This is Baozitang The first time I met you 3364 days Good article sharing To get something you want, is the most reliable The best way is to make yourself worthy of it Author: Charlie Munger, Contemporary Thinker in the investment community and Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway. The company has created a compound growth rate of 19.2% in 51 years, which is a miracle.
Source: Charlie Munger at the University of Southern California Law Graduation Ceremony in 2007 Speech
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On November 28, Berkshire Hathaway issued a statement on its subsidiary Business Wire website that Warren Buffett's "golden partner" Charlie Munger passed away. , died at the age of 99. Buffett said in a statement: "Without Charlie Munger's inspiration, wisdom and participation, Berkshire Hathaway would not be able to develop to its current position."
Munger has a "walking encyclopedia" With titles such as "the brain trust behind the scenes" and "the last secret weapon", the following is Munger's speech at the University of Southern California in 2007. Although the language is simple, every sentence contains deep wisdom. In memory of a wise man.
Many of you must find it strange that you can still come to speak at such an old age (audience laughing). Well, the answer is obvious: He's not dead yet (audience laughing). Why invite this person to speak? I don't know, I hope the school's development department has nothing to do with it.
Anyway, I thought it was appropriate for me to come here to speak because I saw a row of older (parents) audience members in the back who were not wearing academic gowns. I have raised many children myself, and I know that they really are more honored than the students sitting in front of them in their degree gowns. Parents put a lot of effort into their children and pass on their wisdom and values to their children, and they should always be respected.
I am also very happy to see many Asian faces on my left. I have always admired Confucius in my life. I like Confucius's thoughts on "filial piety". He believes that filial piety is both innate and requires education and should be represented. Passed down from generation to generation. Please don't underestimate these ideas, please note how quickly the status of Asians in American society is rising. I think these ideas are important.
Okay, I have written down several key points of today’s speech. Now I will introduce the principles and attitudes that are most useful to me. I don’t think they’re perfect for everyone, but I think a lot of them have universal value and a lot of them are “tried and true” truths.
1. The most reliable way to get something you want is to make yourself worthy of it.
What important principles helped me? I was very lucky to understand this at a very young age: it's a very simple truth, the golden rule. You must learn to do to others what you do not want others to do to you. In my opinion, whether it is for lawyers or others, this is the spirit they should have most. Generally speaking, people with this spirit can win many things in life. They win not only money and reputation, but also respect and deserve the trust of those who deal with them. It is very happy to win the trust of others.
Sometimes you will find that some outright villains died rich and famous, but most people around them thought they deserved their death. If the church is full of funeral-goers, most of them are there to celebrate that the kid is finally dead. This reminds me of a story - one such bastard died, and the priest said: "Is anyone willing to stand up and say something nice to the deceased?" No one came forward, and no one came forward for a long time, and finally someone came forward. One guy came forward and he said, "Well, his brother was worse." (audience laughing).This is not the outcome you want. A life that ends with a funeral like this is not the life you want.
2. Correct love should be based on admiration
The second truth that I have understood since I was very young is that correct love should be based on admiration, and we should love those sages who have educational significance for us. I understand this and have practiced it my entire life. The love described by Somerset Maugham in his novel "The Bonds of Humanity" is a kind of sick love. It is a disease. If you find that you have this disease, you should get rid of it as soon as possible. Cure.
3. Gaining wisdom is a moral responsibility
Another truth - this truth may remind you of Confucius - gaining wisdom is a moral responsibility, and it is not just to make your life better. There is a related truth that is very important, that is, you must persist in lifelong learning. Without lifelong learning, you will not achieve high levels of success. You won't get far in life just relying on the knowledge you already have. After you leave here, you have to continue learning so that you can go further in life.
