You and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead. - jobs on gates

I had an epiphany on my hour long walk at sunrise today. By focusing on negative comments others make, I actually diminish my own potential. I need to just focus on improving myself and my skills in the direction of my interests. Even if others don't approve, that shouldn't distract me beyond considering if their comments appeal to my rationality and frame of mind at the moment. If their comments don't appeal, I should discard them like water off a duck and push forward on my own agenda. A good method to avoid thinking too much about someones judgemental or negative comments is to also repeat one's favorite mantra silently, a form of meditation. When I do this, life suddenly seems to alive and full of promise. Extraneous thoughts and worries fall away. The meditation blanks my mind and I know what is the best action for me to take next.
Even if others comments are indeed justified, I think it is important to arrive at their conclusions independently,  I should make my own mistakes and live me own life even if its not optimal.

I should just be focusing on thoughts and actions that somehow move me forward, towards my goals and to achieving what I can truly achieve. Iam think joining toastmasters would be good too.

To truly discover love, one has to stop judging our parents and spouse. Also others. - A quote by Sri Bhagwan (not sure who he is but came across this quote by him). By judging or thinking too much about any comments any of them may have made, I lose focus from my goals. That should be the ultimate aim, to distract oneself as little as possible from achieving.

Wow, great compilation of WB and CM Q&As :

http://buffettfaq.com/

If you were to teach an investment course, besides works by Ben Graham and Phil Fisher and your book on the instalment basis, what would be on the syllabus?

[Q - how would you teach the next generation of investors?]

Buffett: I had 49 university groups, in clumps of six, [visit me] last year. [An education in] investing requires only two courses: How to Value a Business, and How to Think About Markets. You don’t have to know how to value all businesses. Start with a small circle of competence, things you can understand. [Look for] things that are selling for less than they’re worth. Forget about things you can’t understand. You need to understand accounting, which has enormous limitations. [You need to] understand when a competitive advantage is durable or fleeting. Learn that the market is there to serve you, not instruct you. In the investing business, if you have an IQ of 150, sell 30 points to someone else. You do not need to be a genius. You need to have emotional stability, inner peace and be able to think for yourself, [since] you’re subjected to all sorts of stimuli. It’s not a complicated game; you don’t need to understand math. It’s simple, but not easy.

CM: I never took a business class, except accounting

WB: Not thinking of depreciation as an expense is crazy. I can think of a few businesses where one could ignore depreciation charges, but not many. Even with our gas pipelines, depreciation is real -- you have to maintain them and eventually they become worthless (though this may be 100 years).

It [depreciation] is reverse float -- you lay out money before you get cash. Any management that doesn't regards depreciation as an expense is living in a dream world, but they're encouraged to do so by bankers. Many times, this comes close to a flim flam game.

People want to send me books with EBITDA and I say fine, as long as you pay cap ex. There are very few businesses that can spend a lot less than depreciation and maintain the health of the business.

This is nonsense. It couldn't be worse. But a whole generation of investors have been taught this. It's not a non-cash expense -- it's a cash expense but you spend it first. It's a delayed recording of a cash expense.

We at Berkshire are going to spend more this year on cap ex than we depreciate.

[CM: I think that, every time you saw the word EBITDA [earnings], you should substitute the word "bullshit" earnings.]

Recommendation of a book on accounting?

I haven't read an accounting book in years. I think I read Finney[?] in college. I'd suggest reading Berkshire reports and things like magazine articles about accounting scandals. You need to know how figures are put together, but also have to bring something else. Read a lot of business articles and annual reports. If I don't understand it [an annual report], it's probably because the management doesn't want me to understand it. And if that's the case, usually there's something wrong.

[CM: You start with basic rules of bookkeeping, and then you have to spend a lot of time [to really become knowledgeable]].

Would you comment on companies you say use questionable accounting practices to make their operations look good?

