GOOD TO GREAT JIM COLLINS

by finandlife11/03/2024 08:47

1. Good Is The Enemy of Great

"Few people attain great lives, in large part because it is just so easy to settle for a good life. The vast majority of companies never become great, precisely because the vast majority become quite good - and that is their main problem."

2. Level 5 Leadership

"Level 5 leaders channel their ego needs away from themselves and into the larger goal of building the company… they are incredibly ambitious – but their ambition is first and foremost for the institution, not themselves."

3. “First Who… Then What”

"Those who build great companies understand that the ultimate throttle on growth for any great company is not markets, or technology, or competition, or products. It is one thing above all others: the ability to get and keep enough of the right people."

4. Confront the Brutal Facts

"When… you start with an honest and diligent effort to determine the truth of the situation, the right decisions often become self-evident… And even if all decisions do not become self-evident, one thing is certain: you absolutely cannot make a series of good decisions without first confronting the brutal facts."

5. The Hedgehog Concept

According to Collins, a Hedgehog concept comes from the interaction of the three circles:

1. What you can do the best in the world?

2. What drives your economic engine?

3. What you are deeply passionate about?

6. A Culture of Discipline

"Few companies have the discipline to discover their Hedgehog Concept, much less the discipline to build consistently within it. They fail to grasp a simple paradox: The more an organization has the discipline to stay within its three circles, the more it will have attractive opportunities."

7. Technology Accelerators

"When used right, technology becomes an accelerator of momentum, not a creator of it. The good-to-great companies never began their transitions with pioneering technology, for the simple reason you cannot make good use of technology until you know what technologies are relevant."

8. The Flywheel and the Doom Loop

"No matter how dramatic the end result, the good-to-great transformations never happened in one fell swoop. There was no single defining action, no grand program… Good to great comes about by a cumulative process – step by step."

9. From Good to Great to Built to Last

"I like to think of Good to Great as providing the core ideas for getting a flywheel turning… while Built to Last outlines the core ideas for keeping a flywheel accelerating long into the future."

Quick Recap

Greatness in business requires a blend of leadership, right team, facing facts, focus, discipline, smart tech use, and consistent effort

Tags:

StoriesofLife

Summary all public writings Warren Buffett - Part 3

by finandlife30/12/2023 23:02

- When we buy a business, the sellers go on running it just as they did before the sale

- Berkshire is my first love and one that will never fade: At the Harvard Business School last year, a student asked me when I planned to retire and I replied, “About five to ten years after I die.”

- For an increase in profits to be evaluated properly, it must be compared with the incremental capital investment required to produce it

- In our See’s Purchase, Charlie and I had one important insight: we saw that the business had untapped pricing power

- These managers therefore truly stand in the shoes of owners

- Much of my enthusiasm for this purchase came from Frank’s willingness to continue as CEO. Like most of our managers, he has no financial need to work but does so because he loves the game and likes to excel

- The stock market serves as a relocation center at which money is moved from the active to the patient

- We continually search for large businesses with understandable, enduring, and mouth-watering economics that are run by able and shareholder-oriented management

- Charlie and I are simply not smart enough, considering the large sums we work with, to get great results by adroitly buying and selling portions of far-from-great businesses. Nor do we think many others can achieve long-term investment success by flitting from flower to flower.

- If my universe of business possibilities was limited, say, to private companies in Omaha, I would, first, try to assess the long-term economic characteristics of each business; second, assess the quality of the people in charge of running it; and, third, try to buy into a few of the best operations at a sensible price. I certainly would not wish to own an equal part of every business in town.

- (Apple), or even brilliant merchandising (Wal-Mart). We will never develop the competence to spot such businesses early. Instead, I refer to business situations that Charlie and I can understand and that seem attractive - but in which we nevertheless end up sucking our thumbs rather than buying.

- There is no tougher job in corporate America than running an airline: Despite the huge amounts of equity capital that have been injected into it, the industry, in aggregate, has posted a net loss since its birth after KiKy Hawk.

- We assembled a collection of exceptional businesses run by equally exceptional managers

- The only value of stock forecasters is to make fortune tellers look good - Short-term market forecasts are poison

- We’re looking for companies with excellent economic characteristics and management that we like, trust, and admire

- I revised my strategy and tried to buy good businesses at fair prices rather than fair businesses at good prices

- When we allocate capital today, we are thinking about what will maximize look- through earnings 10 years from now

- It’s only when the tide goes out that you learn who’s been swimming naked

- We reject more than 98% of the business we are offered

- Charlie and I continue to like the insurance business, which we expect to be our main source of earnings for decades to come

- How Warren Buffett selects companies

o A business we can understand

o With favorable long-term prospects

o Operated by honest and competent people

o Available at very attractive prices

- Growth is always a component of value

- Growth benefits investors only when the business in point can invest at incremental returns that are enticing

- Leaving the question of price aside, the best business to own is one that over an extended period can employ large amounts of incremental capital at very high rates of return

o Unfortunately, these businesses are very hard to find. Most high-return businesses need relatively little capital

- We try to stick to businesses we believe we understand

- If a business is complex or subject to constant change, we’re smart enough to predict future cash flows

- An investor needs to do very few things right if he or she avoids big mistakes

- If options aren’t a form of compensation, what are they? If compensation isn’t an expense, what is it?

- “How many legs does a dog have if you call his tail a leg?” The answer: “Four, because calling a tail a leg does not make it a leg.” – Abraham Lincoln

- We believe our owner-related policies – including the no-split policy – have helped us assemble a body of shareholders that is the best associated with any widely-held American corporation

- We continue to have an inversion to debt, particularly the short-term kind

- Coke went public in 1919 at $40 per share. By the end of 1920, the market had battered the stock down by more than 50% to $19.50. at yearend 1993, that single share, with dividends reinvested, was worth more than $2.1 million

- We look for good-sized operating businesses that possess economic characteristics ranging from good to terrific, run by managers whose performance ranges from terrific to terrific.

- We prefer to focus on the economic characteristics of the business that we wish to own and the personal characteristics of managers with whom we wish to associate

- An investor should ordinarily hold a small piece of an outstanding business with the same tenacity that an owner would exhibit if he owned all of that business

- In an investment lifetime, it’s just too hard to make hundreds of smart decisions. Indeed, we’ll now settle for one good idea a year.

- The true investor welcomes volatility

- After we buy a stock, we would not be disturbed if markets closed for a year or two. We don’t need a daily quote on our 100% position in See’s or H.H. Brown to validate our well-being.

