What Asking for Advice Signals
“I’m always reminded of the young guy who went to Mozart and said, ‘I’d like to write symphonies.’ When Mozart said, ‘You’re too young,’ the young man replied, ‘But you were young when you started.’ Mozart pointed out, ‘Yes, but I wasn’t asking anyone else for advice on how to do it.’”
Munger has often shared this story whenever someone asks him a question about beaming a better investor. He also tends to clarify that the questioners are usually asking: How can I be as rich and successful as you but faster/younger?
Sometimes the “young man” asking Mozart for advice will be 14 years old, 22 or even 28. It doesn’t change the fact that the young man is asking Mozart “how to achieve X” when he is older than Mozart was when the famous composer had started (I think around 9?)….hence putting some kind of value to biological age as if being older should allow one to achieve more. Aside from physical limitations, much of it is no longer true as one ages.
What I think Munger is saying indirectly is that if you have to ask "how", you won’t get there.
As such, Munger’s Mozart story could be a model for every other question like whether to start a company, move to another city, pursue some adventure, etc…. The fact one needs to ask others how to do it probably means they shouldn’t do it and/or they are not ready.
It’s a question I’ve wrestled with often over the last few years. The notion of “what is the right path?” The more I learned about the world and myself, I’ve learned it’s truly a difficult question.
Structured paths like most careers don’t really lead to much confusion. Getting jobs in consulting, accounting, and investing were not confusing because such defined careers have so many models one could get inspired by and copy.
But as I traversed down the unstructured path of what to do with myself a few years ago, I had a lot of doubt about the path I was taking because there wasn’t some clear cut avenue. It was also probably because I needed to do more work to understand the self to figure out exactly what I should be doing.
Even after having a Northstar….an aim….the steps seem unclear at times and these would lead me down moments of confusion where I would reach out to people in desperation. I would reach out to famous authors, entrepreneurs, startup coaches, etc….to ask them….”Am I on the right path?” I would read books hoping to get an answer to that implicit question as well.
But alas, I am a slow learner. Despite dozens of podcast interviews, books, and conversations with people iterating that the question isn’t to find some ‘right path’ and that one must realize whatever path they are on is the right one….I think I’m only now slowly starting to understand it. Rather, I’m willing to embrace it.
I’ve heard Munger tell the Mozart story so many times over the last five years and it’s only now that I believe I understand the lesson. It actually makes me afraid of all the big lessons I’ve probably missed in ignorance in the early years of listening to Munger and Buffett.
Now, I’ve also felt conflicted because I also learned that people should ask for help and no-one achieves success alone. Though this might be true, this might be a trap of taking the directives of life too literally and making it into an equation, which it is not. It’s like thinking there is an equation to happiness. It sounds stupid because it is. Much of life is closer to art than science though we rely on the application of science.
Rather, it’s important to realize that by asking for advice on "how to get to X”, the questioner is signifying they are not ready. They are not ready for whatever the journey requires.
It’s as Mozart points out, you are too young to be going on this adventure. The fact that you have asked to be taught how to achieve X signifies you have yet to push yourself past the shadows of your parents and authority figures that have protected and guided you.
Your inability to decide for the self with the facts available and asking for steps or rather, permission to take the steps you are already thinking of, entail a situation where you are still that young child hoping someone knows you better than yourself so will be able to make the decision for you.
It means you are too young. You are not ready yet.
You must first realize that no one knows you better than yourself and sit down to have some brutally honest discussions with the self before embarking on the great unknown. I have much work to do.