Image: The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
A Black Swan Event is a high-impact, hard to predict, rare event beyond the realm of normal expectation. Examples include WWI, 9/11, financial crises, scientific discoveries, and personal life events. In hindsight, Black Swan Events are always predictable. And the more dependent and integrated the person, place, or thing, the greater the likelihood that a Black Swan will occur.
The term comes from the historical presumption/metaphor held by 17th century Europeans that “all swans must be white” until the discovery of black swans in Western Australia in the 18th century. The discovery proved falsification, that a perceived impossibility may later for found to exist.
Black Swan Events and their impact always depend on the observer. Learn to expect the unexpected. Be independent. Identify areas of vulnerability in your own life. Turn your Black Swans, white. And make omelets with broken eggs.
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One of my professors is friends with the guy who wrote this book. He said that he's kind of boring (?)
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