5 Proven Ways to Unlocking Wealth and Wisdom
In the past few years, I’ve been reading a lot of books on the topics of happiness and wealth. One book that is often seen on “best book lists” on those topics is The Almanack of Naval Ravikant.
Essentially it is a collection of tweetstorms, interviews, and articles from, with, and about the entrepreneur Naval Ravikant. His lessons aren’t for everyone - they are discussed controversially. Some love him, others hate him.
 |
|---|
| Photo by Anik Mandal on Unsplash |
In this article, I want to share 5 of Naval’s proven ways to unlocking wealth and wisdom so you can choose on your own if you’ll find his teachings helpful or not.
1. Understanding the Essence of Wealth Creation
Naval talks a lot about the fundamental principles behind wealth creation.
He emphasizes the importance of striving for wealth itself, rather than mere money or status. True wealth, according to Naval, lies in possessing equity and providing value to society in scalable ways.
His 4 core principles of wealth creation can be summarized:
- Pursue wealth - not money or status
- You have to own wealth (equity). This is the only way to earn money passively.
- You become rich by giving something to society that it needs and that scales.
- You have to learn two things: Learn to sell. Learn to create (build, develop, …).
2. Use Leverage and Acquire Knowledge
In his interviews and tweets Naval also mentions the use of leverage. He speaks of two different types of leverage:
- permissoned leverage: capital and employees
- permissionless leverage: products with a reproduction cost of 0
- Acquiring Specific Knowledge
Naval advocates for the acquisition of specific knowledge across various domains:
- Microeconomics
- Game Theory
- Psychology
- Persuasion
- Ethics
- Mathematics
- Computers
Furthermore, it is important to be better than others in one or two areas. To achieve that, it is important to be intellectually curious and learn perpetually.
3. Playing Long-Term Games with Long-Term People
In a world obsessed with instant gratification, we should focus on playing long-term games with long-term people.
Therefore, we should embrace failure, take accountability for our actions, and find leverage points in our endeavors.
If you play long-term games, the probability of you getting lucky is also higher. According to Naval Ravikant, there are 3 ways to be lucky
- Hope that luck finds you.
- Hustle until you stumble upon luck.
- Preparing your mind to recognize opportunities (that others miss).
I agree with him on the last point. Luck isn’t something that just crosses your way. Luck is when opportunity meets preparedness (credits to a fellow author at Medium for their article).
4. Building Judgment and Clear Thinking
Wealth and wisdom are incomplete without sound judgment and clear thinking.
Understanding the long-term consequences of our actions and cultivating clarity in our thoughts is crucial.
But how to think clearly?
- According to Naval Ravikant, you need “empty” blocks of time in your calendar with the sole aim of thinking. You only have great ideas when you are bored. I agree with him on that and tried it out myself.
- A personal strategy for me to think clearly is to write.
5. Embracing Reading and Continuous Improvement
Naval’s journey to wealth and wisdom is paved with books and a thirst for knowledge. He advocates for the love of reading and emphasizes the importance of mastering the fundamentals.
By immersing ourselves in the wisdom of the ages, we can expand our horizons and unlock new realms of possibility.
There you have it, 5 proven ways to unlock wealth and wisdom from The Almanack of Naval Ravikant. I personally don’t agree with all his lessons. However, I like the simple and pictorial way in which he describes the subject of wealth and the acquisition of wealth.
It is much more concrete than books like The Richest Man in Babylon and still tries to tell a story that sticks. Some of his teachings have definitely stuck with me and I will apply them in the future.
Thank you for reading until the end! I hope you’ve enjoyed my article and learned something. What do you think of Naval Ravikant and the reading? Please let me know in the comments!
For this article, I’ve used the book “The Almanack of Naval Ravikant” by Eric Jorgenson, as a main resource. I can highly recommend the whole book. It was written and published openly and is available completely for free here.