Snow & The Snowball Part I

Introduction
Nothing is more Cape Cod-ish than a seashell stuck in the snow.  Now say THAT 10 times fast!
Yesterday was a pretty exciting day and evening as we had just received the first major snowfall of the season here on Cape Cod. It was another first as it was also my first time of being on a beach in the Winter with snow. As part of this blog I have provided a few pictures to share with you the beautiful, almost magical atmosphere in the aftermath of the storm which occurred most of the day and into the evening. While walking around town and down to the beach and looking at the snow covered streets and beach I was thinking of a book I had just read that is on the New York Times Best Seller List at the time of this posting called The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life. There were three items of interest that I would like to share with you from this book:

1. Accumulating wealth may be likened to building a snowball
2. Zig when everyone else zags
3. Marry up, not down

I will discuss each of these items in greater detail as a two part series.

Like a Snowball
For those not familiar with The Snowball, it is a biography of the life of Warren Buffett, excellently documented by Alice Schroeder. The title The Snowball comes from the fact that Warren Buffett likened his slow but steady accumulation of wealth to building a large snowball – he started with a few flakes, but gradually over time as more snow (or money) became available he added to it, with a snowball that grew dramatically over the years. Although the author discusses the snowball in terms of money, I believe it may also be applied to business or your brand (either as an individual or company). In the Five Keys to Success Parts I and II, I had identified time, persistence, and patience as three of the five keys – Warren Buffett possessed all five, but most certainly these three attributes listed here. I will elaborate on all three a little more.

Building anything of quality takes time, especially at the start. In the beginning everything is a blank slate, a hunk of clay ready for the molding. However the more effort and time you put into accumulating wealth, building a business, or establishing a personal or professional brand, the greater the results you will see. As you accumulate more snow and pack it into your snowball, so to will you accumulate money, clients, and a reputation which will grow larger as you accumulate more and more. As the snowball grows, the results will compound and be greater than the sum of their individual parts.

Because building greatness takes time, it will require a large amount of patience and persistence. Success does not occur overnight and you will need to persist day in and day out, slowly but steadily to achieve your end objective and patiently await the results. Of course from time to time you will need to persevere through some difficult obstacles which will seem insurmountable at the time, but I guarantee you they are not and will appear trivial in hindsight, especially if your perseverance is fueled by passion. This was certainly the case with Warren Buffett; in The Snowball there are many examples of obstacles that Warren Buffett had to overcome to achieve greatness and build his snowball.

To Be Continued…
In Part II I will discuss why following the crowd is not the way to greatness and the concept of marrying up.

Building a snowball of wealth, a business, or individual or company brand takes time!

-John R. Sedivy of Cape Cod Branding