Rules for Living from Nassim Taleb
The Author of Fooled by Randomness and The Black Swan has some suggestions for you:
Taleb's top life tips
1. Scepticism is effortful and costly. It is
better to be sceptical about matters of large
consequences, and be imperfect, foolish and
human in the small and the aesthetic.
2. Go to parties. You can't even start to know
what you may find on the envelope of
serendipity. If you suffer from agoraphobia,
send colleagues.
3. It's not a good idea to take a forecast from
someone wearing a tie. If possible, tease
people who take themselves and their knowledge
too seriously.
4. Wear your best for your execution and stand
dignified. Your last recourse against
randomness is how you act -- if you can't
control outcomes, you can control the elegance
of your behaviour. You will always have the
last word.
5. Don't disturb complicated systems that have
been around for a very long time. We don't
understand their logic. Don't pollute the
planet. Leave it the way we found it,
regardless of scientific ‘evidence'.
6. Learn to fail with pride -- and do so fast
and cleanly. Maximise trial and error -- by
mastering the error part.
7. Avoid losers. If you hear someone use the
words impossible, never, too difficult
too often, drop him or her from your social
network. Never take no for an answer
(conversely, take most yeses as most
probably).
8. Don't read newspapers for the news (just for
the gossip and, of course, profiles of
authors). The best filter to know if the news
matters is if you hear it in cafes,
restaurants... or (again) parties.
9. Hard work will get you a professorship or a
BMW. You need both work and luck for a Booker,
a Nobel or a private jet.
10. Answer e-mails from junior people before
more senior ones. Junior people have further to
go and tend to remember who slighted them.
[click for video]
Source:
Nassim Nicholas Taleb: the prophet of boom and doom
Bryan Appleyard
The Sunday Times, June 1, 2008
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article4022091.ece
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Posted by Barry Ritholtz | Sunday, August 03, 2008 | 09:00 AM | Permalink
