Naval's Latest Interview: 44 Harsh Truths About Human Nature
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Naval's Latest Interview: 44 Harsh Truths About Human Nature
Living in the present moment is the core.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insights
【City Lord Says】Naval Ravikant, a renowned entrepreneur and angel investor. Beyond his business success, Naval has gained widespread influence online through his profound insights on wealth creation, happiness, and life philosophy—frequently sharing thoughts on leveraging, cultivating unique skills, taking responsibility, continuous learning, and pursuing inner peace over fleeting pleasure.
Naval is known for his clarity, rationality, and highly condensed wisdom, wielding significant influence in the tech community and among those seeking personal growth. In short, he's not just a successful entrepreneur, but also a revered life mentor and thinker.
This latest interview with Naval has recently started circulating in Chinese-speaking communities. On our Bilibili channel, we released the full video version in early April:
https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1QbRfY8ECZ/
At fans' request, we’re now sharing the complete written transcript here—packed with 70,000 words of insightful content. (Note: All recent long videos posted on Sky City’s Bilibili are accompanied by full transcripts. Fans interested in reading text versions can follow our channel.)
Here are the main themes from the interview:
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The Paradox of Happiness and Success:
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The conversation opens with a classic dilemma: happiness stems from contentment, while success stems from dissatisfaction. Naval argues that happiness (being satisfied with the present, without craving change) is the more fundamental goal, whereas conventional success (material fulfillment, achieving goals) is merely one path to happiness—and perhaps not even the best one.
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He references Socrates and Diogenes to emphasize that reducing desires itself is a form of freedom, equally valuable as possessing things.
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Naval believes that being happier actually makes you more successful, because happiness brings more energy, focus, and willingness to pursue what you're good at and passionate about—naturally helping you outperform others. Happiness and success aren't trade-offs; they reinforce each other.
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Pain, the Journey, and the Present Moment:
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Naval distinguishes between physical pain and psychological/emotional suffering. The latter often arises from avoiding tasks, being dissatisfied with the present, or holding onto internal attachments and judgments.
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He emphasizes that life is about enjoying the journey itself, not just focusing on outcomes. Since 99% of life is spent in the process, forcing yourself through suffering to reach a goal may leave lasting regrets.
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He recommends mental exercises—such as reflecting back on past moments—to realize how many former pains and obsessions weren’t necessary. Completing work calmly, or even joyfully, is more effective than doing it amid unnecessary emotional turmoil.
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Living in the present is key. Wasting time isn't about idleness—it's about distraction, failing to fully engage with what you're doing right now.
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Deconstructing Wealth and Status Games:
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Wealth creation is a positive-sum game—it creates value collectively, benefiting everyone. It solves financial problems and delivers material rewards.
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Status games are zero-sum games—based on rankings and hierarchies. Advancing your status often means lowering someone else’s, making them inherently adversarial and prone to negative emotions.
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Humans evolved to pursue status because, before wealth existed, status was the only way to access resources. But in modern society, wealth creation is a more worthwhile and enjoyable game to play.
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Fame is a form of status—best when earned, arising naturally as a byproduct of creating value, rather than pursued directly. Chasing fame for its own sake is hollow and fragile.
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Self-awareness, Self-esteem, and Authenticity:
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Naval stresses the importance of authenticity. Lying (to yourself or others) traps you in a “hall of mirrors,” bound by past actions. The world deeply lacks authenticity, and people are highly sensitive to it.
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Self-esteem comes from within—it's “your reputation with yourself.” Building self-esteem requires strictly adhering to your internal moral code, staying consistent even in hardship. Doing good for others and taking responsibility also boost self-esteem.
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Self-doubt and lack of confidence are different. Healthy doubt is “I don’t know what to do yet, I need to figure it out,” not “I’m unworthy” or “others know better.”
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Know thyself: Your implicit knowledge and intuition far exceed what you can clearly articulate. Learn to observe your thoughts and feelings, cultivating an objective view of yourself (similar to meditation), rather than fully identifying with every passing thought.
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Ruthless Self-Prioritization and Time Management:
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Naval admits he’s “wholly selfish,” believing everyone ultimately puts themselves first.
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Time is extremely limited and precious (e.g., ~4,000 weeks in a lifetime). He advocates saying “no” by default to everything unimportant, keeping his calendar open so he can focus energy on truly meaningful and inspiring pursuits.
