Sinatra and Hefner simply believed in their own mind that they were special and acted on it, whereas people like Munger , they ruminate for hours on end thinking about whether CPI would come out at 2.7% or 2.5% while already sitting on 5 billion dollars.
Also constantly pricing the odds of every move and generally thinking about stuff too much instead of acting and let the chips fall where they may.
They could easily be living in giant mansions in Monaco, feasting on gourmet food cooked by personal private chefs every day, on superyachts in the Seychelles, or any other lavish-wealth scenario you'd care to name.
But they don't. They work in a modest office in Omaha, and eat McDonald's and drink Coke for lunch.
Why would they do that, when they have so many other options? Because they like it. Their value system is different than yours. They enjoy their relatively modest middle class lifestyles, believe it or not.
If they didn't, if they weren't happy, they could make a few phone calls and be on a private jet to the other side of the planet within an hour. But they don't do that, because they value that less than what they're doing now. They're happy ruminating on minute differences in CPI figures while eating an Egg McMuffin for breakfast.
I don't think it's because of that. I think it's because they have internalized the concept of global competition being a zero-sum game and can't let go of it because 100B is still nothing compared to the total size of the pie.
Sinatra instead didn't internalize anything, did deals with Mafia families, acted recklessly and yet he managed to shut down Las Vegas lights in 1999 when he passed and will be remembered long after Buffett is forgotten.
Acting impulsively + luck beats rumination every day. It's not even a contest.
Anyone who has paid any attention to Buffett or Munger will tell you there is no indication they do anything like "ruminate". They appear to think a lot and analyze things, but it's almost all forward looking. And they seem to be very happy. Munger even had a small child die of cancer and said something to the effect of "at some point you just have to dust yourself off and keep moving forward".