The Almanack of Naval Ravikant

Eric Jorgenson

📚 GENRE: Personal Development

📃 PAGES: 242

✅ COMPLETED: September 29, 2023

🧐 RATING: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

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Short Summary

Packed with wisdom on health, wealth, family, and happiness, The Almanack of Naval Ravikant is the result of Eric Jorgenson’s exhaustive search for the most impactful words and teachings from Naval Ravikant, a successful entrepreneur and investor.

Key Takeaways

1️⃣ Master Your Top Skill — You only have the time and capacity to master one or two skills in life. That’s it. Identify what you’re unusually good at and passionate about (what Naval calls your “specific knowledge”), and spend the majority of your time and effort mastering that skill. Read books on the subject. Practice the skill. Try to become the best in the world at that skill, and then use it in ways that bring value to society. Becoming really good at something and using your skill to bring value to other people — that’s how you make a lot of income and build significant wealth. Even better, you’ll get paid for doing work that doesn’t feel like “work” because you love it. For everything else outside of your top skill, understanding the basics is enough. Don’t get caught up trying to become an expert in everything; you can only master one or two things. 

2️⃣ Value Your Time — Life is very short. You have to value and protect your time, because it’s all you have. Every day, focus on doing what you want to do and say “no thanks” to everything else. Even if you’re just chilling out on the couch while your friends are at a party you all were invited to — if it’s what you want to do, it’s not a waste of time. You begin to waste time when you start doing things just to satisfy someone else. Life is just too short to do things you don’t want to do just to please others or live up to somebody else’s expectations of you. Spend your short time in life doing what you want to do, studying what you want to study, doing work you want to work on, and pushing goals that you want to pursue. Learn to say “no.”

3️⃣ Read! And Read A Lot — Reading is a daily habit that can completely change your life. There is an abundance of knowledge and wisdom in books. Naval recommends reading science, math, microeconomics, and philosophy, but you can read anything that interests you. You should never feel intimidated by a certain book. Even if the content is strenuous and difficult to get through, you are training your brain by reading it; it’s like doing bicep curls for your brain. Read every single day! Commit to lifelong learning. 

Favorite Quote

“Happiness is what's there when you remove the sense that something is missing in your life.”

Book Notes 📑

Introduction

  • About This Book — This book is a collection of teachings from Naval Ravikant, an entrepreneur and investor. He is the co-founder, chairman and former CEO of AngelList. He is known as a prolific investor; he invested very early on in companies like Uber, Postmates, Twitter, and FourSquare. He has shared a lot of his wisdom on wealth, health, and life through social media and various blog posts. The “author” of this book is Eric Jorgerson, who basically compiled many of Naval’s teachings and dumped them into this book. 

