MousePotatoPower

You can’t argue that Warren Buffet knows what he’s doing.  As of February 2008, Forbes ranked Buffet the richest person in the world, surpassing Bill Gates and Carlos Slim Helu.

Even though he is worth over $60 billion dollars, he only takes a salary of $100,000, lives in the same house that he bought in 1958, drives his own car, does not carry a cell phone, and intends to donate the majority of his fortune to charity when he dies.

Buffet regularly invites business students to visit his companies and gives them the opportunity to ask him questions, and ends the intensive day of learning with lunch at one of his favorite restaurants.

CNN has a great article about Warren Buffet.  My favorite question/answer out of the article is:

What advice would you give to someone who is not a professional investor? Where should they put their money?

Well, if they’re not going to be an active investor - and very few should try to do that - then they should just stay with index funds. Any low-cost index fund. And they should buy it over time. They’re not going to be able to pick the right price and the right time. What they want to do is avoid the wrong price and wrong stock. You just make sure you own a piece of American business, and you don’t buy all at one time.

Great advice from the Oracle of Omaha.

An Elevator Pitch is a short introduction or “sales pitch” for a product, service, or person.

By developing a personal elevator pitch, you could have the perfect answer to your next interview’s “Tell me about yourself” question. Or a charismatic way to introduce yourself at the next party or social event.

Before you read this elevator pitch howto, it will help to be familiar with a method of answering interview questions: STAR What is the Situation/Task you were faced with? What Action did you take? What was the Result?

I was wandering around the Apple website the other day and I couldn’t help but feel amazed at the option to put two quad-core CPUs into one desktop computer…that’s 8 processors.  That’s an insane amount of computing power.  My first computer ran at 4 hertz.

I decided to go all the way and see how much cash a fully-loaded Mac Pro desktop would cost.

Apple does not disappoint.  Two quad-core CPUs, 32GB of RAM, 1.2 terabytes of 15k RPM hard drive space, and two 30″ HD displays are the highlight of the build.  The USB modem and iWorks ‘08 were thrown in just because there were available.

Over $28,000 of computer hardware in a single box that fits under a desk…that’s almost enough to pay for a brand new Infiniti G35!!

I am a product of the public school system. Most of my friends are the same. Naturally, I also have friends that graduated from private schools. On the average, it seems like my private school friends are in better shape intellectually and in life in general.

I have seen it many times, teachers in the public school system sending their kids to private schools. Frankly, it bugs the heck out of me. With a background in sales, I do not understand why a salesman would not use their own product. Likewise, I simply cannot comprehend why a teacher in the public school system would send their own child through a different school system. Obviously, I agree that private schools are in general (but not always) a better place to receive an education.

In general, though, there are many very important, very vital areas of life that are not covered in the course of a normal 12-year education.

We’ll start off with the Top 5 Things That Should Be Taught in Every School. If I knew these skills by the time I graduated from high school, I would have been a better college student and I would have had a more organized career path.

Next is another list of Skills Your Child Needs to Know. It’s a very similar list with more elaborate bullet points.

The last is from an MIT professor: 10 Lessons of an MIT Education. Gian-Carlo Rota has 10 excellent lessons that can be applied to life in general.

Although private schools provide a better education than public schools, that does NOT guarantee that every private school student will graduate and become smarter, be a better college student, or become more successful.  Surely you can find somebody successful who is near you who came from the public school system.

Become a life-learner, always paying attention for new things that can be learned each day.  Figure out what skills you have benefited from and teach them to your children.