If you have to start over at age 25 with nothing but debt, people usually think of two things first.

‘How can I make money?’ and ‘Where can I aim for a big hit?’

However, Charlie Munger’s thinking was the exact opposite.

He said that bringing up investment to someone without money is like pushing a person who can’t swim into the deep sea.

It means they will drink water before they even stand on the waves. That is why he said to earn ‘trust,’ not ‘money,’ first.

If you think about it, the world seems to run solely on ability, but in reality, it runs on ‘peace of mind.’

The people people truly seek are not geniuses, but those who answer the phone, meet deadlines, and whose work they do not need to revisit.

There are many smart people, but those who provide peace of mind are rare.

Therefore, trust accumulates like gold, and when placed over time, it grows with compound interest.

Someone who initially entrusted you with a small errand eventually entrusts you with significant money and opportunities entirely.

Trust is a reputation that accrues interest, and reputation becomes the most formidable asset in the world.

At the next stage, Munger tells us something brutally realistic.

“We do not need people who are moderately good at many things. Be terrifyingly good at just one thing.”

The world may seem vast, but the market moves like a needle's eye.

There are many who know broadly, but few who dig deeply.

Therefore, opportunity does not go to the broad-minded, but to the deep-minded.

Those who dig broadly with a shovel only create pits, but those who keep digging in one spot eventually find water.

And people pay money to use that water.

This is ‘scarcity,’ and scarcity is the power that determines prices.

Finally, he said to completely change your attitude toward money.

Do not view money as a piece of paper that disappears the moment you spend it, but as a soldier who will fight for you.

A 10,000 won bill is not coffee, but a soldier;

a million won is a platoon;

one hundred million won is a company.

Most people send their soldiers to the battlefield immediately when they are created and end up losing them all.

But Munger was different.

He gathered his soldiers, did nothing, and simply waited.

People looked at him and said he was lazy, but in fact, he was lying prone like a sniper.

And when everyone was fleeing in terror, he pulled the trigger just once.

People who become rich are not those who shoot ten times, but those who wait ten years to shoot one shot.

What changes your life is not speed, but direction,

and becoming rich is not about doing a lot, but about doing it right once.

Ultimately, this is not a story about great talent or luck.

People who keep promises, people who stick to one thing, and people who know how to be patient and wait.

These three things are not special abilities, but things that most people give up on because they are boring.

That is why Munger's strategy is not flashy.

In fact, it is so simple that people do not believe it.

But strangely enough, life eventually rewards the boring rather than the flashy.

Waking up at the same time every day,

doing the same work A person who repeats,

saves the money earned without spending it,

and endures a few years of time when nothing happens.

That time is not a time when nothing happens,

but a time of rolling an invisible snowball.

At first, only sand sticks to it, but at some point, snow begins to attach,

and eventually, it grows so big that you cannot stop it even if you want to.

People come then and say,

“You were lucky.”

But in truth,

you were just a person who stayed in the sea until the waves came.