DEWORSTIFICATION AND (MUSIC) EDUCATION
As of late, I have been on a bit of a reading bender. I finished a book on military leadership last night and started another one today on investing. Maybe it's the time on planes. Maybe it's being closer to the end of my career than the beginning. Or, maybe I outgrew my impatience and can finally sit down to digest something more than See Spot Run. Whatever the reason, I almost always have a book cracked open nearby.
Last night, I was blown away by this quote from Warren Buffett in the investing book: "Diversification is protection against ignorance. It makes little sense if you know what you are doing."
Say what?
Every other expert I have read has cautioned against being un-diverse, and here the Oracle of Omaha is calling them out as uninformed and ignorant.
Now, I love me some Warren Buffett – and I think we can all agree that he has done pretty well for himself - so it got me thinking.
Is diversification counter-productive? Financially and academically?
For some, high school and middle school have become a game of diversification. Join three clubs, play a sport, pad the GPA, sprinkle in some volunteering, and voilà—you've built a well-diversified teenage portfolio. It seems responsible. It looks impressive. But according to our pal Warren, it might be completely wrong.
Because the people who actually build wealth—real, meaningful, compounding wealth—don't start by diversifying. They start by concentrating. And Mr. Buffett reminds us that it makes little sense if you know what you are doing.
That's not just an investing philosophy, it's a life strategy.
Buffett's entire approach is built on conviction. He doesn't believe in owning a little bit of everything; he believes in owning a few things he understands deeply. Ten to fifteen high-quality bets. Not fifty mediocre ones. In fact, he once suggested you should live your life like you have a punch card with only 20 total investments—ever. Every decision matters. Every "yes" has weight.
Now compare that to how students and parents build their school schedules.
Instead of a punch card, they're handed a buffet. And they take everything. A little athletics, a little student government, a little volunteering, a little this, a little that. It feels productive—but it's really just "diworsification," Buffett's tongue-in-cheek term for spreading yourself so thin that nothing actually performs.
I definitely am stealing the term "diworsification."
Here's the truth: most parents and students aren't diversifying because they're strategic. They're diversifying because they're unsure. And diversification, as Buffett says, is what you do when you don't know what you're doing.
But not music.
Music is the opposite of dabble. You can't fake it. You can't dabble your way into excellence. It demands focus, repetition, and long-term commitment. It forces you to make an educated and high-conviction bet on something—exactly the kind of bet Buffett builds his fortune on.
That's why it's so powerful.
When a student commits to music, they're not just learning an instrument—they're building a concentrated portfolio of skills. Discipline. Pattern recognition. Creativity. Emotional intelligence. The ability to perform under pressure. These are not "extracurriculars." These are assets that compound.
Meanwhile, the over-diversified student often ends up like an over-diversified investor: busy, but underperforming. Plenty of activity, very little mastery. Lots of inputs, minimal returns. It looks safe, but it rarely leads to anything exceptional.
Buffett also makes an important distinction: diversification isn't bad—it's just misplaced early on. He recommends index funds for people who don't have the time or expertise to go deep. In other words, diversification is a great fallback, but it's not how greatness is built.
In the long run, the students who win—financially and otherwise—aren't the ones who did a little bit of everything.
They're the ones who found something worth betting on and went all in.
Music.
Have a great week, friend.
Scott
p.s. Thank you for the nice notes about my brother and for letting me take last week off from writing. Carnegie was AMAZING - and the premiere of Autumn Elegy was magical.