Charlie Munger TRUQUES MENTAIS

but what caused the financial success was not extreme ability you know I have a good mind but I I'm way short of Prodigy and I've had results in life that are prodigious and that came from tricks I just learned a few basic tricks from people like my grandfather were those what kind of now everybody's leaning in wanting to know it's too late for you old [Laughter] guys yeah anyway the [Music] U there are all kinds of tricks that I just got into by accident in life one I invert all the time and when I I

was a weather forecaster when I was in the aircore and how did I handle my new assignment being a weather forecaster in the aircore is a lot like being a doctor that reads x-rays it's a pretty solitary you're in the hanger in the middle of the night and drawing weather maps and you're cing Pilots but you're not interfacing with a bunch of your fellow men very much and so I figured out the minute I was actually making weather forecasts for real Pilots I said how can I kill these Pilots now that's not the question that

most most people would ask but I wanted to know what the easiest way to kill them would be so I could avoid it and so I thought it through and reverse that way and I finally figured out I said there are only two ways I'm ever going to I was in the ferry command there only two ways I'm going to kill a pilot so I'm going to get him to icing his plane can't handle and that will kill him or I'm going to get him someplace he's going to run out of gas before he can

land because all the airports are sucked in and I just was ftic about avoiding those two hazards and if Kobe Bryant had had somebody like me he'd still be with us yeah it was so stupid to kill kill yourself that way and but just that basic I may have learned that from my grandfather my grandfather would say to when I'm swimming he'd say swim as long as you want but stay near the shore well but you can laugh but he was a very wise man exactly what I'm what I'm hearing you say is that you

as a discipline look at what the risk is on the other side of the situation and you avoid that that's one of the rules right well it's it's just it's it's like a a lot of practical problems in algebra if you invert you can solve it easily and if you don't it you can't solve it easily exctly right and so of course and I had that trick very early and and most people would say how can you please tell us what you do to save India to help India and of course I would approach it

differently I'd say what could I do which the most easily hurt India and approaching it in reverse that way I got better results you look at the vulnerabilities yeah yes and and I have a whole bag of tricks like that I went to the ROTC both in high school and college and the irtc taught me to fire mortar shells or artillery shells one shot over one shot short and then kapow well I never shot any damn shells but I've been using that metal trick all my life that's why how I determined what size to make

something over and under and kapow and so I just got a bag of tricks and I got the right bag of tricks early and of course it's been of enormous help to me let me give you an example I had a client once when I was a young lawyer and he owned a bunch of hilly Ranch Land on the edge of civilization not very far from here in Southern California and the Edison Company came through and they wanted a new easement through his land they already had some easements and he hired the leading appraiser in

Orange County real estate appraiser and said and he had the idea that he should have $250,000 for the easement from the Edison Company and this leading appraiser who was very pompous and very old and and uh very distinguished and he told her no I'm sorry it's only $125,000 value in your damn Ranch and so he came to me and said Charlie can you talk some sense into this elderly appraiser and so I looked at his problem and I totally impress but I thought how he's doing his own appraisal wrong I'm not a real estate appraiser

he is and what he had done is what he was taught to do in appraisal school he thought the problem through in two dimensions and he figured out from comparable sales what the value per acre was and he computed the acreage and he had something a little bit on the on the damage the easement would do to the remaining property and so but it was all done in two dimensions and I said to this appraiser you got to do this in three dimensions you know God gave us three dimensions and I said if they put

the utility Towers big transmission line Towers which is why they is going it's going to freeze the grade and The Logical way to all your land is to Lop off the top of the hills and put them in the valley that's the way Helly land is developed and they're doing enormous damage to you by freezing the grade and he said he wouldn't change a damn thing so I said to my elderly client I think you have to fire this twit and I will hire you an appraiser who can think and so I got him $600,000

which wasn't at all hard because I was dealing with a bunch of honest engineers at the Edison who did think in three dimensions but again that's so simple but you'd be surprised how many lawyers would screw that one up and and of course the people like that appraiser who didn't know his own business very well because he didn't pay attention to the fundamentals those people are always with us and if you just have the mental trick of constantly going back to the basics it's pretty basic Insight that are you conscious that the geometrical problem in

a real world is dimensional are you conscious of the rules or are they're just [Music] there well it's so habitual with yeah I understand that and I revolve possibilities and I rag problems hard and if they don't yield I come back and what what and and so this is just a bag of tricks and it enables a non- predus man to get prodigious results [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]