Nassim Taleb: Make Lemonade Out Of Lemons During Periods Of Uncertainty

In a recent interview with RT, Nassim Taleb discussed how we can navigate through the uncertainty into a post-pandemic future. During the interview Taleb provided some great insights into how a number of entrepreneurs are making lemonade out of lemons during this period of uncertainty saying:

NT: Let me tell you what happened. There are two kinds of people. The first kind of people say, oh, things are bad, I’m gonna stay home and cry and wait for things to get better, like for example, an Uber driver can say okay, there’s no Uber driving. Or another friend of mine who was an Uber driver or someone who drove me around, he converted.

He decided to start a delivery service. He says, people, you know, they’re buying food, they don’t want to wait in line in the supermarket. He’s making twice as much money. Twice! So some people are making lemonade out of lemons. I don’t know how to translate it to Russian but there’ve got to be an expression like that. Life gives you lemons – you make lemonade. And other people are suffering…

What I’m telling you is that there are bad news and good news. There is a lot of uncertainty here, maybe less here, but it is mixed. The story is never one way. When you see an event like that, the first thing – and that’s anti-fragile – the first thing you’ve got to do is say, how can I make lemonade out of this lemon?

So for example, a group of friends and I are starting a thing, sort of like maybe a university that’s offline, giving certificates or encouraging others. And that’s a product of that pandemic. So for us, it is a business creation opportunity. For many it is a business creation opportunity. But if you’re an employee of a travel agency and you want to wait for things to come back, that’s not the right approach.

You can watch the entire interview here: