A Literary Appreciation.
Inspiring quotations and key lessons from "The Almanack of Naval Ravikant" by Eric Jorgenson.
Dear Book Friend,
I hope you had an awesome week. I hope you see reasons to live and change the world around you.
I want to properly welcome all new "Reading with Chris" subscribers. I appreciate having you along this reading journey. You have a lot of stuff coming your way, like as freebies, book suggestions, and excellent content. I'm also amenable to criticism, new ideas, and suggestions. As we read, I hope we will grow as individuals and learn a lot.
I'll be praising a literary masterpiece this week that I read in April of this year and that has encouraged and aided my development as a person.
Literary refers to literature, you know, writing found in books. Appreciation means you understand and enjoy something. Literary appreciation is, literally, the appreciation of literature. Which might be prose, drama or poetry - Fiction or Non fiction. Fakoya and Ogunpitan (2001) found that literary appreciation can be called the process by which the reader of a work of literature acquires a meaningful understanding of its theme and gains personal insight into the structure of this same work. Appreciating literary works is one of attempts to make those masterpieces to be more valuable.
"The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness, by Eric Jorgenson", is the literary work I wish to appreciate. It is a book brimming with wisdom, careful reflection, and priceless teachings. One of the many wonderful book friends I made online this year was Lengdung Tungchamma, and our friendship has grown beyond social media. He emailed me a soft copy of this book in March. I'll be praising this masterpiece by offering 17 inspiring quotations and 5 key takeaways.
The valuable lessons and insights of Naval Ravikant is found in "The Almanack of Naval Ravikant," which details how to build wealth and long-term happiness by honing a few key abilities while learning how to live a happy life. This book's author, Eric Jorgenson, put it together. He divided the book into two major parts: wealth and happiness (Naval two most explored topics). The chapters of each portion include a variety of tweets, remarks, and statements from Naval. Eric tried to keep the ideas the same as much as possible while editing the phrases to make them flow properly.
Eric Jorgenson is a startup growth guy, writer, and (rarely) an Angel investor. He is on the founding team of Zaarly, and has been publishing online since 2014. His business blog, Evergreen, has educated and entertained over a million readers. Eric felt inspired to write “The Almanack of Naval Ravikant” because of the insights he gained from Naval. He decided to collect Naval’s ideas and pass them on to others in a more accessible and organized way.
(Eric Jorgenson)
Naval Ravikant is a successful entrepreneur from India who grew up in the United States. Despite coming from a low-income family, Naval was able to amass riches through investments and several sources of income while also developing his spirituality and discovering the keys to a fulfilling and well-balanced existence. He has given advice on achieving financial success as well as his personal philosophy of life and happiness to a variety of readers and listeners around the world over the years. He wrote in the book - " I was born poor and miserable. I'm now pretty well-off, and I'm very happy, I worked at those."
Wealth is the main topic of Part one. Here, we can observe Naval's approach to creating and comprehending wealth. Listed below are 10 inspiring quotes from this chapter;
1. "Seek wealth, not money or status. Wealth is having assets that earn while you sleep. Money is how we transfer time and wealth. Status is your place in the social hierarchy."
2. "Pick an industry where you can play long term games with long-term people.
3. "Learn to sell. Learn to build. If you can do both, you will be unstoppable.
4. "Arm yourself with specific knowledge, accountability and leverage. Specific knowledge is knowledge you cannot be trained for. If society can train you, it can train someone else and replace you. Specific knowledge is found by pursuing your genuine curiosity and passion rather than whatever is hot right now. When specific knowledge is taught, its through apprenticeship, not schools."
5. "If you can't code, write books and blogs, record videos and podcasts."
6. "Become the best in the world at what you do, keep redefining what you do until this is true."
7. "The most important skill for getting rich is becoming a perpetual learner. You have to know how to learn anything you want to learn. The school way is old fashioned."
8. "When you find the right thing to do, when you find the right people to work with, invest deeply. Sticking with it for decades is really how you make the big returns in your relationship and your money. So, compound interest is very important."
9. "You will never be worth more than you think you're worth - No one is going to value you more than you value yourself."
10. "The genuine love for reading itself, when cultivated; is a superpower."
The second part of the book contains Naval's philosophy on happiness, which include; internal silence, positive thoughts, the absence of desire - especially the desire for external things. Here are 7 inspiring quotes from this part of the book;
1. "The three big ones in life are wealth, health and happiness. We pursue them in that order, but their importance is reverse."
2. "Maybe happiness is not something you inherit or even choose, but a highly personal skill that can be learned, like fitness or nutrition."
3. "Desire is a contract you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want."
4. "Peace is happiness at rest, and happiness is peace in motion."
5. "At the end of the day, you are a combination of your habits and the people who you spent the most time with."
6. "The more secrets you have, the less happy you're going to be."
7. "You always have three options: you can change it, you can accept it, or you can leave it. What is not a good option is to sit around wishing you would change it but not changing it, wishing you could leave it but not leaving it and not accepting. That struggle or aversion is responsible for most of our misery."
The book "The Almanack of Naval Ravikant" is one I really enjoy. I am grateful for the author and the book's two main themes, wealth and happiness. The book demonstrates how we can get wealth while still being happy. The book taught me the following five important lessons:
1. The future is brighter because the internet and the democratization of technology allows anyone to be a creator, entrepreneur, scientist etc.
2. Happiness is learned. Happiness is like a muscle that can be built by habits.
3. Learn to productize yourself.
4. When you become a lifetime learner, you will become unstoppable.
5. Life is busy. Life can be tumultuous. But always find time for yourself. Value yourself. Read. Learn new skills. Mediate. Be happy. See reasons to live and change your world.
I shall never forget the inspiring quotes and teachings from this masterpiece. They will stay with me forever. I recommend anyone who wants to live a meaningful life to read this book. I firmly believe that if we all put the worthwhile advice from this book into practise, we will all lead better lives and build better society and institutions.
Have you read The Almanack of Naval Ravikant? If yes, How did it influence you?