Last week was a special one...

Over the course of just a few days, I had the rare opportunity to spend one-on-one time with some of the most uncommon minds in the world while attending the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting in Omaha.

The event has an incredible density of deep, first principles thinkers—a place where new ideas collide with lived experience to create something special. It’s what keeps me coming back year after year.

As I was flipping through my notebook on the flight home, I decided I should attempt to distill and synthesize the notes down to a set of lessons. This is my attempt to bring you into the room with me for these conversations, so you can benefit from them in the same way I did.

Here are 11 lessons from a week with legends...

1. Being misunderstood is the cost of entry.

Your success in life is proportional to your willingness to be misunderstood for long periods of time.

Real innovation in any domain is about everyone agreeing with you...later.

In the moment, innovation is painful, because it looks a lot like delusion to the outside world.

Being misunderstood is the cost of entry to achieve the extraordinary.

2. Regularly question your certainty.

"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so." - Mark Twain

But alongside the conviction required to be misunderstood, the greats seem to balance an interesting tension:

Certainty is often more dangerous than uncertainty.

The most dangerous ideas are the ones we never bother to question.

The greats regularly ask, "What if I'm wrong about this thing I'm so sure of?"

Understanding the cost of being incorrect—and spending time pressure-testing assumptions and beliefs—will always create stronger foundations.

3. Awareness is perishable.

Life is a game of awareness and action: Awareness to understand something's importance and action to execute on that importance.

What most people fail to realize is that one-time awareness is never enough.

"I already know that" becomes dangerous logic, because the awareness is perishable—it fades.

You may know something in a moment, but if you don't know it in the moment, it's impossible to act upon. Awareness matters most at the testing point.

Create reminders of your most important truths and values—it will leave you better equipped to act upon them when it counts.

4. Education is the most magical thing in the world.

There's a beautiful line in ​Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son​:

"You’ll find that education’s about the only thing lying around loose in this world, and that it’s about the only thing a fellow can have as much of as he’s willing to haul away. Everything else is screwed down tight and the screw-driver lost."

We live in the most amazing era: Every tool, insight, and principle you need is out there, freely available with the touch of a button and an internet connection.

The only limiting factor: Your willingness to reach out and haul it away.

5. Compartmentalization is a muscle.

One common trait I've observed in the highest performers I come across:

An incredible capacity for compartmentalization.

These people are able to navigate dynamic situations and business ecosystems in constant change, all while maintaining a level of sanity, clarity, and presence.

I've always assumed that the ability to compartmentalize this effectively is innate, something that you're born with. But all of them insist that it's a muscle that they've trained through countless "reps" over the years.

Effective compartmentalization is built, not born.

6. The final 5% costs an extra 100%.

The energy required to create something special is never linear.

The final few percentage points—those necessary tiny improvements—cost much more than the first few.

In other words, it may take 100 units of effort to get to 95% quality, but that final 5% will take another 100.

There’s something magical in that last little bit, simply because so few are willing to do it. That’s where you unlock new levels to the game.

And it does not take talent, just energy and courage.

7. Your environment is your destiny.

During the meeting, Warren Buffett shared a poignant remark:

"Who you associate with is just enormously important. Don’t expect that you’ll make every decision right on that, but you are going to have your life progress in the general direction of the people that you work with, that you admire, that become your friends...You want to hang out with people that are better than you are and that you feel are better than you are because you’re going to go in the direction of the people you associate with."

The people you surround yourself with are a glimpse into your future.

Choose wisely.

8. Cultivate an environment of respectful disagreement.

Your longevity in business is determined by the amount of disagreement you can foster.

The highest functioning people and teams don't hide from disagreement—they encourage it. Respectful disagreement is an act of love that makes the whole greater than the sum of the parts.

When people feel safe to provide their honest feedback and perspectives, the outcomes improve and the risks get managed.

9. You have to earn the right to be a long-term thinker.

There is an enormous amount of edge to be generated from being long-term in a world that consistently loses the forest for the trees.

But there's a dynamic challenge here:

Short-term performance is often what earns you the right to think long-term.

Short-term execution builds trust from those around you. This trust is the atomic asset—it creates the foundation that enables a long-term orientation.

Imagine two investors:

• Investor A raises $10 million to start a fund. Her performance is bad in the short-term. She reminds her backers that she has a long-term strategy, but the trust erodes and they start redeeming their money.
• Investor B raises $10 million to start a fund. Her performance is good in the short-term. She earns the trust of her backers. When her performance turns sour, she reminds her backers that she has a long-term strategy. The trust she built is a foundation, and she's able to maintain their support to stay the course.

Excellence in the short-term can buy you the freedom to think long-term.

10. Stop pressing the eject button.

It's never been easier to opt out from the struggle.

You have countless tools and technologies that effectively hand you an eject button for any situation.

• Relationship moving past the honeymoon phase? Plenty of options on the dating apps. Eject!
• Health improvements stalled out? Plenty of pills you can take to fix that. Eject!
• Business hit a plateau? Plenty of shiny objects to work on instead. Eject!

But here's the truth:

The growth you seek is found in the struggle you avoid.

The eject button may feel good now, but it's a debt you'll have to repay (with interest) at a date in the future.

11. Boredom is a cheat code.

"All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone." ― Blaise Pascal

In the investing world, alpha is the term for outperformance—the excess return of an investment beyond expectation given the level of risk.

Well, in a world of constant stimulation, boredom creates meaningful alpha.

The most creative ideas stem from periods of intense boredom.

Normalize boredom. Schedule it into your weeks. Results will follow.

Go Where You Don't Belong

Something I've come to appreciate:

Good things happen when you put yourself in rooms where you don’t feel like you belong.

Last week was filled with those rooms for me. I used to hide from them for fear of being found out, exposed as an imposter. But now, I lean into them.

You always have something of value to contribute to a conversation. Remember that.

And while the imposter syndrome may never go away, I’ll continue to embrace it as a sign of growth.

I'd encourage you to do the same...

‍

P.S. I had the great joy of catching up for dinner in Omaha with Tim Cook.

During the opening of the annual meeting, Warren Buffett shared these beautiful words about him:

"I knew Steve Jobs briefly, and Steve of course did things that nobody else could have done in developing Apple. Steve picked Tim to succeed him, and he really made the right decision. Steve died young as you know, and nobody but Steve could have created Apple, but nobody but Tim could have developed it as he has. So on behalf of all of Berkshire, thank you, Tim."

It was a very cool tribute to someone I have come to know as a friend and mentor. When I was feeling lost on my journey, he was the one who pushed me to follow my energy. I’m grateful he did. Most know him as a brilliant businessman—but I’m proud to know him as a kind, genuine, authentic man.

So on behalf of me (and all of the readers out there who have benefited from my work), thank you, Tim!