5 points to learn TO NOT DO for wealth and happiness from Naval Ravikant- Book Review
Eric Jorgenson’s The Almanack of Naval Ravikant
If this book was not good I would not be writing about it. Notice how I'm writing in inversion, writing about what not to do instead of to do, and that's because in his book Naval explains the concept of inversion. We all use this, excluding is smarter and easier way of deriving choices. Naval mentions, he tries to eliminate what is not going to work instead of relying on his ability to say what is going to work. None of us have that ability to predict success or risk with 100% accuracy, and if one is able to predict risk by hundred percent certainty, then that will either be God or a genius who has build a perfect model factoring in all the uncertainties of the universe. It’s not about having correct judgment. It’s about avoiding incorrect judgments. It's same thing about the decisions, it’s about avoiding incorrect decisions. Therefore, it is not about what to do, rather about what not to do (at least for this review). There are so many to-dos derived from this book, why would you want to read a same thing.
It was hard to pick five not-to-do because there is so much to learn from this book, so many pragmatic ideas, and so much of wisdom on what to do. For instance, taking risk, having accountability, building leverage, acquiring a specific knowledge and skill set, etc. Even the abstract knowledge like building judgment, thinking clearly, being happy etc are written simply and clearly in this book. And more importantly, the reason I resonated with this book so much is because Naval talks about importance of reading. Read what you like until you love reading. Read nonfiction, read concepts, read to make better judgments, read to think clearly, read to make the mental models and principles. Naval made me realize that I grew up reading. I use to say I didn’t read much as a child but that is not true. I read anything and everything growing up, I read newspapers, in fact we had newspaper subscription at our home because I wanted it. I read it from front page to the back, including the advertisements and everything in it. I read my mother’s religious discourse book, some of it was a chore growing up and was not done willingly. I read comics with friends. I read the books on Buddhism. I read story books and language books dad had, I read any books that crossed my path either lended by a friend or family or for whatsoever reason ended up in my home. Growing up, I just did not buy a book myself and read it.
Cut to the chase, here are 5 not-to-dos for wealth and happiness:
1. Do not try to find a permanent solution in a dynamic system. Create a good habit seek the long term gratification. What works stays what doesn’t work you can change, you have the power to change. Personalities, careers, teams, organizations, you name it, everything needs a redesign so does your habits and choices.
2. Don’t live in the past, don’t make judgment from the past. This is especially true for decision-making. Naval says a lousy way to do memory prediction is ‘X happened in the past, therefore X will happen in the future.’ This is based on the specific circumstances. The brain relying in a memory prediction. Instead rely on a fundamental model, build a mental model; learn, learn, learn, and eventually you’ll be able to recall your own knowledge and make your own mental models. Remember “Power of now”. We read that book last year, cheers to the author Eckhart Tolle.
3. Intentions don’t matter. Everything is an action, intentions don’t matter. Like Nike says ‘just do it’. Action is way valuable than thoughts. “Impatience with actions, patience with results.” Don’t increase the mental burden thinking about anything too much. Moreover, inspiration is perishable, when you have inspiration act on it right away.
4. Don’t despise wealth. If you secretly despise wealth, it will elude you. Being anti-wealth will prevent you from becoming wealthy because you will not have the right mindset for it. In the same context, don’t have a relative mindset, you’re always going to be jealous or envious of people if you have a relative mindset. Similarly, do not play status game because status is a zero-sum game.
5. Don’t make big decisions in haste. Spend more time making the big decisions of your life, which are basically three of them- where you live, who you are with and what you do. You have to say no to everything and free up your time so you can solve the important problems. Those three are probably the three biggest ones.
I said five, but here is one bonus point.
6. Don’t ignore yourself. Doctors won’t make you healthy, nutritionist won’t make you slim, teachers won’t make you smart, trainers won’t make you fit, you have to take your own responsibility. Take care of yourself. Go to gym, eat a good diet. A good diet is anything that works for you and closer to the nature as possible. Surround yourself with happy people, meditate, exercise your brain like you do exercise for your muscles. Meditation is intermittent fasting for the mind. Observe your thoughts simply and let them go. No judgments if there are thoughts, meditate until you hit the mental ‘inbox-zero state’. Meditation is turning off society and listening to yourself. It only works when done for its own sake. Happiness is a skill, love is a skill; choose happiness, choose love for your own sake.
