This past weekend was my first Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Meeting. I learn a ton and met many interesting people and plan to attend again next year. Here are some things I plan on doing differently next year to get even more out of the experience.
My goal is knowledge, not business opportunities or entertainment, so what I do is very different from most people who attended. I try to learn interesting things from people from conversation. In Tools of Titans, Tim Ferriss listed the questions he ask his podcast guests. I went around asking people my own questions as well as some of his questions. Some examples:
How many times have you attended Berkshire meetings?
What drew you return?
What's the most interesting thing you learned today?
What is a truth you believe that few others do?
What do you think makes a person successful?
At the event, there is the Bookworm, a bookstore that sold Warren Buffett's and Charlie Munger's top recommended books of the year. On the Bookworm website, you could receive a newsletter updating you on the Berkshire Hathaway book selections. Some of the authors attended the event and I asked them questions on related to their books and also some of the questions above. You can read part 1 of my interviews with authors here. Part 2 is coming soon. In part 2, I will go deep into my almost 2 hours long conversation with the great psychologist Robert Cialdini, whose book Pre-suasion is Charlie Munger's favorite book of the year.
Next year, I wish to be even more prepared and get all that I could out of my experience. I will receive the list of books from the Bookworm newsletter ahead of time. Any book I'm interested in that I don't already own I will buy ahead of time. Then, for all the books, I will have read them, highlighted key passages in the books, and taken notes on them. I will take my annotated copies of the books to the authors for them to sign. I will also prepare more thoughtful questions for the authors from my notes ahead of time. I will meditate on the books and my questions to simulate their possible answers in my head. Then I will narrow my questions down to the most unique and insightful questions to ask them. I would try to stay most of the day at the Bookworm for Friday and Saturday.
Then, if I still have questions that none of the authors could answer, I would sign up to ask a question to Buffett and Munger. If I didn't get picked for that lottery, I would try to persuade whoever won to ask my question by knowing Buffett and Munger so well that I could answer any normal questions that are typically asked.
If I get fatigued, I would go take a walk outside. No podcasts, music, or audiobooks. Just walking meditation to clear the mind. To optimize energy levels without being overly hyper, I would stick to a ketogenic diet leading up to the event and keep coffee to a minimum and rely mostly on dark chocolate and cashews for energy.
I would also resist making any purchases other than books. Traveling and big events put people in an altered state of consciousness that makes people more open to suggestions. It's a hypnotic state... psychedelic trips are called trips for a reason. I've seen many people make terrible decisions on large purchases while traveling and I've suffered from such mistakes myself. This is a mistake that is easy to fall for over and over again if you don't keep conscious awareness of it. Think about it this way: if you're in your hometown, you never buy any overpriced souvenirs or take pictures of mundane or even beautiful scenery around you. Why change everything when you travel?
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