Ch. 1: Building Wealth

  • Wealth Is a Skill — Building wealth is a skill or set of skills. It isn’t something that just happens to someone. Someone who is very wealthy has found their unique skill, developed it over time, and found a way to use it to bring something new to society. The people who get massively wealthy are the ones who have found a way to give society what it wants but does not know how to get. Think Apple and Steve Jobs. The iPod, and later the iPhone, completely changed life for everyone.
    • Quote (P. 39): “Society always wants new things. And if you want to be wealthy, you want to figure out which one of those things you can provide for society that it does not yet know how to get but it will want and providing it is natural to you, within your skill set, and within your capabilities. Then, you have to figure out how to scale it because if you only build one, that’s not enough.”
    • Quote (P. 57): “Think about what product or service society wants but does not yet know how to get. You want to become the person who delivers it and delivers it at scale. That is really the challenge of how to make money.”
  • Wealth = Owning Assets — Working for an employer is basically the same as renting out your time. To get truly wealthy and become financially free, you need to focus on acquiring assets that earn money while you sleep. Passive income. Whether that’s owning a business and scaling it, renting out a house, operating a vending machine, investing in stocks, or anything similar, you have to acquire streams of passive income to build substantial wealth. A few more wealth-building skills and tips to focus on include:
    • Thirst for Learning — Committing yourself to lifelong learning is maybe the best thing you can do to build wealth and success. Be curious about the world. Always look to develop your skills and learn new ones. Be interested in where the world is heading. 
    • Sell & Build — Learn to sell and learn to build. If you can do both, you’ll be unstoppable. Selling doesn’t necessarily mean calling customers; it includes marketing, copywriting, etc. 
    • Code — Coding allows you to build things like apps, websites, etc. Coding is a great modern skill to have. 
    • Media — Social media allows everyday people to build an audience. If you can’t code, write books and blogs, record videos and podcasts. Distribute them online. Build a following.
    • Subjects to Study — Study microeconomics, game theory, psychology, persuasion, ethics, math, and computers
    • Passion — You have to have passion for what you do. If you don’t, find something else to do, because you will be steamrolled every time by someone who is passionate about what they’re doing. 
    • Work Hard — Identify your unique skills and work as hard as you can to develop them. Become the best in the world at what you do. 
  • Find Your ‘Specific Knowledge’ — It’s important that you identify what Naval calls your “specific knowledge.” Everybody has things that they are naturally good at. Usually these are things you did effortlessly as a kid while other kids struggled. Once you find it, you can hone it and find ways to use it to bring value to society and build your wealth. Specific knowledge can be almost anything: from writing content, playing music, or creating art to sales skills, chess, or gossiping — we all have things we’re naturally good at and, if channeled correctly and deployed in the right ways, can be used to bring value. What are you naturally good at? 
    • Quote (P. 41): “When I talk about specific knowledge, I mean figure out what you were doing as a kid or teenager almost effortlessly. Something you didn’t even consider a skill, but people around you noticed. Your mother or your best friend growing up would know.”
  • ‘Foundations’ Are Key — Once you’ve found the one or two things you’re naturally good at, focus on becoming the best in the world at those things. Master those skills. Outside of those skills, only the basics (or “foundations”) are needed. You don’t need to understand calculus, for example, when having a basic understanding of math is enough. It’s great to pursue as many new skills as you want, but focus more on gaining a foundation/basic understanding rather than trying to become an expert.
    • Quote (P. 45): “You can only achieve mastery in one or two things. It’s usually things you’re obsessed with… If you go to the library and there’s a book you cannot understand, you have to dig down and say, ‘What is the foundation required for me to learn this?’ Foundations are super important.”
  • 99% of Effort Is Wasted — This is a key point and a big takeaway from the book. You can learn something from literally everything in life. Every moment presents a chance to learn something and work on yourself. With that said, you should be very mindful about how you spend your time. Your time should mostly be spent on the skills, people, and paths in life that are going to bring the most joy and greatest rewards. Everything else should be left behind. Don’t waste time on things that aren’t contributing to your goals.
