skill that got Berkshire through one decade would not have sufficed to get it through the next decade with the achievements made. Without Warren Buffett being a learning machine, a continuous learning machine, the record would have been absolutely impossible.1
Most people go through life not really getting any smarter. But you can acquire wisdom if you truly want to obtain it. In fact, a simple formula, if followed, is almost certain to make you smarter over time. It’s simple but not easy.
It involves a lot of hard work, patience, discipline, and focus.
Read. A lot.
This is how Warren Buffett, one of the most successful people in the business world, describes his typical day: “I just sit in my office and read all day.”2
Sitting. Reading. Thinking.
Buffett credits many of his successful decisions to his incredible reading habit. He estimates that he spends as much as 80 percent of his day reading and thinking.
In a 2014 letter to Berkshire shareholders, Munger outlined his expectations of the chair of the firm: “His first priority would be reservation of much time for quiet reading and thinking, particularly that which might advance his determined learning, no matter how old he became.”3
Once, when asked about the key to his success, Buffett held up stacks of paper and said, “Read 500 pages like this every day. That’s how knowledge works. It builds up, like compound interest. All of you can do it, but I guarantee not many of you will do it.”4
All of us can work to improve our knowledge, but most of us won’t put in the effort.
More important than the will to win is the will to prepare.
—Charlie Munger
Self-improvement is the ultimate form of investing in oneself. It requires devoting time, money, attention, and hard effort now for a payoff later, sometimes in the far distant future. A lot of people are unwilling to make this trade-off because they crave instant gratification and desire instant results.
These short-term costs, when applied the right way along an axis of time, offer an exponential payoff when applied over a long life (figure 1.1).
FIGURE 1.1 This is compounding in action. This illustrates what I experienced in 2018, after many years of determined efforts amid repeated setbacks. Resilience is a superpower.
Source: “5 Things I Learned from Elon Musk on Life, Business, and Investing,” Safal Niveshak (blog), September 16, 2015, https://www.safalniveshak.com/elon-musk-on-life-business-investing/.
“Compound interest,” Albert Einstein reputedly said, “is the most powerful force in the universe.”
So what happens when you apply such an incredible power to knowledge building?
You become a learning machine.
One person who took Buffett’s advice, Todd Combs, now works for the legendary investor. After hearing Buffett talk, Combs started keeping track of what he read and how many pages he was reading.
Eventually finding and reading productive material became second nature, a habit. As he began his investing career, he would read even more, hitting 600, 750, even 1,000 pages a day. Combs discovered that Buffett’s formula worked, giving him more knowledge that helped him with what became his primary job—seeking the truth about potential investments.5
Reading five hundred pages a day might not be feasible for you. If, however, you can find ways to read (or to listen to an audiobook) during your day, at night, or on the weekends, you are likely to see multiple benefits.
Research published in the Journal of American Academy of Neurology has shown that people who engage in mentally stimulating activities like reading experience slower memory decline than those who do not. Reading is also linked with higher emotional intelligence, reduced stress, a wider vocabulary, and improved comprehension.
If you think of your mind as a library, three things should concern you:
1. The accuracy and relevance of the information you store.
2. Your ability to find or retrieve that information on demand.
3. Your ability to put that information to use when you need it—that is, your ability to apply it.
Having a repository of knowledge in your mind is pointless if you can’t find and apply its contents.
Here, I am reminded of what Sherlock Holmes said in The Reigate Puzzle: “It is of the highest importance in the art of detection to be able to recognize, out of a number of facts, which are incidental and which vital. Otherwise your energy and attention must be dissipated instead of being concentrated.”6
So be very careful of what you take in.
The Passionate Pursuit of Lifelong Learning
The game of life is the game of everlasting learning.
—Charlie Munger
Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune.
—Jim Rohn
Rich people have small TVs and big libraries. Poor people have small libraries and big TVs.
—Zig Ziglar
Even after achieving such enormous success, Buffett continues to read for five to six hours every day. He often credits this good habit for much of his success in life. Reading allows him to learn the lessons of others.
What many people see as a three-hundred-page book is often the accumulation of thousands of hours and decades of work. Where else can you get the entire life’s work of someone in the space of a few hours?
The most talented people in any given field are self-educated. Contrary to some belief, it doesn’t mean grinding away without teachers. Rather, it’s about drawing from your raw material and building out of it from a large number of sources. Books. Experiences. People. Everything in life can be a teacher when you possess the right mind-set. The benefits of recognizing just a few extra learning opportunities compound over time and unlock promising possibilities in the future.
The best way to learn something is to try to do it, but the next best way to learn is from someone who has already done it. This is the importance of reading and vicarious learning.
Understanding and learning from successful people provides insights about approaching life with the right attitude, developing a sound work ethic, and improving the quality of our decisions on a continuous basis.
In Michael Eisner and Aaron Cohen’s book Working Together: Why Great Partnerships Succeed, Buffett talked about his and Munger’s fierce dedication to lifelong learning:
I don’t think any other twosome in business was better
