“Intense interest in any subject is indispensable if you're really going to excel in it. I could force myself to be fairly good in a lot of things, but I couldn't excel in anything in which I didn't have an intense interest.”
Intense Interest
Charlie Munger gave this advice to the graduating law students of the University of Southern California on May 13, 2007, in a commencement address that works through his advice as a list (“Another thing that I have found,” “Another thing you have to do”). The talk is collected in Poor Charlie’s Almanack (expanded third edition) among its “Eleven Talks.”
In the talk, Munger follows the line with the advice: “So to some extent you’re going to have to do as I did. If at all feasible, you want to maneuver yourself into doing something in which you have an intense interest.” The very next item on his list is assiduity, a word he likes because to him it means “Sit down on your ass until you do it.” So the quote is not an exemption from hard work; Munger asks for the interest and the grind together. Forcing himself, by his own account, only ever bought fairly good, so pick the work where the interest is already there, and then grind.