Don't Multiply By Zero

Far from original idea this week, but nonetheless very important.

4 × 3 × 1.2 × 4 × 1.3 × 8 x 2 × 2 × 3 × 6 × 1.4 × 2 × 1.7 x 0 = 0. Anything times 0, is 0.

Math turns out to be a lot like life in this way.

You can do everything right for years up until a point of catastrophic failure and still wind up with nothing.

You can lose a 25 year marriage & family in 1 night.

You can lose your entire life savings betting on 1 stock.

You can lose 10 years of progress in the gym with 1 bad lift.

We’ve talked about infinite games before and how your only objective is to keep on playing. As it turns out, these games are easy to keep playing. Provided you don’t take an existential risk with your pieces.

Chris Williamson likes to say, you can wear at seatbelt every day of your life except 1. And, on that day, it can all be over.

So what does that mean for you?

Life compounds.

Your biggest returns come near the end of the game. Therefore, playing for a long time is important and even the smallest improvements can make a huge difference. Remember that equation from earlier? It’s a lot of small numbers. But when you multiply them together you get 205,303… As long as you don’t multiply by 0.

Here’s another example from James Clear’s bestseller Atomic Habits. Again, only possible if you don’t multiply by 0:

“If you get 1% better each day for one year, you’ll end up 37x better by the time you’re done.”

Asymmetric Risk and Risk Aversion.

In order to multiply by 0, you need to put everything at risk in some way.

You’ll get far in life by taking a large amount of small risks and take risks that have asymmetric upside. Asymmetric risk is risk that — when viewed objectively — has small or nonexistent downside but often infinite upside. Objectivity is important because asymmetric risk still feels daunting.

This is asking a girl out or sending a cold email. The worst case scenario is that you carry on living your life exactly as you are now. The best case scenario is that you find your new life partner or get a wicked new job.

I’d argue you can have an exceptional life with almost no downside risk at all. You’ll never be a celebrity, business mogul or professional athlete but as we’ve already established, you probably shouldn’t want that anyways.

Avoiding Failure > Expediting Success

How then, do most people end up accidentally multiplying by 0? They attempt to cheat the system. Trying to achieve outlandish successes on shortened timelines isn’t possible without significant risks.

Jeff Bezos once asked Warren Buffett: ‘You are the second richest man in the world and yet you have the simplest investment thesis. How come others didn’t follow this?’

To which Warren Buffett responded: ‘Because no one wants to get rich slowly.’

Words I Wish I Wrote

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