The Almanack of Naval Ravikant by Eric Jorgenson

These are my notes from The Almanack of Naval Ravikant by Eric Jorgenson. Each one contains a core idea from the book that stood out. The goal of writing my notes this way is that each could be it's own independent idea with the need for the specific context within the book.

The 4 Kinds of Luck

Naval talks about the 4 different kinds of luck. He says "in 1,000 parallel universes, you want to be wealthy in 999 of them." There's blind luck — like winning the lottery. Luck through hustle. You're spending a lot of energy to stir things up until luck finds you. Another form of luck is noticing luck. You notice the things others often miss because you're in the field. In a way, you're more sensitive to luck. The last form is when you become a bug light, attracting luck. A unique element of yourself causes luck to find you (character, hard mindset, etc.). To get consistently lucky it requires being deterministic. You want to build things that allow you to naturally have opportunities others would characterize as blind luck.

A Silicon Valley Success

Investors have the most success in Silicon Valley. They're diversified and control the life line of startups (money). Outside the investors is another type of successful individual — The Company Catalyst. When Zuckerberg panicked as he started scaling Facebook, he hired Sheryl Sandberg from Google with the help of Jim Breyer, saying she was the "perfect fit." Company Catalysts are really good at identifying companies that just hit product/market fit. They have the right background, expertise, and references to help those companies scale to the next level. Naval Ravikant says these people tend to do the best risk-adjusted over long periods of time.

Your Pain Portfolio

The interesting things about your life come from your portfolio of pain. The suffering or sacrifices are what you remember. They become engrained in your hero's journey. The hard things you've overcome are what you are most proud of. They're what people relate to. Humility is a by-product of having a large portfolio. Stories and parables are born out of a collection of painful moments. Naval has said "your real resume is just a catalog of all your suffering." These are more than the achievement — as Mike Tyson would say, "everyone has a plan till they get punched in the face." The hard things give us meaning. These things in the portfolio of pain can also be viewed as moments of truth or periods of wisdom.

What Is Specific Knowledge?

Specific knowledge is not the same as specialized knowledge. A dermatologist has specialized knowledge. Specific knowledge is unique to you. Often it's not even considered a valuable skill. But the people around you take notice because it's a part of your personality. It's created from your DNA. When you find out what specific knowledge you possess, no one can compete with you. You can hone that skill. All of your value comes from combining your specific knowledge with what needs it the most. It transforms work into play (most people started developing it as a child). It’s often at the edge of knowledge. Only revealed by pursuing your most curiosities.

All-In on Vehicles That Compound

99% of your life is wasted. All investors will tell you the same thing: the most powerful force in the universe is compounding interest. When you find the vehicles that compound, go all-in. Stop wasting your time. Instead, let your time work for you. In your relationships, work, learning, and creative efforts, put all your energy into the vehicles that compound. As you continue to get exponential returns, your quality of life will grow with them. Anything that cannot be a vehicle that compounds is a distraction. Disconnected from the energy and discipline of your future self.

Consistently Create Wealth

The idea that you’ll come up with something and, in 6 months, will be rich is BS. Wealth is a slow and steady struggle. You consistently build wealth by creating businesses, opportunities, and investments. It’s a long process. Patiently waiting to be able to act on ideas that come to you while avoiding being wiped out in the process. Over time, the surface area of opportunity expands to allow you to build the wealth more consistently and at higher and higher scales. It stacks up a few steps at a time.

Redesigning Your Identity

To reinvent who you are, it all begins with a desire. It comes from the seed of an idea with a vision for yourself carrying that out. Pick one thing and plan a sustainable path to reach it. Identify your needs, triggers, and substitutes to build up the habits to consistently take action each day. Tell your friends to create social pressure for yourself. Track your progress meticulously. Build up the fire for your self-discipline. It’s the bridge to your new self-image.

Your Idea of Successes

The people you believe are successful are the ones that won the game you're currently playing. They’re usually creators and commercializers. The real people that succeed don’t even play the games. They rise above them entirely. It requires a different type of internal focus, reference point, self-control, and self-awareness. There is no comparison for these people. They’re completely at peace and engaged in their work because they want to be.

Reading Suggestions

These books were mentioned in The Almanack of Naval Ravikant:

• Skin in the Game by Nassim Taleb
• The Bed of Procrustes by Nassim Taleb
• The Black Swan by Nassim Taleb
• The Book of Life by Jiddu Krishnamurti
• The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch
• Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
• The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley
• The Evolution of Everything by Matt Ridley
• The Origins of Virtue by Matt Ridley
• Genome by Matt Ridley
• The Red Queen by Matt Ridley
• The Agile Gene by Matt Ridley
• How Innovation Works by Matt Ridley
• Six Easy Pieces by Richard Feynman
• Not-So-Easy Pieces by Richard Feynman
• Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track by Richard Feynman
• Genius by James Gleick
• Thing Explainer by Randall Munroe
• Thinking Physics by Lewis Carroll Epstein
• The Lessons of History by Will and Ariel Durant
• The Sovereign Individual by James Dale Davidson and Lord William Rees-Mogg
• Poor Charlie’s Almanack by Charlie Munger
• Reality Is Not What It Seems by Carlo Rovelli
• Seven Brief Lessons on Physics by Carlo Rovelli
• The Compleat Strategyst by J.D. Williams
• The Evolution of Cooperation by Robert Axelrod
• Everything by Jed McKenna
• Theory of Everything by Jed McKenna
• Jed McKenna’s Notebook by Jed McKenna
• Jed Talks #1 and #2 by Jed McKenna
• A Master’s Secret Whispers by Kapil Gupta
• ‍Direct Truth by Kapil Gupta
• Atmamun by Kapil Gupta
• The Book of Life by Jiddu Krishnamurti
• Total Freedom by Jiddu Krishnamurti
• Siddhartha by Herman Hesse
• The Book of Secrets by Osho
• The Great Challenge by Osho
• The Way to Love by Anthony de Mello
• The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer
• Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
• Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends on It by Kamal Ravikant
• The Tao of Seneca by Seneca
• How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan
• Striking Thoughts by Bruce Lee
• The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran
• Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges
• Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
• Exhalation by Ted Chiang
• The Lifecycle of Software Objects by Ted Chiang
• Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
• The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson
• The Last Question by Isaac Asimov
• Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss
• Thermoifcomplexity by Behzad Mohit
• Pre-Suasion by Robert Cialdini
• The Story of Philosophy by Will Durant
• God’s Debris by Scott Adams
• Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu
• The Undercover Economist by Tim Harford
• Illusions by Richard Bach
• Sex at Dawn by Christopher Ryan
• Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl
• The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu