NAVAL RAVIKANT

“Everyone makes it up as they go along. You have to find your own path, picking, choosing, and discarding as you see fit. Figure it out yourself, and do it.“

“There is no endpoint to self-awareness and self-discovery. It’s a lifelong process you hopefully ke...

“Any end goal will just lead to another goal, lead to another goal. We just play games in life.“

“When you grow up, you’re playing the school game, or you’re playing the social game. Then you’re playing the money game, and t...

“Money is not going to solve all of your problems, but it’s going to solve all of your money problems.”

“Money is how we transfer wealth. Money is social credits. It is the ability to have credits and debits of other people’s time.”

“The really smart thinkers are clear thinkers. They understand the basics at a very, very fundamental level.”

“The best mental models I have found came through evolution, game theory, and Charlie Munger.”

“Mental models are really just compact ways for you to r...

“If you secretly despise wealth, it will elude you.”

“Money is not the root of all evil; there’s nothing evil about it. But the lust for money is bad.”

“Lusting for money is bad for us because it is a bottomless pit. I...

“If you cannot decide, the answer is no. And the reason is, modern society is full of options.“

“One of the things I’m trying to get rid of is the word ‘should.’ Whenever the word ‘should’ creeps up in your mind, it’s guilt or social programming. Doing somet...

“You don’t get rich by spending your time to save money. You get rich by saving your time to make money.“

“Everybody who really makes money at some point owns a piece of a product, a business, or some IP.”

“Usually, the real wealth is created by starti...

“The means of learning are abundant—it’s the desire to learn that is scarce.”

“Real knowledge is intrinsic, and it’s built from the ground up.”

“If you’re a perpetual learning machine, you will never be out of options for how to make money. You can alw...

“All the real scorecards are internal.”

“The reality is life is a single-player game. You’re born alone. You’re going to die alone. All of your interpretations are alone. All your memories are alone.”

“Training yourself to be happy is completely intern...

“All the returns in life, whether in wealth, relationships, or knowledge, come from compound interest.”

“Value your time. It is all you have. It’s more important than your money. It’s more important than your friends. It is more important than anything.“

“When you find...

“Reading (learning) is the ultimate meta-skill and can be traded for anything else.”

“Read originals and read classics.”

“Reading science, math, and philosophy one hour per day will likely put you at the upper echelon of human success within seven year...

“‘Productize’ and ‘yourself.’ ‘Yourself’ has uniqueness. ‘Productize’ has leverage. ‘Yourself ‘ has accountability. ‘Productize’ has specific knowledge. ‘Yourself ‘ also has specific knowledge...

“I’m always ‘working.’ It looks like work to others, but it feels like play to me. And that’s how I know no one can compete with me on it.”

“My motivation has shifted from being goal-oriented to being artistic.”

“Creating businesses and making money ar...

“I think every human should aspire to being knowledgeable about certain things and being paid for our unique knowledge.”

“Specific knowledge is sort of this weird combination of unique traits from your DNA, your unique upbringing, and your response to it. It’s almost baked i...

“You can only achieve mastery in one or two things. It’s usually things you’re obsessed about.”

“All you should do is what you want to do. If you stop trying to figure out how to do things the way other people want you to do them, you get to listen to the li...

“Whenever you can in life, optimize for independence rather than pay. If you have independence and you’re accountable on your output, as opposed to your input—that’s the dream.”

“My old definition was ‘freedom to.’ Freedom to do anything I want. Freedom to d...

“Retirement is when you stop sacrificing today for an imaginary tomorrow. When today is complete, in and of itself, you’re retired.”

“Once you can solve your money problems, either by lowering your lifestyle or by making enough money, you want to retire.”

There are mul...