The Almanack of Naval Ravikant by Eric Jorgenson
Rating: 9/10
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One Sentence Wrap-Up
Life advices on wealth creation and happiness from one of the most successful entrepreneur and investor of our time, consolidated from 10-years+ of contents from his Twitter account.
Summary Notes
I stumbled across this book while browsing Amazon. It is free (not on Amazon but on his site here); Naval sounded like an interesting guy; reviews were glowing across both GoodRead and Amazon; and given that it was near the new year (I was looking to set my goals for 2021), I took the plunge without much consideration.
The book is split into two key sections: wealth and happiness, with each chapter deep-diving into a specific sub-topic. For example, under wealth, we have building wealth, which further breaks down into sub-topics such as "understand how wealth is created"; "find and build specific knowledge", etc. Each sub-topic contains a summary of his wisdom; real life examples and a series of tweets to further explore the sub-topic.
Through the podcast "Made You Think", I was aware that this book is like a summary of all of Naval's wisdom from his 10+ years Tweets, organised and structured in such a way that it is easy to follow and look up. Surprisingly, I did not expect it to contain so many advices. Literally, I highlighted a quote from nearly every page. After I finished reading it, I wanted to dive right back in to reassess the key highlights such that I could incorporate some of his insights into my own blueprint of living life.The passage that particularly resonated with me are as follows:
All the returns in life, whether in wealth, relationships, or knowledge, come from compound interest. Play long-term games.
... which is true in most aspects of my life so far. For example, you build up the foundation of knowledge, then you add to it by "layering" additional know-how. This further solidifies the foundation. I would consider that the "layering" could not be done without the proper foundation is place, thus the "layering" over time is the compound interest. This comes with time and effort, but will result in you becoming the expert of your domain.
As well as this passage, which opened up my eyes to a new way of thinking about freedom:
My old definition was "freedom to". Freedom to do anything I want. Freedom to do whatever I feel like, whenever I feel like. Now, the freedom I'm looking for is internal freedom. It's "freedom from." Freedom from reaction. Freedom from feeling angry. Freedom from being sad. Freedom from being forced to do things. I'm looking for "freedom from," internally and externally, whereas before I was looking for "freedom to".
How often I thought my life would be better if I had the freedom to travel; to live in that country; to try something new, etc. But Naval brought to light that it is not the freedom to, but the freedom from that is liberating. Freedom from obsession; from jealousy; from mindless admin tasks; from doing a job to make ends meet, etc. His view on getting wealthy as a first step to freedom (but not happiness) is a wake-up call for me to reconsider options.
Key Lesson Learnt - Be authentic; be you; learn continuously and find your niche. Seek to achieve "freedom from"; strive for peace instead of happiness
There are several valuable lessons for me, but it all boils down to what I know already but don't give them much thought:
- All of us are unique in our own ways
- All of us have picked up social expectations and norms throughout our lives that may have led us to conform and deviate from exploring our strengths and passions fully
- Learning (or reading) is a superpower to cultivate
- Wealth could not buy happiness but it is a pre-requisite to achieve many of the "freedom from"
A special mention is that according to Naval, meditation is turning off society and listening to yourself, with hiking as a form of walking mediation. Now I know why I love hiking so much :).
All in all, I would probably revisit the book once a year to remind myself of the key lessons, as the hustle and bustle of life would inevitably lead me to focus on the now and forget the big picture.
Favourite Quotes
Escape competition through authenticity. Basically, when you're competing with people, it's because you're copying them. It's because you're trying to do the same thing. But every human is different. Don't copy.
All the returns in life, whether in wealth, relationships, or knowledge, come from compound interest. Play long-term games.
If it entertains you now but it will bore you someday, it's a distraction. Keep looking.
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. If you love to do it, be authentic, and then figure out how to map that to what society actually wants. Apply some leverage and put your name on it. You take the risks, but you gain the rewards, have ownership and equity in what you're doing, and just crank it up.
Retirement is when you stop sacrificing today for an imaginary tomorrow. When today is complete, in and of itself, you're retired.
People are oddly consistent. Karman is just you, repeating your patterns, virtues, and flaws until you finally get what you deserve. Always pay it forward. And don't keep count.
Your real resume is just a catalog of all your suffering.
Reading science, math, and philosophy one hour per day will likely put you at the upper echelon of human success within seven years.
The genuine love for reading itself, when cultivated, is a superpower.
We are highly judgmental survival-and-replication machines. We constantly walk around thinking "I need this," or "I need that,", trapped in the web of desires. Happiness is the state when nothing is missing. When nothing is missing, your mind shuts down and stops running into the past or future to regret something or to plan something.
The idea you're going to change something in the outside world, and that is going to bring you the peace, everlasting joy, and happiness you deserve, is a fundamental delusion we all suffer from, including me. The mistake over and over and over is to say "Oh, I'll be happy when I get that thing," whatever it is. That is the fundamental mistake we all make, 24/7, all day long.
Desire is a contract you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want.
There's a line from Blaise Pascal I read. Basically, it says: "All of man's troubles arise because he cannot sit in a room quietly by himself." If you could just sit for 30 minutes and be happy, you are successful. That is a very powerful place to be, but very few of us get there.
One day, I realized with all these people I was jealous of, I couldn't just choose little aspects of their life. I couldn't say I want his body, I want her money, I want his personality. You have to be that person. Do you want to actually be that person with all of their reactions, their desires, their family, their happiness level, their outlook on life, their self-image? If you're not willing to do a wholesale, 24/7, 100% swap with who that person is, then there is no point in being jealous.
Every time you catch yourself desiring something, say, "Is it so important to me I'll be unhappy unless this goes my way?" You're going to find with the vast majority of things it's just not true.
You always have three options: you can change it, you can accept it, or you can leave it. What is not a good option is to sit around wishing you could change it but not changing it, wishing you could leave it but not leaving it and not accepting it. That struggle or aversion is responsible for most of our misery.
A lot of what goes on today is what many of you are doing right now - beating yourself up and scribbling notes and saying, "I need to do this, and I need to do that, and I need to do..." No, you don't need to do anything. All you should do is what you want to do. If you stop trying to figure out how to do things the way other people want you to do them, you get to listen to the little voice inside your head that wants to do things a certain way. Then, you get to be you.
Meditation is turning off society and listening to yourself. It only 'works' when done for its own sake. Hiking is walking meditation. Journaling is writing meditation. Praying is gratitude meditation. Showering is accidental meditation. Sitting quietly is direct meditation.
My old definition was "freedom to." Freedom to do anything I want. Freedom to do whatever I feel like, whenever I feel like. Now, the freedom I'm looking for is internal freedom. It's "freedom from." Freedom from reaction. Freedom from feeling angry. Freedom from being sad. Freedom from being forced to do things. I'm looking for "freedom from," internally and externally, whereas before I was looking for "freedom to."
The modern struggle: Lone individuals summoning inhuman willpower, fasting, meditating, and exercising... Up against armies of scientists and statisticians weaponizing abundant food, screens, and medicine into junk food, clickbait news, infinite porn, endless games and addictive drugs.
