The Almanack of Naval Ravikant is a guide to wealth and happiness written by author Eric Jorgenson.
Eric Jorgenson has compiled Naval’s best work from his tweets, podcasts, blog posts, and interviews in one single resource that is The Almanack of Naval Ravikant.
Naval Ravikant is an angel investor and entrepreneur. He’s invested in more than 200+ startups and he’s been an early investor of companies such as Twitter, Uber, and wish to name a few.
He is the CEO of AngelList, which is a website where you can find people looking to invest in new startup companies and job-seekers looking to work at startups.
He also has a podcast and has been on the Joe Rogan Show.
His Tweetstorm on how to get rich without getting lucky generated a lot of buzz in 2018 and that is essentially the backbone of The Almanack of Naval Ravikant.
The book is divided into two parts. Part 1 is the guide to wealth and Part 2 is the guide to happiness. Building wealth and happiness are skills that we can learn now let’s get to it.
Part 1 – Wealth
How to get rich without getting lucky.
You can never get rich trading time for money. The only way to getting wealthy is having income-generating assets.
As Warren Buffett puts it, if you don’t find a way to make money in your sleep, you will have to work till you die.
With the power of the internet at our fingertips, the barrier of entry is now different. You no longer need to know someone who knows someone to break in. If you have specific knowledge, you can become wealthy.
Specific Knowledge is knowing how to do something society cannot easily train other people to do. (If they can train you on what to do then they can easily replace you)
Steve Jobs and his team figured out that society would want smartphones. So they figured out how to build it and figured out how to scale it.
Learn how to build and learn how to sell. If you can do both, you are unstoppable.
Naval Ravikant
The most important skill of getting rich is to become a perpetual learner. The Direction you are headed in your career or life is also very important.
Try different things and figure out what you really want to do. Never settle for less than what you are worth. Never stop improving.
If you are left with two choices, always take the harder route. Always take the short-term pain for long-term gain approach.
The answer to wealth is not money, but freedom. Freedom is a good definition of wealth.
Part 2 – Happiness
Happiness is an inside job. Happiness is within you and does not come from outside. Happiness is there when you remove the sense of something missing in your life.
“Our lives are a blink of a firefly in the night. You’re just barely here. You have to make the most of every minute, which doesn’t mean you chase some stupid desire for your entire life. What it means is every second you have on this planet is very precious, and it’s your responsibility to make sure you’re happy and interpreting everything in the best possible way.
Naval Ravikant
The only moment that we have in our life is now. The past is history, and the future is not guaranteed. Now is all that we have.
We must be fully present in the now. There is no legacy to leave behind. We come into this world with nothing and we leave with nothing, so set your ego aside and just enjoy the ride.
The Almanack of Naval Ravikant
This summary is just scratching the surface. The book goes deep and is a short and easy read. The Almanack of Naval Ravikant has been created as a public service.
The Almanack of Naval Ravikant is free to read, and it’s digital version is available to download at NavalAlamanack.
