Podcast Notes Key Takeaways

• One of the best things you can do for yourself is to develop a reading habit
  • Now sure what to read? – The best books are the ones you’re excited about reading
• View reading as an investment – a book costs $10 or $20 and can change your life in a meaningful way
• On reading:
  • “I probably read 1 to 2 hours a day”
  • “That alone puts me in the top .00001% and accounts for any material success that I’ve had in my life”
• Some advice – Only associate with people where you don’t have to drink to be around them
• When people say they don’t have time for something, all it means is it’s not a priority
  • If you make something your number one priority, you’ll get it done
• On Happiness:
  • “Happiness is a default state. It’s what’s there when you remove the sense that something is missing from your life.”
  • “Nature has no concept of happiness or unhappiness”
    • In nature – everything is perfect the way it is
    • “It’s only in our particular minds that we’re unhappy or happy”
• “Every positive thought has a seed of a negative thought within it”
  • An example – if someone says they’re happy, it means they were unhappy at some point
• When the monkey mind won’t stop, here’s a tip:
  • Ask yourself – “Do I really need to solve this problem right now?”
  • The reality is that 95% of what your brain runs off to do, you probably don’t need to tackle at that exact moment
  • In fact, if the brain is like a muscle, then you’d be better off resting it, being at peace, and when the particular problem arises, immersing yourself in it
• Naval recalls a Buddhist saying – “Anger is a hot coal that you hold in your hand while waiting to throw it at somebody else”
• Here’s some advice Naval would give to his younger self – “Do everything you’re going to do, but with less emotion, and especially less anger”
• On making decisions – “The more of a desire I have that it work out a certain way, the less likely I am to see the truth”
• And of course, some classic Naval quotes:
  • “All the benefits in life come from compound interest; whether in money, relationships, love, health, activities or habits”
  • “Life is a single player game. You’re born alone. You’ll die alone. All your interpretations are alone. All your memories are alone. And in three generations, you’ll be gone – no one will care. Before you were born – nobody cared.”
  • “All of the real score cards are internal” – like learning to be happy
  • “Any given time when you’re walking down the street, a very small percentage of your brain is focused on the present. The rest is future planning or regretting the past. That’s keeping you from an incredible experience. It’s keeping you from seeing the beauty in everything and being grateful for where you are. It can literally destroy your happiness if you spend all your time living in delusions of the future.”
  • “The tools and means to learn are infinite, it’s the desire to learn that’s incredibly scarce”
  • “I think education should be about learning the basics in all the fields, and learning them really well over and over, because life is mostly just about applying the basics and only doing the advanced stuff in the things you truly love, where you know the basics inside and out”
  • “You don’t need to do anything. All you should do is what you want to do. When you stop trying to figure out how to do things the way other people want you to do them, then you get to listen to that little voice inside your head that wants to do things a certain way, and then you get to be you. No one in the world is going to beat you at being you.”
  • “Each person is uniquely qualified at something – they have some specific knowledge, capability, and desire, that no one else in the world does”
    • So your goal in life – find the people/business/project that needs you the most
    • “There’s something out there just for you”

Read the full notes @ podcastnotes.org



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Naval Ravikant (@naval) is the CEO and co-founder of AngelList. He’s invested in more than 100 companies, including Uber, Twitter, Yammer, and many others.

It’s difficult to nail down exactly what we discuss in our conversation because I had so many questions to ask him. Naval is an incredibly deep thinker who challenges the status quo on so many things. This is an interview you’ll want to listen to, think a bit, and then listen to again.

Here are just a few of the many things we cover in this episode:

• What a “typical day” looks like (not the answer I expected, and not one you’ve likely heard before)
• How Naval developed his legendary reading habits and how he finds time to read no matter how busy life gets
• How the internet has impacted book reading (both good and bad) and how to make sure you’re getting the best information from the most reliable sources
• What popular habit advice Naval thinks is BS and why
• Naval’s habit stacking technique that helped him overcome a desire for alcohol and other potentially destructive habits
• How Naval’s core values give direction to his life and how those values developed over time
• Naval’s thoughts on the current education system and what we can do to facilitate better learning for our children
• Naval’s favorite mental models for making critical high-stakes decisions
• His brilliant two-factor calendar authentication concept to keep him focused on only the most important projects
• Naval’s definition for the meaning of life (buckle up for this one)
• His amazing response to the investor who wanted to be just like Steve Jobs

And so, so much more.

Just a heads up, this is the longest podcast I’ve ever done. While it felt like only thirty minutes, our conversation lasted over two hours!

And although it is the longest, it’s also our most downloaded episode on the Knowledge Project, so make sure you have a pen and paper handy. There’s a lot of wisdom up for grabs here.

Enjoy this amazing conversation.

***

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For comprehensive show notes on this episode, including a full edited transcript, go to https://www.fs.blog/podcast/

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