Wisdom Journal
Business & Economics
Thomas Sowell:
“There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.”
“Seldom do people think things through foolishly. More often, they do not bother to think things through at all, so that even brainy individuals can reach untenable conclusions because their brainpower means little if it is not deployed and applied.”
“Some things are believed because they are demonstrably true. But many other things are believed simply because they have been asserted repeatedly—and repetition has been accepted as a substitute for evidence.”
“It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.”
“The problem isn't that Johnny can't read. The problem isn't even that Johnny can't think. The problem is that Johnny doesn't know what thinking is; he confuses it with feeling.”
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Peter F. Drucker:
"All profit is derived from risk."
"Effectiveness is doing the right things well."
"The great majority of executives are occupied with efforts rather than with results. They worry over the organization and their superiors owe them and should do for them. And they are conscious above all of the authority they should have. As a result they render themselves in-effectual.
The effective executive aims beyond himself by focusing on contribution. This requires turning one's attention away from one's own specialty, one's own narrow skills, one's own department, and toward performance of the whole."
“Courage rather than analysis dictates the truly important rules for identifying priorities:
Pick the future as against the past;
Focus on opportunity rather than on problem;
Choose your own direction—rather than climb on the bandwagon; and
Aim high, aim for something that will make a difference, rather than for something that is ‘safe’ and easy to do.”
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Nassim Taleb:
"How much you truly 'believe' in something can be manifested only through what you are willing to risk for it."
Black Swans can be positive or negative. There is really no way of predicting negative Black Swans. The key is to be prepared for their possibility, so that one can benefit from them, if not just survive them. To do this, one needs to:
Be willing to constantly take small risks and also where appropriate, consider balancing stability with high risk
Engage in actual doing and creating through trial and error
This leads to maximizing the serendipity around you.
Positive Black Swans can be welcomed through being out there, creating, and trying stuff. Chance favors the prepared. You do not look for something particular but rather work hard to let contingency enter your life.
Seize opportunities that show up. Anything that looks like opportunity. They are rare. Once you have a sense of something that might (even remotely) turn into a Positive Black Swan - go at it hard! Work hard, not in grunt work, but in chasing chance opportunities with open-ended payoffs.