Optionality: How to Survive and Thrive in a Volatile World

by Richard Meadows

I sometimes make the mistake of assuming buff movie stars and fitness models are dumb or one-dimensional—until I find out the slightest bit of actual information about them. Arnold Schwarzenegger grew up in a poor village with a violent, alcoholic father. He migrated to the US with very little English, started a series of businesses that made him a millionaire, then went on to excel at the highest possible levels in bodybuilding, movies, and politics. The whole ‘robotic meathead’ persona was something he deliberately cultivated to trick people into underestimating him. Dolph Lundgren, the walking slab of muscle best known as Ivan Drago from Rocky IV, is a Fulbright scholar, speaks six languages, and has a master’s degree in chemical engineering. Terry Crews, not content with being an NFL player, bodybuilder, actor, comedian, and the most wholesome person to walk God’s green earth, is a brilliant visual artist. The physician Oliver Sacks penned beautiful essays on mortality, neurology, and music, while moonlighting as a record-breaking powerlifting monster nicknamed “Dr Squat”. Marie Curie was an avid cyclist. Alan Turing was a good enough distance runner to be an Olympics contender. And so on.