Harrison Barnes » Warren Buffet

Weight Loss, Security Guards, Hard Work and Your Career

Harrison Barnes — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 05:01:38 +0000

In the Midwest, where I am from, many of the men and women there tend to start getting bigger and bigger, and wider and wider, when they hit their 30s. I am not saying they all do, of course, but there is a definite trend there that I believe is much, much more “pronounced” than in other areas of the country. On the block where I grew up, a group of these women got together and decided to do something about it by exercising. For hours each day, in a group of five or more, they would walk around the neighborhood in plus sized sweatpants with water bottles. Rain or shine, I would see them out there meandering around the neighborhood. It must have been a lot of work. In the winters, I would see them sitting on indoor bicycles at the gym peddling away while watching soap operas. However, when I saw these same women at neighborhood picnics they would eat all sorts of sweets, carbohydrates and other unhealthy items. It does not take a rocket scientist to know that exercise does not change anything if you do not change your diet. If anything, a lot of exercise might even make you eat more and gain more weight. For years I watched these women walk around the neighborhood without losing any weight. They worked and they worked and nothing ever happened. To me these women are a very good metaphor for what most of us do in one way or another with our careers: We may work a lot but we do not get anywhere. We do not get anywhere because we are not willing to do the “hard work” to get ahead. In the case of weight loss, the really “hard work” is resisting the temptation to eat when you are hungry, changing your eating habits, eating less, eating less satisfying foods. That is easier said than done–but this is where success or failure comes from in terms of losing the weight. It is not the amount of work you that matters … it is how hard you work that matters. Resisting the temptation to eat when you are hungry is much more difficult than walking around the neighborhood at 2 miles an hour while gossiping with your other friends. The skill and ability to fight the urge to eat is difficult and hard work. It is in hard work, though, that we get our real results. When I was in college, our fraternity used to have parties with 500+ kids every Friday night. They were a “for profit” enterprise and we invited the whole school, served cheap beer and used the funds from the party to subsidize the expenses of running the house. Since there were so many people at the parties, we used to hire a retired Chicago policeman to stand by the door in case there were any problems, fights and so forth. He would show up around 9:00 pm and stand in the doorway until about 1:00 am and then leave. He would not talk much and would stand there in cold, heat and all sorts of weather just waiting until the party was over. Despite being in his 60s, he was a large man and always carried a gun. He looked menacing and served as a deterrent for people getting out of control and trashing out house. At the end of the party, we would pay him $150 for his “security” services. He was more expensive than other guards we could have hired because he carried a gun. We thought it was “cool” to have a guy at the party with a gun and a good deterrent in case something went wrong. I was the Treasurer of my fraternity my junior year of college and used to be in charge of paying him. I thought that $150 seemed like a lot of money to pay him for standing around. One day I told him that I thought he had a pretty good job standing there doing nothing for a few hours. That was the only time I ever saw him get mad: “I’ll tell you something,” he said. “When you are my age you will not be spending your Friday nights standing on the porch of a fraternity house. I guarantee it.” I have thought about this statement numerous times throughout the years. He was right, of course, but I felt there was a lot more depth to what he was talking about than I was seeing. The policeman was working hard and making a major effort—working all Friday night—and yet he was not really getting ahead. However, there were not many other expectations for the policeman beyond standing there. He was not expected to engage in long division.

He was not expected to sell anything.
He was not expected to perform surgery.
He was not held responsible for the results of a marketing campaign.
He was not charged with helping people understand their problems.
He was not responsible for merging two companies together.
He was not responsible for giving complex stock advice.
He was not given complex tasks to think about when he went home that evening.

He was just expected to stand there. For the most part, he could think about what he wanted, when he wanted. No one was controlling his mind. Towards the end of his life—after a tragedy struck his business, my grandfather was a security guard and sat in a booth at the entrance to a factory every evening not doing much of anything. He just sat there and there was no expectation that he engage in any type of complex thought, movement, or likewise. He was just expected to sit there. After having had a rewarding and exciting career, his life suddenly changed when he was expected to do nothing. He died a short time after starting the job. Just about everything that you can do that is going to provide substantial economic and societal rewards is going to be difficult, taxing and hard work. It is going require that you remain focused and use your mind in ways that others do not. It may require that you take risks.

It may require that you think so hard that you get tired.
It may require you organize people to help you.
It may require you move far away.
It is going to require you do work that others do not want to or cannot do.

