Key Learnings from the Oracle

Here are some of the significant take-aways that my classmates and I brought home with us, after spending the day with Mr. Warren Buffett:

- Brilliance is the ability to funnel a massive amount of information into a simple yes/no decision

- Being an inherent optimist is a key trait to success

- Your real friends will hide you, not point the enemy in your direction

- Start playing Bridge

- One of the best interviews ever given about Buffett was by his late wife, Susan Thompson Buffett, about two months before she died, and it’s available at www.charlierose.com

- Happiness is tap dancing to work every day

- Success begets success and it starts from the inside and flows out

- Aim to be the person that people choose to go long 10% of, and be really worried if instead they want to short 10% of you

- A good business partnership evolves into something intuitive over time, when it’s based on the proper balance of trust, humour, accuracy, and friendship

- The formula for happiness: kids who love you, a job you tap dance to get to, and working with people you like

- Most important choice in life: spouse -- but aim for one with low expectations (a joke)

- Do what you're best at, then give the fruits of your labour to people who are at humanitarian work; don't muddy the waters with inefficient capital or resources;

- Do what you love, not for the money but because it's in your heart, mind, blood and soul