The Ancient Wisdom in Books

Naval says building good judgement is a foundation to building wealth and getting rich. But how do we build judgement? How do we get smarter? Become wiser? Make better decisions? This episode focuses on Naval’s advice for learning to learn, learning to think, learning to see reality. This helps you make good business decisions, investment decisions, and good partnership decisions. We talk about Naval’s favorite books, mental models, and his techniques for reading. By the end of this episode, we hope you are a little calmer, a little wiser, and more assured in your path.

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Artwork and illustrations by Jack Butcher of @VisualizeValue

Shownotes:

Important Quotes from the podcast on Judgement and thinking clearly:

Wisdom applied to external problems is judgement - Naval

“Clear thinker” is a better compliment than “smart.” - Naval Ravikant

Clear thinkers appeal to their own authority. - Naval

The really smart thinkers are clear thinkers. They understand the basics at a very, very fundamental level. I would rather understand the basics really well than memorize all kinds of complicated concepts I can’t stitch together and can’t rederive from the basics. If you can’t rederive concepts from the basics as you need them, you’re lost. You’re just memorizing. - Naval Ravikant

Very smart people tend to be weird since they insist on thinking everything through for themselves.

A contrarian isn’t one who always objects—that’s a conformist of a different sort. A contrarian reasons independently from the ground up and resists pressure to conform. 

Cynicism is easy. Mimicry is easy. Optimistic contrarians are the rarest breed. - Naval Ravikant

Important Quotes from the podcast on Wealth, Business, and Entrepreneurship:

You don’t get rich by spending your time to save money. 

You get rich by saving your time to make money. - Naval Ravikant

One definition of a moment of suffering is “the moment when you see things exactly the way they are.” This whole time, you’ve been convinced your business is doing great, and really, you’ve ignored the signs it’s not doing well. Then, your business fails, and you suffer because you’ve been putting off reality. You’ve been hiding it from yourself. - Naval

The more desire I have for something to work out a certain way, the less likely I am to see the truth. Especially in business, if something isn’t going well, I try to acknowledge it publicly and I try to acknowledge it publicly in front of my co-founders and friends and co-workers. Then, I’m not hiding it from anybody else. If I’m not hiding it from anybody, I’m not going to delude myself from what’s actually going on. - Naval Ravikant

Important Quotes from the podcast on Leverage:

In an age of leverage, one correct decision can win everything. - Naval

You have to put in the time, but the judgment is more important. The direction you’re heading in matters more than how fast you move, especially with leverage. - Naval Ravikant

Charisma is the ability to project confidence and love at the same time. It’s almost always possible to be honest and positive. - Naval

I think people have a hard time understanding a fundamental fact of leverage. If I manage $1 billion and I’m right 10 percent more often than somebody else, my decision-making creates $100 million worth of value on a judgment call. With modern technology and large workforces and capital, our decisions are leveraged more and more. - Naval Ravikant