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"All I want to know is where I'm going to die, so I'll never go there." Charlie Munger If there were only one concept that Charlie Munger were known for (as if that were possible) it is perhaps his concept of inversion - solving problems backwards by identifying and avoiding what would cause failure. If you excuse the crudeness, his abovementioned quote is a major example of this concept of inversion. How do you live? It is not possible to identify and/or prescribe to anoth

Whilst much of life is about people and networking, how you handle people is as important as what you say to them, if not more important. Meeting acquaintances and persuading them to do something for you is different from asking the same of loved ones. How to Manage Business Colleagues? It would be easy to presume that, because one is dealing with or flushed with money, it would be easy to instruct or command a subordinate to do something. Yet, hierarchy is only one element

"Relationships are another thing that compound, becoming stronger over time if we keep investing in win-win dynamics. Imagine a network of nodes that connect to each other at random. The likelihood of any given node receiving an additional connection is proportional to the number of connections it already has. Through randomness, a small number of nodes will end up receiving most of the connections—a phenomenon called preferential attachment. Preferential attachment is a type

The superior man does not waste himself on what is distant, on what is absent. He stands in the here and now, in the real situation. - Confucius Often we tend to emphasize the destination so much that we miss the journey. Stay in the present and enjoy life today. Blaise Pascal wrote: Let each of us examine his thoughts; he will find them wholly concerned with the past or the future. We almost never think of the present, and if we do think of it, it is only to see what light i

"READ This one's a no-brainer, but you'd be surprised at how many successful people check their outside interests at the door once they put their name and title on it. Keep your worldview as wide as possible. If you're in the widget business, it's not enough to know widgets. Celebrate your well-roundednessl Stay on top of public events and economic developments. Read at least two daily newspapers all the way through. Always have a book going. Learn a little bit about a

"KEEP A LITTLE SOMETHING FOR YOURSELF If you bend to every demand, there'll be nothing left to justify the transaction. And yet if you demand everything, there'll be no transaction. There's a great episode of Taxi in which Louie De Palma, the character played by Danny DeVito, is given an opportunity to literally fill in a blank check to complete a deal, and he pulls out his few remaining hairs in coming up with a figure. He knows there's a number that will make his benef

"Embracing “I’m not sure” is difficult. We are trained in school that saying “I don’t know” is a bad thing. Not knowing in school is considered a failure of learning. Write “I don’t know” as an answer on a test and your answer will be marked wrong. Duke, Annie. Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts (pp. 26-27). Penguin Publishing Group." Annie Duke argues that life (and investing) is a lot more akin to poker than it is to chess. Chess, r

What's there not to like if one is, for example, raking it in as a professional in engineering, or any other profession? Engineering in particular, as an example, is one of the highest paid jobs possible in this part of the world. As construction of infrastructure or other developments continues to take flight, those in such related professions have nothing to complain about. Life is good, after all. And one is therefore worried about complacency and reaching a plateau in l

For some readers, businss may already be good. Revenues are coming in and your net worth may be increasing, modestly. You're already jetsetting through Asia or even holidaying in the Maldives. There is not much else that you could ask for! Is there anything more you could hope for? It is not to say that one is complacent, but you are already committed to a steady business and the business is taking up your efforts as it is. In that context, your time is already money and t

There is a general tendency amongst some to exaggerate problems or otherwise to exaggerate the potential of certain investments to turn out badly. Yours truly can also be guilty in certain circumstances of being overly pessimistic. It is a habitual, factual tendency amongst some. Pessimism bias, skepticism or a tendency to see the downside in any transaction, with less or no consideration of the upside or the returns , can be a good defence mechanism in terms of everyday out

There is a general tendency amongst some to exaggerate returns or otherwise to exaggerate the potential of certain expectations to turn out well. Yours truly is also guilty of being overly optimistic. It is a habitual, factual tendency amongst some. Optimism bias, or a tendency to see the upside in any transaction, with less or no consideration of the downside or the risks, can be a boon in terms of everyday outlook in life. It can also be detrimental when trying to anticipa

Investing in local and global real estate is supposed to be easy. Residential and hotel real estate, for example, is the easiest to invest in because readers can relate to the investment. Afterall, everybody has stayed in a home before, and quite likely you have also stayed in a hotel. There is little to have to understand - property rental comes in and property expenses go out. This point of view became particularly pronounced in the 2010s, during the post-Great Recession

There are plenty of things you claim you can highlight that are not right with the country. You can see the flaws in the system and the shortcomings in the people that man the system. Hope? There is none, in your mind. Have you ever thought much about furthering your education instead to learn more tips and tricks to do well in spite of the conditions you are in? Some of the greatest investors and businessmen of our times would even take unexpected forays into unexpected lin