behemoth is a work that any investor would respect. Co-written by the father of value-investing, Benjamin Graham gives in-depth insight to the world of value investing. Reading this book is on par, in terms of technicality, with many of the college textbooks I have used. Written originally over 80 years ago, this book still had amazing validity in the stock market today. The basic premise of value-investing is still intact and the theory remains much the same. It's amazing the knowledge I have learned through reading it and I will definitely apply it to investing. Many great investors have followed Graham-style investing including Warren Buffett, Eddie Lampert, Monish Pabrai, among many others.

The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere and Join the New Rich - My Thoughts
Great book about outsourcing your life. Probably not relevant to many people due to the fact that Tim talks a lot about getting rid of your 9-5 job, starting a successful, non-demanding business, and traveling the world, working 4-hours a week on the business that runs itself. What I really got out of the book was traveling while you're young and not waiting until retirement to start traveling. Tim refers to his travels or vacations as "mini retirements" and details many of the adventures that he has been on. These adventures struck a nerve in me and made me want to act on my ideas for traveling and doing adrenaline-pumping activities.

Other things that I took from the book were the ability for anyone to hire a virtual assistant for $5-$10 an hour from India to assist you if you need anything. They will research a topic, pay your bills, reply to emails, etc. for a minimal charge and most of these virtual assistants have MBA's and are incredible educated. This maybe something worth looking into.

The Intelligent Investor
Referred to as the best investment book written by Warren Buffett, this is a great book for controlling your emotions in the stock market. The theory of Mr. Market in the book depicts that the market is full of people's emotions and prices wander to cheap or expensive levels, in which intelligent investors can capitalize on. The book believes holding great companies for the long-term. If you are truly interested in the stock market and the pschology of human emotions, I highly recommend it.

Success is Always Challenged

(Photo: bp0)

Are you or someone you may know successful? Do other people recognize this success? Are you or they ever challenged because of your or their success?

It seems as though the more successful you become, the more people will challenge your ideas and thoughts. Does the challenge stem from the personal gratification of the challenger justifying their lack of success? Is the challenger trying to make themselves feel better about their life by challenging others?

I believe the thought stems from one word, jealousy. Humans are jealous by nature, they want more, more, more. People constantly think and look after themselves, and themselves alone. They compare themselves to other people and wonder, why is this girl successful and why am I not? Everything is a competition and they start rationalizing, making lists of that person's negatives; All they care about is themselves. They work too hard. The list is never ending.

I am one to always do my best at everything. I search out the best possible solution to everything and execute. Living this way has done me well and recently attitudes have changes about me from others. I have the same personality but certain success attributes are become more apparent, not in terms of lavish, material items, but underlying things like job experiences, investment opportunities, etc. There is now a constant challenge of my ideas, anger from others for not being included in certain investments, and fierce competition.

It is a constant battle and the resolution is difficult. Do you stop talking about investments with certain people? Do you keep your business to yourself with certain people? Do you not talk about your work life? Do you not talk about your future dreams and goals? It is certainly a challenge worth looking at.

The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss

I have recently starting reading (listening actually from the audiobook) The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss. It's been a thought-changing book so far and he has a lot of great ideas to tackle your fears and your passions in life. He started off working in an office like many Americans and made a dramatic change to alter his life and travel the world, all the while working only 4-hours on his own businesses.

His book is broken out into the following chapters:

Definition means to figure out what a person wants, get over fears, see past society's "expectations", and figure out what it will really cost to get where a person wants to go.

Elimination is about time management, or rather about not managing time. This is achieved applying the 80/20 rule to focus only on those tasks that contribute the majority of benefit. There's a difference, Ferriss says, between efficiency and effectiveness. The books emphasis is on effectiveness.

Automation is about building a sustainable, automatic source of income. This includes techniques such as drop-shipping, automation, Google Adwords and Adsense and outsourcing.

Liberation is dedicated to the successfully automated of one's lifestyle and the liberatation from a geographical location and job. Incidentally, Ferriss notes that if somebody has a regular job, the order of steps will be DELA, not DEAL.

The book asserts that technology such as email, instant messaging and internet-enabled pda's complicate life rather than simplify it. It advocates hiring virtual assistants from developing countries such as India to free up personal time.

Source: Wikipedia

Timothy Ferriss also writes a blog and maintains a website. Check them out! You can also check out my previous post - Timothy Ferriss, American Author and Speaker.

Warren Buffett Rap

This guy made a rap about legendary Warren Buffett.

The Secret to Happiness is No Secret

See The 'secret' to happiness... is no secret at The Financial Philosopher.

