I encountered the concept of optionality in Nassim Taleb's book The Black Swan, and he expands further on the concept in Antifragile. This idea completely blew my mind. Like any other worthwhile information, it seems completely obvious when it is pointed out to you.
The idea of raising optionality is to acti in such a way that your actions will result in greater possibilities for action going forward, while limiting potential downsides. Writing this post is an example of something that has high optionality. While the risk is small (at worst, I have wasted a bit of time), but the potential upside is very large. Besides the income from upvotes, there is also a chance of followers, as well as a chance to make more in-depth connections.
Meeting people is also a high optionality activity, since you never know when you might make a good connection. There are many others. Education in general is a way to increase your own optionality, since it provides you with more possibilities.