It's easy to choose the known over the unknown. Predictability is safe. There's little risk in choosing the same work, going to the same places and spending time with the same people day in day out. These networks of predictable decisions become routines. There's nothing inherently wrong with routines. They're great if they lead to great outcomes. But routines can just as easily become stale and stagnant trapping you in an endless loop of predictable actions and outcomes. This is symmetry, where as in a coin flip, there is little to no difference between upside and downside.
Asymmetry is the opposite, where there is a big imbalance between upside and downside. Asymmetry can be good or bad. Bad asymmetry is like drunk driving, where the downside is much higher than the upside. Good asymmetry - when the upside is wildly higher than the downside - is where life's magic is hiding.
It's easy to fixate on big dramatic asymmetry like finding the right partner, having kids, the giant return-on-investment bet, moving to a new city, quitting a job or starting a business. Most of the magic of my life has happened on the other side of big dramatic asymmetric decisions like leaving home for college, studying abroad, joining a fraternity, moving to Austin and becoming an entrepreneur. Soon I'll discover what's on the other side of publishing my first book.
But in the shadow of the big and dramatic it's easy to lose sight of the small and ordinary asymmetry hiding in everyday life. Here I'll describe how one ordinary decision changed my life.
A friend told me about a retreat he just came back from at Big Bend National Park. He met a bunch of great people, went on epic adventures, transformed his social life and had some realizations that led him to quit drinking.
I was on the fence. I had good reasons not to go. The retreat was expensive, and I was low on cash after buying my house. It was an 8 hour drive from Austin, and I was battling through a depressive stage. Staying home and doing my ordinary weekend routine would have been easy.
But I let my brain marinade. My friend-circle shrunk after the pandemic. I was growing further and further away from the friends I made years before. I'd never been to Big Bend before. I sensed there was a lot of upside. Worst case I would spend a bunch of money to hang out with lame people in one of the coolest national parks in the country.
Best case scenario? I was excited to find out.
So I went. The drive was long, but scenic. The retreat was fun and I went on epic adventures with cool people. Big Bend was more stunning than I ever imagined. The three days on the retreat itself was all the asymmetry I could have asked for.
It's what happened after the retreat that's more interesting. I kept in contact with the friends I made. Some have become good regularly occurring people in my ecosystem. Others have become great, potentially lifelong, friends. On the retreat I had my own series of realizations that led me to "rebrand" from Alex to my actual full name, Alexander (another story for another time).
Time has magnified this decisions' ripple affects. First, the retreat wound up being profitable. Somebody from the retreat referred to me a client for my business that turned into me closing a deal worth triple the amount of money I paid to go on the retreat.
One new friend has become a co-collaborator on secret pop up parties. Through people I met on the retreat I've dated two great women (not at the same time). Because of the retreat I joined a new gym which has now become the nexus of my social ecosystem. There I've become good friends with authors, entrepreneurs, musicians, and even found my book's PR manager. Some of those entrepreneurs are now characters in said book. Many have become guests at my increasingly frequent dinner parties.
So in sum, because of that one decision I went on an epic adventure, profited, dated, "changed" my name, radically shifted my social ecosystem, have made new best friends, and advanced my book project.
All of this happened because I stepped into the unknown and found the life changing magic of ordinary asymmetry.