We all have something to learn from Charlie Munger’s wisdom
About two weeks ago I re-watched one of my favorite commencement speeches of all time, Charlie Munger’s USC Law commencement speech on May 2007.
You can watch it here:
I looked for a full transcript and couldn’t find one so I spent hours that day writing this speech and now you can conveniently find it here: http://genius.com/Charlie-munger-usc-law-commencement-speech-annotated
TL:DR? That’s ok. But I do believe it is worth re-emphasizing his lessons as I feel many people could benefit from these. So here are some of my favorite quotes:
1.“The safest way to try and get what you want, is to try and deserve what you want”
2. “There is no love that’s so right as admiration based love”
3. “Wisdom acquisition is a moral duty”
(Munger talks about his admiration for Confucius. He says you will not get very far in life based on what you already know. He adds that Berkshire Hathaway would have never gotten from one decade to another based on the same skills that made them successful in the past and they constantly had to evolve. In his own words “without Warren Buffet being a learning machine, a continuous learning machine, the record would have been absolutely impossible”. He also says “if you take Warren Buffett and watched him with a time clock, I would say half of all the time he spends is sitting on his ass and reading. And a big chunk of the rest of the time is spent talking one on one either on the telephone or personally with highly gifted people whom he trusts and who trust him.” So keep oooon reading!)
4.“Learn all the big ideas and all the big disciplines”
5.“Problems frequently get easier and I would even say usually are easier to solve if you turn around in reverse”
6. “Avoid extremely intense ideology because it cabbages up one’s mind”
7. “Don’t think you’re entitled to do whatever you want to do.”
8. “You do not want to drift into self-pity”
9. “You want to appeal to interest, you want to do it of lofty motives, but you should not avoid appealing to interest”
10. “You don’t want to be in a perverse incentive system that’s causing you to behave more and more foolishly or worse and worse”
11. “Perverse associations, also to be avoided”
12. “Objectivity maintenance routines are totally required in life if you’re going to be a correct thinker”
13. “Non-egality would work better in the parts of the world I wanted to inhabit”
14. “An intense interest in the subject is indispensable if you are really going to excel”
15.“Have a lot of assiduity. I like that word because it means sit down on your ass until you do it”
16. “Every mischance in life is an opportunity to behave well, every mischance in life is an opportunity to learn something and your duty is not to be submerged into self-pity but to utilize the terrible blow in a constructive fashion”
17. “Go all for prudence as well as opportunism”
18. “In your own life what you want is a seamless web of deserved trust”
Finally, he ends his speech with words from the Old Valiant-for-Truth in the Pilgrim’s Progress;
“My sword I leave to him who can wear it.”
Thank you Mr Munger.
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