Newsletter #56 - Warren Buffett’s Circle of Competence

Warren Buffett’s Circle of Competence

Warren Buffett walked away from investing in Amazon in 1994. He finally bought in 25 years later.

Why the wait?

He stays ruthlessly inside his circle of competence.

When Berkshire Hathaway acquires a company like GEICO or See's Candies, Buffett lets the CEO run everything.

The strategy. The operations. The decisions.

He steps in only for capital allocation or major strategic shifts.

Berkshire has over 60 fully owned subsidiaries and nearly 250,000 employees. The corporate headquarters in Omaha is home to only two dozen people.

Bruce Whitman, former CEO of FlightSafety (a Berkshire subsidiary), once said that Buffett trusts him so much with Berkshire's money that he's even more careful with it than his own.

Most leaders stretch into areas where they're mediocre, then try to control everything because they know they're out of their depth.

Buffett does the reverse.

He knows exactly where his skills end.

Productive Imperfection

The perfect week doesn't exist, and chasing it will only lead to frustration.

Instead, aim for what elite performers call "productive imperfection.” This is a sustainable rhythm that works with your natural energy patterns and life's inevitable uncertainties.

The most successful calendar systems have clear decision rules built in that make it easier to maintain your system when pressure hits.

Start with these three rules:

1. Schedule deep work around your peak energy. Identify the time of day when you think most clearly, and reserve that block for your most cognitively demanding work. Protect it like a critical external meeting. Everything else schedules around it.
2. Know your priority hierarchy before the week starts. When something urgent appears, you shouldn’t have to decide what matters in the moment. Revenue-generating conversations, strategic planning, and team alignment should take precedence over internal updates or routine 1:1s. Clarify this hierarchy with your assistant so there’s no ambiguity when trade-offs arise.
3. Set concrete rescheduling protocols. When priorities shift, your system should flex without breaking. Decide which meetings move first (e.g. internal updates or recurring check-ins) and which stay locked (e.g. external calls or deadline reviews.) Establish a default order of operations so your assistant knows exactly what to move, shorten, or cancel. The goal isn’t to protect every meeting, but to maintain momentum when plans change.

When your calendar inevitably breaks, these rules tell you exactly how to rebuild it.

Your system works when it can flex without you having to rethink everything from scratch each time pressure hits.