“It’s not supposed to be easy. Anyone who finds it easy is stupid” – Charlie Munger
Ari’s corollary: It’s not supposed to be easy, but don’t make it any harder then it needs to be.
In replying to my tweet on the subject, Andrew Finn wrote (turn on images if you don’t see anything):
If you’re bashing your head against the wall consistently in business, you’re working too hard.
Business is full of challenges, don’t get me wrong – we’ve all faced them and will continue to face them. If the challenges weren’t there then the opportunities and Alpha wouldn’t be there either; that’s just a fact of modern financial systems.
But if you keep facing the SAME challenges and the same issues and the same difficulties over time, then you’ve chosen to play business on hard mode.
Google doesn’t worry about AdWords; Apple doesn’t worry that much about selling hardware; and the local guy who owns the Pizza, Donut, and Burger franchise in your town as well as the building the surgical center is in, doesn’t really care where you eat or whether you’re healthy or sick.
The media constantly talks up the scrappy entrepreneur David fighting Goliath, but more often then not those guys fail and go bankrupt.
Don’t get me wrong, we need those people. But as a Capital Allocator and an entrepreneur myself, I’d much rather fight and take easy wins over and over again then climb a rugged mountain where the return isn’t that much better.
As always, what it took me 250 words to almost say, Buffett says it better in one sentence
“I don’t look to jump over 7-foot bars: I look around for 1-foot bars that I can step over.”
