The 3 MOST DANGEROUS LIES about Success [Naval Ravikant, MrBeast, Kapil Gupta & Mohnish Pabrai]
Hey friend!
I have collected some nuggets around the topic of Success! It is focused on 2 aspects:
How to Be Successful. — Here I picked 2 main insights!
What does Success even mean? Here I picked one big insight!
These insights debunk common beliefs about Success — Some are intrinsically flawed. While others outdated in this digital age.
I picked the nuggets mainly from Naval Ravikant. But also from Kapil Gupta, Jimmy (MrBeast) Donaldson and Mohnish Pabrai.
I hope you will find this article valuable :)
🧠 Top Quotes
“Discipline is really overrated. Discipline is just you fighting with yourself to do something that you don’t wanna do.”
- Naval Ravikant
“The only style worth having is the one you can’t help.”
- Paul Graham
"For general people going thru general life just trying to be successful... Hard work really doesn't matter that much."
- Naval Ravikant
"To me the real winners are the ones who step out of the game entirely -- Who don't even play the game. Who rise above it. And those are the people who have such an internal mental and self-control and self-awareness that they need nothing from anybody else."
- Naval Ravikant (interview with Tim Ferriss)
👨 People
Naval Ravikant is the co-founder of AngelList and co-author of Venture Hacks. He has invested (early-stage) in companies like Uber, Twitter and FourSquare.
Kapil Gupta is an author and Personal Advisor to many renowned Pro Athletes and CEOs -- such as Hayley Wickenheiser and Naval Ravikant.
Jimmy (Mr Beast) Donaldson runs several YouTube Channels, a delivery fast food restaurant (Mr Beast Burger) and two philanthropic projects: Beast Philanthropy and Team Trees. His brand is valued in the Billions of dollars.
Mohnish Pabrai is a renowned investor and entrepreneur. He currently manages around 600-800m$ in his Investment Fund. He also started the NGO "Dakshana" in India (2008), which coaches students to pass the university entrance exams for IT and Medicine. He has a close friendship with Charlie Munger.
📝 Notes
Lie #1 — You need Self-Discipline to Succeed
(Truth: You Need a genuine Obsession to Succeed)
“Discipline is really overrated. Discipline is just you fighting with yourself to do something that you don’t wanna do. So, I would say is more important to find something that you wanna do and that can be productive, as opposed to trying to discipline yourself. Self-discipline is tough. You won’t sustain it. Tiger Woods didn’t become a great golfer thru self-discipline.”
- Naval Ravikant (on a Periscope recording)
Naval argues that self-discipline is not a source of success. In a conversation (recorded on Clubhouse) with his personal advisor Kapil Gupta, they agreed on that true success can only come from a sincere and deep obsession (on something that also has a long-term pay-off), because it’s only when you are sincerely engaged that you will forge your own path. And to be successful, by definition you can’t do what everyone else is doing (competition trap) or merely follow a set of prescriptions or “how-to’s”. You have to add a unique component to the equation! But this can’t be forced. It should come naturally as you try to do something really good (which only happens when you are passionate and genuinely interested — which is why Naval says that “no one can compete on being you”). Paul Graham (founder of Y Combinator) makes reference to this idea on his book — Hackers and Painters:
“At an art school where I once studied, the students wanted most of all to develop a personal style. But if you just try to make good things, you’ll inevitably do it in a distinctive way, just as each person walks in a distinctive way. Michelangelo was not trying to paint like Michelangelo. He was just trying to paint well; he couldn’t help painting like Michelangelo.
The only style worth having is the one you can’t help.”
The more love for the process you have… The better job you will do! Thus, the less discipline (that is, pushing yourself to do something you don’t want to do) that a particular activity demands from you, the more suited is that activity for you and the more chances you have to be the best at it!
"Find what you love and let it kill you." - Charles Bukowski
The Process for Success
Once you start executing on something that genuinely moves you, Kapil Gupta argues that this process is (1) non-linear and (2) unpredictable.
