Snippets of Advice for Growth and Success in Business and in Life
The following is adapted from The Art of Playing Defense by Whitney Tilson.
Develop Good Habits
You can transform yourself into the person you want to be, but you have to decide early because the chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.
— Warren Buffett
Think about that. All the little things you do dozens of times every day — your habits — define who you are, and once these patterns are set, they’re really tough to change. Thus, it’s critically important to develop good habits early in life. Buffett tells students to look at the people you work or go to school with and ponder this question: “Who do you think is going to be really successful in life, not just financially, but in every way?
As you think about this, what are the characteristics you’re focusing on? Are they smart? Do they work really hard and not give up easily? Do they have integrity? Is their word their bond? Are they 100% reliable? Are they well organized? Do they take care of themselves and not take foolish risks? Are they kind and a pleasure to spend time with? Do they make the world a better place?
Now ask yourself: what are they doing that I can’t do as well? I think you’ll find at least 90% of these traits are things over which you have total control.
So you see, you don’t need me to tell you what habits you should try to adopt — you already know. There’s no secret — they’re obvious! The real question is: what are you going to do about it?”
Integrity, Intelligence, and Energy
Turning to Buffett again:
“Somebody once said that in looking for people to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. And if you don’t have the first, the other two will kill you. You think about it; it’s true. If you hire somebody without [integrity], you really want them to be dumb and lazy.”
By “energy,” Buffett’s not just talking about putting in a lot of hours — though that’s part of it — but also maximizing the value of those hours by being smart, focused, and disciplined.
Maximize Your Time
Tim Ferriss’s book, The 4-Hour Workweek, is one of the dumbest I’ve ever read. Of course, you should try to be efficient and delegate well, as he advocates, but, especially early in your career, there’s no substitute for hard work. Trust me, you are far more likely to get ahead if you are the first one in the office every morning and the last to leave.
I’ve never forgotten the line from a famous Hollywood executive, Peter Guber, who came to speak at Harvard Business School while I was there. He said: “I’ve gotten ahead by working half days. And you know what? It doesn’t matter which 12 hours a day I work!”
That’s not hyperbole. Do the math: 12 hours a day dedicated toward your job/career/study/learning leaves 12 hours a day for everything else: eight hours of sleep, one hour of exercise, and three hours of eating, socializing, relaxing, etc. Then on weekends, cut your work in half to six hours — and be sure to take some wonderful vacations!
By the way, it’s not just about putting in a lot of hours but also overcoming obstacles and having grit, determination, and resilience. We all face setbacks in life — it’s how we handle them that’s critical. One study measured students’ IQ and grit and discovered that grit is twice as important in determining life outcomes.
Get Eight Hours of Sleep
For most of my adult life, I felt guilty about getting anything more than six hours of sleep each night. I know a handful of people — like my friend Wendy Kopp, with whom I worked starting Teach for America in 1989–90 — who perform at super high levels yet only sleep four hours a night. How I envy them — I would pay a lot of money for a pill that allowed me to do this!
A few years ago, I tried to train myself to function on six hours of sleep, staying up until midnight and setting my alarm for six o’clock in the morning, but it didn’t work — it just made me tired all the time, and I could tell my brain wasn’t functioning 100%. So I went back to my usual seven to seven and a half hours and felt guilty until last year when I saw a 19-minute TED Talk by Matt Walker called Sleep Is Your Superpower.
In it, he shared the results of numerous studies, all of which show the importance of getting at least eight hours of sleep — and the terrible consequences of sleep deprivation. Premature aging (“the shorter your sleep, the shorter your life”). Early-onset dementia caused by Alzheimer’s. Reduced ability to absorb, process, and remember things. Impotence. A suppressed immune system, resulting in higher cancer risk. Increased chances of auto accidents (like Susan’s!), suicides, cardiovascular disease, and heart attacks.
Walker concluded:
“Sleep, unfortunately, is not an optional lifestyle luxury. Sleep is a nonnegotiable biological necessity. It is your life-support system, and it is Mother Nature’s best effort yet at immortality.
And the decimation of sleep throughout industrialized nations is having a catastrophic impact on our health, our wellness, even the safety and education of our children. It’s a silent sleep-loss epidemic, and it’s quickly becoming one of the greatest public health challenges that we face in the twenty-first century.”
Walker’s wisdom changed my life. Instead of strategizing how to get less sleep, I now try to get more. Rather than viewing it as a wasteful luxury, I try to get a minimum of eight hours each night — and nine is even better!
While I am, of course, only a sample size of one, I can tell you that ever since I started getting more sleep, I feel more energetic and stronger, both physically and mentally.
For more advice on how to achieve success in business and in life, The Art of Playing Defense is available on Amazon.
Whitney Tilson has always prioritized avoiding calamities in both his personal life and in his career. He graduated with high honors from both Harvard College and Harvard Business School, has had a successful career building multiple for-profit and nonprofit businesses, is happily married after 27 years, and has three wonderful daughters. Despite riding his bike in the streets of Manhattan every day and being an accomplished obstacle course racer and mountain climber, he’s never had a serious accident. Whitney is passionate about sharing what he’s learned with others through this book as well as the many newsletters he publishes at his firm, Empire Financial Research.
