Read this book to transform your life (VERY POWERFUL)

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How many of you have heard the name, Naval Ravikant? Let me make it easier for you. If you are on Twitter, then he is someone who has 1.7M followers and 0 followings. Quite popular, right?

A man who believes that ideas are the new oil and all the new fortunes are created with ideas. He is Naval Ravikant, the CEO and co-founder of AngelList, an investor, a philosopher, and a deep thinker. Now the question arises as to how did I come to know about Naval? Do not be impatient. I will provide an answer. First of all, please answer this question.

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How many of us seek help from books, videos, podcasts, or advice to master the art of happiness?

Most of us, including myself. Reading, watching, or listening will do the job momentarily but enduring happiness will be gained only by mindful practice. My knowledge of this extraordinary personality came to light when I read one of his tweets that mentioned, ‘One path to a happy life is to retain a sense of wonder.’ It instantly bombarded me with a rush of mixed thoughts. Gradually, I started reading his tweets and this turned out to be a regular affair. Since I am a fan of podcasts, especially the ones related to motivation and self-help, I visited his website and found myself drowned in a plethora of self-help podcasts. The discovery was amazing.

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Today, I am one among the 1.7M followers.

Basically, the book is a rich compilation of his podcasts, tweeter feeds which curates Naval’s wisdom and has already gained international recognition in a short span. To be honest, the book was pre-ordered by me and had a mind-blowing experience with every page as it delivered a high value per minute reading. This book has covered the world’s two most relevant and demanding topics — wealth and happiness.

Read also: How to overcome almost anything y throws at you

The top 10 high-value takeaways that have transformed my way of thinking which I am sure are going to transform yours too, are-

Happiness is a muscle that we need to exercise.

The three big ones in life are wealth, health, and happiness. We pursue them in that order, but their importance is in reverse order. As mentioned in my earlier post, happiness is a skill that one must develop and nurture in a lifetime. We have to note down deep inside that we are malleable, not the external world so the world’s performances are not in our control. Our lives are a blink of a firefly in the night, just mere specs of dust when compared to the gigantic nature. We have seen, an abandoned house once uninhabited is taken over by trees and bushes. As Naval rightly said, happiness is what’s there when we remove the sense that something is missing in our life. That ‘something’ is called desire which is nothing but a contract that we make with ourselves to be unhappy until we achieve what we want.

Become the best in the world at what you do, keep redefining what you do until this is true.

Unlike labor leverage and capital leverage, a new form of leverage is permissionless like coding, writing books, blogging, recording podcasts, tweeting, and YouTubing. For example, a software developer has an army of robots working for him at night time while he/she sleeps, after they have written the right code. Similarly, a YouTuber after uploading a video can make money based on the watch hours and subscription count. Both do not require permission unlike labor leverage and capital leverage. The bottom line is to become really good at something.

Earn with your mind, not your time-

We are never going to get rich renting out our time. It is the independence and accountability of our output we should aim for, not input. Living in an age of leverage, working with judgment is smarter than the amount of time and hard work injected. If you are able to move a needle in the business by doing something incredible, the company will have to pay you especially when they are not aware of how you did it because it is a part of your innate skill, you are best at. The company will continue paying you what you are worth thereby saving your time and making you more efficient. If you have specific knowledge and accountability of your work, neither you have to conduct a meeting out of compulsion nor try to impress your boss/reporting manager by overdoing things. The only thing you will care for is the actual work itself.

Find work that feels like play-

That which feels like play to you but work to others and this will only come to possibility when you work for yourself. Have we realized that life is fully powered by games? We are playing a money game or a status game or health game or a peace game or all at one go. We continue playing compulsively until we absorb the fact that these are mere games. Then exhaustion creeps in bringing us to a point where we try to come out of the sphere and live life the way we want.

Do not take yourself so seriously, you are just a monkey with a plan —

If you take yourself seriously, then you will only know thoughts and emotions rather than living a joyful life. Nature has no definition of happiness and unhappiness, it is only in our minds that we are happy or sad, so in modern days, we must seek peace from the mind and not peace of mind. Seriousness will snatch away your happiness for sure, rather than solving your happiness problems.

Tension is who you think you should be, relaxation is who you are (in Buddhism) —

You must shed your ego to have a clear picture of reality. This ego gets constructed by your environment, by friends, by parents, by society in the first two decades of your life and the rest of your life goes by pampering and massaging it. A habit is developed based on a situation that can be taken apart based on a different life scenario. For example, in your childhood, you must have developed some habits to get your parents’ attention but are those serving your purpose now? Are they making you happy now or are they becoming barriers to the path of your happiness? If not, then try to shed them as they may lock you in and deter you from the truth. There are two ways to address the problem, one is to accept the way the world is functioning and, two is that the world can make you change your ego in an extremely hard way. For me, Option-1 is a wiser choice.

You don’t get rich by spending your time to save money, you get rich by saving your time to make money —

Sound judgment is what matters most in the modern economy, not hard work. Hard work is overrated but significant, judgment is underrated and significant. You need hard work to develop both judgment and leverage. Correct decision based on judgment is what it takes to win everything, even money. Does not matter how fast-paced you are, if your decision-making ability is weak, you will find yourself in the bleeding zone of nothingness. According to Naval, judgment is wisdom applied to external problems.

Inspiration is perishable, act on it immediately-

Do not keep your inspiration aside as it will decay over time. That very moment you feel like achieving something can decimate once you keep procrastinating. This might sound a bit weird but is 100% true. You all have ideas that are doing circular movements inside our brains, how many of them turn into reality? Great ideas are the new oil that will build great fortunes so unless we begin working on our ideas, they will remain as ideas forever. For instance, I am pretty good at writing on any topic under the sun, hence the idea of reaching millions of people through my articles on Medium took birth. It was hardly a week from the plan that I created my profile on Medium, started penning down my thoughts, and also gave myself a target of reaching 1000 followers in a span of 1 year. Acting on my idea immediately was my sole mantra.

When in bed, meditate. Either you will have a deep meditation or fall asleep. It is victory either way —

In meditation, you sit in there without resisting your mind, thoughts will pop up here and there just like unanswered emails and all you have to do is deal with them. As Naval mentioned, ‘If you can get a free hour of bliss every morning just by sitting and closing your eyes, that is worth its weight in gold. It will change your life.’ It is when you start practicing meditation, then your mind stops chattering and you stop taking things around you for granted. Even going out for a coffee at Starbucks will make you feel on top of the world. This is the power of meditation. Meditation will either make you mindful or you will fall asleep while trying to meditate. Your victory either way.

Read also: 50 things to do if you feel bored at home

Making money is not a thing you do, it is a skill you learn —

You may give your sweat and blood to your job but does it make you rich? No. All you need for getting rich is to know what to do, who to do it with and when to do it. Yes, you cannot skip hard work but it must be directed on the right path. ‘Pick an industry where you can play long-term games with long-term people’. There is no skill like ‘business’ so avoid business classes and business magazines.
The above points are a small chunk of the massive ocean of roaring realities. Just read the book and you will get to know what it is! Believe me, the book is worthy of securing a place on your reading stack. For me, it is the only self-help book that has transformed my life.

If required, I will read it again and again.

That’s all folks.

Be well.

CONTRIBUTED BY Curious Soul

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