cover image for The Almanack of Naval Ravikant

The Almanack of Naval Ravikant

Eric Jorgenson

10/10
Fantastic Possibly Life changing book Lots of great reminders about what’s most important in life. How you want to find things that feel like a game to you as your primary thing. How important learning is as well as the basics on topics like micro economics, game theory, psychology, math, programming, Compound interest, when it comes to relationships and skills building. optimize for independence over pay, optimize for pay by output instead of pay by hour The imporantance of not getting tied to identity and reflecting on your opinions and habits and then changing them as needed Also how being happiness could be viewed as peace instead of joy. How Desire might ruin that peace by essentially haivng you say you will be unhappy until you get the thing you’re after and it’s better to desire peace instead. Also how you should try and appreciate reality for what it is rather than what you wish it might be, and being present. Also how importance health is to happiness not just wealth. try everything, test it for yourself, be skeptical, keep what's useful, discard what's not.

Building Wealth

  • build wealth (assets that grow without your time)
    • ignore status
    • you will give society what it wants but does not yet know how to get at scale
    • Play iterated games
    • pick partners with, energy, intelligence and integrity (no pessimists)
    • learn to sell and build
    • build specific knowledge that can't be learned
      • your specific passion
      • will feel like play to you but look like work to others
      • through apprentice ships
      • highly technical or creative
    • take business risks under your own name
    • leverage
      • capital, (money, show specific knowledge and good judgement)
      • people (people working for you, a bit of a waste)
      • products with no marginal cost of replication (these are the best)
        • code and media
    • learn the following
      • micro economics
      • game theory
      • Psychology
      • mathematics
      • Computers
    • reading is faster than listening
    • doing is faster than watching
    • you should be too busy to do coffee while keeping an uncluttered calendar
    • productize yourself
      • ask is this authentic to me
      • then am I scaling thing in the right way
  • find and build specific knowledge
    • what you were doing as a kid almost effortlessly, but others noticed
    • friend or parent would know
    • examples
      • sales
      • musical talent
      • obsessive personality (live and learn)
      • sci Fi knowledge (absorb knowledge quickly)
      • games (game theory)
      • gossiping (digging into network, interesting journalist?)
    • focus on the thing you're really into
    • escape competition through authenticity
      • you are the best at being you
    • be a perpetual learner
      • build good foundations
      • basic math skills
      • persuasion
      • simplifying ideas
    • you can only become deep in 1 or 2 things
      • usually only if you're obsessed with them
  • play long terms games with long term people
    • compounding relationships where trust is build
    • also with audience / reputation
    • intentions don't matter outcomes do
      • that's why ethics are hard
  • take on accountability
    • take business risks under your own name
    • leverage
      • labour and capital require people to follow you
      • you need to build credibility, by risk failure
    • you get the reap the rewards
    • business risk,
      • your the last one to get your capital out and time back
      • personal bankruptcy (actual risk is low)
    • people will forgive failures typically if genuine effort and are honest
  • build or buy equity in a business
  • find a position of leverage
    • genuine intellectual curiosity, passions and hobbies
    • if it entertains you now but will bore you later, it's a distraction keep looking
      • do things for their own sake
    • make your brand,
      • YouTube, Twitter, give away knowledge and content for free
    • 3 main types
      • Labour
        • managing is hard, this kinda sucks
        • doesn't scale
      • Money
        • nice in that it scales well, managing more isn't hard
      • no replication cost (code / media / books)
        • best
    • no replication cost
      • permission less
      • army of robots working 24 / 7
    • optimize for independence over pay,
    • optimize for pay by output instead of pay by hour
    • knowledge works are like athlete, train and sprint, then rest and reassess
    • inputs, outputs, time and money should be disconnected
    • you need to know how to sell or build
      • real estate agent could sell millions dollar homes 3 months out of the year (could also be marketing or PR)
      • coder could build apps for 2 years then never work again (could also be design, hardware, procurement, logistics etc )
    • avoid ruin
      • stay out of things that risk
      • health
      • Prison
      • loosing literally all your money below a comfortable living
  • Get paid for your judgement
  • prioritize and focus
    • set stupidly high hourly rate 5K,
    • try not to do things worth less than that.
    • don't spend an hour trying to save $30 returning a toaster
  • status and wealth creation
    • status is a zero sum game. Someone will win and someone will lose. They are relative.
    • wealth creation can be a win win situation for everyone kinda game
    • play the later not the former
    • be positive and optimistic
    • Don't despise the wealthy because they are so, they can sense it
  • spend more time deciding (who you spend time with, what you do, where you live)
  • to surround self with successful people
    • figure out what you're good at and help others with it. Give it away, pay it forward
  • retirement definition
    • so sacrificing today for an imaginary tomorrow. Today is for today.
  • 3 ways to get to retirement
    • passive income over burn rate
    • drive down cost to 0, become a monk
    • do something you love and enjoy it so much that it's not about the money
  • your work should feel like play
  • money is not bad, lust for money is
    • ideally don't upgrade your lifestyle as your wealth increases
    • value freedom above all else. Understand that attachment to money after a certain point is a chain
  • in your career the alumni network of people you've met is super important
  • luck 4 kinds
    • hope luck finds you
    • hustle until you find it
    • prepare the mind and be sensitive to chances others miss
    • become the best at what you do. Opportunity will seek you out
  • must have trusted, reliable, high-integrity, long term thinking deal maker
  • don't network, make cools tuff in public and people will find you
  • follow good values (you will mentally scar yourself otherwise)
  • patience
    • if you're counting, you'll run out of patience before success arrives

