5 Powerful Lessons From Naval Ravikant For A Happier Life

“I would rather be a failed entrepreneur than someone who never tried.”

- Naval Ravikant

The best-selling book ‘The Almanack of Naval Ravikant’ by Eric Jorgenson is a modern-day masterpiece and a go-to book for anybody seeking happiness or wealth. The book is woven beautifully between common sense, logic, philosophy, wit and wisdom.

There is a reason that this book is a best seller and that anytime Naval says something people usually listen. Whether it’s in this book, his infamous Tweet storms or his guest appearances on podcasts there don’t seem to be many people today who understand so much about the things that every human being desires as much as Naval does.

But how about everyday folks like us? Can we expect or even hope to have the same success as Naval has had in his life?

I think so. And from reading the book I’d say Naval does too.

Today, we have more tools to help us than ever before. You just need to know how to leverage them.

Here are the five most important lessons from the Almanack of Naval Ravikant. Put them into practice and they will radically change your outlook on life.

1. How To Build Better Judgement

2. Happiness Is A Skill To Be Learned

3. Why Only You Can Save Yourself

4. Philosophy

5. How to Build Wealth

Read time: 12 minutes.

1. How To Build Better Judgement

As of yet, none of us have a crystal ball or can see into the future, so all that we are left with is our actions today. We can, though, think or hypothesise the consequences of our decisions and actions. These are known as second and third-order consequences.

For example, I eat McDonald's every day and don't exercise. I have a good chance of gaining weight short-term and becoming unhealthy long-term.

This is how you can build a platform for better judgement. Most people know what is good and what is bad for them, but it’s the application, or sometimes lack of it, that’s the hard part.

“My definition of wisdom is knowing the long-term consequences of your actions. Wisdom applied to external problems is judgment. They're highly linked; knowing the long-term consequences of your actions and then making the right decision to capitalize on that.”

We see the world through our eyes and our eyes only. So, our view of the world comes from our experiences and is based on how we interpret things that happen to us. This isn’t great. This gives us a skewed perception of the real world. If you want to build correct judgement remember:

“What we wish to be true clouds our perception of what is true.”

How can you ensure that what you’re seeing in the world is an accurate picture of reality?

“To see the truth, you have to get your ego out of the way because your ego doesn't want to face the truth. The smaller you can make your ego, the less conditioned you can make your reactions, the less desires you can have about the outcome you want, the easier it will be to see the reality.”

You face thousands of mundane decisions each day. They can sap your brain and cause mental fatigue. Most are insignificant. But, sometimes you must rely on your judgement for big decisions. These can cause you turmoil and sleepless nights like nothing else can, but Naval has some curt, but simple advice:

“If you cannot decide, the answer is no.”

If you don’t have a strong yes to do something, then don’t do it. This advice may sound extreme, but it’s a really simple heuristic that will save you countless hours of scrutinising banal details.

There is a common saying about knowledge that Naval reminds us of:

“If you can't explain it to a child, then you don't know it. It's a common saying and it's very true.”

We face an overload of information each day. Without guardrails to protect us, we mistakenly think we know more than we do. This, however, is incorrect. Almost everything we see online is surface-level, fleeting, and extremely biased. It is our duty, and that’s what it is in every sense of the word, to discard what's unimportant and dig deeper into what is.

There is a "secret" to doing this.

It’s called reading.

“We live in the age of Alexandria, when every book and every piece of knowledge ever written down is a fingertip away. The means of learning are abundant-it's the desire to learn that is scarce.”

Most people don’t read though; most people just want to hop on their phone for a quick dopamine hit. I won't lie and say I'm immune to that. I'm not, especially when I'm hungover or tired (thank you, cute dog videos). Reading alone won't determine your life's outcome. But, why do almost all incredibly successful people credit reading for their success? It’s because books are usually people’s lifetime work, and they think carefully about what’s in them. It’s not X where you fire off a meaningless tweet while having a poo.

You give yourself a massive advantage in life if you commit to reading. It isn’t a surefire way to success, but it’ll certainly open your mind up to new ideas and new perspectives.

When you read books you become a part of the characters or people in them and you get to view the world through their eyes. This might not seem that big of a deal but you get to see the results of the decisions they made throughout their life. You get to see what worked for them and what didn’t.

