Creating the Almanak of Naval Ravikant with Eric Jorgenson

Eric Jorgenson is a founding team member at Zaarly and is the brains behind The Almanack of Naval Ravikant. In today’s episode, we talk in great depth about Eric’s book, as well as the business and personal growth that came with writing it. We kick off the show by hearing about Eric’s background and discovering his business mindset and knack for creating opportunities. Eric tells us more about his early years and why he has to try every idea that comes into his mind. Turning our scope toward Eric’s book, we ask him about what he aimed to get out of it. Following this, we uncover Eric’s methods for cherry-picking the best, most useful content about Naval Ravikant, and the long process behind sieving through information and creating drafts. Eric’s book is nothing short of a huge success, and he goes on to tell us how he managed to collaborate with big names like Tim Ferriss and Jack Butcher. We also talk about the substance of his publication and why Eric chose to write a book instead of creating a collection of blog posts or an audiobook. He then notes his favorite aspects of his book and touches on other influential publications. To find out what these are and much, much more, be sure to tune into this episode!

TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES:

• [00:16] Introducing today’s guest, Eric Jorgensen.
• [00:35] Today’s topics of business and personal growth.
• [00:50] Eric tells us about his background.
• [02:01] What projects Eric worked on in San Francisco and the risks that came with them.
• [03:10] How Eric came to realize he needed to be in San Francisco.  
• [03:53] How small experiments helped Eric get to a point where he could write a book.
• [04:20] What Eric was aiming to get out of his book. 
• [05:55] How it felt when Eric received a physical copy of his book for the first time.
• [06:39] Eric’s approach to pulling up all the best, most useful pieces of content. 
• [08:44] Hear about Eric’s publishing methods.
• [10:19] How Eric got the likes of Tim Ferriss and Jack Butcher to be part of his project. 
• [11:19] Twitter DMs were part of Eric’s success in creating his book.
• [12:14] Eric tells us about his 1,400 ratings and what it took to reach this number. 
• [13:42] How Eric feels about being the “Almanac” guy.
• [15:33] Eric talks about how his relationship with Naval has evolved. 
• [18:42] The methods behind Eric’s book updates.
• [19:53] Why Eric would choose to write a book over creating an audio book or blog. 
• [22:26] How Eric’s book has given back to him.
• [25:05] Hear what Eric’s favorite philosophy book is.
• [25:48] Eric’s best tool for business. 
• [26:33] The most compelling content that Eric has consumed recently
• [27:31] That’s it for today! 

 

Resources From The Interview:

 

Eric Jorgenson 

Eric Jorgenson on LinkedIn

Eric Jorgenson on Twitter

Zaarly

Almanack of Naval Ravikant

Scribe Media

Jack Butcher

Tim Ferriss 

Christian Murdy

Poor Charlie’s Almanack on Amazon

The System’s Bible on Amazon

Otter.ai

Gong

Grain

Acquired podcast

James Clear

Farnam Street

 

Leave Some Feedback:

 

• What should I talk about next? Who should I interview? Please let me know on Twitter or in the comments below.
• Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave a short review here

Subscribe to Leveling Up on iTunes

Get the non-iTunes RSS Feed

 

Connect with Eric Siu: 

 

• Growth Everywhere
• Single Grain
• Eric Siu on Twitter