- As Peter Lynch says, stocks of companies selling commodity-like products should come with a warning label: “Competition may prove hazardous to human wealth”

- Every investor will make mistakes. But by confining himself to a relatively few, easy- to-understand cases, a reasonably intelligent, informed, and diligent person can judge investment risks with a useful degree of accuracy

- By periodically investing in an index fund, the know-nothing investor can outperform most investment professionals. When “dumb” money acknowledges its limitations, it ceases to be dumb

- What a difference a pair of managers like this makes, even when their products have been around for 100 years

- When you combine ignorance and borrowed money, you can get some interesting consequences

- The more certain we feel about a business, the closer we are willing to play it

- You can judge management by three yardsticks (thước đo): Làm thế nào để đánh giá ban điều hành, thứ nhất hãy xem những gì họ đã làm được, thứ 2 hãy xem cách phân bổ vốn của họ, th71 3 hãy xem họ đối xử với những ông chủ thế nào?

o How well they run the business (look at the track record)

o Seeing how they have allocated capital over time

o How well they treat their owners

- Charlie and I have 2 jobs: identify and keep good managers interested and capital allocation

- Treat your partner the way you want to be treated like yourself

- We think our stock is more likely to be rationally priced over time following the present policies than if we were to split in some major way

- Charlie and I don’t read anything about what the economy is going to do or what the market is going to do

- At Berkshire, it makes no difference to us what accounting treatment we get on something. We are interested in the economics of a transaction

- The companies earn unusual returns on equity. They earn unusual returns on sale

- Some companies are a lot easier to understand than others. And Charlie and I don’t like difficult problems.

- You don’t have to do exceptional things to get exceptional results

- The big thing to do is avoid being wrong

- All we want to be is in businesses that we understand, run by people that we like, and priced attractively compared to the prospects

- If we’re right about a business, it would be very foolish for us to not act on that because we thought something about what the market was going to do

- The best thing that can happen to Berkshire over time, is to have markets that go down a tremendous amount

o If you’re going to be a buyer of groceries over time, you like grocery prices to go down

o What we fear is an irrational bull market that’s sustained for some long period

o If you’re right about the business, you’ll end up doing fine

- Charlie and I are very risk-averse by nature

- The value of every business is 100% sensitive to interest rates. The higher interest rates are, the less the present value is going to be

- If we have cash, it’s because we haven’t found anything intelligent to do with it that day

- We would never have an asset allocation meeting

- The best purchases are usually made when you must sell something to raise the money to get them because it just raises the bar a little bit that you jump over in the mental decisions

- I think you could be in someplace where the mail were delayed three weeks, and the quotations were delayed three weeks, and I think you could do just fine in investing

- Berkshire is incredibly decentralized

- One of the best things that could happen to shareholders is the market going down and you being able to buy good businesses at foolish prices

- If you asked us whether Berkshire would be better off if the whole stock market were down 50% or where it is now, we would be better off if it was down 50%

- If we like something well enough to buy a put on it, we’re probably better off buying the security itself

- If you don’t understand the businesses, then you’re better off diversifying and widely diversifying

- When I ran the partnership, the limit I got towas about 40% in a single stock

- Size is a disadvantage

- We don’t hedge currencies. We don’t think our opinion on currencies is any good

- But the economic value of any asset, essentially, is the present value, the appropriate interest rate, of all the future streams of cash going in or out of the business. And there are all kinds of businesses that Charlie and I don’t think we have the faintest idea what that future stream will look like. And if we don’t have the faintest idea what the future stream is going to look like, we don’t have the faintest idea of what it’s worth, now.

- The numbers in any accounting report mean as to economic value

- There is a huge difference in a business that grows and requires a lot of capital to do so, and a business that grows, and doesn’t require capital

- About capital allocation: And yet, probably relatively few chief executives are either trained for or are selected on, the basis of their ability to allocate capital. I mean, they get there through other routes. So, I’ve said it’s like somebody playing the piano all their life, and then getting to Carnegie Hall and they hand him a violin. I mean, it is a different function than most — than the route — than the functions that exist along the routes to the CEO’s job at most companies.

- The purchase at sensible prices of businesses that have good underlying economics and are run by honest and able people – is certain to produce reasonable success. We expect therefore to keep on doing well

- We will continue to ignore political and economic forecasts

- We usually made our best purchases when apprehensions about some macro events were at peak

- Ben Graham taught me that in investing it is not necessary to do extraordinary things to get extraordinary results

- Berkshire has many old managers over 65

- Go to where the puck is going to be, not to where it is

- The skill with which a company’s managers allocate capital has an enormous impact on the enterprise’s value

- A really good business generates far more money than it can use internally

- In all instances, we pursue rationality

- An insurance business is profitable over time if its cost of float is less than the cost the company would otherwise incur to obtain funds

- We like companies with enduring competitive advantages that are run by able and owner-oriented people

- It is folly to forego buying shares in an outstanding business whose long-term future is predictable, because of short-term worries about an economy or a stock market that we know to be unpredictable

- A prime rule of investing: You don’t have to make it back the way that you lost it

- The ownership of Berkshire is stable, and it will be stable for a very long period

- Most managers, when using their own money, understand that money costs money

- Berkshire is one of a kind in terms of its capital strength in the business

- We’re trying not to get into things we don’t understand

- One of the important things in stocks is that the stock doesn’t know you own it

- Derivatives often combine borrowed money with ignorance, and that is a rather dangerous combination

- The question always is what the average return on capital will be

- Most everything we say is no

- Because of the size, it’s not easy to find things to do that make sense with lots of money

- We are trying to look at businesses in terms of what kind of cash can they produce

- We’re trying to find a business with a wide and long-lasting moat around it – protecting a terrific economic castle with an honest lord in charge of the castle.

o All moats are subject to attack in a capitalistic system

o We try to figure out what’s going to keep the castle standing or cause it not to be standing 5, 10, 20 years from now

- Value and growth are joined at the hip

- If you want to attract high-grade people, you probably ought to try and behave well yourself

- And the best businesses, by definition, are going to be businesses that earn very high returns on capital employed over time. So, by nature, if we want to own good businesses, we’re going to own things that have relatively little capital employed compared to our purchase price.

- About circle of competence:

- We don’t have any sector allocation theories whatsoever

- Cash is always something good to have in case of a big market drop

- Ben would not have disagreed with the proposition that if you can find a business with a high rate of return on capital you can keep using more capital on that —that’s the best business in the world. And of course, he made most of his money out of GEICO, which was precisely that sort of business.

- If you own a lousy business, you must sell it at some point. If you own a wonderful business, you know you don’t want turnover.

- Stay away when a company’s accounting is confusing

- Accounting can offer you a lot of insight into the character of management

- The intelligent use of cash is something you look for in management

- It earns good returns on invested capital, or we wouldn’t be buying into it. We always look for good returns on capital.

- There’s no chance we’ll be in businesses we don’t understand, and I won’t understand it

- I’ve mainly learned by reading myself, so I don’t think I have any original ideas.

- So, I think you can learn from other people. I think if you learn reasonably well from other people, you don’t have to get any new ideas or do much on your own. You can just apply the best of what you see

- Study history to become a great investor

- You can’t make a good deal with a bad person

- I pay no attention to stock ratings. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s too bad they must put that there

- We’re trying to buy businesses we want to own forever. If you’re thinking that way, you might as well see what it’s been like to own them forever.

