Four insights to start the week

Who are some modern thinkers you appreciate?

It is often much easier to point to philosophers of the past then to look at the modern busy landscape and point out who are the philosophers of today.

One name that I would propose is Naval Ravikant.

He has a unique way of communicating something deeply true through modern channels of social media and podcasts. He has important takes on social media, on parenting, on self image, on success, on becoming wealthy, and many other subjects.

He himself had become wealthy through asymmetric investing, proving that he has an eye for value.

I want to share with you a few things that stood out to me from his recent rare podcast appearance with Chris Williamson.

Don’t take yourself so seriously

I have the chronic issue of taking myself too seriously. The tension that it causes is that, rather than acting authentically, I attempt to perform in a way that I feel is required.

Taking things seriously all of the time makes the messiness of life unbearable.

Regardless of how hard we try, no one has control over all things. If we are going to find joy even in unpredictability, we have to choose to be less serious and much more adaptable.

3 decisions will shape 90% of your outcomes

Three things will determine the overall direction of your life — who you are with, what you do, and where you will live.

Naval recommended spending considerable time on all of these decisions.

Who you are with (who you give attention to) and what you do (what you give attention to) are somewhat obvious. There are many old maxims about becoming like the people you hang around. And we spend so much time at our jobs that it quite obviously shapes our life.

Yet many do not consider the outsized effect location has on health and success.

Many will choose a place to live because of job opportunities or income potential. Others will look based on affordability. Being close to family or finding a safe neighborhood are other concerns.

But there are other things we should also consider when choosing a place to live, such as air quality and water quality, average health outcomes, and neighbors’ values.

One of the largest predictors of a child’s success is their zip code they grow up in. Resources circulate a local community. Will you tap in?

The root of anxiety

Naval gives a great picture of anxiety.

It is like an iron beam. The beam is a support piece holding together two other sections that are twisting and pulling in different directions. This places a lot of stress on the beam.

Your mind is like the beam as it tries to connect two conflicting desires within yourself.

For example, I have a great desire to spend as much time with my wife and kids as I possibly can. And yet, I also have a deep desire to see the Church grow and reach the world with the Good News of Jesus. Sometimes, this requires times away from the family. This tension between family and church life can become stressful.

This stress plays itself out in a lot of different arenas.

Where is the tension in your own life? What is at conflict in your own desires that is causing anxiety?

Understanding is greater than hard work

A final takeaway I will share is that to understand something deeply beats hard work nearly every time.

For example, right now I am trying to learn the Hebrew language. If I understood the language, it would take little effort to get the right answers on the test. But, because I do not understand, I have to spend considerable time in hard work attempting to memorize things that I do not understand.

Another great example comes from the world of advertising. Someone is able to sell large quantities of product because of an advertisement that taps into human psychology. A person created an ad based on their understanding of the human mind, and that ad convinced many people to take action and buy the product. That is much better than the hard work of trying to sell the product door to door.

It is a repackaging of the old adage: work smarter not harder.

If you liked this post, or you feel like it would start a good conversation, please share this with your friends and ask them to subscribe.

It would help me a lot. Thanks for reading! 

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