MBA1078 Must Read: The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

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Today's must read is the Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. The Black Swan is a thought provoking book. It explores the nature of what we perceive as random events as well as the logical pitfalls that cause us to miss out on the bigger picture of things that this is especially important in business because in business we try to predict trends. We try to predict what will happen in our business. In our efforts, we're constantly playing the statistics and trying to map out all the possible consequences to our actions. And this book really helps you rethink and redefine how to do that. Now the author Nassim Nicholas Talbot is no joke. He made a fortune in the financial crash because he he was able to see Things that would happen that others didn't is based on the idea that most people don't think that tragedy is going to happen, that bad things are going to happen to us. We just think it's so very unlikely. Taleb's idea is that it may be unlikely, but it doesn't mean it's not going to happen. In fact, he believes it will happen and he works accordingly. In today's lesson, I'll be sharing with you my major takeaways with this book. Because it's quite deep. I'm gonna extract the best parts that I found that were really useful and how you can use them in your business and share with you why you should pick it up and read it for yourself. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. Now, you might be wondering, why is this book called the Black Swan? Well, it's based on this idea that we as human beings thought that swans, all swans were white. Until one day we discovered, wait, there are black swans? And it's a metaphor for the way we think as human beings. We think that white, what we know is what actually is the truth, the whole truth, and it's the only thing that exists. And what he's encouraging you to do in this book is to remind yourself that what you know is only what you know. Right now there might be information out there that you don't know yet that can change your beliefs about things and make you avoid nasty surprises. So basically, black swans are events that thought to lie outside the realm of possibility and yet they happen anyway. As human beings, we take in a lot of information around us and we reflect on the information that we get. But that often makes us narrow minded. You know, this book really focuses us on this concept that we often get very narrow minded with the information we know. We have information and we think, okay, the world is like this. This is how things are going to be. You might be running your business for a year or two and be thinking, okay, this is the way to market. This is the only way to market that's successful and it's working. So I'm going to keep on doing it and not really realize, wait, there might be a more cost effective way to do marketing. There might be other ways to do this, or maybe my way won't last forever. He highly encourages you to broaden your perspective, broaden your understanding and not just believe what you only know. Believe that there are things that are unknown to you, that are not in your knowledge yet or in your knowledge base yet that can Change the way you see the world and in our case, see our business. As business owners, this is really hard to really practice because we like to cling on to things that work. And I'm one of the first people to say, hey, if something's working, keep doing it. But I also have the side of me that thinks, well, if it's working now, there's no guarantee it will work forever. The circumstances can change, so I gotta be open minded enough to try to learn and broaden my knowledge so I can find other ways to be successful. A good example of this is the hundred dollar mba. We started this training program that's an alternative to business education. That's the way we made our money, that's the way we built our business. Then we started the podcast and the podcast showed us there are different ways to grow your business, there's different ways to make money. But because I didn't think this is the only way to do things and I didn't say, okay, this is what's working, let's just stay like this, I broadened my understanding and thought, hey, what about software as a solution? We started Webinar Ninja, our software company, and that became a new avenue for success. So you could see that we were not putting all our eggs in one basket. Because, hey, what if one day I lose my voice or, or I get sick and I can't record the podcast? Or heck, maybe you want to retire and you want to sell your business. Which business from the ones I started is easiest to sell? Well, a software company of course, because I can't sell myself, I can't sell me as the host of the show. And the show is really dependent on the host. So you get the point. If my thinking was narrow and thought, hey, this is the business that works for me, this is the only thing that works for me and never tried anything else or considered anything else, then I really don't broaden my chances for success. Another concept this book talks about is we don't understand how things actually occur. We often use our history or the past as a measure for the future. We think that, hey, if things have happened in the past, they're most likely going to happen again in the future. And that's really contrary thinking to innovators. Innovators think the opposite, that in order to innovate, you got to do something that's different from the past. In my lifetime when I was younger, the word phone had a completely different connotation. It was a device that was hooked up to a wall. It wasn't wireless. You had to dial it sometimes. It was a rotary phone. It wasn't even digital or analog where you press buttons. Forget Internet or WhatsApp or text messaging. A phone meant something completely different. So when Steve Jobs came out with the iPhone, probably the most revolutionary phone device of our time, he couldn't think that the iPhone has to be just like it was in the past or similar to what was in the past. In fact, it's completely different from what we know as a phone. In fact, the function of the phone making calls is probably the least used function of a smartphone these days. It's used more like a computer. In the book, he gives this funny example to illustrate how you can't just rest on your laurels and just think that everything's going to be great in the future. You. You gotta prepare for the worst. He gives this example of a turkey. Imagine you're a turkey growing up on a farm. Every day since the day you're born, you're being fed, you're running around in your little field, your owners are being kind to you and even like, talking to you and playing around day in and day out. That's your life. You think that's going to be your life forever, but lo and behold, turkey tomorrow's going to be a completely different day because it's Thanksgiving tomorrow, and the same people that fed you and entertained you are going to chop your head off and put you in an oven and devour you for dinner. Now, what does this mean for you and your business? Well, you always got a plan for the future. Maybe things are going well for you right now, but make sure you have some savings. Make sure you're making investments for the future. Make sure you're planning for retirement. If you're in your 20s, your 30s, your 40s or 50s, you might have a lot of energy, a lot of energy to spend on your business, a lot of time and patience. But hey, you're human. That's not going to last forever. Your abilities are not going to be the same. 10, 20, 30, 40 years down the line, you can't produce the same amount of work. You can't put as much time. I already see that in myself. Being in my late 30s, I don't have as much energy as I used to. So you gotta plan accordingly. You gotta work smarter. You gotta plan for when you can't do the things you do today.

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Book, the Black Swan and tell you why you should pick it up and read it for yourself. Even though we're constantly making predictions about the future, we're actually terrible at it. And this is what this book actually shows. There are certain things we're just not considering because our nature as human beings is to be very narrow minded based on the information we already know. Again, the thing that really drills home here is that we put far too much confidence in our knowledge and underestimate our ignorance. So one of the pieces of advice I want to pass on to you that I got from the book is know what you don't know. If you want to make meaningful predictions in your business, make the right assumptions about the future, whether it's about investing, whether it's about your retirement or your current business right now, then it's simply not enough to take all the things you know into consideration. Ask yourself, what do I don't know about this whole situation? What are some things I might be missing? What are some things that might be true that I think are not? Don't limit the possibilities in front of you based on what you know. Guys, I highly recommend you pick up the Black Swan. This is a really heavy read. It's very cerebral, it's very deep, but it's well written. Nassim Tile is really good at taking these concepts and giving you relevant examples to explain them. Pick it up and thank me later. Thank you so much for listening to the $100 NBA show. If you love this show, show us some love on itunes. Leave us an iTunes rating and review. Everybody who leaves us a review enters our weekly random draw to win a free ride to one of our programs and we call this Free Ride Friday. Every Friday, we make an announcement on the show, we randomly choose one of the reviews, and somebody wins a free ride to one of our programs. It's our way to say thank you for showing us love on itunes. All right, that's it for me today, guys. But before I go, I want to leave you with this. The Black Swan is one of those books that really do a number on your mindset. Some books are really practical. They're how to but they explain how to get from A to B. Some books have life lessons like biographies. And then some books are really good with making you think about things in a different way, changing your mindset. Most books I found out there that try to do this do this poorly. This book does it well. So when you find a book that does it well, you need to jump on it. Alright, I'll check you guys in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

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