And 8.5% of Singapore's population are millionaires...and here we are trying to figure out on how to get our first million... (Now, do you think it is difficult to be a millionaire?)
By the way, to get the full story, you can go here..
Search The Web
Custom Search
Showing posts with label Motivation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Motivation. Show all posts
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Millionaires Around The World
My, my... would you believe that in The United States alone, you will find 3.9 million millionaires, the highest population on the globe.
And 8.5% of Singapore's population are millionaires...and here we are trying to figure out on how to get our first million... (Now, do you think it is difficult to be a millionaire?)
By the way, to get the full story, you can go here..
And 8.5% of Singapore's population are millionaires...and here we are trying to figure out on how to get our first million... (Now, do you think it is difficult to be a millionaire?)
By the way, to get the full story, you can go here..
Monday, June 29, 2009
6 Millionaire Traits That You Can Adopt
1. Independent Thinking
Millionaires think differently. Not just about money, about everything. The time and energy everybody else spends attempting to conform, millionaires spend creating their own path. Since thoughts impact actions, people who want to be wealthy should think in a way that will get them to that goal.
Just look at David Geffen. A self-made millionaire with $4.5 billion to his name in 2009, this American record executive and film producer was college dropout, but made millions founding record agencies and signed some of the most prominent musicians of the 1970s and '80s. Although he didn't take what many assume to be the usual path to success, his tireless work ethic and sense of personal conviction about artists' potential allowed him to rack up a sizable fortune.
2. Vision
Millionaires are creative visionaries with a positive attitude. In other words, wealthy people not only have big dreams, they also believe they will come true. As such, wealth seekers should set lofty goals and not be afraid of uncharted territories.
Bill Gates, the world's richest person in 2009, did just that. The American chairman of Microsoft is one of the founding entrepreneurs who brought personal computers to the masses. Gates jumped into the personal computers business in 1975 and held on tight, creating Microsoft Windows in 1985. When consumers began to bring computers into their homes, Gates was ready to profit from this new age.
3. Skills
Writer Dennis Kimbro interviewed successful people to determine the traits they had in common for his book, "Think and Grow Rich" (1992). He found that they concentrated on their area of excellence. Millionaires also tend to partner with others to supplement their weaker skills. If you don't know what you are good at, poll friends and family. Use training and mentors to refine your strong skills.
4. Passion
Billionaire investing guru Warren Buffett says "Money is a by-product of something I like to do very much." Enjoying your work allows you to have the discipline to work hard at it every day. People who interact with money for a living, bankers for example, often love creating new deals and persuading others to complete a transaction. But finding your dream job may take time. The average millionaire doesn't find it until age 45, and tends to be 54 (on average) before becoming a millionaire.
5. Investment
Millionaires are willing to sacrifice time and money to achieve their goals. They are willing to take a risk now for the opportunity of achieving something greater in the future. Investing may include securities or starting a business - either way, it is a step toward achieving great financial rewards. Start investing now.
6. Salesmanship
Millionaires are constantly presenting their ideas and persuading others to buy into them. Good salesmen are oblivious to critics and naysayers. In other words, they don't take "no" for an answer. Millionaires also have good social skills. In fact, when writer T. Harv Eker analyzed the results of a survey of 753 millionaires for his book, "Secrets of the Millionaire Mind" (2005), he found social skills were more important than IQ. Just look at Donald Trump. His fortune has fluctuated over the years, but his ability to sell himself - whether as a TV personality or as the force behind a line of neckties - has always brought him back among the ranks of celebrity millionaires.
source: Investopedia
Millionaires think differently. Not just about money, about everything. The time and energy everybody else spends attempting to conform, millionaires spend creating their own path. Since thoughts impact actions, people who want to be wealthy should think in a way that will get them to that goal.
Just look at David Geffen. A self-made millionaire with $4.5 billion to his name in 2009, this American record executive and film producer was college dropout, but made millions founding record agencies and signed some of the most prominent musicians of the 1970s and '80s. Although he didn't take what many assume to be the usual path to success, his tireless work ethic and sense of personal conviction about artists' potential allowed him to rack up a sizable fortune.
