20-slot punch card rule
Imagine a lifetime card with only 20 punches: every big decision has to earn one
Picture a ticket with twenty slots, one punch for every investment you will ever make, and no more once the card is full. Faced with that limit, people think much harder about each choice and put real weight behind the few they are sure of, instead of dabbling in something new every week. The frame gets borrowed for careers, projects and commitments as a way of forcing focus. It is a check to run before a decision, not a literal count.
Who backs it
Sorted by strength of stance
- Warren BuffettRecommends
Investor · Berkshire Hathaway chairman
A lesson he likes to teach business students, according to Charlie Munger. Only twenty punches for a lifetime of investments. You would think much harder about each one and load up on the few you were sure of. At Florida in 1998 he added that perhaps three, five or seven of those twenty would make someone rich, and that nobody gets rich trying a new idea every day.
Source: CNBC Make It: Warren Buffett loves teaching this 20-slot rule at business schools
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