- I see nothing wrong with a company having a negative shareholders’ equity

- Opportunity costs: “Why would I rather have this over Coca-Cola?”

o Compare everything with the best opportunity you have

- We want to be in the business that 10 years from now is earning a whole lot more money than it is now and that we will still feel good about the prospects of the business at that time

- I want to build a collection of companies that have excellent economic characteristics and that are run by outstanding managers

- Most deals do damage to the shareholders of the acquiring company

- We believe a lot in reverse engineering

- The constant challenge for Charlie and me is to allocate capital as we go along

- I have very close to 100% of my net worth in Berkshire

- I like to be associated with managers whom I would love to have as a sibling, in-law, or trustee of my will

- Thinking back over the 1965-1995 period, I can’t recall that a single key manager let Berkshire to join another employer

- All our operations, including those whose earnings dropped last year, benefit from exceptionally talented and dedicated managers

- Many of our managers don’t have to work for a living, but simply go out and perform every day for the same reason that wealthy golfers stay on the tour: they love what they’re doing.

- A bad insurance contract is easy to enter and impossible to exit

- In businesses, I look for economic castles protected by unbreachable “Moats”.

- Our basic goal as an owner is to behave with our managers as we like our owners to behave with us

- Our managers operate with extraordinary autonomy (quyền tự chủ phi thường)

- The key is not what it does to book value per share, but what it does to intrinsic value per share

- If you’re repurchasing shares above a rationally calculated intrinsic value, you are harming your shareholders

- If it’s a wonderful business, we probably come up with higher intrinsic value than most people do

- We have enormous respect for the power of really outstanding business. And we recognize how scarce they are (nhận ra chúng khan hiếm đến mức nào).And if management wishes to further intensify our ownership by repurchasing shares, we applaud. (hoan nghênh)

- One thing to remember: in the end, the owners of businesses, in aggregate, cannot come out any better than the businesses come out

- Float is money we hold that doesn’t belong to us

- We believe in trying to stick with businesses where we think we can see the future reasonably well.

- The main thing you can’t find in annual reports is to learn about the person who’s running the business and how they think about the business and what’s going on in the business

- I can’t be an intelligent owner of a business unless I know what all other businesses in that industry are doing

- Berkshire is not a one-man show. It’s a two-man show, in terms of capital allocation. But it’s run by managers who are doing an outstanding job and who don’t need any guidance from Charlie or me as they go along.

- The other thing we do besides allocating capital is to identify great managers. And hopefully, we make it attractive for them to stay and work for Berkshire.

- A really great business does not require good management. I mean, that’s a terrific business. And the poor business can only succeed, or even survive, with great management

- We look for people who know their businesses, love their businesses, love their shareholders, and want to treat them as partners

- Only invest in companies led by managers with an outstanding track record

- Diversification is a protection against ignorance

o If you know how to analyze businesses and value businesses, it’s crazy to own 50 stocks or 40 stocks, or 30 stocks, probably, because there aren’t that many wonderful businesses that are understandable to a single human being

o There is less risk in owning three easy-to-identify, wonderful businesses than there is in owning 50 well-known big businesses

o If you find three wonderful businesses in your life, you’ll get very rich. And if you understand them – bad things aren’t going to happen to those three

- People don’t like to sit around all day and do nothing

- If you feel you must invest every day, you’re going to make a lot of mistakes

- He keeps learning. That’s one of his tricks.

- A great company is one that’s going to remain great for 30 years

- Phil has done awfully well by finding business he likes, and sticking with them, and not worrying too much about what they do day to day

- People’s investment would be more intelligent if stocks were quoted about once a year

- We are not trying to predict markets. We never will try and predict markets. We’re trying to find wonderful businesses

- I don’t like a business that can do well for 300 years and then make one mistake and be behind.

- There are two things that really count

o Volatility is a good thing

o Having decent (khá) returns on equity

- The best businesses require no capital. This means that if you double the size of the business, you don’t need any more capital. And those companies are wonderful businesses. And we’ve got a few of those

- Our managers expect to be running their businesses for a long, long time. They see themselves as part-owners of the business.

- It isn’t the learning that’s so hard. It’s the unlearning

- I would recommend 2 books: “Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits” by Phil Fisher and “Path to Wealth Through Common Stocks”

- “Warren talks about these discounted cash flows. I’ve never seen him do one.” – Charlie Munger

- Think of investing as owning a business and not buying something that wiggles around in price

- In investing, you don’t have to do anything very smart. You just must avoid doing things that are ungodly dumb.

- We just try to do things that make sense

- We are interested in businesses that provide cash rather than use up cash

- All retail is competitive

- What counts at Berkshire is intrinsic value, not book value

- We can’t guarantee results. We do promise you, however, that virtually all the gains Berkshire makes will end up with shareholders. We are here to make money with you, not off you.

- We seek 2 business characteristics: excellent business economics and an outstanding manager

- Selling fine businesses on “scary” news is usually a bad decision

- In insurance, virtually all surprises are unpleasant

- For Geico: “Our goal is not to widen our profit margin but rather the price advantage we offer customers.”

- In investing, inactivity strikes us as intelligent behavior

- You simply want to acquire, at a sensible price, a business with excellent economies and able, honest management

- You can pay too much for even the best of businesses

- You only must evaluate the companies within your circle of competence

- You only need 2 investment courses:

o How to Value a Business

o How to Think About Market Prices

- Your goal as an investor is to buy, at a rational price, an easily-understandable business whose earnings are virtually certain to be materially higher five, ten, and twenty years from now.

- If you aren’t willing to own a stock for 10 years, don’t even think about owning it for 10 minutes

- It only takes 3 quality companies to invest in to be set for a lifetime.

- Companies are worth more money if interest rates fall and stocks rise

- Everyone should read the talk of Charlie Munger’s speech to the University of California Business School in 1994 before investing

- The larger the amount of capital you work with, the more difficult the job is

- Volatility is a huge plus to the real investor

- The stock market is there to serve you, and not to instruct you.

- As an investor, you should love big swings because it means more things are going to get mispriced

- My idea of understanding a business is that you’ve a pretty good idea where it’s going to be in 10 years

- Gambling may be illegal, but now you can do it through something called derivatives.

- I can hardly imagine a world where the wise people don’t do a lot of reading

- We have no meetings. No committees. No slide presentation. I just read a lot

- “Warren lives one of the most rational lives I’ve ever seen. And it’s almost unbelievable.” – Charlie Munger

- All we do is try to figure out what businesses are going to be worth in ten or 20 years

- Investing is putting out money to get more money back later

- Opportunity costs are a very useful filter for investing

o When someone shows me a business, the first thing I would think about is whether this would be a better investment than Coca-Cola

- If interest rates go higher, the valuation goes down automatically

- The biggest thing to do is understand the business

- The best thing to do is learn from other guys’ mistakes

- “I think most people get very few, what I call, no-brainer opportunities, where it’s just so damn obvious that this is going to work. And since they are very few and they may be separated by periods of years, I think people have to learn to have the courage and the intelligence to step up in a major way when those rare opportunities come by.”- Charlie Munger

- “We don’t pay dividends because we think we can turn every dollar we retain into more than a dollar of market value.” à or dividend tax? J

- Professional sellers of investment advice have an immense vested interest (có quyền lợi lớn)in believing that things that can’t be true are true

- The name of the game is continuing to learn

- We don’t care if the market closes for the next 5 years

- Most of our managers do not need to work for a living. They run their businesses for the same reason Charlie, and I run Berkshire. They love doing it.

