Do Civics get anything good in the cycle?

[pbrower2a]

If I had to make the choice between developing good habits and getting the material goodies of life easily -- I would take the good habits, even if those came under great hardship (as in farm chores in the 1930s or military service in the 1940s).

Here is someone who knows well.

Quote:At 88, Warren Buffett has a lot of wisdom — and sharing it with students is one of the many wonderful things he’s known for.

One lesson the Berkshire Hathaway CEO loves to teach is the importance of developing good personal qualities at a young age.

Establishing good habits — even the little ones, like saying “please” and “thank you” — is a major key to success, he told Yahoo Finance’s editor-in-chief last year.


Buffett elaborated on the topic in a talk to MBA students from the University of Florida in 1998.

The legendary investor started his speech with a little game: “Think for a moment that I granted you a right — you can buy 10% of one of your classmate’s earnings for the rest of their lifetime.”

The decision should be based on merit, Buffett advised, so it’d be unwise to pick the person with the highest IQ, the richest parents or the most energy.

“There’s nothing wrong with getting the highest grades in the class, but that isn’t going to be the quality that sets apart a big winner from the rest of the pack,” said Buffett.

He continued: “You’d probably pick the person who has leadership qualities, who is able to get others to carry out their interests. That would be the person who is generous, honest and gave credit to other people for their own ideas.”

And here comes the hooker: In addition to this person, Buffett told the students they had to sell short another one of their classmates and pay 10% of what they do.

“You wouldn’t pick the person with the lowest IQ,” he said. “You’d think about the person who turned you off, the person who is egotistical, who is greedy, who cuts corners, who is slightly dishonest.”

If you see any of those qualities in yourself, you can get rid of them. “It’s simply a question of which you decide,” he said.

Don’t be someone who turns people off

The big takeaway here is that if you want to be the person who is successful, who everyone wants to hire, you need to build habits of integrity.

There are a handful of ways to do that:

   Fulfill your promises
   Be honest
   Be trustworthy
   Give credit where credit is due
   Be mindful and emotionally intuitive
   Manifest humility
   Be willing to admit you’re wrong
   Offer help when it’s needed
   Treat others with respect
   Be charitable
   Be patient

Intelligence and ambition are valuable traits, but even so, a lack of integrity won’t make you stand apart from the others — nor will it get you hired, at least not by Buffett.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/12/billiona...ket-newtab