What do Charlie Munger and Socrates have in common? (They know NOTHING)
If you tell me I know nothing, I’ll suggest I know something.
But if you tell me I know everything, I’ll insist that I know nothing.
In the spirit of knowing nothing, here are some quotes by people who know nothing.
Number One:
“People couldn’t believe that I suddenly made myself a subordinate partner… but there are some people that it is okay to be a subordinate partner to. I didn’t have the kind of ego that prevented it. There are always people who will be better at something than you are.”
Number Two:
“I’m no genius, but I’m smart in spots and I stay around those spots”
Number Three:
“It’s 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.”
Number Four, Best of All:
“True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing”.
What is a Blind Spot?
A Blind Spot is a section of your visual field that is invisible to you. It’s being obstructed. Blocked off. Blurry. Like when a fly lands on the projector lens, creating a fly-shaped hole in the story.
All of us are susceptible to blind spots. They vary in shapes and sizes. You ask why your friend can’t see how obnoxious that person they’re dating is. You also ask why Blockbuster turned down the chance to buy Netflix, or why so few people saw or did anything about the Global Financial Crisis in the lead up to 2009.
Of all the psychological phenomena out there, there are a whole range that can come together to form boxes of thinking that are based not on substance, but on hype. Boxes of thinking whose borders are built with cheap and combustible material.
When we think only inside the box, we develop these blind spots. We develop blind spots to protect our self-esteem, to take comfort in doing what everyone else is doing and to feel like we know what we are doing.
How to Create Blind Spots
If you want a formula for creating blind spots, the first step is assuming you know everything. In the Without-The-Box Thinking Framework, we refer to this as thinking with boxes that have thick and unbroken lines, instead of dotted lines.
Let’s talk about the brutal bikie boyfriend. The rebel bad-boy who is no good for you. The blind spot forms when you decide that he is ok, because you want him to be ok, because having someone is better than having no one.
It doesn’t matter how many heads he beats in, how many mailboxes he smashes, or how often he does the naughty things that brutal bikie boyfriends do. As soon as you’ve stuck your flag in the ground on the idea that ‘he’s a good guy’, then the hardest evidence will not convince you otherwise.
Trivial as it sounds, it mimics exactly the way business leaders who have too much to lose from admitting that their market or industry is changing, stick to the sinking ship.
“It’s not bringing in the new ideas that’s so hard. It’s getting rid of the old ones”
Said Keynes. When you lock-in your Blind Spots, it’s only a matter of time until something collides with you. If you drive with your hands over your eyes, it’s only a matter of time until you crash.
Knowing everything compared to knowing nothing.
Let’s compare these states.
What are the advantages of knowing everything? We get to feel smart, we get to pretend we know what we are doing, we get to live with the illusion that we have control, and we get to massage our ego. But these benefits do not live in reality.
The disadvantages of knowing everything are that we have huge blind spots, meaning that prey can easily sneak up on us and devour us whole before we even realise the mistake we made.
Knowing nothing on the other hand?
We don’t get the joys of ego, of the illusion of control. But our eyes are open. Our visual fields are not crowded. We think without-the-box. We see the prey coming, and avoid it.
We spot the toxic relationship, business partner, market change or financial crisis before it turns our world upside-down.
Long-term masters always emphasise how little the know.
Their goal is not to boost their ego, because they have the sort of humility that makes this irrelevant. Their goal is self-awareness and clarity. They use the incredible tool of open-mindedness to open doors.
Short-term players pretend to see the future. But even today in a world of data and analytics, most forecasters are frauds. NO ONE truly knows what is coming next.
The quotes…
Who were they by?
Number One:
“People couldn’t believe that I suddenly made myself a subordinate partner… but there are some people that it is okay to be a subordinate partner to. I didn’t have the kind of ego that prevented it. There are always people who will be better at something than you are.”
Charles T. Munger.
Number Two:
“I’m no genius, but I’m smart in spots and I stay around those spots”
Thomas J. Watson. IBM Legend.
Number Three:
“It’s 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.”
Charles T. Munger.
Number Four, Best of All:
“True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing”.
Socrates.
So if the wise know nothing, how much do you know?
What do you claim to be an expert in? Have you created blind spots?
And so I say, rightly,
If you tell me I know nothing, I’ll suggest I know something.
But if you tell me I know everything, I’ll insist that I know nothing.
See Without-The-Box Thinking for more on the joys of knowing NOTHING.