(1) The non-linearity of this process has also been discussed by Nassim Taleb:
"Progress is almost never linear. Ups and downs and bursts."
- Nassim Taleb
(2) The uncertainty factor also fits perfectly with Nassim Taleb’s work (and anyone who cares about real progress and innovation). Nassim argues that is impossible to intellectualize reality, and so instead of having a rigid plan is better to just experiment and based on the outcomes of the experiments, take the rational choice (Up-regulation thru the Convexity Bias).
"What is not intelligible to me is not necessarily unintelligent."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
"Stay hungry. Stay foolish"
- Steve Jobs
The Essence of Success
Kapil Gupta argues that when a person “makes it” and becomes a top performer in his field, what happens is that he has accumulated an almost infinite amount of small details that allows him to perform at that level. The aggregate of these details is what makes the person unique and successful. He also argues that these details have 2 properties:
They are not transmissible, because of the sheer amount. So when a great performer shares "his secrets” he is only sharing the highlights — So anyone that religiously follows “the secrets” of the great performer is doomed to ultimate failure, because in following the highlights he still misses all the small details (not to mention also the fluid evolution of reality which changes the set of opportunities at any given time) Thus, the utility should be more to inspire you, rather than instruct you.
They are not even knowable by the great performers themselves! Kapil argues that “no great artist knows”. Naval Ravikant agreed and mentioned that during the performance these people are in a state of complete selflessness (one of the states of the famous “flow-state”), they are not self-conscious about what they do but are fully immersed in the activity.
The Obsession of Jimmy (MrBeast) Donaldson
The following is an excerpt from a conversation between Jimmy and Lex Fridman. For context, Jimmy was telling Lex about his singular obsession for building businesses.
"Is not even discipline for me.
Is just in my blood.
Is what I wake up (for).
I don't think about it.
I don't push myself.
I don't need to watch a f***ing motivational video to go work.
I just do it.
It's programmed in me at this point.
And I couldn't imagine a world where I don't wake up and do it every day."
- Jimmy (MrBeast) Donaldson (on the latest interview with Lex Fridman)
This connects well with a passage I read on the book The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck (by Mark Manson):
“I wanted the reward and not the struggle.
I wanted the result and not the process.
I was in love with not the fight but only the victory.
And life doesn’t work that way.
Who you are is defined by what you’re willing to struggle for.
People who enjoy the struggles of a gym are the ones who run triathlons and have chiseled abs and can bench-press a small house.
People who enjoy long workweeks and the politics of the corporate ladder are the ones who fly to the top of it.
People who enjoy the stresses and uncertainties of the starving artist lifestyle are ultimately the ones who live it and make it.”
- Mark Manson
Lie #2 — Hard work is critical to Achieve (Financial) Success
(Truth: Good Judgement is critical to Achieve Financial Success)
"Hard work is really overrated. How hard you work matters a lot less in the modern economy."
- Naval Ravikant (The Almanack of Naval Ravikant)
Naval Ravikant was asked by Scott Adams (author of Dilbert) whether hard work was required for success in life — in a scale of 1 (don’t even mind) to 10 (very needed).
Naval responded that, unless you want to build the next big platform winner-takes-all billion dollar company, hard work would be at a 3-4 in the scale.
"For general people going thru general life just trying to be successful... Hard work really doesn't matter that much."
- Naval Ravikant
Why this is the case? Naval argues that we live in an age of infinite leverage, and so…
What you do + How well you do it + Who you do it with >> How hard you work
"Outputs are non-linear based on the quality of the work that you put in."
- Naval Ravikant (on the Joe Rogan Podcast)
Picking Nuggets Note:
Let's analyze this quote in 2 parts: the leverage, and the judgement.
