The Best Investment You Can Make
The first rule of an investment is don't lose money. And the second rule of an investment is don't forget the first rule. And that's all the rules there are. —Warren Buffett
Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken. —Oscar Wilde
Above: Make money, don’t let money make you.
Warren Buffett is a damned good investor.
Known for his quips and witticisms, Buffett’s avuncular attitude belies his formidable intellect and the ballast of revenue, profit, and value that steadies the supertanker that is Berkshire Hathaway.
So staggering is his titanic outfit (pun intended, but Berkshire is not sinking anytime soon) that words fail to properly capture its height, depth, and width.
As a picture is worth a thousand of them, the below ought to do the trick. Keep in mind it’s from 2018, nearly five years ago.
Every year, Buffett acolytes embark upon a perennial migration to Omaha, Nebraska, in order to attend Berkshire Hathaway’s Annual Shareholder Meeting. These pilgrims dutifully mark their calendars for late April/early May to pay homage at a gathering referred to as the “Woodstock of Capitalism.”
Buffett often preaches simple practices that, for many, prove far from easy. This year was no exception.
Among other cold, hard truths, Buffett said one thing that stood out: “The most important thing in investing is to avoid mistakes.”
Nominally defined as “an alternative investment class that invests in or acquires private companies that are not listed on a public stock exchange,” private equity has long been the enclave of endowments, family offices, and wealthy individuals the world over.
It is a good asset class that has led to some great returns. However, your own personal, private equity is much, much more scarce and valuable.
It amounts to your self worth, not your net worth.
It cannot be modeled in Microsoft Excel or traded on a ticker.
It is the well that never runs dry, the cup that runneth over.
It has intrinsic value whose potential is unmatched, whose worth is incalculable
It is never, ever a mistake to invest in you.
Heed Buffett’s words and do so.
Each investment amounts to rigging another, larger sail that allows you to capture and be propelled by the world’s generous tailwinds.
Two quotes buttress this fact:
The world is a malleable place. If you know what you want, and you go for it with maximum energy and passion, the world will often reconfigure itself around you much more quickly and easily than you would think. —Marc Andreessen
What the pupil must learn, if he learns anything at all, is that the world will do most of the work for you, provided you cooperate with it by identifying how it really works and aligning with those realities. If we do not let the world teach us, it teaches us a lesson. —Joseph Tussman
To paraphrase Al Pacino’s brilliant speech in Scent of a Woman:
You hold your future in your hands.
It's a valuable future. Believe me.
Don't destroy it!
Protect it.
Embrace it.
It's gonna make ya proud one day — I promise you.
Regard yourself as Lt. Col. Frank Slade does Charlie Simms.
Though others might lack the will and resources to build, improve, or invest in themselves, you must pick up the slack by bettering your mind, body, and soul.
You must choose greatness and become the most extraordinary version of yourself you can be.
After all, no one is coming to save you. As my late grandfather, John Timothy Landers, used to say: “Your only security in life is yourself.”
Time is money and the clock is ticking. Leverage your private equity wisely.
Though it cannot be calculated, your life has immense worth. Go and make the most of it.