THIS IS WATER. 20 Uncommon Lessons from My Weekend with Warren Buffett (career & life advice most don’t talk about. “Take a job that you love. I think you are out of your mind if you keep taking jobs that you don’t like because you think it will look good on your resume. Isn’t that a little like saving up sex for your old age?” - Warren Buffett [Tweet this Quote] The Power of Continued Education On Friday night I walked into the Omaha Marriott to check in for the weekend.
The first person I said hello to was Bill Gates (yes that Bill Gates). He didn’t exactly respond to me by first name, but the brief exchange (and shot of adrenaline that came with it) reminded me of the potential of the weekend ahead. When in Omaha you never know what’s going to happen. The next day I spent over eight hours with Warren Buffett.
What I learned blew my mind… As it always does. I wish it were just the two of us, but there were actually about 35,000 other passionate Buffett fanatics who joined me to learn from the most wealthy investor of the modern world. Here’s to learning (and relearning) what matters… 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. What Are You Going to Do With That? - The Chronicle Review. By William Deresiewicz The essay below is adapted from a talk delivered to a freshman class at Stanford University in May. The question my title poses, of course, is the one that is classically aimed at humanities majors. What practical value could there possibly be in studying literature or art or philosophy? So you must be wondering why I'm bothering to raise it here, at Stanford, this renowned citadel of science and technology.
What doubt can there be that the world will offer you many opportunities to use your degree? But that's not the question I'm asking. We should start by talking about how you did, in fact, get here. Now there's nothing wrong with mastering skills, with wanting to do your best and to be the best. The problem with specialization is that it makes you into a specialist. Again, there's nothing wrong with being those things. And there's another problem. Or maybe you did always want to be a cardiac surgeon. It means not just going with the flow. 9 Things We Regret Not Doing in Our 20s. Life is filled with regrets. Ask anyone around you what their regrets are and they usually have no difficulty coming up with many items on their “regret list.” And for some reason our twenties are ripe for a field of regrets.
Perhaps it’s because as we get older we look back on that period of adulthood as the height of freedom and autonomy. As move into middle age, we look back and wish that we had made better choices and taken more opportunities. Here’s a list of things that we regret not doing in our 20s. Traveling more – I regret not travelling more, and so does nearly everyone that I have asked. Investing early – How many times have we kicked ourselves for not starting our 401Ks in our twenties, for not putting our excess cash in long term investments, for not investing in our future early.
Being more responsible with spending – In order to invest in our retirement or save for that down payment, we would have needed to make wiser financial spending choices. Modern Love - Those Aren’t Fighting Words, Dear. Meltdown. This next week and a half promises to be electrifying. We’re on the brink of an epic hurricane, a Presidential election, and either the most disappointing or the spookiest Halloween ever.
But right now I’m going to talk about me, about MIT, and about why I haven’t talked to you in a month. Toward the end of September I became noticeably stressed out. I stopped talking to people, I stopped cleaning my room, and I got very lonely. “Cory,” I said to my boyfriend, “nobody loves me.” “Nonsense,” he replied, “I love you.” “I want to go home,” I said. Then I watched an episode of America’s Next Top Model and felt better. “Have I always been this crazy?” “Well,” he said, “you’ve always been a little crazy. That afternoon I went to S^3.
I have a fantastic dean at S^3. The next week was my primary hell week of the term. After my final all-nighter I woke up to someone waddling down the alley below my window and swearing angrily. Friday evening I went to visit my high school friend Eric at Tufts. 21 Ways You Should Take Advantage Of Your 20s. 1. Don’t feel the need to respond to every text message, phone call, and email the second it reaches you. Once upon a time, it took longer than a minute to reach someone. People used stamps and envelopes; they had answering machines they didn’t check for hours, sometimes days. No one will die if you don’t immediately respond to every message you receive. 2. Ask for what’s owed to you. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. All information provided in this article is for reference purposes only. Follow a Career Passion? Let It Follow You. Daniel Rosenbaum for The New York Times Cal Newport, a computer science professor at Georgetown, says many people lack a “true calling” but have a sense of fulfillment that grows over time.
