Charlie Munger 99 Years Of Wisdom In One Speech about Life | DJ 2017 【C:C.M Ep.268】

 

[Transcript]

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I was curious if the world changes a lot during my lifetime, by the time I’m closer to your age, what do you think will not change about what makes a good successful business?

 

CHARLIE MUNGER: What will not change is that it won’t be that damned easy.

 

There will be lots of people will die that you love. You’ll have close breaks where it goes against you. There’s a lot of trouble that’s sure to come. And at the end you’ll know that it’s all over, and that’s the game.

 

It’s a very funny game when you know when you start you have to lose. See a dog doesn’t have to do that. (Laughter)

 

We know from the start we can’t win. (Somebody) said the law of thermodynamics ought to be restated. You can’t win, you must lose and you can’t get out of the game.

So we all face this ultimate difficultly. But once you’ve accepted the limitations, you’ve got the problem how to get through your allot and expand reasonably well. And I don’t think that’s that hard to figure out.

 

Because if you do pretty well, considering what you started with and so forth. And you stand at the end and you’ve done credibly, you’ve helped other people who needed help because you had the capacity and intelligence to do it, and so on, and so on. Set a reasonable example. It’s a pretty good thing to do and it’s quite interesting. And the difficulties make it interesting.

 

And something else happens that is really weird. We were talking about, in our director’s meeting that proceeded this meeting, you always get glitches in something as complicated as a new software program going into a big new area. And you suddenly have reverses and troubles and you’re scrambling.

 

And what I said is, that I’ve noticed in a long lifetime that the people who really love you, are the people where you scramble together with difficulty and you’ve jointly gotten through. And in the end, those people will love you more than somebody whose just shared in an even prosperity through the whole thing. So this adversity that seems so awful when you’re scrambling through it, actually is the sinew of your success, your affection, every other damn thing.

 

And if you didn’t have the adversity you wouldn’t have the bonds which are so useful in life that are going to come from handling adversity well. The idea that life is a series of adversities and each one is an opportunity to behave well instead of badly is a very, very, good idea.

 

And I certainly recommend it to everybody in the room. And it works so well in old age because you get so many adversities you can’t fix. So you better have some technique for welcoming those adversities.

 

(Source: https://youtu.be/BLctqhNClqY)

 

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