Many everyday people strive for wealth and happiness, but most of us struggle along the way and very few seem to achieve both. Still fewer share their insights about how to get there—entrepreneur Naval Ravikant has become known for doing this online, via Twitter, podcasts, interviews, and blog posts. The Almanack of Naval Ravikant is a collection of those insights on wealth and happiness compiled by business blogger Eric Jorgenson.
Born to poor parents in India, Ravikant moved with them to New York as a child. From those humble origins, he eventually achieved tremendous business and financial success as a Silicon Valley entrepreneur in the early 2000s. He’s a founder of several highly-valued companies, including Epinions, Vast.com, The Hit Forge, and AngelList, and he’s also an angel investor in companies such as Uber and Twitter, having provided both with significant start-up capital in exchange for equity early on.
In our guide, we’ve followed the basic structure of The Almanack, which has two parts: advice on how to build wealth and advice on how to build happiness. In the first section of this guide, we’ll explore Ravikant’s principles for building wealth and in the second section, we’ll explore his ideas about building happiness.
Along the way, we’ll explore what others have to say about wealth and happiness and we’ll consider other factors that affect your ability to achieve these things.
(Shortform note: We’ve retained the broad structure that Jorgenson used because he’d already selected Ravikant’s tweets, interview statements, and the like, to fit these two basic themes. However, we’ve simplified the structure by drawing out the key principles within the two major sections.)
In this part of the guide, we’ll consider Ravikant’s advice about wealth. First, we’ll consider Ravikant’s distinction between wealth and money, and next, we’ll look at several principles he sees as critical for building wealth.
Ravikant distinguishes wealth from money. To him, wealth is owning assets that grow over time without further inputs from you. Money, by contrast, is merely the means of distributing wealth and time. The equity you own in a growing landscaping company is wealth; the cash people pay you for mowing their lawn is money. According to Ravikant, it’s more important to focus on generating wealth than on generating money.
(Shortform note: Ravikant’s definition of wealth differs from the standard understanding of the concept. Wealth is typically understood as net worth: The sum of your assets, such as your savings and your investment accounts, minus your liabilities, such as your mortgage and student loans. Owning assets that grow over time could be considered a part of your wealth according to this definition, but it doesn’t encompass all that wealth is.)
To Ravikant, the best measure of wealth is financial freedom. When you achieve financial freedom, you have enough income or assets to cover your expenses for the rest of your life without ever having to work. This, to Ravikant, is why you should pursue wealth: By reaching financial freedom, you can spend your time as you please.
(Shortform note: Although Ravikant says true wealth means financial freedom for the rest of your life, other financial experts note that you can aim for financial freedom for a shorter period of time. Financial freedom is merely having enough net worth to cover your expenses for a given amount of time. As a measure of wealth, then, some financial experts suggest that financial freedom should be measured in years, not money. That is, by dividing your net worth by your annual expenditures, you can figure out how many years of financial freedom you have.)
Ravikant argues that the key to achieving financial freedom is having passive income. This is income that earns money with minimal effort from you. According to Ravikant, the best way to earn this income is by owning assets: For example, selling an easily reproducible product—such as a popular album of original music—is a source of passive income. Similarly, owning equity in a growing company provides passive income: As the company grows, the value of your equity grows. This type of income contrasts with active income, which people typically get as wages for work.
(Shortform note: Developing passive income is considered an important strategy for building wealth, but most financial experts suggest some principles that can be more essential to reaching financial freedom. Specifically, experts recommend you save money. Passive income can be used as a strategy to increase your savings, but the more essential idea is that you need to spend less than you earn. Bearing this in mind, you might consider some other ways of saving money—such as simply earning a higher salary and reducing your household expenses.)
Most jobs earn wages, but to Ravikant, you’ll never get wealthy and achieve financial freedom by working for wages. This is because wages grow linearly—that is, the amount of money you earn is directly related to the amount of time you work. By contrast, passive income streams have the potential to grow nonlinearly: Over time or under the right conditions, they can generate more income per unit of time than wage work can. For example, if you publish a book, you may at first sell only a few copies each week, but in time, you could end up selling hundreds or thousands of copies each week, generating more income with each sale.
(Shortform note: Contrary to Ravikant’s claims, it is possible to build wealth by working for wages. In a survey of over 200 wealthy people, nearly 40% of respondents built their wealth working for wages. The key, in many cases, was how those people chose to save or invest their wages. This is in keeping with Ravikant’s suggestion that owning assets is important for building wealth—by putting that earned money to use, those wage earners amassed a fortune over time.)
