The almanack of Naval Ravikant (Book Notes)
4 min readApr 22, 2022
Wealth
Building Wealth
- Getting rich is about knowing what to do who to do it and when to do it
- The most important thing is to figure out what to work on
- Seek wealth, is having assets that earn when you sleep
- You must own equity
- Play iterated games all returns in life whether, in relationships, wealth and knowledge come from compound interest
- Specific knowledge is found by pursuing your interest curious and passion
- Embrace accountability society will reward you with responsibility equity and leverage
- Fortunes require leverage (Products and media with no marginal cost)
- Programmers have an army of robots freely available
- Leverage is a force multiplier for your judgment
- Study Microeconomics, mathematics, computers, game theory, persuasion, psychology, ethics
- Reading is faster than listening doing is faster than watching
- Set and enforce an inspirational hourly rate of $1000
- Productize yourself (Accountability, specific knowledge)
- escape competition through authenticity
- Learn how to learn
- Figure out what you can uniquely provide at the scale
- Without ownership, your inputs are very closely tied to your outputs
- I only really want to do things for their own sake
- Leverage = money, labor, products with no marginal cost, coding, writing books, reading podcasts, tweeting, and YouTubing
- You’re never going to be rich by renting your time
- Whenever you can in life optimize for independence rather than pay
- You want to be as leveraged as possible so you can have a huge impact without as much time or physical effort
- What do you want in life is to be in control of your time
- Inputs don’t match outputs, especially for leveraged workers
- If you have specific knowledge, accountability, and leverage, they have to pay what you are worth
- knowledge workers function like athletes train on sprint then rest and reassess
- Earn with your mind, not with your time
- Leveraged magnifies difference even more being at the extreme in your art is very important in the age of leverage
- I work through a burst of energy where I’m motivated by something
- Figure out what are you good at and start helping other people with it give away pay it forward
- Solving problems is more important than making money
- What you want is freedom
- Big decisions about where to live? who to live with? and what do you do?
- Retirement is when you stop sacrificing today for an imaginary tomorrow
- Find something that you feel like playing but is working for the others
- Hold your lifestyle fixed and make your money in a giant lump sum
- The single most important thing about the company is the alumni network you are going to build
- How to get lucky: blind luck, persistence, hard work, hustle, and motivation, becoming very good at spotting luck, building a unique character, unique brand that causes luck to find you
- Be a maker who makes something interesting people want to show your craft praise your craft and eventually the right people will find you
- Love yourself. if you don’t love yourself who will?
- Great people have great outcomes just have to be patient
- Put yourself in a position with specific knowledge, leverage, accountability, and authentic skillset
- Money solves money problems I’ll give you freedom
- You can save money you can live below your means and you can find certain freedom that will give you time energy to pursue your internal peace and happiness
Judgment
- My number one priority is health (physical, mental, spiritual, family)
- Diet Palio and fasting
- Exercise, meditation, cold showers, the brain needs rest
- Choosing to build yourself
- The greatest superpower is the ability to change yourself
- Habits are everything commit yourself externally
- Set up systems not goals
- Free yourself from employment and thinking
- Read about mathematicians and persuasion
Happiness
How to build happiness
- Happiness is more important than health and health is more important than wealth
- Happiness is the state when you remove the sense of something missing in your life
- Happiness is just embracing the present reality is neutral
- Every desire is chosen for happiness
- Happiness is training without external validation
- How to build happiness by not drinking alcohol not eating sugar, not social networks not playing video games no caffeine
- Choose you’re your friends wisely
- Happiness habits meditation, Sunlight, working out, awareness, minimizing cellphones, dropping caffeine
- Find happiness in acceptance
Saving yourself
- My number one priority is health (physical, mental, spiritual, family)
- Diet Palio and fasting
- Exercise, meditation, cold showers, the brain needs rest
- Choosing to build yourself
- The greatest superpower is the ability to change yourself
- Habits are everything commit yourself externally
- Set up systems not goals
- Free yourself from employment and thinking
- Read about mathematicians and persuasion
Philosophy
- Live by your values
- Life has no meaning
Formulas
- Happiness equal to health and wealth and good relationships
- Sleep with no alarms and circadian rhythms
- Specific knowledge is knowing how to do something society cannot get easily train other people to do
- Present above all else
- Desire is suffering
- Reading is a meta-skill
- All greatness conference suffering
- Benefits came from compound interest
