Dependencies are Dangerous: Self Reliance and Diversification is the Cure

There is a scene in the excellent sci fi series Peripheral tv episode 5 on Amazon video where the mom talks with her kids, the main protagonists, about power imbalances. All gifts come with a cost. And dependencies are always dangerous.

“I also took it to heart. The idea that the worst thing a person can do is grow dependent on some outsider.” 

This was quite an enlightening scene and a reminder and object lesson for all of us in the real world. It’s incredibly dumb and risky depending on one country, one income, one job, one customer, one investment, one key employee or partner. I’m thinking through my own dependencies even as I write this. As the famous Andy Grove, co-founder and CEO of Intel named his insightful book: “Only the Paranoid Survive.”

You have to take inventory constantly and treat all your dependencies like a metaphorical gangrenous limb that you have to cut off the minute you smell rot. Cut off the blight and cauterize the wound. It’s the only way to save the rest of your body. This works for both individuals and for growing startup organizations.

Learn to count on oneself first. That means taking responsibility and pure ownership for everything you do and everything that happens. 

Have high standards in people around you. And people come through for them, do all that you can to keep them around. And yes, you can and should give people some allowances. As Imam Shafi’i said: “Be hard on yourself and easy on others.” So always assume good intentions and give them one chance. But if they mess that up, you have to cut them off right away, especially if they prove untrustworthy or weak. This is a mistake I’ve made throughout my career and even in recent times. And was one that cost me a lot of money and time. 

Build options. Keep your cost structure low. Have extensive savings and assets. Be and build for flexibility. This might seem like a lonely, cynical or sad way to live. But personally it’s worked well for me. Quoting Jodi Picault: “There were two ways to be happy: improve your reality, or lower your expectations” 

I keep working at making my life better, being reliable to a fault myself and at the same time, I keep my expectations of most people around me low. Alexander Pope said: “Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.”