Episode 36: 12 Amazing Charlie Munger quotes, Thoughts, Business & Life Resources That’ll Make You Healthy, Wealthy and Wise.

In Top Form Podcast

From The Charles Munger Series Part 1

www.InTopForm.TV

If you want to get your own copy of Poor Charlie’s Almanack: Expended Third Edition here’s the link.

http://amzn.to/2iIgtvX

It’s filled with amazing resources, articles and thoughts that can change your life and how you do business.

If you're also interested on more related thoughts and ideas about destroying your own outdated systems and ideas and creating new, better and more effective results try Ray Dalio’s new book Principles.

http://amzn.to/2iK6mqx

In today’s show we examine some central themes, resources and quotes that have given Warren Buffet’s partner his wealth and power and have clearly delivered a long and happy life:

1) Charlie Munger was a generalist and highly informed by the ideas of evolution and philosophy.

See Pat Flynn on generalism vs. specialization Chronicles of Strength Facebook group.

How does this help and apply to us?

2) Charlie Munger was a fan of becoming friends with the “eminent dead” and in particular how much you can learn from them, As such, he was a giant fan of biography and autobiography and learned much from Benjamin Franklin.

Franklin published Poor Richard’s Alamanack from 1733 to 1758.

How does this help/apply to us?

Who can you identify someone from the distant or recent past who was thoughtful and successful and how do you learn from them?

Additional Munger concepts and quotes that you can use from just the first few pages:

3) “…Do Work that provides for more value to others.”

How is this helpful/apply to us?

What happens when you focus on bringing more value to others? Can you increase margins and entity value?

4) Munger has an amazing Willingness to Change his mind and a willingness and eagerness to acknowledge and learn from his own mistakes.

“Warren and I are very good at destroying our own best loved ideas.”

Dave Frees refers to this in evolution as “killing the babies.” Dave notes that all species over reproduce offspring so that whatever happens in the environment (constant change) there will be some better adapted to survive. But in business we develop products, services, marketing etc. that we love and spend money and resources to keep alive but are not designed to survive in the current environment.

He also notes that he and Warren look at old ideas as less functional tools and he asks why, if you could have a better, newer tool would you not reject the old tool?

Cites John Kenneth Galbraith: “Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof.”

So how do you do that AND what happens when you do?

5) Munger has constant praise for old age and the idea that one should make growth and self- improvement a goal until death and cites Franklin “when you’re finished changing you’re finished.”

So how does this apply to or help us?

6) Biologist Julian Huxley “Life is just one damn relatedness after another,” Munger believe you must have the models to see the relatedness of many/all things and the effects from that relatedness.

Munger: You need a system of multiple mental models. Pat Flynn again on multidiscipline vs specialization and Dave and Somnath on multidisciplinary education and hiring in today’s environment of increasing rates of change.

“Simplicity is the end result of long, hard work, not the starting point.” Frederick Maitland

7) “The lollapalooza effect” Munger suggests having numerous mental models and notes that when multiple models are combined you get the lollapalooza effect that is when to use three or four for his forces are all operating in the same direction you get amazing results. It's often like a critical mass in physics when you get a nuclear explosion if you get to a certain point of critical mass and you don't get anything worth seeing if you don't reach that same mass.

Monger also observed that both he and Buffett left school only discover that there were multiple models at work and that these models created amazing results but that their professors and never told them about it that professors and use the same old approaches in a never considered more multidisciplinary view of the world. In the book he explains his multiple and unique models how to master them and cite specific examples of their application real-world analysis and decision-making

8) Munger on patience: Munger, like Warren Buffett, makes a very large bats and typically holds the position for a live very long time Charlie calls it sit on your ass investing insights into many benefits: quote your paying less to brokers, listing less nonsense, if it works the tax system gives you an extra 12 or three percentage point per atom." The importance he notes is the art of patience/the art of waiting without tiring of waiting.

Waiting also has application when you’re taking the time to evaluate the very best options and taking ONLY those options where success is most likely, and failure is possible but not likely.

How does this apply/help us and how can we use this idea?

Example: What if you had a ticket. And each time you made an investment it got punched and you could only make 20 investments in your life. Would you take more time to choose?

9) Munger on how and where he operates: “Move only when you have an advantage. It's very basic. After it understand the odds and have the discipline to bet only when the odds are in your favor. We just keep our heads down and handle the headwinds and tailwinds as best we can, and take the result after a period of years."

Quote if we have a strength, it's in recognizing when we are operating well within our circle of competence and when we are approaching the perimeter." Warren Buffett

Quote if you have competence pretty much know it's boundaries already. It asked the question of whether you are past the boundary is to answer it." M" I'm no genius. I'm smart in spots, and I stay around those spots." Thomas Watson Senior

So it sounds like they say they’re staying in a comfort zone and we say expand the comfort zone. Are those ideas in conflict or mutually exclusive?

10) Munger’s effect on Buffett:

“ Charlie shoved me in the direction of not just buying bargains, has Ben Graham had taught me. This was the real impact Charlie had on me. It took a powerful force to move me from Graham’s limiting views. It was the power of Charlie's mind. He expanded my horizons."

Warren Buffett this reflects Charlie Munger's three great lessons of investing: 1) “ A great business at a fair price to superior to a fair business at a great price. 2) A great business at a fair price is superior to a fair business and great price. And 3) A great business at a fair price is superior to a fair business at a great price."

Amazing Munger Questions:

If it’s cheap enough to buy is it cheap for a right reason or a wrong reason?

What’s the flip side?

What can go wrong with that and that I’ve never seen?

11) The force of Competitive destruction: Of the fifty most important stocks listed on the NYSE in 1911 only one remains in business today. So what do you do about that? And if so why and how do they invest for the long term.

How does that apply to us?

12) There are no perfect formulae: “You need a different checklists and a different mental model or multiple models for different companies. I can never make it easy by saying “Here are three things." you have to derive it yourself to ingrain in your head for the rest of your life."

How does this help/apply to us?

This applies to every sales funnel as well.

Who are we selling to? What are their unique worries, desires, needs, ways of deciding. You can have a system for doing it but you need to do it to customize every product, service and marketing process.

13) Charlie Munger’s Recommended Reading List

Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies - http://amzn.to/2icqLR0 (understanding how societies and systems grow, develop and die)

The Selfish Gene (Extended Edition) - http://amzn.to/2yc4mhG (outcompeting the competition)

Darwin’s Blind Spot - http://amzn.to/2iGhKDH (out co-operating the competition)