This Is Better Than Being Intelligent

What Success Takes

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The investor Charlie Munger said, “It is remarkable how much long-term advantage people like us have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent.”

Said another way, it’s more important to avoid great failure than to score a great victory. 

Athens couldn’t deal a knock-out blow to Sparta during the Peloponnesian War, but their walls and fleet kept them safe and fed. They didn’t need to win, they only had to not lose and wait for an opportunity. 

But the Assembly was sweet-talked into a high-risk overseas expedition that went disastrously wrong and cost them the war. 

That sweet talker I mentioned? Alcibiades, a sometimes-student of Socrates. Socrates told him he was “wedded to stupidity,” and should avoid politics until he’d shed his false beliefs.  He didn’t listen, and he destroyed his city. 

So before you worry about becoming brilliant, start asking yourself where you’re making big mistakes that could cost you everything.