Almanack : Learn To Sell. Learn To Build

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Almanack <Naval>

Learn to Sell. Learn to Build.

Learn one out of it atleast, if you can do both, you'll be unstoppable

Know how to learn anything you want to learn

Study - Mathematics (basics - arithmetic, stats, probability), Persuasion,


Science (basics), Microeconomics, Game theory, psychology, ethics, and
computers Avoid business magazines and classes)

Pick industry where you can play long-term game with long-term people

Don't play status game, ignore people playing status games as they attack
wealth creation guys

Play wealth creation game (business and asset that can earn while you
sleep), seek wealth (don't despise it)

Own piece of a business to gain financial freedom. Real wealth comes from
starting your company or investing. By working for someone (or renting out
time), you will earn bare minimum.

Attain specific knowledge, accountability, and leverage (Productivize


Yourself)

Specific knowledge is something that's too tough to teach anyone like


this (it can not be outsourced or auto-mated). Highly technical and
Creative.

Embrace Accountability, society will reward you with responsibility,


equity and leverage. But it's a double-edge sword too.

Leverage - Product with zero cost of replication (great), Capital (okay),


Labour (not good)

Product Leverage eg - Code, Books, Blogs, Videos, podcasts

If your curiosity ever lets you to the way where the society eventually
wants to go, you'll get extremely wealthy.

Keep uncluttered calendar, but be too busy for coffee (set HIGH personal
hourly rate)

Almanack Naval> 1
Work as hard as you can irrespective of anything, become the best in the
world at it

Keep high integrity people closer and distance yourself from people who
lack it. People don't change, so value highly the fundamentals of people
you meet.

Business Wealth

Technology is something that doesn't quite work yet

Society will pay you for things that they want but don't know how to create
yet. That's when you become wealthy if providing that thing comes
naturally to you, within your skill set and capabilities

Then figure out how to scale it

World is changing fast. Come up to a speed to a new profession in 9


months as in 4 years it'll go obselete. In these 3 years you can become
extremely wealthy.

Become expert in a brand new field in 912 months. Than studying one
thing for years and years. Learn foundation.

Specific Knowledge - can not be taught, but can be learnt

Sales Read Robert Cialdini to improve sales skill, do door-to-door sales)

Musical talent

Obsessive personality

Game theory understanding

Love for science fiction

Know how to learn anything you want to learn

It is sort of unique combination of unique traits from your DNA, Your unique
understanding and your response to it. Think of what you enjoyed doing the
most as a child, and see if that can be honed into a specific Knowledge.

Eg - if I love reading, learning and I get bored too quickly, I will not be a good fit
for doing something that needs 20 years of effort. Rather it will go well with
venture capital, where things are fast and speedy.

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Compounding - Long Term Game

Everything compounds - work, reputation, trust, relationship, money


(compounding money is actually just the first step)

Intentions don't matter. Actions do. Hence it's tough to be ethical

Always work with people with high integrity and high ethics.

Invest deeply, when you find the right thing to do and the right people to
work with. Forget the rest 99%, go all in for this 1%

Life is about trying multiple things and meeting many people 99%, to find
that one that you can go all in for 1%.

Position of Leverage

Following your genuine intellectual curiosity for a career > doing anything
that's making you money right now

Leverage - knowledge only you or a small set of people know

If something entertains you now, but will bore you someday is a distraction.
Keep looking

Meaning of life is to do things for their own sake, be it business, friendship,


romance, exercise, whatever. That's when you'll be most successful

Do things for the sheer fun of it

If you are good at doing something that other people can't do at that
moment (when it's in demand) then you are valuable. Else you are
replaceable.

Eg - Real estate marketplace > Real estate fund > Real


estate developer > Contractor > Labour

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The moment emerges for a skill set where you are uniquely qualified. You
build your brand online by giving away free work and when the time comes,
you get the highest leverage.

If input and output are relatively connected in any job, you are unlikely to
get wealthy. Output should be disconnected to input, 1000X output creates
real wealth.

Build - h/w product, service, software

Sell - marketing, hiring, pitching, communicating, selling to consumers,


inspiring people, doing PR

Can start as salaries individual, but should work your way up to the higher
leverage specific Knowledge and accountability to really become wealthy.

STAY AWAY FROM JAIL, PHYSICAL FATALITY, TOTAL GAMBLING

Get paid for your judgement and not for your work. A slight betterment in
judgement can create a huge gap in pay. Ceo's of the world gets paid
heavily for their better judgement and accountability.