The infinite leverage means that your product or service can be replicated infinitely with the internet at no marginal cost, and you can get paid (potentially) by each of these replications (or create goodwill and track-record that lets you capitalize in future opportunities). This is why pure hard work is much less relevant in our current environment - because you don't have to hustle anymore to make the replications, as now you can delegate this to the robots behind the internet.
"An army of robots is already here. It’s very cheaply available. The bottleneck is just figuring out intelligent and interesting things to do to them." - Naval Ravikant
This takes us to the second part - How can we build good judgement? There are 2 proven ways:
* One is to Iterate Fast. The more you iterate, the more experience you gain, which leads to better judgement.
* The other one is to acquire foundational skills and mental models
"Judgement requires experience, but can be built faster by learning foundational skills." - Naval Ravikant
"You have got to have models in your head and you have got to array you experience - both vicarious and direct - onto this latticework of mental models" - Charlie Munger
Instance of using YouTube (Internet Media) as Leverage...
In the H3 Podcast, Jimmy (MrBeast) Donaldson said that…
"You have to work smarter not harder."
He argues that YouTube is exponential based on the quality of the work that you put in (perfect instance of the previous explanation by Naval Ravikant). And so for him it makes much more sense to put a lot of time and effort into one video rather than make a lot of not-the-best videos — He argues that is way easier (and faster) to get 100K views on a single video, than 100K views from making 100 videos of 1K views each. Because if a video is just slightly better than most videos out there, the YouTube algorithm will take that video and serve it to as many people as possible (who are interested in the content theme) and hide the not-so-good videos from viewers.
Picking Nuggets Note:
An analogy that comes to my mind is the top athletes in races — The number one is just slightly faster than the number 2 or 3. But he will get much much more compensated than the number 2 or 3. So outcomes are non-linear based on the increase in performance.
A common (and negative) motive to do hard work...
Kapil Gupta, in a conversation with Naval Ravikant on Clubhouse, argued that many times people work hard only to have an answer (to prepare ourselves for the case that we ultimately don’t succeed)…
To have an answer for the mind — When it comes attacking and asks you: How come you didn’t make it? If one is armed with the ammunition of hard work, then he can reply to the mind that he did the best he could (and not feel so bad). Whereas if he would have just sit in the coach doing nothing, he wouldn’t have that ammunition to reply to the mind.
To have an answer to the people who bet in you. If you don’t succeed at the end but other people observed you working hard… That somehow feels more forgivable. Because there is romanticism in having tried hard and failed. And effort (for its own sake, without necessarily arriving anywhere) seems to be highly regarded in our Society.
Only in recent history has “working hard” signaled pride rather than shame for lack of talent, finesse and, mostly, sprezzatura.”
- Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“Hard work seems to be sort of the preparing of the bed of failure."
- Kapil Gupta
Lie #3 — Success depends on your noticeable accomplishments
(Truth: Success is a completely internal metric)
The Common View…
"Most people think of someone as successful when they win the game."
- Naval Ravikant
This can be any competitive game. Naval comments a few examples:
If you are an athlete, you will think the top athletes are successful.
If you are in Business, you will think as successful people like Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Satoshi Nakamoto or Marc Andreessen (co-founder of the first widely used web browser).
Naval’s unique view
"To me the real winners are the ones who step out of the game entirely -- Who don't even play the game. Who rise above it. And those are the people who have such an internal mental and self-control and self-awareness that they need nothing from anybody else."
- Naval Ravikant (interview with Tim Ferriss)
Some instances that Naval mentions —> Buddha and J. Krishnamurti
"If you could sit for 30 minutes and be happy... You are successful"
- Naval Ravikant
“All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”
- Blaise Pascal
“Contra the prevailing belief, "success" isn't being on top of a hierarchy, it is standing outside all hierarchies.”
- Nassim Taleb
The Fisherman Story
You can listen to the story in the YouTube video (starts at timestamp 10:20).
(spoil alert!) Story: There is a banker from New York who makes a lot of money but is extremely stressed out. So he decides to take a break from NY and books a remote village in Mexico for one-week. In the village, there is only one more human: a local fisherman.
