Today I had the opportunity to listen to the Joe Rogan Experience podcast where he had a very interesting conversation with Naval Ravikant. After listening to the episode the first thing that came to my mind was “I need to share this on the blog!!!!”.
Naval is an entrepreneur and angel investor, a co-author of Venture Hacks, and a co-maintainer of AngelList.
If you are an active Twitter user, I am sure you have probably read one of his philosophical or entrepreneurial tweets. In fact, I started following him closely after I came across this gem of a thread:
How to Get Rich (without getting lucky):
— Naval (@naval) May 31, 2018
This is the kind of interview that will make you listen, think a bit, and then listen again. It’s very hard to nail down everything they talk about in the episode, but here are some takeaways:
“Specialization is for insects”. Everyone should just be able to do everything. I don’t believe in this model anymore of trying to focus your life down on one thing. You’ve got one life. Just do everything you’re going to do.”
“I don’t care how rich you are. I don’t care whether you’re a top Wall Street banker if somebody has to tell you when to be at work, what to wear and how to behave, you’re not a free person. You’re not actually rich.”
“You have social statisticians, scientists, and researchers in lab coats, literally the best minds of our generation figuring out how to addict you to the news. And if you fall for it, if you get addicted. your brain will get destroyed.”
“In today’s day and age, many people think you get peace 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 the idea of having problems.”
“When you’re memorizing something, it’s an indication that you don’t understand it. You should be able to re-derive anything on the spot and if you can’t, you don’t know it.”
“If you’re smart, you should be able to figure out how to be happy. Otherwise, you’re not that smart.”
“The peace that we seek is not the peace of mind, it’s peace from mind”
“The way to retire is actually to find the thing that you know how to do better than anybody. And you know how to do it better than anybody because you love to do it. 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, put your name on it so you take the risks but you gain the rewards, have ownership and equity in what you do, and then just crank it out.”
“You’re not going to get rich renting out your time You have to own equity as an owner, investor, or a shareholder”
“When you look at the greatest artists and creators, they have this ability to start over that nobody else does.”
“The way to survive in modern society is to be an ascetic. It is to retreat from society. There’s too much society everywhere you go…The only solution is to turn it off.”
Over to you. What are your thoughts about this interview?
