Guide to Happy and Wealthy Life

Building the Almanack Prompt

Hey AI Explorer,

Welcome to the latest edition of your weekly newsletter “Solve with AI”.

It has been an interesting week for a lot of people including me. First, the Crowd Strike patch/update debacle that brought the technology world at its knees and then it’s impact on flights and business.

How can a security software patch from one vendor impact globally?

Scary!

Interestingly, I am on a business trip and my flight is now delayed by almost 4 hours. Thank fully I landed in my home country, so it’s just matter of connecting the local flight to get to my city.

I am still a big jet lagged but got access to the Flagship lounge (can’t complain) and I want to take this opportunity to write my latest newsletter for you while I wait for my connecting flight.

I still feel thankful compared to lot of people sleeping at the airport due to the CrowdStrike impact.

I think these major events are a learning opportunity for you and me. Sometimes it is a wakeup call to start evaluating your life and doing a 360 transformation or it simply could be making those critical decisions that you have been delaying for a while.

Earlier this month, I made a major decision to focus on paying my home faster using proven and unique methods.

What’s interesting is today we live in the world where we have access to technology, ideas, concepts and training to solve any problem.

Yes!

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You don’t have to reinvent the wheel to change your live. You just have to follow proven methods and technology to solve your problem.

Today, I will be focusing on concepts and methods popularized by Naval Ravikant in his book “The Almanack of Naval Ravikant”.

The PDF version of the book is free to access and read on the above link but today we will focus on the core concepts and convert it to practical application using ChatGPT.

Let’s dive into some of the core concepts of this book.

Wealth vs Money

People often get confused between wealth and money. You may hear phrases such as

“He/she has a lot of money”.

“He/she is rich.”

When you hear these phrases, you can immediately guess the person who is saying does not understands how it works.

You may hear the phrase “He/she is wealthy.”

The person who is saying this phrase gets it.

Ok wait…so what is the difference you may ask.

Big difference.

Money is simply a medium of exchange used to transfer wealth from one person/entity to other.

Whereas wealth is asset that you own, and it makes you more money even if you may or may not be working.

Having money does not make you wealthy although you can become wealthy faster if you have money.

The number one reason why lottery winners go broke is because they don’t convert money to wealth. They simply spend it all on toys or don’t manage money effectively.

Building wealth involves converting your unique skills and knowledge into scalable products or services that can generate revenue independent of your time.

Knowledge vs Training

Similar to above, people tend to get confused between knowledge and training.

If you ask a Gen Z or Alpha, you may hear something along the lines of “I want to be a pilot or brain surgeon or software engineer.”

That’s great but you don’t become any of that just by getting training or going to college.

Why not?

You may get a degree that “officially” certifies that you can practice your training, but you are not a brain surgeon unless you actually perform a surgery and likewise not a pilot unless you fly a commercial airliner.

Naval talks about the concept of acquiring specific knowledge from experience. It’s often highly technical or creative and it comes from personal experience and interest/passion.

Companies blindly do mass layoffs only to realize the significant impact on their bottom-line years later. Specialized knowledge cannot be acquired by hiring cheap labor with no experience and trying to train them.

It comes with trial and error, learning to manage risks, painstaking attention to detail, failures and successes.

It cannot be gained through a course or a college degree.

Don’t get me wrong.

I highly encourage everyone to get a college degree. You can find hundreds of debates on Redditt and other platforms on the benefits of a college degree.

In fact, I want my kids to elect courses when they go to college that will be useful at least 10 years after they graduate.

Why?

Our world is on a transformative journey due to Artificial Intelligence. The training you get today may not be relevant in few years due to impact of AI.

Most people don’t realize this, and they still select the same courses their parents or graduate friends have selected.

The point is getting a degree first then acquiring specific knowledge through experience.

Leverage

Why do the wealthy people get wealthier?

If I were to distill this to one word, then it is leverage.

They use three types of leverage i.e. labor, capital and code/media.

Using leverage effectively you can significantly boost your efforts and outcomes.

Source: Stonewalls.ch

Now you may not have access to all three types of leverage, but you certainly have at least one of the above.

You may possess a specific skill that can be applied in a different way to give you an edge over others. That’s your leverage.

For example, almost a decade ago I used to write a technical blog that become the top 10 blog in the analytics space competing with giants like Adobe and Google.

I knew that I had writing skills and I used that to start Solve with AI. A completely different type of newsletter but I leveraged by writing skills and it been 8 months since launch with more than 100,000 words.

What’s your leverage?

Do you have a specific skill that can be applied in a different way?

