Does This Warren Buffett Advice Often Startle You?

I like to read … why? To be entertained, to learn new things, and to stimulate thinking. Warren Buffett's advice is a favorite reading of mine, especially when the articles deal with business innovation and leadership.

I have a set of six business leaders (Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs, Warren Buffett, Jack Welch, Tom Peters, and Peter Drucker) that I selected over a decade ago to be my silent mentors … mentor through their writings and presentations. Warren Buffett is the newest of those mentors.

Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did. Explore. Dream. Discover.– Mark TwainAt a Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting in 2000, Warren Buffett spoke about the importance of choosing the right role models, saying that he often tells students:

“Just pick out the person you admire the most in the class, and sit down and write the reasons why you admire him… Nothing could be simpler than to try and figure out what you find admirable and then decide that the person you really would like to admire is yourself. And the only way you’re going to do it is to take on the qualities of other people you admire.”

Related post: The Story and Zen of Getting Things Done