My key takeaways from Naval Ravikant
- Ironically, when you do things for their own sake, you create your best work. Whether it's business, exercise, romance, friendship, whatever, the meaning of life is to do things for their own sake.
- Learn to sell (marketing, communication, recruiting, selling to customers), learn to build (design, development, manufacturing, logistics, procurement). If you can do both, you will be unstoppable.
- The means of learning are abundant - it's the desire to learn that is scarce.
- Figure out what you are good at, and start helping other people with it. Give it away. Trying to build business relationships well in advance of doing business is a complete waste of time. Show your craft, practice your craft, and the right people will eventually find you. Karma works.
- The smartest people can explain things to a child. If you cannot explain it to a child, then you don't know it. Smart thinkers are clear thinkers. They understand the basics. If you cannot rederive concepts from the basics as you need them, you are just memorizing.
- Read what you love until you love to read. Just read for its own sake. The better the book, the more slowly it should be absorbed. If you are confused when reading you are building your mental muscle. Just as the pain you get in the gym.
- We constantly walk around thinking, "I need this", or "I need that", trapped in the web of desires. Happiness is there when you remove the sense of something missing in your life.
- Not all of us have the ability to say what is going to work. Rather, try to eliminate what's not going to work.
- For someone who is early in their career (and maybe even later), the single most important thing about a company is the alumni network you are going to build.
- Value your time. Time is all you have. It's more important than your money. Its' more important than your friends. It's more important than everything.
