The difference between wisdom and intellect

Charlie Munger (now 97 years young) is a billionaire businessman, vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway and business partner of Warren Buffett, one of the greatest investors of all time.

There is a short video clip of Charlie being interviewed on CNBC and he shares some valuable insights.

He is asked about the secret to a long and happy life, and he replies: "You don’t have a lot of envy, you don’t have a lot of resentment, you don’t overspend your income, you stay cheerful in spite of your troubles, you deal with reliable people, and you do what you’re supposed to do."

The interviewer asks him how old he was when he figured this out and he said: "About 7!"

Maybe he was joking, maybe not. I think not.

Wisdom is often thought of as being accumulated over the course of your life and through experience, yet there is a deeper wisdom beyond the intellect.

I am reading The enlightened gardener revisited by the late Sydney Banks. Syd writes: "True wisdom is not discovered but uncovered from an uncontaminated innate intelligence. Wisdom lies beyond our delusory ego and personal thought system."

Currently I am running a couple of group programmes for financial planners and the basis of these programmes is not me sharing my knowledge with people.

Instead, I point people towards the source of their own wisdom

Why do I do this?

I have come to see that our own wisdom will guide us through life with a sense of joy and ease. It is something you can count on, you can never lose, and is always available.

The biggest (and only) problem we face, individually and collectively, is that we lose sight of our innate wisdom because we have developed the habit of over-thinking.

In a busy mind our wisdom often gets obscured and then we can become tempted to look outside of ourselves for answers and it undermines our confidence.

Wisdom in action

If you want to create magical client relationships, the deeper the respect and understanding you have for your own wisdom, the more potential and possibility you have of bringing out your client’s wisdom.

And isn’t this the whole point?

There is nothing that will create greater value for your clients than bringing out their own wisdom. Sometimes just one insight can change a life.