3 Things You Should Look For in a Career (According To Charlie Munger)
Charlie Munger is known for his quick wit, for not suffering fools, and for working alongside Warren Buffett to build Berkshire Hathaway into the behemoth company it is today. When billionaires give advice, I try to listen, and Munger offers some in a speech to the USC business school graduating class of 1994 called, A Lesson on Elementary, Worldly Wisdom As It Relates To Investment Management & Business.
When asked what young people should be looking for in a career, here are the 3 pieces of advice he has to offer:
Don’t sell anything you wouldn’t buy yourself.
Quality people sell you quality products and then stand behind them. I know that not everything I post on this site is going to work for everyone, and there are even some write-ups that you may not like (can you imagine?). But, I will never recommend anything that I haven’t found personally valuable. From there, my hands are clean and it’s just up to you whether you take it or leave it.
And just like anything else, once you start selling something you wouldn’t buy yourself, it’s easier to keep doing it. You may even subconsciously convince yourself that the product isn’t that bad, even though you’ve chosen not to use it.
Worst of all is that when you sell something of low quality early in your career, the power of associations is going to transform you in the mind of the buyer as a person of low quality. There will be little difference between a shady product and a shady you.
Don’t work for anyone you don’t respect & admire.
At the beginning of your career, you’ll likely have to work for someone else for a living. Make sure it’s someone of integrity. Warren Buffett recommends that you hang out with people better than you so that you’ll drift in their direction. If you spend over 40 hours a week working for someone, it would be foolish to do it with someone you don’t respect and look up to.
Identify the people you look up to, and find a way to offer them value pro bono in the form of a product, service, or expertise. If you can, there’s a good chance they’ll give you an opportunity to work with them in a larger capacity.
I’d also try to avoid people who aren’t aware of the many cognitive biases we all suffer from. That will get exceedingly frustrating as time passes.
Work only with people you enjoy.
Life is too short to put up with the angry and the insolent. Obviously, there are many people who aren’t in a position to choose who they work for, but it’s still worth searching for other opportunities if you are suffering with an unpleasant boss. Avoid managers who use manipulative tactics to provoke a certain behavior from you, along with those who choose verbal abuse over more worthy forms of communication.
All of these points may seem like common sense, but to Charlie Munger, common sense is all you generally need to live a full, rich life.