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Don't get indulge in work, think and make your judgement better. Warren
Buffett spends a year deciding and a day acting.

PRIORITIZE AND FOCUS

Value your time at an hourly rate. Ruthlessly spend to save time at that rate

You'll never be worth more than what you think you're worth

No one's going to value more than you value yourself.

Fast forward yourself to your wealthy state and Set a very high hourly rate
for yourself for today, 10K per hour types, even if you don't earn that much
today. Keep reminding your self about it, you'll probably won't engage
yourself in menial tasks anymore like arguing with the electrician, spending
30 extra minutes for 10% discount etc.

Play positive Sum games with long term people. Do not despise wealth.

Spend more time making the big decisions - where you live,
who you're with and what you do.

Say NO to everything and find time to solve the above three biggest
problems.

Surrounding with successful people - find what you're good at. Help people
in that, pay it forward and don't count else you'll lose your patience. On a
long one scale, you will attract what you project.

FIND WORK THAT FEELS LIKE PLAY

See life as endless game of money, wealth, status, social etc. Outcome
really doesn't matter when you stop seeing through the game

There's no end goal or purpose of these games, complete your money


problems and just get off the treadmill of everyday playing unnecessary
games

Retirement is when you stop sacrificing today for an imaginary tomorrow

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How to reach retirement - a) Earn all your burn through passive income. b)
Become a monk with zero burn. c) Do something you love that it's not
about money anymore.

Find the thing you do better than anybody, and something you love. Be
authentic and figure out how to map that to something that the world
wants. Add you name to it.

Best way to stay away from love of money is not to upgrade you lifestyle as
you make money. Make large lumpsum money than a trickle at a time.

Freedom as Priority. Freedom to what you want to do,


freedom to not do what you don't want to do, freedom from
emotions and things that disturbs your peace.

Money can buy freedom and can reduce it too. So beware.

Most successful people - VCs OR people who are good at spotting


companies that has just hit PMF.

Rich without getting Lucky


Type of lucks -

 Hope to get lucky

 Hustle till you get lucky

 Prepare your mind and become sensitive towards spotting luck

 Build your character that luck comes to you

Become the best at what you do

Build a reputation around it

Change luck to destiny

Two pieces about networking -

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Building business relationship well in advance of building a business is a
complete waste of time

And if you are building something interesting, you will always have more
people who would want to know you

BE PATIENT

Even if you have all the pieces in place, there is an indeterminate amount of
time you have to put in to actually hit that hockey stick of success. There's
no get-rich-immediate formula.

Don't keep track, if you enjoy it, keep doing it, keep doing it
and keep doing it

It is the hardest thing to do, but it's also rewarding.

Making money will remove a set of things that could get in the way of
being happy. But it is not going to make you happy. So go make it, but be
cautious too. Don't turn out to be an old-anxious guy.

Building Judgement
There's no shortcut to smart.

Don't spend your time to save money, Save your time to


make money.

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Hardwork ⟶ Overrated

Judgement ⟶ Underrated

Wisdom - Knowing long-term consequences of your actions and then


making the right decision to capitalize on it

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

Without hardwork, you neither develop judgement not leverage

Direction you're heading in matters more than how fast you move. Start
walking towards the right direction

Thinking Clearly

Understand basic concepts of anything, don't run towards advance or


fancy jargons

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Deal with reality, removing the blind sense of self or perceived notion of the
world

Your ego doesn't want to face the truth. Let go of it first, easier it will be to
see the reality

What we wish to be true clouds our perception of what is true If you are
convinced that your business is doing great, you'll reject all the red flags)

Have empty space and time for yourself, where you are
completely available for just thinking process. Atleast two
days a week. It's only after you're bored, you have the great
ideas.

Contrarian - someone who reasons independently from ground up and


resists pressure to conform. Be an optimistic contrarian)

SHED YOUR IDENTITY

We do everything to satisfy our ego, habits that we have picked up over the
years from time you are a toddler

Every belief, habit should be re-evaluated from base principles time and
again, don't just give up on it by calling it a part of your identity

To be honest, speak without identity

Do not self identify yourself with any belief permanently, to see the truth

Lesson from sufferings - Make you accept the world the way it is. Makes
your ego change in an extremely hard way

There's no permanent solutions in a dynamic system

READ - Maths, Science, Philosophy, Microeconomics 101

Learn the Skill of decision making

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Almost all biases are time-saving heuristics. For important decisions,
discard memory and identity, and focus on the problem

Praise specifically, criticise generally (don’t criticise the person, criticise the
approach or the class of activities)

Be more right and more rational in your decision to earn Non-linear returns

The more you know, the less you diversify

Do not make decision based on past event’s pattern. Build set of principles
and mental models

Load your finite brain with great mental models - Farnham Street, Charlie
Munger, Evolution, Game Theory, Nassim Taleb

EVOLUTION - Sperms are abundant, eggs are rare. All the work of mankind
and woman kind is towards solving this problem

INVERSION - don’t do what’s not going to work. Increase your odds of


success by eliminating actions leading to failures.

