Spartan Up #155: It's all about your desires say AngelList Founder Naval Ravikant
Quote from the founder of Spartan: Naval is super smart. Like off the charts smart. If you don’t get something from this you should probably stop listening to the podcast. – Joe De Sena
What is the key difference between a successful startup and one that fails?Luck. You can make your own luck if you stay at it long enough. Entrepreneurial efforts often fail, but good entrepreneurs don’t fail because they stay at it.
No one can compete with you on something you find entertaining: I don’t believe in this model where you pick something to do and you struggle at it your entire life. Rather life is about finding what you are meant to do uniquely.
You can basically get anything you want out of life as long as it’s one thing:The problem happens when we have multiple desires. When we want to do 10 different things and we are not clear about which is the one that we care about.
Naval’s suggestion: Pick one fervent desire that you have above all else. Find a way to reach that desire where it doesn’t feel like work. You enjoy the thing you are doing so much [on a high-level basis] that it won’t feel like work. Then you’ll out-compete everyone else.
The best warriors are the ones that find it fun: Like Jocko Willink. That’s his life. That’s what he lives for. If I would try to compete with that I would lose horribly.
How do you find what you are meant to do? I think for everybody there is something that they do that other people think is work but is effortless for them. Their friends will say I can’t believe you can do that without hating it. Everyone has something like that. And whatever that thing is you can build a career out of that.
The world is a very efficient place: The people who succeed are the ones who are irrationally passionate about something. They aren’t doing it for the money. You just need to be patient.
AngelList was an accident of history: I didn’t start it as a business. I started it as a labor of love. It started as venture hacks that would educate entrepreneurs on how to raise VC. AngelList was just a list of angels they could reach out to. Then it grew into a business.
I try not to have expectations of what I am doing next or where things are going to go: If you do you close yourself off to the opportunities that the universe is constantly dropping all around you. If you are too single-minded with your desires you won’t notice new opportunities to grow that are emerging.
Great quote: Happiness is an internal trait that comes out of being peaceful and accepting of whatever is going on around you.