The first time I heard the name Warren Buffett and really took note of it was during my sophomore year in high school. My best friends and I were playing around with a stock market game. The simulator had a set time period of three months — a time period Mr. Buffett would chalk up to a game of chance and speculation. Though I cannot recall why or how I choose to chiefly invest my six figures of virtual pixelated cash into Home Depot, I do remember my friend Jake informing me, “that’s a Warren Buffett stock”. I believe that comment had an effect on the trajectory of my life.

I made an imaginary, yet solid return on my investments in Home Depot with some Apple and a gold fund thrown in the mix for some ever so important diversification (Picked that tip up one of the first times I tuned into Mad Money… Boo Ya Mr. Cramer). What ultimately came down to my decision on where to stick my money blew away the indexes over the same period, and although I lost to a friend who put it all in Chipotle, I was hooked. I was sixteen then, and that is around the first time I picked up first — and second and third — book on investing.

Warren Buffett became the center around which my study of the stock market orbited. But what I learned from him had nothing to do with picking up a ticker symbol, it was instead about purchasing a business. While in Mr. Buffett’s case he may be buying a company outright, the principal is all the same. Act like an owner: find a company you understand, one that has a substantial moat around its business with exceptional management (you know, the type of fellows you would want your daughters to marry), buy it, tune out the noise, get comfortable and hold on. While that seems like it widely simplifies the thought process behind a man who has outperformed everyone in the history of the stock market — and it certainly does in many ways — sometimes the simplest strategies are the hardest to stay disciplined about.

Whether or not I came out positive over that three month period sophomore year was pure market speculation. Getting in at the right time. Whether or not Warren Buffet will compound Berkshire Hathaway’s market cap over 25% this year is also speculation. I do not want to make a bet on where the market will end up today, tomorrow or next year, but in 20 years from now I would say there is a good chance plenty of people will still be buying Coca Cola with their American Express cards.

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