Learning is a lifelong journey.
Munger’s speeches and essays are filled with the thoughts of the great thinkers from many different domains. Munger reserves a lot of time in his schedule for reading and has read hundreds of biographies. He explains why he does so: “I believe in the discipline of mastering the best that other people have ever figured out. I don’t believe in just sitting down and trying to dream it all up yourself. Nobody’s that smart.”14
Munger provides a compelling argument for spending more time thinking, reading, learning, and obtaining worldly wisdom. And, in today’s digital age, there is no dearth of resources to further this endeavor.
The Internet is the best school ever created. The best peers are on the Internet. The best books are on the Internet. The best teachers are on the Internet. The tools for learning are abundant. It’s the desire to learn that’s scarce.
—Naval Ravikant
HARNESSING THE POWER OF PASSION AND FOCUS THROUGH DELIBERATE PRACTICE
You are what your deepest desire is. As is your desire, so is your intention. As is your intention, so is your will. As is your will, so is your deed. As is your deed, so is your destiny.
—Upanishads
Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life—think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success.
—Swami Vivekananda
According to the Japanese, everyone has an ikigai—a reason for living. And according to the residents of the Japanese village with the world’s longest-living people, finding it is the key to a happy life. Having a strong sense of ikigai—where passion, mission, vocation, and profession intersect—means that each day is infused with meaning.
Although there is no direct English translation, the word ikigai is thought to combine the Japanese words ikiru, meaning “to live,” and kai, meaning “the realization of what one hopes for.” Together these definitions create the concept of “a reason to live,” or the idea of having a purpose in life (figure 4.1).
FIGURE 4.1 Ikigai.
Source: Thomas Oppong, “Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life Might Just Help You Live a More Fulfilling Life,” Medium, January 10, 2018, https://medium.com/thrive-global/ikigai-the-japanese-secret-to-a-long-and-happy-life-might-just-help-you-live-a-more-fulfilling-9871d01992b7.
When you can use your skills to make a difference in someone’s life and get paid for it, that’s a happy life. When you’re passionate about it as well, that’s a calling. The feeling is almost divine.
—Ed Latimore
The only way to deep happiness is to do something you love to the best of your ability.
—Richard Feynman
Your goal in life is to find out the people who need you the most, to find out the business that needs you the most, to find the project and the art that needs you the most. There is something out there just for you.
—Naval Ravikant
According to Gordon Matthews, professor of anthropology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, how people understand ikigai can, in fact, often be mapped to two other Japanese ideas—ittaikan and jiko jitsugen. Ittaikan refers to “a sense of oneness with, or commitment to, a group or role,” while jiko jitsugen relates more to “self-realization.”
Self-realization is closely linked to the concept of self-actualization, best known in the field of psychology in the context of Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Self-actualized people are those who are fulfilled and are doing all that they are capable of. Maslow described the good life as one directed toward self-actualization, the higher need. Self-actualization occurs when you maximize your potential by doing your best. Maslow shared the names of those individuals he believed to be self-actualized, including Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein, to elaborate the common characteristics of the self-actualized person. According to humanistic psychologist Albert Ellis, “self-actualization involves the pursuit of excellence and enjoyment; whichever people choose to desire and emphasize.”1 This focus on achieving excellence and enjoyment (even more than a focus on the realization of potential) prioritizes well-being and shows the relation between self-actualization and positive psychology.
Once we have discovered our calling in life, we need to embrace the power of focus.
I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.
—Bruce Lee
Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.
—Abraham Lincoln
Those who attain any excellence, commonly spend life in one pursuit; for excellence is not often gained upon easier terms.
—Samuel Johnson
When Bill Gates met Warren Buffett for the first time, their host at dinner, Gates’s mother, asked everyone around the table what they believed was the single most important factor in their success in life. Gates and Buffett gave the same one-word answer: “focus.” Both men agree that relentlessly focusing on one specific passion leads to achievement. And that means pushing aside other ideas and interests until a goal is reached.
Intensity is the price of excellence.
—Warren Buffett
Buffett biographer Alice Schroeder writes about Buffett’s intense focus: “He ruled out paying attention to almost anything but business—art, literature, science, travel, architecture—so that he could focus on his passion.”2 This shouldn’t come as a surprise. Many of the highly successful people in the world attribute their success to a singular focus—a deep commitment to the pursuit of one main goal. Focus directs your energy toward your goals. The more focused you are, the more energy you put toward what you’re working on.
Having the ability to focus on what is “important and knowable” is valuable in a world in which we are constantly bombarded with distracting and disparate ideas, information, and opinions. This has important implications for investors. Focus on those investments for which the microeconomics are going to dominate the outcome. This approach will allow you to call upon your accumulated experience in analyzing companies and industries and to utilize the same to your advantage. Fifty years ago, the best investors were the ones with an informational edge. Today, the best investors are the ones with a behavioral edge. As the speed of information dissemination in the markets and competition for short-term outperformance among money managers increased over the years, time horizons and patience levels significantly decreased. Today, an investor’s edge is less about knowing more than others about a specific stock and more about the mind-set, discipline, and willingness to take a long-term view about the intrinsic value of a business.
Achievement is so ingrained in our culture that we often ignore the fact that gunning to maximize short-term productivity usually comes at the expense of slower but more consistent and durable long-term progress. We live in a society in which