Take the world's most respected company, Berkshire Hathaway, whose long-term performance of large investments may be the best in human history. The methods that made Berkshire make a lot of money in one decade may not work as well in the next decade, so Warren Buffett has to become a continuous learning machine. Lower levels of life also have the same requirements. I keep seeing some people getting better and better in life. They are not the smartest, or even the most diligent, but they are learning machines. They sleep better every night than they did that day. Be a little smarter in the morning. Children, this habit will serve you well, especially now that you have a long way to go.
Alfred North Whitehead once said something very correct. He said that only when humans "invent the method of invention" can human society develop rapidly. He was referring to the huge growth in GDP per capita and many other good things that we take for granted today. Human society only experienced great development a few hundred years ago. Before that, development in each century was almost zero. Human society can only develop after inventing methods. In the same way, you can only progress after learning how to learn.
▲Alfred North Whitehead
I am very lucky. I learned how to study before I went to law school. Throughout my long life, nothing has helped me more than continuous learning. Take Warren Buffett again. If you watch him with a timer, you will find that he spends half of his waking time reading. He spent much of the rest of his time talking one-on-one, sometimes on the phone, sometimes in person, with some very talented people, people he trusted and believed in him. If you look closely, Warren looks like a pedant, even though he was very successful in his worldly life.
There is a lot of great value in academia. I encountered an example not long ago. I was the chairman of the board of directors of a hospital, and at work I came into contact with a medical researcher named Joseph Mira. This dear friend is a doctor of medicine. After years of research, he has become the most proficient person in the world in the pathology of bone tumors. He wants to spread this knowledge and improve the effectiveness of bone cancer treatments. How did he do it? Well, he decided to write a textbook, and although I think such a textbook would only sell a few thousand copies at most, cancer treatment centers around the world bought it. He took a year off, got all the X-rays into the computer, carefully saved and arranged them, and worked 17 hours a day, seven days a week, for a full year. This can be considered a vacation. By the end of his vacation, he had written one of the two best textbooks on the pathology of bone cancer in the world. If your value is similar to Mira, you can achieve as much success as you want.
Another truth that is very useful to me is what I learned in law school. At that time, a professor who loved to joke said: "What is a legal mind? If two things are intertwined and have an impact on each other, and you try to only consider one of them and completely ignore the other, that kind of thinking is A mind whose methods are both practical and feasible is a legal mind." I knew he was speaking ironically, and the "legal" method he was talking about was ridiculous. This was a great inspiration to me because it motivated me to learn all the important truths in various subjects so that I would not become the idiot that the professor portrayed me to be. Because the really important principles account for 95% of each subject, it is not difficult for me to absorb 95% of the knowledge I need from all subjects and make them part of my thinking habits. things. Of course, after mastering these principles, you must use them through practice. It's like a piano player, if you don't practice consistently, you can't play well. So I continue to practice that interdisciplinary approach throughout my life.
This habit has helped me a lot. It has made life more interesting, allowed me to do more things, made me more constructive, and made me very rich, which cannot be explained by talent. . My mental habits are really helpful when practiced correctly. But this habit can also be dangerous, because it's so useful, if you use it, when you're with an expert in another subject - perhaps even your boss - who can easily hurt you. , you will often find that you have richer knowledge than him and are better able to solve the problems he encounters. When he is at a loss, you sometimes know the correct answer. It is very dangerous to encounter such a situation. If your correctness makes people with status and status feel embarrassed, it may lead to great revenge. I have yet to find a perfect way to avoid getting hurt by this serious problem.
Even though I was pretty good at poker when I was younger, I wasn't very good at hiding my thoughts when I thought I knew more than my superiors, and I wasn't very careful about trying to hide my thoughts, so I was always offended. people. Nowadays people usually think of me as a crotchety old man with no ill intentions who is dying, but once upon a time, I had a hard time. I suggest you don't learn from me, it's better to learn to hide your wisdom.
