Charlie Munger, Berkshire Hathway’s Vice Chairman and Warren Buffet’s partner gave a wonderful Law School Commencement address at the University of Southern California recently where he lays out his tenets of life. Here are five things he says that really resonated with me…
- Safest way to get what you want is to deserve what you want.
- To deserve what you want you need a lot of “assiduity”. And what’s assiduity? It’s the ability to sit down on your ass until you do it.
- In addition you need to practice continuous learning. People who rise in life are not the smartest, sometimes not even the most diligent, but those that are learning machines. They go to bed every night a little wiser than they were when they got up and boy does that help, particularly when you have a long run ahead of you.
- You must never allow yourself to drift into self-pity. It’s a ridiculous way to behave and when you avoid it, you get a great advantage over everybody else or almost everybody else because self-pity is a standard condition, and yet you can train yourself out of it.
- Finally go through life anticipating trouble. So when it comes you are prepared financially and mentally. It’s your duty to deal with a terrible blow in a constructive fashion.
Read the whole speech here. (Thanks Yuvraj for sharing).
[My earlier post on Passion, Happiness, Work, Play and Life may also be of interest to you.]
Update: Sadagopan has a nice post on this as well.
That’s a great talk by Charlie, Sharad.
Thanks for sharing it!
- Vasudev
Biz site: http://www.dancingbison.com
Blog on software innovation: http://jugad.livejournal.com
Sharad,
Thank you for writing about this. Love the full speech, and you condensed it very well - enough to get me to read the whole thing.
Now, the hard part. Living it.
Sharad
You have summarised it real well. Thks for doing that. I had read the full text (several times!) earlier on but reading it here drove home the point for me that in all its simplicity, its damn true what he says (guess you dont get to be a billionaire without some insight).
Did you get a chance to read his partner’s (W Buffet’s) annual letter to Berkshire’s shareholders?
KB
The people who know their strengths and weaknesses are ready to take feedback and work on the feedback. They are realistic and have the ‘assiduity’ to work on their weaknesses. Where leadership becomes challenging is working with people who do not have that receptivity in their brains. I do not know if that receptivity comes hardwired or people learn that over time. It would be interesting to understand what one can do ‘to make your team members or friends or even family friends, understand what they deserve
Sharad, thanks for posting this!
There’re enough and more gurus of all types (saffron and ash laden to designer suit wearing) who have said and will keep chanting these terrific mantras for “success” and more. Am sure each of us has read at least 10 similar inspiring speeches/assertions from various people. But what of the impact? How many of us have been dramatically impacted by what we’ve read and actually changed the way we think/work/supervise etc.? How many management seminars and corporate outdoor activities have we participated in with little to show for it? We discuss the event at cocktail parties and move on with the next transaction.
What I believe however is that great people (i.e. the ones who do the stuff and make things happen) have their own internal discipline, focus, humility, confidence, self-belief, and learnability. Interestingly, these are traits that are in common with the way good entrepreneurs behave as well! It is things such as these that cannot be “taught/learnt” in the traditional sense of “teaching/learning”. Else, by now all of us would be amazingly evolved life forms which we clearly aren’t.
Perhaps the time has therefore come for the guru-shishya style of teaching/learning paradigm in the corporate world. Perhaps the time has come for the next big management mantra/fad? Perhaps the media will pick it up and launch the next seminar series to popularise and trivialise it beyond redemption?!
What do you think?
A truly inspirational speech. The summary was precise and concise. This blog is a rare oasis of intellectual affirmations that is both lucid and powerful at the same time. All the posts make for such a delightful read.