I learned this from Naval

Last year, I picked up a book at a local bookstore and I am so happy that I did. The book was The Almanack of Naval Ravikant. It compiles the valuable lessons of Naval Ravikant, a brilliant entrepreneur, investor, and tinkerer. He is an Indian-American serial entrepreneur, investor, and former CEO of AngelList. He has also invested early in companies like Uber, Twitter, and Postmates.

As a result, Naval has gained a wealth of experience. He frequently advises on wealth, happiness, and life. This advice has been shared across a range of tweets, interviews, and essays. Author Eric Jorgenson curated this advice into The Almanack of Naval Ravikant. 

Today, I’ll share with you the top learning that I derived from this book. Now, remember we’ll just be scratching the surface here, the book is an absolute treasure trove and you should certainly read it. You can check out the book here on Amazon.

With that being out of the way, let’s start.

Money isn’t just about capital, markets, and investments – it’s also about psychology.

Take jealousy, for example. When you compare yourself to others and get jealous of their successes, you get caught in the relative mindset. That’s a recipe for misery. It’s also an obstacle to creating wealth.

If you want to make money, you’re going to have to work with people who are doing better than you. As humans, we’re hardwired to pick up on what others really think of us. When you’re resentful or envious, it shows.

That’s not a good foundation for building the relationships you need to achieve prosperity.

We all play two social “games.”

The first is the money game. Money can’t buy happiness or make all your problems disappear, but it will solve your money problems. That’s reason enough to play the game.

At the same time, lots of people feel that they can’t make money. Rather than addressing this psychological block, they attack wealth creation. Money, they say, is evil, and we shouldn’t pursue it.

This is a standard move in the second kind of game – the status game. Rejecting money as something that they neither need nor want is a way for people to claim a higher status in others’ eyes.

The status game is as old as humanity, and it’s all about the relative mindset. Its purpose is to compare people and establish hierarchies among them – to figure out who’s number one, who’s number two, and so on.

That makes it a zero-sum game. For someone to win, someone else has to lose. Number two can only move up the pecking order if number one vacates that spot.

This game does have its uses. Take politics. If we didn’t play it, we wouldn’t be able to tell who was in charge of things. Fundamentally, though, it’s no more than a necessary evil.

That’s why you should seek to avoid it in your life. Play it too often and you’ll become an angry, combative, and resentful person dedicated to putting others down.

The money game is different. It’s not zero-sum – it’s positive-sum. You can win without someone else losing, or become wealthy without condemning someone else to poverty. Successful business relationships are built on this foundation. They bring people together who understand that, when it comes to the money game, it really is a win-win.

Check out the book HERE on Amazon.

I learned so much more from this book. If you want me to share more of my learnings next week, please comment YES below.

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