For you, what is the opposite of fragility? Is it to have strength and not be shaken in adversity? Is it having resilience and not letting yourself be affected by them? There is no exact answer, so there is room for the emergence of theories that propose other answers, such as Nassim Taleb's theory of antifragility.
Do you know what it's like to be antifragile, know the author and imagine the benefits of this technique that can improve your life? Find answers to all these questions in this article, discover a new way to mature and deal with adversity better, and understand why you should read the book “Antifragile: Things That Benefit From Chaos”!
First of all, who is Nassim Taleb?
Born in Amioun, Lebanon in 1960, Nassim Nicholas Taleb is a bestselling author, mathematician and speaker. A mega-investor in the US financial market, he has an estimated fortune of US$30 million. In addition to monetary recognition, he is known to have developed some theories that are successful in modern philosophy, especially antifragility and the black swan theory. Finally, he is a professor at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University and president of the investment firm Empirica.
Scholar and cultured, the writer is fluent in Arabic, English and French, but also maintains conversations in Spanish and Italian, in addition to reading classic texts in Aramaic, Latin and Greek. Before publishing his books and becoming a full-time speaker, Taleb held directorship and management positions at banks and financial institutions such as CSFB, UBS, BNPParibas and Bankers Trust.
There is not much information about the origin of his fortune and he maintains a low profile on the matter, but the most accepted thesis is that he made a lot of money during Black Monday, nickname for the 1987 US stock market crash. . It is assumed that he made his bank account even bigger during other crises of this kind.
the antifragility
The antifragility theory appeared in the book “Antifragile: Things that benefit from chaos”, by Nassim Taleb, published in España by Editora Objetiva in 2012.
To understand this proposition by Taleb, it is necessary to understand, first of all, what fragility is. The Oxford Languages ​​dictionary definition of the word “fragile” is something “that breaks or breaks easily”. Antifragile, therefore, is something that does not break easily, however, there is a detail! Recently, psychology has been using the word “resilience” to refer to the quality of going through a problem, but not letting yourself be shaken by it. For Taleb, it is necessary to go further, because being antifragile is not only about not letting yourself be shaken by an adverse situation, but also growing with it.
According to the writer's theory, to develop and improve antifragility, it is necessary to accept that life will put uncertainties, adversities and unexpected events in your path, which are essential for your development, not unwanted, as many people think. According to the author, when we embrace chaos and unpredictability, we start to make better decisions because we understand that it is not possible to try to predict what will happen from these choices, so just make the best decision and trust it.
That is why, in order to be antifragile, we cannot run away from changes and situations that cause stress and discomfort, because it is only through them and what we do to overcome these events that we mature and improve our ability to evolve and abandon adversities.
What are the benefits of learning to be antifragile?
The greatest benefit of developing antifragility is, first of all, accepting chaos and change as inherent characteristics of life. When we stop seeing adversity and the unexpected as obstacles, it helps us to mature. Change, as uncomfortable as it is, is what leads to improvement. This does not mean, however, that those who are antifragile do not feel stress, tiredness, sadness or anger when dealing with a negative situation. It just means that he will learn from these feelings and this will prepare him to face other adverse events in the future.
Another benefit of antifragility is the experience gain it provides. Do you remember the first time you had your heart broken? If this happened a second time to you, it was probably less painful and you were able to get out of the “rock bottom” more quickly, right? That's ongoing antifragility, that is, it's experience gain. The more we deal with adversity, the less we are scared of the next. That's why older people tend to deal with difficulties much more easily than younger people, for whom the unexpected is often scary news.
Among the advantages of this concept, one of them has to do with the vulnerabilities we all have. Normally, adverse situations affect us directly in our vulnerabilities, whatever they may be: lack, financial needs, difficulty in dealing with grief, lack of preparation to deal with a certain situation… There are many cases. More often than not, people are afraid to deal with their vulnerabilities, as it is really scary to be forced to manage a situation that you think you don't have the capacity to do. According to Taleb and his antifragility theory, however, we should actually do the opposite: see challenges as opportunities to understand your vulnerabilities and find ways to improve on them.
Reasons why you should read the book “Antifragile”
Despite being quite successful in the professional field, especially those linked to the financial market or entrepreneurship, Taleb's theory of antifragility is useful in all areas of life, whether professional, personal, financial, romantic, fraternal and so on.
One of the reasons to read the book is to demystify some concepts that, according to the author, were wrongly established, such as post-traumatic stress, that is, those bad emotions and feelings that we feel after the emergence or overcoming of an unexpected situation. According to the author, we should really talk about post-traumatic growth, since randomness and adversity, even if they cause us bad and desperate feelings, allow for growth and improvement of personality and maturity.
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One more positive point of reading the book is to understand that living is constantly taking risks and being exposed to vulnerabilities, because, for example, no job is 100% stable, no relationship is 100% secure, no company is 100% unable to fail. At any moment, an unexpected event can change the structures of life. Using the previous examples, the company you work for may decide to rejuvenate its staff, your romantic partner may commit a betrayal, or the products you sell at your company may have sudden changes in their price. When we develop our antifragility, we are more psychologically prepared for the coming of these adversities and we know very well that we can grow greatly with them.
As we live a dynamic, hectic life that requires agility and quick thinking to deal with problems in such different areas of our lives, developing the concept of antifragility is essential to gain experience, mature and deal with future adversities with more tranquility and less despair.
