Introduction: Financial and personal investments
Warren Buffett and I have something in common. We are both unofficially, arguably and more or less known as The biggest, him as the world’s largest stock investor, me as the world’s largest TRUE wellness authority. (So far, I’m the only person writing about REAL wellness, which puts me at the top of this awesome category.)
Warren is the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway: he has $85 billion in his bank accounts; I haven’t founded anything, my bank accounts are more modest than Mr. Buffett’s, but surprisingly, Mr. Buffett’s views on investing parallel mine on wellness.
I will explain how my views on health issues reflect Warren’s convictions about investing in stocks. Well, if it’s not quite a mirror, it certainly bears a vague resemblance if you look hard enough for such a confluence.
I believe the best way to thrive and prosper, and to do so with minimal reliance on doctors, medications, and medical treatments, is to understand and adhere to a REAL wellness lifestyle. REAL wellness at REAL is an acronym that represents the dimensions of reason, exuberance, athleticism, and freedom. A set of lifestyle principles in each of these four dimensions complement Warren Buffett’s investment rules.
Rules for Investments of Two Types
I discovered this alignment largely by virtue of my personal relationship with The biggest authority over the Sage of Omaha, namely Robert P. Miles. Bob is the author of the best-selling books on Mr. Buffett, including Warren Buffett’s CEO: Secrets from Berkshire Hathaway’s managers Y 101 Reasons to Own the World’s Greatest Investment: Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway.
My thoughts on the link between Mr. Buffett’s rules and my ideas on REAL wellness were also supplemented a bit by two short investment articles. One was from Stephanie Loiacono Rules Warren Buffett Lives By (Investopedia, June 24, 2019), the other Seth Spears Warren Buffett’s Ten Rules of Success (Spears Marketing, January 23, 2012).
There are many investment rules attributable to Mr. Buffett, many of which he himself expressed. Let’s look at these genuine rules that reflect and are consistent with REAL wellness principles. I will state Buffett’s ten rules and then comment on each one.
Rule No. 1: Never lose money.
For REAL wellness, do everything you can to never lose your health. This rule cannot be left to chance. You can’t do much about many of the major factors that affect your well-being (eg, biology, culture, and environment), but a positive lifestyle that improves your health is in your hands.
Rule No. 2: Never forget rule No. 1.
Idem REAL Well-being.
Rule No. 3: If business is doing well, stocks will eventually follow.
If your culture and environment are supportive (ie, friends and family are role models of healthy lifestyle attitudes and behaviors), you are likely to follow suit. Choose friends wisely and, if necessary, put distance between yourself and silly, goofy, or thug-behaving relatives.
Rule No. 4: The most important quality for an investor is temperament, not intellect.
To thrive and thrive, focus on emotional and psychological attitudes and beliefs that promote serenity, adaptability, and abundant exuberance.
Rule #5 – The Stock Market Will Swing – Stay focused on your investment goals and stick to your guns during market turmoil.
Life is made up of random events; control what you can with wise personal decisions, knowing that setbacks will visit even the most conscientious and prudent among us.
Rule No. 6. Reinvest your earnings.
This rule implies taking care to protect your assets, that is, avoiding risking the necessary capital for the common needs of good living. From a wellness standpoint, the lesson is not to compromise basic resources (eg, physical mobility) with thrill-seeking for momentary gratification.
This, of course, is difficult or impossible for the very young and most adolescents, but for settled adults it is doable and wise. Especially in old age, beware of momentarily attractive excesses (eg, wild parties, drugs, excessive alcohol, and associations with shady or deplorable characters).
Rule No. 7. Be willing to be different.
Do not accumulate your views and ideas on important issues. Exercise your right to discuss all transcendental, serious and material matters. Do it with candor, skill, and consideration of varied audiences. Identify the nature and strength of your unpopular opinions, and then be different at strategic moments, or just have fun with your peers, especially on issues related to politics, sex, and religion.
Rule No. 8. Be decisive. Mr. Buffett puts it this way: never suck your thumb.
This, of course, means supporting yourself after you have made decisions, avoiding excessive or limitless reflection to the point of paralysis. Such a bad mood leads to disorienting stress, missed opportunities, and/or the appearance of being fearful and weak. Even when decisions turn out to be dubious or worse, if you act on the best information available, your wrong choices deserve (self) respect. He learns from experiences, good and otherwise, and moves on, wisely and steadily, resolutely and unflinchingly.
Rule No. 9: Be persistent. Cultivate tenacity and ingenuity.
If it were easy to think critically, overcome dogmas, resist phonies, swindlers and superstitions, live exuberantly with great joy and meaning, dine well (healthy) most of the time, look good and fit and live more or less the kind of life you cherish, who then who wouldn’t? Not many. Living well in a way that optimizes well-being and allows you to thrive and flourish requires that Mr. Buffett’s ninth rule for investment persistence be applied to the way you live. That is, you must be decisive: do what you must to cultivate tenacity while being resourceful in ways both mental and physical.
Rule No. 10. Know what success really means.
How will you understand if you are sick or well, happy or sad, a success or failure, fit or not, alive or nearly dead unless you have a clear idea of what it means to be on the positive side of these and other dichotomies? Develop an inquisitive nature about the meaning of excellent health beyond mediocre standards. Seek information about what is possible regarding your exercise capabilities, given your age, current functional status, resources, and general situation; then evaluate ways to transcend by simply surviving, in a low-level state or normalcy, like most others you observe. Discover the nature of exceptional performance and the myriad ways to move in the direction of high-capacity living.
Summary
Mr. Buffett fully understands that even with the mind-boggling amount of wealth in his personal accounts, the quality of his existence is not measured in that way. Instead, his success stems from decades of spending resources that mitigate global problems, alleviate miseries, and provide opportunity for many. Ultimately, it is the way he uses his abilities and the unique role he plays in life that reflects his invaluable personality, the most valuable element of value and merit.
If you want to draw attention to your ideas, find someone you can link to. By doing so, you will appear more sensitive than you really are. I don’t want to brag about this, but I don’t think I could have adopted a better model for REAL wellness rules than Warren Buffett.
I hope you don’t mind.
(PS – Response from Robert P. Miles):
I have often thought that Don Ardell and Warren Buffett are brothers from different mothers. Although you and Warren don’t share nutrition (he drinks six cherry sodas a day, doesn’t like vegetables, exercise, or water; he prefers See’s Chocolates and Dairy Queen ice creams, 300 to 600 calories), you two have many things in common. common.
Both are in their eighties, have younger wives, are politically minded, frugal, agnostic, offbeat thinkers, voracious readers, excellent communicators, and seem to be squeezing every drop of life or, as their idol Ingersoll advised, sucking on the orange of life. dry.
Ultimately, I suspect they would both prefer, when the finale finally comes and a parade of revelers parade past their respective coffins, that no one suggest that Warren was the richer or Don was the fitter, but rather that Warren and Don were certainly each other. The oldest.
