“If you improve your communication skills, both written and verbal, I guarantee you that you will earn fifty percent more money over your lifetime,” Warren Buffett said in a speech to students at Columbia University.
With well over 80 billion dollars to his name, Warren Buffett is consistently ranked among the wealthiest people in the world.
When he talks, we must listen.
We’ll never know how many students took his words on communication skills to heart after graduation.
The fact that one of the most powerful men in the world is keen on communication skills, should speak volumes to anyone wanting to advance their career.
You can have brilliant ideas, but if you can’t get them across, your ideas won’t get you anywhere, right?
The solution?
Hone your speaking skills.
Only then you can step up, make difference and bend the culture.
"If you want to get ahead, focus on your communication skills. That’s because what’s really essential is being able to get others to follow your ideas. If you’re a salesperson, you want people to follow your advice. If you’re a management leader, you want them to follow you in business. If you can’t communicate, it’s like winking at a girl in the dark — nothing happens. You can have all the brainpower in the world, but you have to be able to transmit it. And the transmission is communication” - Warren Buffett
Communication isn’t something that came naturally to Buffett.
“I would throw up. You can’t believe what I was like if I had to give a talk,” Buffett recalls.
At 19, he paid $100 and enrolled on a public speaking course taught at Dale Carnegie.
To this day, he considers that $100 class one of the best investments he’s ever made.
Given his success, it's clear that Buffett has an excellent understanding of how to spend his time each day.
You can’t deny the fact that he manages his time better than anyone else.
You see, time is wasted because people do not clearly know what they want.
There are many capable people in the world, but relatively few that focus on what matters.
So, here's a simple strategy Buffett uses to help his employees determine their priorities and actions.
It's a story of Mike Flint, who was Buffett's personal airplane pilot for 10 years.
Are you ready? Let’s crush it.
Flint has also flown four US Presidents, so I think we can safely say he is good at his job.
Flint was talking about his career priorities with Buffett when his boss asked him to go through a 3-step exercise.
Here's how it works.
Buffett asked Flint to list the top 25 things he wanted to do in the next few years.
Listing five to ten goals is easy, but if you’ve ever tried to write down 25 goals at once, you know it’s challenging.
So, Flint took some time and wrote them down.
Buffett then asked him to review every item on the list and circle the top five that mattered the most to him.
Flint was hesitant because to him, everything on the list was important.
Again, he took some time, made his way through the list, and eventually decided on his 5 most important goals.
At this point, Flint had two separate lists.
The 5 items he had circled and the 20 items he had not circled.
Buffett then asked Flint about when he would start working on the top five.
Flint answered that he'd start working on his top 5 goals the very next day.
And that's when Buffett asked him about the second list, “And what about the ones you didn't circle?”
Flint replied, “Well, the top 5 are my primary focus, but the other 20 come in a close second.
They are still important, not urgent, so I’ll work on those intermittently as I see fit."
Buffett listened patiently and then dropped a bomb: “No. You’ve got it wrong, Mike.
Everything you didn’t circle just became your Avoid-At-All-Cost list.
No matter what, these things get no attention from you until you’ve succeeded with your top 5.”
I love this story.
This is what I call the underrated power of elimination.
I believe in minimalism and simplicity.
I like getting rid of waste.
I think that eliminating the inessential is one of the best ways to make life easier.
While many of us are trying to do more, doing more usually isn’t the solution.
In fact, it’s the exact opposite of it.
Getting rid of things you don't care anymore is relatively easy.
It's eliminating things you do care about that is difficult.
Everything you do has a cost.
Every activity takes up time, energy, and effort that could be put toward more important tasks.
This is why Buffett's strategy is particularly brilliant.
Yes, items 6 through 25 on your list are things you care about.
They are important to you.
It is very easy to justify spending your time on them.
But when you compare them to your top 5 goals, they're just distractions.
Spending time on secondary priorities is the reason you have 20 half-finished projects instead of 5 completed ones.
Eliminate ruthlessly.
Less is more.
Remove things that don’t contribute to your top goals.
Only play games that you really care to win.
Force yourself to focus.
Complete a task or kill it.
Oh, by the way, happy 90th Warren!
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