[[Peak performance]] tags:: #note/statement | #on/decisions | #on/training | #on/performance dates:: 2022-03-17 people:: #people/naseemtaleb *Lifting the heaviest thing you can, then resting, makes your muscles grow, AND THIS IS A METAPHOR* This is the implementation of the idea from [[Antifragility]] about identifying and utilizing barbell distributions. You decide principally on fragility or [[Antifragility]] not probability. TSA checks all passengers for weapons because planes are fragile to terrorists, and our society would loose trust in the whole industry. True and falls are the same and probabilities, this ignores the size of the effect and ignores extreme events! This reminds me of leverage points image from [[Blue Ocean Strategy]] where they recommend finding not the masses but the influencers and the blockers to work on to make change. I am also reminded of the [[climb till you fall]], warm up on easy stuff, the. Try the hardest things you might be able to do for maximum strength building. This also applies to experiences. Getting outside your comfort zone into your zone of proximal development where you could learn is key. It's kind of like bimodal distributions of two extremes. It's kind of like Pennsylvania with Pittsburgh and Philadelphia on the ends and Kentucky in the middle. It's kind of like the US with the coasts and the "fly over" middle. Mathematically this type of non-normal distribution is more common than we consider. In this case, working on the extremes is what he is focused on. The barbell distribution is how Naseem Talem talks about managing risk. He recommends in investments having 90% of your $ totally safe, and 10% ready for uncapped wins or total losses. This is managing downside risk without putting a ceiling on upside. This is an antifragile system, and systems can be antifragile - to a limit. In this case, if your upside is infinite and your downside is limited, you can only win when there is big change. This matters because it's how nature works. Thinking of [[natural selection]], there is very little risk to "nature" to the loss of any individual, and by having a very wide variety of individuals, nature caps the downside risk (can loose lots of individuals, as long as there is fitness in a small percent) You can have a barbell personality, which is "paranoia for the short term and optimism for the long term" (The Psychology of Money). The opposite argument is that normal distribution is the typical, and the safe approach. You can be average and do dollar-cost averaging like everyone recommends. In this case you do as well as the average crowd. The [[wisdoms of the crowd]] is a known phenomenon. ## Sources: [[Antifragile Book]] [[The Psychology of Money]]