The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness

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I grew up in a single-parent household with my mom working, going to school, and raising my brother and me as latchkey kids. We were very self-sufficient from a very early age. There was a lot of hardship, but everyone goes through hardship. It did help me in a number of ways. This book reads like a modern-day poetic religious tome. It’s up there with the Bhagavad Gita, the Tao Te Ching, the Bible, and the Qur’an. It is written in the style where it has a feel of religiosity and truth, but it was very approachable, beautiful, non-denominational, and non-sectarian. I loved this book. There is no skill called 'business'. Avoid business magazines and business classes. Study microeconomics, game theory, psychology, persuasion, ethics, mathematics, and computers.” Below are my five favorite big ideas from the book, rewritten for brevity. 1. Understand How to Create Wealth

Here are 3 of Naval’s secrets on how to “make it” both on the outside and inside, thanks to smart thinking and self-awareness: Sales skills, for example, are a type of specialised knowledge. Every now and then, you’ll come across someone who is completely natural in their sales pitch. It’s safe to say they didn’t learn it in a classroom. Maybe it started in their childhood or in the schoolyard, or maybe it’s in their DNA. However, this does not rule out the possibility of improving your sales abilities. You can read Robert Cialdini, attend a sales training seminar, or go door to door selling. It’s tough, but it’ll teach you a lot in a short amount of time. Nobody can teach you specific information, but you can learn it. Naval Ravikant is an entrepreneur, philosopher, and investor whose wealth-building and long-term happiness philosophies have captivated the world. Making money is not only a necessary chore for survival, but it is also a skill that can be learned. Knowing what to do, who to do it with, and when to do it is the key to becoming wealthy.a b Stankovic, Stefan (April 15, 2018). "Naval Ravikant: Complete Profile and Meta List of All Things @Naval". Anything you do will fade. It will disappear, just like the human race will disappear and the planet will disappear. Even the group who colonizes Mars will disappear. No one is going to remember you past a certain number of generations, whether you’re an artist, a poet, a conqueror, a pauper, or anyone else. There’s no meaning. A history of the human species. The observations, frameworks, and mental models will have you looking at history and your fellow humans differently. [1]

Specific knowledge is found by pursuing your genuine curiosity and passion rather than whatever is hot right now.”If you can’t decide, then the answer is no. We live in abundance. There are countless options to choose from. If, however, you’re evenly split on a difficult decision. Take the path more painful in the short term. Easy decisions, hard life. Hard decisions, easy life. That’s a good question. I’ll pull up my Kindle app as we talk. Usually, I’m always rereading some books in science. These are two very broad categories. One is building the product. This is hard, and it’s multivariate. It can include design; it can include development; it can include manufacturing, logistics, procurement; and it can even be designing and operating a service. It has many, many definitions. I’m reading a book on René Girard’s mimetic theory. It’s more of an overview book because I couldn’t make it through his actual writings. I’m reading Tools of Titans, Tim Ferriss’ book of what he learned from a lot of great performers.

When I talk about specific knowledge, I mean figure out what you were doing as a kid or teenager almost effortlessly. Something you didn’t even consider a skill, but people around you noticed. Your mother or your best friend growing up would know.The number of books completed is a vanity metric. As you know more, you will leave more books unfinished. Focus on new concepts with predictive power.” Probably for someone who is not used to Naval’s thought this book is going to be much breathtaking. In my case it was re-reading tweets and interviews I am familiar with. Despite that it is short and easy to read and ideal for skimming to find ideas and interesting points of view. Jorgenson did a good job of presenting the material as something homogeneous but sometimes it might feel repetitive or the criteria for grouping thoughts could be different in some cases. I only really want to do things for their own sake. That is one definition of art. Whether it’s business, exercise, romance, friendship, whatever, I think the meaning of life is to do things for their own sake. Ironically, when you do things for their own sake, you create your best work. Even if you’re just trying to make money, you will actually be the most successful. Make time for the important things. “I don’t have time” is just another way of saying “It’s not a priority.”

To change this mentality, you must first accept that money is something you can have and that they can give you freedom. Essentially, this is what you’ll use them for, to buy time. It is the tool you need to experience the real values of life. As such, the meaning you give to it can alter the course of your life. If your end goal is to simply build more and more wealth, money will get you nowhere. Make tradeoffs. Desire is a contract you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want. Happiness is being satisfied with what you have. Success comes from dissatisfaction. Choose.Read enough, and you become a connoisseur. Then you naturally gravitate more towards theory, concepts, non-fiction. One level beyond that might be somebody who says, “Actually, I want to bring the maximum leverage to bear in this market and the maximum specific knowledge.” That person would say, “Well, I understand real estate, and I understand everything from basic housing construction, to building properties and selling them, to how real estate markets move and thrive, and I also understand the technology business. I understand how to recruit developers, how to write code, and how to build a good product, and I understand how to raise money from venture capitalists, how to return it, and how all of that works.” Naval runs a short-form podcast at Nav.al and Spearhead.co, where he discusses philosophy, business, and investing. He has also been a podcast guest on The Joe Rogan Experience, The Tim Ferriss Show, Coffee with Scott Adams, The James Altucher Show and Farnam Street, among others. I like this for someone who’s more advanced. A rationalist’s guide to the perils of the human mind. The “spiritual” book I keep returning to. [1] Best investing attitude is contrarian, patient, informed optimism. As @m2jr says, “non-consensus and right.” [11]