#191 Infinite Optionality

The Ticket to Antifragility

Let’s talk some more about how to become Antifragile.

We’ve already talked about it on a high level. Super quick recap: If you’re fragile you break easily. If you’re robust you withstand more pressure until you break. If you’re ANTIfragile, you actually get stronger the more you’re knocked around.

We, of course, want to be Antifragile. Achieving this is, perhaps, the most important thing we can do. Hence, our obsession with it.

In prior +1s, we chatted about the fact that The Obstacle Is the Way—using the metaphor of a fire consuming everything in its way.

Today I want to chat about another facet of becoming Antifragile. Nassim Taleb, the brilliant guy who gave us the word “Antifragile” tells us that we need what he calls “optionality.”

Here’s the short story.

If you only have one option, “This HAS to work or I’m in trouble” kinda thing, then you’re fragile.

If you have two options, “Well, I can do this or I can do that!” then you’re a little better off and more robust. (But you’ll still break if neither of those two options pan out.)

BUT!

What would happen if you had an INFINITE number of options you could pursue to attain your desired outcome?

Well, then you’d be Antifragile.

Therefore, when we’re facing a challenge we want to chant and write down and remind ourselves “No pressure no diamonds!!” until we REALLY get the truth of that statement and then we want to WOOP everything and then, as part of our WOOP Plan, we want to see that we have I N F I N I T E options.

I like to map out at least THREE options and then write down the infinity symbol (∞) to remind myself that I still have oh, about an INFINITE number of other options I can explore.

Today’s +1: What’s challenging you right now? Let’s run it through our Infinite Optionality process.

Step 1. Think of an important goal in your life.

Step 2. Come up with three potential paths you can take to reach that outcome.

1. ___________________________________________
2. ___________________________________________
3. ___________________________________________

Fantastic.

Step 3. Write down the infinity symbol. ∞

Wonderful. Infinite optionality. Now go crush it, Antifragile styles.

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