Naval on taking action

Agency, Luck, and Hard Work

Naval:

You are entitled to your labor, but not the fruits of your labor. You can’t count too closely or keep track, but you have to do it. That means you take responsibility for everything bad that happens to you, and this is a mindset.

Maybe it’s a little fake, but it’s very self-serving. And in fact, if you can go the extra mile and just attribute everything good that happens to you to luck, that might be helpful too. But at some level, truth is very important. You don’t want to fake it. But I would say that from what I have observed, the truth of the matter is people who work very hard and apply themselves and don’t give up and take responsibility for the outcomes on a long enough time scale end up succeeding in whatever they’re focused on. And every success case knows this. Richard Feynman used to say that he wasn’t a genius. He was just a boy who applied himself and worked really hard. And yeah, he was very smart, obviously. But that was necessary, but not sufficient. We all know the trope of the smart, lazy guy.

And I like to harass all of my friends, including Nivi, that one of the problems that I notice with these guys is you’re just operating way below potential. Your potential is so much higher than where you are. You have to apply some of that into kinetic. And ironically that will raise your potential because we’re not static creatures. We’re dynamic creatures. And you will learn more. You will learn by doing. So just stop making excuses and get in the ring.