Stay Rational and Lower Your Expectations
Munger recommends lower expectations and describes enjoying flattery even while recognizing it as manipulation. A dinner guest then asks him about self-pity, but this excerpt ends before his answer.
THE IDEA
Stay Rational and Lower Your Expectations
Charlie: “The secret of happiness is to lower your expectations. You have to be aware of beautiful women as well. They could easily manipulate you. I want to tell you the story of what happened with me once. The manipulation still works even though you know you’re doing it. And I’ve seen that done by one person to another. I drew this beautiful woman as my dinner partner a few years ago, and I’d never seen her before. Well, she’s married to a prominent Angelino, and she sat down next to me, and she turned her beautiful face up and she said, “Charlie.” She said, “What one word accounts for your remarkable success in life?” And I knew I was being manipulated and that she’d done this before, and I just loved it. I mean I never see this woman without a little lift in my spirits. And by the way, I told her I was rational. You’ll have to judge yourself whether that’s true. I may be demonstrating some psychological tendency I hadn’t planned on demonstrating xxviii.”
Everybody started to laugh, but not a young blond person who was standing next to Charlie.
“Have you finished talking?” asked the blond man. Charlie suddenly fell silent. Everyone waited for him to go on to draw some conclusions. You never know what Charlie is thinking. When he is silent, it feels as if he enjoys communicating with himself first.
“So, it follows from your example that one can’t really live one’s life on animal spirits and instincts? But it is just impossible, for some reason,” Mr. Brown said.
Charlie again looked around the table, with an earnest and searching look: “Are you angry with me for all of these lectures?” He was managing to look everyone straight in the eye.
“What for?” cried the blond man, astonished. “We are lucky to have you here.”
Charlie: “Well, because I keep lecturing you…”
Everyone laughed.
“Ok, please don’t worry, dear Charlie, about lecturing us”.
Now the wife of somebody’s guest started to speak: “Well now, will you be so kind to tell us how you feel about your famous work, “The Psychology of Human Misjudgment”? Particularly of my interest is something about self-pity as a terrible way to behave. But that is not so easy, Charlie. We all would like to be a ‘sympathy seeker’ when we have a big problem.”
When to use it
Salary negotiation: compare expectations with the role, available evidence, and your alternatives before setting a target.
When dealing with salespeople, stay rational and recognize manipulation tactics to make better decisions.
Personal setbacks: seek useful support and identify a constructive next step.
In social settings, be aware of flattery and charm that may be used to influence your thinking.
FROM THEORY TO EVERYDAY LIFE
In practice
The Beautiful Woman at Dinner
Charlie recounts an experience where a beautiful woman asked him what one word accounts for his success. He knew he was being manipulated but enjoyed it, answering 'rational'.
Self-pity as a Sympathy Seeker
A guest references Charlie's work on self-pity being a terrible way to behave, noting that people often want to be sympathy seekers when facing big problems.
A MOMENT TO REFLECT
Put it to work.
How can you apply the principle of lowering expectations to reduce disappointment in your daily life?
In what situations might you be vulnerable to manipulation from attractive or charismatic people?
When facing a setback, how do you distinguish dwelling on self-pity from seeking support that helps you respond?
CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION
Source texts
- The Art of Being Rational Charlie Munger