Generating passive income requires the leverageable skills of specialization and good judgment. Let’s take a look at these three concepts: leverage, specialization, and good judgment.
Leverage is the ability to multiply effort. In the context of building passive income, this is helpful because any investment (effort) you put into an opportunity can be magnified by the leverage applied to it. Ravikant distinguishes between three types of leverage.
1. Labor: The people who work for you provide leverage through their labor—for example, a task done by two people should take half as long as a task done by one. Ravikant believes this is the worst kind of leverage simply because it’s hard to manage people.
(Shortform note: While Ravikant doesn’t prefer labor as a means of leverage, successful business owners generally have at least some employees. Experts argue that managing employees is a critical skill to building successful businesses.)
2. Money: This is a good form of leverage because it can amplify any decision you make. In the typical start-up, this comes in the form of capital invested in a fledgling company. If the idea is sound, money can make it a reality.
(Shortform note: Money is the main form of leverage in the venture capital (VC) industry. Accordingly, it’s become associated with propping up bad ideas. In many cases, an unprofitable business can be made to appear successful merely because it’s received a lot of VC money. Research shows that 30-40% of VC-backed companies completely fail, and 75% don’t make enough profit to cover the initial investment. Money, then, may be an effective form of leverage, but it doesn’t ensure business success or wealth.)
3. Products that can be replicated without further inputs: Two primary examples of this include media such as books, art, videos, or music, and code such as the script behind your favorite app. This is the best and newest kind of leverage for building wealth, according to Ravikant. A good book needs only to be written once, then it can be reproduced continuously, generating income on each sale.
(Shortform note: It’s important to maintain perspective on this idea: It’s not easy to make money developing a product. Most published books, for instance, don’t turn a profit at all, and few musicians make an income just from releasing music. In cases like these, most experts advise that developing a product has to be accompanied by a comprehensive marketing strategy and supplemented by other streams of income.)
Ravikant believes that, to create products or attract money, you have to specialize in something. Specifically, you should develop a deep understanding of something technical or creative. Expertise in these areas is especially useful for developing products. You could, for instance, become skilled at coding and program an important piece of software that proves valuable to society. Software, once programmed, is infinitely reproducible and so has the potential to provide significant financial returns.
Luck and Success
While skill is important for attracting money and building wealth, as Ravikant suggests, researchers have found that it’s not the most important factor for doing so.
Success is determined by three factors, according to experts: talent (or skill), effort, and luck. Of these three factors, research shows that luck is the most important factor determining success. This is largely because many things outside of your control can profoundly influence your ability to be successful—for example, where and when you were born, your education level, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status.
For instance, in Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell argues that Bill Gates became a successful programmer because of skill and luck. Gates was able to hone his coding skills and capitalize on them largely because he was born at the right time in history and happened to live close to one of the most advanced computer labs of his time. Were it not for such fortunate accidents, Gates may not have achieved his unique success.
To develop a specialization, Ravikant offers two pieces of advice:
First, learn the basics of math and communication. Across all domains of knowledge, certain basic skills apply: simple calculating skills (for example, the ability to competently add, subtract, multiply and divide) and the ability to communicate clearly. So no matter what area of specialization you pursue, make sure you constantly hone these basic skills.
(Shortform note: Ravikant’s advice on improving your math and communication skills is backed up by other experts. Studies suggest that basic math skill (numeracy) corresponds with wealth: In general, people with higher numeracy have more wealth than those with lower numeracy. Likewise, Warren Buffet believes that improving your communication skills can increase your worth by 50%.)
Second, figure out what you’re truly interested in—what you’d learn and practice just for fun. To find this interest, Ravikant suggests you listen to what others observe about you. Family and friends can often see things in you that you can’t. They can identify your core interests even if you don’t notice them.
Another way to discover your interests is to pay attention to your hobbies. Frequently, your hobbies are the things you’re truly interested in: If you find yourself wanting to do a certain thing in your free time, chances are, your interest will make it easier for you to become an expert.
(Shortform note: Research suggests that this piece of advice might not always be helpful: People who believe their interests should be shaped by instinctive passions often abandon those interests when they run into difficulty pursuing them. Experts theorize that when people follow strong passions, they believe those passions will provide them with endless motivation and will pave the way to easy success, but when reality hits, people quickly get discouraged. In contrast, people who believe interests can spring from small sparks of passion rather than strong passions, and that those interests should then be purposefully developed and worked at, are more likely to stick with those interests through tough times.)
