The Naval Podcast - Naval Ravikant with BeerBiceps | TRS

All misery comes from rumination, from sitting around, being depressed, going in circles in your own head about me, me, me. Me is a disease.

At some point, if you have high agency, if you're a person that's self-motivated... you will end up where you're meant to go. It's just going to take some effort. The universe drops plenty of opportunity around you, but it's not necessarily on your head; you have to walk over there and pick it up.

Luck is one of those things that you shouldn't believe in even if it's true, because believing it will hurt your agency.

I actually think where you live is the single most important decision you make.

The best path towards truth is understanding—because when you deeply understand something, you're not going to un-understand it. It's the nature of truth that once you see it, once you learn it, you don't unlearn it, because it's true. Truth is indestructible knowledge in your mind.

I found that thinking about yourself is the source of all unhappiness and misery ... Self-obsession is root of all unhappiness.

At any given time in the world's history, there's usually only one or two places that really matter in terms of moving the world forward.

The person who's going to know the most about weight loss is the person who was fat as a kid. The person who's going to know the most about peace and happiness is the one who was the most miserable inside.

If you are older in life and you don't have the next generation to look forward to, then you better find God fast. Because I don't think your own mind and your own life will be kind to you as you get older.

I really believe that you should live your life like an athlete or like a lion, which means that most of your time, you're resting; you're just futzing around; you're lazing around; you're just doing whatever you find entertaining. And then once in a while, you get obsessed with something, and something is important, and you just pour everything into it.

The common belief now is that mushrooms are harmless, right? They're not. I mean, you do enough of that stuff, it'll break your brain.

All my content that is out there that people like, I didn't do it for them; I didn't do it for anything; I didn't do it for anyone; I just did it for me, and it was deeply selfish.

What I like to do is, everything that comes my way, I like to deeply understand it as simply as possible. I have to be able to put it in simple words and simple frameworks and simple concepts.

Unless I understand something at its core fundamental level, I don't understand it.

I don't think about what's changed in my life and if my life is good or bad or if this happened or that happened, and I don't look at old photos of me, and I don't think about old trips ... I don't think about the past. I just don't live in the past, at all.

I don't know how useful it is to prognosticate about where humanity is headed unless you get there yourself first. And you don't have the ability to do anything for anyone unless you embody it yourself.

Love is a feeling of unity. It's the attraction to yourself, actually. It is seeing yourself in something else and then kind of wanting to complete with it.

The feeling of being in love is greater than the feeling of being loved.

If you're doing anything for followers, your followers are worthless.

Only the individual can can truly transcend. Only the individual can rise above whatever is facing them. So putting your faith in a group identity, you're sort of bound for disappointment.

If every person is unique, just imagine how unique every relationship is. So having other people navigate your relationship with hard and fast rules doesn't work ... Each relationship has to work on its own merits.

If you could keep your death in front of you at all times, you will live a magical life.

We are encouraged these days to take in knowledge, pour it into our heads like a bucket, and we regurgitate it, and we use fancy words to cover up what we don't mean and what we don't know, and I don't accept that.

I think the trick is just don't stop asking questions, and keep asking questions until you can answer something to your own satisfaction.

The secret to a happy relationship is two happy people, and you can't be happier than your spouse. It's not happy wife, happy life; it's unhappy wife, unhappy life.

Enlightenment is not something you necessarily, from what I can tell, it's not something you necessarily find or create. It's more just unlearning; it's a shedding; it's what remains when everything else is gone.

I think, if I were to look back, I would say that the only true knowledge I have is the knowledge that is directly verified by me and fits in with the other pieces.

The less you are thinking about yourself... the more you're going to be able to love other people and other things.

The truth is not something that's going to live in a certain region at a certain place at a certain time, has to be told to you by a certain person, certain way. That's not a truth. That's just another experience.

You have to navigate your way towards the people who love you for who you are and you love them the way they are. Nobody needs anybody to change.

All of us function at our best when we don't identify with anything outside of ourselves.

Probably the surest way to not be in a flow state is to try to be in a flow state.