So what books should you read then? Here’s what Naval has to say:

“When it comes to reading, make sure your foundation is very, very high quality. The best way to have a high-quality foundation (you may not love this answer), but the trick is to stick to science and to stick to the basics. Generally, there are only a few things you can read people don't disagree with. Very few people disagree 2+2=4, right? That is serious knowledge. Mathematics is a solid foundation. Similarly, the hard sciences are a solid foundation. Microeconomics is a solid foundation. The moment you start wandering outside of these solid foundations you're in trouble because now you don't know what's true and what's false. I would focus as much as I could on having solid foundations. It's better to be really great at arithmetic and geometry than to be deep into advanced mathematics. I would read microeconomics all day long-Microeconomics 101. Another way to do this is to read originals and read classics.”

What does reading about these topics have to do with having better judgement anyway? It has a lot to do with it because when you see the world through these lenses you throw away anything that’s grey. That’s open to interpretation.

That’s how you build better judgement.

2. Happiness Is A Skill To Be Learned

Happiness, love, and passion...aren't things you find—they're choices you make. A rational person can find peace by cultivating indifference to things outside of their control.

There’s a tinge of Stoicism to this quote and for good reason. Stoicism teaches us that there are things we have control over in life and things that we do not. Naval suggests that, by focusing on external things, we concede happiness. These include the actions of others, wars, and an unjust society. They are all beyond our control. Only by focusing on things we can control, to a certain extent, can we be happy. Being happy is about discarding and letting go of things you can’t control. It’s absence from not in addition to.

“Today, the way we think you get peace is by resolving all your external problems. But there are unlimited external problems. The only way to actually get peace on the inside is by giving up this idea of problems.”

A quick way to be happier is to try and discard external most problems. We have little control over them and they fuel your emotional state. Free up time to focus on yourself.

“Essentially, you have to go through your life replacing your thoughtless bad habits with good ones, making a commitment to be a happier person. At the end of the day, you are a combination of your habits and the people who you spend the most time with. The more you judge, the more you separate yourself. The world just reflects your own feelings back at you.”

If you spend enough time on your phone on social media and news apps, it can be very easy to see the world as a very shitty place. Death, rape, injustice, war, savagery, poverty, climate destruction, etc., etc., etc. That’s a skewed reality of the real world. The real world is filled with beauty and a rawness that is missed when looking through a screen.

There are real-world problems. A lot of them, and too many for a single person to fix, so why try to be that person? Don’t be outraged at everything you see. Choose to see the world for what it is, both good and bad, and let your own thoughts guide you on how you interpret it and act.

“Politics, academia, and social status are all zero-sum games. Positive-sum games create positive people.”

Be a net positive person. If you’re lucky enough to die on a deathbed with all your family and friends around you, you’ll want to tell them to be positive and enjoy life. You won’t, almost for sure, tell them to throw themselves headfirst into the cauldron of zero-sum games.

3. Why Only You Can Save Yourself

One of the best things you can do in life is believe in yourself. For all the knowledge and advice afforded to us by the great thinkers, both past and present, they aren’t and never will be us. What works for them won't work for us. As Marcus Aurelius says in Meditations, “No man steps into the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man.”

“Your goal in life is to find the people, business, project, or art that needs you the most. There is something out there just for you. What you don't want to do is build checklists and decision frameworks built on what other people are doing. You're never going to be them. You'll never be good at being somebody else.”

We understand the allure of shortcuts, and they do have their place (remember decision fatigue), but some things are worth spending time on. It is worth thinking about what is important to you and what your priorities are.

“I don't have time” is just another way of saying “It's not a priority.” What you really have to do is say whether it is a priority or not. If something is your number one priority, then you will do it. That's just the way life works. If you've got a fuzzy basket of ten or fifteen different priorities, you're going to end up getting none of them.”

Sieving through your priorities isn’t an easy task. Analysis paralysis is real and can be debilitating, but if you don’t know what you want, how can anybody else even begin to help you?

“The hardest thing is not doing what you want—it's knowing what you want.”

Most big decisions in life don’t happen quickly. They first implant themselves as a fleeting thought. It lingers in the subconscious, rearing its head now and again, stronger each time. The reason a lot of people don’t act on big decisions is that it creates accountability, and with accountability, there’s potential for pain.

“When you really want to change, you just change. But most of us don't really want to change-we don't want to go through the pain just yet. At least recognize it, be aware of it, and give yourself a smaller change you can actually carry out.”

Here’s an easy visual you can share 😊

4. Philosophy

Naval is famous for his philosophical outlook, and almost everything he says is quotable. He speaks and writes beautifully.

There is always easy-to-understand, yet not so easy to implement advice flowing from his mouth or his pen (phone).

“Everyone starts out innocent. Everyone is corrupted. Wisdom is the discarding of vices and the return to virtue, by way of knowledge.”

