Smart Friends

As Naval says, life is a single-player game. No one else is going to make you rich. No one else is going to make you healthy. No one else is going to make you happy. You have to learn the discipline and clarity of living your own life your own way. Naval shows you the basics he has learned of health, diet, exercise, meditation, and mental strength. This is Naval’s basic blueprint for a happy life and a wealthy life. It starts with how you build yourself -- the foundation of everything.

Huge thanks to Sky King for his help. If you need help with podcast growth or monetization go to modernstoa.co or hit him up on twitter @consumersky

Artwork and illustrations by Jack Butcher of @VisualizeValue

Shownotes:

Important Quotes from the podcast on Choosing Yourself:

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. - Naval Ravikant

Your goal in life is to find the people, business, project, or art that needs you the most. There is something out there just for you. What you don’t want to do is build checklists and decision frameworks built on what other people are doing. You’re never going to be them. You’ll never be good at being somebody else. - Naval Ravikant

Important Quotes from the podcast on Choosing To Care For Yourself:

When everyone is sick, we no longer consider it a disease. - Naval Ravikant

We evolved for scarcity but live in abundance. - Naval Ravikant

I’m not an expert, and the problem is diet and nutrition are like politics: everybody thinks they’re an expert. Their identity is wrapped up in it because what they’ve been eating or what they think they should be eating is obviously the correct answer. Everybody has a little religion—it’s just a really difficult topic to talk about. I will just say in general, any sensible diet avoids the combination of sugar and fat together. - Naval Ravikant

When it comes to medicine and nutrition, subtract before you add. - Naval Ravikant

World’s simplest diet: The more processed the food, the less one should consume. - Naval Ravikant

Important quotes from the podcast on Exercise:

The harder the workout, the easier the day. - Naval Ravikant

What I did was decide my number one priority in life, above my happiness, above my family, above my work, is my own health. It starts with my physical health. [4] Because my physical health became my number one priority, then I could never say I don’t have time. In the morning, I work out, and however long it takes is how long it takes. I do not start my day until I’ve worked out. I don’t care if the world is imploding and melting down, it can wait another thirty minutes until I’m done working out. - Naval Ravikant

How you make a habit doesn’t matter. Do something every day. It almost doesn’t matter what you do. The people who are obsessing over whether to do weight training, tennis, Pilates, the high-intensity interval training method, “The Happy Body,” or whatever. They’re missing the point. The important thing is to do something every day. It doesn’t matter what it is. The best workout for you is one you’re excited enough to do every day. - Naval Ravikant

Naval has such a following because he is successful financially AND happy, in the sense that he has focused on learning happiness. Naval built happiness habits, reminders and behaviors that create an inner peace. This episode has Naval’s best ideas on how envy, success, and desire can interfere with your innate happiness, and how you can defend it or win it back. It all starts with realizing that happiness is a choice, and happiness is a skill. You can train yourself into happiness through perspectives and Naval’s small changes in thinking habits. 

Huge thanks to Sky King for his help. If you need help with podcast growth or monetization go to modernstoa.co or hit him up on twitter @consumersky

Artwork and illustrations by Jack Butcher of @VisualizeValue

Shownotes:

Important Quotes from the podcast on Happiness as a choice:

The Tao Te Ching says this more articulately than I ever could, but it’s all duality and polarity. If I say I’m happy, that means I was sad at some point. If I say he’s attractive, then somebody else is unattractive. Every positive thought even has a seed of a negative thought within it and vice versa, which is why a lot of greatness in life comes out of suffering. You have to view the negative before you can aspire to and appreciate the positive. - Naval Ravikant

If you believe Happiness is a choice you can start to work on it - Naval Ravikant

The fundamental delusion: There is something out there that will make me happy and fulfilled forever. - Naval Ravikant

Happiness is being satisfied with what you have. Success comes from dissatisfaction. Choose. - Naval Ravikant

Peace is happiness at rest, and happiness is peace in motion. You can convert peace into happiness anytime you want. But peace is what you want most of the time. If you’re a peaceful person, anything you do will be a happy activity. - Naval Ravikant

Important Quotes from the podcast on Success and Desire:

When working, surround yourself with people more successful than you. When playing, surround yourself with people happier than you. - Naval Ravikant

Tell your friends you’re a happy person. Then, you’ll be forced to conform to it. You’ll have a consistency bias. You have to live up to it. Your friends will expect you to be a happy person. - Naval Ravikant

Desire is a contract you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want. - Naval Ravikant

Important Quotes from the podcast on Anxiety:

I think a lot of us have this low-level pervasive feeling of anxiety. If you pay attention to your mind, sometimes you’re just running around doing your thing and you’re not feeling great, and you notice your mind is chattering and chattering about something. Maybe you can’t sit still…There’s this “nexting” thing where you’re sitting in one spot thinking about where you should be next. - Naval Ravikant

It’s most obvious if you ever just sit down and try and do nothing, nothing. I mean nothing, I mean not read a book, I mean not listen to music, I mean literally just sit down and do nothing. You can’t do it, because there’s anxiety always trying to make you get up and go, get up and go, get up and go. I think it’s important just being aware the anxiety is making you unhappy. The anxiety is just a series of running thoughts. - Naval Ravikant

How I combat anxiety: I don’t try and fight it, I just notice I’m anxious because of all these thoughts. I try to figure out, “Would I rather be having this thought right now, or would I rather have my peace?” Because as long as I have my thoughts, I can’t have my peace. - Naval Ravikant

Naval says building good judgement is a foundation to building wealth and getting rich. But how do we build judgement? How do we get smarter? Become wiser? Make better decisions? This episode focuses on Naval’s advice for learning to learn, learning to think, learning to see reality. This helps you make good business decisions, investment decisions, and good partnership decisions. We talk about Naval’s favorite books, mental models, and his techniques for reading. By the end of this episode, we hope you are a little calmer, a little wiser, and more assured in your path.

