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To attain true wealth, it is crucial to own equity in a business that generates income while you sleep. Wealth is about assets and businesses that can earn autonomously, providing freedom and the ability to live life on your own terms. Money is a means to transfer wealth and is acquired through providing value to society. Wealth creation comes from bringing new and desired products or ideas to the market at scale, utilizing the power of compound interest and long-term games with trusted partners.
Escape competition by embracing your authenticity and individuality. By being uniquely yourself, you offer something no one else can replicate, leading to less competition and more opportunities for success. Long-term thinking is essential for compound interest to work in your favor. Instead of chasing short-term gains or constantly upgrading your lifestyle, focus on building wealth steadily, finding an industry where you can play long-term games with long-term thinkers. Choose partners who possess high intelligence, energy, integrity, and maintain a positive, rational optimism to create lasting success.
The internet has expanded the possibilities for careers, allowing individuals to connect with their unique audience no matter how niche their interests may be. Anyone can scale their passion or skill by leveraging technology and finding their tribe online. Additionally, trust and long-term relationships are essential for success. Working with high-integrity, long-term thinkers who possess both intelligence and high energy offers the best chance for sustained growth and fruitful collaboration. Avoid partnering with pessimists and cynics, as their beliefs can become self-fulfilling prophecies.
Embracing accountability is crucial in taking business risks under one's own name. By taking ownership of actions and being accountable for their outcomes, individuals are rewarded with responsibility, equity, and leverage. Accountability enhances credibility and incentivizes others to trust and invest in one's endeavors.
Leverage, as exemplified by Archimedes' quote, is vital for achieving significant outcomes. Leverage can manifest through capital, people, and products with no marginal cost of replication. While labor-based leverage is familiar, capital-based leverage offers tremendous scalability. It is important to understand and leverage the power of capital to amplify one's impact and create wealth.
Specific knowledge is the key to success. Building expertise in a particular domain, whether through innate talents, curiosity-driven learning, or on-the-job training, enables individuals to offer unique value. Specific knowledge cannot be easily acquired through traditional education alone, but rather through continuous learning, deep understanding, and hands-on experience.
Leverage in the form of capital and products with no marginal cost of replication is key to creating new fortunes.
The new forms of leverage, such as coding and media production, are permissionless and egalitarian, allowing anyone to create and reach a large audience.
Having good judgment and finding your niche, where you are the best in the world at what you do, are essential for success in business and wealth creation.
As you progress in your career, you naturally gravitate towards the things you enjoy and excel at. Being authentic and focusing on your strengths allows you to specialize in being yourself. Although competition may exist, it shouldn't deter you as long as you remain goal-oriented and open to learning from others. Additionally, understanding the nature of your business and adapting to adjacent or slightly different niches can be beneficial, expanding your market.
Achieving long-term success and wealth requires applying your specific knowledge with leverage. This entails continuously improving, exercising accountability, and developing judgment over time. Patience is crucial as it takes years of dedication and hard work to attain the desired outcomes. While there are no get-rich-quick schemes, sustained effort and genuine passion can lead to substantial rewards. However, wealth alone does not guarantee happiness, as personal well-being, including mental health, physical fitness, and meaningful relationships, must also be prioritized.
The speaker reflects on two experiences that served as powerful motivators in his life. First, he shares how getting fired from a prestigious law firm for misbehavior pushed him to pursue a career outside of law. Second, he discusses how working an embarrassing catering job in high school fueled his determination and obsession to succeed. He emphasizes that sometimes it takes the suffering of doing the wrong thing to motivate us to do the right thing.
The speaker explains the principal-agent problem and its prevalence in microeconomics. He highlights the misalignment of incentives between principals (owners) and agents (employees) and stresses the difficulty of creating founder mentality in employees. He advises principals to be generous with ownership and incentives to create alignment, while encouraging agents to think like principals in order to climb the career ladder. Additionally, he discusses the importance of leverage and recommends making partnerships based on aligned incentives rather than seeking advantage, as long-term success relies on trust and reputation.
This giant episode collects every interview I’ve done on “How to Get Rich.” It includes 10 minutes of unreleased material—at the end—on “Finding Time to Invest in Yourself.”
Transcript: http://nav.al/rich
Seek Wealth, Not Money or Status 1:30
Make Abundance for the World 6:40
Free Markets Are Intrinsic to Humans 10:21
Making Money Isn’t About Luck 14:19
Make Luck Your Destiny 19:25
You Won’t Get Rich Renting Out Your Time 24:00
Live Below Your Means for Freedom 28:40
Give Society What It Doesn’t Know How to Get 31:01
The Internet Has Massively Broadened Career Possibilities 33:44
Play Long-term Games With Long-term People 38:23
Pick Partners With Intelligence, Energy and Integrity 44:24
Partner With Rational Optimists 49:09
Arm Yourself With Specific Knowledge 54:34
Specific Knowledge Is Highly Creative or Technical 1:00:53
Learn to Sell, Learn to Build 1:06:24
Read What You Love Until You Love to Read 1:10:59
The Foundations Are Math and Logic 1:12:00
There’s No Actual Skill Called “Business” 1:16:48
Embrace Accountability to Get Leverage 1:20:06
Take Accountability to Earn Equity 1:25:37
Labor and Capital Are Old Leverage 1:30:06
Product and Media are New Leverage 1:35:01
Product Leverage is Egalitarian 1:39:42
Pick a Business Model With Leverage 1:44:56
Example: From Laborer to Entrepreneur 1:50:51
Judgment Is the Decisive Skill 2:01:15
Set an Aspirational Hourly Rate 2:07:41
Work As Hard As You Can 2:11:26
Be Too Busy to “Do Coffee” 2:16:34
Keep Redefining What You Do 2:20:38
Escape Competition Through Authenticity 2:22:41
Play Stupid Games, Win Stupid Prizes 2:28:17
Eventually You Will Get What You Deserve 2:30:53
Reject Most Advice 2:35:00
A Calm Mind, a Fit Body, a House Full of Love 2:37:55
There Are No Get Rich Quick Schemes 2:42:02
Productize Yourself 2:46:42
Accountability Means Letting People Criticize You 2:48:55
We Should Eventually Be Working for Ourselves 2:55:33
Being Ethical Is Long-Term Greedy 2:56:58
Envy Can Be Useful, or It Can Eat You Alive 3:00:23
Principal-Agent Problem: Act Like an Owner 3:03:51
Kelly Criterion: Avoid Ruin 3:10:33
Schelling Point: Cooperating Without Communicating 3:12:03
Turn Short-Term Games Into Long-Term Games 3:13:55
Compounding Relationships Make Life Easier 3:16:36
Price Discrimination: Charge Some People More 3:19:04
Consumer Surplus: Getting More Than You Paid For 3:20:14
Net Present Value: What Future Income Is Worth Today 3:21:03
Externalities: Calculating the Hidden Costs of Products 3:22:05
Bonus Material: Finding Time to Invest in Yourself 3:23:47
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