워렌 버핏의 삶에 관한 조언(2) : 감사하세요

다렌 존슨이라는 미국인이 2005년 워렌 버핏을 만나 얻은 인생 조언을 요약한 것입니다. 동영상 주소와 원문도 첨부합니다. 댓글이 참 많이 달렸군요.

1. 감사하세요.

지구상에는 대충 60억명의 사람들이 살고 있습니다. 60억명이 각각 티켓 한장씩을 뽑을 수 있는 복권의 세계가 있다고 상상해보세요. 복권에는 그들이 생의 남은 기간에 어떤 상황에서 살아야 할지가 인쇄돼 있습니다.
- 성 (남성, 여성)
- 인종
- 출생지(카운티, 주, 도시, 기타)
- 정부 형태
- 부모 이름, 소득 수준 및 직업
- 지능지수IQ (표준편차 20인 정규분포에서 지능지수가 100이 될 확률이 66%임)
- 체중, 신장, 눈 색깔, 머리카락 색깔. 기타
- 성격 특성, 기질, 위트, 유머 감각
- 건강 리스크

당신이 지금 처해있는 좋은 환경의 카드를 집어들 확률은 정말 낮습니다. 미국에서 태어나고, 평균적인 지능지수를 갖고 있으며, 좋은 건강과 좋은 부모를 갖고 태어날 활률은 정말로 낮습니다. 우리는 이런 행운을 갖고 태어난 것을 당연하게 생각해서는 안됩니다. 내가 만약 방글라데시에서 태어났다면 나의 투자 능력은 아무런 쓸모가 없었을 것입니다.
[주] 워렌 버핏은 무신론자이자 불가지론자라고 합니다만, 그의 말을 곰곰이 들어보면 종교적 메시지를 담고 있는 것처럼 느껴지는 때가 많습니다.

2. 도덕적이고 공정해야 합니다.

만약 당신이 60억 인구 가운데 세계의 시스템을 창조할 사람으로 선택됐다고 합시다. 그래서 당신이 정부형태, 사회 프로그램, 세금 제도, 군 시스템, 직업 시장, 법, 규제 등을 만들어내야 한다고 합시다. 단 하나의 조건은 당신이 당신의 티켓을 고르기 전에 이 작업을 해야 한다는 것입니다. 당신이 어떤 티켓을 꺼낼 지 모르는 상태라면 당신은 어떤 시스템을 만들겠습니까. 도덕적이고 공정한 시스템을 만들어야 합니다.

3. 신뢰할 수 있는 사람이 되세요.

네브라스카 퍼니처 마트를 설립한 블룸킨 여사는 가난한 유태인 가정에서 태어났고 글을 읽을 줄도, 쓸 줄도 몰랐고 영어도 서툴렀습니다. 그녀는 홀로코스트에서 살아남았고, 16년에 걸쳐 가족들을 1인당 50달러를 주고 미국으로 데려왔습니다. 그녀는 네브라스카 퍼니처 마트를 단돈 500달러로 시작해 오마하 도시에서만 연 매출 3억 5,000만 달러를 기록하는 회사로 성장시켰습니다. 그녀는 어떤 사람이 믿을만한지를 알고 싶을 때 "저 사람은 나를 숨겨줄 수 있을끼?"라고 반문한다고 합니다.

4. 당신이 잘 아는 분야에서 승부를 거세요.

내가 이해하지 못하는 거래에 흥분하지 마세요. 나의 약점, 한계를 알아야 합니다. 내가 무엇을 모르는가를 이해하는 것은 정말 중요합니다. 당신의 에너지와 노력을 당신이 이해할 수 있는 비즈니스나 커리어에 투자하십시오. 중요한 것은 원이 얼마나 큰가가 아니라 당신이 원의 어느 부분에 서 있느냐는 것입니다.

5. 당신이 사랑하는 일을 하세요.

나는 아침에 일어나면 내가 좋아하는 일을 한다는 사실에 대해 흥분감을 느낍니다. 당신이 좋아하는 대로 그림을 그릴 수 있는 캔버스를 갖고 있다는 것은 중요합니다. 많은 사람들이 고액 연봉을 받는 직업을 "아주 잠시만" 갖고 있다가 나중에 자신이 좋아하는 일을 하겠다고 말합니다. 이는 노후를 위해 섹스를 저축한다는 말과 같습니다. 당신을 훙분시키지 못하거나 당신이 싫어하는 일을 절대 하지 마세요.

