The BIGG Successs Show
Warren Buffet's Single Piece of Wisdom
Sage advice from the sage on how to get ahead. Read our show summary at BIGGSUCCES.COM.
Welcome to the Big Success Show! Today we'll share Warren Buffett's single piece of wisdom. The Big Success Show, with George and Mary Lynn. A big thanks goes out to Josh Whitford, the man behind the unconventional marketing blog, because the recent blog post of his inspired today's show. He talks about reading the Tim Ferris book, The Four Hour Workweek, it's all about these days, right Mary Lynn? And in the book, there's a challenge issued to contact a famous person. And so Josh chose Warren Buffett. He wrote a letter to Buffett asking him for his single piece of wisdom. He sent the letter along with a self-addressed stamped postcard. And to Josh's surprise, the oracle of Omaha responded a couple of weeks later. And Buffett simply said, "Read, read, read." If you know anything about Warren Buffett, I think you'd have to say, pretty consistent, short and to the point. Well it's interesting advice because a poll by the Associated Press in Ipsis shows that one in four Americans hasn't read a single book in the last year. No wait a minute Mary Lynn, that means three out of four Americans have read a book in the last year. Oh okay, when you say it that way George, it does sound more positive. Well thank you. So I guess it proves that Americans do still read, read, read. Yeah that's right. In fact, in the last Gallup poll that I saw on this subject, it showed that over half of all Americans have read more than five books in the last year. But you know Mary Lynn, I think it's interesting because we hear a lot about the haves and the have nots, right? Well a study by the National Endowment for the Arts shows the impact of reading on whether you have or have not. The study shows that as we read less, our reading proficiency declines. As our reading proficiency goes down, so do our career opportunities. Proficient readers are 2.5 times more likely than basic readers to earn at least $850 each week. 44% of basic readers lack a full or part-time job, two times the percentage of proficient readers. That's amazing isn't it? So I think Warren Buffett really hit on something when he said read, read, read. And Mary Lynn, when I was young, let me correct that, when I was younger. I think I'm still young, right? Young and hard. Well I used to just read non-fiction. Books on business, investing, that sort of thing. And then I took this literature class and I gotta tell you, this professor was just incredible. And it was a short story class and it got me using my imagination in a way that I didn't do when I just read books that I thought were more practical. As Albert Einstein said, imagination is more important than intelligence. Yeah and he knew a little bit about intelligence too I think. I think so. You know what's nice about reading rather than watching is that you are the director. You create a vision of the story, the characters, the setting. Think about how many times you've read a book and then went to see the movie. You get all excited to go see it but then you leave disappointed because it wasn't as good as the book. Yeah and I mean you hear people say that all the time. For me, prime example, Stephen King's It. I'll tell you what, I scared myself more reading that book than watching the movie. It was a pretty scary movie. It was. Until the end when that whatever, you know, the big monster. I didn't even like that in the book. Well the thing is it's much more interactive mentally to read and those skills do carry over to your professional life. Coming up, a simple commitment to reading that's worked better than a college degree. Today we're talking about Warren Buffett's single piece of wisdom and that was to read, read, read. We have a friend whose commitment to reading has really helped him develop as a business person. He worked his way up in a small business, the owner ended up selling him the business and after he bought it, he wished he would have gotten a college degree. But now he didn't have the time because he has a business to run. We can all understand that if you're in business, right? Yes. Well so he made a commitment to himself. He said he would read one business book every week and he reads the bestsellers. He talks to friends for recommendations but he's done that for years now. And Mary Lynn I think you'll attest to this, he knows more about business than just about anybody I know. He is a walking business encyclopedia, that's for sure. And it's do-it-yourself knowledge right there. That's right. And that's what Warren Buffett is talking about. You can get a written summary of today's show along with links to the studies and the polls and the books that we mentioned on today's show at BigSuccess.com. And hey, what are you reading? Recommend a book, leave a comment for us today. And next time we'll talk about a place Mary Lynn's a little hot dog shop and they lost my business. Oh no! Tune in to find out why. And until then, here's to your Big Success. The Big Success Show at B-I-G-G Success.com [MUSIC]