    • Quote (P. 49): “The reason I say this is not to make some glib comment about how 99 percent of your life is wasted and only 1 percent is useful. I say this because you should be very thoughtful and realize in most things (relationships, work, even in learning) what you’re trying to do is find the thing you can go all-in on to earn compound interest. When you’re dating, the instant you know this relationship is not going to be the one that leads to marriage, you should probably move on. When you’re studying something, like a geography or history class, and you realize you are never going to use the information, drop the class. It’s a waste of time. It’s a waste of your brain energy. I’m not saying don’t do the 99 percent, because it’s very hard to identify what the 1 percent is. What I’m saying is: when you find the 1 percent of your discipline which will not be wasted, which you’ll be able to invest in for the rest of your life and has meaning to you go all-in and forget about the rest.”
  • Owning Assets — Again, owning assets that produce passive cash flow is the key to financial freedom. At the end of the day, working for someone else isn’t enough. You will be paid just enough to keep you in the position, nothing more. You can certainly improve your value and get paid more, but you’ll never be able to skyrocket. When you own assets and equity in companies, you own the upside. If the business you own or have equity in succeeds, you will be rewarded.
    • Quote (P. 54): “You have to work up to the point where you can own equity in a business. You could own equity as a small shareholder where you bought stock. You could also own it as an owner where you started the company. Ownership is really important. Everybody who really makes money at some point owns a piece of a product, a business, or some IP… Usually the real wealth is created by starting your own companies or even by investing. In an investment firm, they’re buying equity. These are the routes to wealth. It doesn’t come through the hours.”
      • Takeaway — True wealth and financial freedom are achieved by owning assets, whether that’s investing in stocks, renting property, or owning your own business. Working for an employer is nice, and you can definitely always improve your skills and pay, but it will not deliver substantial wealth by itself. 
  • Find Your Passion, Pursue It — Similar to the point above about finding your ‘specific knowledge’, you want to pursue the things in life that you’re passionate about. What are some things that, when you do them, bring you a lot of joy? When you do them, does time fly? Does it feel like ‘work’ or ‘play’ when you’re doing them? These are usually the things that you’re very passionate about. You should pursue these things. Find ways to develop your skills in these areas and monetize them. The ultimate goal in life is to do what you love.
    • Quote (P. 56): “I only really want to do things for their own sake. That is one definition of art. Whether it’s business, exercise, romance, friendship, whatever, I think the meaning of life is to do things for their own sake. Ironically, when you do things for their own sake, you create your best work.”
  • Wealth: Inputs & Outputs — You want to get to a point where you aren’t being paid for your inputs (how many hours you’re working) but for your outputs (the results you’re delivering). It’s very difficult to build wealth when you’re only being paid for your time (inputs). The more creativity and ‘specific knowledge’ that your job requires, the more likely you are to be paid for your outputs because you’re using skills and knowledge that aren’t common. The way you get to this point is by studying and working on yourself. The more you know and the more skills you have, the more valuable you are and the more likely you are to end up in a position where you are being paid for the results you’re delivering. That’s where you really start to get paid. A phrase to remember: “Earn with your mind, not your time.”
  • Leverage, Accountability, and Specific Knowledge — A job that will pay a lot is one that allows you to apply leverage, comes with a lot of accountability, and requires ‘specific knowledge’. Below is an explanation of all three.
    • Leverage — Leverage refers to labor (a team working under you to help you with your work and goals) or capital (money being borrowed to help you accomplish your work and goals). Leverage allows you to spend more time making judgement calls and less time doing the actual day-to-day work. 
    • Accountability — When your neck is on the line, you’re in a job where there is a high level of accountability. These jobs tend to pay more because your name and reputation are involved. Jobs in management and upper leadership involve a lot of accountability. There isn’t much accountability at lower-level jobs.
    • ‘Specific Knowledge’ — If the job you’re doing can’t really be trained, you’re going to make a lot of money. If you can develop yourself to a point where you have skills and ‘specific knowledge’ that others don’t, you become more and more valuable in the marketplace. 
    • Quote (P. 66): “You start as a salaried employee. But you want to work your way up to try and get higher leverage, more accountability, and specific knowledge. The combination of those over a long period of time with the magic of compound interest will make you wealthy.”
