The Inner Game with Vishal Khandelwal

In 2018, I flew to Los Angeles to ask Charlie Munger one question. I had one minute, and I came expecting a mental model. What he said instead has guided how I parent and teach ever since. In this episode of The Inner Game, I play the actual recording of that exchange, and then I walk through what I've learned trying to live his answer in my own home and my own classroom over the years since. Charlie Munger is gone now, but those few sentences keep opening up the longer I try to live them. I hope they do something similar for you.

Back in 2010 I bought a wonderful little business. Debt free, cash rich, the kind of company you're supposed to buy and forget for a decade. For two and a half years the price did absolutely nothing, and I got bored and sold it for a tiny gain. What happened to it afterward taught me more about my own temperament than any winning trade ever has. This episode isn't really about the stock. It's about the three quiet mental traps that made me sell a business I had judged correctly in every way: a confusion about what kind of investor I was, an anchor to my buying price, and plain, ordinary boredom. If you've ever felt the itch to sell something just because it wouldn't move, this one is for you. Watch the business, not the price. That's the whole episode in five words. 

Walk into any bank, open any finance app, scroll any feed, and something is working to make you feel like you're not doing enough with your money. Because a calm, content investor is bad for business. In this episode of The Inner Game, we look at how the money and investment industry, and the influencers who copy it, use fear and false dreams to keep you buying, switching, and chasing. And more importantly, how you protect your peace and your savings from all of it.

We all carry a younger version of ourselves around. The one who trusted the wrong people, spent money trying to look successful, moved too fast to notice what mattered. And most of us think about that person with a wince. This episode is about why we stay at war with who we used to be, and what quietly loosens when we finally stop. It's built around a passage by the writer Maria Popova, on what she calls the purest measure of maturity: "One measure of maturity — perhaps the purest measure — may be the courage to put our arms around those former selves and pull them close, to take tender responsibility for their missteps and confusions, refusing denial, refusing despair. Without compassion for who we used to be, we can never fully own who we are or open to who we can become." If you've ever looked back at an old decision and felt that flush of embarrassment, this one's for you. Watch till the end. And go easy on them. They were doing their best with what they had. Maria's article: https://www.themarginalian.org/2026/06/17/le-guin-maturity/ 

In 1973, eight expert horse bettors were handed eight times more information. Their accuracy didn't move an inch. Their confidence doubled. That one study might explain why your stock screener, and every research subscription you pay for, is quietly making you a worse investor rather than a better one. In this episode I tell the story of Paul Slovic's experiment, and what it means for anyone who believes that more data is the path to better investing. The truth is that the information was never the hard part. Temperament was. And no screener has ever sold you that. 📄 The full written essay: https://www.safalniveshak.com/eight-experts-forty-facts-one-investing-lesson/ 🔬 The study: Paul Slovic, "Behavioral Problems of Adhering to a Decision Policy" (1973). You can read the original here: https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/handle/1794/23607 *** 📚 My books: https://www.safalniveshak.com/books/ If this made you think, leave a comment below. When has knowing more made a decision worse for you, not better? I read every reply. *** #Investing #ValueInvesting #BehavioralFinance #InvestingPsychology #StockMarket #StockScreener #SafalNiveshak #TheInnerGame