According to Li Lu's observation, in Munger's long life, he constantly collected and studied all kinds of famous failures, and arranged the causes of those failures into a checklist before making the right decisions. this makes him almost never make major mistakes in his life and career decisions.

There is no doubt that the Book of Poor Charlie is one of the most worthwhile investment books to read over and over again. Xiaoya has read it no less than 10 times and has different gains at different stages of her life.

Among them, Li Lu's Chinese preface to this book is the best interpretation of this book, which combines the wisdom of Munger and Li Lu, not only investment wisdom, but also full of life wisdom.

Li Lu places great emphasis on the honesty of knowledge and opposes the simple definition of things with dogmatism and rules. When Xiaoya and Mr. Li Lu asked for advice face-to-face, Li Lu had warned against dogma.

Li Lu also mentioned in a recent interview with the domestic media: "personally, I am very opposed to using 'ism' to define a lot of things." Investment is a matter of seeking truth from facts. "

In the preface to the book the Book of Poor Charlie, Li Lu repeatedly mentioned that Munger "has never been bound by any rules and regulations, nor has there been any dogma." "if you look back and read it again, you will understand it more deeply.

In the preface, Li Lu does not hesitate to share his life experience, which will enlighten us on how to make choices when we are growing up; he also generously shares his close observation of Munger, and we can see the wisdom of life in the details.

1. Put the reasons for failure into a checklist before making the correct decision.

Buffett said he had met a lot of people in his life and had never met anyone like Charlie.

In all my years with Charlie, I had the privilege of getting to know Charlie up close, and I believed it. Even in the biographies of ancient and modern Chinese and foreign characters that I have read, I have not found any similar people.

Charlie is such a unique person, his uniqueness is shown not only in his thought, but also in his personality. For example, Charlie always starts thinking in the opposite direction.

If he wants to understand how to be happy in life, Charlie will first study how life can become miserable.

To study how the enterprise becomes stronger and bigger, Charlie first studies how the enterprise declines.

Most people are more concerned about how to succeed in investing in the stock market, but Charlie is most concerned about why most people fail in investing in the stock market.

His way of thinking comes from the philosophy contained in the following farmer's proverb: I just want to know where I will die in the future, so that I will never go there.

Throughout his long life, Charlie has continuously collected and studied famous failures in a variety of people, enterprises in various industries, government governance, academic research and other fields, and arranged the causes of those failures into a checklist before making the right decisions, which made him almost never make major mistakes in his life and career decisions.

The importance of this to Buffett and Berkshire's 50-year performance cannot be overemphasized.

2. Be undogmatic and not bound by rules and regulations

Charlie's mind is original, neverIs not bound by any rules and regulations, and there is no dogma.. He has the same curiosity as a child, as well as the research qualities and scientific research methods possessed by first-rate scientists. He has a strong curiosity for knowledge all his life and is interested in almost all problems.

In his opinion, any problem can be fully mastered by self-study in the right way, and can be innovated on the basis of his predecessors. He is very similar to Franklin in this respect, similar to an encyclopedic figure of the 18th and 19th centuries.

In modern times, many first-class experts and scholars were able to achieve relative objectivity in their narrow research fields, but once they were not far from their own fields, they began to become subjective, dogmatic, rigid, or simply lost their ability to learn by themselves. so most of them can't avoid the limitation of blind people touching elephants.

Charlie has never had any discipline in his mind. His thoughts radiate to every corner of his career, life and knowledge. In his view, all things in the universe are an interactive whole, and all human knowledge is a partial attempt to study this whole. Only by combining this knowledge and running through it in an ideological framework can it be helpful to correct cognition and decision-making.

SoHe advocated the need to learn theories that are really important in all disciplines, and on this basis to form the so-called "universal wisdom" as a sharp tool to study important issues in the field of business investment.In this book, Charlie explains in detail how to obtain such "universal wisdom".

3. Be honest with knowledge and define your own circle of ability.

Charlie's way of thinking is based on honesty with knowledge.

He thinksThe world is complex and changeable, and human cognition is always limited, so you must use all the tools, and at the same time pay attention to collecting all kinds of new evidence that can be proved or not, and revise it at any time, that is, "what you know is what you know, and what you don't know is you don't know."

In fact, all people have blind spots in their minds. We may be able to be objective about our profession, others or something, but it is difficult or even against human nature to hold an objective attitude towards everything in the world. But Charlie can be objective.

In this book, Charlie also mentioned that the objective spirit can be cultivated through acquired training. The cultivation of this way of thinking will enable you to see what others can't see, predict the future that others can't predict, and live a happier, freer and more successful life.

But even so, the vision that a person can really get in life is still very limited, so the right decision must be limited to his own "circle of ability". An ability that cannot define its boundaries cannot, of course, be called a real ability.

How can you define your circle of ability? 'If I'm going to have a point of view, if I can't prove myself better than the smartest, most capable and most qualified person in the world to refute it, I don't deserve it, 'Mr. Charlie said.

