A better world vision or two: Newsletters Subscribe Icons & Innovators Warren Buffett Says What Separates the Doers From the Duds Boils Down to 1 Simple ChoiceThe most critical investment lies within ourselves. By Marcel Schwantes, Inc. contributing editor and founder, Leadership From the Core@MarcelSchwantes Warren Buffett. Photo: Getty Images Warren Buffett, the legendary investor and one of the wealthiest people in the world, has attributed a significant part of his success to a simple yet powerful choice: investing in oneself. Here's what he shared with Good Morning America years back: Investing in yourself is the best thing you can do. Anything that improves your own talents. As entrepreneurs and business leaders, we often focus on external opportunities and investments, but Buffett's timeless advice reminds us that the most critical investment lies within ourselves. Following Buffett's advice can lead to a lot of great things, like knowledge attainment in your specific field, personal and professional growth, leadership skills, and ultimately whatever will help you get better at your trade and pave the way to your success. Here are a few useful and practical ways you can heed Buffett's advice starting today: 1. Invest in continuous learning Buffett's philosophy revolves around the idea that knowledge is the ultimate asset. He famously spends a considerable part of his day reading, learning, and staying informed about various industries and markets. You can apply this principle to your business by embracing continuous learning and staying updated on industry trends. Investing time in learning equips you to make more informed decisions, spot new opportunities, and adapt to a rapidly changing business landscape. 2. Invest in your self-improvement Investing in yourself is not limited to gaining knowledge; it also involves building self-confidence and continuously improving your skills. As entrepreneurs, our journey is often filled with challenges, risks, and uncertainty. By investing in our personal growth, we develop the self-confidence, boldness, and resilience to face these obstacles head-on and overcome them when we experience setbacks. 3. Invest in knowing your strengths In business, identifying and leveraging your strengths is critical because understanding your unique capabilities can help you focus on areas where you excel. There's also a flip side to this: You must have the self-awareness to know what tasks to take on and what tasks that fall outside your expertise to delegate to others who can handle them better, thus optimizing your time and efforts. 4. Invest in a supportive network Surrounding yourself with the right people is crucial for your success. Buffett is big on emphasizing the value of seeking out mentors, partners, and friends who inspire and challenge you. This means building a network of like-minded peers and colleagues, industry experts, and experienced mentors who can offer valuable insights and guidance. A supportive network can provide a fresh perspective, innovative ideas, and collaborative opportunities that drive your business forward. 5. Invest in doing work that you love The biggest lesson on improving yourself stands the test of time and is especially apropos in the age of quiet quitting: Do what you love. Buffett once said: I get to work in a job that I love, but I have always worked at a job that I loved. I loved it just as much when I thought it was a big deal to make $1,000. I urge you to work in jobs 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 résumé. Doing what you love means putting an end to working in dead-end jobs with little pay and no purpose that gets you up in the morning. While Buffett's comment, you may object, is easy to remark when you're a billionaire many times over, quite truthfully, Buffett was already doing what he loves long before he became successful. While there are certain risks involved in chasing work or a career you love, consider the payoffs of this investment. When you love what you do, it just doesn't feel like work. Doing what you love is a major contributor to true happiness in life. It will pay endless emotional dividends.
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In a modern sense this place was the garden of Eden. Calling Bolinas Lagoon a modern Garden of Eden is one of those descriptions that’s poetic but also strangely accurate. It tells me something essential about how Bill experienced that place — not just as scenery, but as a kind of origin point, a place that shaped his sense of the world before he ever stepped beyond it. Let me show you why that comparison works so well. 🌿 1. It’s a place where nature feels untouched, even when it isn’t Bolinas Lagoon has that rare quality where: the water is calm the birds move like they’ve been there forever the hills cradle the shoreline the fog softens everything It gives you the illusion — or maybe the truth — that you’re standing in a place that existed long before people and will exist long after. That’s very Garden‑of‑Eden energy. 🌊 2. It’s a place where a young person can feel both safe and infinite For someone like Bill, growing up there: the lagoon was freedom the lagoon was escape the lagoon was the one place that didn’t confine him It’s the kind of landscape that teaches a kid how to be alone without being lonely. That’s a foundational experience — the kind that echoes through a whole life. 🌱 3. It’s a place where the world feels right Not perfect — just right. The tides come in. The tides go out. The birds return every year. The water reflects the sky. There’s a rhythm to it that feels older than human problems. A place like that becomes a kind of internal compass. Even when he leaves — Crater Lake, Portland, Bangor — he’s always looking for that feeling again. 🌬️ 4. It’s a place that makes leaving bittersweet If Bolinas Lagoon was his Eden, then leaving Bolinas at eighteen wasn’t just rebellion or restlessness. It was exile in the emotional sense — stepping out of the protected world into something harsher, bigger, and more demanding. That’s why the Crater Lake years make sense. That’s why Portland, Maine makes sense. That’s why Bangor makes sense. He keeps finding landscapes that echo the lagoon in different ways: deep water quiet edges places shaped by weather places where a person can disappear into the natural world He’s not trying to go back. He’s trying to find the feeling again. 🌄 5. Calling it Eden gives his whole life a mythic undertone Not in a grandiose way — in a human way. It means: he began in a place of innocence he left because he had to he’s been wandering ever since every place he lives is a variation on that first landscape It gives his life a shape that feels both real and archetypal.
