Book Review: The Almanack of Naval Ravikant
If you don’t already know about Naval Ravikant, let me tell you about him.
Naval is an entrepreneur, angel investor and philosopher and an icon in the Silicon Valley.
He co-founded AngelList and has invested in more than 200 companies, mostly in their early stages. Notable ones among them include Twitter, Notion, Uber, Clubhouse etc.
Here’s a link to his wikipedia page.
Naval has been sharing his philosophy of life and happiness via Twitter, blog posts and podcasts.
This book is a collection of Naval’s wisdom curated from various sources.
More specifically, it’s about two topics he has spoken extensively about: Wealth and Happiness.
While I encourage you to read his book as a review can not do complete justice in it’s attempt to explain his wisdom, but let me try to talk about a few ideas which moved me and shaped me as a person.
Part 1 : Wealth
This part talks about Building Wealth and Building Judgement.
Both are equally important as becoming rich and staying rich are two different things.
- Seek wealth, not money or status.
- You are not going to get rich renting your time. You must own equity.
- You will get rich by giving society what it wants , at scale.
- All returns in life come from compound interest.
- Learn to sell, learn to build. Doing both will make you unstoppable.
- Acquire specific knowledge, accountability and leverage.
Specific knowledge cannot be taught, but can be learnt.
Think sales skills, musical talent, interest in games (and thus game theory).
Specific knowledge is found by pursuing your innate talents, curiosity and passion. It’s not going after the hottest job or the most sought after field.
To work with people and earn credibility, you need accountability.
Accountability involves taking business risks under your name. So, it’s risky. But the rewards are responsibility, equity and leverage. Rewards come with their risks.
Leverage is what works for you without you doing it yourself.
One form of leverage is labor- other humans working for you. It is the oldest form of leverage. It’s the oldest form of leverage and the worst in the current times.
Second form of leverage is money — capital is better leverage than labor. It’s what got most businessmen rich in the last century.
Best form of leverage is products with no marginal cost of replication- this is the best, most democratic form. It involves books, media, movies and code.
This type of leverage does not require permission and is by its nature democratic.
You are not going to get rich renting out your time, hence you require leverage.
Hard work is over rated in the modern economy. What is under rated is Judgement.
Wisdom is knowing the long term consequences of your actions. Wisdom applied to external problems is judgement.
Judgement is important for leverage but without hard work, you cannot acquire either judgement or leverage.
Shed your identity to see reality.
Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are.
To be honest, speak without identity.
Everything requires redesign- Facebook, Twitter. Nothing is permanent.
Learn to Love to Read.
Read what you love, until you love to read.
It’s not about reading fast, read at your own pace.
You may leave some books uncompleted and that is alright.
When you read, you build mental muscles.
Part 2: Happiness
Learning Happiness.
Happiness is a skill that can be learnt, like fitness or nutrition.
There are no external forces affecting your emotions, as much as you may feel that way.
Happiness is not something you find, but a choice you make.
What if this life is the paradise we were promised and we are just squandering it?
Desire is a contract you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want.
The enemy of peace of mind is expectations drilled into you by society and other people.
Happiness is built by habits.
Saving yourself.
World’s simplest diet : The more processed the food, the less one should consume.
The harder the workout, the easier the day.
Meditation is intermittent fasting for the mind.
Meditation lets you run your brain in debug mode until you realize you’re just a subroutine in a larger program.
The greatest superpower is the ability to change yourself.
Philosophy.
Before you can lie to other, lie to yourself.
Inspiration is perishable, act on it immediately.
If wisdom could be imparted through words, we’d all be done here.
