Independent Thinking Is a Key to Success In Investing and Business

You have to think independently and make up your own mind.  That is the responsibility each of us has.  That doesn’t mean you can’t look for input from others but you cannot outsource the obligation to rationally think, decide upon a course of action, and live with the results of your decision.

Apparently, Munger hasn’t always agreed with Buffett when it came to personal investing, which at times worked to his advantage.  When Buffett sold Berkshire’s Capital Cities Communications stock in 1978 to 1980, he later regretted the sale.  Munger, however, kept some personal holdings of Cap Cities, which performed exceptionally well.¹

If you are convinced that your facts are right, that your reasoning is right, and you are willing to back your convictions with your own money, it shouldn’t matter what anyone else believes.  Warren Buffett, or Charlie Munger,  or your pastor, or your family, or your friends, or your children, or your teachers could call you crazy.  But there comes a point when you have to make a decision yourself and then own it, basing your decision upon the evidence and not other peoples’ opinions.

Most of the time when people say “Tell me what stock to buy” it is because they want to abdicate this most fundamental duty.  They want the benefit of intelligent analysis but want to retain the right to blame someone else if it goes wrong.  You cannot go through life like that, purposely handicapping your own mind and shrinking from the thing that makes you different from an animal – the ability to think.

^{Janet Lowe, page 170, Damn Right!}

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