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Naval Ravikand – August 18, 2015

8/18/15 Naval Ravikand
  • Humans are built to do different things every day. Repeating the same tasks, staying in one spot all day is not natural to us.
  • Push back on anyone, even your mentors and coaches.
  • Happiness is a choice and a skill, it does not come from external success.
  • Started life as a bookworm, became a business combatant and transitioned back to bookworm.
  • Work on the inner being before the external world. Prioritize it.
  • Honesty is his core foundational value. Even when it makes him come across as combatant.
  • You must never fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.
  • Learn to be present in the moment to bring happiness. Stress and distractions lead to unhappiness.
  • The information revolution is a reversal of the industrial revolution
  • We are all moving towards becoming personal brands, contractors not attached to bigger brands.
  • TF – you don’t find yourself, you create yourself.
  • In the startup industry, you get paid for being right when everybody else is wrong.
    • Hard to tell a mad man from a genius.
  • Don’t leave an investment space just because you lost out on it once. Maybe the company was wrong, maybe the timing was wrong.
  • No such thing as epiphanies in life changes, but hard work over time.
  • Success and power don’t include the external state. That still takes massive be work.
  • Book – Bruce Lee – Striking Thoughts
  • Are you learning from tweats and blogs, or are you eating little dopamine snacks all day long?
  • Reading a book in the new age – don’t worry about finishing them or how many you’re reading at once.
  • Blog – Melting Asphalt
  • Blog post – the day you became a good writer
  • Success is peace and health. Winning or losing a game doesn’t matter. If you could sit by yourself for 30 minutes and be happy, you are successful.
  • Enlightenment is the space between your thoughts. Knowing your thoughts, identifying them.
  • Masla’s Hierarchy of Needs.
  • Habits are everything. When to cry, what to think, how to react. Over time you become your habits. A daily habit or ritual is transformative.
    • Create effortless habits. Make change in a sustainable way.
    • Hack in habits that are easier.
  • Tepenyaki tabletop grill (presto?) – slice meats and veggies thin, and eat them straight off the grill. We’re evolved to eat directly off of the fire.
  • Suffering is that moment when you see reality exactly as it is… You’re forced to face reality.
  • TF- Sugar cravings – 2 tricks to fight them: 1) make sure you’re getting enough salt. 2) Bcaa’s.
  • TF- sometimes it’s easier to change a bunch of behaviours at once. Like quitting caffeine, smoking, alcohol, junk food. One often triggers the other, so quitting all at once might be best option.
  • Always be internally ready for a complete change. If you want to do something, you just do it.
  • Actively look for weaknesses in yourself so that you can hack your mind to make them more positive.
  • Book – Sapiens – story is everything for humans, that’s how we developed.
  • Treat your life as a movie, where you are the star and interesting things should be happening to drive the action. Villain? Foil? What would the hero of this story do?
    • Has the advantage of letting you look at life in third person.
  • Books – Siddhartha, the name of the wind, Zorba the Greek, surely you’re joking Mr Feynman.
  • Video – any Feynman interview.
  • Learn to learn, and you have a Trump card that you can trade for any other skill.
  • Chill out, relax, don’t stress so much, live in the moment. Give happiness, and learn to make yourself happy.
  • When the student is ready, the mast appears. Work on yourself, and the answer will appear.
  • Find a way to wake up without an alarm.
    • Sleeping in a completely dark and quiet room is completely unnatural.
  • Our freedom of modern society brings incredible loneliness brought of a disconnect from your tribal instinct.
    • Become a host on couch surfing or try Acra yoga to fight loneliness.
  • Love, not attachment (which is a transaction) should be sincere and given.
  • Desire leads to unhappiness. Choose your desires wisely so that you can choose where you want to be unhappy.
  • Accept. Accept struggle. Accept obstacles. Just accept. Say it in your mind when you are in a highly emotional state. Accept.
  • All knowledge is ultimately personal. Don’t expect to bottle up your knowledge and have someone else accept it. All real learning is unique.