The Wisdom Of Naval Ravikant - Eric Jorgenson - #225

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
Hi, friends, welcome back. My guest today is Eric Jorgenson, and he has spent the last three years and over a million words putting together the Almanack Of Naval Ravikant. Now, if you don't know who Naval is, he's a thinker and founder from Silicon Valley, but more importantly, he's risen to prominence, I guess, over the last few years with his Twitter feed, which is kind of like if Aristotle or Seneca or Marcus Aurelius was living in the 21st century and just constantly putting out absolute gold, that's kind of like what it's like to follow Naval online. And the problem is that all of his work is distributed in tiny little 240 character tweets and three minute podcast episodes that he does. So Eric's goal was to compile all of that and then condense it down into a single, easily digestible reference of all of Naval's work. And today we get to go through exactly what he learned upon that mammoth task. I adored Naval's work. I think he genuinely is one of the most unique thinkers that's alive today. And I couldn't be happier to help him promote this project. By the way, this book is free. You can pay for a hardcover or a paperback on Amazon, but you can go to Navalmanack, which is linked in the show notes below, and you can pick up a PDF or an eBook copy of this, absolutely for free. So please tweet Eric, tell him thank you for dedicating three years of your life to a project, which is just so phenomenal that it should be easily a hundred pounds per download. Yeah, I really hope that you enjoyed today. We talked about wealth, happiness, desire, how we limit our own ability to stay present. Some of the contradictions in what Naval says and in modern philosophy as well. It's a really insightful discussion that I think could have a profound impact on your life if you're in the right place to hear it. In other news, this episode of the podcast is brought to you by Surfshark VPN. Protect your browsing online and get access to the entire world's Netflix library for less than the price of a cup of coffee per month. Realistically, you're not going to be globetrotting anytime soon, so you might as well sink your teeth into Netflix's best of. And the easiest way to do that is to get access to America's Netflix library. They have every Marvel film and tons and tons of series and cartoons that you definitely don't have if you are not in that country. And if you are in America and you've already rinsed through all of that, then get yourself a VPN. Have a look at what we've got in the UK. Some nice faulty towers or some Mr. Bean, perhaps, or some anime from Japan. Whatever it is that you're into, you can get access to everything with Surfshark VPN. Also, you can protect yourself from nasty websites that are price matching you and trying to split test different prices making you pay more for the products that you are already trying to buy. You can protect your password from hackers. You get to use this across unlimited devices. So it can be on your phone, your laptop, your iPad, whatever you've got in the household under one account. And it is super easy to do. Literally just sign up, download it, press a button at the top, and you will be able to move around the world like an invisible Netflix surfing ghost or something else. Anyway, head to Surfshark.deals slash Modern Wisdom for 83% off, three months free, and a 30 day money back guarantee. That's 83% off, three months free, and a 30 day money back guarantee. So sign up if you don't like it. Ask for your money back in 30 days, no problems. Surfshark.deals slash Modern Wisdom. But for now, it's time to talk about the wisdom of Naval Ravikant with Eric Jorgenson.
Welcome to Naval Fest 2020 There's big dick energy. We're just marinating in it today, and we're gonna see how much we can jerk off over Naval over the next 60 minutes.

**Eric Jorgenson** (4:10)
A couple hundred pages is probably worth. And then edited material. So we got a lot to go on.

**Chris Williamson** (4:15)
DVD extras, pay-per-view, OnlyFans, like additional content.

**Eric Jorgenson** (4:20)
DVD commentary, bonus scenes, directors cut. We got it all.

**Chris Williamson** (4:23)
I love it. So why are you writing a book about Naval? Why did you, like what makes him worthy of a book? Who is he?

**Eric Jorgenson** (4:30)
I've been following Naval for 10 years now, maybe. He was the first person I kind of got introduced to in the Valley, not personally, but when I was, you know, just a wet behind the ears kid from Michigan who had never left Michigan. It was like trying to get into the startup world. Somebody was like, go read all the venture hacks, follow Naval, do everything he says. Him and Paul Graham were kind of like, those are the lighthouses of the Valley, like go listen and follow. So that I've been kind of following for a long time and I learned a ton from him. And as he's kind of evolved over the years and started sharing more and more stuff, I've learned more and more. And I found myself recommending his podcasts, his tweets, and to more and more people for more and more reasons. And I realized kind of how hard it is for people outside of the Twitter verse and the podcast world to kind of pick up that and run with it and learn from it. But the stuff that he talks about can be so life changing for so many people at many different stages, I think. And there's just so much value there that I really wanted like an easy on-ramp and I wanted a tight package. And I'm watching these like high value huge pieces of wisdom just kind of slide into the Twitter nothingness. And it broke my heart and I'm like, I need to turn this into something more evergreen, something more permanent. And there's no better package than a book. Everybody knows what to do with a book. Everybody, it's easy to gift, it's easy to read through.