2. Vision
Millionaires are creative visionaries with a positive attitude. In other words, wealthy people not only have big dreams, they also believe they will come true. As such, wealth seekers should set lofty goals and not be afraid of uncharted territories.
Bill Gates, the world's richest person in 2009, did just that. The American chairman of Microsoft is one of the founding entrepreneurs who brought personal computers to the masses. Gates jumped into the personal computers business in 1975 and held on tight, creating Microsoft Windows in 1985. When consumers began to bring computers into their homes, Gates was ready to profit from this new age.
3. Skills
Writer Dennis Kimbro interviewed successful people to determine the traits they had in common for his book, "Think and Grow Rich" (1992). He found that they concentrated on their area of excellence. Millionaires also tend to partner with others to supplement their weaker skills. If you don't know what you are good at, poll friends and family. Use training and mentors to refine your strong skills.
4. Passion
Billionaire investing guru Warren Buffett says "Money is a by-product of something I like to do very much." Enjoying your work allows you to have the discipline to work hard at it every day. People who interact with money for a living, bankers for example, often love creating new deals and persuading others to complete a transaction. But finding your dream job may take time. The average millionaire doesn't find it until age 45, and tends to be 54 (on average) before becoming a millionaire.
5. Investment
Millionaires are willing to sacrifice time and money to achieve their goals. They are willing to take a risk now for the opportunity of achieving something greater in the future. Investing may include securities or starting a business - either way, it is a step toward achieving great financial rewards. Start investing now.
6. Salesmanship
Millionaires are constantly presenting their ideas and persuading others to buy into them. Good salesmen are oblivious to critics and naysayers. In other words, they don't take "no" for an answer. Millionaires also have good social skills. In fact, when writer T. Harv Eker analyzed the results of a survey of 753 millionaires for his book, "Secrets of the Millionaire Mind" (2005), he found social skills were more important than IQ. Just look at Donald Trump. His fortune has fluctuated over the years, but his ability to sell himself - whether as a TV personality or as the force behind a line of neckties - has always brought him back among the ranks of celebrity millionaires.
source: Investopedia
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Achieve Abundance of Wealth and Prosperity by Using Money Affirmation
Today, I would like to share with you all something different, something that I've come across quite lately and been practising it myself and surprisingly it works! Don't ask me how, I only understand half of it (hopefully) and still struggling to understand the rest of it. So, if you want a further understanding, you should contact Mr. Hari or his team of volunteers from IRAH- HOME OF HEALING who are there just to serve mankind with unconditional love.Ok, coming back to the topic of today - Money Affirmation.
The self- heal Money Affirmation is meant for all who are seeking for abundance of wealth and prosperity in their lives.This affirmation is also for those who are suffering from financial woes such as debts and constant worries about the lack of money. Frequent repetition will lead to believe and thereby the manifestation of wealth.
I am thankful, for abundance of wealth is flowing into my life.
I am thankful for the comfort, freedom and joy in spending and enjoying money.
I am thankful for money is flowing freely in my life, trusting in whatever ways it comes to me.
Thank you for the abundance of wealth and the freedom and joy to spend and enjoy money easily.
Thank you for Blessing My Life with Love, Joy and Abundance.
Hope you readers benefit from this as well as I did. If I remember it correctly, Mr. Hari mentioned to me that if you think of wanting something, your state of mind will be conditioned to that state permanently and that's what you will be - wanting something.
Instead, try to imagine and affirm that you've already got what you wanted and thank for what you've received. Slowly your mind will begin to believe that you've already got it and that's what you'll have.
Again, if you have the how's and why's jumping up and down your head, better head over to irah-healing and talk to the right people. They would be more than happy to serve you.
When it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion. ~Voltaire
Sunday, November 9, 2008
How Warren Buffet Made His Billions
Warren Buffett is a man who has made millions but he also started working at his father’s brokerage when he was 11 years old, that’s an age when most other kids were playing hide-n-seek and didn’t know how to spell ‘brokerage’..
