20 Powerful lessons from the book “The Almanack of Naval Ravikant”
1. Seek wealth, not money or status.
Wealth is having assets that earn while you sleep. Money is how we transfer time and wealth.
Status is your place in the social hierarchy.
2. Specific knowledge is the knowledge you cannot be trained for.
If society can train you, it can train someone else and replace you.
3. Fortunes require leverage. Business leverage comes from capital, people, and products with no marginal cost of replication (code and media).
4. Code and media are permissionless leverage. They're the leverage behind the newly rich.
You can create software and media that works for you while you sleep.
5. If you're looking towards the long-term goal of getting wealthy, you should ask yourself, "Is this authentic to me? Is it myself that I am projecting?"
And then, "Am I productizing it? Am I scaling it? Am I scaling with labor or with capital or with code or with media?" So it's a very handy, simple mnemonic.
6. Escape competition through authenticity.
Basically, when you're competing with people, it's because you're copying them.
It's because you're trying to do the same thing. But every human being is different. Don't copy.
7. The most important skill for getting rich is becoming a perpetual learner.
You have to know how to learn anything you want to learn.
8. You do need to be deep in something because otherwise you'll be a mile wide and an inch deep and you won't get what you want out of life. You can only achieve mastery in one or two things. It's usually things you're obsessed with.
9. Sticking with it for decades is really how you make the big returns in your relationships and in your money. So, compound interest is very important.
10. Honesty is a core, core, core value. Honestly, I mean I want to be able to just be me.
I never want to be in an environment or around people where I have to watch what I say.
11. I was mostly doing things for the sheer fun of it. I was basically telling people, "I'm retired, I'm not working." Then, I had the time for whatever was my highest valued project in front of me. By doing things for their own sake, I did them at their best.
12. Whenever you can in life, optimize for independence rather than pay. If you have independence and you're accountable for your output, as opposed to your input — that's the dream.
13. Learn to sell, learn to build. If you can do both, you will be unstoppable.
14. How do you define wisdom? Understanding the long-term consequences of your actions.
15. We waste our time with short-term thinking and busy work. Warren Buffett spends a year deciding and a day acting. That act lasts decades.
16. Value your time at an hourly rate, and ruthlessly spend to save time at that rate. You will never be worth more than you think you are worth.
17. Retirement is when you stop sacrificing today for an imaginary tomorrow. When today is complete, in and of itself, you're retired.
18. If you have two choices to make, and they're relatively equal choices, take the path more difficult and more painful in the short term.
19. The direction you're heading in matters more than how fast you move, especially with leverage.
Picking the direction you're heading in for every decision is far, far more important than how much force you apply.
20. It's only after you're bored you have great ideas.
It's never going to be when you're stressed, or busy, running around, or rushed. Make the time.
