What’s so special about a Black Swan anyway?

Black Swan Theory is and why the book by Nassim Taleb is so relevant to both our personal and professional lives.

Fooled by Randomness. I was blown away by how he analyzed risk as a former Wall Street trader. Being a regular in the book store, I saw another one of Taleb’s books The Black Swan about 3 years ago and picked it up immediately. I was once more blown away, only this time at a new higher level.

The Black Swan? The reason is that for years it was man’s experience that swans only came in white. Then one day in Australia a black swan was discovered. This is significant because it illustrates how one event can change everything you ever thought you knew about something. It shows a limitation in our learning because we use observations that pile up over and over, then one event changes our entire reality. The impossible becomes possible.

Some examples of a Black Swan Event would be World War 1, the attack on Pearl Harbor, the October 87 stock market crash, the computer, Google, Harry Potter and the events of 9/11.

There are 3 attributes to a Black Swan: