The 2014 San Antonio Spurs were anti-fraglie. Charlie Munger knows why.

No time for self-pity

Many of Charlie Munger’s ideas don’t really require superhuman insight to realize. He’s so good at reducing issues to their most simple core that his wisdom often looks like nothing more than common sense. 

His approach to setbacks is one of those commonsensical ideas. He writes, “Generally speaking, envy, resentment, revenge and self-pity are disastrous modes of thoughts.”

And self-pity might be the worst of all.

“Self-pity gets fairly close to paranoia, and paranoia is one of the very hardest things to reverse. You do not want to drift into self-pity,” Munger said. Here’s why: “It’s a ridiculous way to behave and when you avoid it, you get a great advantage over everybody else or almost everybody else because self-pity is a standard condition.”

Best of all? Despite it being so much a part of our human experience that Munger (exaggeratedly) calls it a ‘standard condition’, he’s right on the money that it’s something each of us can train ourselves not to do.

It's all about practice 

The Spurs would have only 4 trophies if they'd fallen into self-pity

But knowing that it’s possible is a lot different from doing it in practice.

We may all know what Munger calls the grandma corollary: that it’s a good idea to eat one’s vegetables before having desert. Anyone not aware that empty calories are bad and consistent sleep and exercise are good?

There’s a lot more to it, though, than knowing. GI Joe was wrong, knowing isn’t even close to half the battle with Munger’s best ideas.

The San Antonio Spurs just provided an perfect an example as I’ve ever seen of a group of people working together and embracing Munger’s insight against self-pity. 

Spurs as anti-fragile

Grantland editor Bill Simmons makes a case for the Spurs’s anti-fragility nearly as eloquent as the lived experience of the organization he covers.

Q: What’s the best lesson of the 2014 Spurs that wasn’t ridiculously obvious?

Five words: Don’t feel sorry for yourself.

Instead of moping around after blowing last year’s title, they looked at everything logically and wondered, “Hmmmmm … why did we REALLY lose?” The conclusion: They weren’t good enough at small ball; they couldn’t play two point guards at once; they didn’t rest their veterans enough; and they didn’t exploit Diaw’s offensive skills enough. They spent the regular season working on those issues and transforming themselves into a superior version of the Seven Seconds or Less Suns. The end result: They treated the 2014 Heat the same way those slash-and-kick international teams treated American basketball in the mid-2000s. It almost looked like they were playing a different sport.