This financial wizard is by recent estimates, worth $46 billion but how he got there is the fascinating story.
It all began in the family grocery store back in Omaha. Buffett’s great grandfather started the store in 1869 and it was in the Buffet family until 1969, till his uncle finally retired. But it’s at this store, where he began going around his neighbourhood selling gum. This was before his stint at his father’s firm.
Warren Buffett told CNBC’s Liz Claman, “My grandfather would sell me Wrigley’s chewing gum and I would go door to door around my neighbourhood selling it. He also sold me six Coca Cola for a quarter and I would sell it for a nickel each in the neighbourhood, so I made a small profit. I was always trying to do something like this.”.
From small beginnings come bigger things and so after selling gum, soft drinks and working with his father, by age 14, he had bought a 40 acres farm in Washington, Thurston County..
But he confesses that he never enjoyed the farm as much as he enjoyed investing in stocks. But the first stock he bought was “Citi Service preferred stock. I had three shares and made all of $5 on it. I had bought it at $38.25 and then I sold it around $40, it went down to $27 in between and after I sold it at $40, it went to $200!”.
From that poorly timed stock sale in 1944, he learnt a lesson that became his legendary investment strategy - which is essentially - patience pays, so buy them and hold them. He figured out two other critical things about himself in the 1940s - what he is good at and what he likes to do.
This pivotal moment in his journey came in 1956, when he was just 25 years old. This man who was rejected by Harvard and now armed with contributions from family and friends and $100 of his own money starts a limited partnership with seven people.
Over the next nine years, Buffett turned a $105,000 into $26 million - a stunning 24,000 per cent increase! He had invested mostly in textile companies, farm equipment manufacturers and even a company making windmills.
Thirteen years later, Buffett forms another partnership that becomes one of the greatest teams in the history of investing. He convinces longtime friend Charlie Munger to quit his investment partnership to join Buffett as his Vice President of Berkshire Hathaway.
And now with the 82-year-old Munger, Buffett sits on top of the greatest holding companies ever.
So, it’s understandable that this man is looked up to for investment and business advice all the time. But what’s the secret gift he’s got? How does he pick the right investments all the time? He explains, “I look for something that I can understand to start with, there are all kinds of businesses I don’t understand.”.
“I don’t understand what car companies are going to do 10 years from now, or what software or chemical companies are going to win/do ten years from now but I do understand that Snickers bars will be the number one candy company in the US - like its been for 40 years. So, I look for durable competitive advantage and that is hard to find. I look for an honest and able management and I look for the price I’m going to pay.”.
While Buffett’s big acquisitions have made headlines; wise investments in companies like Coco Cola, the Washington Post and Gillette have provided the capital to make those acquisitions possible. Since taking control of Berkshire in 1964, the company has acquired 68 subsidiaries. In March of 1964, Berkshire acquired its first insurance company National Indemnity.
In 1972, See’s Candies for $25 million, in September of 1983, Nebraska Furniture Mart and Borhseim’s in 1989. In 1998, Berkshire acquired Dairy Queen and Geico in January, Net Jets in August and General Re Corp in December. In April of 2002, Fruit of the Loom and most recently Buffett is looking abroad for new business.
Recently, he bought 80 per cent of the Israeli Metal Works Company and he did it without even seeing it. He was approached by the promoter via a letter and what was in that letter convinced him that ‘this was the kind of the person I wanted to do business with and it is the kind of business we wanted to own.’ How does this ‘daring bit of investment fit in with his usual careful way of investing?.
He explains, “I had to size up the business but that’s a background of being in stocks. If you put your whole net worth in stocks when you are 20-21 years old - you have not visited the businesses but you are really analyzing their financials, you are trying to assess whether they have durable competitive advantage, assess the quality of the management and the integrity of the management and then you try to figure out whether you are buying it at a reasonable price and that’s it, that is all we do.”
He’s never had anything lacking - his acute business brain has made him a lot of money. He also feels that the youth of today are living better than John D Rockefeller. His own style remains the same - he lives in the same house for 48 years, carries no cellphone, has no computer on his office desk, does not move around with an entourage.
