Charlie Munger had 3 'basic rules' for career happiness. One of them: don't work for anyone you don't respect.
Charlie Munger wrote a column about career happiness for CNBC Make It before his death.
Visual China Group via Getty Images
- Charlie Munger said he had three "basic rules" for career satisfaction.
- One included not working for anyone you don't respect, he wrote in a column for CNBC Make It.
- Munger, Warren Buffett's trusted right-hand man, died on Tuesday at the age of 99.
Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett's trusted right-hand man who died Tuesday, aged 99, had three "basic rules" for career satisfaction, according to a column the billionaire penned for CNBC Make It that's among his final writings.
One of the legendary investor's rules: "Don't work for anyone you do not respect and admire."
"You particularly want to avoid working directly under somebody you don't admire and don't want to be like. It's dangerous," Munger, the longtime vice chairman of Buffett's conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway, wrote in the column published on Wednesday.
He added, "Generally, your outcome in life will be more satisfactory if you work under people whom you correctly admire."
Munger said in the column that he navigated through his career "by identifying people I admired and by maneuvering, mostly without criticizing anybody, so that I was usually working under the right sort of people."
"A lot of employers will permit that if you're shrewd enough to work it out with some tact," wrote Munger, Buffett's close confidant.
Munger's other two rules for career happiness were: "Don't sell anything you wouldn't buy yourself" and "work only with people you enjoy."
"If at all feasible, you want to maneuver yourself into doing something in which you have an intense interest alongside people whose company you enjoy," Munger wrote.
Munger wrote in the column that those three rules always "helped" him and that he believed "they can help any young person evaluating a career decision."
Munger said that even though "meeting all three is nearly impossible, you should try anyway."
As for Munger — who met Buffett at a dinner party in their hometown of Omaha, Nebraska, in 1959, ultimately leading Munger to join Berkshire Hathaway in 1978 — he said he achieved them all.
"I have been incredibly fortunate in my life when it comes to these basic rules," Munger wrote. "With Warren Buffett, I had all three."