做对的事情和把事情做对

以下这段引自博友，我觉得是个很好的问题，故说说自己的看法。我不知道这里所提巴菲特的原话是什么，我只记得巴菲特说过大概这样的话：第一，不要亏钱，第二，不要忘记第一条。我个人理解他老人家在这里讲的是投资安全的问题。如果一个人投资到他不懂的东西里就有可能亏钱，所以要避免。这里并不意味着巴菲特就不会亏钱，…

Source: http://nteswjq.blog.163.com/blog/static/1269981201021432838827/

Doing the right thing and doing things right

> By Duan Yongping · his NetEase blog (nteswjq.blog.163.com, now closed; read from web archives) · 2010-03-14 · [Original link](http://nteswjq.blog.163.com/blog/static/1269981201021432838827/) ([archived](https://web.archive.org/web/20100330020022/http://nteswjq.blog.163.com:80/blog/static/1269981201021432838827/))

> This post includes letters from others or quoted material; Duan Yongping's own words are marked separately.

The passage below is quoted from a blog friend. I think it's a very good question, so I'll give my view.

[Translator's note: a passage quoted from a blog friend's post "How to view making mistakes" (2010-03-13) stands here in the original; it is not Duan Yongping's words and is not translated.]

I don't know what Buffett's original words referred to here are; I only remember Buffett saying something like this: first, don't lose money; second, don't forget the first rule. My personal understanding is that the old man is talking here about investment safety. If a person invests in something he doesn't understand, he may lose money, so this should be avoided. This doesn't mean Buffett never loses money; in fact the total he's lost is more than any of us, because he too makes mistakes sometimes. Heh, the money he lost on ConocoPhillips alone was several billion US dollars. I've never understood why he invested in ConocoPhillips; maybe he too made the mistake of thinking he understood when he actually didn't? But I personally think the most important reason Buffett is where he is today is that he rarely makes mistakes of principle; that is, he resolutely doesn't touch things outside his competence. Over several decades he has made far fewer mistakes than his peers, that's all.

What makes Buffett "Buffett" is above all that he can stick to doing the right thing, that is, not doing things that are mistakes of principle. For example, he resolutely doesn't do what he thinks he doesn't understand. This is also the most important thing I've learned from Buffett.

What Jack Ma talks about is the other side: how to do things right. Whoever you are, in the process of doing things right you may make mistakes; I've never heard of any so-called successful person who never made a mistake. The process of doing things right is often a process of learning, and mistakes are often unavoidable. There's only one way not to make mistakes, and that's to do nothing. Doing nothing may sometimes be the biggest mistake.

Heh, I wonder whether this explanation makes sense?

Sometimes when I think about it, Chinese is really interesting. One moment it says "the kind-hearted can't lead troops", the next "love your soldiers like your sons"; one moment "think three times before you act", the next "decide on the spot". Heh, they don't seem contradictory. They're all just talking about different sides of things, aren't they?