Most investors, of course, have not made the study of business prospects a priority in their lives. If wise, they will conclude that they do not know enough about specific businesses to predict their future earning power. I have good news for these non-professionals: The typical investor doesn't need this skill. ... The goal of the non-professional should not be to pick winners – neither he nor his "helpers" can do that – but should rather be to own a cross-section of businesses that in aggregate are bound to do well. A low-cost S&P 500 index fund will achieve this goal.
What are bad recommendations you hear in your profession or area of expertise?
Question
Aside from a property, what is the most expensive thing you have bought?
Money & investment
Question
How close have you come to death?
Death & what remains
Question
What did you want to be when you were growing up?
Identity & self
Question
How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? Do you have a favourite failure?
Failure & regret
Question
Which trait do you most dislike in yourself?
Identity & self
Question
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Craft & work
I would come home and ask my mother, my father, my grandparents, my great-grandparents, 'Why?'. And they would say, 'That's the way it is. Don't get in the way, don't get in trouble!'
Emory University Quadrangle, Atlanta, Speakola (speech transcript archive), 12 May 2014 source ↗
Others on this question
View all 32 →
Warren Buffett
Chairman and chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, 1970–2025
Recorded
Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholder letter, Berkshire Hathaway Inc., 28 February 2014
source ↗
Reid Hoffman
Co-founder of LinkedIn; partner at Greylock Partners
Our culture lionizes entrepreneurs who navigate daring switchbacks in their career. Steve Jobs was admired not just for Apple, but also his detour to found Pixar. Elon Musk is revered for helming Tesla AND SpaceX. But don't be distracted by other people's winding paths. I believe you should celebrate your single-mindedness, and stick to your own overarching idea — for as long as it holds your own fascination. In my experience, that could last your entire career.
Nick Cave
Songwriter, musician and novelist
Many creative people, especially the young, may feel their chaotic or disordered relationship with the world is indispensable to their creative freedom. The more anarchic, the better! However, after considerable fieldwork in this area, I have yet to find it so. I have come to understand that the muscle of the imagination is strengthened through resistance, discipline and order.
Michael Phelps
United States swimmer, 2000–2016
I think it's something that nobody's really talked about in the past because we're supposed to be this big, macho, strong person that has no weaknesses. You know, we're supposed to be perfect.
More from John Lewis
View profile →Buying art…. But it makes me happy!
On the Freedom Rides in the year 1961, when I was beaten at the Greyhound bus station in Montgomery, I thought I was going to die. On March 7, 1965, when I was hit in the head with a night stick by a state trooper at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, I thought I was going to die.
When I was growing up I wanted to be a minister. I wanted to preach.
I never thought that we would fail or that I would fail. I knew from time to time we may make some blunders. We may make some mistakes, but we were not going to fail.
My tendency to skip meals.
Participating in a transformative movement that advocated human dignity and changed America forever.
More on craft & work
- What is the worst job you have done? 231 answers
- What do you consider your greatest achievement? 192 answers
- How do you know when a piece of work is finished? 67 answers
- What do you do when you feel creatively blocked or stuck? 67 answers
- How does a new work begin for you? 64 answers
- How much rewriting or revision do you do? 47 answers
Also answered this
Corazon Aquino, Óscar Arias Sánchez, Drew Houston, Sarah Waters, Warren Buffett, Zadie Smith
Search the directory for somebody in particular.
Explore further
- All craft & work questions
- Explore the archive — by field, age, era, and subject