Friends are so important and healthy that some studies have revealed that quality social ties are even more important than diet and exercise. Others say building strong friendships can make us happier, healthier, and more productive in all areas of life. Friendships can compound, too, making them better, richer, and more rewarding as time goes on.

Ideally, we find and maintain seven kinds of friendships:

• Workplace friends

• Close friends

• Lifelong friends

• Older friends

• Younger friends

• Friends of convenience

• Same life-stage friends

Today, we'll discuss Charlie Munger’s great predicament, particularly when he was a broke, divorced, and grieving father early in his career.

All this, and more, in just 4 minutes to read.

— Matthew

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"Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths."

— Arnold Schwarzenegger

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Trivia

Charlie Munger’s Predicament

Hardship from the beginning

At 31, Charlie Munger found himself at a devastating low point — divorced, financially ruined, and mourning the loss of his 9-year-old son to leukemia. Each personal tragedy alone could break a spirit, but Munger refused to succumb to despair. That’s the focus of this week’s deep dive: How Munger marched on from early grief, heartbreak, and immense sadness. 

Munger channeled his grief and hardship into personal growth and determination. His philosophy was clear: Each misfortune in life is an opportunity to behave well, grow, and learn. That mindset proved tremendously helpful in his journey from rock bottom to becoming one of the most respected figures in the business world. As we’ll see, his route to becoming a wealthy investor and beloved family man (eight children, many more grandchildren) wasn’t smooth sailing.

When your life gets tough, there’s nothing wrong with crying, but “you have to soldier through it,” he once said. “You can cry, all right. But you can’t quit...Somehow, you soldier through. If you have to walk through the streets, crying for a few hours a day as part of the soldiering, go ahead and cry away. But you can’t quit.”

Cry, but keep going

One of Munger’s first jobs out of Harvard Law School was at the law firm Wright & Garrett, where he made a fairly low starting salary without much savings in the bank. But a few years later, he’d shown promise as a young attorney. He owned a nice home in South Pasadena, California, and started a family. The Great Depression was a distant memory. World War II had ended. Life was seemingly very good. 

But Munger and his first wife got divorced when he was just 29. At the time, divorce carried a large social stigma, exacerbating the pain.

His ex-wife kept the family home, and he lost virtually all of his savings in the divorce. He was forced out and moved into “dreadful” conditions nearby, driving a bad old yellow Pontiac. Per the biography written by Janet Lowe, Molly Munger asked her father, “Daddy, this car is just awful, a mess. Why do you drive it?”  The broke Munger replied: “To discourage gold diggers.”

Then Munger found out his son, Teddy, had been diagnosed with leukemia. He had to pay nearly everything out of pocket to cover the medical expenses, and the death rate was 100%. One friend said Munger would visit his young son in the hospital (almost daily), then walk the streets, crying, depressed, and depleted. He took Teddy to the hospital almost daily while caring for his other two children and practicing law.

A year after his diagnosis, Teddy died at 9 years old. 

“I cried all the time when my first child died,” Munger recalled years later. “But I knew I couldn’t change anything. In those days, the fatality with childhood leukemia was 100%. The iron rule of life is: Everybody struggles.”

Summoning the strength to carry on? That’s the challenge. To Munger, that’s the chief task in life because economic uncertainty, world wars, job mistakes, and relationship challenges are all part of the game.

In time, he founded and worked as a real estate attorney, then gave up law to focus on managing investments. His career was back on track. By 1956, he married his second wife, Nancy, who stayed with him until she died in 2010. 

“It’s your only option,” Munger once said of powering through, day by day. “You can’t bring back the dead; you can’t cure the dying child. You can’t do all kinds of things. You have to soldier through it.”

Utilize life’s blows

As if Munger’s early-life struggles weren’t enough, he encountered more trouble at 52, when a botched cataract surgery left him blind in one eye. The pain was so stark that he had the eye removed. Yet that setback didn't deter him either. He adapted, learned braille, and pressed on.

By then, Munger knew hardship. He just put his head down and kept reading, meeting new people, and investing in outstanding business alongside his longtime friend and colleague, Warren Buffett.

After meeting Munger at a dinner party in Omaha in 1959, Buffett — still widely unknown in national investment circles — said he recognized that there was “only one partner who fit my bill of particulars in every way: Charlie.” Buffett’s wife, the late Susie Buffett, once wrote of the two men that “both thought the other was the smartest guy they ever met.”

Munger later reflected on his life: “Envy, resentment, revenge, and self-pity are disastrous modes of thought. Self-pity gets close to paranoia. ... Every mischance in life is an opportunity to behave well and learn. It’s not to be immersed in self-pity but to utilize the blow constructively.”

Slug it out one inch at a time

Munger once echoed Rudyard Kipling's wise words: “Treat triumph and disaster just the same.” He urged young people not to dwell. Instead, accept failure and mistakes as part of your journey. That idea is harder to put into practice when you feel stuck or have reached rock bottom, but Munger often said that’s precisely when it’s most necessary to stay disciplined and hopeful, whether in financial markets, one’s marriage, or elsewhere.

His life story is a powerful reminder that success is not about avoiding failures or setbacks but how one responds to them. Munger's ability to face life’s inevitable challenges head-on, learn from his experiences, and persistently work toward his goals helped him achieve his dreams of enormous financial success, intellectual fulfillment, and a large, loving family. 

“Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up,” Munger once said. “Discharge your duties faithfully and well. Systematically, you get ahead, but not necessarily in fast spurts. Nevertheless, you build discipline by preparing for fast spurts. Slug it out one inch at a time, day by day. At the end of the day – if you live long enough – most people get what they deserve.”

Dive deeper

Listen to our own Clay Finck discuss lessons from Munger and give a tribute to him after he died last year. Or check out some of Munger’s favorite books.

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