▲Young Munger
I have a colleague who graduated at the top of his class from law school. He once worked on the U.S. Supreme Court and was a lawyer when he was young. At that time, he always showed that he was well-informed. look. One day, the senior partner above him called him into the office and said, "Listen, Chuck, I'm going to explain something to you. Your job and responsibility is to make the client think he is the smartest person in the room." person. If you have any extra energy after completing this task, you should use it to make your senior partner appear to be the second smartest person in the room. Only after fulfilling these two obligations should you Express yourself." Well, that's a good way to move up the corporate ladder at a big law firm, but I didn't do that. I usually act spontaneously. If someone doesn't like my style, that's fine. I don't need everyone to like me.
I would like to further explain why one must have an interdisciplinary mindset in order to live efficiently and maturely.
Here I would like to quote an important thought from Marcus Tullus Cicero, the greatest lawyer of antiquity. Cicero famously said that if a person does not know what happened before he was born, he will live like an ignorant child. This is very true, and Cicero rightly laughed at those who were so stupid that they knew nothing about history. But if you extrapolate what Cicero said - and I think you should - there is much more than history that one must know. The so-called many things are important ideas in all disciplines.But if you memorize a piece of knowledge so that you can do well on a test, that knowledge won't be of much help to you. You must master a lot of knowledge, let it form a thinking framework in your mind, and be able to use it automatically in the following days. If you can do this, I solemnly promise you that one day you will realize without knowing it: "I have become one of the most effective people among my peers." By contrast, without the effort to practice this interdisciplinary approach, many of your brightest minds will achieve only moderate success or even live in the shadows.
Another truth I discovered is contained in the story Dean McCaffrey just told, in which the country man said: "If only I knew where I was going to die, I would never go there." Although what this countryman said sounds ridiculous, it contains a profound truth. As with complex adaptive systems and the human brain, problems often become easier to solve if you think backwards. If you think about the problem in reverse, you can usually think more clearly.
For example, if you want to help India, the question you should be thinking about is not "How can I help India?" Instead, you should ask: "How can I hurt India?" You should find the way to do the most harm to India. thing and then avoid doing it. Perhaps logically the two methods are the same, but those who are proficient in algebra know that if the problem is difficult to solve, it can often be solved by using reverse proof. The situation in life is just like algebra. Reverse thinking can help you solve problems that cannot be solved by forward thinking.
Let me use a little reverse thinking now. What causes us to fail in life? What should we avoid? Some answers are simple, for example, laziness and bad faith set us up for failure in life. If you do not keep your word, no matter how many advantages you have, you will not be able to avoid a tragic end. So you should develop the habit of keeping your word. Laziness and dishonesty are obviously things to be avoided.
Another thing to avoid is extreme ideology, because it can make people lose their minds.
You see a lot of very bad religious preachers on TV. They hold different, strong, inconsistent theological views on the minutiae of theology, but they are also very stubborn. I think many of them have brains that are already broken. Shrunk into a cabbage (audience laughing). The same is true for political ideologies. Young people are particularly vulnerable to falling into strong and foolish ideologies and never getting out of them. When you declare that you are a loyal member of a cult-like group and begin to promote that group's orthodox ideology, all you do is feed that ideology into your own head. Then your mind will break, sometimes at an alarming rate. So you have to be very careful about strong ideologies, which are extremely dangerous to your precious minds.
Whenever I feel that I am in danger of falling into some strong ideology, I remind myself of the following example: some Scandinavian canoes conquered all of Scandinavia They thought they could successfully conquer the maelstroms of North America in canoes, but the mortality rate was 100%. Maelstroms are something you should avoid, as are strong ideologies, especially if your companions are all devout believers.
I have an “iron rule” that helps me stay sane when I tend to espouse a strong ideology. I feel like I'm not entitled to have a point of view unless I can counter my position better than my opponent. I think I am qualified to express an opinion only when I have reached this point.
