Edric Teo

Sometimes the fastest way to find the right answer is to ask the inverted question on purpose.

That’s the core of inversion, a common mental model: instead of asking how to succeed, ask how to fail. And then don’t do those things.

It sounds simple. But simple doesn’t mean easy. People are used to chasing outcomes. They’re much less practiced at avoiding traps. Especially the ones that don’t look like traps at first.

If you ask “how do I stay healthy,” you’ll get a hundred vague suggestions. Exercise, sleep, eat well, whatever that means. But if you ask “what makes people unhealthy,” the answers come fast. Smoking. Sitting all day. Sugar. Avoiding those won’t guarantee success but it rules out obvious failure paths. That gets you further than most people realize.

Avoiding stupidity is often smarter than trying to be brilliant.

Wrong Questions

It’s easy to misuse inversion by framing the wrong question.

For example, if you want to be more confident, you might ask “what makes people anxious?” That’s a good start. But if you ask “what makes people quiet,” you might miss the point entirely. Quietness isn’t the same as anxiety.

Misframing the question breaks the model.

The goal of inversion is to remove the obstacles that prevent a good outcome. Inversion works when the question targets what blocks the desired outcome, not just its opposite.

Patterns are Sticky

What’s surprising is how consistent the bad stuff are.

Bad health habits are pretty much the same for everyone. Same with poor spending decisions. Same with cybersecurity issues. Same with bad hires.

The bad is predictable. It repeats.

And that makes it fixable.

If you know what patterns lead to trouble, you can build guardrails around them. Then you don’t need to obsess over best practices. Just steer away from the worst ones.

A Scale of Negatives

Another way to use inversion is with a scale. Instead of listing “best practices,” list the worst. The things that almost always go wrong.

This works because many small mistakes pile up. Inversion forces you to identify those.

If you know what not to do, what remains is often good enough.

The Point

Inversion won’t give you the answer. But it’ll keep you from walking into the obvious walls.

And that’s more than most advice can promise.

Reliability is underrated. We don’t talk about it enough, yet it’s one of the most valuable traits a person can have. It’s not just about doing good work—it’s about showing up, following through, and keeping others informed. People don’t realize how much trust hinges on something as basic as answering an email when you said you would.

Think about it: why do we trust some people more than others? Often, it’s not because they’re smarter or more talented. It’s because they’re dependable. They do what they say they’ll do. When they hit roadblocks, they don’t disappear—they give you updates. Even a simple “I’m waiting on this” makes a difference. It signals that they haven’t forgotten and that they’re on it.

This is why Charlie Munger’s advice—“Invert, always invert”—is so useful. To understand what makes someone reliable, think about what makes someone unreliable. The flakiness of not getting back to you. The awkward silence after a missed promise. These aren’t just small annoyances; they erode trust. And trust, once lost, is hard to rebuild.

Reliability isn’t a single heroic act. It’s a habit. And like most habits, it compounds. Each time you show up and follow through, you’re making a deposit in what you might call a “trust bank.” Over time, the balance grows, and in moments of crisis, people know they can count on you. That’s when reliability becomes priceless.

The interesting thing is that reliability extends beyond work. It shapes relationships, friendships, and partnerships. No one says it explicitly, but when you’re reliable, people value you more. They want you on their team. They want you in their life.

If I had to choose one trait in someone—just one—it would be reliability. Because reliable people are the ones who get things done, and they’re the ones you can build something with.

I often wonder how humans as a species, managed to thrive. After all, we’re made of the same basic atoms as every other living organism. So, what makes us different?

The fact that you’re reading and understanding this very sentence is mind-boggling. These are just letters on a screen, but when arranged with care, they convey meaning. And on the receiving end, you can somehow make sense of them.

The book Sapiens helped answer some of my questions about this. The author explores how humans evolved the ability to communicate, make plans, and execute them. This capability, more than anything, has allowed us to dominate.

But here’s something even more interesting: how do we keep discovering new words?

Our lexicon expands as we’re exposed to new sources—friends, colleagues, or even social media (“skibidi,” “Ohio,” or “gyaat” as of writing this). Every generation invents its own language, leaving the older generation often struggling to keep up. Why? Probably because the older generation tends to stick to their familiar ways of engaging with the world. Eventually, they lose touch with the evolving language.

Which brings us to the unknown-unknowns: How do we know what we don’t know?

Large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT is a good tool to address this. I once found myself looking at closed terrariums but didn’t know anything about springtails – the tiny creatures that help maintain the ecosystem. ChatGPT pointed me in the right direction of springtail care and now I have a springtail culture of my own.

Words also take on new meaning depending on context. Take the word “spam,” for instance. Most people today think of unwanted emails or calls. But “Spam” was originally a food product registered in the U.S. in 1937—a blend of “spiced” and “ham”. Who would’ve guessed a word that started on a dinner plate would become synonymous with internet junk?

Context is everything. Stringing words together changes meaning entirely. A good example of this is a stand-up comedy on the word “ass” where the humor hinges on how language and context collide.

Even after diving deeper into how language works, it still amazes me how I’ve managed to learn these individual words, string them together, and communicate with you.

p.s. Just like telephones, language is a great example of network effects. Each additional user strengthens the language (by making it more useful for communication), which encourages new adopters, which in turn strengthen the language further.