  • Value Your Time — Determine how valuable an hour of your time is, then make decisions on which opportunities to pursue, and not pursue, based on that figure. Set an ambitious figure for yourself. For example, if you think an hour of your time is worth $100 and you find that it costs $75 for someone to come over and clean the house, hire the person. Outsource that task. If you find you can get healthy meals delivered to your door for less than $100, subscribe to that service rather than using your own time to cook. Time is incredibly valuable, and managing it well is a big key to success in life.
    • Quote (P. 71): “Always factor your time into every decision. How much time does it take? It’s going to take you an hour to get across town to get something. If you value yourself at $100 an hour, that’s basically throwing $100 out of your pocket. Are you going to do that?”
    • Quote (P. 189): “I hate wasting time. I’m very famous for being rude at parties, events, dinners, where the moment I figure out it’s a waste of my time, I leave immediately. Value your time. It is all you have… This doesn’t mean you can’t relax. As long as you’re doing what you want, it’s not a waste of your time. But if you’re not spending your time doing what you want, and you’re not earning, and you’re not learning — what the heck are you doing?”
  • Decisions: The Big Three — There are three major, major life decisions that everybody faces. These three decisions will literally shape the course of your life, so a lot of time should be spent thinking about them, especially when you’re young. Put a lot of thought and effort into these three decisions because they are massively important. The big three are:
    • Where do I want to live? 
    • Who do I want to be with?
    • What do I want to do for a living? 
    • Quote (P. 75): “If you’re going to live in a city for ten years, if you’re going to be in a job for five years, if you’re in a relationship for a decade, you should be spending one to two years deciding these things. These are highly dominating decisions. Those three decisions really matter.”
  • Bring Your Passion to Society — Once you’ve found your passion and the one or two skills (or ‘specific knowledge’) that you are naturally better at than others, find a way to bring them to the public. Find a way to bundle these skills in a way that delivers value to the public. If you can do this, you are in for a fun ride because you’ll get paid for doing what you’re passionate about. You’ll get paid for doing “work” that doesn’t even feel like work because you love it.
    • Quote (P. 78): “The way to get out of the competition trap is to be authentic, to find the thing you know how to do better than anybody. You know how to do it better because you love it, and no one can compete with you. If you love to do it, be authentic, and then figure out how to map that to what society actually wants. Apply some leverage and put your name on it. You take the risks, but you gain the rewards, have ownership and equity in what you’re doing, and just crank it up.”
    • Quote (P. 80): “I’m always ‘working.’ It looks like work to others, but it feels like play to me. And that’s how I know no one can compete with me on it. Because I’m just playing, for sixteen hours a day. If others want to compete with me, they’re going to work, and they’re going to lose because they’re not going to do it for sixteen hours a day, seven days a week.”
  • Integrity — It’s important to live a life with high integrity. At the end of the day, you know what you’ve done. Even if you “get away” with something, inside you will always know what you’ve done, and these things have an impact on how you feel about yourself. Don’t compromise your self-respect and self-esteem for a cheap thrill. You ultimately want to be proud of yourself. The only way to do that is to give your absolute best effort and live with integrity.
    • Quote (P. 86): “Not in some cosmic, karma kind of way, but I believe deep down we all know who we are. You cannot hide anything from yourself. Your own failures are written within your psyche, and they are obvious to you. If you have too many of these moral shortcomings, you will not respect yourself. The worst outcome in this world is not having self-esteem. If you don’t love yourself, who will? I think you just have to be very careful about doing things you are fundamentally not going to be proud of, because they will damage you.”
  • Money Makes Things Easier — Money can’t bring you love and happiness, but it can bring you a lot of joy and convenience, and that’s nothing to scoff at. You should aim to make as much money as you possibly can. It will make your life a lot easier, comfortable, and less stressful. The way to make money is to increase your value. The more valuable you make yourself, the more money will naturally come to you. Commit to lifelong learning. Improve your skills. Increase your value. 
  • Chapter Takeaway — Spend most of your time in life mastering one or two skills. It’s OK to have a basic, foundational knowledge in everything else. But pinpoint the one or two things you love to do and work as hard as you can at becoming the best in the world at those things. Find a way to use those skills you’re passionate about to bring value to the public. If you can do that, you are going to be very successful because you’re doing what you love to do and you’re getting paid for it. 

