This book contains 125 of Warren Buffett’s aphorisms. Oh you don’t know what aphorism means? I didn’t know it either until I read this book. Apparently, it means “a short clever saying intended to express a general truth.”

Tbh, I think Mary Buffett and David Clark could have condensed their book into 10 aphorisms. There’s a lot of repetition as they keep harping on how Warren looks into the long-term economics of businesses and decides if they boast durable competitive advantages. Then he will wait on the sidelines until the stock market gives him great bargains, a signal for him to swoop in and buy undervalued stocks. He subsequently HODLs them for decades - convinced about his purchases - and gets rich. There, I summarised his core principles for you.

I did take away some insights though. What made me raise my eyebrows was “it’s hard to teach a young dog old tricks.” Given that ageism exists in Singapore and that it’s hard for retrenched middle managers to find jobs, I found this a refreshing take on the benefits of age. Also, it made me conclude sadly that given my penchant for job-hopping, I haven’t really honed my intuition since I never stayed long enough at any of my teaching positions. Anyway, developing my tacit knowledge on teaching & learning is something I wanna look into next year. Be a proud old dog. 🐕

As an adroit wordsmith, I was particularly impressed by his aphorisms on writing: 1) - There is nothing like writing to force you to think and get your thoughts straight, 2) I never buy anything unless I can fill out on a piece of paper my reasons why. Apparently, Warren writes an annual letter to his shareholders to recap the past year’s events. If a billionaire can be disciplined enough to tackle the chore of writing head-on, I should be inspired to write more often. ✍️

Lastly, I was amused by how he centered some of his analogies on sex. I wish there were more of them because it makes Warren come across as a sex-oriented, testosterone-fuelled male, just like the rest of us. 🤭