The blog post gives some great advice on finding happiness from the following quotes:

• "Health is the greatest possession. Contentment is the greatest treasure. Confidence is the greatest friend. Non-being is the greatest joy." ~ Lau-tzu

• "All truly wise thoughts have been thought already thousands of times; but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly, till they take root in our personal experience." ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

• "My opinion is that you never find happiness until you stop looking for it." ~ Chuang Tzu

• "If thou wilt make a man happy, add not unto his riches but take away from his desires." ~ Epicurus

• "Don't aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you will miss it. For success, like happiness, can not be pursued; and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one's dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see -- in the long run, I say! -- success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it." ~ Viktor Frankl

Morningstar Interview with Bruce Berkowitz

Truly an inspirational investor, Bruce Berkowitz discusses his new investments.

Best Advice I Ever Got: Thomas S. Murphy

Thomas S. Murphy, Former CEO of Capital Cities/ABC

Always do the right thing and you will have nothing to worry about:
I got two pieces of advice I have always remembered. The first was from my father, Charles E. Murphy, who was a justice of the New York State Supreme Court. It was a point about ethics. He said, "Doing the wrong thing is not worth the loss of one night's good sleep."

Some things in life cannot be controlled. Spend your time on things you can control:
The other came from Benjamin Selekman, a Harvard Business School professor who taught labor relations. The last thing he said, at his last lecture to my class, was, "Here is something to remember for the rest of your life: Don't spend your time on things you can't control. Instead, spend your time thinking about what you can."

Source: Best Advice I Ever Got

Quit Smoking

I have never been a smoker, but here is some motivation to quit for those who are unable to and are trying.

Three Ways to Motivate People

Motivating people is one of the key attributes that makes great leaders. There are three useful ways to motivate people, by command, negotiation, and persuasion.

Command - To direct with certain authority or prerogative.

• Often useless, command is used when neither negotiation or persuasion works as a last result. Command is used in the military and is used to tell people what to do or what not to do. It is a one-sided communication and should be avoided when another method can not be implemented.
  

Negotiation - Mutual discussion or arrangement of the terms of the transaction or agreement.

• More useful than command typically, you usually have to give something to get something in negotiating. Identifying what the other party needs and what you have to offer are the challenges. If you are able to identify these two, people will then try to get what they want while giving up as little as possible themselves.
  

Persuasion - The act of influencing the mind by arguments or reasons offered, or by anything that moves the mind or passions, or inclines the will to a determination.

• The most desired method of motivation, persuasion will usually get a positive result at little cost on your part. Great leaders are typically always great at persuasion and getting others to do what they want and are great listeners. Leaders create ideas and persuade others to enforce them. Gaining respect from others and then using persuasion will enable the people who respect you to want to help you and will have a better attitude then the previous methods.
  
  
• There are four steps to becoming a great persuader and four things to avoid. (from HBS - The Necessary Art of Persuasion)

• Effective persuaders:
1. must establish credibility;
2. frame their goals in a way that identifies common ground with those they intend to persuade;
3. reinforce their positions using vivid language and compelling evidence; and
   
4. connect emotionally with their audience.

• Ineffective persuaders:
1. attempt to make their case with an up-front, hard sell;
2. resist compromise;
3. think the secret of persuasion lies in great arguments; and
4. assume persuasion is a one-shot effort.
   

Definitions are from Dictionary.com.

While each method can be used in most situations, persuasion is the most useful generally, as it results in a positive output and requires very little of the leader. Great leaders press on to persuade people even when they feel it is impossible and resort to commanding or negotiating as little as possible.

Business and Economies

Here is a recent reply to a friend that is an avid Ron Paul supporter and feels that the U.S. economy is going to fail soon due to the large amount of debt that America has amassed. Although I believe him somewhat, I also believe the following:

Business is what keeps economies running and efficient. You have to realize that people in general and people running these companies adapt as they encounter problems. If there are problems, changes occur until they are solved. If a company has problems, it finds ways to fix them. If they aren't fixed they get acquired or go bankrupt. They are then absorbed into other companies or a new company is created that is more efficient than before if there is still value in that particular business. This is good, it takes inefficiency out of the system. Being that we have the most knowledgeable and educated population in the world currently we have a significant advantage here. We will seek out these problems and adapt.

Many US companies are global, therefore generating revenues from many sources of the world, not just here anymore. Smaller US companies may fail due to China's influence, so these companies will eventually go away. Another fact that remains is the assets that these companies hold. They hold real estate, not just in the US but all over the world. They hold short term investments, long term investments, domestic companies, foreign companies, brand names, etc. which are hardly subject to inflation, so their value is tangible and concrete. As populations increase there is a need for more goods and services, so there is always an increasing need for real estate and consumer products and other goods, that will not change.

