On May 31, 2018, Naval Ravikant unleashed a tweetstorm of over 30 insights centered around the question: "How to get rich (without getting lucky)?" This Twitter thread sparked a global phenomenon, rapidly shared and retweeted worldwide. It has since garnered over 200,000 likes and shares, and has been translated into multiple languages. At the heart of his message lies a powerful truth: You can’t get rich by selling your time. Real wealth comes from owning assets or generating “sleep-income”—money made even while you sleep. To achieve this, you must leverage labor and capital, and create products with zero marginal cost of replication. Ultimately, the goal is to transform wealth into the right to enjoy happiness and freedom.
Following this viral moment, Naval continued to share articles, aphorisms, and timeless wisdom on Twitter and other platforms. In September 2020, American entrepreneur and renowned business blogger Eric Jorgenson curated and compiled these insights into a single volume titled The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness. Dubbed by some as the “Poor Charlie’s Almanack for the digital age,” the book quickly soared to the top of Amazon’s business bestseller list. It has since accumulated over 6,000 reviews, with an impressive average rating of 4.7 stars.
Naval Ravikant’s personal journey is nothing short of legendary. Born into poverty in New Delhi, India, he immigrated to the United States in search of a better life. Through perseverance and vision, he became one of Silicon Valley’s most respected angel investors—backing over 100 companies, including Twitter and Uber. He also founded AngelList, a pioneering equity crowdfunding platform. As a serial entrepreneur and investor, his Twitter feed is a treasure trove of punchy, thought-provoking one-liners. Yet, what distinguishes The Almanack of Naval Ravikant from a sea of generic self-help books is its focus on the fundamental logic of life: Learn how to make money when you're young, and after decades of accumulation, learn how to make yourself happy—so you don't end up as a “rich but miserable person.”
As the title suggests, this book revolves around two central themes:
How to build wealth — answering the question of how to earn and grow money.
How to find happiness — addressing the deeper pursuit of lasting joy.
Today, we’ll explore these two dimensions and examine the principles and practices Naval offers on accumulating wealth and achieving a fulfilled life.
Part I: Wealth — The Creation and Accumulation of Wealth
Let’s begin with wealth accumulation. Naval once said:
“If I were to lose everything and be dropped on the street in any English-speaking country, I believe I’d become rich again within five or ten years. That’s because I’ve learned the skill of making money—and this skill can be learned by anyone. Getting rich has little to do with how hard you work. Even if you hustle 80 hours a week in a restaurant, you’re not going to get wealthy. To build wealth, you need to know what to do, who to do it with, and when to do it. Understanding and thinking clearly matter far more than blind effort. If you don’t yet know what to do, figure that out first—don’t just work harder.”
The first line in the book’s section on wealth puts it bluntly: “Making money is not something you just do—it’s a skill that must be learned.” Yet in real life, this skill is rarely taught directly, especially not in schools.
For most ordinary people, the simplest path to earning money is the “job route.” The ideal scenario might look like this: working a 9-to-5 or 9-to-9 job, receiving a monthly paycheck, leading a stable and uneventful life, steadily climbing the corporate ladder, surviving the infamous “35-year-old career crisis,” and spending 30 years in a single field until retirement. Those with a little more drive might explore side hustles to supplement their income. While this path offers a certain sense of financial security, it still falls far short of true financial freedom.
Naval argues that in order to achieve financial freedom, we must first understand the fundamental mechanics of how wealth is created by ordinary people.
Money and wealth are often conflated, but they are fundamentally different. Money is the payment we receive in exchange for time and labor—used to cover daily expenses and short-term needs. But you can never get rich simply by renting out your time. Wealth, by contrast, is the accumulation of lasting, self-sustaining assets. In Naval’s words, wealth is what makes money while you sleep—“sleep-income.”
Imagine owning a rental property that provides you with a steady monthly income without requiring daily oversight—that’s wealth. Or a product link beneath your video, or a QR code people scan long after your video is posted—each purchase generating commissions. “Survive within the 8-hour workday, grow beyond it” is an ideal state for most of us. Knowledge, skills, and even relationships can also become wealth.
Once you understand how wealth is created, the next logical question is: how can we actually get rich—without relying on luck?
Naval condenses the core of wealth creation into just six Chinese characters (in translation): “Turn yourself into a product.” This phrase contains two key elements: “yourself” and “productization.”
“Yourself” is straightforward—it means identifying your uniqueness, strengths, and sense of responsibility. To make money, you must deliver value that is in demand but under-supplied.
“Productization,” however, is more abstract. It refers to the use of leverage. What kinds of leverage? Think labor, capital, media, and code—we’ll discuss these in detail shortly.
In essence, Naval’s point is this: to create wealth, turn your uniqueness into a product and maximize it with leverage.
This process takes a long time. But that time isn’t spent executing—it’s spent thinking. Ask yourself: What unique value can I offer? Everyone is unique in some way. Naval encourages us not to strive to be like others but to uncover what sets us apart—our skills, knowledge, experience, and interests.
