Antifragile: How To Embrace Risk, Celebrate Randomness & Why Chaos Is Good For You

this is Julian and this week's book is anti fragile things the gain from disorder by Nassim Taleb and the big idea here okay is the title suggests is that there are some things contrary to popular belief that benefit from say disorder chaos randomness variability volatility error chance turmoil okay these things are basically the opposite of fragile okay if you take a porcelain cup and you expose that cup to say volatility it won't benefit from that yet there is no word for these things okay you may think well what about robust or resilience okay but the robust the resilient they don't really benefit from disorder they pretty much remain the same okay they'll resist for example the shocks but they don't thrive they don't grow when they're put into that very turbulent and volatile environment okay and to quote the book here let us call these things anti fragile so what are some of these things okay because you're probably thinking right now well I don't like disorder I don't know anything that would like disorder you know what could possibly benefit from disorder okay but let's start with you okay more precisely let's start with your body okay what do you do when you go to the gym take a second to think about it what are you actually doing going to the gym you're exposing your body to disorder chaos turmoil okay he calls these stressors by the way you're basically exposing yourself to stressors and growing in the process okay if you just sat at home and did nothing you wouldn't grow okay you grow you thrive through stressors okay and this applies to you physically but also mentally okay a great quote from the book is how do you innovate get yourself in trouble and I talked about this as well and a product of mine am i k just jump in you don't know the solution yet you know what's going to happen jump in and trust that once you've jumped in okay once you past that point of no return your mind will kick into higher gear because of these stressors and you will come up with the solution you will find that answer okay we tend to think that innovation you know or even inventions come from us just sitting in the comfort of our homes you know as I go all nice and comfortable all the time in the world all the resources in the world and once all that set let's put our minds to it you know in a very nice safe and predictable environment no okay innovation comes from necessity it's when you just don't have a choice okay and guess what even me with this video here I'm releasing this video a couple hours from now I'm literally recording this immediately putting it out you know in a way I kind of waited till the last minute but now it's I have to because like hey god record it now mine kicks in a higher gear I do it okay if I'm gonna launch a product I get myself a deadline it's like hey here's the deadline if I had all the time in the world I would take all the time in the world okay innovation comes from necessity beware of comfort okay beware if there aren't any stressors beware if things are too easy okay what he says here is that absence of challenge degrades the best of the best okay if there are no challenges why would you even step it up okay abundance is a lot harder to handle for us than scarcity so in a way we are anti fragile okay we are beings the benefits from chaos disorder the volatility so on and so forth okay some other things would be crowds if you take a crowd for example that's blinded by anger or outrage or fueled by heroism you know or just willing to sacrifice their lives for a cause like let's say a riot that type of crowd is anti fragile the more you try to uh you know repress that crowd and that's the suckers game he says hey just trying to repress it using brute force it becomes stronger you know you've probably seen this on the news it's like hey there's a right police can't say no no no it just infuriates people more it's like you know what it so hey that's anti fragile okay the same with criticism that's anti fragile okay to say repression curiosity okay it's magnified by attempts to satisfy its information is anti fragile you know it feeds more on attempts to harm it than it does on efforts to promote it okay a little test you can do is just tell someone you know a piece of information doesn't matter what it is but tell that person hey this is a secret okay don't don't tell anyone please don't tell anyone this is very uh you know just don't and you'll see how that information gets passed around for assuming like hey can you pass this information around you try to pass around hell if you try to repress it but that shit's gonna spread like wildfire okay the same with books that are banned for example everyone's read the banned books okay and now kind of linking this to criticism it's not so much what is said let's just say about the book it's the efforts put in so it doesn't know if it's bad if everyone's like this we hate this book it's like hey why is there so much effort or energy in a way around this book and suddenly that information is valuable something probably to seek it out okay a system can be anti fragile for example but just take you know a collective of local restaurants okay and this one's very interesting so there are different layers the collective of restaurants so you take a block there's all the restaurants there that collective is anti fragile however the restaurants within the system in a way our fragile here okay so for example I have two restaurants were or a few they're like very competitive they're fighting with each other the the weak restaurant gets weeded out so the restaurants are fragile but because of the fact that they're fragile now there's that competition the system in and of itself grows now the standard for quality food is much higher and the collective is anti fragile the collective benefits from that turmoil okay and this is important to understand okay some parts on the inside of a system may be required to be fragile in order to make the system anti fragile as a result and in a way here to you know can kind of apply this to the way the world works okay in a system the sacrifices of some units are often necessary for the well-being of the other units or the whole okay organisms need to die for nature to be anti fragile so these here are some examples okay but in general a way you can make this distinction between the anti fragile and fragile you know typically is the living versus the nonliving okay for example you me humans okay anything that's alive we benefit from stressors versus something that is nonliving or material okay like the porcelain cup okay the porcelain cup will endure fatigue or break okay so biological non-biological but you can actually go more in depth okay and what he says here is it's really the difference between the complex and the non complex okay the complex being some characteristics self-healing loves randomness they have small variations needs recovery between stressors okay too few stressors is bad and too many as bad as well what he says here is it's better to walk and sprint or just constantly jogging and this is huge okay a big misinterpretation when it comes to anti-fertility is well anything that's a stressor is good for me you know I just want more and more stressors not really okay if it's too big of a stressor that's bad because you won't survive it okay it's that quote but what doesn't kill me makes me stronger as long as it doesn't kill you and you do need time to recover in between okay if you're just blasted stress or stressor so it's like no it's like going to the gym like non-stop you're gonna destroy yourself okay so you need time to recover huge okay there's one of the conditions of anti fragility okay high degree of interdependence the absence of stressors cause atrophy ages with disuse and overcompensates from shocks okay for the complex the anti fragile a state of normalcy requires a certain degree of volatility randomness