I’m currently reading “The Snowball” (Warren Buffet and the Business of Life) by Alice Shroeder. It’s a thick book – almost a thousand pages – and though I’ve only read about a third of it, there are already lots of interesting lessons to be learned from Buffet. Here are some of them:Buffet was taught by his dad to always measure himself with an inner scorecard vs an outer scorecard. “Would you rather live your life based on what the world would think about you?” as his dad would ask him.
The Buffet’s family motto was – “Spend less than you make and don’t go into debt.”
Buffet bought his first stock at age 10! (This goes to prove the theory presented by Malcolm Gladwell in Outliers that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to achieve the level of mastery associated with being world-class expert in anything).
In his tweens, Buffet wasn’t reading comicbooks but a book called “1,000 ways to make USD1,000”.
In his teens, he read “How to Win Friends & Influence People” by Dale Carnegie (it’s the same book my Dad asked me to read - though I barely remember the lessons from that book now! Haha…).
Also during his teens, he started several businesses:
He sold refurbished golf balls which he bought for USD3.50/bucket and sold for USD6.
He sold collectible stamps.
He had a car buffing business.
And he had Pinball Machines placed in barbershops.
In high school (around 1946), he was earning USD175 per month just by pitching and delivering newspapers – more than what his teachers were earning.
At age 16 (circa 1940), he had already saved USD5,000.
In his yearbook, he wrote “Future stockbroker”.
To some of us who might not know his story, we might think he just got very lucky. But nope, he obviously worked really, really hard and started very early too!
Anyway, I’ll try to post more fascinating and inspiring facts about him as I continue reading the book. I’m in the part where he got rejected by the Harvard Business School (that I didn’t know before either!). :)