Ch. 2: Building Judgment

  • Direction & Effort — The direction you’re headed in life matters more than the amount of effort you put in. Hard work is critical, no doubt. But if you’re putting a lot of effort into things/a life path that won’t return the most value, it’s all kind of a waste. Take time to think hard about your path and direction. Select the best path, then work really hard. If you realize the path you’re on isn’t the right one, drop it and get started in a new direction.
    • Quote (P. 95): “The direction you’re heading in matters more than how fast you move, especially with leverage. Picking the direction you’re heading in for every decision is far, far more important than how much force you apply. Just pick the right direction to start walking in, and start walking.”
    • Quote (P. 94): “If you want to make the maximum amount of money possible, if you want to get rich over your life in a deterministically predictable way, stay on the bleeding edge of trends and study technology, design, and art become really good at something.”
  • Master the Basics — As mentioned earlier in the book, it’s enough to have a firm understanding of the basics for most things outside of the one or two skills you’ve decided to master. Study different subjects and disciplines, but realize that it’s enough to just get a basic understanding of the foundational concepts. You don’t need to try to become an expert in everything. Understand the foundational truths. That’s enough. Everything else you try to learn beyond that likely won’t be used.
    • Quote (P. 96): “The really smart thinkers are clear thinkers. They understand the basics at a very, very fundamental level. I would rather understand the basics really well than memorize all kinds of complicated concepts I can’t stitch together and can’t rederive from the basics. If you can’t rederive concepts from the basics as you need them, you’re lost.”
  • Feelings vs. Truth — Many of us are misled by our internal interpretation of things. We usually see things from a prism of how we think they should be rather than seeing them for what they really are. Our feelings get involved and prevent us from seeing things clearly. We lie to ourselves. Whenever possible, it’s important to detach from your feelings when looking at a situation. Try to see the situation for what it really is. Try to see the truth in the situation.
    • Quote (P. 98): “The more desire I have for something to work out a certain way, the less likely I am to see the truth.”
    • Quote (P. 98): “What you feel tells you nothing about the facts — it merely tells you something about your estimate of the facts.”
  • “Praise Specifically, Criticize Generally” — This is a rule credited to Warren Buffet. The idea is to be honest with people, but when you criticize them, do it by being very general in your critique. Don’t get personal. But when you praise somebody, be very specific about what it is you think they did well. Both techniques appeal to the human ego.
    • Quote (P. 105): “If you have a criticism of someone, then don’t criticize the person — criticize the general approach or criticize the class of activities. If you have to praise somebody, then always try and find the person who is the best example of what you’re praising and praise the person, specifically. Then people’s egos and identities, which we all have, don’t work against you. They work for you.”
  • Making Decisions: Rule Things Out — When making decisions, a good strategy to use involves ruling things out. Sometimes we get so paralyzed by trying to make the right decision. It can often be easier and more effective to take an inverted approach and instead rule things out. Decide what is not the right decision. Use the process of elimination to narrow your options until you end up with your final decision.
    • Quote (P. 107): “Rather, I try to eliminate what’s not going to work. I think being successful is just about not making mistakes. It’s not about having correct judgment. It’s about avoiding incorrect judgments.”
  • Principal & Agent Theory — When our own neck is on the line, we do a better job. When we’re working for someone else, we don’t do as great of a job because we simply don’t care as much. This is the principal-agent relationship. As a principal (owner), you feel the pressure to perform at your best. As an agent (employee), what you’re working on isn’t really yours, so you don’t feel the same sense of urgency. The stakes aren’t as high. One of the best mindsets you can have is to treat everything like you are in charge and you don’t answer to anyone. How would I do this in this situation if I had nobody to answer to? Act like the owner on everything you do. As an employer, if you can find a way to tie an employee’s results to their compensation, you will get the best from your them because they will be forced to care more. There’s more on the line for them.
    • Quote (P. 109): “The smaller the company, the more everyone feels like a principal. The less you feel like an agent, the better the job you’re going to do. The more closely you can tie someone’s compensation to the exact value they’re creating, the more you turn them into a principal, and the less you turn them into an agent.”
  • Basic Math — It’s good to have a basic understanding of math; things like probability and statistics. Having a foundational understanding of math will help you in business and investing. It is good to read one or two math textbooks.
    • Quote (P. 110): “You don’t need to learn geometry, trigonometry, calculus, or any of the complicated stuff if you’re just going into business. But you want arithmetic, probability. and statistics. Those are extremely important. Crack open a basic math book, and make sure you are really good at multiplying, dividing, compounding, probability, and statistics.”
  • Rule: If You Can’t Decide, the Answer Is ‘No’ — If you’re having trouble making a decision, the answer should be ‘no.’ You should really only pursue things that you feel fairly certain about. The world is full of options; it’s not worth saving ‘yes’ to someone or something that you aren’t reasonably sure of.
    • Quote (P. 111): “If you cannot decide, the answer is no. And the reason is, modern society is full of options. There are tons and tons of options. We live on a planet of seven billion people, and we are connected to everybody on the internet. There are hundreds of thousands of careers available to you. There are so many choices.”
  • Read! And Read A Lot ❤️ — Reading every day is one of the single best habits you can ever develop. It can change your life. Read and learn as much as you possibly can. There is so much great information and knowledge available in books. Read about topics that interest you. There are a lot of books out there; try to avoid the fluff. It’s important to challenge yourself when you read. Even if you don’t fully understand something you’re reading, try to read through it. Just by trying, your mind is absorbing the information. You should never be scared of a book. Try. Naval recommends reading a lot of science, math, and philosophy. Below are a few of Naval’s thoughts on reading:
    • Quote (P. 113): “Read a lot. Just read.”
    • Quote (P. 113): “Reading science, math, and philosophy one hour per day will likely put you at the upper echelon of human success within seven years.”
    • Quote (P. 114): “The genuine love for reading itself, when cultivated, is a superpower. 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.”
    • Quote (P. 115): “Reading a book isn’t a race — the better the book, the more slowly it should be absorbed.”
    • Quote (P. 116): “I probably read one to two hours a day. That puts me in the top .00001 percent. I think that alone accounts for any material success I’ve had in my life and any intelligence I might have.”
    • Quote (P. 116): “It almost doesn’t matter what you read. Eventually, you will read enough things (and your interests will lead you there) that it will dramatically improve your life.”
    • Quote (P. 118): “Read the greats in math, science and philosophy.”
    • Quote (P. 119): “No book in the library should scare you. Whether it’s a math, physics, electrical engineering, sociology, or economics book. You should be able to take any book down off the shelf and read it. A number of them are going to be too difficult for you. That’s okay — read them anyway. Then go back and reread them and reread them.”
    • Quote (P. 119): “When you’re reading a book and you’re confused, that confusion is similar to the pain you get in the gym when you’re working out. But you’re building mental muscles instead of physical muscles. Learn how to learn and read the books.”
    • Quote (P. 120): “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.”
    • Quote (P. 121): “If you’re a perpetual learning machine, you will never be out of options for how to make money. You can always see what’s coming up in society, what the value is, where the demand is, and you can learn to come up to speed.”
  • Chapter Takeaway — The direction you’re headed matters more than effort. Before you put in a ton of work, make sure you’re on the right path and your effort isn’t being wasted. Then go to work. Reading is a life-changing practice that, if adopted as a daily habit, has the power to shift your worldview and accelerate your growth and success. 