Dean Acheson (Dean Acheson, 1893-1971, a famous American politician and lawyer who played an important role in formulating U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War - Translator's Note) has an "iron rule" "It comes from William the Silent of Orange (1533-1584, who led the Dutch to resist Spanish rule in the Dutch War of Independence, and is revered as the founding father of the Netherlands - Translator's Note). In a sentence, the meaning of that sentence is probably "you don't have to have hope to persevere." As extreme as this "iron rule" sounds, it's probably too hard for most people, but I hope it never gets too hard for me. My method of avoiding falling into strong ideologies is actually easier than Dean Acheson’s “Iron Rule” and worth learning. This method of not falling into extreme ideologies is very, very important in life. If you want to be a wise person, serious ideologies are likely to backfire.
There is a psychological factor called "self-serving preference" that often leads people to do stupid things. It is often subconscious and everyone is inevitably affected by it. You think "self" is qualified to do what it wants to do, for example, overdraw its income to meet its needs. What's wrong with that? Well, there once was a man who was the most famous composer in the world, but he lived a very miserable life most of the time, and one of the reasons was that he always overspent his income. That composer's name was Mozart. Even Mozart couldn't escape the poison of this stupidity, and I don't think you should try it (audience laughing).
In general, envy, resentment, hatred, and self-pity are disastrous states of mind.
Excessive self-pity can make people almost paranoid. Paranoia is one of the most difficult things to reverse. Don't fall into the mood of self-pity. I have a friend who carries around a thick stack of cards. Whenever someone says something self-pitying, he will slowly and exaggeratedly take out the stack of cards and hand the top one to the speaker. . The card said, "I am so touched by your story. I have never heard of anyone as unlucky as you." You may think this is a joke, but I think it is mental health. Whenever you find yourself feeling self-pity, for whatever reason, even if your child is dying of cancer, remember that self-pity is not going to help. At such times, you should give yourself a card from my friend. Self-pity always has negative consequences and is the wrong way to think. If you can avoid it, you'll be at a far greater advantage than anyone else, or almost everyone else, because self-pity is a standard response. You can train your way out of it.
Of course you must also eliminate self-serving preferences in your own thinking habits. Don’t think that what is good for you is good for the entire society, and don’t use this self-centered subconscious tendency to justify your stupid or evil behavior. That's a terrible way to think. You have to free yourself from this mentality, because you want to be wise rather than fools, and you want to be good people rather than bad guys. You must allow others to have self-serving preferences in your cognitive actions, because most people are not very successful at clearing this mentality, that's just human nature. If you cannot tolerate self-serving preferences in others' actions, then you are fools.
The legal counsel of Salomon Brothers was once a student editor of the Harvard Law Review. He was a smart and noble man, but I saw with my own eyes that he ruined his own future. The capable CEO said that one of his subordinates had done something wrong, and the general counsel said, “Well, we don’t have a legal responsibility to report that, but I think that’s what we should do, and that’s our moral responsibility. "Legally and ethically, the general counsel was right, but his approach was wrong. He suggested that the busy CEO do an unpleasant thing, but the CEO always put it off again and again because he was very busy. It is completely understandable that he did not mean to make a mistake.Later, the competent authorities blamed them for not reporting the situation in time, so the CEO and general counsel were finished.
The correct persuasion technique in this situation is the one noted by Benjamin Franklin, who said, "If you wish to persuade, appeal to interest rather than to reason."
Human beings' self-serving preferences are Extremely powerful and should be used to obtain correct results. So the general counsel should say, "Hey, if this continues, it's going to destroy you. It's going to ruin your reputation and your family. My advice is going to save you from the point of no return." It's going to work. . You should appeal more to profit than reason, even when your motives are noble.
Another thing that should be avoided is being driven by perverted incentives. You should not be in a perverted incentive system that provides greater rewards the more stupid or bad you behave. Perverted incentive systems have a powerful power to control human behavior, and people should avoid being affected by it. You will find in the future that some law firms, at least a few modern law firms, have extremely long working hours. I wouldn't be able to live if I had to work 2,400 hours a year. It would cause me a lot of problems and I wouldn't accept that. I have no way of dealing with the situation that some of you will face, and you will have to figure out how to deal with these important issues on your own.
