Meet Charlie Munger: The Latticework

Worldly wisdom

Munger's method: master the big ideas of every discipline — psychology, physics, biology, history — and hang experience on that latticework of models. A man with a hammer sees only nails; a man with a latticework sees what's actually there.

Invert, always invert

Asked how to live well, he answered backwards: tell me where I'll die, so I never go there. Avoid leverage, envy, resentment, and self-pity; be reliable; read until your children call you a book with legs. Not brilliance — the disciplined avoidance of stupidity, compounded for decades.

Why they belong at your table

Seat him to find out which of your current decisions he would call 'asinine' — cheaper to hear it now than to live it.