So when Charlie really holds a point of view, his ideas are original, unique, and almost never make mistakes.

4. See through the essence of things with reason

Once, a beautiful lady sitting next to Charlie insisted that Charlie sum up his success in one word. Charlie said it was "rational".However, Charlie's "reason" is not what we generally understand. Charlie has a harsher definition of reason.

It is this "rationality" that makes Charlie have a keen and unique vision and insight, even for completely unfamiliar areas, he can see through the nature of things at a glance.

Buffett calls this feature of Charlie the "two-minute effect"-he says Charlie is better able to explain the nature of a complex business in the shortest possible time than anyone else in the world. Berkshire's investment in BYD is a case in point.

I remember when I first talked to Charlie about BYD in 2003, although he never met Wang Chuanfu himself, never visited BYD's factory, and was even relatively unfamiliar with the Chinese market and culture, but the questions and comments raised by him at that time still seem to be the most real problem of investing in BYD today.

Everyone has a blind spot, and even the best people are no exception.

"Benjamin Graham once taught me to buy only cheap stocks, and Charlie made me change my mind," Buffett said. This is Charlie's real influence on me. It takes a powerful force to get me out of Graham's theory of limitation. Charlie's mind was that power, and he broadened my horizons. "

I myself have a deep understanding of this. Charlie helped me point out the blind spot in my mind on at least two major issues, and without his help, I would still be crawling from ape to human evolution. Buffett has repeatedly stressed on different occasions over the past 50 years that Charlie's influence on himself and Berkshire is irreplaceable.

Charlie studied the catastrophic mistakes of human all his life, especially for the catastrophic mistakes caused by the tendency of human psychology. What contributes most is that he predicts that the proliferation of financial derivatives and loopholes in the accounting and auditing system will bring disaster to mankind.

As early as the late 1990s, he and Mr. Buffett have proposed that financial derivatives may have a disastrous impact. With the proliferation of financial derivatives, their warnings are also escalating. It is even pointed out that financial derivatives are financial weapons of mass destruction, which, if not stopped in a timely and effective manner, will have a disastrous impact on modern civilized society.

The financial tsunami of 2008 and 2009 and the Great Depression of the global economy unfortunately verified Charlie's vision. On the other hand, his research on these issues also provides valuable experience and knowledge for the prevention of similar disasters, which deserves the attention of the government, the financial community, the business community and the academic community.

5. Solve practical problems and pay attention to details

Charlie has a wider range of interests than Buffett. For example, he has a strong interest and extensive research in almost all fields of science and soft science, and formed an original and unique Munger thought system through integration.

Compared with any ideological system that comes from the ivory tower, Munchism is born entirely to solve practical problems.

For example, as far as I know, Charlie was the first to propose and systematically study the great influence of human psychological tendencies on investment and business decisions. Today, more than ten years later, behavioral finance has become the hottest research field in economics, and behavioral economics has also been recognized by the Nobel Prize in economics. The theoretical framework shown in Charlie's last lecture on the Psychology of Human misjudgment is likely to be more widely understood and applied in the future.

Charlie's interest is not limited to thinking, but also likes to do everything by himself and pays attention to details.

He has the largest private catamaran in the world, which he designed himself. He is also an excellent architect. He built the house as he liked, and he was involved in every detail from the original drawings to every detail after that.

For example, all the buildings he donated were designed by himself, including the Stanford Graduate School dormitory, the Harvard-West Lake School Science Museum, and the rare Book Research Museum of the Huntington Library and Gardens.

Charlie is full of energy by nature. I met Charlie in 1996, when he was 72 years old. It has been more than ten years since Charlie was 86 this year.

In the past ten years, Charlie's energy has not changed at all. He is always energetic and gets up early. The breakfast meeting always starts at 07:30. At the same time, due to some dinner parties, he may sleep less than ordinary people, but these do not hinder his exuberant energy.

Moreover, he has an amazing memory. I can't remember the operating figures of BYD that I told him many years ago, and he still remembers them. At the age of 86, he has a better memory than I am a young man. These are his natural advantages, but the qualities that make him extremely successful are all acquired by him.

6. the timing of success is important, and the inner quality of people is more important.

To me, Charlie is not only a partner, an elder, a teacher, a friend, a model of career success, but also a model of life. I not only learned from him the truth of value investment, but also learned a lot of the truth of life.

He made me understand that a person's success is not accidental, timing is important, but a person's inner quality is more important.

Charlie likes to make breakfast appointments, usually at 07:30. I remember the first time I had breakfast with Charlie, I arrived on time and found that Charlie had already sat there and read all the newspapers for the day. Although it was still a few minutes short of 07:30, it was hard for me to have a respectable old man waiting for me.
On the second date, I arrived about a quarter of an hour early and found that Charlie was still sitting there reading the newspaper.

On my third date, I arrived half an hour early, and Charlie was still there reading the newspaper, as if he had never left that seat and waited all the year round.
Until the fourth time, I arrived ruthlessly an hour early, sat there at 06:30 and waited, and at 06:45 Charlie leisurely came in with a pile of newspapers in his hand, sat down without looking up, and did not notice me at all.