MICROECONOMICS AND GAME THEORY - Super important, to run a good


business, to have good knowledge of supply-demand, labor-vs-capital,
game theory etc.

Principal-Agent Problem - single most fundamental problem in


microeconomics, must must understand it. “If you want done, then go. If
not, then send.” When you are the principal, you are the owner and you’ll do
a great job. But when you are agent, then you will try to optimise for
yourself rather than principal’s assets. Smaller the company, everyone feels
like principal, the better the compensation can be tied to the exact value
they are creating. Don’t listen to media and society who wants to promote
Agents.

Power of compounding in money, customer growth, business, relations and


everything

Maths - Must have Knowledge of Basic Arithmetic, Compounding,


Probability and Statistics

If you can't decide, the answer is NO. Should I move to this city? Should I
buy a new house? Should I marry this person? Should I work on this idea?

There are so many options for everything, you have to be very certain
to take a decision. If you are needing a spreadsheet of yes and no (pros

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and cons) to finalise it and you are not certain, the answer is NO.

RUN UPHILL - If have two choices to make that are similar, choose the one
with higher short term pain - be it working out, selecting between books or
selecting between business ideas.

Reason - short term pain conditions our brain for long term gain.
Whereas by choosing the alternate task, our brain wants to go the easy
route by skipping short term pain even if that means a long term pain
associated with it.

Happiness
 Don't take yourself too seriously, you're just a monkey with a plan

 The three big ones in life are wealth, health, and happiness. We pursue
them in that order, but their importance is reverse.

 Happiness has totally different meaning for every individual, find your own
definition. And it can evolve too with time.

 Happiness = Stoic. It's not positive thoughts or negative thoughts. It's the
absense of desire of external things. Being present. It is a choice.

 Don't view yourself as the centre of the universe, when you view yourself
as bacteria or amoeba in this whole universe, then you don't have
expectation of how life should "actually" be. You accept life as it is.

 A rational person can find peace by cultivating indifference to things


outside of their control.

 Set your definition of happiness and rules to achieve the same.

 Happiness requires presence - most of the unhappiness comes from


comparing past with the present. Forget everything in the past, no
memories, no regrets, no trips, no people, nothing.

 Anxiety is something that makes you unhappy as it doesn't allow you to sit
and do nothing (literally nothing). Be aware that anxiety is what making you
jump between tasks and always going towards the next task.

 You don't have to fight anxiety, you need to be aware about it and see if the
running thoughts that you are having needs to be present now or not even

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needed.

 Happiness and Purpose might not go hand in hand. Know your definition.

 The idea that you're going to change the external environment around you,
that's going to bring you peace and happiness that you deserve, is the
fundamental delusional thought we suffer from.

 Desire is a contract you make yourself to be unhappy until you get what
you want. Hence, choose your desire carefully.

Skills for happiness

 For work, Surround yourself with people more successful than you

 For play, surround yourself with people happier than you

 You have to try each and everything to find out what actually works for you
- meditation, cooking, yoga, car racing, kite surfing. Unless you try it, you
won't get to know if it's something that makes you happy or not.

 Replace your thoughtless bad habits with good ones - not having alcohol,
not eating sugar, taking sunlight, less use of screens. Games and caffeine
are tools for short term happiness (not in term can ruin it).

 HABITS + PEOPLE YOU SPEND TIME WITH

 Always go for People who are - Positive, Upbeat, need low maintenance in
relationship, Admirable and respectable

 Three things you can do to a thing - Change it, Accept it OR Leave it. If
you choose 1, then it's a desire that is going to take a lot of
mindspace/energy. Hence always have 1 desire at a time.

 Achieve acceptance, it is okay whatever the outcome is. Hack 1 - Step back
and look at previous experiences/sufferings and track your growth from
there. Hack 2 - Think what's the positive in this situation rather than
instantly passing the judgement.