Building judgement

  • wisdom is knowing long-term consequences of your actions.
  • Wisdom applied externally to problems is judgement
  • direction here is more important than speed.
    • is judgement is more important than hard work
  • see reality
    • no ego, not preconceived notion of how things aut to be. Or how you want them to be
    • the more you want something to be a certain way the less you can see reality
    • empty space is important (dedicated nothing days just to think) ideally 1 day a week
    • very smart people tend to be very weird, because they insist on thinking everything for themselves
  • habit reflection and deconstructions
    • this is a habit from childhood. Does it still serve me? (My goals, my happiness, my health)
  • identity creates situations where take beliefs for granted from the group without thinking them through
    • this is bad, try to think with less identity
  • tension is who you think you should be, relaxation is who you are
  • almost all biases are time saving heuristics. For important decisions discard memory and identity and focus on the problem
  • be honest
    • criticize generally (not the person but the broad activity)
    • you can usually be honest and positive together
  • collect mental models
    • evolution
    • Inversion - sometimes it's not about building correct but avoiding incorrect
    • complexity theory -
    • economics -
    • principal-agent problem
      • the owner cares and will do a great job, the employee won't because they don't care
      • tie work to compensation more and stay small to make people more like owners
    • compound interest
    • basic math
    • black swans
    • calculus - rates of change
    • falsifiability
    • if you can't decide the answer is no
    • run uphill - if two choice are hard, pick the one that's more painful in the short term
    • best way to build new mental model -> read a lot
  • learn to love to read
    • read what's exciting for you
  • independent thinking
    • read the greats in math, science and philosophy.
    • Ignore your contemporaries and news
    • Avoid tribal identification
    • put truth above social approval
  • high quality reading foundation
    • stick to science and stick to the basics
  • reading habits
    • if a book gets boring, either skip ahead or drop the book, don't drop reading
    • no obligation to finish the book
    • old problem require old knowledge. (Healthy, philosophy), highly filtered at this point
    • Modern problems require modern knowledge. (Drive a car, fly a plane)

