Truths of life – based on The Zurich Axioms by Max Gunther

I’m a keen supporter of the idea that one should not depend on emotions when making business decisions. I’m also a firm believer that life doesn’t neccessarily need to be difficult nor bad. It’s the way you want it to be. Life’s the way you make it to be.

I’m going to talk about a book I recently read – „The Zurich Axioms” by Max Gunther. Many of the things talked about there do contradict my current thoughts and views on life, but we need to keep our minds open towards everything. And I must say that I didn’t just pick up this books from scratch, it was suggested to me by a friend of mine.

Even though this book lists 12 Axioms, I won’t be talking about them all individually. I will just try to give you a general idea and the main points of the book. From the beginning, it looks promising. I feel this book is not only good from business perspective and for business people but it’s good for the general idea of achieving a good and happy life.

Worry is not sickness, if you are not worried at all, it means you’re not risking enough. Even though your risks should be calculated, the truth is – risk means an adventure. Without taking any risks you can’t have an adventure. If your life’s purpose is to escape worry, you are going to stay poor and bored as hell, most likely unhappy. Life needs to be an adventure not vegetation.

Risks are neccessary, in business, in life. If you are afraid of taking risks in life, how could you ever have a love affair? It’s risky business. If you’re not ready to take personal risks, you will never even properly fall in love.

„Adventure is what makes life worth living. And the way to have an adventure is to expose yourself to risk.”

If you ever want to get rich, you can’t hope on salary from your employer. That’s just not the way to get rich. It might be possible in very few cases but other than that it’s as possible as winning a large sum with a lottery. Like Max Gunther says – „The economic structure of the world is rigged against you.” (when talking about getting rich with a salary or wage income)

So taking risks is absolutely important. Of course, taking risks means that you can also get busted...but without taking the risks neither can you achieve much. There’s endless number of possibilities and opportunities in life but for people who don’t like to take risks, the number is VERY limited.

You must remember one very old fact – if you risk a little, you can also gain only a little.

Life is speculation, that’s one of the main points of this book.

Max Gunther contradicts one very popular and always followed and believed to be true ...fact(?) – „Only bet what you can afford to lose”. Don’t most of us believe it is true? Don’t most of us agree with it? At least I can honestly say that I do or at least did. But there are things to consider before saying yes. Max Gunther says that the way it is interpreted by most of the people, only brings us poor results. Because the amount that we can afford to lose is usually intepreted as the amount that we can afford to lose without hurting us. Right? Right! And this amount usually is small, too small. And if we manage to doubble this small amount, does it make us rich? If you’re not rich before and this amount is millions, even then you can’t say this 100% made you rich – because you were rich before! And most likely because you took risks!

He says that the only way to beat the system is to play for meaningful stakes, you’ve got to get over the fear of getting hurt. Of course, it all doesn’t mean you should risk everything so that in case of a loss you’d be bankrupt. It’s far from that. It’s the general idea you need to understand and agree with. You should bet amounts that aren’t too big, but enough to slightly worry you and also make you richer in case you manage to doubble it up.

While you need to take risks, you should diversify your risks. You should put a a little money into a lot of speculations instead of a few big ones. Right? Right???? Well, that’s another idea in the book that I just started to agree with...until it said „Or so they like to tell you”...

If you read what I previously wrote then you definitely do understand where this sentence is coming from. While diversification is good for risk management purposes, it also reduces your chance of success.