Let yourself fall down more

> If you take a lot of chances, that adds up eventually and you'll have some big wins. Just do it safely, so that they don't add up to a lot of big losses, too.

And here is great contradiction in this whole essay. You can't "safely" take a lot of chances and not lose big, when in most cases to have big wins, one has to do unsafe things...

This is also why folks who have a safety net (in terms of family wealth, etc) tend to do better as entrepreneurs. Not sure this essay is helpful.

The thing is, falling down (ie. failing at things) can take a lot out of you, physically, mentally, financially, spiritually.

For most of us, taking calculated risks is better than simply taking more risks.

And the risk calculation changes based on your personal circumstances: physically falling has a greater impact on an old person than a young person, making a financial mistake has a greater impact on someone who has no savings than someone who is wealthy, etc.

So "let yourself fall down more" isn't really one size fits all advice.

Falling down when you're 50+ is a HELLAVA lot riskier than falling down when you're younger.

This appears to be a blog post about risk tolerance - which of course changes dramatically depending on lots of factors. If I fall as a middle-aged person, I'm much more likely to cause permanent, irreparable harm to myself - which, maybe not worth the rewards.

This really isn't useful advice since physically, economically, and reputationally, "falling down" when you're younger incurs exponentially less risk.

Virtually all legal systems make a clear distinction between "children" and "adults" precisely because of these sorts of external and embodied judgment factors.

> But the thing is? Falling doesn't have to be dangerous

Every time you use a question mark in place of a comma? A kitten dies.

This post rests on:

> Falling doesn't have to be dangerous. You can fall a lot without getting hurt, if you learn to fall safely. With inline skating, you have protective gear (helmet, knee/elbow pads, wrist guards) which protect you, and you have techniques for falling which let you use this gear to its fullest potential.

Is that actually true? Is it possible with enough protective gear, that falling can be safe, even for older people? Doesn't your own body weight come into the picture, despite helmets and knee pads? (Genuinely curious!)

My grandfather fell down, broke his leg and then died in the hospital.

It's certainly important to prevent falls. Especially as adults, we tend to lack the energy to get up. In that respect, children are amazing. I recently started studying for an LLM as a hobby, but I keep falling over and spending less time getting up. I often think it would be easier to just give up and go to sleep.

Highly recommend Rodney Mullen's public speaking on the greater value of Skateboarding and the importance of falling (i.e., it teaches you how to get back up).

https://player.vimeo.com/video/77731599?title=0&byline=0&por...

I've gotten much more cautious since I had a fall a few years ago and realized that I'm not so invulnerable now. I was ice skating - I'm a very good skater and grew up on skates around the same time I learned to walk and played on traveling hockey teams my entire youth. Someone fell on the ice and I reached down and was helping them up when my skates slipped out from under me. I fell backwards and cracked the back of my head on the ice. I swear I felt my brain slosh in my head. Luckily no concussion or other injury but since then I've just taken way fewer risks and I don't plan on changing that.

“ If you take a lot of chances, that adds up eventually and you'll have some big wins. Just do it safely, so that they don't add up to a lot of big losses, too.”

“Just” do it safely. If it’s safe, you are not really taking chances.

This is why skateboarding is a great hobby. You learn from a young age that falling is normal and necessary for progress.

Falling is a skill like any other - the more you fall, the better you get at it.

You skate, sing, code and play saxophone? That's pretty badass.

I picked up inline skating at ~39, I realized that for all my cycling and lifting my balance and propreoception was crap and skiing once a year wasn't going to solve that problem.

I slapped on all the padding I could and it took me nearly a year to get my bodyweight outside of my feet and really carve at high speed. Why? Because my flexibility, strength and muscle activation all had weird gaps.

I ended up getting a slackboard as well about a year in.

I am basically impossible to knock over now, I can wear sperrys on ice, my legs and core are incredibly strong in a way lifting heavy never accomplished, I no longer have weird little muscle pains, all the muscles are strong.

When cycling I used to have occasional knee pain in my left exterior of my knee. No longer.

I've found 3 fast stretches to do after... I mean, rollerblading is basically yoga (which I find boring) at 15mph with pebbles and no ability to bail, it's fucking awesome and pretty damn hard.

I wear all the pads and it's glorious, I'm ~40 and I haven't felt this athletic since my late 20s.

I was getting sore before I started, that creeping old man shit, now I skate between 3 and 30 miles a week and its great. I skiied 3 days straight at 11k ft elevation and had no muscle soreness and no multi day fade, it was unreal.

I'll join the chorus of saying that falling down at age 40 means my skinned knee is still healing three weeks later. I'm very risk tolerant, but it's striking how the tides have turned on healing.