You've probably heard of Warren Buffett, but you may not appreciate just how impressive an investing record he has. He has been at the helm of his company, Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A) (NYSE: BRK.B), for more than 50 years, and in that time the company's value has increased at an average annual rate of about 20%. To put that in perspective, the S&P 500 has averaged around 10% over the same period. Want more perspective? A 20% growth rate will turn a single $1,000 investment into about $9 million over 50 years!

Most of us would love to have investing results like that. It's no easy feat to accomplish, but if you want to try to beat -- or even meet -- Buffett's average, here are some ways to go about it, including some advantages you may have over Buffett. You can do quite well even if you fall short.

One important contributing factor to Buffett's longtime ranking among the world's richest people is simply that he has been busy growing his wealth for more than 80 years. He was selling sticks of gum when he was just six years old, for example, and delivering gobs of newspapers as a young teen -- earning thousands of dollars and buying himself a farm. He bought his first shares of stock at age 11.

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Source Fool.com