This is a book that I finished reading last week and I do highly recommend it.
The highest compliment I can give? It will add on to my collection of about 10-15 non-fiction books that deserves to be re-read and internalised.
I read “Poor Charlie’s Almanack” two years ago. The biggest take-away from Charlie Munger is the importance of building mental models to make better decisions in life.
And I think this book by Rolf Dobelli comes closest to being a usable text book to achieve that.
It’s written with the layman in mind, easy to digest and comprises 52 “hacks” for you to choose from. Obviously, you can expect quite a bit of overlap and a few of them are highly dubious in my opinion. But there’s enough nuggets of wisdom to prompt me to re-read each chapter and document my thoughts and reflections for the next half a year.
First, a little bit about the author Rolf Dobelli that I find interesting. He actually started out as a fiction writer and only had kids when he was 48. And more controversially, he has been accused by the likes of Nassim Nicholas Taleb of plagiarism.
I don’t know about you, but I am not a big fan of the Western patent and IP rights system. In ancient China, the person who invented paper or the compass did not actively seek to profit from their inventions at the expense of the society. Massive adoption was probably enough vindication for these guys.
I personally also believe that copying is the best form of flattery. This book relies so heavily on the works and views of Daniel Kahneman and Charlie Munger that I wonder if part of the book royalties go to them. Not to mention the ancient Stoics, but well, they are long dead.
Enough with the distractions. So how does this book help the reader who is more interested in personal finance and investments?
- Well, it is likely to help you to make better decisions to amass more or even more likely, avoid losing money
- Extract more joy from the money you already have
- Learn to live well using less money
Hope this piques you enough to stay tuned for the rest of the posts in this series.
“I constantly see people rise in life who are not the smartest, sometimes not even the most diligent, but they are learning machines. They go to bed every night a little wiser than they were when they got up and boy does that help, particularly when you have a long run ahead of you.” – Charlie Munger
Thanks for reading.