Another important skill for developing products and attracting capital is good judgment. If you develop a reputation for good judgment, investments will follow, both because you’ll be able to identify good investment opportunities and because people will invest in you when they trust your insights.
(Shortform note: Business experts advise that attracting investments involves more than just demonstrating sound judgment. For instance, investors need to see a strong business plan, scrutinize your official documents and your management team, and be convinced that your idea can return a profit. Good judgment certainly can help with all of this, but it’s only one factor among many.)
According to Ravikant, developing good judgment requires seeing reality clearly. Seeing reality clearly enables you to size up situations accurately—this is an invaluable skill for making good business decisions. To see reality clearly, Ravikant believes you have to first get rid of your faulty assumptions about the world. Don’t make assumptions about the way things are and don’t fall back on your preconceptions about people or ideas. If you do, you’ll be prone to confirmation bias—that is, to seeing things the way you want to see them—and you’ll be more likely to misinterpret reality.
(Shortform note: Neuroscientists have found that the brain makes assumptions to save energy—assumptions are hardwired into us. How, then, might we follow Ravikant’s advice to rid ourselves of faulty assumptions? Experts note that one helpful technique is to simply assume that your view of the world may be wrong. By adopting this perspective, you’ll be more open to accepting the world as it actually is—even when it contradicts your assumptions.)
Once you’ve rid yourself of faulty assumptions, Ravikant suggests that you have to continuously work on building a more accurate understanding of the world. The best way to do this is to read a lot and constantly learn. In particular, read about science, philosophy, and basic math. These disciplines are grounded in a rigorous search for truth, so familiarizing yourself with them will help you think independently about the world in general and give you better mental tools for understanding reality clearly.
(Shortform note: Researchers have found that our understanding of reality is significantly affected by far more than just our knowledge: It’s affected by numerous unconscious factors. For example, evidence suggests that our physical fitness and emotional state affect our perceptions of the world and that our political leanings even affect our ability to solve math problems. This indicates, then, that studying math, science, and philosophy has little effect on controlling such important unconscious factors.)
Good relationships are invaluable for building wealth because working with people is far more productive and efficient than going solo. For Ravikant, building relationships in business isn’t a matter of short-term networking: It’s a matter of identifying capable and ethical people and building long-term relationships with them. It’s far more effective to simply stick with competent ethical people and deepen your rapport with them than to seek out more people: In business relationships, quality is more important than quantity.
If you’ve built a foundation of trust with someone, and they’ve shown themselves to be consistent, honest, and fair, keep working with them. In this way, your business relationship will grow more efficient over time as you both come to know each other better.
(Shortform note: Some business professionals offer a more nuanced perspective on this point. Quality relationships take time to establish. Because of this, they suggest that it’s simply not always possible to form strong relationships—it’s more important to maintain a balance of relationships. In their opinion, the strength of your business relationships should depend on the context: Industries that require a foundation of trust, such as consulting or sales, may entail having deeper relationships than industries such as event promotion or entertainment.)
The above principles are critical to building wealth, but wealth creation doesn’t happen overnight: Be patient. Ravikant encourages you to simply stick to the practices of developing and leveraging your skills and cultivating deep, trusting relationships with good people. If you give it enough time, these things will pay off.
If your ideas for a product fail at first, just keep generating more ideas. If you make a mistake in judgment, own it and learn from it, then carry on. Stay focused on your specialization, stay attuned to up-and-coming companies, and stick to the work: Achieving wealth is worth it.
(Shortform note: Other financial experts agree that patience is critical to building wealth. They suggest the most reliable way to build wealth is to simply start saving money as soon as you can, never spend more than 90% of what you earn, and invest. Patience is key to this strategy because it helps you delay gratification, stick to your goals, and plan for the long-term.)
In the second part of this guide, we’ll consider Ravikant’s ideas about building happiness. True happiness, as he understands it, comes from being at peace—another way to express this is: True happiness is fulfillment. When you have this happiness, you don’t long for anything more, and you feel your life is complete.
(Shortform note: Research on happiness suggests that focusing on being happy may actually undermine your ability to achieve the fulfillment Ravikant describes. Researchers have found that those who highly value happiness have difficulty feeling happy under conditions that should make them feel that way. They suggest this is caused by people feeling disappointed in their experience of their emotions—they may not feel as great as they expected. Paradoxically, then, one important part of learning to be happy may be not making happiness a high priority.)
