KEEPING IT SIMPLE
- Herbert Koehler
- Dec 20, 2016
- 2 min read
For some reason, regardless of what area of business I’m writing about, I always seem to have some useful Warren Buffet quote that sums it up perfectly. It makes sense when you think about it. He’s mastered almost every area of business and investing, not to mention he shares a great many life lessons in his talks.
This quote is probably one of my top three from Warren. Speaking as an investor, and a marketer, I can’t tell you how many times I see newbies making their lives way more complicated than is necessary. If you were to tune in to any of the financial news stations, they showcase endless discussions about economic indicators, new policies, industry news, chart action, and of course the talk on the street. It’s the talk of speculators, not investors. It’s less about the objective facts, and more about the multitude of subjective opinions derived from those facts.
That’s why nobody can agree, and almost nobody can call predictions with any level of accuracy. All of that research just boils down to information overload that leaves the investor as clueless as when they started. It also does a disservice to new investors who become overwhelmed by the preconception that all this nonsense is even what investing is about.
What does Warren Buffet base his decisions on? JUST THE FACTS. One of my coaches once said that people do their research in the wrong order. Most people go into their research hoping to reach a certain conclusion, or perhaps scared to find out they were wrong. It filters their perception, and their process of finding the truth. They find the information that matches their preconceptions, rather than information that most accurately portrays reality.
The strategic investigator approaches their research as they would a detective working a case. Gather evidence FIRST. Then draw conclusions. That’s how Warren Buffet investigates potential investments. That’s how my marketing coach researches what and how to sell to his customers.
“There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult.”
- Warren Buffet
And the reason this simplifies the process is because it tunes out so much of the noise. Now that you’re only looking at the objective facts, you no longer consider the speculative, contradicting opinions of so many so called experts. Your decisions to buy, hold, or sell become much more based on criteria rather than intuition. And as a result, you begin to bypass a lot of the headaches that the mainstream continues to deal with.
So here’s my own subjective opinion on the matter. Stop focusing on the preconception that knowledge is power. Start focusing on the idea the discernment is power. Instead of playing the more better, start figuring out what can be ignored, disregarded, or cut out of your approach. In doing so, you simplify your own pursuits, gain a competitive advantage, and create new solutions that previously seemed overwhelming.