- We let our managers run their own operations

- We look for brains, energy, and integrity in people that we work with. If you get that combination and you’re in a decent business, you know, you can own the world

- Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler

- “Why risk losing what you need and have for what you don’t need and don’t have?”

- Borrowed money usually leads to trouble. And it’s not necessary.

- There aren’t that many super businesses in the world.

Tags:

StoriesofLife

Summary all public writings Warren Buffett - Part 2

by finandlife29/12/2023 22:26

 

Summary all public writings Warren Buffett

- High returns on equity should retain much or all its earnings so that shareholders can earn premium returns on enhanced capital > ROE > Cost of capital to create value

- “Forecasts are dangerous particularly those about the future.” – Sam Goldwyn

- In the 1981 shareholder letter, Warren Buffett mentioned for the first time: “Charlie and I work as partners in managing all controlled companies.”

- Operating earnings/equity capital = most important yardstick of single-year managerial performance

- Accounting earnings can seriously misrepresent economic reality

- It is our job to select businesses with economic characteristics that allow each dollar of retained earnings to be translated eventually into at least a dollar of market value

- A too-high purchase price for the stock of an excellent company can undo the effects of a subsequent decade of favorable business developments

- Businesses in industries with both substantial over-capacity and a ‘commodity’ product are prime candidates for profit troubles

- Our share issuances follow a simple basic rule: we will not issue shares unless we receive as much intrinsic business value as we give

- Managers who want to expand their domain at the expense of owners might better consider a career in government

- What Buffett prefers to acquire:

1. Large purchases (at least $5 million of after-tax-earnings)

2. Demonstrated consistent earnings power (future projections are of little interest to us, nor are “turn-around” situations

3. Businesses earning good returns on equity while employing little or no debt

4. Management in place (we can’t supply it)

5. Simple businesses (if there’s lots of technology we won’t understand it)

6. An offering price (We will never engage in unfriendly transactions.)

- “We’ve always found a telephone call to be more productive than a half-day committee meeting.”

- “If we can continue to attract managers with the qualities of Ben and Phil, you don’t need to worry about Berkshire’s future”

- The major business principles Buffett uses to maintain the manager-owner relationship:

o Although our form is corporate, our attitude is partnership

o At least four of the five, over 50% of the family net worth is represented by holdings of Berkshire. We eat our own cooking

o Our long-term economic goal is to maximize the average annual rate of gain in intrinsic business value on a per-share basis

o Our preference would be to reach this goal by directly owning a diversified group of businesses that generate cash and consistently earn above-average returns on capital

o Consolidated reported earnings may reveal relatively little about our true economic performance. à báo cáo hợp nhất ?

o Accounting consequences do not influence our operating capital-allocation decisions

o We rarely use much debt, and when we do, we attempt to structure it on a long-term fixed-rate basis

o A managerial “wish list” will not be filled at shareholder expense

o We feel noble intentions should be checked periodically against results. à mọi thứ phải được thể hiện bằng kết quả định kỳ

o We will use common stock only when we receive as much in business value as we give

o We have no interest at all in selling any good businesses that Berkshire owns and are very reluctant to sell sub-par businesses as long as we expect them to generate at least some cash and as long as we feel good about their managers and labor relations.

o We will be candid in our reporting to you, emphasizing the pluses and minuses important in appraising business value

o Good investment ideas are rare, valuable, and subject to competitive appropriation just as good product or business acquisition ideas are

- Book value tells you what has been put in, intrinsic business value estimates what can be taken out

- The record of Chuck Huggins at See’s Candies

- About Geico: its superiority reflects the combination of a truly exceptional business idea and an exceptional management

- We try to attract investors who will understand our operations, attitudes and expectations

- Businesses needing little in the way of tangible assets simply hurt the least in times of inflation

- Asset-heavy businesses generally earn low rates of return – rates that often barely provide enough capital to fund the inflationary needs of the existing business, with nothing left over for real growth, distribution to owners, or for acquisition of new businesses.

- When companies with outstanding businesses and comfortable financial positions find their shares selling far below intrinsic value in the marketplace, no alternative action can benefit shareholders as surely as repurchases

- The companies in which we have our largest investments have all engaged in significant stock repurchases at times when wide discrepancies existed between price and value à MWG in 2024?

- A manager who consistently turns his back on repurchases when these clearly are in the interests of owners, reveals more than he knows of his motivations

- We feel very comfortable owning interests in businesses such as these that offer excellent economics combined with shareholder-conscious management.

- The business achieves this success because it deserves this success - The success of See’s reflects the combination of an exceptional product and an expectation manager, Chuck Huggins.

- You as shareholders of Berkshire have benefited in enormous measure from the talents of GEICO’s Jack Byrne, Bill Snyder, and Lou Simpson

- We buy marketable stocks for our insurance companies based upon the criteria we would apply in the purchase of an entire business

- Most businesses are unable to significantly improve their average returns on equity – even under inflationary conditions

- We behave with Berkshire’s money as we would with our own

- All earnings are not created equal

- You should wish your earnings to be reinvested if they can be expected to earn high returns, and you should wish them paid to you if low returns are the likely outcome of reinvestment

- Outstanding businesses generate large amounts of excess cash

- We don’t have to worry about quarterly or annual figures but, instead, can focus on whatever actions will maximize long-term value

- My preference is for a market price that consistently approximates business value

- Ben Graham told a story 40 years ago that illustrates why investment professionals behave as they do:

o An oil prospector, moving to his heavenly reward, was met by St. Peter with bad news. “You’re qualified for residence”, said St. Peter, “but, as you can see, the compound reserved for oil men is packed. There’s no way to squeeze you in.” After thinking a moment, the prospector asked if he might say just four words to the present occupants. That seemed harmless to St. Peter, so the prospector cupped his hands and yelled, “Oil discovered in hell.” Immediately the gate to the compound opened and all of the oil men marched out to head for the nether regions. Impressed, St. Peter invited the prospector to move in and make himself comfortable. The prospector paused. “No,” he said, “I think I’ll go along with the rest of the boys. There might be some truth to that rumor after all.” Một người thăm dò dầu mỏ đang trên đường đi tìm phần thưởng trên trời thì gặp Thánh Peter với tin dữ. “Bạn đủ điều kiện để cư trú,” Thánh Peter nói, “nhưng, như bạn thấy, khu nhà dành riêng cho những người làm dầu mỏ đã chật cứng. Không có cách nào để ép bạn vào. Sau khi suy nghĩ một lúc, người thăm dò hỏi liệu ông có thể nói bốn từ với những người đang cư ngụ hiện tại không. Điều đó dường như vô hại đối với Thánh Peter, nên người thăm dò khum tay lại và hét lên: “Dầu được phát hiện ở địa ngục”. Ngay lập tức cánh cổng vào khu nhà mở ra và tất cả những người thợ dầu đều hành quân ra ngoài để tiến về vùng nether. Quá ấn tượng, Thánh Peter đã mời người thăm dò chuyển đến ở và tạo cảm giác thoải mái cho bản thân. Người thăm dò dừng lại. “Không,” anh ấy nói, “tôi nghĩ tôi sẽ đi cùng với những chàng trai còn lại. Có lẽ tin đồn đó có phần nào đó là sự thật.”

