• DSTLLD
  • Posts
  • If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Happy?

If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Happy?

...and 30 other thoughts from the mind of Naval Ravikant

Naval Ravikant has become a thought leader in online circles in regard to wealth building and happiness.

He is an investor and entrepreneur best known for his work as the CEO of AngelList and was an early stage investor in Uber, Twitter, Postmates, Notion.

  1. You’re not going to get rich renting out your time. You must own equity - a piece of a business - to gain your financial freedom.

  2. If you want to make the wrong decision, ask everyone.

  3. We borrow a lot of suffering on behalf of other people, people want to be Christ bearing the cross for others.

  4. You will get rich by giving society what it wants but does not yet know how to get.

  5. All self-help boils down to "choose long-term over short-term."

  6. Choose the non-emotional response to any given situation and see how much easier your life becomes.

  7. To measure the quality of your life, simply do nothing, and see how it feels.

  8. When specific knowledge is taught, it’s through apprenticeships, not schools.

  9. If it doesn't make falsifiable predictions, it's not science.

  10. If you don’t care to be liked, they can’t touch you.

  11. Making money is not a thing that you do - it's a skill that you learn.

  12. Set and enforce an aspirational personal hourly rate. If fixing a problem will save less than your hourly rate, ignore it. If outsourcing a task will cost less than your hourly rate, outsource it.

  13. Self-image is the prison. Other people are the guards.

  14. We say that we want peace of mind but what we really want is peace from mind.

  15. The most important skill for getting rich is becoming a perpetual learner. You have to know how to learn anything you want to learn.

  16. Smart people talking to other smart people tend to have very short conversations.

  17. Develop 'strategic incompetence' - people won't ask you to do things you hate to do, if you're bad at them.

  18. If you need a degree to do it, it’s not going to make you wealthy.

  19. Desire is a contract that you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want.

  20. Individuals rarely admit mistakes. Groups never do.

  21. We spend most of our waking lives dreaming, we think we’re awake but we walk around talking to ourselves, if we verbalized those thoughts we’d be locked up.

  22. Being unhappy is very inefficient.

  23. Money doesn’t buy happiness – it buys freedom.

  24. All benefits in life come from compound interest, whether in money, relationships, love, health, activities, or habits.

  25. The first rule of handling conflict is don't hang around with people who are constantly engaging in conflict.

  26. The only real test of intelligence is if you get what you want out of life.

  27. Pain is a fact. Suffering is a choice.

  28. Free education is abundant, all over the internet. It’s the desire to learn that’s scarce.

  29. The information revolution is reversing the industrial revolution.

  30. Hope is the belief that this moment isn’t good enough.

The Refinery

  1. The Almanack of Naval Ravikant

  2. The Wisdom Of Naval Ravikant | Eric Jorgenson | Modern Wisdom Podcast 225

  3. Naval Ravikant — The Person I Call Most for Startup Advice | The Tim Ferriss Show (Podcast)

  4. How To Get Rich

  5. Joe Rogan Experience #1309 - Naval Ravikant

Reply

or to participate.