As he puts it, “I have had everything I wanted all my life. At 20, I was having the time of my life doing what I did. Today, I’m eating the same things I always eat - burgers, fries and cherry coke. Only my clothes are more expensive now but they look cheap when I put them on!”.
At 76, he married his long-time companion, Astrid Menks at a low-key ceremony at his daughter Susan’s house. He is also amazingly healthy for someone on a burgers-coke diet. He’s also surprisingly down to earth. He moves around freely unencumbered by a security detail. He does have a few guards with him during the annual shareholders meeting but he says he doesn’t feel the need to put himself in a cocoon.
Which probably explains, why he wasn’t nervous about visiting a factory in Israel, which is close to the Lebanese border. He says of that visit, “Our plant there is about 8-10 miles from the Lebanese border and there were maybe a rocket or two that hit the parking lot or something like that but it can be dangerous being in this (US) country as well.”.
Buffett is comfortable in Omaha in part because people leave him alone with the exception of a random fan or two. This billionaire doesn’t even have a chauffeur - he drives himself around in a 2006 Cadillac DTS, recently purchased after he auctioned off his old Lincoln Town Car, which was famous for its Thrifty license plate. And no, he does not want a yacht or many mansions. He just wants to be left alone to enjoy a good football game in his sweatsuit on a big screen television - with popcorn.
It’s really no surprise that America’s most prominent investor chooses to live far from the nation’s wealthy-elite in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Miami. He says that when he was in New York, he had about a 100 ideas about where to invest but it was over-stimulation.
In Omaha, he needs one good idea in a year and he feels he can think better and with less distraction. He feels there is a sense of community in living there.
His investing theories have been talked about ad nauseum by almost every business/finance writer and is a cottage industry all by itself.
But one he finds closest to reflecting his views is a book written by Larry Cunningham - ‘The Essays of Warren Buffett - Lessons for Corporate America’ is required reading in a one of a kind course start at the University of Missouri School of Business.
The course is called Investment Strategies of Warren Buffett. It turns up Buffett is hot on campus too. The class now in its eighth year and is the brainchild of Buffett’s friend Harvey Eisen.
Harvey Eisen recalls, “This course is a breakthrough in terms of reality meeting academics. I said why don’t we have a course like this and the academics scratched their head and said ‘well we don’t’ and I said ‘why don’t we’ and then we got it done.”.
Dean of the University of Missouri School of Business Bruce Walker bought the idea. He says, “We want our students to be exposed to many different approaches to investing.”.
The Buffett playbook is taught, analysed and written about but it is best summed up like this.
Harvey Eisen explains it, “
Number one - Don’t lose the money and
Number two - don’t forget rule number 1!
Number three - look for unique companies that are hard to replicate - he calls
that a moat around the business.
Number four - he talks about the circle of competence, which means in simple
English, do what you know..
“Everybody in the stock market knows about the economy or about the Federal Reserve. Warren focuses on what he knows and he has made enormous successes at that.”
He does not want his managers to report in at any committee meeting of any kind and he lets them get on with the business of running their businesses. But there is one thing he requires of each CEO. Buffett says, “I asked them to send me a letter, that I would keep in a private place that will tell me what to do tomorrow morning, if they are not alive in terms of their successor.”
But what about his own successor? He says, “The succession plan is very simple. Our board met a few days ago and we talked about that every in single meeting and we have at least three people inside Berkshire, who in many respects will do my job better than I do. I can’t give you the names but the board knows which one of those three they would pick, if something happened to me.”.
Warren Buffett has also given away $31 billion of his fortune to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and he ‘hopes it will accomplish just what they have set out to accomplish. I have observed their Foundation very carefully and Bill & Melinda decided initially they were spending about a billion a year. They have decided they were going to try and figure how they are going to save most lives, relieve the most human suffering.’
Ultimately, that’s what money is really meant for, isn’t it?