- Capital gains or losses in any given year are meaningless as a measure of how well we have done in the current year

- Charlie Munger has always emphasized the study of mistakes rather than successes

- Charlie likes to study errors and I have generated ample material for him, particularly in our textile and insurance businesses

- July 1984: close of textile operation Berkshire Hathaway

o It was a bad business at a cheap valuation level

o A textile company that allocates capital brilliantly within its industry is remarkable, but not a remarkable business

o When a management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for poor fundamental economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact

- Warren Buffett focuses on the importance of management repeatedly

- Ben Graham said that the key to successful investing is to purchase shares of good businesses when market prices are at a large discount from underlying business values

- No matter how great the talent or effort is, some things just take time. You can’t produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant

- Book value has served for more than a decade as a reasonable if somewhat conservative proxy for business value

- Charlie Munger and I only have two jobs:

o Attract and keep outstanding managers

§ They work because they love what they do and relish the thrill of outstanding performance. They unfailingly think like owners

o Capital allocation

- We intend to continue our practice of working only with people whom we like and admire.

- Our returns are certain to drop substantially because of our enlarged size

- Chuck rightfully measures his success by the satisfaction of our customers

- The business described in this section can be characterized as having very strong market positions, very high returns on capital employed, and the best operating management à Buffett = quality investor!

- Fechheimer is exactly the sort of business we like to buy. Its economic record is superb; its managers are talented, high-grade, and love what they do; and the Heldman family wanted to continue its financial interest in partnership with us.

- In effect, the good news in earnings follows the good news in principles by 6-12 months

- We have no idea – and never have had – whether the market is going to go up, down, or sideways in the near- or intermediate-term future

- We simply attempt to be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful

- Stocks can’t outperform businesses indefinitely

- We consider the owner earnings figure to be the relevant item for valuation purposes à reported earnings + depreciation, depletion, amortization, and certain other non-cash changes

- Managers and owners need to remember that accounting is but an aid to business thinking, never a substitute for it

- We own remarkable businesses, and they are run by even more remarkable managers

- Experience, however, indicates that the best business returns are usually achieved by companies that are doing something quite similar today to what they were doing five or ten years ago.

- A business that constantly encounters major change also encounters many chances for major error

- Only 25 of the 1,000 companies met two tests of economic excellence - an average return on equity of over 20% in the ten years, 1977 through 1986, and no year worse than 15%. These business superstars were also stock market superstars:

During the decade, 24 of the 25 outperformed the S&P 500.

o Most use very little leverage compared to their interest-paying capacity

o Most sell non-sexy products or services in much the same manner as they did 10 years ago

- Our managers have produced extraordinary results by doing rather ordinary things – but doing them exceptionally well

- Our goal is to do what always makes sense for Berkshire’s customers and employees

- In a commodity-like business, only a very low-cost operator or someone operating in a protected, and usually small niche can sustain high profitability levels

- What we learn from history is that we do not learn from history

- Whenever Charlie and I buy common stocks for Berkshire's insurance companies (leaving aside arbitrage purchases, discussed later) we approach the transaction as if we were buying into a private business.

- When investing, we view ourselves as a business analysts - not as market analysts, not as macroeconomic analysts, and not even as security analysts.

- Story about Mr. Market:

- We would rather achieve a return of X while associating with people whom we strongly like and admire than realize 110% of X by exchanging these relationships for uninteresting or unpleasant ones

- We try to buy not only good businesses but ones run by high-grade talented and likeable managers

- Good business or investment decisions will eventually produce quite satisfactory economic results, with no aid from leverage

- The major problem we face is a growing capital base

- We look for outstanding businesses run by people we like, admire, and trust

- Focus on good returns on invested capital

- About old managers: “Superb managers are too scarce a resource to be discarded simply because a cake gets crowded with candles”

- Because of the commodity characteristics of the industry, most insurers earn mediocre returns

- Charlie and I appreciate enormously the talent and integrity these managers bring to their businesses

- They love their business, they think like owners, and they exclude integrity and ability

- When we own outstanding businesses with outstanding management, our favorite holding period is forever

- We will continue to concentrate our investments in a very few companies that we try to understand well

- We agree with Mae West: “Too much of a good thing can be wonderful”

- About EMH: it’s an enormous advantage to have opponents who have been taught that it’s useless to even try

- Our goal is to attract long-term owners who, at the time of purchase, have no timetable or price target for sale but plan instead to stay with us indefinitely

- We will keep most of our major holdings, regardless of how they are priced relative to intrinsic business value

- From Berkshire’s present base of $4.9 billion in net worth, we will find it much more difficult to average 15% annual growth in book value than we did to average 23.8% from the $22 million we began with

- Imagine that Berkshire had only $1, which we put in a security that doubled by yearend and was then sold. Imagine further that we used the after-tax proceeds to repeat this process in each of the next 19 years, scoring a double each time. At the end of the 20 years, the 34% capital gains tax that we would have paid on the profits from each sale would have delivered about $13,000 to the government and we would be left with about $25,250. Not bad. If, however, we made a single fantastic investment that itself doubled 20 times during the 20 years, our dollar would grow to $1,048,576. Were we then to cash out, we would pay a 34% tax of roughly $356,500 and be left with about $692,000.

- Most of these managers have no need to work for a living: they show up at the ballpark because they like to hit home runs

- It is great fun to be in business with people you have long admired

- What is best for their owners is not necessarily best for managers

- We are willing to look foolish if we don’t feel we have acted foolishly.