And what you do should feel relatively easy and natural to you—that’s your strength. In a prior analysis of the book Should You Do What You’re Good At or What You Love?, we explored how to assess your innate abilities through self-evaluation. Naval offers a simpler method: think back to your childhood—what were the things you could do effortlessly? Or ask your parents and friends what they noticed about you. One quote from the book that stands out: “No one can beat you at being yourself.”
For example, during a project at my university, one task involved stopping strangers on the street to fill out a survey. I noticed some students struggled just to say hello—after a few rejections, they gave up. Others, however, approached strangers with ease, undeterred by rejection. For them, communication and sales came naturally. Once you identify what you’re innately good at, you can double down on it.
After discovering your uniqueness, the next step is to amplify it—to use leverage and create more value. As Archimedes said, “Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand, and I will move the world.” Naval outlines three types of leverage:
Labor leverage – In plain terms, this is entrepreneurship. You hire people to work for you, form a team, and amplify your output through their efforts. As the founder, you reap the rewards of their collective productivity.
Capital leverage – This is using money to amplify your decisions. In other words, using other people’s capital to create more value.
Zero marginal cost products – This form of leverage is the most accessible. “Zero marginal cost” means that once a product is created, it can be distributed at scale without adding significant cost. This includes media, software, and digital content. Bill Gates built his wealth this way—by writing code, launching Microsoft, and then growing it through capital investment and public markets.
In today’s world of ubiquitous media, this third type of leverage is more powerful than ever. A smartphone is often all it takes to start a YouTube channel or livestream. With no gatekeepers and no permission needed, anyone can produce content, build an audience, and earn “sleep-income” through views, ad revenue, and brand deals.
In this sense, “turning yourself into a product” aligns closely with today’s idea of building a personal brand. “Yourself” refers to your content niche—your area of expertise or experience that feels ordinary to you but novel to others. Think of creators who document rural farming life—simple, familiar content for them, but to urban audiences, it represents an aspirational lifestyle. Their productization comes from using platforms like TikTok or YouTube to share that life, amplify its reach, and attract advertisers.
Naval also raises three critical questions for young people at the start of their careers:
Where should I live?
Who should I spend time with?
What kind of work should I do?
These choices shape your life profoundly, but most people drift into them without deep thought. Graduates often head to major cities because their friends do. Others return home to please their parents. Still others stay near their college out of familiarity. But the choice of city—large or small, north or south—should reflect your values, ambitions, lifestyle, and family context, not peer pressure. If you’re unsure how to approach these questions, you might revisit our previous discussion on Should You Do What You’re Good At or What You Love? for further clarity.
Under the first section of the book—titled “Wealth”—is the foundational idea: “How to get rich without getting lucky.” Naval devotes considerable attention to unpacking the concept of luck, categorizing it into four types:
Blind luck – The kind that’s completely out of your control, like winning the lottery.
Luck through persistence – The kind you earn by sheer effort. One person quits after 100 tries; another succeeds on the 101st. This is luck created by refusing to give up.
Luck through alertness – This comes from expertise and experience. If you deeply understand a field, you'll spot opportunities others miss. You become more attuned to emerging trends and better able to act on them.
Luck through uniqueness – The rarest kind. Here, luck seeks you out. When you become so good in a specific niche, the world starts bringing you opportunities unbidden.
After reading Naval’s breakdown, you might question whether this is luck at all. And that’s the point—aside from true randomness, most luck is earned through growth, preparation, and persistence. Wealth, therefore, is not about striking it rich overnight. It's about consistently building toward a future where luck is no longer needed.
Part II: Happiness — A Learnable Skill
Compared to wealth, happiness often feels more elusive.
When thinking about life’s three core pillars—wealth, health, and happiness—most people, as they grow older, pursue them in the order of wealth, then health, and finally happiness. But according to Naval, this order should be reversed: happiness, health, and then wealth.
Some may say, “As long as I have money, I’ll be happy.” Naval disagrees. While money can contribute to happiness, he believes its actual impact is limited. True happiness, he argues, is a choice—and one that can be cultivated through deliberate practice and skill.
1. Let Go of Regret
The first step to achieving happiness is removing the sense of regret and resentment—emotions often rooted in the past. Consider how many times we’ve said to ourselves:
“If only I had worked harder, I might have gotten into a better university.”
“If I had prepared for the civil service exam earlier, I might have passed.”
“If I’d gone to grad school, my life would be different now.”
Living in the shadow of past mistakes—blaming today’s dissatisfaction on yesterday’s decisions—is a sure way to block the path to happiness.
Naval instead proposes a neutral mental state—not dull or empty, but present and childlike. Children, after all, are happiest when fully immersed in the moment, free from complex thoughts or expectations. Nature itself doesn’t assign labels like “happy” or “unhappy”; it is our minds that impose those judgments. How we perceive and react to the world is entirely up to us—a view that echoes the Confucian ideal of “zhong yong” (the Doctrine of the Mean): balance, neutrality, and non-extremity.
