In the early 1960s, while making a modest living working for a newspaper, Booth met a young lawyer named Charles Munger. Noticing that recent legal changes had made condominium ownership attractive, the brilliant Munger suggested that Booth should develop condos on a property that Booth's grandfather owned in Pasadena, California. Booth said sure, but he would do it only if Munger invested alongside him. Using mostly borrowed money, Munger and Booth built a 40-unit condo development for $1 million. Two years later, they had sold all of the units and doubled their investment, realizing a profit of $1 million. They worked on one more successful real estate development that had similar results. In 1963, Munger told Booth about an exceptionally smart young man from Munger's hometown of Omaha, Nebraska. Booth hopped on a plane and flew to the Midwest. There, he met a still undiscovered Warren Buffett, who Booth immediately recognized was a once-in-a-lifetime talent. Shortly thereafter, Booth invested $1 million with the young man from Omaha. Booth wanted Buffett to manage his money as soon as possible and for as long as possible. The $1 million investment gave Booth 18,000 shares of Berkshire, which equated to a 1.4% ownership position in the company. Then Booth did nothing with his Berkshire investment for a long time. He let Warren Buffett go to work for decades. By the time Booth reached age 75, his $1 million investment in Berkshire Hathaway was worth an astounding $1.2 billion. It was truly one of the greatest investments ever made. Our Lesson: Give the Market Time My daughters are teens now. I asked them to proofread this article for me because I wanted them to see a memorable story that shows the power of compounding. Peter Buffett wasn't patient. It cost him hundreds of millions of dollars. Booth was incredibly patient. It made him astoundingly rich. After my kids were done reading, it was clear to me that the stories of Peter Buffett and Franklin Otis Booth Jr. had made an impression. They were sad for Peter and told me that they wanted to be like Booth. The great news for my kids (and for all of us) is that we don't need to find the next Berkshire Hathaway to build tremendous wealth over time. This stock market game is rigged, and it is rigged in our favor. Over time, the market goes in one direction: up. It does so at a very nice pace of almost 10% per year on average. Sure, there will be bumps along the way - but in the grand scheme of things, those bumps are only minor blips. The recipe for success is simple. Just get diversified exposure to the stock market, and then give this incredible wealth-generating machine as much time as possible. Good investing, Jody | 
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