I have been researching technological innovations for over a decade now. I started writing a blog a few months ago to share my life experiences and why I trust that conscious use of new converging technologies will create immense wealth for everyone willing to act proactively. However, I need more guidance on improving the message, creating my niche audience, and building a brand.
“What you seek is seeking you.” I firmly trust these words by Rumi. Something similar happened last week when I was talking to my friend Jawad Mian (Twitter — @jsmian), who writes “Stray Reflections,” where he discusses markets and how knowledge of oneself helps make sound investment decisions.
I consider Jawad’s introduction to “Almanack of Naval Ravikant” as a signpost, a direction from divine forces. I was seeking clarity on the way forward, and every word in the book illuminated my path. Naval is an iconic venture capitalist (more here). This is the first time in my life that I have read a 242-page book in one sitting. The book is a collection of Naval’s wisdom from different Twitter feeds and podcasts — compiled and edited by Eric Jorgenson.
Almanack of Naval Ravikant is like a textbook on creating wealth joyfully without getting lucky. Every sentence in the book is worth reading many times. Some of the key takeaways (by no means are these the only ones), as excerpted from the book, are:
- Creating wealth is a skill anyone can learn and apply. Wealth is a set of assets that make money while you sleep. Money is how we transfer time and wealth. Get wealthy by giving society what it doesn’t yet know how to get — at scale.
- You’re not going to get rich renting out your time. In most cases — renting out your time means you’re replaceable. You must own equity — a piece of a business — to gain your financial freedom. It could be by starting a company, investing in it through the primary or secondary market, or even working with a company and, in return, being compensated through stock options.
- The internet has massively broadened the possible space of careers. Most people haven’t figured this out yet.
- You don’t get rich by spending your time to save money. You get rich by saving your time to make money.
- Arm yourself with specific knowledge, accountability, and leverage.
- Specific knowledge is primary for creating wealth. Specific knowledge is accumulated by pursuing your genuine curiosity and passion rather than whatever is hot today. For this reason, building specific knowledge will feel like play to you but look like work to others. You cannot be trained for specific knowledge. We live in an age of infinite leverage, and the economic rewards for genuine intellectual curiosity have never been higher. If society can train you, it can train someone else and replace you. Specific knowledge is often technical or creative, acquired by apprenticeships rather than in school.
- Clear accountability is essential. Without accountability, you don’t have incentives and can’t build credibility. If you have high accountability, that makes you less replaceable (and you’ll likely get more equity). Embrace accountability and take business risks under your name. Society will reward you with responsibility, equity, and leverage. The people who have the ability to fail in public under their names generally gain a lot of power. In modern society, there’s not much to fear in terms of failure, so people should take on more accountability than they do.
- A leveraged person can out-produce a non-leveraged one by a factor of one thousand or ten thousand. Business leverage comes from; 1) people (the oldest form, such as labor, meaning people working for you); 2) capital (money, which can be bought and deployed for outsized returns); and 3) products with no marginal cost of replication (such as software code and media including internet, which are permissionless and source of all new wealth). Robots have reached their peak and are available all around us in the form of software programs. We are trying to provide them with hardware now.
- Productize yourself — Productize = leverage + specific knowledge. Yourself = uniqueness + accountability + specific knowledge. Question yourself — “Is this authentic to me? Is it myself that I am projecting?” And then, “Am I productizing it? Am I scaling it? Am I scaling with labor, capital, code, or media?”
- Judgment is the most important skill. Judgment is the exercise of wisdom, which comes from experience. Decisions are crucial because of the leverage of modern technology, large workforces, and capital in the business. Someone who makes decisions right 80 percent of the time instead of 70 percent will be valued and compensated hundreds of times more in the market. You’ll get nonlinear returns if you can be more right and rational.
- Get comfortable with frequent, small failures. If you’re willing to bleed a little bit every day, but in exchange, you win big later, you’ll do better. The crowd is after the reverse — frequent, small victories (don’t be the crowd).
- Escape competition through authenticity. No one can compete with you on being you. When you’re competing with people, it’s because you’re copying them. It’s because you’re trying to do the same thing. But every human is different. Don’t copy. If you are fundamentally building and marketing something that is an extension of who you are, no one can compete with you. Long term, if you’re good and successful at what you do, you’ll find you’re pretty much doing your hobbies for a living.
- Become the best in the world at what you do. Keep redefining what you do until this is true. You need to be deep in something because otherwise, you’ll be a mile wide and an inch deep, and you won’t get what you want out of life. You can only achieve mastery in one or two things. It’s usually things you’re obsessed about.
- All the benefits in life come from compound interest, whether in relationships, life, career, health, or learning. Play long-term games with long-term people. Over the long term, everyone is making each other rich, whereas, in the short term, everyone is making themselves rich.
- The secret to peace of mind: You’re competing against yourself — it is a single-player game. Training yourself to be happy is entirely internal. There is no external progress, no external validation.
Peter Diamandis, a space-entrepreneur-turned-innovation-pioneer, says we live in the best times humanity has ever seen, and more wealth will be created in the next decade than in the last century.
What are you waiting for? We are born with everything necessary to become the best version of ourselves with boundless financial and spiritual expansion. A positive mindset combined with relentless action and technological innovations is a killer combination for relentless growth.
Look within, find your niche, grind yourself to perfect your product, service, art, sport, or anything you enjoy, utilize the technological infrastructure, solve global challenges, and create wealth.
#neverarrive #limitlesspotential
I’m grateful for your time in reading this blog. In the comments section, let me know your experience and perspective on the subject. Please share the blog with your friends if you enjoyed reading it.
