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The Mindful Sprint 1: Low-Cost Experiments

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The Mindful Sprint 1: Low-Cost Experiments

Warren Buffett's first sprint paved the way to $106 billion

Dan Dickson
and
Daniel Greening
Apr 4, 2023
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Warren Buffet, courtesy Mark Mathosian, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong. —Albert Einstein

Technique

Use low-cost experiments to learn skills and approach expensive projects.

For example: Some people fear investing and others risk everything. Both usually underperform. Their reactivity keeps them from learning investment basics.

Want to learn investing? Use agile practices to learn fast and cheap, so failure is unlikely to hurt you. Create a (no-trading-fee) brokerage account, choose a cheap stock, buy one share, sell a month later, and evaluate the results. Research why the value changed. You have experienced the full stock investment cycle, without going broke.

You’ve completed an agile “sprint.”

Case Study

Eleven year old Warren Buffett made his first trade in 1942, buying six shares of Cities Service preferred at $38: three for himself and three for his sister Doris. The stock fell to $27 after a week, but climbed back to $40 four months later. Warren and Doris sold.

Warren’s sprint explored a complete value chain. He bought stock, watched it gyrate, and sold. He communicated with a customer, sister Doris.

Warren is now worth $106 billion. His holding company, Berkshire-Hathaway, buys and sells whole companies. Customers love Warren’s yearly newsletters.

In that first sprint, Warren Buffett succeeded with mindful agility.

Resource

Check out Pattern: Experiment to Improve for more ideas on agile experiments

Try It

Sprints are cheap, fast learning. Try one. You might get hooked.

When you run your behemoth project as a succession of sprints, you are “agile.”


Go Deeper

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The Mindful Sprint is a 250 word, 2 minute read to help you find more fulfillment and success at home and work, produced weekly by Mindful Agility.

Warren Buffett image: © 2011, Mark Mathosian, Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

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1 Comment
Divya Maez
Mar 31

I like this! You are not just giving the recipe, you are showing the process and how it worked for Warren Buffet. This new letter is short and sweet; threw me off a little I am sure to newsletters being verbose and lengthy, this is right to point, it’s Agile!

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