There have been a million and more people who have speculated and broken down why Warren Buffet has been as successful an investor as he is, but they all overlook a key point: the time period in which he has been investing.
As Buffet’s net worth approaches $100b, it is important to understand that he started investing at age 8 and will probably continue to do so until he is on his deathbed. When it is all said and done, he will have been in the investing game for near-on a century. Funnily enough, none of the articles or books written on him have ever lead with the headline: “Man has been in the investing game longer than anyone who has ever lived, hence same man is ridiculously wealthy.” The lower hanging fruit are all what people seem to care about –– investment philosophy, big bets that paid off and why he made them, etc. All of these pieces of analysis miss the most important factor in his success, he allowed himself the opportunity to accumulate this wealth by staying in the game.
This same principle applies to our personal lives. If we have a goal to be healthy, we don’t need to go to the gym or go for a run every other day of a week. While it would certainly help, you are not giving yourself the best chance of success by running the risk of burning out mentally and quitting on the habits in the short-term. The best strategy is to find the most frictionless form of exercise and practice that everyday: walking. If you start with prioritising 30 minutes a day as an absolute baseline, over time you will get more comfortable with the idea of doing so until it becomes an essential part of your day. With this habit in tow, you can guarantee that whether you make it to the gym or not, you are giving yourself the opportunity to “stay in the game” of exercise such that realising compound growth in the long-term becomes an possibility rather an a daydream.