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Avoid committing to future obligations to prevent being held hostage by your past self. Stay flexible, act based on current flow and inspiration—this maximizes efficiency.
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“Unapologetically prioritizing yourself” isn’t selfishness—it’s about protecting your time and energy to create value and pursue what truly matters. This requires practice and breaking free from social expectations.
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Decision-making and Intuition:
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Critically examine your thinking, distinguishing real problems from ones manufactured by the mind. Much anxiety stems from obsessing over uncontrollable or trivial matters.
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Reflecting on death is an effective way to relieve anxiety—realizing everything eventually ends helps let go of unnecessary worries.
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The true test of intelligence is “Are you getting what you want from life?” This includes two parts: knowing how to get it and wanting the right things.
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In decisions, prioritize long-term peace. When faced with two seemingly equal choices, pick the path that’s painful in the short term, because the brain tends to overestimate short-term pain and underestimate long-term pain.
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Trust your intuition, but verify with reason. Intuition is refined judgment and taste—a distillation of long experience and thought. For major decisions, reflect thoroughly, weigh pros and cons, but ultimately listen to the intuitive answer that arrives with conviction.
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The three most important life decisions: who to be with, what to do, and where to live. These early choices have deep ripple effects and deserve substantial time (e.g., 1/3 of your decision period) for exploration and reflection (analogous to the secretary problem).
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Embrace Iteration, Cut Losses Quickly:
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The essence of learning is error correction. Doing 10,000 iterations is closer to mastery than repeating 10,000 hours.
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Cutting losses quickly is crucial. Once you realize a relationship, project, or path no longer works, leave early—don’t fall for sunk cost fallacy.
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Be optimistic about specific things and overall trends, but skeptical about individual opportunities.
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Find Your “Game”:
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The key to success is **“productizing yourself.”** Find something that feels like play to you but looks like work to others, and that the world needs—then scale it.
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Through authentic self-expression, escape competition. The more natural and aligned your actions are with your nature, the less competition you’ll face.
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Leverage the infinite opportunities in modern society to explore, experiment, and find the domain, location, and people best suited to you. Don’t commit too early.
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Happiness, Relationships, and Values as Foundations:
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Inner happiness first: True happiness comes from within, not external conditions or other people. Trying to change others to gain happiness is futile. “The secret to happy relationships is two happy individuals.”
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Value alignment is essential: Lasting relationships (romantic or otherwise) depend on deep consensus in core values, which matter far more than shared interests. Values are revealed through actions during tough decisions.
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The role of genetics: Naval emphasizes genetics’ huge role in behavior and personality, arguing environmental influences are often overestimated. Choosing a partner is partly choosing the genetic foundation for potential children.
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Learning, Truth, and the Power of Understanding:
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Understanding surpasses memory and discipline: Real learning lies in deep understanding, not rote memorization (“if you must memorize, you haven’t understood”). Psychologically, understanding leads to more lasting behavioral change than discipline. Once you see the truth, you can’t unsee it.
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“Un-teachable lessons”: Many of life’s most important lessons (e.g., the relationship between money, fame, and happiness) cannot be learned through instruction—they must be experienced firsthand. Wisdom often sounds cliché until personal experience gives it meaning.
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Context is king: Universal philosophical advice is often too broad; principles must be applied within specific contexts. Life itself is the best place to test and refine applicable rules.
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Self-awareness, Identity, and Embracing Change:
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Overcome loss aversion and fear: Humans are naturally loss-averse and afraid of change or starting from zero. But successful people willingly restart repeatedly—whether in careers or relationships.
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Don’t take yourself too seriously: Fame and others’ opinions can make you overly concerned with self-image, limiting action and exploration. Maintaining curiosity and an “inner child” mindset is vital.
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Fluid identity: Don’t be bound by past identities or beliefs. When reality conflicts with your beliefs, be willing to update—or even dismantle—your old self.
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Technology, the Future, and Social Trends:
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AI’s Reality: Naval sees large language models (LLMs) as powerful tools (solving search, translation, coding issues)—a breakthrough in computer science—but not AGI or superintelligence. He views them as a different form of intelligence, not a necessary step toward human-level or superior AI, remaining skeptical of AGI/ASI.
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Critique of Modern Medicine & the GLP-1 Revolution: He sharply criticizes limitations in modern medicine (e.g., excessive intervention, lack of deep theoretical explanations), while praising GLP-1 drugs (like Ozempic) as “the most groundbreaking since penicillin,” potentially revolutionizing anti-aging and reducing risks for multiple diseases, profoundly reshaping society and healthcare costs.