In this section, we’ll consider how you might arrive at this place of fulfillment. While Ravikant believes that being wealthy can help you get there, happiness isn’t dependent on external circumstances—it’s a choice. Making that choice is a matter of practicing the right habits.
The first thing you have to do is simply decide to be happy. You can’t wait for external circumstances to become what you want or seek to change them—you need to be OK with them as they are. This isn’t easy to do, but Ravikant believes that by cultivating the right habits you can make it easier.
(Shortform note: While experts in the study of happiness (a field called positive psychology) agree that happiness is partly a choice, they add nuance to that idea by emphasizing that it’s not enough to only choose—you have to also act in intentional ways. For example, choosing to be happy, according to experts, involves practicing kindness toward others, focusing on activities you enjoy, and expressing gratitude regularly. The intention to be happy should be followed by these kinds of actions to have the best result.)
According to Ravikant, we’ve all developed habits we haven’t thought about—these habits tend to make us dependent on external circumstances. Maybe we always have coffee in the morning, or we listen to talk radio on our commute, for example. Over time, we end up needing that cup of coffee to feel well, or we end up craving the feeling of agitation we get from talk radio. Ravikant suggests that we need to replace these thoughtless habits with better ones.
(Shortform note: Ravikant isn’t alone in thinking that your habits affect your well-being. Happiness expert Gretchen Rubin dedicated an entire book to the idea that your habits can be used to influence your happiness. She suggests that you can build habits that work for you if you first understand your basic tendencies. For example, if you’re motivated by meeting deadlines, you might find that setting deadlines for your fitness goals helps you build sustainable routines. If you try to form habits in a way that doesn’t fit with your inclinations, you may get frustrated when it proves too difficult to establish them.)
One habit Ravikant advocates is acceptance. Acceptance is simply being content with a circumstance no matter what—it’s a kind of freedom. As he sees it, it’s freedom from things like frustration, expectation, desire, and so on. Practicing acceptance will help you find contentment. In particular, practice the habit of acceptance in two areas of life.
Freedom From vs. Freedom To
Ravikant distinguishes between freedom from obstacles (negative freedom) and freedom to do what he wishes (positive freedom). This distinction isn’t original to him—it has a long history going back, by some accounts, to the 18th-century philosopher Immanuel Kant and was broadly used by many thinkers throughout the 20th century.
For instance, psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that negative freedom on its own inevitably leads to feelings of isolation and meaninglessness. He believed that positive freedom, by contrast, facilitates a sense of meaning and connectedness to others.
Ravikant uses the idea of positive and negative freedom slightly differently and prioritizes negative freedom over positive freedom. This emphasis stems from his self-professed Buddhist leanings. Buddhism teaches that desire is the source of suffering; therefore, being free from desire enables you to be free from suffering. This is the way Ravikant uses the idea of negative freedom: For him, the desire to change your circumstances is the opposite of happiness because it’s caused by feeling unsatisfied.
The first area where we need to practice acceptance is in our view of ourselves. If we’re going to be happy, we have to accept ourselves for who we are, says Ravikant. Many of us want to change who we are—we’d like to be someone else, or we feel disappointed that we’re not living up to the expectations people have for us. This frame of mind will always stand in the way of being satisfied and finding real happiness.
(Shortform note: Studies find that the practice of self-acceptance closely correlates to feelings of life satisfaction. However, when compared with other habits that promote satisfaction, it was found to be practiced the least. This suggests that most of us have room for improvement in learning to accept ourselves for who we are.)
According to Ravikant, the best way to accept yourself as you are is to simply accept your mortality: Life is short. Even the greatest cultures of the ancient world passed away, their accomplishments all but forgotten. When you recognize the brevity and insignificance of all things, you’ll be less inclined to obsess over who you are. With this perspective, you’ll realize that there’s little use in wasting your short life being frustrated or disappointed with yourself—you might as well enjoy the little time you have.
(Shortform note: A growing body of research indicates that an awareness of mortality correlates with greater happiness, as Ravikant suggests. Experts find that as we age past 50 or if we face serious illness, our priorities begin to shift toward the things we find the most meaningful, such as close friends and family, and away from goals such as wealth and recognition.)
