Hello Friend!
Todayβs nugget comes from Nassim Talebβs book βAntifragileβ, and it will help you to tell who is likely to have real expertise, and who is likely to not have it (even when they claim to have it).
You can also listen to this Newsletter edition with the audio tab below.
π‘ Nugget
Across all domains, we have:
- People who are truly experts.
- People who think they are experts, but in reality they are not. They have, what Nassim calls, an "Expert Problem".
β¦ Nassim Taleb:
Let us ask the following questions: Would you rather have your upcoming brain surgery performed by a newspaperβs science reporter or by a certified brain surgeon? On the other hand, would you prefer to listen to an economic forecast by someone with a PhD in finance from some βprominentβ institution such as the Wharton School, or by a newspaperβs business writer? While the answer to the first question is empirically obvious, the answer to the second one isnβt at all. We can already see the difference between "know-how" and "know-what".
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Simply, things that move, and therefore require knowledge, do not usually have experts, while things that donβt move seem to have some experts. In other words, professions that deal with the future and base their studies on the non-repeatable past have an expert problem.
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Expert problems (in which the expert knows a lot but less than he thinks he does) often bring fragilities, and acceptance of ignorance the reverse. Expert problems put you on the wrong side of asymmetry [Downside > Upside].
π Thoughts
So the best way to be Antifragile in "things that move" (such as building a business, investing in stocks/businesses...) is to accept that you don't know many (or most) things, and proceed with caution!
βWhat we know is a drop, what we don't know is an ocean.β - Isaac Newton
"Anybody who doesn't change their mind a lot is dramatically underestimating the complexity of the world we live in" - Jeff Bezos
π₯ Stuff I Loved
Timestamp range 17:17 - 18:24
Combining the thinking and the doing is what gets you to an exceptional result.
βThe Doers are the real Thinkersβ - Steve Jobs
βIt is very easy to take credit for the Thinking [part]. The Doing is more concrete. And when you dig a little deeper usually you find that the people who did it were also the people who worked through the hard intellectual problems as well.β - Steve Jobs
Timestamp range 21:25 - 27:08
Being in Alignment + Be a Harsh Grader β Absolute GOLD
π All the ideas in this article are saved and classified in a searchable Database, which (as of July 2024) contains nearly 2,000 timeless ideas (sourced directly from the most influential doers and entrepreneurs β captured on books, interviews/podcasts and articles).
I call this Database the Doers Notebook, and Iβve recently opened it for anyone who wants it.
π€ Why did I build this?
Well, as the Latin motto goes, βA chief part of learning is simply knowing where you can find a thing.β And since itβs all π searchable, we only need to type a keyword to immediately get a list of insights related to it!
For instance, if Iβm unsure about how to get more sales in my business, I can simply type the word βsalesβ and immediately get 88 search results! In this case from Jim Edwards, Peter Thiel, Naval Ravikant, Paul Graham, Sam Altman, Balaji Srinivasan, Nassim Taleb, and many other remarkable individuals.
Itβs like having a π§ second brain from which we can pull wisdom on demand.
And this is super valuable because it can significantly decrease the error rate in our judgment.
βIn an age of infinite leverage [code and media], judgment is the most important skill.β
- Naval Ravikant
I actually made a video where I went through the list of insights I got for the keywords βsalesβ and βcreativeβ.
So, if you wanna get better at sales and learn to be more creative (and also see all the features of the database and how you can get access) then definitely check out the video π
Wishing you a lovely weekend!
Julio xx
P.S. If you liked this article, you'll definitely enjoy my free 80-page ebook. Itβs packed with 23 big ideas (from top influential doers and entrepreneurs) to become better, richer and wiser. Download your copy here!