When I was growing up, I always heard about how doctors and lawyers made a lot of money. I never understood why. Now I do. Why do they do so well? Because they do work that others do not want to do and the work they do is hard. First, they have to go to school and stay focused for a decade or more. They have to sit through classes and do well in them. They have to take tests and study a lot. They have to do all this instead of working and potentially enjoying the fruits of their labor right away. Not only do they have to invest all of this effort in school, but they invest all of this effort and risk failing. They may not get into a medical school or law school. They may flunk out of medical school or law school. They may not pass their medical boards or the Bar Exam. All of this is tough. And it is risky. Second, they have to work very, very hard when they get out of school. In the case of a doctor, they may have to stay up for 48+ hours several times a week and be responsible for peoples’ lives while they are working. In addition, they need to spend years working for low wages before they even can get a decent salary. A lawyer may work 3,000+ hours a year for years inside of a law firm reading papers, filing things, being yelled at and more. The work is difficult and it is not easy. The work has a price. And even after all of this the lawyer is not guaranteed a good job, salary and so forth. The components that make doctors and lawyers highly paid are Hard work

Sacrifice
Risk
Using their mind
Always being available
Committing to something for a long period

…and more. This is far different from what the typical security guard is expected to do. Most security guards are just expected to stand there. None of the hard work, commitment, sacrifice and so forth is at all necessary. When the most successful people in the world go to work—whether it be Warren Buffet, Steve Jobs, or otherwise—they probably are not working longer hours than you or I are working. However, the quality of their time and the way they use their minds during work is going to be drastically different than the way we use our minds and time.

They are going to be more focused.
They are going to be engaged in complex thoughts and pushing their minds instead of daydreaming.
They are going to confront difficult issues and concepts instead of avoiding them.
They are going to be honest with themselves about what they are doing right and wrong.
They may force themselves into a difficult routine even if it is not comfortable.

The people who succeed are willing to work harder. It is like this with everything. The quality of the work you do is about how hard you think, the The most successful salespeople, for example, spend lots of time prospecting. They follow up with past clients. They send out birthday cards. They go out to lots of dinners. They make phone calls even when they do not want to. They take pains to make sure they have the best appearance and dress. They read and think about sales. They push themselves in ways that people who are not successful do not. In contrast, the person who is not successful may spend their time not being as “productive” and taxing their mind to the same degree. This is the difference. In your career, you need to do the “hard stuff” and make sure that you are doing what others will not. This is the key to success and it is going to make all the difference. You need to use your mind when others are not. You need to take risks when others are not. You need to be “on the ball” when others are not.

Seize Every Opportunity That Comes Your Way

Harrison Barnes — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 05:20:43 +0000