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Social Cooperation vs. Individual Freedom: He reflects on pure libertarianism’s limits, acknowledging the role of culture and religion as cooperation systems. Regarding low fertility rates, he sees this as a result of individual choice (female liberation, hedonism) and economics—not requiring forced intervention—and believes economic incentives will eventually provide solutions.
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Parenting Philosophy: Freedom, Love, and Autonomy:
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Unconditional love (as output): A parent’s greatest duty is to give unconditional love (as a parental behavior, not demanding the child feel it), thereby fostering the child’s self-esteem.
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Protect autonomy: Avoid over-"domesticating" children; encourage their innate initiative and willpower, allowing them to make mistakes and learn from them.
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Core of education: Instead of pouring in knowledge, cultivate critical thinking and inquiry—teach them how to think, question, and reason from first principles.
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The Essence of Wealth, Time, and Attention:
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Wealth equals freedom: True value of wealth lies in freedom—the freedom to choose, not to obey others, to follow curiosity, and to take risks to create value.
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Attention is the ultimate currency: Time isn’t the most basic resource—focused attention is. What you choose to attend to shapes the quality of your life experience. Beware the relentless theft of attention in the age of information overload.
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Full Interview Transcript:
[Host]: Happiness is being content with what you have.
[Naval]: Success comes from dissatisfaction. So is success worth it? I'm not sure if this saying still holds today. I said this a long time ago. And many of these things are just notes I wrote for myself—they're highly contextual, come quickly, and pass quickly. Happiness... well, it's a very complex topic. But I always liked the story of Socrates walking into the marketplace, where they showed him all these luxuries and fine things, and he said, "How many things there are in the world that I don't want?" That's a form of freedom. So not wanting something is as good as having it. In an old story about Alexander and Diogenes, right, Alexander goes off conquering the world, meets Diogenes living in a barrel, and Diogenes says, "Don't block my sun." Alexander says, "I wish I could be Diogenes in my next life," and Diogenes replies, "That's the difference—I wouldn't want to be you..." Sorry, it was Diogenes who said, "I don't want to be you." So there are two paths to happiness. One is the path of success: you get what you want, satisfy your material needs. Or like Diogenes, you simply don't want anything. I'm not sure which is more valuable. It also depends on how you define success. If the end goal is happiness, why not go straight for it? Does being happy make you less successful? That's traditional wisdom. It might even be your actual lived experience. You might find that when you're happy, you don't want anything, so you don't get up to do things. On the other hand, you still need to do something. You're an animal. You're here. You're here to survive. You're here to procreate. You're motivated. You're driven. You'll do things. You won't sit around all day. Probably not. Some people do. Maybe that's their nature. But I think most people still want to act. They want to be present. They want to be in the arena. I find that as I've become happier—though "happiness" is a big word—more peaceful, calmer, more focused on the present, more content with what I have, I still want to do things.
[Naval]: I just want to do bigger things. I want to do purer things, things more aligned with what I believe needs to be done and what I can uniquely do. So in that sense, I think being happier can actually make you more successful, though your definition of success might shift along the way.
[Host]: Is that an insight? Do you think you could’ve reached this point without first achieving some success?
[Naval]: At least for me, I always wanted to take the path of material success first. I wouldn’t have gone the ascetic route, sitting around renouncing everything. That seems too unrealistic and painful. In the Buddha’s story, he started as a prince, then realized it was all somewhat meaningless because you’d still grow old and die. Then he went into the woods seeking deeper things. I’d choose the path of happiness that includes material success. Thank you.
[Host]: I think in some ways that’s faster. One of your insights is that fulfilling our material desires is far easier than giving them up.
[Naval]: It depends on the person, but I think you have to try that path. If you want something, go after it. I joke that the reason to win the game is to get rid of it. So you play the game, win it. Then hopefully you grow tired of it. You don’t want to keep cycling through the same game, even though many games are quite engaging, with many levels and relatively open-ended. Then in a sense, you move beyond the game because you no longer want to win. You know you can win. Then either you turn to another game, or you play purely for the joy of playing.
