Wisdom by Charlie Munger

Wisdom from Poor Charlie’s Almanack by Charlie Munger.

• “Mimicking the herd invited regression to the mean.” If you do the same things as all the others, you cannot expect different results. Common plagues privately and professionally are status anxiety, social proof tendency, and the keeping-up-with-the-Joneses syndrome – doing what we can to be like the rest. It is not until you stop doing this, and instead find a unique way for yourself, that you will see other results. Stop caring so much about what others think. Really.

• “Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than when you woke up.” This goes back to the compound effect – if you advance as little as 1% in an area each day, you have improved dramatically in just a few years. This applies to everything.

• “But if you try to succeed in what you’re worst at, you’re going to have a very lousy career.” This is a typical disease that hits us when we are children and go to school. All children have different strengths that could be developed a lot if nurtured correctly. But all too often we are expected to shine in everything from math to sports and lyrics. Yes, a solid foundation in all subjects is good, but this idea of trying to even everything out can hurt your development as an adult. Therefore, find out what your true strengths are and then nourish them. Spend your time and energy going as far as you can thanks to your strengths, instead of evening out your weaker areas.

• “It’s not bringing in the new ideas that’s so hard. It’s getting rid of the old ones.” This is a quote from Keynes and it still rings true. Just look at most of the change management writing – it nearly always focuses on how to bring new things to the table and have people accept them. But where are all the ideas and methods to help people get rid of old ways of working and understanding the world?

• The Tolstoy effect: People will forever blame their upbringing, parents, schooling, spouses, you name it, for their bad luck and misfortune. It has been proven over and over and is especially true today where there are ample chances to lead a good life, that your goals and determination can become much stronger than your previous life. Self-pity is a very sad mental state, and we should change it to something a lot better.