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 forward.
“Perhaps the two approaches seem logically the same thing,” Charlie observes. “But those who have mastered algebra know that inversion will often and easily solve problems that otherwise resist solution.
“And in life, just as in algebra, inversion will help us solve problems that we can’t otherwise handle.”
2: Getting better at getting better is what RiseWithDrew is all about. Monday through Thursday, we explore ideas from authors, thought leaders, and exemplary organizations. To end the week, I’ve been sharing some of Charlie’s wit and wisdom.
Inversion thinking is at the heart of one of Charli’s best-known quips: “All I want to know is where I’m going to die, so I’ll never go there.”
He advises us: “The way complex adaptive systems work, and the way mental constructs work, problems frequently become easier to solve through inversion. If we turn problems around into reverse, we often think better.”
Let’s say we’re playing bridge. The best players think about how to win and how not to lose: “What could possibly go wrong that could cause me to have too many losers?” they ask.
“Both methods of thinking are useful,” Charlie suggests. “Think it through forward and backward. What works in bridge will work in life.”
3: During a commencement speech at USC Law School in 2007, Charlie said: “Let me use a little inversion now. What will really fail in life? What do we want to avoid?” he asked the graduates.”Some answers are easy,” he observed. “For example, sloth and unreliability will fail.
“If you’re unreliable, it doesn’t matter what your virtues are, you’re going to crater immediately. So faithfully doing what you’ve engaged to do should be an automatic part of you conduct. Of course you want to avoid sloth and unreliability.”
Charlie referenced Benjamin Franklin, one of her personal heroes: “Much of Franklin’s success was due to the essential nature of the man—most especially his appetite for hard work, but also his insatiable curiosity and patient demeanor.”
One of Charlie’s suggestions to the graduating class that day was to “have a lot of assiduity. I like that word because, to me, it means “Sit down on your ass until you do it.”
Reflecting on those he had worked with through the years, he said: “I’ve had marvelous partners, full of assiduity, all my life. I think I got them partly because I tried to deserve them and, partly because I was shrewd enough to select them, and partly there was some luck.
“Two partners that I chose for one phase in my life made the following simple agreement when they created a little design-and-build construction team in the middle of the Great Depression,” Charlie recalled.
Their approach was: “Whenever we’re behind in our commitments to other people, we will both work 14 hours a day, seven days a week, until we’re caught up.”
Charlie’s take-away from that story: “Well, needless to say that firm didn’t fail, and my partners were widely admired. Simple, old-fashioned ideas like theirs are almost sure to provide a good outcome.”
More next week!
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Reflection: What negative patterns or pitfalls am I overlooking that, if avoided, could dramatically improve my outcomes?
Action: Apply inversion thinking to a current challenge by listing the top three ways I could fail. And then create a plan to avoid those mistakes.
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