2. Live in the Present
Naval stresses the importance of maintaining a peaceful state of mind in the present. Our brains tend to focus either on planning for the future or regretting the past—rarely do we attend to the present moment.
Unlike the popular notion that happiness equals joy, Naval believes happiness is closer to tranquility. After all, no one can stay in a state of constant euphoria. Calmness—not highs and lows—is the natural human baseline. When anxiety arises, instead of resisting it, ask yourself: “Do I want to stay anxious?” or “Is this feeling helping me?” The answers are usually self-evident.
3. Recognize Desire as Self-Inflicted Suffering
We often hear that “desire is the root of suffering.” Naval rephrases this: “Desire is a contract you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want.”
We convince ourselves that “just one more thing” will make us content:
“If I pass the exam, I’ll be happy.”
“If I land a stable job, I’ll be happy.”
“If I get promoted, I’ll be happy.”
“If I buy a house and a car, I’ll be happy.”
“If I get married and have kids, I’ll be happy.”
But when we finally achieve these things, do we actually feel that lasting happiness we imagined? The truth is, the joy is often fleeting—followed by indifference, or even a deeper sense of emptiness. We can’t build happiness solely by altering the external world.
Some might argue, “I don’t care about status or material goods. I just want money. If I have money, I’ll be happy.” But in reality, the desire for money itself often destroys happiness.
In my interviews with professionals across industries, I’ve seen a recurring pattern: someone’s salary jumps from $15k to $30k to $50k. You’d think a $50k monthly income would bring unshakable happiness. But what often follows is increased expenses, lifestyle inflation, and rising anxiety. Because now, it’s not just about earning more—it’s about maintaining this level indefinitely. And that uncertainty breeds pressure and fear.
When we realize that desire is the source of our suffering, we must learn to be mindful and cautious about our wants—and willing to let some go.
As Charlie Munger once said:
“The first rule of a happy life is low expectations.”
A useful formula to remember:
Happiness = What you have / What you want
To lead a happy life, we must manage expectations, not endlessly increase possessions.
4. Eliminate Envy
Another enemy of happiness is envy.
“I want you to do well—just not better than me.”
“What really hurts is not my failure, but my friend’s success.”
These thoughts are far more common than we like to admit.
“Why does he have a better job even though he went to a worse school?”
“Why does she have more vacation days while I work nonstop?”
“Why does she get such a perfect boyfriend?”
Social Comparison Theory explains this well: in the absence of objective benchmarks, we measure ourselves by comparing to others. If others do better, our sense of self-worth is threatened—leading to jealousy. We compare grades in school, job titles at work, children after marriage, and even pensions after retirement. Life becomes a multiplayer competition.
Naval offers a simple yet powerful mental hack:
Would you truly trade your entire life with the person you envy?
Not just the thing you want—but everything: their challenges, habits, background, personality, family. If your answer is no, then the envy is meaningless.
More importantly, life isn’t a multiplayer game—it’s single-player. From beginning to end, you live your life alone. So be yourself, and play your own game.
5. Surround Yourself with the Right People
Naval also emphasizes that our happiness is shaped largely by our daily habits and the people we spend the most time with.
This idea is backed by the famous “Five Chimps Theory”: if you study the five chimps that a chimpanzee spends the most time with, you can accurately predict its behavior. Humans are no different.
Jim Rohn, the father of modern personal development, once said:
“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”
This is explained in psychology as the chameleon effect—we unconsciously mimic the gestures, expressions, and behaviors of those around us.
Think about a friend you often meet for dinner. If they constantly complain—about their boss, the traffic, the wait time at the restaurant—you may try to stay patient at first. But soon, your own mood sours too. Over time, just hearing their name can drain your energy.
Now contrast that with a friend who always smiles, accepts life’s hiccups gracefully, and brings upbeat energy to every interaction. Their positivity rubs off on you too—and naturally lifts your mood.
So, be wise in choosing your companions. Surround yourself with positive, optimistic people—they can significantly enhance your day-to-day happiness.
6. Build Simple Daily Habits
Naval’s happiness techniques are surprisingly simple and actionable:
Meditate
Smile
Exercise
Limit phone use
Stop comparing yourself to others
Tell people you’re a happy person—and then live up to it
You can start implementing these today. At first, you may need to remind yourself intentionally, but over time, they become habits—and happiness follows naturally.
In the end, happiness is a choice—a dance between gaining and letting go. No matter the outcome, approaching life with peace and acceptance allows happiness to emerge from within.
Ultimately, whether it’s wealth or happiness, neither can be passively inherited. They both require intentional action, self-awareness, and consistent effort.
And beyond the two themes I’ve shared today, Naval’s book offers many more profound insights. I highly recommend reading the original if you’re interested. May the wisdom within help you discover your own path to both freedom and fulfillment.
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