Source : http://www.rediff.com/money/2006/dec/26buffet.htm
This financial wizard is by recent estimates, worth $46 billion but how he got there is the fascinating story.
It all began in the family grocery store back in Omaha. Buffett’s great grandfather started the store in 1869 and it was in the Buffet family until 1969, till his uncle finally retired. But it’s at this store, where he began going around his neighbourhood selling gum. This was before his stint at his father’s firm.
Warren Buffett told CNBC’s Liz Claman, “My grandfather would sell me Wrigley’s chewing gum and I would go door to door around my neighbourhood selling it. He also sold me six Coca Cola for a quarter and I would sell it for a nickel each in the neighbourhood, so I made a small profit. I was always trying to do something like this.”.
From small beginnings come bigger things and so after selling gum, soft drinks and working with his father, by age 14, he had bought a 40 acres farm in Washington, Thurston County..
But he confesses that he never enjoyed the farm as much as he enjoyed investing in stocks. But the first stock he bought was “Citi Service preferred stock. I had three shares and made all of $5 on it. I had bought it at $38.25 and then I sold it around $40, it went down to $27 in between and after I sold it at $40, it went to $200!”.
From that poorly timed stock sale in 1944, he learnt a lesson that became his legendary investment strategy - which is essentially - patience pays, so buy them and hold them. He figured out two other critical things about himself in the 1940s - what he is good at and what he likes to do.
This pivotal moment in his journey came in 1956, when he was just 25 years old. This man who was rejected by Harvard and now armed with contributions from family and friends and $100 of his own money starts a limited partnership with seven people.
Over the next nine years, Buffett turned a $105,000 into $26 million - a stunning 24,000 per cent increase! He had invested mostly in textile companies, farm equipment manufacturers and even a company making windmills.
Thirteen years later, Buffett forms another partnership that becomes one of the greatest teams in the history of investing. He convinces longtime friend Charlie Munger to quit his investment partnership to join Buffett as his Vice President of Berkshire Hathaway.
And now with the 82-year-old Munger, Buffett sits on top of the greatest holding companies ever.
So, it’s understandable that this man is looked up to for investment and business advice all the time. But what’s the secret gift he’s got? How does he pick the right investments all the time? He explains, “I look for something that I can understand to start with, there are all kinds of businesses I don’t understand.”.
“I don’t understand what car companies are going to do 10 years from now, or what software or chemical companies are going to win/do ten years from now but I do understand that Snickers bars will be the number one candy company in the US - like its been for 40 years. So, I look for durable competitive advantage and that is hard to find. I look for an honest and able management and I look for the price I’m going to pay.”.
While Buffett’s big acquisitions have made headlines; wise investments in companies like Coco Cola, the Washington Post and Gillette have provided the capital to make those acquisitions possible. Since taking control of Berkshire in 1964, the company has acquired 68 subsidiaries. In March of 1964, Berkshire acquired its first insurance company National Indemnity.
In 1972, See’s Candies for $25 million, in September of 1983, Nebraska Furniture Mart and Borhseim’s in 1989. In 1998, Berkshire acquired Dairy Queen and Geico in January, Net Jets in August and General Re Corp in December. In April of 2002, Fruit of the Loom and most recently Buffett is looking abroad for new business.
Recently, he bought 80 per cent of the Israeli Metal Works Company and he did it without even seeing it. He was approached by the promoter via a letter and what was in that letter convinced him that ‘this was the kind of the person I wanted to do business with and it is the kind of business we wanted to own.’ How does this ‘daring bit of investment fit in with his usual careful way of investing?.
He explains, “I had to size up the business but that’s a background of being in stocks. If you put your whole net worth in stocks when you are 20-21 years old - you have not visited the businesses but you are really analyzing their financials, you are trying to assess whether they have durable competitive advantage, assess the quality of the management and the integrity of the management and then you try to figure out whether you are buying it at a reasonable price and that’s it, that is all we do.”
He’s never had anything lacking - his acute business brain has made him a lot of money. He also feels that the youth of today are living better than John D Rockefeller. His own style remains the same - he lives in the same house for 48 years, carries no cellphone, has no computer on his office desk, does not move around with an entourage.