[Host]: Another one of your points is that most gains in life come from enduring short-term pain for long-term reward. That’s classic. Every day is winning the marshmallow test. But there’s an interesting challenge—I think people need to avoid becoming addicted to pain. Using pain as a proxy for progress, rather than for the results of pain. Like, I feel pain because I didn’t eat the marshmallow. I feel pain doing this work. I tie happiness and satisfaction to pain instead of to the outcome of pain.
[Naval]: If you define pain as physical pain, yes, that’s real. It happens, you can’t ignore it. But that’s not what we mean by pain. Pain is mostly psychological suffering and mental torment. It just means you don’t want to do the task at hand.
If you can do the task well, you’re not suffering. Then the question is, what’s more effective: suffering through the process, or doing it without suffering? You hear many successful people look back and say, "The journey was the interesting part, it was actually entertaining—I should’ve enjoyed it more." That’s a common regret. I like a little mental exercise—you can go back in your life, try to place yourself exactly five, ten, fifteen, twenty years ago. Then try to remember: Who was I with? What was I doing? How did I feel? What were my emotions? What were my goals? Really try to transport yourself back and see what advice you’d give yourself, or what you’d do differently. Now, you don’t have new information. Don’t pretend. You couldn’t have gone back to buy stocks or Bitcoin. But just based on your current temperament and some age-related experience, how would you do things differently? I think it’s a worthwhile exercise, so I don’t want to rob you of your conclusion. But I’ll tell you, for me, I’d do the same things, just with less anger, less emotion, less inner suffering. Because that’s a choice. It wasn’t necessary. I think someone who can at least calmly, maybe even happily, do their work is more effective than someone going through unnecessary emotional turmoil.
[Host]: Okay, you ended up with a series of painful successes, the outcome might be the same, but the whole process of getting there… the journey isn’t just the reward.
[Naval]: The journey is the only thing that exists. Even success—due to human nature—we tend to forget it quickly. Our normal cycle is: you sit there, bored, then you want something. While wanting it, you decide you won’t be happy until you get it. Then you enter a phase of pain or anticipation, working hard to obtain it. If you get it, you get used to it, then feel bored again. Months later, you want something else. If you don’t get it, you’re unhappy for a while, then overcome it, then want something else. That’s the normal cycle. Whether you end up happy or not, it usually doesn’t last.
I don’t want to flippantly say making money or success is meaningless—it absolutely has meaning. Money solves all your money problems, so having money is good. That said, there are such stories. I don’t know if you’ve seen the studies—I don’t know how replicable they are. Many psychology studies don’t replicate, but there’s an interesting small study showing people who suffered severe injuries and lottery winners returned to their baseline happiness level after two years. Again, I’m not sure that’s entirely accurate. I think if you earn money through effort, money can buy happiness because in the process, you gain pride, confidence, achievement—you set a goal and achieved it—so I bet that lingers inside. As I said, money solves your money problems, so I don’t want to be too flippant about it. But generally, we experience this cycle of desire, dopamine, satisfaction, dissatisfaction—you must enjoy the journey. The journey is everything, isn’t it? 99% of time is spent on the journey. If you don’t plan to enjoy it, what kind of journey is that? How can you shorten the contract of desire? You can focus, decide you don’t want most things. I think we have many unnecessary desires, everywhere, we have opinions and judgments about everything. So realizing these are sources of unhappiness makes you more selective about your desires. Honestly, if you want to succeed, you must be selective about your desires, you must focus. You can’t excel at everything—you’d just waste your energy and time.
[Host]: Is fame a worthy pursuit?
[Naval]: It gets you invited to better parties, taken to nicer restaurants. Fame is interesting—many people know you, but you don’t know them. It really puts you on a pedestal. It can deliver what you want from a distance. So I wouldn’t say it’s worthless—obviously, people want it for a reason. It’s high status, so it attracts mates, especially for men.
It attracts women, but it comes at a high cost. It means no privacy. You meet weirdos and lunatics. You’re constantly asked strange things. You’re on stage, so you’re forced to perform. So you’re forced to stay consistent with past statements and actions, you get haters and all that nonsense. But the fact that we all seem to want it means saying “No, I’m famous, but you don’t want to be famous” is hypocritical.
That said, I think fame, like anything, is best when it arises as a byproduct of something more fundamentally valuable. Craving fame, yearning for fame, just wanting to be famous—that’s a trap. Just chasing fame for fame’s sake, yeah.
