A Timeless Thread

Hard-won wisdom from Naval Ravikant’s AMA you’ll wish you read sooner.

Years ago, Naval opened himself up to some of the internet’s most curious minds in an AMA on Reddit. The questions poured in: on wealth, happiness, startups, reading habits, and everything in between.

True to form, Naval didn’t just answer, he distilled.

In this edition, we’ve surfaced and selected some of his most insightful responses. The kind that don’t expire. The kind you return to. The kind that shape how you think.

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How would you go about learning new things and not give in to fear of failure?

Learning shouldn’t feel like work. Just read what you like and eventually you’ll get bored of the less useful stuff and move onto the more useful stuff. If you have a lack of motivation, move onto something that motivates you.

Perhaps I’m having a hard time answering this one because I’ve never had a lack of motivation on reading. I just read and read and read. But I read whatever I feel like, not what I “should.” My lack of motivation is around everything else.

How can one escape the curse of mediocrity?

Become a truth-seeking missile in everything, even if it means rejecting, annoying, and arguing with everyone around you.

What questions do you make to yourself in order to make better decisions?

What’s the correct very-long-term solution?

How do I solve this using and committing the minimum amount of time possible?

Does this really matter? (Almost always, no).

How do you know when you have found the right woman?

When you don’t have to ask anyone else.

Parenting advice.

• Answer every question posed (ideally by helping them find the answer). Never leave curiosity unsatisfied.

• Be incredibly honest with children, hold nothing back.

• Don’t force children to do or not do things unless they’re going to put themselves in harms way. If you wouldn’t force an adult to do something, don’t force the child either.

• Love them, unconditionally. My children teach me to love. It’s not their job to love me back.

• They aren’t going to be you or what you want.

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Bonus:

What lessons one could learn from parenting? How does it change oneself?

You get to love someone else more than you love yourself. Normally, you only get to do this by becoming a parent or a saint.

If you’re neither, then you’re going to remain self-obsessed, which is a recipe for compounding misery as life inevitably turns against you.

What took you too long, to figure out?

You can literally, directly, make yourself happier, just like you can make yourself fitter or more educated.

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Even in a sea of advice, Naval’s words have a way of making the complex feel obvious. If any of this stayed with you, pass it on.

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Originally curated by Surbhi, here.