★★★★★
Review
Naval is one of the greatest thinkers of our generation (I recommend his podcast appearances also) and I’m glad to have had the pleasure of reading this book. Naval is good at not fooling himself and doesn’t take himself too seriously. I have paraphrased from the book in this review and also provided my Kindle highlights.
The book is structured in two segments, i) Wealth and ii) Happiness. Naval makes your uniqueness clear - “specific knowledge cannot be taught, but it can be learned. No one can compete with you on being you.” “Escape competition through authenticity.”
Naval introduces leverage as being permissioned (labour & capital) and permission-less (media and code). The last generation’s fortune was made by capital, but the new generation’s fortune is made by code or media.
“The less you want something, the less you’re thinking about it, the less you’re obsessing over it, the more you’re going to do it in a natural way. The more you’re going to do it for yourself.”
The book teaches that small differences in judgment and capability really get amplified. There are basically three really big decisions you make in your early life: where you live, who you’re with, and what you do. The winners of any game are the people who are so addicted they continue playing even as the marginal utility from winning declines.
Stop keeping count. Otherwise you won’t enjoy it. You have to enjoy it and keep doing it, don’t keep track. Your real résumé is just a catalogue of all your suffering.
Risk-framing: The more desire I have for something to work out a certain way, the less likely I am to see the truth.
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.
“A happy person isn’t someone who’s happy all the time. It’s someone who effortlessly interprets events in such a way that they don’t lose their innate peace.”