We follow a policy of ““criticize by practice, and praise by name.”” You could say we hate the sin, but love the sinner. So I can’’t really name names of companies that I think are doing this kind of thing; I’’ve found that if you go around criticizing others, pretty soon the criticism comes back on you.

Do you think an MBA is an important degree for students to have today?

If you are interested in business, or likely to be in business, an MBA is very useful. But, what is really important is what you bring to a class in terms of being interested in the subject. If you view a course like accounting as a drudge and a requirement, you are missing the whole game. Any course can be exciting. Mastering accounting is like mastering a new language, it can be so much fun. The attitude should be one of discovery, that you are coming there and discovering. Accounting is the Rosetta Stone of business. Economics is fascinating, the first page of economics describes how mankind deals with insatiable wants and creates the systems to fulfill these wants. It’s great stuff. Really how the world works. Business is a subsection, a fairly understandable subsection, not like black holes, which are fairly hard to visualize, but business is everyday stuff and you are learning how the world works.

What do you remember about your education at the University of Nebraska?

I had a great experience at Nebraska. Probably the best teacher I had was Ray Dein in accounting. I think everybody in business school should really know accounting; it is the language of business. If you are not comfortable with the lan- guage, you can’ t be comfortable in the country. You just have to get it into your spinal cord. It is so valuable in business.

WB: I made a mistake when I bought US Air Preferred some years ago. I had a lot of money around. I make mistakes when I get cash. Charlie tells me to go to a bar instead. Don’t hang around the office. But I hang around the office and I have money in my pocket, I do something dumb. It happens every time. So I bought this thing. Nobody made me buy it. 

We bought it because it was an attractive security. But it was not in an attractive industry. I did the same thing in Salomon. I bought an attractive security in a business I wouldn’t have bought the equity in. So you could say that is one form of mistake. Buying something because you like the terms, but you don’t like the business that well. I have done that in the past and will probably do that again.

From http://www.oprah.com/oprahs-lifeclass/Wildly-Improbable-Goals/2

In any case, learning to invite and accept your own WIG (wildly improbable goal) can awaken you to a kind of ubiquitous, benevolent magic, a river of enchantment that perpetually flows toward your destiny.

You can't force a WIG to happen, but you can create conditions that will either prevent it or invite it. One precondition is absolutely necessary: You must befriend, protect, and nurture your own spirit. This means paying attention to your real needs, treating yourself not just fairly but kindly, and standing up for yourself even if that displeases people around you. Just as a run-down body may be unable to conceive a healthy new life, a run-down soul can't support the healthy development of the life you were meant to have.

 Take a pencil in your dominant hand (right for right- handers, left for lefties) and write down a few pointed questions, such as "What are you feeling?" "What do you need?" and "What do you want?" As soon as you've finished writing a question, switch the pencil to your other hand and write whatever words bubble up. You may be surprised. When your problem-solving mind is fully engaged, trying to master the task of writing with the "wrong" hand, hidden aspects of the self often surface. I've seen people encounter full-fledged WIGs in the shaky words written by their own nondominant hand.


Once you've written your WIG, the real work begins. I've had many clients who, impressed by the strange electricity of their WIGs, assume that this intense feeling alone will magically create the desired reward. Yeah, right. I think the reason WIGs have so much mojo is that we need a huge reservoir of desire to keep us slogging through the hard work needed to realize them. Almost invariably, the effort necessary to achieve a WIG is not less than we expect but more.
Clients reap the fruit of their labors only if they are willing to go out and "shake the trees," but weirdly, the fruit that falls almost never comes from the tree the person is shaking.

That pattern—the recognition of a WIG, followed by enormous amounts of work, followed by a miracle—has happened to me so many times that it's almost stopped surprising me. I see it strike my clients as well, when they prepare a safe space for their true selves, ask a few questions, and accept the answers. You already know your own WIGs, though you may not yet realize it. The part of you that is unhampered by illusion—the illusion of time, the illusion of powerlessness, the illusion of impossibility—is waiting for you to slow down and open up so that it can speak to your consciousness.