What’s Rational? What Works.

Move

So this colleague of mine, she's talking about side hustles and gig economy and all that. And she says, "You know, tarot card readers are making money. Like real money. ₹2000-3000 per session."

But then immediately she adds, "I mean, I don't believe in it, but people are paying."

That pause. That disclaimer. I don't believe in it.

Why do we do this? I've been thinking about this. Why do we hedge before mentioning anything that doesn't fit what we think is the rational world?

Someone mentions Reiki, they quickly add "not sure if it's scientific though." Someone talks about a lucky charm, "I know it's superstition, but..." Someone admits they pray before big decisions, "just my thing, you know."

And I told her - I don't look at a practice whether it's scientific or spiritual or whatever. I look at whether it works. If tarot reading helps someone make better decisions, or feel calmer, or process whatever they're going through - it's rational. That's it.

Because rationality, I think, is not what sounds logical in a boardroom presentation. It's what actually delivers outcomes in real life.

See

So I came across this in Taleb's book "Skin in the Game" and it kind of destroyed what I thought rationality meant. Or what we're taught rationality means.

He says it very clearly: "Survival comes first, truth, understanding, and science later."

I had to read that a few times. Survival first. Understanding later.

This is completely opposite of what we learn, right? We think understand first, then act. Taleb is saying no - survive first, understand if you have time. Maybe never understand, doesn't matter.

And real rationality, according to him, is about long-term well-being. Not short-term logic. Not sounding smart in meetings. Not fitting some academic framework.

So his point is simple - if a practice has survived for centuries, it's rational. Even if you can't explain why. Even if it doesn't fit your logic models. Time filters everything. What survives serves well-being.

Idol worship? Survived thousands of years across cultures. Serves long-term well-being for people who practice it. Rational.

Reiki? Been around for decades. People keep coming back. Serves their well-being. Rational.

Tarot? Still around, still working for people, readers making living out of it. Serves well-being for both reader and client. Rational.

That weird ritual your grandmother did? If three generations repeated it, it protected something. Maybe psychological, maybe social, maybe something we can't even measure. But it served long-term well-being. So it's rational.

You know what we do? We confuse "can I explain it?" with "does it work?" Taleb doesn't care about explanations. He cares about survival and well-being.

And here's the uncomfortable part for people like us who do analysis for living.

Post-facto analysis - the thing we're literally paid to do - is often the irrational part.

I mean think about it. A decision was made. It worked. Company survived, maybe even thrived. Revenue came in. Problem got solved. Long-term well-being of the business improved.

Then someone, usually six months later, runs back the tape. "But you didn't consider this variable." "The data actually suggested something else." "Your reasoning was flawed."

So what? The decision served long-term well-being. That's the only rationality that matters, no?

Post-facto critique assumes you had perfect information then. You didn't.

Post-facto critique judges your reasoning, not your long-term outcomes. Which is kind of irrelevant when you think about it.

Post-facto critique comes from people with no skin in your game. They didn't face the survival pressure you were facing. They're just playing intellectual games. It's noise.

Reflect

This is not about stop doing analysis. I'm not saying that. I think it's about knowing what rationality actually means when you're the one making the call. When you have skin in the game.

So when I joined as CFO at that battery company, vendors had lost trust. Post-dated cheques were bouncing. Everyone wanted cash before delivery. If you go by textbook, the analysis would say improve processes, tighten controls, build sophisticated forecasting models, all that.

I did something much simpler. Got one guy to own cheque issuance. Just one person responsible. And followed MD's advice on detailed cash flow tracking. Very detailed. Six months later, vendors were saying "your PDC is like a bank guarantee."

Was my decision process rational by MBA standards? Probably not sophisticated enough. Did it serve long-term well-being of the company? Yes. Did we survive and thrive? Yes. So was it rational? Yes.

Survival first. Understanding later. Maybe never.

The ground rule I follow now - at that moment, with the information you had, the constraints you were facing, the people you had on your team - did your decision benefit long-term well-being?

If yes - it was rational. Everything else is just people who weren't in that survival game telling you what you should have done.

And this applies beyond work also. My colleague hesitating about tarot readers. That hesitation itself is irrational. She's judging a practice not by whether it serves well-being - people paying, feeling better, coming back, building entire lives and practices around it - but by whether it fits her framework of what's believable.

Taleb would call this absence of skin. She's not the tarot reader making a living. She's not the client getting value. She's just an observer with opinions. No skin, no say.

So here's the pause moment I think - before you judge any decision, yours or someone else's, ask one question:

Did it serve long-term well-being for the person who had skin in the game?

Not "does it sound logical to me?" Not "would I have done it differently?" Not "can science explain it yet?"

Did it serve well-being over time?

If yes - it was rational. Your post-facto analysis, your need for scientific explanation, your intellectual frameworks - that's actually the irrational part. That's just ego dressed up as rigor.

And this is hard for analytical types like us. We love our frameworks, our data, our lessons learned sessions. But I think most of that is just making us feel smart. Doesn't actually make decisions better. Doesn't improve long-term well-being.

You know Sabri from Ramayana? Plucking berries daily for decades, waiting for Ram. If you do textbook analysis - irrational behavior, wasted life, delusional faith.

But the outcome? She met Ram. For her, with her skin in that game, her devotion served her long-term well-being perfectly. It gave her purpose, peace, and ultimately her goal. It was perfectly rational.

Sabri se sabr seekho. And from Taleb, learn this - survival and long-term well-being come first. Your need to understand and explain comes later. Much later. Maybe never.

And I think that's fine. Because understanding isn't the goal. Thriving is.