It gradually dawned on me that Charlie must arrive early for an appointment. When you get there, you won't waste your time. You will take out the prepared newspaper and read it.

Ever since I learned about Charlie's habit, when we go out again, I will arrive early, read a newspaper, leave each other alone, and have breakfast and chat together after 07:30.

Occasionally Charlie will be late. Once I took a young entrepreneur from China to see Charlie. Charlie was half an hour late because he came from a luncheon.

As soon as he arrived, Charlie solemnly apologized to us two young people, explained in detail why he was late, and even suggested how to improve the valet parking (Valet park) at the luncheon so as not to delay the guests' waiting time of 45 minutes.

The Chinese youth was surprised and moved, for I was afraid that there would not be a Charlie-like elder in the world who would repeatedly apologize to the younger generation for being late.

7. Integrate into life and get in close contact with ordinary people

In my relationship with Charlie, there was another thing that had a great impact on me. One year Charlie and I went to a party out of town.

After the event, I had to go back to New York, only to meet Charlie in the terminal of the airport. When his huge body passed the security detector, for some reason, the detector kept calling the alarm. And Charlie turned back again and again to accept the security check, so tossing around for a long time, finally passed the security check, his plane has taken off.

But Charlie was in no hurry. He took out the books he had with him and sat down to read them and waited for the next flight. It happened that my plane was late that day, so I waited with him.

I asked Charlie, "you have your own private jet and Berkshire has a special plane. Why do you have to go to the commercial airliner airport to go through so much trouble?" "

Charlie replied, "first of all, it's a waste of gas for me to take a special plane alone." Second, I think it is safer to take a commercial plane. But the real reason for Charlie's ideal is the third: "all I want in my life is to engage life. I don't want to be isolated (isolated)." "

The most unbearable thing for Charlie is that he lost contact with the world because of his money, isolating himself in a single room and in a huge office on the first floor. This is out of touch with real life.

"as long as I have a book in my hand, I won't feel a waste of time. Charlie takes a book with him at all times, and even if he sits in the middle seat of economy class, as long as he holds the book, he is at ease.

Once he went to a board meeting in Seattle and still flew economy class as usual. Next to him sat a little Chinese girl who had been doing her calculus homework during the flight.

He was impressed by the little Chinese girl because it was hard for him to imagine that American girls of the same age could concentrate on their studies in the noise of airplanes. If he had taken a private jet, he would never have had a chance to get close to the stories of these ordinary people.

8. Be strict with yourself and be lenient to others

Although Charlie is strict with himself, he is very lenient to the people he really cares about and loves.He is generous with money and always hopes that others can benefit more.

When he travels alone, he travels economy class for both business and private affairs, but when he travels with his wife and family, Charlie takes his own private jet.

He explained: my wife has paid a lot to raise so many children for me all her life, and she is in poor health. I must take good care of her.

Although Charlie did not graduate from Stanford University, because his wife is a Stanford alumnus and a member of the university board, Charlie donated more than $60 million to Stanford University.

Once Charlie has decided to do one thing, he can do it for the rest of his life. For example, he served on the board of Harvard-West Lake School and a charity hospital in Los Angeles for 40 years.

Charlie is a very generous patron of the charity he participates in. And Charlie invested not only money, but also a lot of time and energy to ensure the successful operation of these institutions.

Charlie studied the causes of human failure all his life, so he has a deep understanding of the weakness of human nature. Based on this, he believes that people should be strict with themselves, and this way of life is a moral requirement for Charlie.

To outsiders, Charlie may look like an ascetic monk, but in Charlie's view, the process is both rational and pleasant, and can lead a successful and happy life.

Charlie is so unique. But come to think of it, if Munger and Buffett were not so unique, they would not have made Berkshire's performance unprecedented and unprecedented in the history of human investment in 50 years.

In the past 20 years, the worldwide interest in Buffett and Munger research has become more and more intense, and it may become more and more intense in the future. There are plenty of books in Chinese and English, including unique insights.

To be honest, it's too early to judge Munger's ideas from my current ability, because to this day, every time I talk to Charlie and reread his speech, I get something new.

On the other hand, it also shows that I don't understand him enough. But the words and deeds that Charlie has taught me over the years have given me the privilege of having a more intuitive understanding of Charlie's thoughts and personality. I just want to share my own close observation and personal experience with readers.

I sincerely hope that after carefully studying this book, readers will understand the essence of Mangerism more deeply than I do, so that it will be more helpful to their career and life. I know that Charlie himself likes this book very much and thinks that it collects the essence of his life and life experience.

In his later years, Charlie often quoted the following sentence from the truth swordsman in the Journey of Heaven to end his speech: "my sword is left to those who can wield it." "

Through the publication of this book, I hope that more readers will have the opportunity to learn and understand Munger's wisdom and personality. I believe that every reader may become a lucky swordsman through study and practice.