 DEATH is the single most important event that is going to happen to you.
So don't end up wasitng your brief time on the planet having ego wars and
disappointments. Start accepting, appreciate the moment, do something
positive, project some love and do your work.

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CHOOSING TO BE YOURSELF

 Listen and absorb, but don’t emulate.

 No one can beat you in being you, be yourself with passionate intensity

 Goal in life - find people, business, project, art that needs you the most.

To make an original contribution, you need to be irrationally


obsessed with something.

4. Priority order - My physical health > My mental health > My spiritual Health >
My family’s health > My family’s well-being > Rest of the things in the world.

5. Diet - Stay away from food that has Fat and Sugar (carbs) both together eg
- desserts.

6. Simplest diet - Stay away from processed food


7. Workout - do not start your day until you workout in the morning. Even if the
world is melting down, first thing is to workout.

8. Workout - Weights, Yoga, Sport, Running (whatever), just do one thing every
morning

Easy choices, Hard life. Hard choices, easy life.

MEDITATION

 Do things that will increase your immunity - take cold shower. Don't fight
the mind telling you it's cold, accept your body's message of it being cold
and do breathing practice to overcome the pain (watch Tim Ferris and Wim
Hof video)

 It's like diet, everyone has a different regime, so find what works for you.

 Mediation is like intermittent fasting for mind, it helps reduce the mental fat
and makes you more aware about yourself And less fearful.

 Hack - do meditation when in bed, either you'll have deep meditation or


great sleep. Both works.

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 Meditate 1530 min a day Non-judgmental awareness and focusing on
breathe). Observe your thoughts, don't fight

 Always (throughout day), try to keep an eye on your monologue with


yourself and bring back your mind to the present. It'll be hard but very
important.

 Mind is a muscle - it can be trained and conditioned. It needs to be


conditioned as it has picked up bad habits unknowingly from society or
childhood experiences.

CHANGING YOURSELF

 Habit is a strong force of change. Need to be consistent in adopting good


habits and cutting off bad habits.

 See it in terms of 10 year horizon, every 6 months will go into dropping bad
habits and taking up good ones.

 Impatient with actions, patient with results.

 If you want to change, you don't say that "I'll do it." You just get it done.

GROW YOURSELF

 Spend time in setting up systems and environment that'll help you thrive.
Not on the goals.

 If you want to do something later, do it now. There's no "later".

 There's no return in life if you keep doing what everyone else is doing or
read what others are reading for social approvals. Be authentic in your
actions and desires.

 Most successful leaders started out as losers, outcasted by society,


unable to offer any meaning to the society. When they accepted their
loss, and that they won't get the same treatment as other people, they
learned to stay happy in themselves and hence thrived by doing the
things they loved and were best in.

 Motivation is relative, laziest guy seems to be motivated while playing


games. Find your thing.

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FREE YOURSELF

 Hardest thing is not doing what you want, it is knowing what you want.

 Holding back is staying in bad relationship and jobs for years instead of
minutes

 FREEDOM FROM EXPECTATIONS - if people have expectations from you,


it's their problem. If they have agreement with you, then it's your problem.
Otherwise, it's their problem.

 Value your time highly highly highly - don't waste on wrong tasks, events,
people. Leave. Be blunt with your time.

 If you are spending time not doing what you love, earning or learning. Then
what the heck are you doing?

 Don’t spend your time making other people happy. Other people being
happy is their problem. It’s not your problem. If you are happy, it makes
other people happy. If you’re happy, other people will ask you how you
became happy and they might learn from it, but you are not responsible
for making other people happy.

 FREEDOM FROM ANGER - Anger is a contract you make with yourself to be


in physical, mental and emotional turmoil till the reality changes. It's a
punishment to yourself. Observe it.

 FREEDOM FROM EMPLOYMENT - live below your means, so others can't


tell you what to do.

 FREEDOM FROM UNCONTROLLED THINKING - Hardest - Dont fall prey to


monkey mind, Meditate. Acknowledge that you are into a rat race, take time
to raise your heads and appreciate the clouds.

PHILOSOPHY
 Meaning of life? Can be different definition for everyone - ranging from
totally personal TO nothing TO no one, define your own.

 Define your own values that you can have for rest of your life, find people
with overlapping values, stay away from people who doesn't.

 My Values 26/3/2021 - INTEGRITY, HONESTY, LONG TERM, NO ANGER,


GROWTH

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 Rational Buddhism - believing in only those things in traditional Buddhism
that can be verified by self through thought experiments or processes.

 Wisdom - Understanding the long term consequences of your actions.

~ Fin.

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