- We continue to be blessed with extraordinary managers at our portfolio companies

- We only want to link up with people whom we like, admire, and trust

- In effect they are trusting us to be intelligent owners, thinking about tomorrow instead of today, just as we are trusting them to be intelligent managers, thinking about tomorrow as well as today

- But as happens in Wall Street all too often, what the wise do in the beginning, fools do in the end

- Whenever an investment banker starts talking about EBITDA, zip up your wallet

- My first mistake, of course, was in buying control of Berkshire. I was enticed to buy it because the price looked cheap. I call this the “cigar butt” approach to investing. Unless you’re a liquidator, that kind of approach to buying businesses is foolish. Never is there just one cockroach in the kitchen. Time is the friend of the wonderful business, the enemy of the mediocre. You might think this principle is obvious, but I had to learn it the hard way. It’s far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price

- Good jockeys will do well on good horses, but not on broken-down nags. I’ve said many times that when a management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact. I just wish I hadn’t been so energetic in creating examples

- Charlie and I have not learned how to solve difficult business problems. When we have learned to avoid them. It is because we concentrated on identifying one-foot hurdles that we could step over rather than because we acquired any ability to clear seven-footers à tránh những rắc rối thay vì vào rồi giải quyết rắc rối

- I thought then that decent, intelligent, and experienced managers would automatically make rational business decisions. But I learned over time that isn’t so.

- I made some expensive mistakes because I ignored the power of imperative (sức mạnh của mệnh lệnh)

- After some other mistakes, I learned to go into business only with people whom I like, trust, and admire. As I noted before, this policy in itself will not ensure success. However, an owner – or investor- can accomplish wonders if he manages to associate himself with such people in business who possess decent economic characteristics. We’ve never succeeded in making a good deal with a bad person

- Some of my worst mistakes were not publicly visible. These were stock and business purchases whose virtues I understood and yet didn’t make

- Our consistently conservative financial policies may appear to have been a mistake, but in my view were not.

o We wouldn't have liked those 99:1 odds - and never will. A small chance of distress or disgrace cannot, in our view, be offset by a large chance of extra returns. If your actions are sensible, you are certain to get good results; in most such cases, leverage just moves things along faster.  harlie and I have never been in a big hurry: We enjoy the process far more than the proceeds - though we have learned to live with those also.

- Berkshire’s 26-year record is meaningless in forecasting future results

- Charlie and I would hope that Berkshire sells consistently at about intrinsic value

- We own exceptional businesses that are worth considerably more than the values at which they are carried on our books

- Our extraordinary returns flow from outstanding operating managers, not fortuitous industry economics

- Charlie and I always have preferred a lumpy 15% return over a smooth 12%

- We have no interest in purchasing poorly-managed companies at a cheap price. Instead, our only interest is in buying into well-managed companies at a fair price

- Investors who expect to be ongoing buyers of investments throughout their lifetimes should adopt a similar attitude toward market fluctuations; instead many illogically become euphoric when stock prices rise and unhappy when they fall. They show no such confusion in their  eaction to food prices: Knowing they are forever going to be buyers of food, they welcome falling prices and deplore price increases. (It's the seller of food who doesn't like declining prices.)

- We will be buying businesses - or small parts of businesses, called stocks - year in, year out as long as I live (and longer, if Berkshire's directors attend the seances I have scheduled). Given these intentions, declining prices for businesses benefit us, and rising prices hurt us.

- It’s optimism that is the enemy of the rational buyer

- In a business selling a commodity-type product, it’s impossible to be a lot smarter than your dumbest competitor

Tags:

StoriesofLife

Summary all public writings Warren Buffett - Part 1

by finandlife26/12/2023 08:17

Early Partnership (1956-1969)

- I do not attempt (nỗ lực)to forecast either business or the stock market

- I do not attempt to forecast the general market. My efforts are devoted (tận tâm)to finding undervalued securites

- I will continue to forecast that our results will be above average in a declining or level market, but it will be all we can do to keep pace with a rising market

- Our performance in a single year has serious limitations as a basis for estimating long-term results

- The higher the level of the market, the fewer the undervalued securities

- I would rather sustain (thà chịu)  the penalties (hình phạt)resulting from over-conservatism than face the consequences of error

- I own thirty to forty securities of high quality. This policy should lead to superior results in bear markets and average performance in bull markets

- My continual objective in managing partnership funds is to achieve a long-term performance record superior to that of the Industrial Average. I believe this Average, over the years, will parallel the results of leading investment companies. Unless we do achieve this superior performance there is no reason for The existence of the partnerships.

- Our bread-and-butter business is buying undervalued securities and selling when the under valuation is corrected along with investment in special situations when the profit is dependent on corporate rather than market action à My thinking, If you sell when your business is fair or over value 20%. Why buyers accept that price?

- One year is far too short a period to form any kind of an opinion as to investment performance

- My thinking is much more geared (hướng hơn)to a five-year performance

- Such a commitment may be a deterrent (ngăn cản)to short-range performance, but it gives strong promise of superior results over a several-year period combined with substantial defensive characteristics

- My wife and I will have the largest single investment in the new partnership

- In strongly advancing markets I expect to have real difficulty keeping up with the general market

- It is my feeling that three years is a very minimal test of performance

- Just because something is cheap does not mean it is not going to go down

- We invest in 3 categories:

o Undervalued securities

o Work-outs: these are securities whose financial results depend on corporate action

o Control situations: where we either control the company or take a very large position and attempt to influence the policies of the company

- You will not be right simply because many people momentarily (trong giấy phút)agree with you

- You will be right, throughout many transaction, if your hypotheses (giả thuyết)are correct, your facts are correct, and your reasoning is correct. True conservatism is only possible through knowledge and reason.

- I feel the most objective test as to just how conservative our manner of investing is arises through evaluation of performance in down markets. Khi thị trường xuống, hiệu suất đầu tư như thế nào là cách đánh giá khách quan nhất.

- Complete honesty of Warren Buffett: ‘It may turn out that I am completely wrong.”

- Investment performance must be judged over a period of time with a period including both advancing and declining market

- The ground rules of Berkshire Hathaway:

o In no sense is any rate of return guaranteed to partners

o Whether we do a good job, or a poor job is not to be measured by whether we are plus or minus for the year

o While I much prefer a five-year test, I feel three years is an absolute minimum for judging performance

o I am not in the business of predicting general stock market or business fluctuations

o I cannot promise results to partners. What I can and do promise is that:

§ Our investment will be chosen based on value, not popularity

§ We will attempt to bring the risk of permanent capital loss to an absolute minimum

§ My wife, children and I will have virtually our entire worth invested in the partnership

- The Joys of Compounding:

- Just because something is cheap does not mean it is not going to go down

- “Never count on making a good sale. Have the purchase price be so attractive that even a mediocre (tầm thường)sale gives good results. The better sales will be the frosting (phủ sương)on the cake.”

