Once you realize that your entire mission is to value businesses & pay much less than they're worth, it's incredibly liberating. Joel Greenblatt told me this simple idea "gets rid of 99% of everything else that anyone had ever told me about how to look at the world & the market."

"If you see it that simply & can keep that simplicity in your mind, it's very compelling & almost makes a lot of what else you see look silly," says Greenblatt... Indeed, you start to realize that much of the investment world is engaged in fruitless nonsense. —#richerwiserhappier

"People are crazy & emotional," Joel Greenblatt told me. "They buy & sell things in an emotional way, not a logical way, & that's the only reason why we have any opportunity."

"So if you have a way to value businesses that's disciplined & makes sense," says Greenblatt, "you should be able to take advantage of other people's emotions."

"It's a very small fraction of people that can value businesses—and if you can't do that, I don't think you should be investing on your own," says Joel Greenblatt. "How can you invest intelligently if you can't figure out what something is worth?"