Via Negativa

One principle I learned from Nassim Taleb is the power of learning via negativa. In other words, learning what not to do. 

This is uncomfortable for many people. Just think of how many people would rather read Think and Grow Rich than What I Learned Losing a Million Dollars.

Often in football, teams lose games because they don’t know how to not relinquish their lead. I  believe that knowing how not to lose is just as important, in football, as knowing how to win.

Let’s take a look back at the Patriots’ Super Bowl win against the Falcons. The Falcons didn’t know how not to lose. If you think about it, their plan to win the game worked. Everyone knows the score was 28-3. However, once the score became 28-3, the Falcons stopped relying on what got them to that point. 

Here’s how Taleb describes one of several mistakes that keep people from grasping the central message of The Black Swan. He describes the error as “Not understanding the value of negative advice (‘Don’t do’) and writing to me to ask me for something ‘constructive’ or a ‘next step.’”

Not having actionable steps to take is frustrating, but there is much to learn from “negative” advice. Take jobs for example. I know that I do not want to be cold calling people all day. Could I describe exactly what I want to be doing every day? No. However, I know several things that do not align with my strengths. 

The Black Swan is a book that changed my worldview. From a 30,000 foot view, the central tenet of the book is that we cannot prove anything in a positive manner. “It remains the case that you know what is wrong with a lot more confidence than you know what is right.” Black swans deal with negative empiricism. While we can’t prove that all swans are white, no matter how many white swans we see, we can always disprove that all swans are white by observing a single black swan.