Just because someone is rich does not imply that he is wise, or even knowledgeable or intelligent. They could have become wealthy by stealing or through other nefarious tactics such as most politicians and their cronies do. But extreme wealth in a well-functioning free market economy signals extreme capability.
Simply because someone is rich does not mean that you should heed their advice. The converse does not hold either. Wisdom and wealthy are not correlated.
We can learn a lot from the successful. But we have to be smart enough to heed their advice. This is so in the case of Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger. As genius investors in the market, they became wealthy. Charlie Munger was the more plain-spoken of the duo. Thousands of smart people have learned a lot from Charlie.
I have an affinity for Charlie Munger. He was the greatest fan of Costco, and I was the second biggest fan. After Charlie’s passing, I claim that now I’m the biggest fan of Costco.
I’d like to share a bit of Charlie’s wisdom, for the record.
Charlie was worldly wise. Listen:
“Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up. Discharge your duties faithfully and well. Systematically you get ahead, but not necessarily in fast spurts. Nevertheless, you build discipline by preparing for fast spurts. Slug it out one inch at a time, day by day. At the end of the day – if you live long enough – most people get what they deserve.”
The age-old advice to “first do no evil, then try to do good” maps on to consistently avoid being stupid. Charlie said,
“It is remarkable how much long-term advantage people like us have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent.”
In this brief excerpt from a recording, perhaps from a Berkshire Hathaway shareholders’ meeting in Omaha, Nebraska, Charlie says that the world is not motivated by greed but by envy.
Here’s a poster that summarizes Charlie’s wisdom: The Munger Fifty.
That’s it for now.
Now for a song. A version of the song “The Lonely Shepherd” is on the soundtrack of the movie Kill Bill. Here’s Einsamer Hirte on the trumpet.
Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.