Ch. 3: Learning Happiness

  • Happiness = Gratitude 🙏🏻 — There’s nothing external that can bring you true happiness. Most of us walk around in a constant state of “I need this,” or “I need that.” We’re trapped in a web of desires. True happiness occurs when you stop wanting things you don’t currently have. It comes to you when you accept everything as it is (thereby giving up your desires) and take a moment to appreciate everything you already have. There’s a lot to be thankful for. Focus on those things. Keep them at the top of your mind and in the center of your heart. You should always have an attitude of gratitude. That’s so key.
    • Quote (P. 129): “Happiness is the state when nothing is missing. When nothing is missing, your mind shuts down and stops running into the past or future to regret something or to plan something. In that absence, for a moment, you have internal silence. When you have internal silence, then you are content, and you are happy.”
    • Quote (P. 131): “Happiness is what’s there when you remove the sense that something is missing in your life.”
    • Quote (P. 131): “If you look at little children, on balance, they’re generally pretty happy because they are really immersed in the environment and the moment, without any thought of how it should be given their personal preferences and desires. I think the neutral state is actually a perfection state. One can be very happy as long as one isn’t too caught up in their own head.”
      • Takeaway — Expectations play a major role in our happiness. We will tend to be happy or sad based on how reality lines up with our expectations for how things should be/how we want things to be. If we’re neutral and just focus on accepting things how they are, we’ll end up being a lot more happy and stable. 
    • Quote (P. 132): “Real happiness only comes as a side-effect of peace. Most of it is going to come from acceptance, not from changing your external environment.”
    • Quote (P. 138): “The mistake over and over and over is to say, ‘Oh, I’ll be happy when I get that thing,’ whatever it is. That is the fundamental mistake we all make, 24/7, all day long.”
  • Give Up the Past and Future — Similar to the point above, most of us tend to spend every waking moment either worrying about the future or regretting something in the past. We’re never present. A big, big key to happiness is simply letting go of the past and future. Embrace the present moment and keep your focus on all of the great things you already have in your life. The more you want things and believe they will bring you happiness, the more unhappy you will be.
    • Quote (P. 130): “It’s about the absence of desire, especially the absence of desire for external things. The fewer desires I can have, the more I can accept the current state of things, the less my mind is moving, because the mind really exists in motion toward the future or the past. The more present l am, the happier and more content I will be.”
    • Quote (P. 130): “Happiness to me is mainly not suffering, not desiring, not thinking too much about the future or the past, really embracing the present moment and the reality of what is, and the way it is.”
    • Quote (P. 134): “At any given time, when you’re walking down the streets, a very small percentage of your brain is focused on the present. The rest is planning the future or regretting the past. This keeps you from having an incredible experience. It’s keeping you from seeing the beauty in everything and for being grateful for where you are. You can literally destroy your happiness if you spend all of your time living in delusions of the future.”
  • Happiness Is a Choice… And a Skill — Happiness is truly a choice we all have. It’s all about how we interpret/respond to the things that happen to us and what we choose to place our focus on. If we focus on what we already have and are grateful for (e.g. good health, family, friends, etc.), we will be much happier than if we are constantly focused on external desires that we don’t already have (e.g. cars, houses, a relationship, etc.). It’s also important to simply stop caring so much about things that aren’t relevant, like other people’s opinions of you. People either like you or don’t, who cares. Stop caring about things that really don’t matter in the grand scheme of life. Life is too short.
    • Quote (P. 131): “You’re born, you have a whole set of sensory experiences and stimulations (lights, colors, and sounds), and then you die. How you choose to interpret them is up to you — you have that choice. This is what I mean when I say happiness is a choice. If you believe it’s a choice, you can start working on it.”
    • Quote (P. 133): “You can very slowly but steadily and methodically improve your happiness baseline, just like you can improve your fitness.”
    • Quote (P. 145): “My most surprising discovery in the last five years is that peace and happiness are skills.”
    • Quote (P. 148): “The most important trick to being happy is to realize happiness is a skill you develop and a choice you make. You choose to be happy, and then you work at it. It’s just like building muscles. It’s just like losing weight. It’s just like succeeding at your job. It’s just like learning calculus.”
  • Accept, Accept, Accept — One of the best ways to arrive at peace and happiness is to accept the moment without judgement. In every situation, you have three options: you can change it, you can accept it, or you can leave it. Wishing things were different is not a good approach. That struggle of expecting a certain outcome and wishing things were different is where a lot of suffering comes from. You have to take the attitude of accepting the moment for what is without bias or judgement.
    • Quote (P. 152): “You always have three options: you can change it, you can accept it, or you can leave it. What is not a good option is to sit around wishing you would change it but not changing it, wishing you could leave it but not leaving it and not accepting it. That struggle or aversion is responsible for most of our misery. The phrase I probably use the most to myself in my head is just one word: ‘accept.’”
    • Quote (P. 152): “We don’t always get what we want, but sometimes what is happening is for the best. The sooner you can accept it as a reality. the sooner you can adapt to it.”
  • Find the Positives — You can always find the positive in any situation. Sometimes you have to search for a while, but there’s always something positive you can take from any scenario or outcome. Finding positives is a skill. Make a game of it. It takes practice and repetition, but you can become good at quickly finding positives in every situation. 
  • Embrace Death — This thought has been discussed in several other books I’ve read. One of the best ways to feel love and gratitude is by understanding how truly fragile life is and how quickly it can be gone. Your number could be called at any time. Any moment could be your last. When you understand that, and live with that thought at the top of your mind, you instantly feel more grateful for everything in your life. Then things that shouldn’t matter (e.g. someone else’s opinion of you, work drama), don’t. The things that should really matter (e.g. family, health, friends), do. You feel more love and less agitation toward others. You simply feel happy to be alive, and that rubs off on every other area of your life. 
  • Chapter Takeaway — Happiness isn’t something that people are magically born with; it’s a skill that can be trained. Maybe the most important key is to live with an attitude of gratitude. Keep your focus on what you already have, rather than what you don’t have. There’s nothing external that will bring you happiness. The second key is to accept the present moment and situation without judgement or bias. The moment you let your expectations dictate how you feel is when you usually feel unhappy. Don’t have expectations, and accept the moment. A final key is to understand how fragile life is and how you could be gone at any moment. 

