Invert, always invert

Charlie Munger’s trick. Work out what to avoid before you work out what to do.

Avoid first

Charlie Munger said he uses problem inversion: he figures out what to avoid, instead of trying to figure out what to do first.

While you’re figuring out what to avoid, you also end up thinking about what you want to get, and what you want to do.

How to be miserable

His Harvard commencement speech, in honour of his son’s graduation, is a comical one. He addresses happiness and success in an inverse manner: how to surely attain misery.

Be reliable, because reliability builds reputation. It’s about much more than showing up. It’s showing up and doing the work with care, patience and determination.

Learn from other people

On the inverse, as Charlie put it, it would be “learn only from your own experience.” There is wisdom in the history lessons. He was an avid reader of autobiographies, and I expect he was especially interested in what people didn’t do, and the mistakes they managed to avoid. There’s much more wisdom in that.

Be objective and be independent. Objective, independent thought is a prerequisite to great decision-making. As long as you don’t live under the spells, and get trapped by the pendulums and machinations, of others.

Don’t go there

“If I knew where I was going to die, I would avoid going there.” That’s his inversion principle. There is huge wisdom in knowing what NOT to do while reaching for your goals. The NOTs create constraints, not obvious ones, that help you carve a path forward.

Through the thick of the jungle you’ll know how to avoid the snakes, panthers, gorillas, leeches and quicksand, arriving at your destination in one piece. Or at least, without fatal wounds.

Let’s try it

So let’s take a problem and invert it, to test how well the trick works.

The problem: how do I make what I’m building a long-term success?

Inverted: what should I avoid when building for long-term success?

What to avoid

• Predatory deals that are only good for short-term gain. They hurt in the long run, and when you look back, what you gained in the moment will seem irrelevant.
• Relying too much on outside parties. I’ve seen it too often: I get hyped about a partnership, invest money and time, and it goes nowhere. Better to say no, and save your tea and biscuits for the big banger of a collaboration.
• Short-sighted decisions made in the hope of a long-term payoff. If you have two choices, the harder one, the one that takes longer and more effort, will probably be the better one.
• Detours. The team’s resources are great but limited.
• Under-investing time in guiding and leading the team. That’s the most important function I have. Onboard, guide, train, repeat.

I could keep going

But the inversion of the problem is already yielding results. And it also gives a sense of security.

The keywords: get, and do.

What do I want to get? What do I want to do to get it?

First written in April 2025.