A Characterization of a Loser

I’m into reading. I think I’m cursed with a mind that thinks (considering I’m lucky to live to be a hundred) that we’ve only got a hundred years to cram in as much knowledge as possible. I feel behind the ball.

One of my favorite thinkers, authors, and minds of all time is Nassim Taleb. He’s a trader by profession, contemporary philosopher by default. The short story? Taleb is the most progressive mind in risk analysis in the world. Yet, he’d tell you that risk analysis is for suckers and anyone that tells you they do such for a living is the worst kind of liar.

His view? All the mathematics, data, knowledge, computer technology, and expertise in the world isn’t enough to predict the future. In fact, the only thing that is certain is uncertainty. Thinking otherwise, like banks, traders, and governments do, is guaranteed to be accurate right up until the big, unforeseen catastrophe “we couldn’t have seen coming” comes, and they always do.

When governments blow up, economies fail, 9/11’s happen, and corporations go bust, those with 99% certainty-type portfolios lose can everything and Taleb makes nine more figures. His first text, ”The Black Swan,” was a New York Times best seller and used a medieval figure of speech equivalent to our “when pigs fly…” jargon that described an impossibility as a ‘Black Swan’ (because as far as they knew, they don’t exist). Except, things got awkward when an explorer negated the entire assumption with one sighting of a wild black swan in Australia centuries later. Taleb philosophizes that these unforeseen events (Black Swans) are both guaranteed and unmeasurable.

His latest text, “Antifragile,” is a culmination of his thinking in which he touches on a concept we love to talk about around here with regards to a growth mindset when dealing with the inevitable failures in life.

“..my characterization of a loser is someone who, after making a mistake, doesn’t introspect, doesn’t exploit it, feels embarrassed and defensive rather than enriched with a new piece of information, and tries to explain why he made the mistake rather than moving on. These types often consider themselves the “victims” of some larger plot, a bad loss, or bad weather.

Finally, a thought. He who has never sinned is less reliable than the one has has only sinned once. And someone who has made plenty of errors– is more reliable than someone who has never made any.”

Is this a fitness blog? On one hand this is an off the wall post, or on the other hand maybe this has everything to do with the mind of someone receiving coaching. Get in here. Fail. Get the information. Or, you’re completely blowing it.

 

 

Logan Gelbrich

@functionalcoach