So better to earn fame. For example, respect earned in a tribe by doing something beneficial for the tribe. Who are history’s most famous people? They’re transcendent figures—Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad. Who else is famous? Artists are famous. Art can last a long time. Scientists are famous. They discover things. Conquerors are famous, presumably because they conquered other places for their tribe. They had people to fight for.
So overall, the more you do for larger groups, the higher your status, though it might be seen as tyranny or negative—for example, Genghis Khan was famous, but he was doing good for Mongols. Not so much for others. The higher your level, the more people you care for, the more respect and fame you get. I think these are good reasons to be famous.
If fame is empty—if you’re famous just because your name appears everywhere, or your face is everywhere—that’s a hollow fame. I think deep down, you know this. So it’s fragile, you’re always afraid of losing it, then forced to perform. So the fame held by pure actors and celebrities—I don’t want that. But fame earned by doing useful things—why avoid it?
[Host]: No, you can’t. I think there’s a challenge, especially when people make loud public statements about this. You mentioned feeling almost like a hostage.
Updating your views and changing your mind looks a lot like internet hypocrisy. What I said years ago vs. now—maybe I learned something, updated my beliefs—but few do this properly. I think those frauds... see, this proves he never truly believed it all along.
A few years ago, I went to LA for a retreat, met someone I used to follow—a very successful business and productivity content creator—who completely withdrew from everything, lives as a hermit, focused on his business. I asked why, he said, “I started feeling I had to align privately with what I said publicly.”
[Naval]: Yeah, who said that? Was it Mencken? “Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,” but essentially, all life… all learning is error correction. Every knowledge creation system operates by guessing, correcting errors. So by definition, if you’re learning, you’re wrong most of the time and updating your priors. Say I did that Joe Rogan podcast, I don’t know, eight or nine years ago. People point out something incorrect, and… they pounce on it, because in their mind it slightly elevates their status. Ha, I caught his mistake. Well, I think if you catch someone in an obvious lie—believing one thing but saying another—that’s valid. That’s a character flaw. They shouldn’t lie. But if they just guessed wrong about something… by the way, mostly about AI-AGI, I still think I’m right. But that’s another story. People who think we’ve achieved AGI—by their standards, they clearly passed the Turing test. But interestingly, people always latch onto single statements. Reality is, we’re all dynamic systems. We’re always changing, learning, growing. And hopefully correcting errors. You don’t want to lie in public to appear good. I think people can sniff that out. The world now truly lacks authenticity.
Because everyone wants something, they want to appear a certain way, want to be something, but they’re not. So you find many people saying things they don’t truly believe. I think people are very sensitive to this.
[Host]: Lie detectors have become hypersensitive, trying to judge whether someone truly means what they say.
[Naval]: Many people are wrong. Most of us are wrong most of the time, especially in any new endeavor. There’s a difference between being wrong and being insincere. Deliberately wrong. Yes, exactly. So I think that’s a big distinction. If someone is wrong, no big deal—as long as they have a genuine reason for what they say or believe. But if they’re lying to elevate status or appearance, or to meet expectations, that’s wrong. It’s not just wrong for the audience, it’s wrong for themselves. Because you get trapped in a hall of mirrors. You bind yourself to past statements. So if you lie to others, you lie to yourself. You’re manipulated by someone who isn’t even you. Yeah. Like that line? You’re basically trying to impress people who don’t care about you.
[Host]: They wouldn’t like your real self, and if they saw it, they wouldn’t care. Those who would like your real self can’t see it, so they pass by.
[Naval]: Exactly. You only want respect from a very few people you admire. Trying to demand respect from the masses is foolish.
[Host]: Status games, the allure of accumulation—whether real fame or just falling into competitive comparison traps—they’re always there. The pull of social validation is strong. How should people learn to be less disturbed by status games in such situations?
[Naval]: I think realizing status games aren’t as important as they once were helps. In past societies, going back to hunter-gatherer times, wealth didn’t exist. You only had what you could carry. No stored wealth. So wealth games didn’t exist. Wealth creation games. Before, the only game was status.