Ch. 4: Saving Yourself

  • Do What You Want — Life is too short to be doing things you don’t want to do. Stop allowing what other people think you should do dictate what you actually do. If you really don’t want to go play golf when someone asks, say “no thanks.” You have to learn to say no to things. Do what you want to do, no matter what others think of you. 
  • Sugar & Fat — Sugar makes you feel hungry. Fat comes with 9 calories per gram and is therefore the most calorie-dense macronutrient. That’s why the combination of fat and sugar is lethal. The sugar overrides the fat and makes you feel hungry, so you keep eating. Avoid foods that are high in fat and sugar. 
  • “I Don’t Have Time” — “I don’t have time” means you don’t care enough. Bottom line. We all make time for the things we care about the most. If you “don’t have time,” then it simply doesn’t matter enough to you. You haven’t prioritized it. You should always make time for things like exercise and family. The “I don’t have time” excuse is a terrible one for things like that. 
  • The Morning Workout — The morning workout is a game-changer. When you work out in the morning, it sets the tone for the rest of the day. You get the blood pumping, the endorphins flowing. You feel happy. You feel good. It’s a great way to start the day.
    • Quote (P. 165): “I do not start the day until I’ve worked out. I don’t care if the world is imploding and melting down, it can wait another thirty minutes until I’m done working out.”
  • Easy Choices, Hard Life — The difficult daily habits are the ones that are going to make you better in the long-run. The small, daily disciplines it takes to get better every day and feel good are not fun. They suck. But they always pay off in the long-run. The decisions that will make you happy here and now (e.g. fast food, video games, etc.) will bring instant gratification, but you will pay a price for those decisions down the line if you make the same poor choices over and over. Easy choices lead to a hard life. Hard choices lead to an easy life. 
  • Avoidance Leads to Suffering — A lot of our internal suffering comes from avoiding and resisting things. It’s when we jump in and just do something we’re scared of that we break free of suffering. You can suffer with anxiety ahead of a presentation, but it all washes away when you’re actually delivering the speech. If you constantly participate in and hunt the things you’re scared of, you will melt fear and anxiety out of your system. It’s when you avoid and resist the things you’re scared of that you begin to suffer with anxiety, fear, depression, etc. You have to attack the things you’re scared of and expose yourself to your fears.
    • Quote (P. 169): “I learned a very important lesson from this: most of our suffering comes from avoidance. Most of the suffering from a cold shower is the tip-toeing your way in. Once you’re in, you’re in. It’s not suffering. It’s just cold.”
  • Meditation: Nonjudgmental Awareness — Nonjudgmental Awareness is a type of meditation where you go about your daily business and you just accept everything. You accept every moment without bias or judgement. When you did this, you end up tapping into gratitude and you feel better about yourself, the world, and the people around you. Acceptance without judgement is the key.
    • Quote (P. 171): “You don’t make any decisions. You don’t judge anything. You just accept everything. If I do that for ten or fifteen minutes while walking around, I end up in a very peaceful, grateful state.”
    • Quote (P. 171): “When your mind quiets, you stop taking everything around you for granted. You start to notice the details. You think, ‘Wow, I live in such a beautiful place. It’s so great that I have clothes, and I can go to Starbucks and get a coffee anytime. Look at these people — each one has a perfectly valid and complete life going on in their own heads.’”
  • Turn Off the Monkey Mind — Naval uses the term “monkey mind” to describe how chaotic the mind can be sometimes with all of the fear, anxiety, and worry that runs rampant. The key to avoiding the “monkey mind” is to catch yourself in your thoughts and bring your awareness back to the present moment. When you notice yourself caught up in your monkey mind and all of its thoughts and worries, bring yourself back to the present. Do it over and over throughout the day. Make it a habit. Accept the moment and bring your awareness back to the Now. Pretend you’re a dog on a walk — dogs are unbelievably present when they’re on a stroll.
    • Quote (P. 177): “I’m trying to stay in awareness mode and not activate the monkey mind, which is always worried, frightened, and anxious. It serves incredible purpose, but I try not to activate the monkey mind until I need it. When I need it, I want to just focus on that. If I run it 24/7, I waste energy and the monkey mind becomes me.”
