“Tell me where I’m going to die, so I don’t go there”. July 10, 2026

**Scott Phillips** (0:10)
Welcome to Motley Fool Money, the podcast that has a broken crystal ball, but really, really wishes we didn't. I'm Scott Phillips from the Motley Fool, and he is, well, speaking of crystal balls, he's a man who saw a future, a bright and glorious future, where people could share their investment thesis on an interwebby kind of thing, and they could be in a club, and that club could be, it would be a premier club if you're going to do it, and it would be obviously online, as I said, and he thought, you know what, I might make it about investing, and lo and therefore and behold, and all those biblical words, strawman.com was born, and he, of course, is Andrew Ram Page, the man who had the vision, the style, the panache, the drive.

**Andrew Ram Page** (0:47)
Come on, wind it up. Wind it up, Phillips.

**Scott Phillips** (0:51)
G'day, mate, how are you?

**Andrew Ram Page** (0:52)
I'm good.

**Scott Phillips** (0:53)
I mean, I love your work. Thank you, mate, I appreciate it.

**Andrew Ram Page** (0:58)
Playing it on thick feels like an understatement.

**Scott Phillips** (1:03)
That's all right. If you're going to do it thick enough, don't do it at all, is what he's saying. Especially how great I am. Mate, there's another pre-recorded podcast, so I will ask how you are, but how you are now is not how you will be, hopefully even better than you are now, when this goes to air. But you had a great idea, and you said we talk a lot about the things that people and investors should do. And we do.
We're not sure of an opinion. Those opinions generally tend to be a, let me tell you what you should do. But, but, but, but, the great and unfortunately now late Charlie Munger had a wonderful line, and he said, we should do this. So Charlie said, quote, the only thing I want to know is where I'm going to die, so I never go there, end quote. Which is a lovely, lovely line. Unfortunately, California hospitals weren't the places that Charlie should have gone, because he did unfortunately pass away in late 2023 But we have lots of wonderful things from and about Charlie. But that quote, mate, it's a lovely line. Obviously, it's an analogy, a metaphor, or whatever those things are. Simile metaphor, aphorism, it's something. But it reminds us that avoiding the bad stuff is as good as trying to do the good stuff. As you said, hey, let's talk about some of that, some of the things we shouldn't do as investors. And I thought, you know what? That's a great idea.
We kind of, we put back the curtain, we had a slight thought, maybe we've done something like this before, but we're not shy, afraid of repetition of this podcast. So we're gonna have a go anyway.
And I think, so on one hand, mate, they are the opposite of what you should do, right? Don't not invest, do invest. But there are some specific things that actually can cause us trouble as investors. We're gonna spend the next hour or so, we'll see how long we go. Talking about some of what those things are. And because it was your idea, I'm gonna throw you straight in the deep end and say, what is something that investors shouldn't do, Mr. Pudge?

**Andrew Ram Page** (2:57)
I could, yeah, happy. Let me just, I'll just add a few opening remarks. Oh, okay, good, good, good.

**Scott Phillips** (3:02)
If I may. The floor is yours, sir.

**Andrew Ram Page** (3:05)
I mean, Charlie was just such, he had, like Warren, like he just had a real way to communicate ideas, much more blunt, much more direct, less, less, more harsh, maybe.

**Scott Phillips** (3:18)
It was a great double act, to be fair, especially when Warren Buffett did the set up and then Charlie just throw a quick sentence or two in and then leave it at that.

**Andrew Ram Page** (3:25)
Yeah, you're an idiot. Stop doing it. Yeah, which I always, I always loved. But it was part of this bigger sort of, where he was getting it there was was just another line on the similar idea of his mantra of invert always invert, which is this idea that it's far easier to avoid being stupid than it is to be exceptionally brilliant.

**Scott Phillips** (3:48)
Yes, yes.

**Andrew Ram Page** (3:49)
In other words, it's like if you want, and obviously he's speaking in the context of investing mainly, but actually he was a he was a genuine polymath. So he made the observation that this is actually a really good concept in all in all different fields and that.