Charlie Munger's Life Advice Will Leave You SPEECHLESS | Collection: Charlie Munger #292
[Transcript]
BECKY QUICK
He says that he’s teaching the introduction of personal finance and the introduction of corporate finance to undergraduates at Indiana University in Bloomington. Most of the students are nonfinance majors, and this will likely be the only finance class that they take in college. What should he teach them, so that they have the foundations and common sense to effectively deal with their personal or corporate finance problems later in life?
CHARLIE MUNGER
Well, that’s a good question because it’s a big question.
And if you have good judgment, your life will work a lot better than if you have bad judgment. And you get good judgment gradually over time, partly by making bad judgments and having them work out poorly. So my counsel has always been to start trying to be better and keep doing — keep trying to improve all your life, and you got about half a chance. If you don’t do that, you got like no chance.
I used to say I could only teach what the other person almost knows. Then I can just throw him over of the brink when he’s hanging on the edge. But if the guy is not within miles of even starting, I never make any public. I never succeed. So in removing idiocy, I have a 100% failing talent. (Laughs) I’ve never succeeded.
BECKY QUICK
What would you push in that direction? If you’ve got a class full of finance students in college, maybe what are the — a few lessons…
CHARLIE MUNGER
I would teach the people who can learn, and the others who couldn’t keep up, the hell with them. What can’t be improved, can’t be improved. I just — I don’t believe in butting my head against the wall.
And that, by the way, that’s the way most education works. They just throw out those who can’t keep up. That’s the way academia works. That’s the reason it gets so good at the top.
I talked yesterday on Zoom with a law professor at a great place. My God, this is an admirable guy, and he’s just so God damn smart and balanced. Incredible. But he’s a very senior law teacher at one of the great law schools of the world. So I would expect him to be pretty good. but he was more than pretty good. He was awesome. And I thought, my God, academia is quite competitive.
By the time you get to the top, the professors at a good place, you find some very remarkable people. But there’s a limit to what they can accomplish. One of the reasons that they turn out such good people is they take in such good people. That’s their secret. They can’t fix the clods. Nobody can. There’s an old saying, "dumb is forever."
(Source: https://www.youtube.com/live/9VVPO3KWj3A?feature=share)
[YAPSS Takeaway]
"And if you have good judgment, your life will work a lot better than if you have bad judgment. And you get good judgment gradually over time, partly by making bad judgments and having them work out poorly. So my counsel has always been to start trying to be better and keep doing — keep trying to improve all your life, and you got about half a chance. If you don’t do that, you got like no chance." ~Charlie Munger