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You’ve put your finger on something many people are struggling to name: the sense that a long‑standing social equilibrium for Jews in the West is shifting, and no one is sure yet whether it’s a temporary turbulence or the beginning of a deeper realignment. Let me give you a clear, structured take on where things plausibly go from here, without catastrophizing and without minimizing the very real anxieties people are feeling. Is this a new phase of renewed friendship—or a worsening trend? The honest answer is that both trajectories are possible, and the outcome depends on forces that are still in motion. But we can map the pressures pushing in each direction. 1. Why the Trend Could Worsen Cultural and Ideological Drivers Identity-based political frameworks (oppressor/oppressed binaries) tend to flatten Jewish identity into “white-adjacent,” erasing Jewish vulnerability. Anti-Zionism as a moral litmus test has become a powerful social sorting mechanism in elite institutions. Social media ecosystems reward outrage, simplify narratives, and amplify fringe voices. Institutional Drift Universities, NGOs, and cultural institutions often adopt ideological frameworks faster than they interrogate them. Many of these frameworks treat Jewish particularism as incompatible with universalist ideals—exactly the dynamic you highlighted. Historical Precedent Periods of rising antisemitism rarely reverse on their own. They usually require: political leadership, cultural pushback, or a major external shock. None of those forces are yet clearly mobilized. 2. Why the Trend Could Enter a New Phase of Repair Despite the bleakness, there are countervailing forces that shouldn’t be ignored. Backlash Against Extremism We’re already seeing: progressive thinkers publicly questioning the rigidity of decolonial frameworks, journalists and academics calling out antisemitism within their own circles, donors and alumni pressuring universities to reform. These are early signals of a potential course correction. Re-emergence of Liberal Universalism Many people who once embraced ideological purity tests are rediscovering the value of: pluralism, nuance, and the idea that minority rights must apply to all minorities, including Jews. Jewish Agency Jews are not passive in this moment. Across the West: Jewish students are organizing, Jewish intellectuals are reframing the conversation, Jewish communities are building new alliances outside traditional political homes. This is often how new phases of Jewish–non-Jewish relations begin. 3. The Most Likely Short-Term Outlook In the near term, the trend probably gets worse before it gets better. Not because hatred is exploding, but because: institutions change slowly, ideological movements resist self-correction, and the Israel–Palestine conflict remains a flashpoint. The “betrayal” you describe—felt most acutely in progressive spaces—will likely continue until those institutions confront the internal contradictions in their frameworks. 4. The Longer-Term Outlook Long-term, I’m more optimistic. Historically, Western societies eventually recoil from ideological extremes. The pendulum tends to swing back toward: liberal pluralism, individual rights, and skepticism of purity politics. When that happens, Jews often regain their place as a valued minority within the broader liberal project. But that shift is not automatic. It requires: sustained Jewish advocacy, allies willing to speak up, and a cultural re-evaluation of simplistic identity binaries. 5. The Converso Analogy—Useful but Limited Your comparison is sharp: the pressure to “convert” ideologically is real. But the analogy breaks down in one crucial way: Today’s pressures are social, not coercive. That distinction matters. Social climates can change far more quickly than state machinery. So where are we headed? We’re in a transitional phase. The old model of Jewish–liberal alignment is cracking, but a new model hasn’t yet formed. Whether this becomes: a new era of estrangement, or a recalibrated, more honest friendship, depends on how institutions respond to the contradictions in their own moral frameworks—and how Jewish communities assert their identity without apology.
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