It is my contention The Warren Buffett Way and the way investors and advisers alike have skimmed the surface and pretended to apply his methods has cost the average investor more money than it has ever made them. I have no problem with Warren Buffett himself, but with the popular delusion we can and should do what he does, or at least, has done in the past.

There is hardly a man in the street who does not quote Warren Buffettisms and hardly an adviser or investment product that does not claim an empathy with his investment style. But the truth is there is only one Warren Buffett and only one person in the world that has his skill, patience, money, well-earned advantages and dedication to the task.

But the rest of us? To think we can assess a profit and loss account between dropping kids off at school and holding down a job is simply delusional, as is the marketing of the idea that someone who is not Warren Buffett can emulate him and his success on our behalf. Seriously, if it was possible to imitate Warren Buffett and transplant Warren Buffett's judgment into another fund manager, would we not know about it and wouldn't his fund be the highest returning fund in the market and wouldn't we all be invested and be billionaires?

But there is no such fund manager and no such fund, because being Warren Buffett and exercising his judgment is not easy. It's not even very hard, it's impossible, because so many elements of his analysis are so subjective. Getting stocks right is a very personal thing and I'm afraid if you really want Warren Buffett to be your adviser or your fund manager then there is no alternative but to ring him - because he is the only one with the cortex and the neural channels, developed over decades of focus, that, when faced with a potential investment, say ''yes'' when it's right and ''no'' when it's wrong more often than anyone else.

You can't emulate that.

On top of that, if you were to attempt to invest on the Warren Buffett template you would need his patience, but the reality is that you can't afford it. No one seems to realise that Warren Buffett has a very different risk profile to mortal investors. He is one of those investors that has his school fees and his mortgage paid off. He can afford to be patient. If you don't already have more money than you need then I'm sorry but you cannot "shut the stock market for 10 years", because you can't afford to.

In other words, you cannot adopt the value approach, buying stocks below intrinsic value and waiting for the rest of the market to catch on, because before they do you might have a few bills to pay.

Let's face it, you do not have the risk profile of Warren Buffett and, because of that, you cannot invest on the same timeframe, which is a critical part of the value investment thesis. You have to be patient. Most of you can't afford to be.

There are only three ways to make money out of Warren Buffett - : 1) buy shares in Berkshire Hathaway; 2) write a book about him; or 3) use his name to market a product with the subtle implication he endorses it.

On that basis, Warren Buffett himself is hardly to blame for all this hoopla and if there is any blame at all it is ours, for skimming the surface of the biggest investment success story in the world.

There is no Warren Buffett Way for other investors, there is just picking stocks that go up in price and to do that you would be well advised to rely on yourself, just you, with your understanding, your time horizons, your risk profile and your expectations. Not Warren Buffett's. Forget Warren. You are not Warren. You are you; rely on that or as close as you're going to come to Warren Buffett living in the same crappy house and driving the same crappy car for the rest of your life.

Marcus Padley is the author of the stock market newsletter Marcus Today. For a free trial go to marcustoday.com.au.