The banker becomes interested in the life-style of the fisherman and sees him always doing the same thing every day — Wakes up. Go fishing and gets exactly 2 fish. Comes back to his hut. Eats one for lunch. Takes a nap. Eats the other one for dinner. Hangs around his hut and goes to sleep.
In the 3rd day the banker couldn’t take it anymore and went to ask him if he could catch more than 2 fish. The fisherman tells him that of course he could. The banker then advises him to catch more than 2 fish and sell the rest in the market.
The fisherman asks “and then what?”. The banker tells him that with the extra money he can hire a person to catch more fish and have more to sell to in the market.
The fisherman asks “and then what?”. The banker tells him that with the extra money he can build a fleet with many employees and also build his own “canning factory” with a good branding so he could improve profit margins and export worldwide.
The fisherman asks “and then what?”. The banker tells him that he can “take him public” — He can make an IPO (Initial Public Offering) of his new company and help him make a lot more money.
The fisherman asks “and then what?”. The banker tells him that after he has made so much money… He can come to the village to hang out and rest if he wants. At that moment, the fisherman just stares at the banker. And tells him that he is already there!
Mohnish Pabrai shared this insightful story with the students of The Carroll School of Management (Boston College). I have to say this is my favorite story that combines humor with so much wisdom underneath.
The lesson of the story is to think of life in terms of the essence of life. And from the true essence of life, we can derive 2 key lessons:
Life is finite.
“The fool, with all his other faults, has this also, he is always getting ready to live.” - Seneca
We come naked, we leave naked. Any amount of wealth that you generate (and that you won’t need in your life) will be:
- Recycled back to Society.
- Misused by some of the heirs. Also, as Warren Buffet and many other influential people argue, large inheritances are a dis-service for the next family generations.
Check out the YouTube video!
This Blogpost is brought to you by Shortform - The platform that I love using to get nuggets from Books!
Shortform is THE platform to go if you wanna find highly valuable nuggets (big ideas) from important non-fiction books. This is how I mainly learn from books. Beyond offering book summaries, they provide you with a full guide and synthesis of all the worthy ideas in a book. Personally, I love it because I can absorb book ideas at a faster pace compared to reading the entire books, and there is a deep analysis on each idea! (it is not shallowly explained, as it is the case in other platforms).
(Many times book authors will make hundreds of pages based on just a few new ideas just for the sake of producing a book, but in reality they could have given you these new-interesting ideas in just few pages. This is the cool thing about Shortform: you cut to the chase and get the book insights without having to go thru unnecessary extensions of them. Besides, in any book guide on Shortform you can find links to blogposts or other book guides related to the same ideas! -- as Naval Ravikant argues: reading books to completion is more of a vanity metric. What actually matters is to look for ideas, and once you find good interesting ideas, you reflect and research on them. [Naval on the podcast with Joe Rogan]. And it is the foundational understanding of all these truthful and interdisciplinary ideas that will make you better in any life dimension [references: Charlie Munger, Warren Buffet, Naval Ravikant, Mohnish Pabrai]).
So you will likely find many interesting book guides on Shortform! My plan is to read my personally filtered book guides (I have around 50-60 saved on my personal list on Shortform -- which I filtered based on whether I already knew about the author or the book was recommended by someone I trust). And if in a particular book guide I find super interesting-new ideas, I will also buy the book and read it entirely!
If you wanna check out Shortform, you can use my special link to support the channel and you will have a 5-day FREE trial and a 20% off the annual subscription - shortform.com/pickingnuggets
The mark of a great (non-fiction) author...
“It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book.”
-Friedrich Nietzsche
📓 Latest Thoughts
If I had to pick only ONE idea from Nassim Taleb's wisdom…
that has helped me the most (to live better in any dimension of my life), that would be (without any doubt) the concept of embracing CONVEXITY BIAS...