As he puts it, “I have had everything I wanted all my life. At 20, I was having the time of my life doing what I did. Today, I’m eating the same things I always eat - burgers, fries and cherry coke. Only my clothes are more expensive now but they look cheap when I put them on!”.
At 76, he married his long-time companion, Astrid Menks at a low-key ceremony at his daughter Susan’s house. He is also amazingly healthy for someone on a burgers-coke diet. He’s also surprisingly down to earth. He moves around freely unencumbered by a security detail. He does have a few guards with him during the annual shareholders meeting but he says he doesn’t feel the need to put himself in a cocoon.
Which probably explains, why he wasn’t nervous about visiting a factory in Israel, which is close to the Lebanese border. He says of that visit, “Our plant there is about 8-10 miles from the Lebanese border and there were maybe a rocket or two that hit the parking lot or something like that but it can be dangerous being in this (US) country as well.”.
Buffett is comfortable in Omaha in part because people leave him alone with the exception of a random fan or two. This billionaire doesn’t even have a chauffeur - he drives himself around in a 2006 Cadillac DTS, recently purchased after he auctioned off his old Lincoln Town Car, which was famous for its Thrifty license plate. And no, he does not want a yacht or many mansions. He just wants to be left alone to enjoy a good football game in his sweatsuit on a big screen television - with popcorn.
It’s really no surprise that America’s most prominent investor chooses to live far from the nation’s wealthy-elite in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Miami. He says that when he was in New York, he had about a 100 ideas about where to invest but it was over-stimulation.
In Omaha, he needs one good idea in a year and he feels he can think better and with less distraction. He feels there is a sense of community in living there.
His investing theories have been talked about ad nauseum by almost every business/finance writer and is a cottage industry all by itself.
But one he finds closest to reflecting his views is a book written by Larry Cunningham - ‘The Essays of Warren Buffett - Lessons for Corporate America’ is required reading in a one of a kind course start at the University of Missouri School of Business.
The course is called Investment Strategies of Warren Buffett. It turns up Buffett is hot on campus too. The class now in its eighth year and is the brainchild of Buffett’s friend Harvey Eisen.
Harvey Eisen recalls, “This course is a breakthrough in terms of reality meeting academics. I said why don’t we have a course like this and the academics scratched their head and said ‘well we don’t’ and I said ‘why don’t we’ and then we got it done.”.
Dean of the University of Missouri School of Business Bruce Walker bought the idea. He says, “We want our students to be exposed to many different approaches to investing.”.
The Buffett playbook is taught, analysed and written about but it is best summed up like this.
Harvey Eisen explains it, “
Number one - Don’t lose the money and
Number two - don’t forget rule number 1!
Number three - look for unique companies that are hard to replicate - he calls
that a moat around the business.
Number four - he talks about the circle of competence, which means in simple
English, do what you know..
“Everybody in the stock market knows about the economy or about the Federal Reserve. Warren focuses on what he knows and he has made enormous successes at that.”
He does not want his managers to report in at any committee meeting of any kind and he lets them get on with the business of running their businesses. But there is one thing he requires of each CEO. Buffett says, “I asked them to send me a letter, that I would keep in a private place that will tell me what to do tomorrow morning, if they are not alive in terms of their successor.”
But what about his own successor? He says, “The succession plan is very simple. Our board met a few days ago and we talked about that every in single meeting and we have at least three people inside Berkshire, who in many respects will do my job better than I do. I can’t give you the names but the board knows which one of those three they would pick, if something happened to me.”.
Warren Buffett has also given away $31 billion of his fortune to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and he ‘hopes it will accomplish just what they have set out to accomplish. I have observed their Foundation very carefully and Bill & Melinda decided initially they were spending about a billion a year. They have decided they were going to try and figure how they are going to save most lives, relieve the most human suffering.’
Ultimately, that’s what money is really meant for, isn’t it?
