{"id":334,"date":"2015-07-02T11:53:47","date_gmt":"2015-07-02T18:53:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chaltenadvisors.com\/blog\/?p=334"},"modified":"2015-07-02T11:53:48","modified_gmt":"2015-07-02T18:53:48","slug":"success-doing-nothing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chaltenadvisors.ca\/blog\/success-doing-nothing\/","title":{"rendered":"Success = doing nothing"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Florence\"<\/a>
The Duomo in Florence<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“Michelangelo was asked by the pope about the secret of his genius, particularly how he carved the statue of David, largely considered the masterpiece of all masterpieces. His answer was: \u201cIt\u2019s simple. I just remove everything that is not David.\u201d<\/em> – from Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s Antifragile<\/strong><\/p>\n

I am currently reading this book. \u00a0You may be more familiar with some of Taleb’s earlier works such as\u00a0The Black Swan or\u00a0Fooled by Randomness. \u00a0His philosophy is unique and applicable to\u00a0many aspects\u00a0of life. \u00a0One topic he discusses in Antifragile is the relative merit of\u00a0acts of commission versus acts of omission. \u00a0An act of commission may be\u00a0defined as something we take an active decision to do or something we act upon as a result of following someone’s advice. \u00a0In contrast an act of omission is not doing something, the avoidance of action or ignoring advice to take action. \u00a0Taleb argues quite convincingly that acts of omission have a much more beneficial impact than acts of commission – for example, not smoking has a far bigger impact on our long term health than eating organic food or any other positive choice we can make to try to improve our health. \u00a0Further examples from Taleb:<\/p>\n

“In practice it is the negative that\u2019s used by the pros, those selected by evolution: chess grandmasters usually win by not losing; people become rich by not going bust (particularly when others do); religions are mostly about interdicts; the learning of life is about what to avoid. You reduce most of your personal risks of accident thanks to a small number of measures.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Interestingly\u00a0and in contrast, positive actions are almost always viewed as the more admirable way to run your life. \u00a0Taleb describes this as follows:<\/p>\n

“Acts of commission are respected and glorified by our primitive minds and lead to, say, naive government interventions that end in disaster, followed by generalized complaints about naive government interventions, as these, it is now accepted, end in disaster, followed by more naive government interventions. Acts of omission, not doing something, are not considered acts and do not appear to be part of one\u2019s mission.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Unfortunately it seems we are hard-wired psychologically to rank positive actions as superior to not taking action. \u00a0Further, we are more tempted to seek and follow advice to take positive action. \u00a0This, Taleb says, is not often in our best interest.<\/p>\n

“Charlatans are recognizable in that they will give you positive advice, and only positive advice, exploiting our gullibility and sucker-proneness for recipes that hit you in a flash as just obvious, then evaporate later as you forget them. Just look at the \u201chow to\u201d books with, in their title, \u201cTen Steps for\u2014\u201d (fill in: enrichment, weight loss, making friends, innovation, getting elected, building muscles, finding a husband, running an orphanage, etc.).”<\/em><\/p>\n

Miriam Webster defines a charlatan as: “a person who falsely pretends to know or be something in order to deceive people; a quack;\u00a0one making usually showy pretenses to knowledge or ability”.<\/em><\/p>\n

While Taleb applies the above to many different areas –\u00a0life, business, academia, politics, etc., we think it applies particularly well to managing one’s personal finances. \u00a0With that in mind we came up with our own list of acts of omission related to personal financial management and investing – :<\/p>\n