Of course this concept is intertwined with many other ideas from Nassim, but the specifics of this idea are extremely powerful. That's why he calls it "the philosopher's stone" in the real life. This concept implies the typical trial and error (that gives you the optionality factor), and the bias comes from always choosing the "good options" and never taking the "bad options" (once you try and examine the outcomes). As you keep doing this, you increasingly improve your judgement and gather more and more information thru the experimentations! ---> You essentially gain intelligence from the unintelligible.
"What is not intelligible to me is not necessarily unintelligent." - Friedrich Nietzsche
The key is to be comfortable with that feeling of uncertainty! This is, at least to me, the biggest impediment I have to apply this idea.
"The need for certainty is the greatest disease the mind faces." - Robert Greene
But I try my best to be comfortable with it and be aware that starting a project (of my own) without the slightest clue of what I'm doing or what next to do is the best thing I can do if I ever wanna have a chance of getting outstanding outcomes in the long-term. Of course I do start projects with a little plan, but I make the plan just to "start going" and take action, but once I'm "in the action" I have no issue changing or taking a completely different path to my initial plan! In fact, I now willingly seek to do this!
"To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often." - Winston Churchill
Lessons from Leonardo Da Vinci (that we can apply)…
Nurture an insatiable, child-like curiosity.
"Wisdom begins in wonder." - Socrates
Learn because it gives you pleasure, not because you need to.
Pay attention to details.
Let your imagination run free.
Don't be afraid of distractions or procrastination if they feed your creativity.
"What fools call wasting time is most often the best investment." - Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Use critical thinking and experimentation.
Take complex ideas and make illustrations (to understand them better).
Find the intersections of different disciplines / fields.
(this is Charlie Munger's latticework of mental models that comes from learning all the big ideas from all the big disciplines).
Seek perfection.
Seek collaboration.
Don't let money dictate your passions.
Write things down. Always carry a notepad with you.
(recommend checking Tiago Forte's Second Brain concept -- our mind is made to have thoughts, but not to permanently carry those thoughts. That's why is important to write down your thoughts.)
(Taken from a Shortform (affiliate link) summary of Leonardo Da Vinci biography by Walter Isaacson, plus my commentary).
📚 Passages I loved
Passage 1
"In practice I think it’s easier to see ugliness than to imagine beauty. Most of the people who’ve made beautiful things seem to have done it by fixing something they thought ugly. Great work usually seems to happen because someone sees something and thinks, I could do better than that.
Intolerance for ugliness is not in itself enough. You have to understand a field well before you develop a good nose for what needs fixing. You have to do your homework. But as you become expert in a field, you’ll start to hear little voices saying, What a hack! There must be a better way. Don’t ignore those voices. Cultivate them. The recipe for great work is: very exacting taste, plus the ability to gratify it."
- Paul Graham (Hackers and Painters)
Picking Nuggets Note: This recipe for designing is aligned with Nassim Taleb's concept of "Via Negativa", which is the process of elimination / substraction. So instead of thinking about what something "is", you think about what something "is not" and then remove all the things that can't be part of that something.)
Passage 2
"Good design solves the right problem. The typical stove has four burners arranged in a square, and a dial to control each. How do you arrange the dials? The simplest answer is to put them in a row. But this is a simple answer to the wrong question. The dials are for humans to use, and if you put them in a row, the unlucky human will have to stop and think each time about which dial matches which burner. Better to arrange the dials in a square like the burners."
- Paul Graham (Hackers and Painters)
Picking Nuggets addition:
“If I had an hour to solve a problem I'd spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes thinking about solutions" - Albert Einstein
👨💻Other content I have found super valuable lately…
Until next time :)
Julio xx
P.S. If you liked this article, you'll definitely enjoy my free 80-page ebook. It’s packed with 23 big ideas (from top influential doers and entrepreneurs) to become better, richer and wiser. Download your copy here!