A couple of days ago, Berkshire Hathaway's annual shareholders meeting was held, an annual affair that draws many people from all over the country, and the world too. Management students travel to this event that is held in Omaha, and listen to Warren Buffet and his lifelong investment friend, Charlie Munger, who is the Vice Chairman. A line in an article caught my attention when I was reading about this event. Warren Buffet is reported to have told his investors. He said, "One of the keys to successful investing is avoiding envy."
When you look at it prima facie, it seems like a common-sense kind of comment. But when I began to look at various articles on envy in the marketplace, I began to realize that it's a thing in the bushes. It's what crouches there and very few people see it. But the result of envy can be disastrous. It seems like Warren Buffet has put his finger right on the pulse of unsuccessful entrepreneurship and investment opportunities by saying, "Be careful of envy. Be careful of investing because you look at something or somebody else and try and emulate them, or get better than them." Elsewhere, he would say, "Of the seven deadly sins, envy is the silliest. If you have it, you don't feel better. You only feel worse."
Well, what do we do with envy? How do we recognize it? Is it really there in our lives? Maybe we recognize it in our lives, but we don't recognize it in our workplaces? Surprisingly, a study was done by Tanya Menon and Leigh Thompson and their research involved asking managers to develop innovative strategies for a restaurant chain. They were put into 2 groups – one group was told that the designs that the managers considered had come from outsiders, and the other group was told that the designs had come from people within their own company. They were to look at it and come up with a strategy and rate their willingness to use their ideas and even specify what portion of a $10,000 budget they'd allocate in using them.
Strangely, what they found was that the participants were more inclined to go with the ideas that came from outside. They were more willing to spend money, almost 25%, in getting more information about outsiders' innovations than ones that had come internally. $2,470 out of the $10,000 was what they were willing to spend on innovations that had come from outside, and only $1,740 from inside. What caused the differences? The differences were caused because of status. It seemed, and this is what the data pointed to, that an idea taken from outside would be looked on as enterprising; but an idea that was taken from inside would be seen as acknowledging that the person on the inside was an intellectual leader. The bottom line? Envy!
Charlie Munger, the Vice President of Berkshire Hathaway says, "There's an old saying: What good is envy? It's the one sin you can't have any fun with. It's 100% destructive. Resentment is crazy. Revenge is crazy. Envy is crazy. If you get these things out of your life early, life works better."
How would we get envy out of our lives? But before that, we need to know the reason why it is there. It comes from many reasons. It could come because you are competing for scarce resources or for limited budgets within the company. It could come when you are trying to vie for important assignments. It could come when you are coveting the attributes and qualities of another. Or it could come from just losing a promotion to someone else or if you see somebody with a better car, house or more stable family. Any of these reasons can cause envy.
How do you overcome it? The authors, Menon and Thompson say: "3 things.
1. Pinpoint what makes you envious. Find the trigger. What is it that first picks up that feeling of envy? Once you are able to understand it and you're aware of where it's coming from, you can better handle it.
2. Don't focus on others; focus on yourselves. Measure your present self with your past self and see how far you have come. That should be the yardstick.
3. Affirm yourself. That's something that we don't do enough. Understand your own strengths and weaknesses, and celebrate those strengths.
In these ways, we can be able to say, "I can have some kind of handle on envy."
Our Holy Scriptures say in Proverbs: "A tranquil heart gives life to the flesh, but envy makes the bones rot." We ought to be looking at ways in which we can add life to what we are doing, rather than deteriorating into things that will take away our joy and peace, and cause envy to rot our bones, as the Scriptures say.
My friends, Warren Buffet's line caught my attention" One of the keys to successful investing is avoiding envy. But the key word was envy, because it is very subtle. It comes into our lives and before we know it, it is that huge monster that begins to eat away at everything that we are doing. It takes away the joy that we ought to have in the things that we are doing. Maybe today's a good day to say, "Let me do a check of my life and see if there is envy, whether I am envious of colleagues, of people around me." then say to yourself, "I'm going to deal with it today." and as always, we ought to lean on God for that understanding.
Allow me to pray on our behalf:
Almighty God, look deep into our hearts and pinpoint for us envy, if it lies there. Help us in some way to be able to get rid of it, so that we can come back to a place of wonderful harmony and equilibrium and confidence. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.
• Associated Press: "Latest: Berkshire Investors reject Climate Change Report," http://www.bostonherald.com/business/business_markets/2016/04/the_latest_berkshire_investors_reject_climate_change_report
• Mary Buffett & David Clark, "The Tao of Warren Buffett: Warren Buffett's Words of Wisdom," https://books.google.co.in/books?id=9UqIHoPsvQAC&pg=PA80&lpg=PA80&dq=warren+buffett+envy&source=bl&ots=ZvlOIfoCVi&sig=VStVNdlmWhx1ngnguBmZhFWSCWc&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjc4ofS5rzMAhWPcI4KHQMnDkoQ6AEISTAK#v=onepage&q=warren%20buffett%20envy&f=false
• Tanya Menon & Leigh Thompson, "Envy at Work." https://hbr.org/2010/04/envy-at-work
• Scriptural quote: Proverbs 14:30, http://www.topverses.com/?find=envy
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