Reality: Inversion, Always Inversion

2023.12.5 | #39

Happy Reality Day! Here is your weekly dose of reality to help you live 1% happier↓

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❤ 1 Insight From Me

“All I want to know is where I’m going to die so I’ll never go there.” – Charlie Munger

Last week, 99-year-old Charlie Munger passed away (in a hospital).

He and Buffett worked together to build the legendary investment company Berkshire Hathaway, and Buffett said “Berkshire was built in the mold of Charlie Munger.”

He has the most powerful “30-second brain” in the world and can see the essence of a problem in a few seconds.

He read countless books throughout his life and left behind a large amount of knowledge legacy, the most famous of which is his “mental models” across multiple disciplines.

Here is a very famous and one of his most valued thinking models: “Inversion“.

Charlie Munger’s inversion thinking means looking at the opposite side of a problem. The core is:

Instead of thinking about how to succeed, avoid the sure ways to fail.

“Avoiding stupidity is easier than seeking brilliance.”

He and Buffett’s investment philosophy is not to seek the highest investment return, but to avoid making fatal mistakes, go long-term, and let time bring returns. As a result, this simple philosophy brought an income of 20,000 times the initial investment, making Berkshire the most successful investment company in the world.

His philosophy of life is that instead of asking how to be happy, think about what are the sure ways that lead to unhappiness. He also made a special list called “Prescription For Misery”. If you are interested, you can check it out or ask me and let’s talk about it.

Inversion can be used in any aspect of life, large or small.

For example, losing weight. You can watch 100 hours of Andrew Huberman, calculate the calories of every meal, the protein of every day, the burn of every exercise, use various electronic devices to monitor various body indicators, and eat every bite of food with trepidation, living on tenterhooks every day. Or, you can think the opposite and ask yourself “What will definitely lead to fat?” The answer is to avoid these simple stuff: eat less oil, salt, and sugar, don’t stay up late, don’t eat late at night, and don’t sit all day. That’s it. Anyone who has successfully lost weight knows this is true.

Inversion, always inversion.

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❤ 1 Insight From Others

“I very frequently get the question: ‘What’s going to change in the next 10 years?’ I almost never get the question: ‘What’s not going to change in the next 10 years?’ And I submit to you that that second question is actually the more important of the two — because you can build a business strategy around the things that are stable in time.

― Bezos

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❤ 1 Small Step To Take

“Inversion”

Think of a problem you’ve been trying to solve recently and ask yourself:

What are the sure ways to fail?

PS: What does “mentally strong” mean?

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Until next week,

Ted Wild

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