Get smart - Avoid standard stupidities
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I tried too hard to be clever when I was young. If I could turn back time I’d focus more on not being stupid. But I’m not Cher. So I’ll do the next best thing: Learn from my mistakes and avoid remaking them over the next 41 years.
Charlie Munger is one of the smartest people in the world. But he uses his intellect to focus on the simple idea of figuring out what he calls the “standard stupidities” and avoiding them.
“I actually collect them! Some people collect stamps. I collect insanities and absurdities. And then I avoid them, and it's amazing how well it works."
Practical examples of the standard stupidities I’m trying to avoid these days would be eating or drinking sugar, going to bed late and making credit card debt.
All this cleverness of not being clever and instead doing the opposite is an example of something called inversion. Inversion is just a fancy word for addressing problems backward.
By using inversion I’m building on what Charlie Munger has already figured out. He in turn built on what people like Jacobi had figured out. The great Algebra pioneer knew that many problems are so hard it’s best to solve them in reverse.
“In life, unless you’re more gifted than Einstein, inversion will help you solve problems.” - Charlie Munger
“I actually collect them! Some people collect stamps. I collect insanities and absurdities. And then I avoid them, and it's amazing how well it works."
Practical examples of the standard stupidities I’m trying to avoid these days would be eating or drinking sugar, going to bed late and making credit card debt.
All this cleverness of not being clever and instead doing the opposite is an example of something called inversion. Inversion is just a fancy word for addressing problems backward.
By using inversion I’m building on what Charlie Munger has already figured out. He in turn built on what people like Jacobi had figured out. The great Algebra pioneer knew that many problems are so hard it’s best to solve them in reverse.
“In life, unless you’re more gifted than Einstein, inversion will help you solve problems.” - Charlie Munger