Do you have access to resource i.e. Upwork, freelance that you can use to accelerate your progress?

Do you have assets that can be converted to sources that accelerate income creation?

Long Term Game

Focus on long term planning and challenge short term thinking.

We live in the age of the pinnacle of “get rich quick” schemes promoted by millions of YouTube videos and social posts.

Users use catchy titles, attractive thumbnails and flashy toys to attract views and likes.

It is disheartening to see the Gen Z’s and alpha’s live with the mindset of making quick millions without putting their dues.

Look, if you legitimately put the time, resources and commit to a specific area then you can become wealthy using the Internet or YouTube.

You need understand how views to dollar conversion works to calculate the amount of effort you have to put. The issue is it only works for maybe 1 in tens of thousands.

Play long term game with people who are vested in you for the long term.

Decision Making

The holy grail of success is combining long-term thinking with decision making.

Kids are really good at short term decisions. They can make a quick short-term decision on the fly, and they stick to it. If you are a parent, you may have experienced the episode of “I want the pink unicorn with blue hair and nothing else.”

Short term decisions use different area of our brain i.e. Amygdala and Nucleus Accumbens, and Prefrontal Cortex (ventromedial and orbitofrontal regions).

These areas of our brain help us make quick decisions based on emotions and short-term pleasure.

Grocery stores know this, and they use it to their advantage by placing candies and magazines in the checkout isle.

Long-term decisions are made mainly in Prefrontal Cortex (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex), Hippocampus and Anterior Cingulate Cortex. The key focus of the brain in long term decision is to control impulses and evaluate/analyze options.

It also evaluates your past experiences by accessing memories. Finally, it helps you identify possible error and weigh options.

If we go back to basics and look at the definition of the word “Decision”

Decision: a conclusion or resolution reached after consideration.

Clearly, the word decision by design is meant for longer term. Short term are impulses not decisions.

Long-term thinking leads to better life and business decisions, focusing on the compounding effects over time rather than immediate gains.

One additional note is focus on individual decisions because group decisions are always misleading.

Happiness

Happiness is a skill, and anyone can acquire it.

I literally mean anyone. Humans don't need anything to be happy (although meeting basic needs make it easier). You just have to learn to be happy.

It involves understanding your true desires, practicing gratitude, and living in alignment with your values and purpose.

Social media has changed the definition of happy. It creates unnecessary impact on our personal wellbeing by giving us the illusion that the creator of the post is happy so we should follow that path because hundreds of millions are liking it.

It's not true.

For me, the best time to find happiness is when I am alone pondering on my life and appreciating everything.

Note, my life is not a fairy tale and I have had significant ups and downs all the way.

Sometimes it is very hard to be happy.

However, if you practice enough, you will find happiness even if you have lots of shortcomings.

Time Management

If there is one advice, I can give to my future generations, it will be to stop wasting time. Time management is above any skill you need.

Today, it is extremely easy to waste time and the death scroll of short videos is a never-ending path to huge time suck.

You need to prioritize ruthlessly and focus on what really matters.

Don't overcommit.

Eliminate unnecessary obligations and distractions.

In the last 1 year I have been eliminated many obligations to simplify my life and focus on few that matters most.

It has helped improve my health and wellness.

Health

If there is anything that beats time management then it is maintaining good health.

60’s is the new 40’s. We have access to more biomarkers than we have had any time before.

I cannot emphasize how critical it is to keep tabs on your biomarkers by doing a details blood and microbiome test.

For less than $500 you can do a comprehensive blood test. I use Life Extension’s annual test (not a recommendation. Please consult your physician or health care provider first).

The test is far advance than your regular finger poke and it comes with detail report comparing 100+ biomarkers to optimum values.

Plus, you get free consultation with a nutrition expert who can give you recommendations on what you should do to overcome the gaps.

Viome is also a great service for microbiome test. (Not a recommendation. Please consult a medical practitioner or your health care provider).

Physical and mental well-being should be prioritized to ensure you have the energy and clarity to achieve your goals.

Learning and Self-Education

Continuous and structured/unstructured learning is key to success.

Structured is when you sign up for a training and follow it through the end. Unstructured is learning through books (audio or reading), videos and any media.

I challenge you to explore topics that may not be of your interest but may help you expand your interest. Learning should be followed by curiosity to gain wide-ranging understanding of the world and improve decision-making.

Find time to expand your reach to areas where you thought were not useful in your daily lives and pick a book on Everand (previously call Scribd) or Amazon.

Now that we have gained understanding of the concepts lets develop a prompt to convert these into actions using ChatGPT.