Charlie Munger: Life Lessons, Success, Principles and Mental Models from a Titan of Finance
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Many other millionaires have jumped off a building for less than what Charlie experienced.
constantly comparing yourself to other people is only going to magnify your insecurities and distract you from reaching your true potential.
We are submerged in a plethora of experiences that teach us valuable things. The worst you could do to yourself is not to learn from these stories.
From these experiences, it can be said that Charlie Munger did not take the straight and narrow road to success. His journey was full of turns at the very beginning.
When you become undependable and unreliable, your network becomes smaller. Fewer people trust you and you have to win their trust and complacency with you right from the start.
First among those things is the thirst for knowledge. In spite of dropping out of college, the young Charlie still pursued education to enrich his mind. Take note that it wasn’t the pursuit of the diploma,
Sadly, the procedure to deal with the cataract took an unexpected turn and ended up in Charlie losing the whole eye in the process. What people see when Charlie appears in public is a fake eye underneath his glasses.
Do not be afraid to look at what you already have and challenge it. That is the only way you can better yourself. Self-criticism is not an act of lunacy but an act of pride. Those that fail to scrutinize themselves and their work are doomed to make the same mistakes everyone else does. Chapter 6 The Psychology
Sticking to his guns, Warren used the company to venture into other businesses. This expansion helped keep Berkshire and Hathaway afloat while keeping its original business core at the center. However, as the years passed, Buffett closed down mill after mill as his other ventures expanded. In the year 1985, Warren closed down the last mill, thus declaring Berkshire and Hathaway a private holdings company instead of a textile mill.
These were the electromagnetic laws of Maxwell and the classic principles of Newton. The general trend among these scientists was to modify the younger laws of Maxwell in order to create harmony with the older and more accepted laws of Newton. Einstein put the principle of backwards thinking into practice. Instead of finding flaws in the younger framework of Maxwell, he tried modifying Newton’s laws to fit Maxwell’s. In that seemingly unorthodox approach, Einstein made the discovery that cemented his name in history; his theory of relativity. If it wasn’t for his unique approach, he wouldn’t have had the foresight to try something different.
The trick to being miserable is to stay in one place when adversity strikes. Ignore the need to rise to the occasion and overcome challenges. When we only focus on where we are and not on where we want to go, we successfully chain ourselves to our demise. To prove his point, Munger recalls the story of an old Greek favorite, Epictetus. He was known as one of the most sought-after philosophers during his time. Being born a slave, Epictetus lived a life of want, but never ran after it. He clung to his virtues despite his status in life. He was a strong proponent of stoicism during ancient Greek times and his philosophies became widely-adopted all over Rome.