Abnormal working relationships should also be avoided. You should especially avoid working under someone you do not respect or do not want to be like him. That is very dangerous. All of us are controlled to some extent by authority figures, especially those who provide us with rewards. To properly deal with this danger requires both talent and determination.
When I was young, my approach was to find someone I respected, and then find a way to be transferred to him, but don't criticize anyone, so I could usually work under a good leader. Many law firms allow this, as long as you're smart enough to do it properly. In short, what you achieve in life will be more satisfying when you work for someone you rightly admire.
Developing some habits that allow you to remain objective and impartial is of course very helpful for cognition. We all remember that Darwin paid special attention to contrary evidence, especially when he was falsifying a theory he believed in and loved. If you want to make as few mistakes as possible when thinking, you need to get into this habit. People also need to get into the habit of checking checklists, which can prevent many mistakes, not just for pilots. Rather than just mastering broad basics, you should make a mental list of them and then use them. There is no other way to achieve the same results.
Another truth that I think is very important is that maximizing inequality often works wonders. What does this sentence mean? John Wooden of UCLA provides a demonstrative example.
Wooden was once the best basketball coach in the world. He said to the five lower-level players: "You will not get playing time - you are a sparring partner." The game is almost exclusively played by the seven higher-level players. Well, these seven high-level players learned a lot more—let’s not forget the importance of a learning machine—because they had all the playing time to themselves. In his non-egalitarian approach, Wooden won more games than ever before. I think life is like a game and full of competition, and we need to get the best out of those who are most capable and willing to become learning machines. If you want to achieve very high levels of achievement, you have to become that person. You don't want to be randomly selected from a rotating roster of 50 surgeons to perform brain surgery on your child. You don't want your aircraft to be designed in an overly egalitarian way. Nor do you want your Berkshire Hathaway to be managed this way.You want to get your best players to play for a long time.
▲ John Wooden, the best coach of the 20th century
I often tell a joke about Max Planck. After Planck won the Nobel Prize, he gave lectures all over Germany. Each time he gave lectures, the content was more or less the same. They were all about new quantum physics theories. Over time, his driver memorized the lecture content. The driver said: "Professor Planck, it's quite boring for us to be like this all the time. Why don't we go to Munich and let me teach you? You wear my driver's hat and sit in the front row. What do you think?" Planck said: "Okay." So the driver walked up to the podium and gave a long speech on quantum physics. Then a physics professor stood up and asked a very difficult question. The speaker said: "Wow, I really didn't expect that I would encounter such a simple question in such an advanced city as Munich. I would like to ask my driver to answer it." (audience laughing)
Okay, let me tell this story Well, it's not to praise the protagonist for being smart. I think the knowledge in this world can be divided into two types: one is Planck knowledge, which belongs to the kind of people who really understand. They put in the effort and they have that ability. The other is driver knowledge. They have mastered the art of parroting; they may have beautiful hair; their voices are often beautiful; they make a lasting impression. But what they actually have is driver knowledge disguised as real knowledge. I think I just described virtually all the politicians in America (audience applause). If you go through life trying to be someone with Planck knowledge and avoid being someone with driver knowledge, you're going to run into this problem. There will be many huge forces against you at that time.
To some extent, my generation has failed you. We have left you with a mess. Now in the California Legislature, most of the members are fools from the left and fools from the right. There are more and more people like this. , and none of them can be invited away. This is what my generation does for you. But you don’t like tasks that are too easy, right?
Another thing I've discovered is that if you really want to be great at something, you have to have a strong interest in it. I can force myself to do many things reasonably well, but I can't do anything very well at something I don't have a strong interest in. In a way, you are similar to me. So if you have the opportunity, you should find ways to do things that you have a strong interest in.