If you had high status, you got the scarce resources first. But even then, you had to earn your status by caring for the tribe. Now we have wealth creation—you can actually create a product or service, scale it, and provide abundance for many. It’s not zero-sum; it’s a positive-sum game. I can be rich, you can be rich, we can create things together. Clearly, since we’re collectively far richer than hunter-gatherers, wealth creation is positive. But status is limited. Status is finite—it’s a ranking ladder, a hierarchy. To raise your status, others must have lower status. Now you can have multiple types of status. So you can extend status somewhat, but not infinitely like wealth creation—we could all live on moon bases or Mars colonies. So recognize that status games are inherently limited. They’re always adversarial. They always require direct competition, while wealth creation is just creating products—you don’t need to fight others. In the market, your product must succeed. But it’s not quite the same as insulting others, feeling angry at them, feeling oppressed or elevated, or having feuds. So I’d consider wealth creation games more pleasant. They’re positive-sum and actually deliver concrete material returns. If you have more money, you can buy more stuff—tell me where you can exchange your status at the bank. Indeed. It’s vague, unclear.
Now you see people get rich, have money, what do they want? They want status. So they go to Hollywood, star in movies, donate to nonprofits, attend Cannes or Davos. Then they try to exchange money for status. So people always want what they don’t have. And we’re evolutionarily hardwired to pursue status, as I said, because wealth creation didn’t exist before the agricultural revolution, when you could store grain, then industrial revolution took it further. Now information age takes it further. So people always want what they don’t have. And we’re evolutionarily hardwired to pursue status, as I said, because wealth creation didn’t exist before industrial revolution.
We’re evolutionarily biologically hardwired to pursue status because, as I said, wealth creation didn’t really exist before industrial revolution, which pushed it to another level. We’re evolutionarily biologically hardwired to pursue status… Focus on wealth games and status games. If you want to build followers on social media, become famous, then use fame to get rich, that path is much harder than getting rich first. Then pursue your fame. That’s my advice.
[Host]: As you said, many people indeed do this. Interestingly, those who’ve reached such wealth levels—you wouldn’t think you need that status? Given most people try using status to cash in for wealth. If you already made money, already have assets, why go the opposite way? As you said, because we biologically crave status so intensely, while wealth is a novelty. It’s new. It’s new. Does this mean the reason to play the game is to win and end it, and winning and ending it for status is harder than for wealth? Good observation. I hadn’t thought of that, but you’re right. And you always have that feeling—that’s the point of leaderboards, iTunes Billboard charts.
[Naval]: Wealth is something you need to understand more rationally. There’s a visceral aspect, more food, survival, but to truly grasp wealth’s impact, power, capabilities, limitations, pros and cons, you need to use more of your neocortex. I think that’s right. I think people always want more status, but I think at some level of wealth you can feel satisfied.
[Host]: Right. And it’s zero-sum. Right. I guess that’s Forbes’ list of global richest. Climbing that path is tougher.
[Naval]: But in fact, iTunes and YouTube let you compete daily with contemporaries, show rises and falls in likes, comments, ratings. That’s how much you dropped. That’s how much you rose. Exactly. They keep you forever on that treadmill.
[Host]: Jimmy Carr has a cool idea—he says trajectory matters more than position. Hmm. So if you’re ranked 101 globally but were 200 last year, versus ranked second globally but were first last year, the feeling of deceleration is very clear.
[Naval]: Back to evolution. Something that keeps bleeding will eventually die unless you stop the bleeding. So you’re born not wanting to lose what you have. And because we evolved in such harsh survival conditions, you don’t want to give up anything. So we’re born not wanting to give up anything. So you cling. Exactly.
[Host]: The worst possible outcome in the world is no self-esteem. Why?
[Naval]: It’s tough.
I look at people who don’t like themselves—I don’t want to offend anyone, but I look at those people. It’s the hardest situation. Because they’re always fighting themselves. Facing the external world is hard enough. No one will like you more than you like yourself. So if you’re fighting yourself, the external world becomes impossible to overcome.
It’s hard to say why people have low self-esteem. Could be genetic. Could just be environmental. I think often it’s because they didn’t receive unconditional love in childhood. That feeling sinks deep. But low self-esteem might be the most limiting.
An interesting idea: self-esteem is, in a way, your own reputation with yourself. You’re always observing yourself. You know what you’re doing. You have your own moral code.
Everyone has different codes. But if you don’t follow your own code—the one you expect of others—it hurts your self-esteem.
So perhaps a way to build self-esteem is to strictly adhere to your code. Have one, then live by it.
Another way to boost self-esteem might be doing things for others.
Looking back on my life, when am I most proud? Very rarely.
