Getting inside the heads of people who have achieved extraordinary levels of success in any arena will always help you make quantum leaps in your mindset and therefore your results. When I look at the financial realm, I always want to look at the highest percentile of individuals, billionaires.

There are fewer billionaires on the planet than any other category of people. Why am I saying all this?

Well because I picked up a book today that I couldn’t quite put down. I know this is revealing of how much of a nerd I may be, but hopefully it will lead me to be a rich nerd.

Warren Buffet is the most successful, rich, and wealthy investor on the planet. He has stayed at number two or number one on the world’s list of wealthiest people for a long time, and I don’t think he will be dipping down too much any time soon. He is also, and this is an important note, one of the worlds greatest philanthropists.

If you want to learn how to make a ton of money and keep a lot of it, and have it keep growing, it is safe to say that getting inside warren buffet’s brain would probably work pretty darn well.

What’s the book? It is called…. drum roll please…

“Warren Buffet and the Interpretation of Financial Statements”

I know, probably a scary title, but Robert Kiyosaki has already yelled at me enough to get my financial literacy up and to develop the skill of reading financial statements. Who better to teach me how to do it than the man who has read more of them and made that skill make him more money than just about any other individual on the planet?

So there are a few Billionare conclusions I am coming to…
(By the way, I am thinking about being obsessed with studying billionaires.)

1. The way to make a ton of money it to buy stuff.

The big fact and paradigm that conflicts with just about everyone’s head is that you can make more money simple by spending less. This is a longer discussion and a whole other post but the fact of the matter is, the only way to make more money is to produce more value. Well, no one produces more value by hoarding…

This is kind of a rant simply because it has been a huge eye opener for me. Recently a friend of mine challenged me saying that there was no way I could become a billionaire. (Whether or not I want to or whether or not that matters is besides the point.)

Being the personality type I am I started figuring out how ot prove that person wrong and seeing what it would take. What if you really did want to and or had to make a billion dollars in 2 years? I came to an interesting conclusion, that the only way to do that would basically be to buy the right stuff. (assets, trades, notes, or intellectual property) Or to invent the right thing.

If you want to make more money invest more of your money, buy more assets, or put money and time into things that increase in value. Well enough with that rant. Back to Buffet

2. If you’ve got to buy assets to create wealth, then what do you buy?

Well, Warren buys businesses. Buy and sell businesses and figure out how to buy the right ones and you will win. This book and the others that prequel it talk about “Buffetology” and Warren Buffet’s simple twist on Benjamin Grahm’s “Inteligent Investing” formula. Also known as value based investing. Basically, you look for a company (because buying or creating companies is the way to create wealth) that you know is really worth X but the market has pushed down way below it’s true value. Kind of like real estate, we all know that a certain type of house is worth about $100,000 and even if the market is down, you know that if you can buy that house for $50,000 it’s going to be worth it in the long run.

Buffet seek’s what is called “durable competitive advantage.” You seek a company whose products, systems, services, ie sources of revenue, have a competitive advantage and all information indicates that things will tend to stay that way. Buy it, and hold on for a while and you’ll make a lot of money.

And that’s about all for me, this is an incredible book and anyone who would like to discuss it with me should send me and email or an @ reply on twitter, @andrewjamesinc

The fact is, you can think in the same way about your own business and your own financial statements… Do you as a person or a company have durable competitive advantage?