看起来很努力,为什么结果总是不如人意?
小佛爷说
耐力跑步和价值投资虽然是两个不同的世界,但它们却有相似之处。两者似乎都倾向于采用极端化的、低-高强度8-2开的策略来选择工作强度。在耐力跑步中,这种选择可以让身体建立耐力,而不会因过度训练而受伤。在价值投资中,它允许投资者树立信念,而不会因为过度交易而损失金钱。
英文原文节选
I am a value-oriented investor. I am also a recreational marathon runner. When my wife recently gifted me a membership to a running club, I found an unexpected connection between these two worlds. This connection has made me rethink not only my approach to marathon running, but also my understanding of business management.
Running clubs have recreational types like me, but they also have competitive endurance athletes. These are the folks you see start races from the front corrals. And they are the ones who finish with times that put them near the top of the field. For this competitive group, running is no hobby. It is akin to a full-time profession, one that requires dedicated coaching and serious training.
I had always admired such competitive runners, marveling from afar at their inspiring performances. Joining a running club gave me the opportunity to run alongside and closely observe how they train. I was very surprised by what I learned.
Imagine training intensity as having three levels:
Low Intensity. This feels easy and relatively slow — like one is barely even trying.
Medium Intensity. This involves pushing oneself to the point of discomfort but far short of full throttle.
High Intensity. This is running at or near one’s absolute limit.
Recreational runners like me usually stick to medium intensity almost all the time. It feels challenging and engaging — uncomfortable, but not intolerably so. It matches the intensity level we bring to races, and therefore seems like time well spent. Intuitively, we are following the old dictate “practice like you’ll play.”
In contrast, many competitive runners spend around 80% of their training time at low intensity. They are deliberately holding back, systematically building a base of miles at a pace so easy that it looks like they are not doing very much at all. The rest of their training time — the other 20% — is mostly spent at high intensity. These are extremely focused, hard workouts with superhuman bursts of speed and power.
What about medium intensity training? The competitive group spends almost no time doing this. They consider it a waste of energy. I’ve heard endurance experts describe it this way: “Too much pain for too little gain.”
Indeed, scientists studying human endurance have found that the polarized, low-high training approach maximizes race performance while reducing the risk of serious injury. Many world-class runners, cyclists, skiers, and triathletes train in this manner. And the concept is also making its way into everyday culture, as highlighted by popular books on endurance sports and articles on “high intensity interval training,” or HIIT.
This polarized endurance training approach immediately made me think of Warren Buffett, the famed value investor. Buffett talks about his approach to investment work as being “lethargy bordering on sloth.” He spends most of his time reading annual reports, browsing business publications, and speaking with colleagues and contacts. He’s deliberately building a base of investment knowledge — which can look like not doing very much at all. But then he occasionally acts with extreme vigor, making massive investment bets on a handful of rare occasions. In contrast to Buffett’s approach, research shows that recreational investors tend to always be “doing something” — constantly dabbling in markets via a steady stream of “medium” drip-and-drop trades.
哈沙·米斯拉(Harsha V. Misra) | 文
哈沙·米斯拉是一家以价值为取向的投资公司的创始人。他拥有剑桥大学的数学学位和西北大学凯洛格管理学院(Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management)的商学位,此前曾在麦肯锡公司(McKinsey & Co.)从事管理咨询工作。
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