- I feel the most objective test as to just how conservative our manner of investing is arising through evaluation of performance in down markets

- I am certainly not going to predict what general business, or the stock market is going to do in the next year or two since I don’t have the faintest idea (ý tưởng mờ nhạt)

- We think that short-term results (less than three years) have little meaning

- Investment decisions should be made based on the most probable compounding of after-tax net worth with minimum risk

- The Joys of Compounding:

- Our business is one requiring patience

- About the importance of patience: “It would not surprise me if we continue to do nothing but patiently buy these securities week after week for at least another year, and perhaps even two years or more

- In the great majority of cases, the lack of performance exceeding or even matching an unmanaged index in no way reflects a lack of either intellectual capacity or integrity. I think it is much more the product of: (1) group decisions - my perhaps jaundiced view is that it is close to impossible for outstanding investment management to come from a group of any size with all parties really participating in decisions; à Hiệu suất đầu tư kém như một quỹ không được quản lý không hẳn đến từ sự thiếu thông minh mà đến nhiều hơn từ thiết kế sản phẩm, thứ nhất là quyết định của một nhóm, việc đầu tư hiệu quả không thể đến từ một nhóm cùng quyết định, ngay cả khi các thành viên của nhóm đó đều tham gia vào (2) a desire to conform to the policies and (to an extent) the portfolio of other large well-regarded organizations; (3) an institutional framework whereby average is "safe" and the personal rewards for independent action are in no way commensurate with the general risk attached to such action; (4) an adherence to certain diversification practices which are irrational; and finally and importantly, (5) inertia.

- The Joys of Compounding:

- “If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.” – Harry Truman

- Expectations Warren Buffett in 1965:

- Susie and I presently have an interest of $3,406,700 in BPL which represents virtually our entire net worth. So, we all continue to eat home cooking.

- I am extremely fortunate (may mắn kinh khủng)in being able to spend the great majority of my time thinking about capital allocation

- Our long-term goal is to achieve a ten-percentage point per annum advantage over the Dow Jones à Outperform 10% vs VNIndex?

- When a controlling interest is held, we own a business rather than a stock, and a business valuation is appropriate à Khi nắm quyền kiểm soát, thì nắm doanh nghiệp chứ không còn là cổ phiếu, và định giá doanh nghiệp là phù hợp, việc này rất quan trọng, vì nếu không kiểm soát, BLD leak lợi nhuận, và ăn trên đầu trên cổ cổ đông, giá cổ phiếu undervalue, nhưng cổ đông không có cơ hội hiện thực hóa lợi nhuận như giá hợp lý

- We are going to have loss years and are going to have years inferior to the Dow – no doubt about it

- I ensure that I will not get blamed for the wrong reason (having losing years) but only for the right reason (doing poorer than the Dow)

- If you do not feel our standard (a minimum of a three-year test versus the Dow) is an applicable one, you should not be in the Partnership

- We diversify substantially less than most investment operation. We might invest up to 40% of our net worth in a single security under condition coupling an extremely high probability that our facts and reasoning are correct with a very low probability that anything could drastically change the underlying value of the investment."

- We must work extremely hard to find just a very few attractive investment opportunities

- Our summation on overdiversification: “You’ve got a harem (hậu cung) of seventy girls; you don’t get to know any of them very well.” – Billy Rose

- Our present setup unquestionably lets me devote a higher percentage of my time to thinking about the investment process than virtually anyone else in the money management business

- “I am not in the business of predicting general stock market or business fluctuations. If you think I can do this, or think it is essential to an investment program, you should not be in the partnership.”

- We don't buy and sell stocks based upon what other people think the stock market is going to do (I never have an opinion) but rather upon what we think the company is going to do. The course of the stock market will determine, to a great degree, when we will be right, but the accuracy of our analysis of the company will largely determine whether we will be right. In other words, we tend to concentrate on what should happen, not when it should happen.

- The various businesses that the company operated were understandable and we could check out competitive strengths and weaknesses thoroughly with competitors, distributors, customers, suppliers, ex-employees, etc.

- New ideas are continually measured against present ideas

- I am willing to trade the paints of substantial short-term variance in exchange for maximization of long-term performance

- “Buy the right company and the price will take care of itself.”

- I do not attempt to guess the action of the stock market and haven’t the foggiest notion (khái niệm mơ hồ nhất)as to whether the Dow will be at 600,900 or 1200 a year from now

- My mentor Ben Graham used to say “Speculation is neither illegal, immoral nor fattening (béo bở)(financially).”

- I make no effort to predict the course of general business or the stock market. Period.

- Price is what you pay, value is what you get

- Admitting mistakes: “Our poor experience this year is 100% my fault”.

- I want all partners to obtain (nhận được)exactly the same information

- About Berkshire Hathaway: “Its return on capital has not been sufficient to support the assets employed in the business.”

- The three excellent businesses are all run by men over sixty who are largely responsible for building each operation from scratch (từ đầu)

- Over the long term, intrinsic value is virtually (hầu như) always reflected at some point in the market price

- I think about them as businesses not ‘stocks’ and if the business does all right over the long term, so will the stock

- I make no forecasts regarding the bond market (or stock market)

- My approach to bonds is pretty much the same as my approach to stocks. If I can’t understand something, I tend to forget it

- On the importance of capital allocation: It will continue to be the objective of management to improve the return on total capitalization (long-term debt + equity) as well as the return on equity capital)

- Vic is cut from the same cloth as Jack Ringwalt and Gene Abegg, with a talent for operating profitably accompanied by enthusiasm for his business. These three men have built their companies from scratch and, after selling their ownership for cash, retain every bit of the proprietary interest and pride that they have always had

- In 1972, Buffett focused on Operating Earnings/Shareholders Equity and Book Value per share growth

- Management’s objective is to achieve a return on capital over the long term which averages somewhat higher than that of American industry generally

- Our equity investments are heavily concentrated in a few companies that are selected based on favorable economic characteristics, competent and honest management, and a purchase price attractive when measured against the yardstick of value to a private owner. When such criteria are maintained, we intend to hold for a long time.

o With this approach, stock market fluctuations are of little importance to us – except as they may provide buying opportunities – but business performance is of major importance

- We consider the return on shareholders’ equity to be a very important yardstick (thước đo)of economic performance

- It is comforting to be in a business where some mistakes can be made and yet a quite satisfactory overall performance can be achieved. In a sense, this is the opposite case from our textile business where even very good management probably can average only modest results. (- Thật thoải mái khi làm việc trong một doanh nghiệp có thể mắc phải một số sai sót nhưng vẫn đạt được hiệu quả hoạt động tổng thể khá khả quan. Theo một nghĩa nào đó, đây là trường hợp ngược lại với hoạt động kinh doanh dệt may của chúng tôi, nơi mà ngay cả sự quản lý rất tốt cũng có thể chỉ đạt được kết quả trung bình ở mức khiêm tốn.)

- We are very fortunate (thật may mắn)to have the group of managers that are associated with us

- Most of our large stock positions are going to be held for many years and the scorecard on our investment decisions will be provided by business results over that period, and not by prices on any given day

- We select our market equity securities following 4 criteria:

o We should understand the business

o With favorable long-term prospects

o Operated by honest and competent people

o Available at a very attractive price

- We do not attempt to predict how security markets will behave. Successfully forecasting short-term stock price movements is something we think neither we nor anyone else can do.

