So if you are evaluating others (or yourself!) in the investment field, think out some standards - apply them - interpret them.

There are all kinds of businesses that Charlie and I don't understand, but that doesn't cause us to stay up at night. It just means we go on to the next one, and that's what the individual investor should do.

Investors should remember that their scorecard is not computed using Olympic-diving methods: Degree-of-difficulty doesn't count. If you are right about a business whose value is largely dependent on a single key factor that is both easy to understand and enduring, the payoff is the same as if you had correctly analyzed an investment alternative characterized by many constantly shifting and complex variables.

I think that trying to invest through 535 people is a tough job, you know, and so I would give more latitude.

Always associate yourself with people who are better than you.

You should be unconcerned about short-term price action when you own the securities directly, just as you were unconcerned when you owned them indirectly through BPL. I think about them as businesses, not "stocks", and if the business does all right over the long term, so will the stock.

Read 500 pages every day. That's how knowledge works. It builds up like compound interest.