Real Life Is Risk Taking

I'm reading the Undoing Project right now, by Michael Lewis, which is about the work that the psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky did together. Within the last week, I stumbled upon a great video of Nassim Taleb and Daniel Kahneman [1] having a conversation regarding their work. Kahneman said at one point that “we’re designed to try to avoid stressors” after Taleb said that stress is good.

Nassim Taleb has greatly influenced my reasoning and thought process but the only people who can really appreciate his work are people who have invested time and or money in anything while knowing that the resources they invested could be lost for good. For everyone else, Kahneman is right that most people will see the possibility of a loss (no matter how small) or stressful event(s) and stop right there.

I stopped referencing Taleb with certain friends and family because they focus exclusively on half of the equation (the loss factor) and nothing else. For those people, I just recommend saving up as much cash as possible because it is just a matter of time before an improbable “stress” event occurs to them or, maybe, I might need them to bail me out which then means I did not follow Taleb’s advice.

[1] https://www.nypl.org/audiovideo/live-nypl-nassim-taleb-danie...