Sometimes the forces just add like ordinary quantities and sometimes they combine on a break point or critical mass basis…
More commonly, the forces coming out of…models are conflicting to some extent. And you get huge, miserable trade-offs.
…You have to realize the truth of biologist Julian Huxley’s idea that “Life is just one damn relatedness after another.” So you must have the models, and you must see the relatedness and the effects from the relatedness.8
Commenting on Munger, Bill Gates once said, “He is truly the broadest thinker I have ever encountered.”9 Warren Buffett has said that Munger has “the best thirty-second mind in the world. He goes from A to Z in one move. He sees the essence of everything before you even finish the sentence.”10
How is Munger able to do this?
Thinking
One of the advantages of a fellow like Buffett…is that he automatically thinks in terms of decision trees [emphasis added].
—Charlie Munger
The more models you have from outside your discipline, and the more you iterate through them in a checklist sort of fashion when faced with a challenge, the better you’ll be able to solve problems.
Models are additive. Like building blocks. The more you have, the more things you can build, the more connections you can make between them, and the more likely you are to be able to determine the relevant variables that govern a situation.
And when you learn these models, you need to ask yourself under what conditions this tool will fail. That way, you’re not only looking for situations in which the tool is useful but also for situations in which something interesting is happening that might warrant further attention.
We can improve our thinking process by taking out and devoting the necessary time for it. According to Tren Griffin,
Munger’s breadth of knowledge is something that is naturally part of his character but also something that he intentionally cultivates. In his view, to know nothing about an important subject is to invite problems. Both Munger and Buffett set aside plenty of time each day to just think. Anyone reading the news is provided with constant reminders of the consequences of not thinking. Thinking is a surprisingly underrated activity. Researchers published a study in 2014 that revealed that approximately a quarter of women and two-thirds of men chose electric shocks over spending time alone with their own thoughts.11
Bertrand Russell rightly said, “Most people would rather die than think, and many of them do.”
Without great solitude no serious work is possible.
—Pablo Picasso
One of the finest essays on learning how to think better is “Solitude and Leadership” by William Deresiewicz:
Thinking means concentrating on one thing long enough to develop an idea about it. Not learning other people’s ideas, or memorizing a body of information, however much those may sometimes be useful. Developing your own ideas. In short, thinking for yourself. You simply cannot do that in bursts of 20 seconds at a time, constantly interrupted by Facebook messages or Twitter tweets, or fiddling with your iPod, or watching something on YouTube.
I find for myself that my first thought is never my best thought. My first thought is always someone else’s; it’s always what I’ve already heard about the subject, always the conventional wisdom. It’s only by concentrating, sticking to the question, being patient, letting all the parts of my mind come into play, that I arrive at an original idea. By giving my brain a chance to make associations, draw connections, take me by surprise…You do your best thinking by slowing down and concentrating.12
Look at this generation, with all of its electronic devices and multitasking. I will confidently predict less success than Warren, who just focused on reading. If you want wisdom, you’ll get it sitting on your ass. That’s the way it comes.
—Charlie Munger
Munger has often credited his success to having a long attention span, that is, his ability to stay focused for an extended period of time. Munger is able to block out the world when he is thinking, which has provided him a great advantage in solving problems and developing ideas. Long attention spans allow for a deep understanding of subjects. When combined with deliberate practice, it helps us identify our leverage points and focus our energies on them.
As you can see, actual thinking is really hard work. It is why Henry Ford said, “Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably why so few people engage in it.” The best ideas come to you in solitude. Introverts tend to be creative because, by spending more time alone, they are more susceptible to inspiration. Introverts are less susceptible to groupthink, and thus it is easier for them to go against the consensus.
Brilliant people aren’t a special breed—they just use their minds differently. They practice certain habits of thinking that allow them to see the world differently from others. In their book The 5 Elements of Effective Thinking, Dr. Edward B. Burger and Dr. Michael Starbird outline some practical ways for us to improve our thinking:13
1. Understand deeply. When you learn anything, go for depth and make it rock solid. Any concept that you are trying to master is a combination of simple core ideas. Identify the core ideas and learn them deeply. This deeply ingrained knowledge base can serve as a meaningful springboard for more advanced learning and action in your field. Be brutally honest with yourself. If you do not understand something, revisit the core concepts again and again. Remember that merely memorizing stuff is not deep learning.
2. Make mistakes. Mistakes highlight unforeseen opportunities as well as gaps in our understanding. And mistakes are great teachers. As Michael Jordan once said, “I’ve missed more than nine thousand shots in my career. I’ve lost almost three hundred games. Twenty-six times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” The takeaway is that we cannot come out with a correct solution on the first attempt. Start with a probable solution (hypothesis) and continue correcting the mistakes until you arrive at the right solution. Thomas Edison was famous for using this approach for his inventions. When he said that invention is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration, the perspiration was the process of incrementally making mistakes and learning from them to make the next attempts apt to be closer to right. When Edison was asked how he felt about his countless failed attempts at making a light bulb, he replied, “I have not failed. I’ve just found ten thousand ways that won’t work.”
3. Raise questions. If you want to deepen your understanding, you need to raise questions. Do not be afraid to show your ignorance. If you do not understand, ask. The great philosopher Socrates would challenge his students, friends, and even enemies to make new discoveries by asking them uncomfortable, core questions, which often led to new insights.
4. Follow the flow of ideas. To truly understand a concept, discover how it evolved from simpler concepts. Recognizing that the present reality is a moment in a continuing evolution makes your understanding fit into a more coherent structure. You cannot discover everything on your own. You need to use the existing idea and improve it. Edison was supremely successful at inventing product after product, exploiting the maxim that every new idea has utility beyond its original intent. He is credited with having said, “I start where the last man left off.” More poignantly, he noted that “many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”
5. Change. You need to shrug off a lifetime’s habit of accepting a relatively superficial level of understanding and start learning more deeply. You need to let go of the constraining forces in your life and let yourself fail on the road to success. You