Optionality: How to Survive and Thrive in a Volatile World

The ends of the barbell don’t have to be equally weighted. In Antifragile, Nassim Taleb describes a barbell tilted 85 to 90 per cent to ultra-conservative assets, like cash or T-bills, and the remaining 10 to 15 per cent spread between small, speculative bets (Fig. 4.2).

Insurance perfectly illustrates the fact that the utility (use value) of money is not the same thing as the simple dollar value. Most of us are happy to take small, steady, predictable losses in order to prevent a catastrophic loss which would wipe us out. And this is entirely right and proper! Remember that bad is stronger than good: losses hit us

Maslow’s theory has largely held up. Cross-cultural studies have found that happiness does indeed correlate with meeting five broad categories of needs: physiological, safety and security, love and belonging, status, and self-actualisation. However, the pyramid-shaped hierarchy (which was made up by business consultants, and has nothing to do with

if we want to build optionality, perversely, we first have to deliberately constrain our choices. Here are some ways I have pruned my own possibility tree at various points: Banishing junk food from the house Blocking distracting websites Eating the same meals every day Refusing to own a car Not keeping up with fashions Foregoing overdrafts and cre

Researchers at Princeton found financial woes dominate our mental bandwidth, crowding out other thoughts and leaving less room for solving important problems. The net effect is that people in financial trouble temporarily lose the equivalent of 13 IQ points, which is huge—like losing an entire night of sleep.

In trying to overcome problems of akrasia, we hear a lot about 'willpower' and 'grit'. I say these are dirty words, suitable only for masochists. Trying to do anything through sheer strength of will is like rowing into a headwind: exhausting, and largely futile. The purpose of this book is to set up systems that keep the wind at our backs, marshal

The second rule of thumb is that when there are no consequences for being wrong, or there is no ‘wrong’, don’t be embarrassed to follow the crowd. The reason we dance in unison, or sing together, or march in line, or wear uniform-like fashions, or swap in-jokes and memes, is that it feels pretty great to be a part of the hivemind.

“intentional activities”.

If death is the ultimate destroyer of optionality, it’s no surprise that ‘life’ is the first of the core capabilities valued across cultures, as determined by Sen’s collaborator Martha Nussbaum. The other core capabilities include health, security, freedom of association, control over one’s environment, learning and thinking, emotional attachment,

On the ‘safe’ side, I have some cash for liquidity and emergencies, with the rest of my portfolio invested in the cheapest, broadly diversified index funds I can buy. I don’t try to pick hot stocks, and will never make more (or less) than the average market return. I’ll be holding this portfolio through thick and thin for the next several decades,