- About Berkshire Hathaway: we hope we don’t get into too many more businesses with such tough economic characteristics

- It is easier to buy a good business than to create one

- We are not concerned with whether the market quickly revalues upward securities that we believe are selling at bargain prices. We prefer just the opposite since, in most years, we expect to have funds available to be a net buyer of securities à Buy the company mới nghĩ thế được, buy the stock thì không dễ tí nào

- We continue to feel that the ratio of operating earnings (before securities gains or losses) to shareholders’ equity with all securities valued at cost is the most appropriate way to measure any single year’s operating performance

- The primary test of managerial economic performance is the achievement of a high earnings rate on equity capital employed and not the achievement of consistent gains in earnings per share

- Turnarounds seldom turn

- We would rather have some slack in the organization from time to time than keep everyone busy writing business on which we are going to lose money àJ

- Our owners and managers both have very long-time horizons regarding this business and it is difficult to say anything new or meaningful each quarter about events of long-term significance

- If they focus their thinking and communications on short-term results or short-term market consequences they will, in large part, attract shareholders who focus on the same factors

- We continue to achieve a long-term return on equity that considerably exceeds the average of our yearly returns

- It is encouraging to realize that our record was achieved despite many mistakes

- The combination of a very important and very hard-to-duplicate business advantage with extraordinary management whose skills in operations are matched by skills in capital allocation is phenomenal

- Forecasts may tell you a great deal about the forecasters, they tell you nothing about the future. àJ

- Selling the better assets and keeping your biggest losers is probably less painful in the short term, but is very unlikely to be a winner in the long term

- The most attractive opportunities may present themselves at a time when credit is extremely expensive. At such time we want to have plenty of financial firepower.

- Though this fiduciary attitude was always dominant (mặc dù thái độ ủy thác luôn chiếm ưu thế), his superb managerial skills enabled the Bank to regularly achieve the top position nationally in profitability

- While market values track business values quite well over long periods, in any given year the relationship can gyrate capriciously (thay đổi thất thường)

- Two characteristics of companies that are well-adapted to an inflationary environment:

o The Ability to increase prices rather easily

o The ability to accommodate large dollar volume increases

Tags:

StoriesofLife

Thượng Đế chỉ cho 1 chiếc giày

by finandlife06/12/2023 09:09

 

 

“Cháu bé, Thượng Đế nói rằng Ngài chỉ cho cháu một chiếc giày thôi, cháu phải tự nghĩ cách kiếm tiền để mua chiếc còn lại.”

Ở Mỹ có một cậu bé sinh ra trong một gia đình nghèo, từ nhỏ đến khi đi học cậu chỉ mang mỗi một đôi giày rách. Cậu bé nghe nói vào lễ Giáng Sinh, khi đến bất cứ cửa hàng nào, chỉ cần nói với Thượng Đế thứ mình muốn thì chủ cửa hàng sẽ thỏa mãn yêu cầu của mình.

Vào hôm Giáng Sinh, cậu bé nhìn thấy trong một cửa hàng giày có bày bán những đôi giày rất đẹp nên đã bước vào cửa hàng và nói với ông chủ rằng: “Hôm nay là Giáng Sinh, cháu rất thích đôi giày này, chú có thể giúp cháu nói với Thượng Đế để Ngài cho cháu đôi giày này có được không ạ?”

Ông chủ nhìn xuống chân của cậu bé và hiểu ngay vấn đề, ông ấy cầm lấy đôi giày rồi nói: “Được thôi cháu bé, bây giờ ta sẽ nói với Thượng Đế”. Sau đó ông ấy cầm đôi giày và đi vào bên trong.

Một lúc sau, ông chủ đi ra, nhưng trên tay chỉ cầm có mỗi một chiếc giày rồi đưa cho cậu bé và nói: “Cháu bé, Thượng Đế nói rằng Ngài chỉ cho cháu một chiếc giày thôi, cháu phải tự nghĩ cách kiếm tiền để mua chiếc còn lại.”

Cậu bé hỏi: “Vậy cháu phải kiếm bao nhiêu tiền thì mới mua được chiếc giày còn lại?”

Ông chủ nói: “2 đô la.”

Cậu bé lại nói: “Được rồi ạ, cháu sẽ nghĩ cách kiếm tiền, nhưng chú nhất định phải giữ cho cháu chiếc giày còn lại nhé.”

Ông chủ cười nói: “Cháu cứ yên tâm.”

Sau khi về nhà và tiết kiệm được 2 đô la bằng cách nhặt ve chai, cậu bé vui vẻ chạy đến cửa hàng để trả tiền. Ông chủ đã khen ngợi cậu bé và đưa cho cậu chiếc giày còn lại. Kể từ đó, cậu bé đã có một đôi giày mới rất đẹp.

Khi lớn lên, cậu bé đã từng làm nhiều nghề như nhân viên cứu hộ, bình luận viên, phát thanh viên rồi bước vào giới nghệ thuật và trở thành một ngôi sao nổi tiếng. Vào năm 1980, cậu bé ấy đã trở thành Tổng thống thứ 40 của Hoa Kỳ, cũng chính là Tổng thống Ronald Reagan.

Trong nhiệm kỳ tổng thống của mình, có một lần ông Ronald Reagan được phóng viên hỏi về việc có ảnh hưởng lớn nhất đối với sự trưởng thành của ông là gì, ông đã kể về câu chuyện “Thượng Đế chỉ cho 1 chiếc giày” khi ông còn nhỏ.

Ông Reagan cho biết: “Sau này tôi mới biết được giá gốc của đôi giày đó là 38 đô la, một nửa giá cũng đến 19 đô la nhưng ông chủ cửa hàng chỉ lấy của tôi 2 đô la để dạy cho tôi một điều rằng:

 "Thượng Đế sẽ không cho bạn tất cả những gì bạn muốn, Ngài chỉ cho bạn một phần mà thôi, bạn phải tự mình nỗ lực để lấy phần còn lại.”

Sưu tầm

Tags:

StoriesofLife

DISCLAIMER

I am currently serving as an Investment Manager at Vietcap Securities JSC, leveraging 16 years of experience in investment analysis. My journey began as a junior analyst at a fund in 2007, allowing me to cultivate a profound understanding of Vietnam's macroeconomics, conduct meticulous equity research, and actively pursue lucrative investment opportunities. Furthermore, I hold the position of Head of Derivatives, equipped with extensive knowledge and expertise in derivatives, ETFs, and CWs.

 

To document my insights and share personal perspectives, I maintain a private blog where I store valuable information. However, it is essential to acknowledge that the content provided on my blog is solely based on my own opinions and does not carry a guarantee of certainty. Consequently, I cannot assume responsibility for any trading or investing activities carried out based on the information shared. Nonetheless, I wholeheartedly welcome any questions or inquiries you may have. You can contact me via email at thuong.huynhngoc@gmail.com.

 

Thank you for your understanding, and I eagerly anticipate engaging with you on topics concerning investments and finance.

Designed by: Nguyễn Chí Hiếu