Monday, September 18, 2023

A memorable speech by Charlie Munger on How to Guarantee a Life of Misery

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Inspirational speeches (like commencement addresses) typically tell us how to be successful or happy. But on June 3, 1986 Charlie Munger, the Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, instead gave a 2012 word speech titled How to Guarantee a Life of Misery. You can read a full transcript on James Clear’s web site. Assuming a speech rate of 125 words per minute, his speech would have a TED Talk length of 16 minutes.

 

There is an article by Polina Pompliano at The Profile on May 27, 2020 titled The Profile Dossier: Charlie Munger, the Master of Mental Models. It discusses his use of inversion – flipping things over. Also, there is another article by Christopher Dwyer at Psychology Today on July 27, 2023 titled Could inversion improve your decision-making?

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On January 12, 2014 I published a blog post titled Don’t just get on the bandwagon! Find your own speech topic and approach. The third approach I listed was to Flip Things Over. As an example, I referred to a post on June 24, 2008 titled Don’t be a “Flip Chart Charlie” – where instead of a How-To, I described How-Not-To.

 

The miserable cartoon was adapted from here at Openclipart.  

 


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