Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful. — Warren Buffett

Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful.

Author: Warren Buffett

Insight: This quote sounds like it's about money, but it's really about one of the hardest human skills: thinking differently from the crowd. When everyone around you is panicking—whether it's about the stock market, a job market, or even just buying a house—your instinct is to panic too. But Buffett's point is that panic creates opportunity for the person calm enough to see it. When houses are cheap because everyone's scared, that's when you buy. When everyone's desperate to sell, that's when you negotiate from strength. The trickier side works the same way. When everyone's confident and bidding up prices, that's actually when you should get cautious. Not because you're being contrarian for its own sake, but because crowds tend to get drunk on momentum. They stop asking "Is this actually worth it?" and just ask "What's everyone else doing?" By the time that question becomes the only one being asked, you're usually near the end of the party. The real skill isn't predicting the future—it's staying emotionally steady when everyone else is careening between terror and euphoria. It's noticing when your own excitement matches everyone else's excitement, and pausing. That awareness, that slight friction with the crowd, is where actual advantage lives.

Source: Op-Ed, New York Times, 2008