Huge thanks to Sky King for his help. If you need help with podcast growth or monetization go to modernstoa.co or hit him up on twitter @consumersky

Artwork and illustrations by Jack Butcher of @VisualizeValue

Shownotes:

Important Quotes from the podcast on Judgement and thinking clearly:

Wisdom applied to external problems is judgement - Naval

“Clear thinker” is a better compliment than “smart.” - Naval Ravikant

Clear thinkers appeal to their own authority. - Naval

The really smart thinkers are clear thinkers. They understand the basics at a very, very fundamental level. I would rather understand the basics really well than memorize all kinds of complicated concepts I can’t stitch together and can’t rederive from the basics. If you can’t rederive concepts from the basics as you need them, you’re lost. You’re just memorizing. - Naval Ravikant

Very smart people tend to be weird since they insist on thinking everything through for themselves.

A contrarian isn’t one who always objects—that’s a conformist of a different sort. A contrarian reasons independently from the ground up and resists pressure to conform. 

Cynicism is easy. Mimicry is easy. Optimistic contrarians are the rarest breed. - Naval Ravikant

Important Quotes from the podcast on Wealth, Business, and Entrepreneurship:

You don’t get rich by spending your time to save money. 

You get rich by saving your time to make money. - Naval Ravikant

One definition of a moment of suffering is “the moment when you see things exactly the way they are.” This whole time, you’ve been convinced your business is doing great, and really, you’ve ignored the signs it’s not doing well. Then, your business fails, and you suffer because you’ve been putting off reality. You’ve been hiding it from yourself. - Naval

The more desire I have for something to work out a certain way, the less likely I am to see the truth. Especially in business, if something isn’t going well, I try to acknowledge it publicly and I try to acknowledge it publicly in front of my co-founders and friends and co-workers. Then, I’m not hiding it from anybody else. If I’m not hiding it from anybody, I’m not going to delude myself from what’s actually going on. - Naval Ravikant

Important Quotes from the podcast on Leverage:

In an age of leverage, one correct decision can win everything. - Naval

You have to put in the time, but the judgment is more important. The direction you’re heading in matters more than how fast you move, especially with leverage. - Naval Ravikant

Charisma is the ability to project confidence and love at the same time. It’s almost always possible to be honest and positive. - Naval

I think people have a hard time understanding a fundamental fact of leverage. If I manage $1 billion and I’m right 10 percent more often than somebody else, my decision-making creates $100 million worth of value on a judgment call. With modern technology and large workforces and capital, our decisions are leveraged more and more. - Naval Ravikant

Naval’s famous tweetstorm ‘How to get Rich’ (without getting lucky) was just the start. This episode has all of the chapters from the Building Wealth section of the book of Naval. You will learn the details of specific knowledge, accountability, building equity, finding leverage and how to play the long game. Learn the principles of wealth that tells you how Naval got rich from his startups, Angellist, and his angel investments. These principles explain how millions of people have gotten rich, and give you the ideas that you need to plan your own path to wealth. 

Huge thanks to Sky King for his help. If you need help with podcast growth or monetization go to modernstoa.co or hit him up on twitter @consumersky

Artwork and illustrations by Jack Butcher of @VisualizeValue

I built the Almanack of Naval Ravikant or Navalmanack entirely out of transcripts, Tweets, and talks Naval has shared. Every attempt is made to present Naval in his own words. However, there are a few important points. 

By definition, everything in this book is taken out of context. Interpretations will change over time. Read and interpret generously. Understand the original intent may be different than your interpretation in a different time, medium, format, and context. 

In the process of creating this book, I may have mistakenly re-contextualized, misinterpreted, or misunderstood things. As content passed through time, space, and medium, some phrasing may have shifted in flight. Every effort has been made to maintain the original intent, but errors are (very) possible. 

Interviews have been transcribed, edited, rearranged, and re-edited for readability. I did my best to keep Naval’s ideas in his own words. 

All brilliance in this book is Naval’s; any mistakes are mine.

Huge thanks to Sky King for his help. If you need help with podcast growth or monetization go to modernstoa.co or hit him up on twitter @consumersky

Artwork and illustrations by Jack Butcher of @VisualizeValue

If you don’t have time for the podcast here are a few important quotes from the prologue of The Almanack of Naval.

Naval Ravikant has changed my life for the better, and if you approach the following pages like a friendly but highly competent sparring partner, he might just change yours. - Tim Ferriss

“Naval is one of the smartest people I have ever met and he is one of the most courageous.” - Tim Ferriss 

“I’ve learned a few things, and some principles. I try to lay them out in a timeless manner, where you can figure it out for yourself. Because at the end of the day, I can’t quite teach anything. I can only inspire you and maybe give you a few hooks so you can remember.” - Naval Ravikant

“Naval is one of the people I call most for advice” - Tim Ferriss

“Books make for great friends, because the best thinkers of the last few thousand years tell you their nuggets of wisdom.” - Naval Ravikant

“I take Naval seriously because he:

Questions nearly everything 

Can think from first principles

Tests things well

Is good at not fooling himself 

Changes his mind regularly 

Laughs a lot 

Thinks holistically 

Thinks long-term 

And…doesn’t take himself too goddamn seriously. 

That last one is important” - Tim Ferriss