that continuous swapping of information and stress now for the non complex okay the fragile needs continuous repair and maintenance hates randomness no need for recovery no or little interdependence stressors cause material fatigue ages with use okay wear and tear and under compensates from shocks okay so this is the way you can really make the difference anti fragile complex fragile non complex now how does understanding this benefit you okay because you may get it you're like okay understand how does this apply to me okay well first of all beware okay of our denial of anti fragility okay and this is huge and you know the society that we're currently living in there's a huge denial of this and we're trying to fragile eyes everything okay there's the same stressors are bad discomfort is bad any kind of mild pain is bad we need full stability you know we hate unpredicted ability we hate discomforts we hate randomness we hate chance we hate not being in total control and we're just aiming for comfort stability predictability that is the goal okay for example you may be a little sick you know you might have a cold immediately you go to the doctors like a medication medication medication okay now there's nothing that's certainly wrong with medication cannot say never take medication that not be a smart move on your part but a lot of people take you know more medication than they would need okay every time you're sick you're like more medication you know after a while guess what I don't know if your immune system is going to be up to par let's just say the tourists if ocation as he calls it of the world where everything now is scheduled everything is safe everything is convenient everything is comfortable everything is efficient and we really sucking the randomness out of life and the randomness out of who we are you know we're slowly dying inside in a way you know he calls as the golden jail where you know you go on on vacation let's just say instead of having this adventure where things are unpredictable it's very predictable you go on the plane you know say it's like you know audits or our fancy vacation you fly first-class everything's predictable is the same first-class everywhere you get there you go to your same fancy hotel same fancy hotel you go on your little tour it's all pre-planned it's all scheduled it's all just very safe and guess what there's no sense of aliveness there there is no stressors again you're just in your little cycle of comfort you know we try to plan everything we try to be as precise as possible a lot of us are prisoners of a certain plan you know there's there's literally no randomness uh and again we're just stuck in routines uh any jokes around here too if we could make you know instead of having the four different seasons just keep everything the same same temperature all the time the same emotions all the time we would okay that's what we want stability is what our society wants stability and again we're just aiming for that domesticated life you know he jokes we used to be free-range human beings not anymore okay so be aware of that don't get sucked into that okay you know if you predict exactly what your day will look like when you wake up in the morning maybe you're watching this video in the morning you're like if you can right now I challenge you look at your day and you know exactly everything that's going to happen you know you should probably feel a little dead inside it's like where is the fun in that you know you're just going through the motions like a robot in a way okay and there may be a little bit of frustration you know maybe watching this video so you're like old man I guess I can't predict a whole there should be a little bit of frustration because we crave that okay as human beings again is complex we crave that aliveness we create that's that's why if you go to for example Vegas and you're like gamble it's like that sense of unpredictability you know that sense of adventure that's when you crave that's what you live for and this is also where you're trying to rob yourself of than the way you're going about your life okay ah and what he says here too and this is another you know benefit is instead of trying to forecast and worry about future negative events because as we do it's like everything goes to be stable to try to maintain everything's just being stable we try to again forecast like what could go wrong in the future instead of doing that because you could never ever you know measure precisely future events or future negative events let's just say focus and set on becoming anti fragile instead of just trying to be fragile and maintaining everything so it's okay to be fragile focus on being an attack Raja you won't have to worry about future quote unquote negative events so practically start going out and seeking out some stressors okay go and seek out some randomness some uncertainty some chaos okay learn to use these stressors instead of hiding from them okay the best form of stability okay the best ones I just mentioned if not having to always worry about maintaining everything you know the same is to just embrace it and learn to thrive in that okay soon as you can embrace these stressors you don't fear the stressors okay and what he says here too is stop being blind to the natural anti-fertility of systems their ability to take care of themselves okay your ability to cope with this your ability to grow from it to take care of yourself and fight your tendency to harm and fragile eyes them by not giving them a chance to do so okay stop robbing yourself all these different opportunities to grow and become more that's how fragile okay because that's what we do this is what I mean I really you know put an effort in doing myself through throughout the years you know it's like j-just go seeking out these new situations growing from discomfort stop labeling it as something bad you know that best my favorite example is the gym you know it's like we understand hate going to the gym discomfort those stressors that's what makes us grow but we fail to translate that to all other areas of our life it's like oh it's only in the gym where discomfort is good otherwise no no no it's like hey it applies everywhere right now if you're comfortable it's bad okay go seek out discomfort start playing with the volatility start learning from that information start learning how to adapt how to embrace it and now you'll be in you know what you were seeking in the first place now things will be stable now things will be comfortable when you're used to being you know uncomfortable that that'd be the way of going about it so to conclude here okay with a quote from the book the best way to verify that you are alive is by checking if you like variations okay that's how you know if you're alive it's like hey are you a living being are you complex do you like randomness do like variations do you like chaos do you like stress do you like these stressors if not time to use this as a wake-up call so that's what I got out of this book of course it goes a lot more in-depth okay especially in terms of how to become more anti fragile positioning yourself as being anti fragile in all these different situations highly recommend checking it out and as always check the comments here below for next six book until next time

Channel: JulienHimself

Views: 53,442

Rating: 4.9257293 out of 5

Keywords: julien blanc, nassim taleb, nassim taleb antifragile, antifragile, antifragile audiobook, nassim taleb audiobook, nassim nicholas taleb, antifragile things that gain from disorder, antifragile review, antifragile julien, antifragile summary, antifragility, nassim, julienhimself, julien himself

Id: rA_szMahSyg

Length: 15min 3sec (903 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 26 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/sancar322]

this is one of my favorite books, especially related to self-improvement. It changes the way you view risk and rejection entirely. HIGHLY RECOMMEND