Maintaining even a small annual profit is advantageous in investing. Survival remains the most critical factor in business. People have sought the secret to Warren Buffett’s success, which is the power of compounding, but they overlook the real key: he has invested consistently for 75 years without pause. You can indeed succeed in your business endeavors through sheer survival; conversely, you cannot survive solely because of your success. Survival is only achievable if you have the strength to keep going, even with minimal returns. To do this, you must do what you love. Invest in stocks you like, and continue investing even if it is volatile. Next, you need to secure a “margin of safety.” Even a small margin ratio is crucial because a business can’t survive without margins. Frugal spending, flexible thinking, loose schedules—anything that helps during tough times—can all contribute to building a margin of safety. - Joseph’s “just my thoughts”
The relativity of values causes us to use money irrationally . I go to the supermarket to buy a $15 pen, and the clerk smiles and says, “You can buy this pen for $7 if you walk 5 minutes from here.” Then, most people walk five minutes and buy a $15 pen for $7. But if you want to buy a $1,000 jacket and the clerk smiles and says, “You can get a $992 jacket in five minutes from here,” most people simply buy the $1,000 jacket. Reasonably, walking for 5 minutes equals the effort, and the profit of $8 is the same. However, people might go to a store that sells pens more cheaply, but not for the jacket, because the discount rate is too low. In other words, the relativity of comparing values makes us act irrationally. The pen’s discount rate is 55%, and the jacket’s is only 0.8%. Yet, the total amount is the same for all $8, and the effort to gain that profit is identical. Attitudes and misconceptions about consumption influence how we build wealth . - Joseph’s “just my thoughts”