Eric-Jorgenson The-Almanack-of-Naval-Ravikant indd

If you had to pass down to your kids one or two principles, 
what would they be?
Number one: read. Read everything you can. And not just the 
stuff that society tells you is good or even books that I tell you 
to read. Just read for its own sake. Develop a love for it. Even 
if you have to read romance novels or paperbacks or comic 
books. There’s no such thing as junk. Just read it all. Eventually, 
you’ll guide yourself to the things that you should and want to 
be reading.

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S A V I N G Y O U R S E L F · 187
Related to the skill of reading are the skills of mathematics 
and persuasion. Both skills help you to navigate through the 
real world.
Having the skill of persuasion is important because if you can 
influence your fellow human beings, you can get a lot done. I 
think persuasion is an actual skill. So you can learn it, and it’s 
not that hard to do so.
Mathematics helps with all the complex and difficult things 
in life. If you want to make money, if you want to do sci-
ence, if you want to understand game theory or politics or 
economics or investments or computers, all of these things 
have mathematics at the core. It’s a foundational language 
of nature.
Nature speaks in mathematics. Mathematics is us reverse engi-
neering the language of nature, and we have only scratched 
the surface. The good news is you don’t have to know a lot of 
math. You just have to know basic statistics, arithmetic, etc. 
You should know statistics and probability forwards and back-
wards and inside out. [8]
CHOOSING TO FREE YOURSELF
The hardest thing is not doing what you want—it’s knowing 
what you want.
Be aware there are no “adults.” Everyone makes it up as they go 
along. You have to find your own path, picking, choosing, and 
discarding as you see fit. Figure it out yourself, and do it. [71]

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