Around 5:30 p.m. one April day, I was walking down a hall in the University of Virginia Law School with a classmate. The school was pretty much abandoned, but we noticed a large meeting taking place in one of the classrooms. I didn’t know it then, but this meeting would be something that would permanently change the course of my life: -It would determine my first and second jobs after law school. -It would determine where I would live. -I would meet my wife because of it. -I would become the person I am today because of it. You see, opportunity is like that. It comes out of nowhere sometimes. You need to be ready for that opportunity, and to seize it when it comes. Taking one simple step can make all the difference. Your life and career begin with action. Nothing happens until you take action. “Let’s check out what this is,” I said. I was bored and did not really feel like studying at the time. We went in to see what was going on and took a seat. The people in the meeting seemed very excited about something. It was an annual election for a student group called The Law and Graduate Republicans. I had never been politically active, but as we got settled I began enjoying some of the banter. The people seemed to be taking this event seriously, and I could tell some had been coming to these meetings for a long time. This was my first meeting, and I’d only stumbled upon it. The current president of the group began requesting nominations. There were positions for secretary, vice president, and president. He requested nominations for secretary, and as a joke, the guy I came with nominated me. “I second that!” stated one guy in the audience. I had never met him and I am sure he did not know who I was. I was on the ballot. The whole thing was so funny I could not stand it. I literally knew nothing about the organization. I was competing against a few other people and did not even have a very good idea of what Republicans stood for. The first speaker made a five-minute speech. I was close to leaving, but decided to push through and give it a go. When it was my turn, I stood up and gave my speech. I am not sure what it was about. It probably had something to do with serving our country in a small community to assist the whole. I remember it was an average speech, though. The important thing is that I gave the speech. I did my best with the opportunity presented to me. To my astonishment, I ended up winning the election. The strangest thing happened next. I nominated the guy I was with for vice president – and he won as well! I think he had to compete against even more people. When we were walking out of the meeting he said, “Now we need to find a Democrat meeting.” It was an interesting year being the secretary of the Law and Graduate Republican Club. I still remember the late night call from the president, during which he cried over the phone about the death of Richard Nixon. I remember the organization’s events and the following year’s election. It was a very good experience. During my year as secretary of the Republican Club, I ended up getting a federal clerkship with a Republican judge in Michigan. This judge was extremely Republican, and I am almost 100 percent confident I would not have gotten this prestigious job had I not had the Republican Club on my résumé. During my service to this judge, I got a job with a California firm. At the time, this firm only hired people who clerked for judges. Because of this, I moved to California. Once there, I got my second job from a very active Republican woman, and this job led me directly to what I am doing now. To this day, I am still not very political. The point I am trying to make, however, is sometimes the strangest things can lead to advancement, which often come through small opportunities. It’s almost as if the universe puts opportunities where you least expect them, and if you take advantage of them, great. If not, that is fine, too. I believe opportunity appears to each of us in almost equal ways; the only difference is what we do with it. I want to write a little bit more about the treatment of opportunity, where it comes from, and what to do with it, because I have seen many people drop the ball when it comes to opportunity. There is much opportunity, but so few people take advantage of it. There is a pervasive attitude in society that prevents people from making the most of opportunities. Some people presented with the opportunity to work with a group like the Law and Graduate Republicans might think to themselves, “Why would I want to work for this organization for free?” They might think they were somehow being tricked into doing something for free. Even though I was not active politically, I knew at the time working for this organization could likely open up future doors for me. I knew one opportunity could lead to another opportunity. You need to look at everything like this. You can also create opportunity for yourself by creating opportunity for others. I was having dinner once with our general counsel (our in-house lawyer), and I started to realize the way opportunity works: your past actions create future opportunity. Our general counsel had gone out of his way to get a good friend a job 12 years previously. His friend ultimately got a job with our company. After this, she did everything within her power to get him a job here, too. Opportunities you create for others can bring opportunity back to you as well. You never know when opportunity will present itself. You need to be prepared when it does. If you are looking for a job, your next opportunity could appear at Starbucks, where you might meet the CEO of a large corporation. Your next opportunity could appear in a yoga class or on a train. Opportunity appears to people who are ready to grab it. The wonderful thing about this world, and its rules, is that it provides equal opportunity to all of us. It is simply what we do with it that matters. Because I take my role of advising you on the best ways to get a job seriously, I constantly study successful people and how they become that way. I believe the lessons I learn can translate into lessons to share with you and make you more successful as well. One of the men I have studied is Warren Buffett, one of the richest men in the world. I think about successful people from the perspective that you too can be as successful if you follow certain rules. Success leaves clues. Recently, I read two books about Warren Buffett and both books point to the fact that Buffett learned a certain method of investing from Benjamin Graham at Columbia University, while taking business classes in the 1930s. After Columbia, Buffett was so impressed with Graham he went to work for him on Wall Street, until Graham retired. Buffett returned to his Omaha home and continued investing and fine-tuning Graham’s investment methodology. The way Buffett invests today is largely influenced by the investment techniques he learned from Graham. I wonder how many other students took Graham’s classes and how many were enterprising enough to grab his method of stock market evaluation. And out of the people who understood Graham, how many were enterprising enough to work for Graham and learn more? And out of those students who went to work for Graham, how many took this methodology and held on to it for their entire career? My feeling is Buffett is probably the only one. Imagine this scenario: Buffett is sitting in a class with Graham at Columbia. Graham spends the entire semester lecturing about this or that, and one day he lectures about his investment methodology. Perhaps the lecture is no more than 45 minutes. Buffett is there in the classroom with other students, who are probably bored or worrying about other things. Buffett pays attention and realizes those 45 minutes could change the course of his life. Perhaps this is how the opportunity presented itself to Buffett – I do not know. What I do know, however, is Buffett took advantage of the opportunity presented through Graham’s teachings, and I am confident that most, if not all, of Graham’s other students did not. This is how opportunity works. You should look at the world as a source of continual opportunity. Opportunity comes when you are ready for it and it is up to you to take advantage of it. Be ready.