Also, you must be very diligent. I like hardworking people very much. The partners I have met in my life have been extremely hard-working. I think I was able to partner with them partly because I tried to be worthy of them, partly because I chose them shrewdly, and partly because I was lucky. I had two partners in my early business who formed a joint venture to form an architectural design and construction company during the Great Depression, and they made a simple agreement. "This is a partnership of two," they said. "Everything is divided equally. If we don't fulfill our promise to the client, both of us will have to work 14 hours a day, seven days a week until it is completed." Needless to say, you also You know, this company is very successful. My two partners are widely respected. Their simple, old-school approach is almost certain to deliver a great result.
▲Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett
Another problem you have to deal with is that you may be hit hard and unfairly in your life. Some people make it through, some people don't.
I think Epictetus' attitude leads people to the right response. He believes that every misfortune in life, no matter how unlucky, is an opportunity to exercise. He sees every misfortune as an opportunity to learn a lesson. Rather than wallowing in self-pity, people should use every blow to improve themselves.His views were so correct that they influenced the greatest Roman emperor, Marcus Aurelius, and many others over the centuries. You may remember Epictetus's own epitaph: "Here lies Epictetus, a slave, crippled, extremely poor, favored by the gods." Well, now Epictetus This is how he is remembered: "Favoured by the gods." He was favored because he became a wise man, a man of integrity, and he educated others, both in his own time and in the centuries that followed. .
I have another reason to briefly explain. My grandfather Munger was the only federal judge in his city, a position he held for 40 years. I adore him. My name is the same as his. I am very filial to him, and I was thinking just now: "Judge Munger would be very happy to see me here." My grandfather has passed away many years ago, and I think it is my responsibility to take over the torch and convey his values. One of his values is that frugality is the servant of duty. When Grandpa Munger was a federal judge, the widows of federal judges did not receive pensions. So if he doesn't save the money he makes, my grandma will become a miserable widow. In addition, having extra money at home also allows him to better serve others. Because of the kind of person he was, he lived within his means throughout his life, leaving his widow a comfortable living environment.
▲Munger’s big family
But this is not the full effect of his frugality. While my grandfather was still alive - this was in the 1930s - my uncle's little bank failed and would not be able to reopen without outside help. My grandpa saved that bank by exchanging a third of his good assets for its bad assets. I always remember this. This incident reminds me of a short poem by A.E. Housman (Note: A.E. Housman, 1859-1936, British classical literature scholar and poet). The poem seems to be like this:
Others’ thoughts
are erratic
They think about trysts with their lovers
Want to be lucky or famous
I always think about trouble
My thoughts are stable
So when trouble comes
I will be ready
You will probably say: "Who will Do you expect trouble to come all day long in your life?" Actually, that's what I do. All my long life I have been expecting trouble. Now I am 84 years old. Like Epictetus, I too have a life of grace. I always expected trouble and was prepared to deal with it when it came, and that didn't make me unhappy. It doesn't do me any harm at all, in fact, it helps me a lot. So I'm going to teach you what Judge Hausman and Judge Munger taught you.
Because there are a lot of procedures and red tape in the industry you will be working in, the last thing I want to tell you is that complicated bureaucratic procedures are not the best system for a civilized society. A better system is a seamless, non-bureaucratic web of trust. There aren't too many fancy programs. Just a reliable group of people who have the right amount of trust in each other. That's how the operating room at Mayo Medical Center operates. If doctors there set up as many cumbersome rules as legal procedures like lawyers do, more patients will die. So when you become a lawyer, never forget that although you have to follow procedures in your work, you don't have to always be led by the procedures. What you should pursue in life is to cultivate as seamless a web of trust as possible. If the marriage agreement you draft is 47 pages long, then I suggest that it is better for you not to get married. (Audience laughs)
Okay, that’s enough for the graduation ceremony. I hope this old man nonsense is useful to you. Finally, I would like to end this speech with the only words that the swordsman of truth in "The Pilgrim's Progress" could say when he was old: "My sword is passed on to those who can wield it." (Applause from the audience)
