The Tale of The Dog And The Wolf
The Tale of The Dog And The Wolf
by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Hey friend!
About a week ago I opened the book The Incerto (which is a collection of all the books from Nassim Taleb) on a random chapter and just started reading.
Little did I expect to very quickly find an engaging and gem-packed tale (actually, I kind of expected it—Nassim’s books are full of insightful stories!).
So, in today’s letter, I’m sharing this tale with you!
👤 Doer
💡Nugget
From the Book → The Incerto (by Nassim Nicholas Taleb)
In the famous tale by Ahiqar, later picked up by Aesop (then again by La Fontaine), the dog boasts to the wolf all the contraptions of comfort and luxury he has, almost prompting the wolf to enlist. Until the wolf asks the dog about his collar and is terrified when he understands its use. “Of all your meals, I want nothing.” He ran away and is still running.
The question is: what would you like to be, a dog or a wolf?
The original Aramaic version had a wild ass, instead of a wolf, showing off his freedom. But the wild ass ends up eaten by the lion. Freedom entails risks—real skin in the game. Freedom is never free.
Whatever you do, just don’t be a dog claiming to be a wolf. In Harris’s sparrows, males develop secondary traits that correlate with their fighting ability. Darker color is associated with dominance. However, experimental darkening of lighter males does not raise their status, because their behavior is not altered. In fact these darker birds get killed—as the researcher Terry Burnham once told me: “birds know that you need to walk the walk.”
Another aspect of the dog vs. wolf dilemma: the feeling of false stability. A dog’s life may appear smooth and secure, but in the absence of an owner, a dog does not survive. Most people prefer to adopt puppies, not grown-up dogs; in many countries, unwanted dogs are euthanized. A wolf is trained to survive. Employees abandoned by their employers, as we saw in the IBM story, cannot bounce back.
“There is no feeling in this world to be compared with self-reliance – do not sacrifice that to anything else.”
- John D. Rockefeller…
Freedom is always associated with risk taking, whether it leads to it or comes from it. You take risks, you feel part of history. And risk takers take risks because it is in their nature to be wild animals.
…
In my day, nobody cursed in public except for gang members and those who wanted to signal that they were not slaves: traders cursed like sailors, and I have kept the habit of strategic foul language, used only outside of my writings and family life.
Those who use foul language on social networks (such as Twitter) are sending an expensive signal that they are free—and, ironically, competent. You don’t signal competence if you don’t take risks for it—there are few such low-risk strategies. So cursing today is a status symbol, just as oligarchs in Moscow wear blue jeans at special events to signal their power.
So while cursing and bad language can be a sign of doglike status and total ignorance—the “canaille,” which etymologically relates these people to dogs.
Ironically the highest status, that of a free man, is usually indicated by voluntarily adopting the mores of the lowest class. It is no different from Diogenes (the one with the barrel) insulting Alexander the Great by asking him to stand out of his sun, just for signaling (legend, of course).
Consider that English “manners” were imposed on the middle class as a way of domesticating them, along with instilling in them the fear of breaking rules and violating social norms."
💥 Stuff I Loved
“To be interesting, be interested.” - Dale Carnegie
Best Podcast Episode I heard in the last 2 weeks!
Over the past 3 years, while building Picking Nuggets and The Little Almanack, I’ve encountered powerful ideas from world-class Doers and Entrepreneurs.
And right from the beginning, I created a Database to keep track of all these ideas… Currently there are over 1,300 Nuggets in this Database! (mainly from books and videos).
This Database is like a Notebook that I carry with me everywhere, and I consult it when I have to make an important business (or life) decision.
Since the Database is fully searchable, I can simply type keywords to quickly find solutions to my doubts or problems.
For instance, if I’m unsure about how to get more sales in my business, I can type the word “sales” and immediately get 65 search results!
That’s 65 insights! In this case, coming from: Peter Thiel, Naval Ravikant, Paul Graham, Balaji Srinivasan, Nassim Taleb, Gary Halbert, Charlie Munger, Sam Altman, Jim Edwards, Jason Fried, David Ogilvy, Edward Thorp, Thomas Frank and Nathan Barry!
“It's good to learn from your mistakes.
It's better to learn from other people's mistakes.”
- Warren Buffet
“My prescription for misery is to learn everything you possibly can from your own experience, minimizing what you learn vicariously from the good and bad experiences of others, living and dead. This prescription is a sure-shot producer of misery and second-rate achievement.”
- Charlie Munger
It’s like having an insanely wise (and highly-accomplished) coach always there to help me out with whatever doubt or issue I have…
So I thought: “If this is so useful to me… 🤔 Maybe it can also be useful to other people?”
And that’s how I got the idea of productizing this Database! (Which I named the Doers Notebook). So now you too can get access to it :)
Also, I built a Media Feed app that shows all the insights from the Database and randomly reshuffles every 5 mins. So now we can turn those small moments (that we typically waste on Social Media) into big investments in ourselves!
"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
- Aristotle (and favorite quote of Steve Jobs)
👉 Here you can watch how I use this Database/Notebook (and the Media Feed), and how you can get instant access - https://www.doersnotebook.co/#demo
I hope you enjoyed today’s edition!
Happy Friday ;)
Julio xx
P.S. If you liked this article, you'll definitely enjoy my free 80-page ebook. It’s packed with 23 big ideas (from top influential doers and entrepreneurs) to become better, richer and wiser. Download your copy here!