While walking and consuming books, I stumbled upon The Almanack of Naval Ravikant by Eric Jorgenson. I loved this book, a collection of Naval’s viral How To Get Rich Tweet storm and philosophical takes on happiness. Previously I was not fully aware of this Tweet storm. Still, after reading this book, I decided to see if I could find it and soon realized that he had compiled it all in audio form on Spotify and provided the full written transcript of the episodes.
I decided to print out the transcript and start taking notes, and I listened to it numerous times while walking, driving to my private client’s in-home therapy sessions, and in the sauna.
Many quotes and concepts struck me, and I especially liked this one about learning happiness:
“The three big ones in life are wealth, health, and happiness. We pursue them in that order, but their importance is reversed.” ~ Naval Ravikant
When we decide to develop our personalized skillset of happiness, we become far less concerned with status. If we concern ourselves with seeking status, we do so at the expense of our health because status is a zero-sum game, meaning that for one party to be up, they have to have the other party beneath them.
We’re taught to pursue: wealth -> health -> happiness
What makes more sense: happiness -> health -> wealth
We trade our precious time and life energy for money, feeling as though we must compete with others for a limited amount of resources when the truth is that nature’s way is that of abundance.
We compete with the Jones and end up unnecessarily consuming other people’s ideas, energies, and products instead of nurturing the creative genius within us and pursuing what’s in our hearts.
What’s the cost of this atrophy?
Can it even be quantified?
When I looked inside myself for insights, the feeling kept coming back to “slow down,” “say no more,” “create space,” and “build.”
Call me crazy, but I want to be happy, healthy, and wealthy. Maybe you’re crazy enough to enjoy the same for yourself.
In one section of Naval’s How To Get Rich podcast transcript, there is one area called Making Money Isn’t About Luck. In this section, he offers a thought experiment to the audience and says that if there were 1,000 parallel universes, we’d want to be the kind of person that could become wealthy in 999 of them and then breaks down four types of Luck.
- Type 1 = Blind Luck
- “[This is] where I just got lucky because something completely out of my control happened. That’s fortune, that’s fate”.
- Type 2 = Luck From Hustling
- “Then there’s a piece of Luck that comes through persistence, hard work, hustle, motion. [This is] when you’re running around creating lots of opportunities, generating a lot of energy, doing a lot of things, and lots of things will get stirred up in the dust. […] You’re generating enough force and hustle, and energy that lucks find you.”
- Type 3 = Luck From Preparation
- “A third way is that you become very good at spotting Luck. If you are very skilled in a field, you will notice when a lucky break happens in that field. [Others are not as attuned to it and don’t notice, but you are more sensitive to noticing such things through skill, knowledge, and hard work].”
- Type 4 = Luck From Your Unique Character
- “Then the last kind of luck is the weirdest, hardest kind[… which is what we want to talk about, which] is where you build a unique character, a unique brand, a unique mindset, where luck finds you.”
When I listened to this for the first time, I burst into laughter and almost moved to tears. I have experienced type 1-3 multiple times, especially in my professional life. At that moment, I gained a deeper understanding of why I felt this compulsion to slow down, create space, and build. The next logical step was moving on to step four, which, as Naval stated, was the hardest to make.
Now things started to make more sense. All the walks, the shared themes and concepts from the books I was reading, the playlists I was creating, and the lifestyle improvements were related. The notes, sketches, infographics, social media content, ebooks, and resources I made were all fueled by an innate compulsion to build a unique brand.
Shortly after, I contacted a lawyer recommended to me by a trusted friend and mentor and decided to trademark Transcend The Status Quo to create a unique brand where interested persons could come to learn more about intentional life design, money, and cultivating a growth mindset. I wanted to create a space that served others, allowed me to share my story, and pushed me to continue to grow personally and professionally for a lifetime.
I thought, “If I can create a space, a place full of resources I wish I had earlier in life, where I could force myself to learn, create and share, and help myself while helping others for a lifetime, then I could play an infinite game of pursuing happiness -> health -> wealth.
Learning makes me happy, and sharing with others makes me happy. Creating value and building a community makes me happy. Being happy breeds a healthier lifestyle and helps me focus on creating space and time to develop healthier habits, which because a positive feedback loop. Sharing tools, resources, and opportunities with others can ethically build wealth slowly over time.
In Naval’s transcript, he offers the following on the topic:
- You won’t get rich renting out your time.
- Renting out your time means you’re replaceable.
- You must own equity to gain financial freedom.
- You want a career where your inputs don’t match your outputs.
- The most dangerous things are heroin and a monthly salary.
- Ideally, you’ll make money in discrete lumps.
- Give society what it wants but doesn’t know to get – at scale.
- Figure out what product you can provide, and then figure out how to scale it.
- Leverage the power of the internet to scale any niche obsession.
- Play long-term games with long-term people; long-term players make each other rich.
- Learn to sell and learn to build; if you can do both, you will be unstoppable.
- Read what you love until you love to read.
- Iterate, iterate, iterate; doing is faster than watching.
- Be accountable under your name or brand so you create equity. You want skin in the game.
- Regarding leverage, remember that labor and capital are old forms of leverage, while product and media are newer and much more powerful.
- Combining all forms of leverage can act as a magical combination.
- Escape competition through authenticity; specialize in being you.
I learned much from Naval from his podcast/transcript on How To Get Rich and Jorgenson’s The Almanack of Naval Ravikant, and For anyone who can relate to my story, I recommend checking them out and taking plenty of notes. Indeed you’ll find plenty of nuggets to help you along your journey, no matter what stage. You can find the transcript by visiting https://nav.
In next month’s blog, I’ll share how I used Tim Ferriss’ Fear Setting Exercise to move forward. Thanks for tuning in this far. I appreciate you.
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