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Key Takeaways
- Choose a great environment and surround yourself with the smartest people you can - your environment is much stronger than your intellect so make sure you choose it wisely
- Follow your bliss - do whatever it is that makes you tick, that brings a smile to yourself and feels like play
- Judge yourself based on an "inner scorecard" - don't put so much weight into what others think of you
- Knowing what to avoid is often as important as knowing what to focus on
- We all have shortcomings - be honest about limitations and figure out ways around them (pair this with Dalio's Principles)
- Have a group you admire and meet with regularly to share ideas - your mastermind group (Spier recommends Toastmasters or his group, Value X, among others)
- Write letters often, showing people you genuinely care about them
- Many small, good decisions over time can make a huge difference
- Become the most authentic version of yourself
- Never buy anything that is being sold by Wall Street
- Many investments are acutely uncertain but not as risky as initially seem
- Develop a series of rules/routines to apply consistently - helps improve any decisions since you have a better structural framework to work with
- Create a checklist to avoid obvious and predictable errors
- Whenever you meet someone, figure out how you can help them out
What I got out of it
- A thought-provoking and deep read which is obviously written by someone who has very consciously asked and answered very many important questions of himself. Spier helps lay out a framework to help people think structurally about what and how will make them happy and successful. A must read for anybody even if they have no interest in investing.
- Spier joined Blair as an analyst out of graduate school and hated it as it was so corrupt
- Never do anything to taint your reputation
- Buffett changed the way Spier thought about his life and career
- What sets Buffett apart is his unending desire to learn
- Do something whenever it has a potentially high upside
- Our consciousness changes our reality
- Strive to have as many people in your life whose values you admire
- "Model" your hero - imagine to yourself what your hero/role model would do in a certain situation and try to mirror that behavior
- Process of self-correction begins with self-knowledge
- Ask self "why are you doing this?" and answer truthfully and for your own reasons - not others
- Focus deeply on mistakes and learn all you can from them
- Moves away from New York to Zurich due to the effects the environment has on him - jealousy, greed, anxiety, envy and unnecessary risks
- When you have an agenda, people can smell it
- Real power lies in the person who is in touch with himself
- Learn and copy from the best - zero shame in standing on the shoulders of giants
- If you're going to do something, best to do it with wholehearted gusto
- When you try to improve yourself internally, the universe responds
- Buffett researched what Spiers' wife does before they met for their lunch. Shows how much he genuinely cares
- People will try to stop you doing the right thing if its unconventional
- Buffett has set his life up so that it suits him and he enjoys it - make this a life goal whoever you are and wherever your interests lie
- Understand that you stand to lose up to 50% of your money whenever you are invested
- Never live beyond your means or go into debt
- In investing, temperament is more important than IQ but structural advantage is even more important
- Much of what is taught is right in theory but not helpful when investing in the real world
- One is still vulnerable to mental shortcomings even if you are aware of them
- Accept how flawed your thinking is and work around it
- Structure environment to work around shortcomings. For example, Spier makes his computer desk extremely uncomfortable so that it is annoying for him to sit at this desk and answer emails
- Managing nonrational brain should be integral part of your investing strategy
- Be honest with yourself about your shortcomings and irrationality - being defensive and trying to block them out will only lead to disaster
- Simply not possible to have a complete understanding of everything
- Just because "x" idea popped into your head first does not make it the best idea
- Take a more playful and creative approach to life and investing
- Some of Spier's investing tools/processes
- Develop a series of rules/routines to apply consistently
- Never buy/sell anything when the market is open - if decide to buy/sell, place orders so that they happen once the market closes
- Set your account or your routine so that you only see your total returns once per quarter or once per year
- Don't buy anything being sold to you
- Avoid talking to management as they're often the best salespeople
- Filter ideas/research - look at least biased research first
- Discuss investment ideas with people who have nothing to gain from it and can keep their ego out of it
- If a stock loses, don't sell it for 2 years
- Don't discuss current investments with anyone
- Create a checklist to avoid obvious and predictable errors
- Helps with memory recall, especially of mundane checklist (pair with Checklist Manifesto)
- Must be personalized to your own vulnerabilities
- Company should provide win-win for whole ecosystem
- Want companies that control as much of their destiny as possible
- Find a way, any way, to get the right people in your life
- Truly, the more you give the more you get
- Avoid opaque people, seek out "open books" - people who are blatantly honest about themselves and can be blatantly honest with you and your ideas
- Value people as an end in themselves - again, people can smell when you have an agenda
- True value lies in getting and then giving it all away
- Understand your relationship with money and what risks are tolerable
- Best way to learn is through experience and adversity
- Find/join/create a mastermind group
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