Episode 18, available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube
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“Understanding the consequences of your actions, I think, is...the succinct definition of wisdom. And judgment is just wisdom applied to external circumstances, external decisions.”
About Eric Jorgenson:
Eric Jorgenson is the author of the best-selling book The Almanack of Naval Ravikant. He’s also the host of the podcast, "Jorgenson’s Soundbox." He was on the founding team of Zaarly, a services platform. Eric’s business blog, Evergreen, has educated and entertained over a million readers to date.
During the interview, Eric talks about the creation of the book, the vacuum that's been created for advice and wisdom in a secular age, and the ideas in the book related to wealth, health, and happiness.
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Time Stamps:
(00:00) Intro
(02:36) Eric shares how he learned about Naval Ravikant and what got him interested in learning more about him
(04:11) Eric talks about Naval and his perception of him
(07:00) On getting to know Naval Ravikant
(11:15) Some of Naval’s principles that resonate most with Eric
(16:46) Why was it so important for Eric to write his book?
(19:14) How did Eric approach Naval and actually get access to him?
(21:31) Eric shares his process for writing the book: digging into various resources (podcasts, articles, tweets) and arranging the information
(24:10) Eric shares if he’s had experience as a writer before he wrote his book
(28:07) About having creative control while writing the book
(31:14) Eric shares Buddhism's influence on Naval’s and the knowledge that comes from Naval's own personal story
(37:17) Eric discusses the book's primary principles that can be applied in life
(42:19) Why combining different skills and stacking them makes you unique and valuable
(51:55) Eric talks about financial freedom
(01:01:38) About understanding the consequence of our actions
(01:09:59) Learn about Naval’s principle of being authentically you in your relationships
(01:12:52) How Naval is both Eastern and Western-minded
(01:16:48) How the process of writing the book has affected Eric: how he’s developed, grown, or changed through doing all of the research
Quotes:
“We're rediscovering these things and recompiling them in ways that work for us, that religion has been handing us on a silver platter for a long time. And we're trying to...see which pieces still serve us...”
“The foundation of all of it, I think...is that health is the most core important thing...my health comes before my family's health, not because I don't care about them even more than I care about myself, but because I can't care for them if I do not first care for myself.”
“I was happy to keep doing that work. Because I loved the process of learning and I learned it to such a higher bar than I would have if I was just trying to...just listen to it and...absorb what I can absorb.”
“What I tried to do in the book is...take each of the important concepts and (provide) stories and then order them in such a way that they...build on each other.”
“If you can spend a few hours reading this book and many others and like...(i)t, (it) might even totally change your goals...on how you want your life to turn out.”
“Combining different skills and stacking those skills makes you like increasingly unique and increasingly valuable.”
“Your money can work harder than you can at some scale...(I)f you keep your earnings up, and your spending down and you invest the difference, you will become free.”
“There are secrets that are only accessible to people who have...burned and accumulated scars to reach the thorny middle of the maze, and pick up the treasure that lies there.”
“Understanding the consequences of your actions, I think, is...the succinct definition of wisdom. And judgment is just wisdom applied to external circumstances, external decisions.”
Relevant Links:
- The Knowledge Project Podcast, by Shane Parrish
Book mentioned:
- The Almanack of Naval Ravikant, by Eric Jorgenson
People mentioned (quotes from Wikipedia)
- Naval Ravikant - “Naval Ravikant is an Indian-American entrepreneur and investor. He is the co-founder, chairman and former CEO of AngelList. He has invested early-stage in over 200 companies including Uber, FourSquare, Twitter, Wish.com, Poshmark, Postmates, Thumbtack, Notion, SnapLogic, Opendoor, Clubhouse, Stack Overflow, Bolt (company), OpenDNS, Yammer, and Clearview AI, with over 70 total exits and more than 10 Unicorn companies.”
- Osho - “Rajneesh, also known as Acharya Rajneesh, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, and later as Osho, was an Indian godman, mystic, and founder of the Rajneesh movement. During his lifetime, he was viewed as a controversial new religious movement leader and mystic. In the 1960s, he travelled throughout India as a public speaker and was a vocal critic of socialism, arguing that India was not ready for socialism and that socialism, communism, and anarchism could evolve only when capitalism had reached its maturity.”
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