The fact remains that we are in a global world now. Money exchanges hands across the world at incredible speeds, wealth is transferred almost instantly. Our knowledge base is huge. Americans will continually invest in foreign countries, foreign companies, global companies, build wealth, and cash out. People will adapt to the problems at hand and find a way to fix them.

The secret is to diversify, no-one knows what will happen in the future.

10 Things to Learn this Year

From Guy Kawasaki's blog, How to Change the World:

I’m on the campus of UCSB this week at family camp, and it's inspired me to blog about what students should learn in order to prepare for the real world after graduation. This is an opportune time to broach this subject because the school year is about to begin, and careers can still be affected.

First, take this little test about the state of your understanding of the real world right after you graduated from school.

Here are the top 5 things Guy thinks you should learn this year and my advice under them:

• How to talk to your boss.
• The importance is obvious here. If you are unable to communicate with your boss then you will hardly be recognized when promotion time comes around. Just communicating with your boss will not be sufficient so try quality communication. Quality communication could be not taking up his/her time when he/she is busy by asking for advice from others or working on the task yourself. Quality communication is making your point accurately and quickly, giving him/her status updates, and sending him/her interesting material through email. If you find an interesting article and send it to your boss stating you found the material useful and is applicable to a project you are working on, you will be recognized. Most importantly... do not treat your boss like he/she is better than you. Treat him/her with the utmost respect, but if you are unable to communicate to them because you are terrified then that gets you no where.
  
• How to survive a meeting that’s poorly run.
• Look at the bright side, "is there anything that I can get out of this meeting that I am not seeing?" If the meeting is incredibly boring to you maybe there are some underlying things that you can learn from. Ask yourself "what would I do if I was the presenter right now, or what wouldn't I do?"
• How to run a meeting.
• Prepararion is the largest thing here. Prepare, prepare, and prepare. Take your time when you speak, it is not a marathon. If you see that your audience is bored or not comprehending you, clarify your points and dig deeper. The purpose of you presenting is to teach your audience something. Think of it this way, they are there for you.
  
• How to figure out anything on your own.
• Study. If you don't understand a concept, break it into smaller pieces. What are the pieces that I understand? What are the pieces that I don't understand? Seek out the answers to the ones you don't understand and the puzzle will eventually fit together. Do your due diligence. Google the topic, read books on the topic, and ask your peers and superiors for help.
  
• How to negotiate.
• Negotiation falls into many aspects of life, asking someone to stay late to work, getting a pay increase, a promotion, not being able to go to dinner with your spouse. If you need help on a project or task, you have to negotiate with others into helping you. Start out with the problem or solution, and ask "what do I need to get there?" If you need help for x days from x people, who are you going to ask? Who has time? How am I going to convince this person if they are available? If they aren't available, can I convince them to help by working late? How? You should be asking yourself all of these questions to these scenarios and how you are going to answer them. Preparation again is the key to success in this area. Always remember that you can't willingly get people to do things by forcing them. Think about what they want and how you can help them when they help you. It's a two-sided scenario always and can usually be a win-win result if you put some time into thinking about it.
  

The Fear of Failure

"After a lifetime of making money and observing better men and women than I fall by the wayside, I am convinced that fear of failing in the eyes of the world is the single biggest impediment to amassing wealth. Trust me on this. If you shy away for any reason whatever, then the way is blocked. The gate is shut -- and will remain shut." - Felix Dennis

This is a great quote on how to get rich. Motivation for wealth stems from fear - the fear of failing in the eyes of the world. The eyes of the world could be composed of your family, friends, work associates, people you will meet someday, etc. Until you take the chance to fail, you will never fail, nor will you complete your goal. The goal discussed here is wealth but can be utilized to many other aspects of life (finishing college, being a good parent, getting a certain job, taking care of your family, traveling the world, etc.).

Take a chance at something... anything. If you fail, find out why you failed. Maybe you failed because the idea just wouldn't work, maybe you failed because of lack of effort, branding, knowledge, resources. Whatever the case, fix it or move on to something else you might fail at. Those who succeeded at something always failed along the way.

The Effect of No Alcohol

I'm not a alcoholic by any means, but I don't mind a few drinks when the weekend comes around. Drinking during weekdays has almost vanished since my college days - a step in the right direction.

I have noticed that drinking a few drinks or not at all for a week has promising effects. I have more energy, ambition and drive throughout the week and feel much more rested. Laying in bed the next day with a headache after a long night of drinking doesn't just affect my activities that day but it seems to spill over into the rest of the week. It's good to take a break every once in a while and let your liver rejuvenate too.

If you always seem to have a lack of energy and motivation, try taking care of your body first by eating healthy and exercising. They may give you the small jump-start you need.