This piggybacks on the save yourself section. We can all discard things that harm us. These include toxic social media apps, junk food, and catastrophic news. It takes wisdom, or more likely courage, to choose a healthier, happier path. Especially when that path is in the other direction the herd is heading.

That’s why people love philosophers and philosophy. Their advice is timeless, and people turn to it time and again, century after century. You always stand a better chance of being happy if you limit your vices. Vices may change over the centuries, but how to deal with them won’t.

Think of how angry life can make you. It’s so easy to be angry, but being angry is only good in certain extreme conditions. Road rage isn’t one of them, nor is being outraged at a tweet somebody from the opposite political party sent out to bait people like you.

“Anger is a hot coal you hold in your hand while waiting to throw it at somebody.”

- Buddhist saying

When you choose to have control over your emotions and actions, you set yourself free—you get to see the world for what it is. Get closer to nature, not in a tree-hugging way. I mean in a real-world sense. You'll then distance yourself from the toxicity of everyday life. Have your own opinion, not a pre-packaged one, and dare to be contrarian. Be a truth seeker.

“Try everything, test it for yourself, be skeptical, keep what's useful, and discard what's not.”

We all have many questions about life, love, and work. We seek the latest answers to what we think are new problems. But, these problems are often centuries, even millennia, old.

Struggling to find love in the digital age might sound novel, but it’s fundamentally about you being lonely and not knowing how to find love. That’s not new; it’s tens of thousands of years old, and because it’s so old, there’s a lot of evidence to back up how to go about finding it. So remember:

“The older the question, the older the answers.”

5. How to Build Wealth

If you’re someone accustomed to going on YouTube and searching ‘passive income’ or ‘how to make money in 2024’ (I see you 👀), you need to stop.

There is a difference between creating disposable income and creating generational wealth. Generational wealth comes from pursuing something you’re genuinely interested in, not some fad or trend. From Steve Jobs to Elon Musk, the greatest entrepreneurs in history followed their curiosity. They used it to their advantage.

“Arm yourself with specific knowledge, accountability, and leverage. Specific knowledge is found by pursuing your genuine curiosity and passion rather than whatever is hot right now.”

When you’re curious about something and have setbacks, they’re viewed as opportunities to learn and not seen so much as failures. They’re seen as a chance to fine-tune or tweak something to get to a desirable outcome. A small number multiplied by a small number over and over again eventually creates an enormous number if you do it for long enough. This is how returns work in life.

“All the returns in life, whether in wealth, relationships, or knowledge, come from compound interest.”

You want to get into a leveraged job where you control your own time and you're tracked on the outputs.

Living in an age of abundance such as we do now means you have to stand out. You have to be curious and you have to do great work, but if you don’t know how to sell what it is you're offering, then you will never be wealthy. Your work will be in vain.

If you say, 'People will find my work, I don't have to sell it,' or 'I hate being salesy, it's not me,' then creating generational wealth isn't for you. Perhaps you prefer being a cog?

“Learn to sell, Learn to build. If you can do both, you will be unstoppable.”

How can you give yourself the best shot at creating lasting wealth? Be consistent. Choose your friends carefully. Look at your habits and vices and ask, "Are they working for me?" What would a wealthy you look like? What habits and principles would they have?

There’s an old saying from the Bible, “You reap what you sow.” It was true back then and it’s still true now.

“People are oddly consistent. Karma is just you, repeating your patterns, virtues, and flaws until you finally get what you deserve. Always pay it forward. And don't keep count.”

Find something you’re passionate about and follow your curiosity. Learn to build things and learn to sell. Be a consistent, smart, perpetual learner and leverage everything you can to get where you want to be.

Final Thoughts

"How to Build Wealth" was originally the top heading but I later changed it because wealth is so much more than how much money (or crypto) you have.

When you’re a net happy person you’re wealthy in my eyes.

When you can rely on your own judgment contrary to what the mob is telling you, you are rich in conviction, courage, and wisdom.

When you choose to commit yourself to having a healthy body, mind, and spirit, you seldom yearn for anything else.

Philosophy can help you see the wood from the trees. Philosophy has the ability to bore its way into your soul and make you think and see things that the screen on your phone cannot.

This is why I put "How to Build Wealth" last because if you have all of the above, you're more wealthy than you’ll ever need to be. Anything else is just pocket change.

What you decide to do with this information is, as always, your choice.

Until next time, Karl (The School of Knowledge).

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📚I read and share about history's greatest minds and leaders and distill their insights into actionable advice for everyday life.💡