The Generosity of Charlie Munger
One Small Story of a Great Man
October 2008 felt like the end of the financial world. Like many investors, I had never experienced anything like it and my investments were getting destroyed. Not knowing what to do or how to react, I decided to call Charlie Munger.
Wait, I called who?
That’s right I called Charlie Munger, a person I barely knew. Through a Munger family friend, I was lucky enough to spend a couple of hours with Charlie a year earlier. I could not believe about how generous he was with his time with me.
On a whim, I decided to call him in 2008 and miraculously he called me back.
“Mr. Munger, do you have any advice for me?” I asked.
He told me that bear markets and drawdowns of 40-50% are the “price of admission” for being an investor. “Everyone goes through it,” he said. Charlie then related his own experience of being down 50%.
Then in the middle of the call, he said, “I will call you back, Warren is on the line.” And he immediately hung up before I could say a word.
I looked at my phone and wondered if Charlie would call me back. And sure enough, fifteen minutes later he did, and he continued on and spent another ten minutes talking to me, calming me down. A few weeks later I received in the mail a list of money managers with their performance circled, showing me that even the best money managers were suffering, not just me.
Charlie Munger reassured me at a critical time, and I will be forever grateful. Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger were literally working on saving the US economy and bailing out companies at the time, but Charlie took time to share wisdom and experience with someone he barely knew.
It was not five months later that I started my first partnership to buy sixteen foreclosed homes, which led to 2,500 single-family rentals that became The American Home. I’m not sure any of that would have happened without that talk and perspective from Charlie Munger.
Many people will justifiably talk about Charlie’s brain, his incredible wisdom, his investing acumen, or his wonderful quotes, but I will always remember just how truly generous he was with me with his most precious resource, his time. I have also read and heard from others who experienced the same from Charlie. I will always and forever be grateful for his generosity.
May his memory be a blessing.
P.S. I originally tweeted this story in the beginning of COVID when it again felt like the world was going to end. And his lesson was just as helpful then as it was in 2008. This is the magic of Charlie Munger and his wisdom, most of it is timeless.