Reading through Mr. Munger’s comments from the 2014/2015 Annual Meetings from the Daily Journal, it is very simple to find knowledge gems, which makes hand-picking them very tough. I have decided to start with the most basic ideas and build up from there to more deeply understand Charlie’s comments.
On having genuine interest in what we do:
“I have never succeeded very much in anything in which I was not very interested. If you can’t find something, I don’t think you’ll succeed very much, even if you’re fairly smart. I think that having this deep interest in something is part of the game. If your only interest is Chinese calligraphy I think that’s what you’re going to have to do. I don’t see how you can succeed in astrophysics if you’re only interested in calligraphy.”
Comments: This connects to a point that Steve Jobs mentioned: “You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.”
Many investors are drawn into the investing game because of the wrong reasons, such as flash, expensive cars and other things. If we look at successful, long-term investors, we will find that they are driven by the intellectual challenge that investing poses, with wealth being an effect of that passion, not the other way around.
Passion, wherever we find it, is what truly will fulfill our lives, not money or recognition.
On the power of concentration:
“I have the kind of mind that when I want to read something I can tune everything else out. The people aren’t even present. In fact, I frequently sit in a room and converse with dead people while the living people around me are irritated, so I don’t think you should try my methods. It’s a miracle they work for me.
Comments: In Poor Charlie’s Almanack, several people discuss the capability that Munger has of just being absorbed by his thoughts or his reading, in spite of several distractions coming out at him. In that way, he is able to think through many things, which, as Buffett says, is something that people rarely do nowadays: stop and think things through.
On how to be productive and achieve more:
“I think people who multitask pay a huge price. They think they’re being extra productive, and I think when you multitask so much you don’t have time to think about anything deeply, you are giving the world an advantage you shouldn’t do, and practically everybody is drifting into that mistake. Concentrating hard on something that’s important, I can’t succeed at all without doing it. I did not succeed in life by intelligence. I succeeded because I have a long attention span.”
Comments: In the business world of today, it seems that the more you can do, the better. However, without thinking things very deeply, we can only get so far. In the investing game, it is not about how many things you can go over at the same time, but rather the amount of quality work you can put in that can actually generate alpha. This obviously takes time and requires time to think things deeply.
What are your thoughts on Charlie’s comments?
