THE BARBELL STRATEGY FOR CAREERS Nassim Taleb suggests targeting the two extremes of the career spectrum at once. On one end of the barbell, you play it safe with a secure, staid job. On the other end, you take highly speculative risks. In the middle, as little as possible. This allow you to explore and exploit in parallel, giving you two separate paths for maximising career capital over time (Fig. 5.10). The exploration pathway starts out at rock bottom, with the hope being that it might one day climb high enough to overtake the line representing steady exploitation.
