Almanack of Naval Ravikant — My Favorite Lessons and Quotes

If you have read the book Almanack of Naval Ravikant by Eric Jorgenson, the you know how much wisdom is packed in every page. In an effort to keep as much of it as ppossible, I compiled the sentences and paragraphs that I found very insightful. Below is my selected wisdom from the book:

• Become the best in the world at what you do. Keep redefining what you do until this is true.
• Escape competition through authenticity.
• Compound interest also happens in your reputation. If you have a sterling reputation and you keep building it for decades upon decades, people will notice. Your reputation will literally end up being thousands or tens of thousands of times more valuable than somebody else who was very talented but is not keeping the compound interest in reputation going.
• When you find the right thing to do, when you find the right people to work with, invest deeply. Sticking with it for decades is really how you make the big returns in your relationships and in your money.
• Find the thing you can go all-in on to earn compound interest.
• You want to own equity. If you don’t own equity in a business, your odds of making money are very slim.
• When you find the 1 percent of your discipline which will not be wasted, which you’ll be able to invest in for the rest of your life and has meaning to you — go all-in and forget the rest.
• If it entertains you now but will bore you someday, it’s a distraction. Keep looking.
• Being at the extreme in your art is very important in the age of leverage.
• Always factor your time into every decision. How much time does it take?
• Figure out what you’re good at, and start helping other people with it. Give it away. Pay it forward. Karma works because people are consistent. On a long enough timescale, you will attract what you project. But don’t measure — your patience will run out if you count.
• Retirement is when you stop sacrificing today for an imaginary tomorrow. When today is complete, in and of itself, you’re retired.
• I think the best way to stay away from this constant love of money is to not upgrade your lifestyle as you make money.
• I value freedom above everything else.
• Build you character in a certain way, then your character becomes your destiny.
• Your real resume is just a catalog of suffering.
• If you want to make the maximum amount of money possible, if you want to get rich over your life in a deterministically predictable way, stay on the bleeding edge of trends and study technology, design, and art — become really good at something.
• You don’t get rich by spending your time to save money. You get rich by saving your time to make money.
• My definition of wisdom is knowing the long-term consequences of your actions.
• The direction of you’re heading in matters more than how fast you move, especially with leverage.
• There are no permanent solutions in a dynamic system.
• ‘Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are.’ — Buddhist saying
• The more you know the less you diversify.
• Read what you love until you love to read.
• A calm mind, a fit body, and a house of full of love. These things cannot be bought. They must be earned.
• The three big ones in life are wealth, health, and happiness. We pursue them in that order, but their importance is reverse.
• Desire is a contract you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want.
• When you are young, you have time. You have health, but you have no money. When you’re middle-aged, you have money and you have health, but you have no time. When you’re old, you have money and you have time, but you have no health. So the trifecta is trying to all three at once.
• Confucius says you have two lives, and the second one begins when you realize you only have one.
• I think of as an emergent property of peace. If you’re peaceful inside and out, that will eventually result in happiness.
• Peace is happiness at rest, and happiness is peace in motion. You can convert peace into into happiness anytime you want. But peace is what you want most of the time.
• At the end of the day, you are a combination of your habits and the people who spend the most time with.
• Easy choices, hard life. Hard choices, easy life (from Naval’s trainer)
• To make an original contribution, you have to be irrationally obsessed with something.
• The ability to singularly focus is related to the ability to lose yourself and be present, happy, and (ironically) more effective.
• Value your time. It is all you have. It’s more important than your money. It’s more important than your friends. It is more important than anything. Your time is all you have. Do not waste your time.
• All benefits in life come from compound interest, whether in money, relationships, love, health, activities, or habits.
• There is actually nothing but this moment. No one has ever gone back in time, and no one has ever been able to successfully predict the future in any way that matters. Literally, the only thing that exists is this exact point where you are in space at the exact time you happen to be here.
• If you eat, invest, and think according to what the “news” advocates, you’ll end up nutritionally, financially, and morally bankrupt.
• Health, love, and your mission, in that order. Nothing else matters.