And not as frequently as I’d hoped. Not the things I expected. Not material success. Not learning something. But when I sacrificed for someone or something I love. Then ironically, I feel most proud. Now this comes from explicit mental exercise, but I bet implicitly, I was recording this. So it tells me, even if I’m not loved, the way to create love is to give love—expressed through sacrifice and responsibility.
So I think doing this can quickly boost your self-esteem.
[Host]: When you talk about sacrifice, it’s interesting because often people say, I sacrificed a lot for my job.
That’s sacrificing what you want less for what you want more. You want the former more, not really paying a cost. I wonder if self-esteem is following your inner compass, aligning actions and values—even more so in difficult times. I wonder if those more introspective, high-moral-standard people pay a price, because you feel, you have a heavy overhead to somehow pay.
[Naval]: If virtue paid, everyone would do it, so in a way, it does involve sacrifice, but this sacrifice can also be seen as considering long-term over short-term benefits.
For example, virtue is a set of beliefs—when followed individually by everyone in society, they create win-win outcomes for all. So if I’m honest and you’re honest, we can do business more easily. We interact more smoothly because we trust each other. So even if there are a few liars in the system, as long as not too many, a high-trust society where everyone’s honest is better. I think many virtues work this way—if I don’t sleep with your wife, and you don’t sleep with mine. If I don’t grab all the food on the table first, etc.—then we coexist better, play win-win games.
In game theory, the most famous game is Prisoner’s Dilemma, all about everyone cheating and Nash equilibrium, stable equilibrium. Yes. Everyone cheats, and the only way to play win-win is through long-term iterative games—but that’s not actually the most common game in society. The most common is called the Stag Hunt: if we cooperate, we can hunt a stag and have a feast. But if we don’t cooperate, we’ll hunt rabbits like hares, and everyone gets a small dinner. So most of this game has two stable equilibria: one where we all hunt rabbits, one where we hunt stags. So it’s a high-trust society.
A more virtuous society, where I can trust you to go stag hunting, arrive on time, do your part, divide fairly. So you want to live in a system where everyone has their own set of virtues and follows them, then we all win. But I don’t think you need to do this for sacrifice’s sake.
You don’t need to do it for others; you can do it purely for yourself. You’ll have higher self-esteem, attract other high-virtue people.
[Host]: Would I go stag hunting with myself? Indeed.
[Naval]: That’s right. If you’re the kind who consistently conveys ethics and virtue, you attract other ethical, virtuous people. But if you’re a shark, you’ll end up surrounded by sharks—that’s an unpleasant existence. But this circles back to the marshmallow test equivalent. By the way, the marshmallow test hasn’t been successfully replicated—I recently saw HOD’s replication crisis in ecology. But it involves the trade-off between short and long term. So I think for many so-called virtues, there are long-term selfish reasons to pursue virtue.
[Host]: Have you ever dealt with self-doubt? Was this a hurdle for you?
[Naval]: Yes and no. I think I’ve dealt with self-doubt in the sense of, I don’t know what I’m doing, I need to figure it out. But I don’t doubt myself in the way of thinking others know me better, I’m a fool, or I’m unworthy, etc. I think I had the advantage of growing up in a loving environment, surrounded by people who loved me unconditionally, giving me great confidence. Not the confidence that I have answers, but confidence that I’ll find answers, that I know what I want, or only I can judge what I want well.
[Host]: I think that level of confidence allows you to determine what matters to me, my self-esteem. Should I change? Should I face this? Instead of being so affected, I can make fair judgments. But it’s a good point—even if you don’t consciously record what you do, something silently persists in your mind. Is that like a daemon? Did the ancient Greeks or others talk about this?
[Naval]: In computer science, there’s a concept called a daemon—a program always running in the background, unseen. Okay. But that might come from the Greek “daimon.” But,
But you know far more than you know you know, and you can’t clearly express most of what you know. Some feelings have no words. Some thoughts are felt bodily or subconsciously, never expressed to yourself. You can’t explicitly state grammar rules, yet speak fluently. So I think your implicit knowledge and unknown knowledge vastly exceed what you can express and communicate. So in a way, you’re always observing yourself. That’s consciousness—it observes everything, including your thoughts, your body. So if you want high self-esteem, earn your own respect.
[Host]:
I have this idea—internal golden rule. The golden rule says treat others as you want to be treated. The internal golden rule says treat yourself as others should treat you. It’s a counter to those who didn’t grow up receiving unconditional love.