Darren D. Johnson

Saturday, April 23, 2005
The Wisdom of Warren Buffett

* Update - This is a re-post from January posted again for the convenience of my new readers. *

I spent 6 hours last week in Omaha with Warren Buffett. As I walked into the meeting I was pleasantly surprised to find Mr. Buffett dressed more like a scroungy sophomore chemistry student than the greatest investor of all time. It was an open Q&A session with some of my colleagues and me for about 3 hours.

Going into the meeting, I was thinking that I would receive a great deal of advice about investing and how to quantify intrinsic value. I figured he'd tell us all about "Mr. Market" and how his favorite holding period is forever. Then I figured we'd get around to his bet on the Euro or his belief that the market is irrational and ineffecient. Or perhaps the second richest man in the world would, I don't know, talk about money?

Total time spent talking about any of the above: Zero. Zilch. Nada.

Let's get to what he DID talk about. As a big fan of "Top" lists, I've compiled the "Top 5" things (prioritized) I learned from Warren Buffett that day:

1. Be Grateful -

There are roughly 6 Billion people in the world. Imagine the worlds biggest lottery where every one of those 6 Billion people was required to draw a ticket. Printed on each ticket were the circumstances in which they would be required to live for the rest of their lives.

Printed on each ticket were the following items:

- Sex
- Race
- Place of Birth (Country, State, City, etc.)
- Type of Government
- Parents names, income levels & occupations
- IQ (a normal distribution, with a 66% chance of your IQ being 100 & a standard deviation of 20)
- Weight, height, eye color, hair color, etc.
- Personality traits, temperment, wit, sense of humor
- Health risks

If you are reading this blog right now, I'm guessing the ticket you drew when you were born wasn't too bad. The probability of you drawing a ticket that has the favorable circumstances you are in right now is incredibly small (say, 1 in 6 billion). The probability of you being born as your prefereable sex, in the United States, with an average IQ, good health and supportive parents is miniscule.

Warren spent about an hour talking about how grateful we should all be for the circumstances we were born into and for the generous ticket we've been offered in life. He said that we should not take it for granted or think that it is the product of something we did - we just drew a lucky ticket. (He also pointed out that his skill of "allocating capital" would be useless if he would have been born in poverty in Bangladesh.)

2. Be Ethical & Fair

Continuing on the analogy above, consider this scenario:

Imagine that you were selected as the one person (out of 6 Billion) to create the systems of the world. This includes the type of government, social programs, tax systems, military systems, job markets, laws, regulations, etc.

The only catch was this: You had to come up with systems that you believed were fair and that you wanted to live with, before you were allowed to look at your ticket.

When Warren talked about this it made me reconsider the definition of ethical behavior - what type of system would you create if you didn't know what ticket you had drawn? Would you take a different position on some of the programs you are for or against if you were surrounded by a different set of circumstances?

3. Be Trustworthy

This may be a minor point that Mr. Buffett was trying to make, but he told a simple story that affected me greatly. He told of the Founder of the Nebraska Furniture Mart, one of his companies, and how she came from a poor Jewish family and couldn't read, write or speak English. She was had survived the Holocaust, spent 16 years bringing her family to the U.S. (at $50 per person), and grew the Nebraska Furniture Mart from a $500 initial investment to do $350 Million annually from a single location in Omaha.

Update: A friend of hers told Warren at one point that the way she evaluated people was simple: She simply asked herself, "Would they hide me?" What a great way to judge your instincts about whether to trust someone or not.

4. Invest in Your Circle of Competence

Warren talked at length about investing within your circle of competence. This applies as much to entrepreneurship as it does to investing in public securities. One thing that continually amazes me is how much discipline Warren has in never letting himself get excited about a deal that he doesn't understand. He understands his weaknesses, limitations, and the types of businesses that he gets.

He said that it is crucial that people clearly recognize what they don't understand, and place their effort and energy on businesses or career paths that allow them to bet big on themselves doing something that they do understand. He said that it's "not so important how big the circle is, but it's important that you know where the perimeter is, and when you're outside of it."

5. Do What You Love

Perhaps the reason that we've heard this a million times is that it's true. Warren talked at length about how excited he is to wake up in the morning and to do what he loves. He talked about how important it is to have the freedom in your life to paint your own canvas any way that you like. He said that many people talk about how they are going to just work at a high-paying job "for a little while" and then go do what they love - he equated that to "saving up sex for old age." He said to "never do something that doesn't excite you or that you dislike."

Not the advice you'd expect from somebody worth over $40 Billion?