Poor Charlie's Almanack

“Another idea-and this may remind you of Confucius, too-is that the acquisition of wisdom is a moral duty. It's not something you do just to advance in life…….. It requires that you're hooked on lifetime learning. Without lifetime learning, you people are not going to do very well…..Consider Berkshire Hathaway, one of the best-regarded corporations in the world. It may have the best long-term, big-assets-involving investment record in the history of civilization. The skill that got Berkshire through one decade would not have sufficed to get it through the next decade with comparable levels of achievement. Warren Buffett had to be a continuous learning machine.” - Charlie Munger

Charlie Munger emphasises on lifelong learning and adopting multidisciplinary approach while expanding one’s knowledge base. He discourages boxing knowledge in specific disciplines. Rather, he encourages learning big ideas of all disciplines to expand one’s toolkit.

“He stressed that while attending law school he realized the best road to success in life and learning would be a multidisciplinary one.”

Once I started grasping this idea of multidisciplinary approach, my way of thinking has taken a different and I would say a better turn.

For instance, incentive is a powerful force in economics. But I find incentives, at the root, is a biological phenomenon.

Sugar 🍡 attracts ants 🐜 > positive incentive

Stick 🦯 keeps the herd 🐑 🐑 disciplined > negative incentive

When you dig deeper, you understand more clearly how the power of incentive works.

Why ants are more attracted to sugar than other food sources?

Ants are industrious and sugar is readily available source of carbohydrates. They need tons of calorie to forage and maintain their colony. Morever, sugar is lightweight and easy to carry for ants. So if you place sugar and food that are rich in protein side by side, ants will be more attracted to sugar most of the time. Ants’ high carbohydrate diet has proved to increase their survival rates.

There is always a powerful force why a certain biological being acts in a certain way.

Why countries allie 🤝 with certain countries and fight 💣 others?

There are always powerful incentives.

Multidisciplinary approaches widen your horizon of thinking.

Economics as a discipline became richer when ideas from psychology mixed with economics gave birth to branch of behavioral economics.

Multidisciplinary approaches also limit the ‘man with a hammer’ syndrome.

A man with a hammer sees everything as a nail. And a man well versed in a specific discipline, looks at every problem with a same point of view which may not be useful for bringing optimum solution.

What Charlie Munger recommends is to expand your toolkit by learning about big ideas from big disciplines. It helps to look at problems from different angles. You will know when to bring hammer and when to bring pliers.