If you’re an active Twitter user, and into tech, finance, philosophy, or simply better living Naval needs no introduction. For the uninitiated here NAVAL
First things first, the single reason why I like Naval amongst everyone out there who has achieved success is that he has defined his meaning of success. For him, success is not capped only by money. It is happiness, health, and wealth in that order.
Top ideas I picked for life from the book The Almanac of Naval Ravikant:
“Happiness, love, and passion…aren’t things you find they’re choices you make”. This one was hard-hitting for me. Think of this simple powerful idea, happiness is a muscle, one which you can train by habits. Put yourself into a habit to choose your happiness every single day. but what is happiness? For Naval happiness is a flow state or a state where you don’t feel anything is missing in your life. A suggestion I take seriously is defining your happiness and choosing that over anything else every single day.
Desire is a contract you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want: Should we become Monks and give up all our desires? Absolutely not. What he suggests is to have a single goal instead of desire, and put everything into achieving that. I would go further and add don’t be unhappy or miserable while you’re in the process or while you haven’t reached the goal, that would beat the entire purpose. I’ll be happy when I have this or be this, that’s a sure-shot way to keep chasing things and never be happy.
Imagine if you would choose to be happy while still striving and working towards achieving something in a win-win situation. that is what all successful people do. That also makes what people think is a difficult task a play for them. Like for Naval working 16 hours a day on businesses is a play for him, which is a task for anyone else. How are you even going to compete with someone who is playing, and enjoys doing it while you don’t?
The three big ones in life are wealth, health, and happiness. We pursue them in that order, but their importance is reverse: ” A healthy man has multiple desires whereas a sick man has only one”.I can’t say any better on health than what Naval says:
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. Second, it’s my mental health. Third, it’s my spiritual health. Then, it’s my family’s health. Then, it’s my family’s wellbeing. After that, I can go out and do whatever I need to do with the rest of the world
Prioritizing your wellbeing comes first, the entire world can wait.
“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”.
Running a business is one way to create wealth where you employ people, leverage them and create wealth. Investing money is another form of leverage by which you can create wealth by owning equity in the business, this would require a lot of money to invest in. Another way is to build something and sell it on the internet. The internet has democratized access to the audience. A single piece of software code, book, blogs, media can be built once but sold an unlimited number of times. This can be used to create wealth. I would personally prefer investing in the business to create wealth, and entering the world of using creating something that I can sell an unlimited number of times to create wealth.