What are you afraid of?

What are you afraid of?

Write it down.

Now write down the next bad thing that happens after that. And then what happens after that?

Now write down probabilities of each thing happening on each line.

Now write down the combined probabilities of each thing happening next to that.

Essentially this is a failure funnel.

Now ask which level of failure do you think is likely to occur. Can you live with that outcome?

The answer might surprise you.

Here’s an example for someone afraid to change jobs. The numbers are a stab in the dark. Each person’s guess will be different.

The first number is the likelyhood of that event occurring. The second number is the combined likelyhood of all the things above occurring together.

Changing jobs:

- Failing at ALL the interviews you have (50%)

- Failing to enjoy the new job (20%, 10%)

- Failing to succeed at the new job (20%, 2%)

- Get fired (20%, 0.4%)

- Failing to find another job (20%, 0.08%

- Failing to feed your family (20%, 0.016%)

Now let’s do it in reverse. What about the best case scenarios?

- Get a few job offers (80%)

- Get a better salary offer than the salary you have (80%, 64%)

- Use the better offer to negotiate a better salary from your current job or take the new job (your choice - you don’t even need to do this!) (80%, 51.2%)

- Be happier at your new job (80%, 40.96%)

So 0.016% chance of failing to feed your family and 40.96% of improving your job satisfaction and salary.

Life is about optimizing probabilities.

What are you afraid of?