Thread by @SlowwCo

I've been studying @naval for years now.

I've read "The Almanack," listened to the full 3.5 hours of "How to Get Rich," absorbed his best podcasts, pondered countless tweets, and more.

Here are 20 highlights you should know (thread 👇):

Sources:

Paradoxes:

"Answers to all the great questions are paradoxes … Pursuing them is actually really useful because then it gives you certain intrinsic understanding in your life that brings a level of peace." — @naval

Meaning:

"I think the closest I can articulate ... is to keep growing and learning in the short period of time that you have. To seek truth and to accept things the way they are. To see the world the way it really is. Then, just to live your life." — @naval

Desire:

If @naval could put on thing on a billboard, it would be:

"Desire is a contract you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want."

Most Common Mistake:

"I think the most common mistake for humanity is believing you’re going to be made happy because of some external circumstance." — @naval

Happiness:

@naval's most surprising discovery in the last five years is that peace & happiness are skills & choices:

"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."

Peace:

"Peace is happiness at rest, and happiness is peace in motion. You can convert peace into happiness anytime you want. But peace is what you want most of the time. If you’re a peaceful person, anything you do will be a happy activity." — @naval

Social Programming:

"You have to be very careful because sometimes the voices talking in your head that you think is you is actually social programming." — @naval

Single-Player Reprogramming:

"Life is really a single-player game. It’s all going on in your head. Whatever you think and believe will very much shape your reality." — @naval

Advice to his Younger Self:

"Be exactly who you are." — @naval

Big Life Decisions according to @naval :

- What you do
- Who you spend time with
- Where you live

Big Getting Rich Decisions:

- Knowing what to do
- Who to do it with
- When to do it

Priorities for @naval:

- Health (Physical, Mental, Spiritual)
- Happiness
- Love / Family
- Mission / Work
- Wealth

Most Important Skill (for getting rich):

"Becoming a perpetual learner. You have to know how to learn anything you want to learn." — @naval

Ultimate Meta-Skill:

"Reading (learning) is the ultimate meta-skill and can be traded for anything else." — @naval

Additional skills @naval mentions:

- Reading
- Writing
- Arithmetic
- Persuasion (which is talking)
- Computer Programming (an applied form of arithmetic)
- Execution (getting things done, solving problems)
- Wealth creation / making money

Subjects to study according to @naval:

- Read originals & classics

- Read the greats in math, science, philosophy

- Microeconomics, game theory, psychology, persuasion, ethics, computers

- Evolution, thermodynamics, information theory, complexity

Money:

"Money is not going to solve all of your problems; but it’s going to solve all of your money problems." — @naval

Wealth:

"My definition of wealth is oriented toward businesses and assets that can earn while you sleep." — @naval

Most Important Point:

"You’re probably not going to create wealth through work. There are many reasons for that, but the most basic is because your inputs are very closely tied to your outputs. You can’t earn non-linearly." — @naval

Entrepreneurship according to @naval is essentially an act of:

- Creating something new from scratch

- Predicting that society will want it

- Figuring out how to scale it and get it to everybody in a profitable, self-sustaining way

Your eventual outcome according to @naval will be the result of:

- You love to do it
- It’s natural and authentic to you
- You know how to do it the best
- Society wants it but doesn’t know how to get it
- Demonstrated judgment
- High accountability
- Leverage
- Long timescale

Find Founder-Product-Market Fit:

"The combination of the three should be your overwhelming goal. The most important thing for any entrepreneur is to find founder-product-market fit." — @naval

Long-Term Compounding:

"Impatience with actions, patience with results. I think that’s a good philosophy for life." — @naval

All the benefits & returns in life come from compounding:

- Wealth
- Relationships
- Love
- Health
- Habits
- Learning
- Reading
- Knowledge
- Creating