Source : http://www.rediff.com/money/2006/dec/26buffet.htm
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Impact Of Goal Setting
Another inspiring story that was delivered to my mailbox. Though the topic is on Impact of Goal Setting, the example given in on the world's greatest investor,Warren Buffet. I guess it would be useful to all investors out there, especially to those who look up to him as the Investment Guru.In 1952, there was a research study done on the impact of goal setting on the graduating batch of students at Yale University. When asked how many of them had clearly specified and written down goals, only three percent responded. The remaining ninety-seven percent, despite being highly intelligent and hardworking, had no road map where they would be five to ten years after graduation. Twenty years later in 1972, a follow up study was done on the class of 1952. What they discovered was shocking; the combined income of the three percent who had clear goals was greater than the entire income of the ninety seven percent combined! Was it just a coincidence or does having clear goals really have an impact on a person’s personal and financial success?
One classic example is investor Warren Buffet. Does his ability to come about by chance? Absolutely not. From a very early age young Buffett was obsessed with making money and had a very clear dream of becoming the world’s greatest investor. Born during the depression when his father was close to bankruptcy, Warren learnt about the value of money and the importance of being financially secure at an early age.
Even before his teens, Warren knew that he wanted to be rich. As early as elementary school and later on in high school, he would tell his classmates that he wanted to become a millionaire before the age of 35 (when he turned 35, his net worth exceeded $6 million). It was because of his goal that he constantly thought of ways to make money, while most other kids his age would be spending their parents’ money.
He even memorized a book called ‘ A Thousand Ways to Make $1,000’. At the age of six, he started buying coke bottles at 25-cents per six-pack and selling them at 5-cents a bottle, giving him a 16% gross profit, as he would tell himself. At the age of 13, he got a job delivering newspapers and through innovative marketing and distribution strategies, he served five hundred customers a day. At the age of 11, he took all his savings and started investing in the stock market. His first investment was three shares in a company called ‘City Service’. While most kids his age were reading comic books, Warren spent his time reading company annual reports.
By the age of 14, he started a pinball business and was earning $175 a week, as much as the average 25-year old was earning in 1944. Would he have taken all those actions if he never set a goal to be rich in the first place? Of course not. It was clearly because of his focus of energy and actions that allowed him to become the best in what he does.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Story Of A Little Boy
The other day I came across a very interesting story. It was a story of a little boy. A true story. This little boy picked up an interest in music. For several years, he had been learning to play the cornet. He persisted, putting in hours of practice at home each day, and there came a time, after many painful hours of practice peppered with criticism from his mother, that he was rewarded by being chosen to participate in his school's Armistice Day Ceremony.Each year on November 11, the entire school went down to the gym for a ceremony honouring the nation's fallen soldiers. In what had become a school tradition, trumpet players stationed at doors on either side of the gym would alternate playing "Taps," one blowing the first dum da dum notes, and the other echoing dum da DUM, and so on.
That year, this boy's cornet skills had advanced enough for him to be given the part of the echo. He woke up the morning of the event, exhilarated at the prospect of performing in front of the entire school. When the big moment came, he was ready.
As the little boy stood in the doorway with his cornet, the first trumpet player sounded, Dum da DUM.
But on the second dum, he hit a wrong note.
"My whole life flashed before my eyes, because I didn't know what to do with the echo. They hadn't prepared me for this. Paralyzed - my big moment" recounted the little boy years later.
Should he copy the other trumpet player's mistake or embarrass him by contradicting what he's played? The little boy was undone. The scene scalded itself permanently into his memory. What he did next he can't remember - had become a blank.
But that little boy learned a valuable lesson that day: It might seem easier to go through life as the echo - but only until the other guy plays a wrong note.
It is a lesson that will serve all of us well. Often, either by choice, circumstances or sheer force of habit, we end up playing the 'echo'. And this was probably the lesson that made him stick to the principle 'Be Greedy When Everyone Panics, and Panic When Everyone Is Greedy'.
That little boy grew up to be the most successful investor of all time and the richest man in the world a few years running. That little boy's name is Warren Buffet.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
