No Shortcuts to the Top

I had recently read a review of a book called " No Shortcuts to the Top " . So impressed was I with the subject and the author's claim to fame that I immediately order the book and have started reading the same. 

A few things which motivated me to read the book. This is an autobiography of Edmund Viesturs, wherein he documents his 16-year journey summitting all 14 of the world's eight-thousander mountain peaks (more than 8,000 meters above sea level), and his strategies to manage risk in extreme environments.

In one scene, while describing the deaths of a couple of his friends, Scott Fischer and Rob Hall, who made the grave mistake of reaching the summit of Everest in the evening, Ed warned, "Getting to the top is optional. Getting down is mandatory."

This lesson comes through most forcefully when Ed recounts how he once attempted to reach the summit at Everest but backed out just 300 feet from the top because it just didn't feel right. He noticed a change in the weather. Conditions were ripe for a potential avalanche. He realized that if the team pressed on to the top of the mountain, they wouldn't have time to make it down. So, he and his team turned around and went back to the base. They lived to scale Everest another day.

In other words, he placed a lot of emphasis on survival.  His words – Getting to the top is optional. Getting down is mandatory  - should ring more than a warning bell in our perception of life and all such activities that are part and parcel of our ecosystem.

In an entirely different context, there is this story of Jesse Livermore. He is generally regarded as the greatest stock trader of all time. During the great depression in the US, on a single day, he made an amount that would, in today's terms, be equivalent of USD 3 billion. Livermore made larger and larger bets, and went on to lose everything in the stock market. Broke and ashamed, he disappeared for two days in 1933. His wife set out to find him. "Jesse L. Livermore, the stock market operator, of 1100 Park Avenue missing and has not been seen since 3pm yesterday," the New York Times wrote in 1933. He returned, but his path was set. Livermore eventually took his own life.

What are the learnings from the above ?   It would be an extremely terrible mistake to underestimate the power of a swelled head, which happened in the case of Jesse Livermore.  There is a fine line between surviving and becoming a piece of statistic 

Morgan Housel beautifully describes this phenomenon in one of articles on human psychology - The more successful you are at something, the more convinced you become that you're doing it right. The more convinced you are that you're doing it right, the less open you are to change. The less open you are to change, the more likely you are to tripping in a world that changes all the time.

The wise men of our planet have a say on this phenomenon called " swelled head " 

Taleb says – Having an edge and surviving are two different things !!!

Buffett's take on this is pretty simple - "In order to succeed you must first survive". Avoid ruin. At all cost.

Peter Bernstein is credited with a masterpiece on risk  called " Against the Gods " . He writes – Survival is the only road to riches.

Stephen Hawking states - The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge. 

Confucius offers another perspective - Life is really simple,but we insist on making it complicated.

All goes to show that some of the most simple things look obvious, but are the most difficult to follow – humility, simplicity of life, acceptance of role of luck, thinking long term, circle of competence,  accepting the limiting knowledge, value of uncommon common sense and so on……