Spiritual Bookshelf Episode 45: How to Build Financial Wisdom – Part 12

心靈書架 Spiritual Bookshelf スピリチュアルな 本棚 Spirituelles Bücherregal

Hey friends, how’s your week going?

Welcome back to our ongoing series on Poor Charlie’s Almanack. We’re still in Chapter 10, which is all about Charlie Munger’s common sense.

So today, let’s pick up with a few more lessons from Charlie.

5. Stay humble — Don’t show off your smarts

Munger once told a story about a colleague of his. This guy was brilliant. He graduated top of his law class, even worked at the U.S. Supreme Court. Early in his career, as a young lawyer, he liked to show everyone how knowledgeable he was.

One day, his senior partner pulled him aside and gave him some career-changing advice. He said:

“Chuck, listen carefully. Your job is to make the client believe he’s the smartest person in the room. And if you still have extra energy left, use it to make your senior partner feel like he’s the second-smartest person in the room. Only after you’ve done both of these jobs are you allowed to show how smart you are.”

Because here’s the deal: if all you ever do is memorize facts just to pass exams, that kind of knowledge won’t get you far. What matters is building a mental framework — a latticework of ideas — that your brain can use automatically in daily life.

6. Avoid extreme ideologies

Munger then talks about something a little quirky: reverse thinking.

There’s an old saying: “If I just knew where I was going to die, I’d make sure never to go there.” Silly, right? But actually, it contains a deep truth. When problems feel too complex, sometimes flipping them upside down makes them easier to solve.

Mathematicians often use this approach too. If a problem seems impossible, they try solving it backwards. Life works the same way.

So Munger asks: what leads to failure in life? Well, laziness does. Breaking promises does. He said, “If you’re unreliable, no matter how many talents you have, you’re going to end up miserable.” So build the habit of keeping your word.

Here’s the danger: once you declare yourself a loyal member of some group, and start stuffing your brain with only that ideology, your thinking starts to rot. And sometimes, it rots very quickly. You lose your ability to see clearly, and you fall into a simple black-and-white mindset: if someone disagrees with you, they must be wrong.

Munger has a rule that keeps him safe: before you claim a strong opinion, you should be able to argue the opposite side even better than its own supporters. If you can’t do that, you don’t understand the issue deeply enough to deserve your opinion.

7. Watch out for self-serving bias

Now let’s talk about one of the sneakiest mental traps: self-serving bias.

What does this mean? Simply this: when things go well, people say, “It’s because I’m smart, talented, hardworking.” But when things go badly, they blame the environment, the system, or other people.

The problem is: self-serving bias makes you overestimate yourself. It tricks you into thinking you deserve success simply because you’re you. And when failure happens, you shrug it off as bad luck — instead of learning from it.

Sure, the upside is that it protects your self-esteem and keeps your motivation alive. But the downside? You become blind to reality. You miss the real causes of failure. And sometimes, you make really dumb choices.

That’s the power of self-serving bias. It whispers, “You’re special. You deserve it. Don’t worry about tomorrow.” But tomorrow always comes.

And that brings us to the end of today’s episode.

Take care, and see you next time!