Warren Buffett says LeBron James is savvier about money that he was at LeBron’s age. (Note: flattery and hyperbole are good investment tools, apparently.) Whether LeBron is actually a better money man than the Sage of Omaha is hard to say, but James is probably richer than Buffett was at 29. One thing about Buffett’s value investor strategy is that it can take some time. But what James and Buffett definitely have in common is discipline.
Value investing is a patient game requiring persistence and dedication. So is a long NBA career. James lost a lot of weight this summer on a paleo diet, and most people thought it was to get ready for the upcoming season. It wasn’t–it was about life in general, and how you handle it. James set everybody straight at a Cleveland Cavaliers media event, saying the weight loss “had nothing to do with basketball. I should have wrote a letter about that to stop the speculations.” LeBron James’ weight loss was about discipline, plain and simple. Every summer he challenges himself to do something “outside the box” he said, and this year it was a diet. “In the process I lost some weight,” James reported. Sort of the way Buffett challenged himself to make some good decisions about strong companies that seem likely to last–and in the process, became a billionaire.
