Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder

Taleb uses “antifragile” to describe things that can actually become better after stress, change or disorder. He finds the idea everywhere, from nature and medicine to business, politics and everyday life.

We like to think we can prepare for what comes next. But we can’t predict every crisis, mistake, sudden change or piece of bad luck. Sometimes things simply don’t go the way we thought they would.

Trying to remove every possible risk can create problems of its own. Some of the things we put in place to make life safer and more predictable can also make it harder to adjust when something unexpected happens.

That leaves us with a useful question: Can the plan survive the shock? And if it can’t, have we left enough room to adjust?

We can’t plan for everything. But we can make plans that are flexible enough to change when things don’t go our way.