1: Getting better at getting better is what RiseWithDrew is all about.

Monday through Thursday, we explore ideas from authors, thought leaders, and exemplary organizations. 

At the end of the weeks to follow, we will begin an exploration of author Oliver Burkeman‘s Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts.

Perfectionism is something we all know something about. 

Perhaps we are … continue reading

1: Growing up, billionaire  Charlie Munger learned an important lesson from his father.

His dad was a lawyer.  “One of his best friends, Grant McFayden, Omaha’s Pioneer Ford dealer, was a client,”  Charlie writes in Poor Charlie’s Almanack.

“He was a perfectly marvelous man, a self-made Irishman who’d run away uneducated from a farm as a youth because his father beat him,” he notes.  “So he made his own … continue reading

1: Sometimes life is going to be hard,  Charlie Munger tells us.

“Another thing to cope with is that life is very likely to provide terrible blows, unfair blows,” he writes in Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charlie Munger.

“Some people recover and others don’t,” he observes.

So how should we deal with “life and its various passages [which] can be hard, brutally hard”?

Charlie … continue reading

1: Let’s say our goal is to help India. 

“The question we should consider asking is not ‘How can I help India?’ billionaire  Charlie Munger writes in Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charlie Munger.

“Instead, we should ask, ‘How can I hurt India?’ We find what will do the worst damage and then try to avoid it.”

This is the power of thinking backward and … continue reading

1: Billionaire Charlie Munger, the longtime vice chairman and “right-hand man” to Warren Buffett at  Berkshire Hathaway, was well known for his fiercely independent thinking.

He took pleasure in rejecting the “wisdom of the herd” and going his own way. Regardless of what others thought or what they might be doing.

Yet, equally important, although perhaps not as well known, was Charlie’s willingness to change his mind when … continue reading

1: Warren Buffett is one of the most successful investors in history. His company,  Berkshire Hathaway, is valued at more than $1 trillion.

His business partner and Vice Chairman  Charlie Munger describes what Warren tells business school students about his approach to investing: “I could improve your ultimate financial welfare by giving you a ticket with only 20 slots in it so that you had 20 punches, representing all … continue reading

“To a man with only a hammer, every problem tends to look pretty much like a nail.” -Proverb

1: B. F. Skinner was a renowned Harvard psychology professor. 

He “may have been the best-known psychology professor in the world,” Charlie Munger writes in  Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charlie Munger.

The reason for his reputation?  He proved that “incentives are superpowers” by conducting experiments using … continue reading

1: “I had a friend who carried a thick stack of linen-based cards,” Charlie Munger writes in Poor Charlie’s Almanack.  Before his death at 99 in 2023, Charlie was Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway and Warren Buffett‘s business partner.

“When somebody would make a comment that reflected self-pity, he would slowly and portentously pull out his huge stack of cards, take the top one, and hand it to … continue reading

1: Salomon Brothers CEO John Gutfreund was about to get fired.

The year was 1991. A major scandal had rocked the prestigious Wall Street investment bank.

And, it was all so unnecessary, Charlie Munger writes in Poor Charlie’s Almanack.

Charlie should know. He had a front-row seat to all the action as Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, then Salomon’s largest shareholder.

2: The scandal happened when Salomon’s traders submitted … continue reading

1: What happens when you make it easy for people to cheat?

Charlie Munger had a friend who owned a manufacturing business in Texas.

“He was in a low-margin, tough business,” Charlie writes in Poor Charlie’s Almanack.  Charlie, who died in 2023, was Warren Buffett‘s  business partner and the former Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, the first non-technology firm in the U.S. to reach a market capitalization … continue reading