[6] Time, Tools & Temperament

Nothing humbles me quite like the “simple” home repair. I start with a little momentum. I’ve skimmed the YouTube tutorial. I have most of the tools. Surely I can finish before the game comes on. And yet it often ends in frustration, shortcuts, and a result that’s worse than when I began. (And my wife telling me - "You should have called Warren.")

A while back, a friend told me that home repairs require three things to go well: the right time, the right tools, and the right temperament. When things go sideways, it’s rarely because I don’t care or don’t know enough. It’s because I’m rushing—trying to squeeze the work in between meetings, daylight, or life. That artificial hurry leads to bad decisions and worse outcomes.

We see the same dynamic play out in investing.

Most investors today are constrained by holding periods. Funds have timelines. Timelines create pressure. Pressure creates hurry. And hurry is a terrible environment for building enduring businesses. When capital has an expiration date, everything downstream speeds up—strategy, hiring, capital allocation, patience. Even great teams struggle when they’re forced to optimize for speed instead of quality.

At Opus Holdings, we’ve intentionally structured a long—effectively indefinite—time horizon. Not to slow down ambition, but to remove artificial urgency. By solving for the time variable, we give our tools and temperament a chance to work. More importantly, we give the teams and operators we support the space to learn, compound, and reach their full potential.

Good outcomes—whether in home repairs or company building—rarely come from hurry. Just ask my wife.