The best advice to students from Buffett and Munger (and how to implement it)
I want to share the best advice I have heard from an entrepreneur.
A college student asked Buffett this question when he was speaking to a room full of students, “Mr. Warren Buffett, can you give us some advice on how to be successful like you?”
Buffett responded with a powerful thought experiment.
“I’m giving you an offer. You can pick any of your classmates, and you will get 10% of their earnings for the rest of your life. What goes through your mind? Think about who you would pick and why. (You can’t pick the one with the richest father, it won’t count.)
“You probably won’t pick the one who has the highest grade in the class. Interesting enough, it all comes down to a list of qualities that are self-made. It’s not about how tall you are, how far you can kick a football, or the best-looking person. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with getting the highest grades in the class, but that isn’t going to be the quality that sets apart a big winner from the rest of the pack… You’ve all got the ability, you wouldn’t be here otherwise. And you’ve all got the energy. I mean, the initiative is here, the intelligence is here throughout the class. But some of you are going to be bigger winners than others.”
“It gets down to a bunch of qualities that, interestingly enough, are self-made. I mean it’s not how your height, appearance, or athletic abilities. It’s integrity, it’s honesty, it’s generosity, it’s being willing to do more than your share, it’s just all those qualities that are self-selected.” The good news about self-selected qualities is that they can be acquired and taken out. They are not ordained. Look at the list of good qualities. Identify which ones you do not have yet, and cultivate the qualities you desire deliberately.
“Ben Franklin did this and my old boss Ben Graham did this at early ages in their young teens, Ben Graham looked around and he said, ‘Who do I admire?’ And he wanted to be admired himself and he said, ‘Why do I admire these other people?’ And he said, ‘If I admire them for these reasons, maybe other people would admire me if I behave in a similar manner.’ And he decided what kind of a person he wanted to be. This is something achievable by everyone in this room.” Read more about Buffett’s advice here.
Buffett’s words hit me hard. I imagine a mic drop at the end of his talk. What a great hack on success. There are so many people who “want” to be successful, happy, rich, healthy, etc. However, so few of them actually how to make themselves more deserving of these rewards. There are millions of people who desire the same rewards, why should you be the winner?
“To get what you want, you have to deserve what you want. The world is not yet a crazy enough place to reward a whole bunch of undeserving people.”
— Charlie Munger
In most cases, you should be the winner because deserve more to be the winner. So, what are deserve-it factors? The most important component is qualities, as Buffett pointed out. Key qualities that can improve your deserve-it factor are motivation, curiosity, humility, work ethics, flexibility, determination, integrity, passion, and empathy. Second component is knowledge and skills. There are personal knowledge and skills that apply broadly such as time management, emotional intelligence, communication, problem solving, critical thinking, stress management, and more. There are also professional knowledge and skills that relate to the field you are in. If you want to become the next Mark Zuckerberg, you will need computer science and entrepreneurship related knowledge and skills. If you want to a rockstar, you need to make sure your knowledge and skills around singing and performance is top-notch.
If you are a young person and want to be a successful entrepreneur, the book Hack College Like an Entrepreneur is an extremely helpful guide because it offers 40 actional hacks that can improve your deserve-it factor to become a successful entrepreneur.