One other way to accept yourself is to stop obsessing over what others think of you—what they expect you to do or achieve, for instance. Do what you want to do. The sooner you start pursuing your genuine interests, the sooner you’ll experience happiness.
(Shortform note: Some experts are convinced that the advice to “do what you want to do” is problematic. This frame of mind, they argue, leads to discontentment and frustration because not only are passions hard to identify, but they’re also not always good sources of income or long-term satisfaction. In fact, researchers have found that pursuing a passion often leads to psychological stress and misery.)
The second area of life in which you need to practice acceptance relates to the circumstances you face. When you face circumstances that aren’t what you want, Ravikant says you have three options: change them, leave them, or accept them.
Trying to either change or leave your circumstances involves some kind of struggle—it involves dissatisfaction: This is the opposite of happiness. It’s far better to practice accepting your circumstances no matter what they are. This practice will help build happiness.
An example of how to do this would be reframing a situation that annoys you—someone cutting you off in traffic, for instance. Rather than fixating on the injustice of the act, consider reframing the situation: Think of how it gives you the opportunity to exercise your self-control or practice changing your perspective. Instead of it being merely an inconvenience, consider it an opportunity for growth.
Acceptance and Cognitive Reframing
This practice of reframing is one strategy Ravikant suggests for learning how to accept your circumstances. In the field of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), this practice is known as cognitive reframing or cognitive restructuring. CBT therapists advise using this strategy for breaking negative thought patterns.
These experts note that it’s common for people to distort their view of their circumstances—to amplify negative feelings and jump to conclusions about what others may be thinking, for instance. These modes of thinking leave us feeling defeated and unhappy. Experts advise that a first step toward escaping these thoughts is to merely pay attention to the fact that they’re happening: Once you’re aware of these negative patterns, you can work on changing them.
As Ravikant suggests, by reframing our understanding of our circumstances, we can begin to train ourselves to avoid these mental distortions and see reality as it is. Experts find this makes it easier for us to accept our circumstances.
The second type of habit Ravikant suggests is self-care. This type of habit encompasses several practices that can help keep your body and mind conditioned to support your happiness.
Your experience of the world is mediated by your physical health, according to Ravikant. This is one of the reasons he’s chosen to prioritize his own physical health above all other things. If his body isn’t functioning well, his mind won’t be able to function well, and he’ll have a harder time dealing with life circumstances. He suggests incorporating the following habits into your own life to care for your body.
(Shortform note: Researchers find that the connection between the health of your body and the health of your mind works both ways: As Ravikant suggests, poor physical health is a risk factor for poor mental health, but poor mental health is also a risk factor for developing chronic diseases and infirmities.)
1. Eat well. Ravikant suggests the paleo diet, which consists of foods that our hunter-gatherer ancestors theoretically had access to, such as grass-fed meat, nuts, and fresh fruit—essentially, nothing processed or refined and no grains, legumes, or dairy.
(Shortform note: The paleo diet is popular, but it may not be as healthy as Ravikant implies. For example, researchers have found that people who follow a paleo diet have higher levels of a chemical compound linked to cardiovascular disease as well as an increased risk of developing cancer and diabetes.)
2. Exercise. Instead of being based around gym equipment, Ravikant believes your exercise should come from play. Consider playing team or individual sports. Whatever you do, it should be something you’re happy to do daily.
(Shortform note: Ravikant’s advice to exercise through play echoes the advice of healthcare professionals: Experts suggest that enjoyment is one of the key factors that determines how well you stick to an exercise habit. If you have fun doing it, you’re more likely to exercise consistently. This may involve trying out different activities to find something that sparks your interest.)
3. Condition your immune system. Ravikant believes that you need to be exposed to allergens and pathogens to build your immune system. If your environment is too sterile, you won’t be very immune.
(Shortform note: Many health experts agree with this point. They note that exposure to a diverse array of environmental microbes correlates to fewer instances of inflammatory disorders such as allergies and autoimmune conditions. However, the evidence suggests that these benefits are mainly conferred during childhood.)
4. Say no. We evolved, says Ravikant, for scarcity—resources were hard to come by. In our modern world of abundance, we have a hard time saying no to all the things we can easily have. Accordingly, we have too much sugar, too much alcohol, too many drugs, and so on. Ravikant believes you need to practice saying no to these things.
(Shortform note: Researchers in the field of neuroscience believe that the human brain evolved mechanisms that cause us to value short-term benefits over long-term benefits. The implications of this are, as Ravikant implies, that it’s harder for us to delay gratification even when we know it’s beneficial to do so.)
