38 Weeks to Get Rich
Welcome to the “38 Weeks to Get Rich”, where each week we’ll break down a section from Naval’s iconic tweetstorm and interviews on the topics of wealth, freedom, money, status, and happiness.
The full PDF is available here.
What follows is my summary & key takeaways to help you digest the 127 page document.
Week 4: Making Money Isn’t About Luck
Making money isn’t about luck. It’s about becoming the kind of person who makes money.
It’s not about luck, it’s about skills.
Naval says that if he lost all his money and if you were to drop him on a random street in any English-speaking country, within 5-10 years he’d be wealthy again. Because it’s a skill set that he’s developed. It turns out “Becoming Wealthy” is a skillset that anyone can develop.
To make more sense of this skillset, let’s keep using the language of “luck“.
There are four kinds of luck.
1. Blind Luck
This is the blind-luck that happens because of something completely out of your control. Some people think of this as fate.
2. Luck from Hustling
There’s the luck that comes through persistence, hard work, hustle, and motion. It comes from creating lots of opportunities, doing a lot of things, meeting with lots of interesting people.
You create enough work/products/videos/blogs/connections/etc. that luck finds you.
3. Luck from Preparation
Being in a field long enough gives you perception to things that other people would not notice. This insight allows you to capitalize on opportunities that you see before other people see them. You’re prepared before other people are prepared.
So you become sensitive to luck, and that’s through your skill, knowledge, & experience.
4. Luck from your Unique Character
This is the hardest, but most rewarding type of luck. This comes from building a unique character, brand, or mindset, that allows luck to find you.
An example of this is someone becoming really good in a given field, let’s say vintage car restoration. Well, someone in your region inherits an old vintage car and wants it restored; they can’t restore it themselves, they’re going to come to you because you’re the best around.
You created your own luck. You put yourself in a position to be able to capitalize on that luck. Or to attract that luck when nobody else has created that opportunity for themselves. When we talk about “without getting lucky,” we want to be deterministic, we don’t want to leave it to chance.
Becoming Deterministic.
Naval, the author of the original work, grew up poor in India and now lives in the US with a net worth of around $50 Million. But it hasn’t all been easy for him. As he puts it,
I’ve encountered plenty of bad luck along the way. The first little fortune that I made, I instantly lost in the stock market. The second little fortune that I made, or I should have made, I basically got cheated by my business partners. It’s only the third time around has been a charm.
Being Deterministic about creating wealth isn’t about chasing one giant payout. It comes from small things piling up. It’s more about consistently creating wealth by creating businesses, opportunities, and investments. Its not a huge one-off thing.
Wealth stacks up one chip at a time, not all at once.
Despite some years being better than others, wealth stacks up little by little. More options, more businesses, and more investments, open up doors for you to create even more options, businesses, and investments.
Every wealthy person will be quick to point out the years it took them to build what they have. Anyone who says it can be done overnight with one big windfall is selling you something.
Working towards freedom.
The reason building wealth is important, is so you can retire–so you have your freedom. Not retire in the sense that you don’t do anything. But in the sense that you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. You don’t owe your time to anyone else but yourself.
When you have wealth, you’re also free to make choices based on your values–not your budget. You pay more for organic foods because you value your health. You are able to pay an expensive tuition because you value top-tier education for your children.
Your values tell your money where to go, instead of your money telling you what you can value. That’s freedom.
I look forward to sharing more next Friday about some of the practicals to make luck wealth building skills your destiny.
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