    • Quote (P. 190): “A big habit I’m working on is trying to turn off my ‘monkey mind.’ When we’re children, we’re pretty blank slates. We live very much in the moment. We essentially just react to our environment through our instincts… If you walk down the street and there are a thousand people in the street, all thousand are talking to themselves in their head at any given point. They’re constantly judging everything they see. They’re playing back movies of things that happened to them yesterday. They’re living in fantasy worlds of what’s going to happen tomorrow. They’re just pulled out of base reality. That can be good when you do long-range planning. It can be good when you solve problems. It’s good for us as survival-and-replication machines. I think it’s actually very bad for your happiness. To me, the mind should be a servant and a tool, not a master. My monkey mind should not control and drive me 24/7. I want to break the habit of uncontrolled thinking, which is hard.”
  • Life Is How You See It — It doesn’t seem like it, but the world is actually pretty static and fixed. It’s our interpretation and feelings toward the world and what happens to us that shape our experience, not the other way around. Everything comes down to attitude and response. We can control these things. We can’t control what happens to us in life, but we have complete control over our attitude and decisions. We can choose how to respond to things that happen. Accept the moment and choose your response.
    • Quote (P. 179): “Life is going to play out the way it’s going to play out. There will be some good and some bad. Most of it is actually just up to your interpretation. You’re born, you have a set of sensory experiences, and then you die. How you choose to interpret those experiences is up to you, and different people interpret them in different ways.”
  • You Aren’t Responsible for Other People’s Expectations — If people have certain expectations of you, and you don’t satisfy those expectations, that is not your problem. This is a hard concept to grasp because we all want to please everyone around us, but it’s the truth. Expectations play such a big role in everyone’s experience in life. But at the end of the day, you have no obligation to meet the expectations someone else has of you. If someone expected you to fill a certain role in their life, and you don’t feel the same way about it, that is their problem, not yours. This rule applies to simple stuff like being invited to a group dinner that you don’t want to participate in, as well as larger things like relationships.
    • Quote (P. 188): “If you hurt other people because they have expectations of you, that’s their problem. If they have an agreement with you, it’s your problem. But, if they have an expectation of you, that’s completely their problem. It has nothing to do with you.”
    • Quote (P. 189): “Don’t spend your time making other people happy. Other people being happy is their problem. It’s not your problem. If you are happy, it makes other people happy. If you’re happy, other people will ask you how you became happy and they might learn from it, but you are not responsible for making other people happy.”
      • Takeaway — Making someone else happy in their life is not your burden. You shouldn’t feel responsible for doing that. You are responsible for your happiness, that’s it. Everyone else has to find their own internal peace and happiness. If you are in a deep romantic relationship with someone, then yes, there is a bit of a responsibility to be a source of happiness for the other person. But everyone needs to find their own happiness in life, and it has to come from within. It comes from living with gratitude and appreciation for life. That’s not on you. 
  • Chapter Takeaway — Do what you want to do in life and don’t worry about pleasing other people and meeting their expectations. Life is just too short to do things that you don’t want to do. Other people’s expectations of you are not your problem. You are not responsible for making someone else happy in life. You are responsible for making yourself happy in life by forming a solid daily routine and living with gratitude and appreciation. But you are not responsible for making other people happy. That is not your burden. Everyone has to find their own happiness and peace. 

Ch. 5: Philosophy

  • Values — Clearly identify the values that you want to live by and never compromise on them. Your values are what guide you in life. When you have a set of values that mean a lot to you, go out and try to find other people who share similar values. This is how you find great coworkers, friends, and spouses. Cut people out of your life who go against your values and what you stand for. If you value integrity, for example, do not tolerate people who are constantly talking crap about others. Your values should be the foundation that everything else in life builds on.
    • Quote (P. 198): “I think everybody has values. Much of finding great relationships, great coworkers, great lovers, wives, husbands, is finding other people where your values line up. If your values line up, the little things don’t matter.”
      • Takeaway — Find people who share your values. When you do, you’ll be able to navigate big issues without a problem because you see things from a similar perspective.Â