Recently discovered a treasure documentary "Becoming Warren Buffett". 9829 people on Douban gave it a high score of 8.7.

This is a film from 2017. Buffett was 86 years old at the time. His life was simple and even monotonous. He drove to work every day, bought a McDonald's on the way, and sat in the office reading a book...

This is too ordinary, and it is very different from the life of a rich man in my mind.

To be honest, the whole movie is very bland. If you come here with the secrets of getting rich from the stock god, you may be disappointed.

A lot of the film's text focuses on Buffett's growth experience, family interviews, and daily life.

It was mediocre when I watched it, but after reading it, I had an unexpected aftertaste.

Some fragments have lingered in my mind for a long time, reflecting Buffett’s philosophy of life.

At the beginning of the documentary, Buffett posed a question to the students: If you could have a car you liked and it was the only car in your life, what would you do?

Of course you have to take good care of it.

Buffett said: "We will not only own one car in our life, but only one body and brain."

Putting aside Buffett's status as a stock god, an 86-year-old man I still work every day and can drive myself to and from get off work. Such physical and mental conditions are enough to make people enviable.

Buffett has two investment principles: first, don’t lose money; second, please always remember the first.

In the corridor of Buffett’s office, there is a 7-cent-old New York Times hanging, which was born during the economic panic.

He wanted to put the years of real panic on Wall Street on his wall as a reminder that anything can happen in the world.

When Buffett and Bill Gates met for the first time, Gates’ father asked them to write down the most helpful word to them. They both wrote the same word: focus.

There is a saying that a fish only has seven seconds in its memory.

People’s concentration nowadays may only last for seven seconds. After watching a short video, I moved on to the next hot gossip search...

When I calmed down and looked at the word "focus", I felt quite sad.

I am 30 years old. Before this, I had not found anything that I could focus on for a long time. My career also spans various circles, including venture capital, catering, education...

When I was 27 or 28 years old, I was anxious about this for a long time.

Until recently, I finally found what I want to focus on in this life - investment (in the broadest sense).

Buffett said: "Everyone only needs to focus on doing one thing well throughout his life."

Buffett's partner Charlie Munger once commented:

“There is not a single smart person from all walks of life that I have met in my life who does not read every day—none, not one.

And Warren reads so much that he may To your surprise, it is a book with two legs."

Buffett has loved reading since he was a child, and reading has greatly changed his life and destiny.

When he was 7 years old, Buffett borrowed a book "One Thousand Ways to Make a Thousand Dollars" from the library and began to explore the business world.

Until he was in his 80s, Buffett still read 5 or 6 hours a day.

He said, "Everyone can read the books I read, and it's a level playing field."

There are no computers or smartphones in his office, just books on the shelf books and newspapers spread out on the table. He just sat there every day reading and studying.

Buffett said that you don’t need to be proficient in many companies, you only need to be able to master a few companies within your circle of competence.

For your circle of competence, the most important thing is not the size of the circle of competence, but how you can determine the boundaries of the circle of competence.

If you know where the boundaries of your circle of competence are, you will be much richer than those people whose circles of competence are 5 times larger than you but don’t know where the boundaries are.

If you have an economic castle, people will come and occupy the castle and drive you away, so you'd better have a moat.

What is a moat?

In business terms, moat mainly refers to the structural competitive advantage of an enterprise. It must have long-term advantages, help the enterprise maintain a high return on capital for a long time, and also prevent competitors from imitating or copying.

Life is like a company. If we want to last forever, we must also build our own moat.

Buffett said that life is like a snowball. The important thing is to find the wet snow and the long slope.

90% of his wealth was accumulated after the age of 50. This is the compound interest of investment.

The same amount of money is gone once you consume it, and you will only be happy for a moment.

But if you save, invest, and enjoy compound interest, you can gain long-term happiness.

This reminds me of the documentary "Money and Me" in which a behavioral economist conducted a social experiment. Most people seriously underestimated the power of compound interest.

If you look carefully at Buffett's wealth growth chart, it is not linear, but slow in the early stage, and then explodes after accumulating to a certain turning point. This is the power of compound interest.

This film has a lot of life wisdom worth digging into.

Bezos once asked Buffett, your investment system is so simple, why don’t others do the same thing as you when you are the second richest person in the world?

Buffett said, because no one wants to get rich slowly.

Yes, the truth is always simple, but it is difficult to do:

① Take care of your body and brain

② Don’t lose money

④Continue reading

⑤Identify the circle of competence

⑥Build a moat

⑦Compound interest thinking

I hope we can continue to learn and practice, and accumulate our own wisdom in life, so that this life will not be in vain. ***Mian.

I am Xi Ling, a practitioner of the FIRE movement

Aiming to be financially free at the age of 40 and retire early

I will continue to share money saving, financial management, and the FIRE movement

If you are interested, please communicate more;)