16 Pieces of Life-Changing Advice From a Billionaire

Life-Changing Advice from Billionaire Charlie Munger

Parker Klein ✌️

4 min readApr 27, 2024

Charlie Munger was the vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway and Warren Buffet’s longtime friend and business partner.

Charles Munger died in November 2023 at age 99 with a net worth of over $2 billion.

He left behind great advice in his book “Poor Charlie’s Almanack.”

Here is some of his life-changing advice:

1. Look for a partner both smarter and wiser than you are.

Seek a partner who will never second-guess you nor sulk when you make expensive mistakes.

Look also for a generous soul who will put up his own money and work for pennies.

Finally, join with someone who will constantly add to the fun as you travel a long road together.

2. When you’re buying jewelry for the woman you love, financial considerations probably shouldn’t enter into it

3. Do well with the work you already have on your desk and more will come in

Repetition is the heart of instruction.

Do the job right the first time.

Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not.

The only way to win is to work, work, work, work, and hope to have a few insights.

“Simplicity is the end result of long, hard work, not the starting point.” — Frederick Maitland

4. Avoid dealing with people of questionable character

3 basic rules for your career: 1. Don’t sell anything you wouldn’t buy yourself. 2. Don’t work for anyone you don’t respect and admire. 3. Work only with people you enjoy.

Choose clients as you would friends.

5. You have to learn to be a follower before you become a leader

“Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.” — Jack Welch

Example is not the main thing in teaching — it is the only thing.

6. The best armor of old age is a well spent life preceding it

A life employed in the pursuit of useful knowledge, in honorable actions and the practice of virtue; in which he whoo labors to improve himself from his youth, will in age reap the happiest fruits of them; not only because these never leave a man, not even in the extremest old age; but because a conscience bearing witness that our life was well-spent. together with the remembrance of past good actions, yields an unspeakable comfort to the soul.

Enjoy the process along with the proceeds, because the process is where you live.

7. When you borrow a man’s car, you always return it with a full tank of gas

8. Find out what you are best at and keep pounding away at it

You have to figure out what your own aptitudes are. If you play games where other people have the aptitudes and you don’t, you’re going to lose.

If at all feasible, you want to maneuver yourself into doing something in which you have an intense interest.

9. Patience: the art of waiting without tiring of waiting

10. A great business at a fair price is superior to a fair business at a great price

All investment evaluations should begin by measuring risk, especially reputational.

11. Develop into a lifelong self-learner through voracious reading

Cultivate curiosity and strive to become a little wiser every day.

Intellectual humility — acknowledging what you don’t know is the dawning of wisdom.

If you don’t keep learning, other people will pass you by.

“You can learn from everybody.” — Sam Walton

I know known no wise people who didn’t read all the time.

‘The man who doesn’t read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.’ — Mark Twain

12. Face your big troubles; don’t sweep them under the rug

Few people can list a lot of bad habits that they have eliminated, and some people cannot identify even one of these. Instead, practically everyone has a great many bad habits he has long maintained despite their being known as bad.

13. Be satisfied with what you have

One of the great defenses if you’re worried about inflation is not to have a lot of silly needs in your life — you don’t need a lot of material goods.

Spend less than you make; always be saving something. Put it into a tax-deferred account. Over time, it will begin to amount to something.

14. Those of us who have been very fortunate have a duty to give back

15. How to guarantee misery

1. Ingesting chemicals in an effort to alter mood or perception; 2. Envy; and 3. Resentment.

Life is hard enough to swallow without squeezing in the bitter rind of resentment.

Envy is a really stupid sin because it’s the only one you could never possibly have any fun at.

Envy, resentment, revenge, and self-pity are disastrous modes of thought.

16. If you tell people why, they’ll understand it better, they’ll consider it more important, and they’ll be more likely to comply

Even if it’s obvious, it’s wise to stick in the why.

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