For many of my peers, this decision would have been fraught with anxiety. Growing up, we were told by guidance counselors, career advice books, the news media and others to “follow our passion.” This advice assumes that we all have a pre-existing passion waiting to be discovered. If we have the courage to discover this calling and to match it to our livelihood, the thinking goes, we’ll end up happy. If we lack this courage, we’ll end up bored and unfulfilled — or, worse, in law school. To a small group of people, this advice makes sense, because they have a clear passion. But this philosophy puts a lot of pressure on the rest of us — and demands long deliberation. As I considered my options during my senior year of college, I knew all about this Cult of Passion and its demands. Follow a Career Passion? Let It Follow You. Daniel Rosenbaum for The New York Times Cal Newport, a computer science professor at Georgetown, says many people lack a “true calling” but have a sense of fulfillment that grows over time.
For many of my peers, this decision would have been fraught with anxiety. Growing up, we were told by guidance counselors, career advice books, the news media and others to “follow our passion.” This advice assumes that we all have a pre-existing passion waiting to be discovered. To a small group of people, this advice makes sense, because they have a clear passion. But this philosophy puts a lot of pressure on the rest of us — and demands long deliberation. As I considered my options during my senior year of college, I knew all about this Cult of Passion and its demands.
These traits can be found in many jobs, but they have to be earned. RETURNING to my story, I decided after only minimal deliberation to go to M.I.T. Today, I’m a computer science professor at , and I love my job. The 6 People You Need in Your Corner. The Disadvantages of an Elite Education. Exhortation - Summer 2008 Print Our best universities have forgotten that the reason they exist is to make minds, not careers By William Deresiewicz June 1, 2008 It didn’t dawn on me that there might be a few holes in my education until I was about 35.
I’d just bought a house, the pipes needed fixing, and the plumber was standing in my kitchen. There he was, a short, beefy guy with a goatee and a Red Sox cap and a thick Boston accent, and I suddenly learned that I didn’t have the slightest idea what to say to someone like him. It’s not surprising that it took me so long to discover the extent of my miseducation, because the last thing an elite education will teach you is its own inadequacy. I’m not talking about curricula or the culture wars, the closing or opening of the American mind, political correctness, canon formation, or what have you.
But it isn’t just a matter of class. I also never learned that there are smart people who aren’t “smart.” The 'Busy' Trap. Anxiety: We worry. A gallery of contributors count the ways. If you live in America in the 21st century you’ve probably had to listen to a lot of people tell you how busy they are. It’s become the default response when you ask anyone how they’re doing: “Busy!” “So busy.” It’s not as if any of us wants to live like this; it’s something we collectively force one another to do. Notice it isn’t generally people pulling back-to-back shifts in the I.C.U. or commuting by bus to three minimum-wage jobs who tell you how busy they are; what those people are is not busy but tired.
Brecht Vandenbroucke Even children are busy now, scheduled down to the half-hour with classes and extracurricular activities. The present hysteria is not a necessary or inevitable condition of life; it’s something we’ve chosen, if only by our acquiescence to it. Our frantic days are really just a hedge against emptiness. I am not busy. Here I am largely unmolested by obligations. Why America Can't Have It All - By David Rothkopf. Anne-Marie Slaughter's article "Why Women Still Can't Have It All" in the current issue of the Atlantic has sparked a firestorm of debate. Drawing on her personal experience balancing her distinguished foreign-policy career with the demands of raising two sons, the piece exposes an internal struggle within Slaughter and other women aspiring to both career success and a rewarding home life. But in so doing, it may do something more than that. Slaughter, the former head of Policy Planning in Hillary Clinton's State Department, may have unintentionally -- or subconsciously -- offered up a powerful insight into the challenges faced not only by working mothers but those confronting America's top international and domestic policymakers as well.
The article explores the conundrums successful women face in achieving work-life balance with the kind of candor and nuance it rarely receives but richly deserves. This is not to say that the American dream is not real. JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images. Magazine - Why Women Still Can’t Have It All. The culture of “time macho”—a relentless competition to work harder, stay later, pull more all-nighters, travel around the world and bill the extra hours that the international date line affords you—remains astonishingly prevalent among professionals today.
Nothing captures the belief that more time equals more value better than the cult of billable hours afflicting large law firms across the country and providing exactly the wrong incentives for employees who hope to integrate work and family. Yet even in industries that don’t explicitly reward sheer quantity of hours spent on the job, the pressure to arrive early, stay late, and be available, always, for in-person meetings at 11 a.m. on Saturdays can be intense. Indeed, by some measures, the problem has gotten worse over time: a study by the Center for American Progress reports that nationwide, the share of all professionals—women and men—working more than 50 hours a week has increased since the late 1970s.
Revaluing Family Values.