Nobody reads the disclosures that roll down your computer screen. You click 'I agree' but you don't know what you're agreeing to.
Nassim Nicholas TalebRead
Also, it's good to have more than one profession, in case your own profession goes out of style. A Wall Street trader who's also a belly dancer will do a lot better than a trader who winds up driving a taxi.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Having multiple skills or professions provides security and adaptability in a changing world.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb emphasizes the importance of versatility in one's career, suggesting that diversifying one's skill set is a wise strategy for navigating uncertain job markets. By highlighting the contrast between a Wall Street trader with a secondary skill in belly dancing and a trader who is limited to his primary profession, Taleb illustrates that adaptability can lead to greater opportunities and resilience during economic fluctuations.
Themes
VersatilitySkillsAdaptabilityCareerSecurity
In practice
Example use cases
During a career workshop, one could remind attendees about the importance of having multiple skills.
More from Nassim Nicholas Taleb
All quotes βFragility is the quality of things that are vulnerable to volatility.
Nassim Nicholas TalebRead
Those who were unlucky in life in spite of their skills would eventually rise. The lucky fool might have benefited from some luck in life; over the longer run he would slowly converge to the state of a less-lucky idiot. Each one would revert to his long-term properties.
Nassim Nicholas TalebRead
Individuals should think about the worst-case scenarios and plan for them. The world will be crazier than you think it will be. Put money away, and then you can live with much more freedom.
Nassim Nicholas TalebRead
A good maxim allows you to have the last word without even starting a conversation.
Nassim Nicholas TalebRead
A Stoic is someone who transforms fear into prudence, pain into transformation, mistakes into initiation, and desire into undertaking.
Nassim Nicholas TalebRead
Similar quotes
When an idea exclusively occupies the mind, it is transformed into an actual physical or mental state.
Swami VivekanandaRead
How gentle and tender ought we to be with others who are foolish when we remember how foolish we are ourselves
Charles SpurgeonRead
When we finally give up the struggle to find fulfillment "out there," we have nowhere to go but within. It is at this moment of total surrender that a new light begins to dawn.
Shakti GawainRead
Life is short. Time is fleeting. Realize the Self. Purity of the heart is the gateway to God. Aspire. Renounce. Meditate. Be good; do good. Be kind; be compassionate. Inquire, know Thyself.
SivanandaRead
He who can wait for what he desires takes the course not to be exceedingly grieved if he fails of it; he, on the contrary, who labors after a thing too impatiently thinks the success when it comes is not a recompense equal to all the pains he has been at about it.
Jean De La BruyereRead
To want fame is to prefer dying scorned than forgotten.
Emile M. CioranRead