The Almanack of Naval Ravikant – by Eric Jorgenson
Recommendation: 9/10. Date read: 11/6/20.
A collection of wisdom from entrepreneur and investor, Naval Ravikant. Jorgenson has consolidated years worth of interviews, podcasts, articles, tweets, and speeches from Ravikant. And he’s assembled the content in a way that’s intuitive, easy to follow, and genuinely helpful in highlighting Naval’s principles for building wealth and long-term happiness. Sections I found particularly insightful focused on Naval’s thoughts on habits, identity, moving with purpose, leveraging meaning as a force multiplier, and the importance of building specific knowledge.
See my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.
My Notes:
Move with purpose:
Step one, you must know what you’re working towards or you’ll never get there: “Yes, hard work matters, and you can’t skimp on it. But it has to be directed in the right way. If you don’t know yet what you should work on, the most important thing is to figure it out.” Naval Ravikant
“Spend more time making the big decisions. There are basically three really big decisions you make in your early life: where you live, who you’re with, and what you do.” NR
“Choosing what city to live in can almost completely determine the trajectory of your life.” NR
Specific knowledge is key:
Specific knowledge is the key: “Arm yourself with specific knowledge, accountability, and leverage. Specific knowledge is knowledge you cannot be trained for. If society can train you, it can train someone else and replace you. Specific knowledge is found by pursuing your genuine curiosity and passion rather than whatever is hot right now. Build specific knowledge will feel like play to you but will look like work to others. When specific knowledge is taught, it’s through apprenticeships, not schools. Specific knowledge is often highly technical or creative.” NR
Meaning is a force multiplier:
“If you’re not 100 percent into it, somebody else who is 100 percent into it will outperform you. And they won’t just outperform you by a little bit—they’ll outperform you by a lot.” NR
“The way to get out of the competition trap is to be authentic, to find the thing you know how to do better than anybody. You know how to do it better because you love it, and no one can compete with you.” NR
“No one in the world is going to beat you at being you.” NR
“I’m always ‘working.’ It looks like work to others, but it feels like play to me. And that’s how I know no one can compete with me on it. Because I’m just playing, for sixteen hours a day. If others want to compete with me, they’re going to work, and they’re going to lose because they’re not going to do it for sixteen hours a day, seven days a week.” NR
“Look at the kids who are born rich—they have no meaning to their lives.” NR
Ethics:
“Intentions don’t matter. Actions do. That’s why being ethical is hard.” NR
Patience:
“Great people have great outcomes. You just have to be patient.” NR
“Your real resume is just a catalog of all your suffering…the sacrifices you made, the hard things you did.” NR
Simplicity:
“‘Clear thinker’ is a better compliment than ‘smart.’” NR
“When it comes to medicine and nutrition, subtract before you add.” NR
Habits:
“You absolutely need habits to function. You cannot solve every problem in life as if it is the first time it’s thrown at you.” NR
“It’s really important to be able to uncondition yourself, to be able to take your habits apart and say, ‘Okay, this is a habit I probably picked up when I was a toddler trying to get my parent’s attention. Now I’ve reinforced it and reinforced it, and I call it a part of my identity. Does it still serve me?’” NR
“The genuine love for reading itself, when cultivated, is a superpower.” NR
“The number of books completed is a vanity metric. As you know more, you leave more books unfinished. Focus on new concepts with predictive power.” NR
“A calm mind, a fit body, and a house of love. These things cannot be bought. They must be earned.” NR
“Easy choices, hard life. Hard choices, easy life.” Jerzy Gregorek
Identity:
Danger of ideologies: “Any belief you took in a package (ex. Democrat, Catholic, American) is suspect and should be re-evaluated from base principles.” NR
Allow yourself to evolve: “Facebook redesigns. Twitter redesigns. Personalities, careers, and teams also need redesigns. There are no permanent solutions in a dynamic system.” NR
“The fundamental delusion: There is something out there that will make me happy and fulfilled forever.” NR
Sustainability: “Don’t hang around people who constantly engage in conflict. I’m not interested in anything unsustainable or even hard to sustain, including difficult relationships.” NR
Impermanence: “Everything is more beautiful because we’re doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now, and we will never be here again.” Homer, The Iliad