Learning Happiness

  • a calm mind, fit body and house full of love.
    • these things cannot be bought, must be earned
  • importance of wealth, health and happiness
  • happiness is very personal and unique to you and evolves over time
  • happiness is the lack of desire for external things (not positive thought)
    • not suffering, not desiring and not thinking too much about the future or past, embrace the present moment and the reality of what it is and the way it is.
  • you are insignificant and thus must accept reality because you cannot bend it
  • reality is neutral and you can interpret it in a specific way. This is a choice
  • a rational person can find peace by cultivating an indifference to things outside their control
    • I have lowered my identity
    • lowered the chattering of my mind
    • I don't care about things that don't really matter
    • I don't get involved in politics
    • I don't hang out with I happy people
    • I value my time on this earth
    • I read philosophy
    • I meditate
    • I hang out with happy people
    • and it works
  • happiness is a choice and a skill
    • requires presence
      • you have to be to see the beauty in the world
      • Also not get trapped in comparing past to present or future to present
    • just try and appreciate it for what it is
    • happiness = peace
      • specifically people have a lot of running anxious thoughts
      • which you can kinda give up for peace
    • every desire is a chosen unhappiness
      • fundamental delusion, something out there will make me happy and fulfilled forever
      • desire is a contract with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want
    • envy is the enemy of happiness
      • get rid of the word "should", this implies you don't want to do it
      • hard to get to peace of mind via the expectations drilled into you by society and others
      • all the real score cards are internal
      • if you are jealous, you have to be jealous of the whole enchilada not just once peice
    • happiness is a skill
      • you can learn
      • experiment and iterate
      • placebos are 100% effective if it's all in your head anyways
      • habits and the people around you compose most of you. Choose and refine very carefully
      • don't have friends or habits that are short term good and long terms bad (caffeine, video games, social media, sugar, alcohol)
      • low maintenance friends, positive friends, low conflict
    • application habits
      • try to correct anything negative to be positive instead. Become faster easier and more instinctual
      • sunlight
      • Everytime you catch yourself desiring something say "is it so important to me I'll be unhappy unless this goes my way"
      • drop caffeine
      • exercise daily
      • don't judge
      • minimize use of phone, calendar and alarm clock apps
      • less secrets
      • use meditation, music and exercise to reset mood. Then choose a new path for the day
      • hedonic adaptation is more powerful for man made things (cars, houses, clothes and money) than natural things (food, sex, exercise)
      • all screen activities linked to less happiness, all non-screen activities linked to more happiness
      • personal metric - how much of the day is spent doing things out of obligation rather than interest
      • stay out of politics and social status
    • more habit creation stuffs
      • pick one thing, cultivate desire
      • plan sustainable path
      • Identify needs, triggers and substitutes
      • tell friends
      • track
      • Self discipline is bridge to new self image
      • bake in the new self image. It's who you are now
    • 3 options, change it, accept is, leave it.
      • change it creates desire and is dangerous. Max 1 thing
      • do just wish and do nothing
    • acceptance is being okay whatever the outcome is.
      • Step back and see the grander scheme of things
      • we don't always get what we want but sometimes its for the best
      • tactics
        • sit down and list all the bad things and then all the growth that came from it
        • annoyance -> what is the positive in the situation
      • how do you learn to accept thing you can't change
        • big hack: embracing death
        • there is no legacy
        • your life is a firefly blink in the night
        • futility of life means it's just a game but a fun one.
        • All that matters if you experience your reality as you go through life. Why not have some positivity and fun
        • think of yourself as someone from a dead culture that isn't even remembered
        • your going to die one day. None of this matters. So enjoy self. Do something positive, project some love. Make someone happy. Laugh a little. Appreciate the moment. And do your work.
    • don't emulate others. Choose to be yourself. Listen and adapt others ideas into your world
    • choose to care for yourself
      • your health, physical then mental then spiritual. Then the health of your closet people's. Matters in that order
    • many modern things hurt our ability to be healthy
      • the food options
      • Phones training is to be anxious creatures.
      • treadmills vs play
      • overly clean, leading to allergies.
      • tribes / family around more
    • diet
      • sugar drives hunger, far drives satiety. When combined sugar wins. Avoid in combination
      • quality control is easier than quantity control. (Ie choose better foods not how much)
      • the more processed the food the less you should consume
    • exercise
      • I don't have the time just means it's not a priority
      • work out daily is good, 30 minutes is plenty,
      • Almost doesn't matter what you do
      • yoga
      • easy choices hard life, hard choices easy life
    • meditation and mental strength
      • an emotion is our evolved biology preciting the future impact of a current event. In modern settings it is usually exaggerated or wrong
      • most of our suffering comes in avoidance
      • time spent undistracted and alone, in self-examination, journaling, and meditating, resolves the unresolved and takes us to mentally fit
      • meditation
        • choices awareness
        • try to look at your thoughts honestly and say where does that come from?
        • Mostly fear and desire
        • don't make any decisions, don't judge anything, just accept everything
      • meditation
        • your not resisting your mind things bubble up that have been bad. Then you have to resolve them.
        • you can just observe them to resolve
        • first noticing that your brain is kind of insane and out of control
        • Then feeling some distaste and starting to separate yourself from it
      • a why are you thinking about the future, or judging or worrying. Why can't I just be here enjoying this moment / activity
        • well do I really care? Who cares? We're all going to die anyways. So this is kinda pointless
      • the mind is a muscle
        • you can say right now I'd like to be in a curious state
      • life hack: meditate as you fall asleep, either you meditate super well or you fall asleep. Win win
    • choosing to build yourself
      • you are born, you have some sensory experiences and then you die
      • but you can kinda choose how you interpret those sensory experiences
      • typically this is less anger and emotion wanted in hindsight
      • taking a long term point of view also helps take emotion out of it
      • you are your habits so you should be constantly trying to drop bad and pickup good throughout life. One at a time
      • Don't say I'm going to, just go and do it already
      • impatience with action, patience with results
    • choosing to grow yourself
      • setup systems not goals
      • if there's something you want to do later, do it now, there is no later
      • 3 most important skills
        • read / learn everything
        • Persuasion
        • Math (stats and arithmetic)
    • choosing to free yourself
      • the hardest thing is not doing what you want, ----- it's knowing what you want
      • freedom from expectations
        • if you hurt people because of their expectations if you, that's their problem. If you had an agreement that's your problem.
        • value your time
          • try to do what you want
          • earn
          • Learn
        • don't spend your time making other people happy, that's their problem of figure out
      • freedom from anger
        • anger is a signal for violence
        • anger is a contract to be in turmoil until reality changes
      • freedom from employment
      • freedom from uncontrolled thinking

Philosophy

  • the real truths are heresies. They cannot be spoken. Only discovered, whispered and perhaps read.
  • his values
    • honesty
    • no short term thinking
    • No anger
    • only peer relationships. Nothing hierarchical
  • rational Buddhism
    • try everything, test it for yourself, be skeptical, keep what's useful, discard what's not
  • quotes
    • it's statistically likely there are more advanced alien civilizations out there. Hopefully they're good environmentalists and find us cute
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