[Naval]:
About love—it’s interesting you can try recalling the feeling of being loved. So go back to when someone loved you or something. Or when someone truly loved you. Really, remember that feeling. Sit down, try to recreate it inside. Then feel the sensation of loving someone. When you’re in love. I’m not even talking romantic love—be careful here. I mean more about…
[Host]:
If you talk about past romantic love, it can get complicated.
[Naval]:
Right. Siblings, kids, etc. Or parents. Think when you felt love for someone or something. Now, which is better? I think the feeling of being in love is actually more exhilarating. Being loved is a bit cloying. A bit too sweet. You might want to push the person away. It’s awkward. You feel constrained if that person is too immersed. On the other hand, the feeling of being in love is very expansive. Very open. It actually makes you a better person. Makes you want to be better. So you can create love anytime.
The issue is the mindset of craving to receive love. The most expensive trait is pride. Said recently. I just tweeted—I think pride is the enemy of learning. So watching friends and colleagues, those stuck in the past, growing least, are the proud ones, because they think they have answers, so don’t want to publicly correct themselves. Back to fame. You’re locked into past statements that made you famous, now you want to shift or change. So pride stops you from saying “I was wrong.” Might be as simple as not admitting a bad stock trade. So you hold onto a losing trade. Might be a decision—marrying someone, moving somewhere, entering a career. Then it doesn’t work out. Then you don’t admit you’re wrong. So you’re stuck. Mainly stuck in local optima, not okay. Step back, climb the hill again. You’re just stuck in a suboptimal spot. Costs you money. Costs you success. And time. And time. Great artists always have this ability to restart—Paul Simon, Madonna, U2—I’m joking a bit. But even great entrepreneurs—they’re always willing to restart. I’m always struck by Elon Musk’s story—he originally did PayPal as x.com. His financial institution merged into PayPal. Having the domain was good. See what I mean? Yeah. I’ll put that aside. I’ll keep it. He’s consistent. Used it a long time. He said something like, I made $200M from PayPal’s sale. Put $100M into SpaceX, $80M into Tesla, $20M into SolarCity, and still had to borrow to pay rent. This guy’s an eternal risk-taker. Always willing to restart.
[Host]: How is that possible? In this context, what is pride? That’s why it’s such an expensive transaction—you still have to pay it somehow.
[Naval]: He has no ego about being seen as successful or failed. Willing to risk everything. Go back to zero every time. Key is he’s always willing to restart—even now, founding new startups in the US, basically trying to fix them like he fixed his startups. I think it’s a willingness to look foolish, a willingness to restart. Many people lack this ability. They get successful, or rich, or famous. That’s it. They’re stuck. Don’t want to return to zero. But creating anything great requires going from zero to one—meaning returning to zero. It’s really painful, hard to do.
[Host]: Speaking of risk, I’ve been thinking about something related to you. Anytime you’re unhappy, not joyful, you bring no benefit to anyone. I think many people are abnormally habituated to quietly endure suffering, with such low expectations for quality of life.
[Naval]: Often you create a bad outcome because you think suffering is noble, or it makes you a better person. Or my old joke: if you’re so smart, why aren’t you happy? Why can’t you figure that out? Reality is, you can be smart and happy. History has many smart, happy people. I think first, say, okay, you know what, I’ll be happy. That’s a guide. Long ago in Thailand, I met someone who worked for Tony Robbins. His attitude was great. We sat together, he said he realized one day, outside there must be someone who’s the happiest in the world. That person must exist. He said, why not me? I’ll take on that burden. I’ll be that person. I heard this, thought, wow, that’s nice. Good framework. Knows how to reframe. So I think much of happiness is a choice. In a way, first, agree with yourself, I will be a happy person. I’ll find a way.
You can find a way in the process. You won’t lose other preferences. Won’t lose ambition or desire for success. I think many fear that if I’m happy, I won’t want to succeed. No, you’ll just want to do things more aligned with a happy version of you. And you’ll succeed at those. Trust me, the happy version of you won’t look back at the unhappy self and say, that guy would’ve been more successful. Got more success. I wish I was him. Exactly. You’re actually striving for success, so you’ll be happy.
[Host]: That’s exactly the key. You flipped it. You unlocked my trap card. One of my favorite insights is, we sacrifice what we want for what we want. So we sacrifice happiness to pursue success, so when finally successful enough, we can truly be happy. If you have a simultaneous equation and just remove
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