I watched Charlie Munger’s 2007 Commencement Speech and took notes. Below is a personal summary.

Avoid:

  1. Ideology:
    Don’t argue for a position unless you can argue for the other side better than they can.

  2. The four horsemen: Self-pity, envy, resentment and revenge. Use misfortunewhen it comes. This is learnable behavior.

  3. Perverse incentives / associations: Don’t work for people / ideas you don’t admire.

Develop:

  1. Competence: The way to get what you want is to deserve it. The way to do that is to maintain intense interest and assiduity. Be the most competent trustworthy person and the world will open up. People appreciate a seamless web of deserved trust.

  2. Wisdom: Wisdom acquisition is moral. No learning, no going far. No learning, more suffering.

    So, learn how to learn, how to absorb and understand. It’s a personal practice. Importantly:

    i. Acquire Planck knowledge, not chauffeur knowledge. ii. Learn the big ideas of all disciplines. They carry most of the information. And practice them.

  3. Good Love: No love as right as admiration based love and it should include the instructive path.

  4. Inversion thinking: Not how do I fix it, how do I not ruin it?

  5. Self-objectivity: Get out of yourself. What’s good for you isn’t good for everyone and everyone is truly out to preserve themselves. Use it - appeal to others’ self interest not generally reason.

  6. Checklist routines.