Caring for your body is one way to support the health of your mind, but Ravikant recommends four other ways you can do so.
1. Meditate. Ravikant is less interested in the spiritual aspects of meditation than the biological ones: Meditation techniques help you control the signaling in your brain, making you more relaxed. Ravikant has tried many different meditation techniques, and he suggests you do the same. Whatever technique you try, he advocates sticking with it for two months at a time for one hour each day.
(Shortform note: Ravikant's advice to meditate for two months at an hour per day may be daunting—especially for those who haven’t meditated before. However, while research suggests that regularity is helpful for reaping the health benefits of meditation, just 13 minutes per day appears to be enough.)
2. Learn. Learning helps grow your mind and keep it healthy and engaged. Again, the best way to do this is to read. While Ravikant specifically recommends reading basic math, philosophy, and science books, as we saw earlier, he also recommends reading anything you’re interested in. The main reason for this is because learning to love to read is vital for actually learning at all—if you’re interested in reading something, read it.
(Shortform note: While a host of evidence confirms that reading is beneficial for learning, reading alone isn’t as effective as it could be. Evidence indicates that one of the most important ways to increase your learning is to test yourself on what you’re trying to learn. Experts recommend that you first read, then recite what you’ve learned to yourself or a friend, then review the material to correct anything you may have misunderstood.)
Another way to ensure you make reading a regular part of your life is to be okay with not finishing the books you start. For Ravikant, believing that you must finish every book you begin gets in the way of your enjoyment of reading. Instead, read as much as you’re interested, have several books going at once, explore a variety of topics—just read.
(Shortform note: Famously voracious reader Bill Gates disagrees on this point. It’s his practice to always finish the books he starts even if he doesn’t like them. Because of this personal rule, he’s careful about selecting books to read—he wants to choose books that are going to be worth reading all the way to the end.)
3. Maintain social contact. As Ravikant sees it, humans evolved to be in small social groups: We function best in such environments. When you’re frequently in close proximity to friends and family, you have fewer opportunities to get depressed or lonely. This contributes to your sense of contentment and happiness.
(Shortform note: Social contact has been shown to have an important effect on happiness. A recent study found that people who pursued activities to increase their happiness had better results when those activities kept them in contact with others than when the activities were independent.)
4. Live in the present. You’ll only find contentment by embracing your experience as it is right now—don’t look for things to be different than they are. Ravikant says that thinking about the past is the source of a lot of unhappiness. Maybe you regret something you did, or you wish things could be like they used to be. Similarly, looking to the future is often motivated by desire (for a change in circumstances, for instance). For Ravikant, to desire anything is to be discontent. This is unhappiness. According to Ravikant, all you really have is the present. Embracing it is key to finding contentment and true happiness.
(Shortform note: Contrary to Ravikant’s view, evidence suggests that thinking about the past may actually be beneficial for well-being. Nostalgia is a certain form of reflecting on the past that’s been shown to have numerous benefits, including making you feel better about yourself and others, making life seem more meaningful, and making you feel more connected with friends and family.)
Ravikant offers several practical tips for building wealth. In this exercise, you’ll consider how you can take steps toward financial success.
Ravikant considers passive income to be one of the most effective ways to build wealth. If you don’t yet have any passive income streams established, consider what opportunities you may have to establish such a stream of income. Typically, experts recommend a few different avenues of passive income, such as traditional investments that pay dividends, owning real estate, selling products, and so on. In the space below, identify at least three potential passive income opportunities you might pursue over the course of this year.
Now consider what steps you might take in the next month to make one of those passive income opportunities a reality (for example, if your goal is to buy property to rent out, you could start touring houses for sale). Write a brief plan in the space below.
Happiness, to Ravikant, involves caring for both your mind and your body. In this exercise, you’ll consider how you can take steps on both fronts.
If you don’t already regularly exercise, write three to five activities that interest you. Maybe you’re interested in dancing or rock climbing, playing baseball or swimming. Once you’ve done that, brainstorm when you might try one of these activities this month.
In the space below, reflect on your experiences with meditation. Have you tried it? Do you find it intimidating and frustrating, or intriguing and enriching? If you find yourself resistant to it, briefly explain why.
Finally, note how you might experiment with meditation in a way that’s exciting to you. This might mean meditating only for a few minutes a day or exploring new guided meditations to refresh your interest.