Key to Financial Success: Avoiding Stupidity
From: www.independenceadvisors.com
One of my heroes is Charlie Munger, Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway. While I admire his successful career, I’m more impressed with how he thinks about the world.
There are so many pearls of wisdom in each speech he gives or books written about him that it’s hard to choose a favorite. However, the one statement I always come back to is the following anecdote from a shareholder letter:
It is remarkable how much long-term advantage people like us have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent. There must be some wisdom in the folk saying, ‘It’s the strong swimmers who drown’.
While this concept can be applied to various walks of life, I view it as the key to long-term financial success.
Here are some examples of how a person can avoid “stupidity” when handling their personal finances: