Think of a box that says fragile on it. It's going to have something in it that breaks
if you throw it around. So it could be something like glass for example.
Now if you ask most people, "What is the opposite of fragile?"
You'll get answers like resistant or robust. So something like a more solid piece of glass
that doesn't break when it gets thrown around. But that's like saying that the opposite of
negative is neutral. The opposite of fragile is not robust,
it's antifragile, meaning a structure that gains from disorder,
that gains from being kicked around.
The way I like to think about it is, every time you kick the antifragile box,
the glass inside doesn't break, doesn't simply resist,
but turns a little bit more into a diamond. The more you kick it around,
the stronger the diamond gets.
My first two years at the Air Force Academy, I wasn't allowed to own a car.
And the only way I could ever leave was if an upperclassman let me use their car.
And I remember it would be the weekend and I would tell my frinds,
"Hey, let's borrow a car from someone and leave."
And they'd say something like, "Oh, everyone's already left.
"We can't get a car." "No one who's here lends it out."
And I went along with that for a while, but then I said,
"This is bullshit!" "I'm going to go around and knock on every
single door and ask for a car." And by the end of the night I had a car,
but I also realized why everyone always had some kind of a rationalization
for why there were no cars available. Every time I knocked on a door, it was awkward.
And awkward was the best scenario. The most common answers were rude or condescending.
But, the more doors I knocked on,
the more awkward situations I put myself in, the more condescending the comments,
the more I got made fun of, the less I started to give a shit,
and I almost always ended up with a car. I wasn't a glass that was going to break,
I wasn't simply resisting being broken, I was turning into a diamond with every door
that I knocked on.
Being antifragile is being alive. You should crave being kicked around.
You crave it, because the more you get kicked around,
the more you know that you're turning into that diamond.
Now you might say, "Are you some kind of a masochist?
Who wants to crave being kicked around?" Well,
here's my question, When you go to the gym,
and you're on your 8th rep, and you have 4 more to go to failure,
do you stop and say, "Well, I'm not a masochist,
I will cease the lifting process now because I'm starting to feel discomfort."
Hopefully not... So why are you only applying that to just
one aspect of your life? It's actually a lot easier to go to failure
on your set in the gym, than to go door to door trying to sell a product,
or make those uncomfortable calls when you're an entrepreneur,
or go up to a woman in the middle of the street and say hi.
I know this because I had plenty of friends who went to failure in the gym,
no problem, who squatted 3 times as much as I did,
but could never go door to door asking for a car.
Apply being antifragile to every aspect of your life.
Start craving that disorder around you.
Getting a 1000 negative comments since I started this channel,
has been one of the best things that has ever happened to me.
Literally one of the best things! I remember when I first started,
I told myself, "Oh, I don't care about external feedback."
"That doesn't affect me." "I'm completely detached from it."
And then I started to receive that negativity, and sometimes it would get to me.
It really would even though I knew it shouldn't. Fast forward to now,
after reading a 1000 negative comments, it doesn't even register anywhere anymore.
I just laugh and keep doing what I need to do.
But to get to that level with anything, you should be willing to be alive,
to be antifragile, to be thrown around.
And the more you subject yourself to being thrown around,
the more that fragile glass turns into a beautiful diamond.