On conviction, Naval Ravikant, and life-changing questions

Welcome back to the Z Fellows newsletter! Every Monday we share 3 ideas - to help you build companies, ship products, and create your life's work.

1: What Makes For A Great Entrepreneur

Keith B. Nowak is the founder and CEO of Ten Thousand.

He wrote about the common traits he’s noticed among great entrepreneurs:

1. Conviction: Great entrepreneurs possess an unwavering belief in their vision. To them, success is inevitable. That conviction inspires those they lead.

2. Work Like Your Life Depends On It: Successful entrepreneurs approach their work as an all-consuming fight for survival, leaving no room for regrets or unfinished tasks.

3. Be A Mad Scientist: Great entrepreneurs embrace risk, experiment relentlessly, and think outside the box, allowing them to innovate and thrive in the startup world.

4. Focus On Small Wins: Celebrating incremental successes is crucial for maintaining motivation and breaking up long-term goals into manageable steps.

5. Enjoy The Ride: The best entrepreneurs find joy and happiness in the midst of the challenges of building a company, often practicing mindfulness to maintain a positive mentality throughout the journey.

Source: What Makes For A Great Entrepreneur

2: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness

Naval Ravikant is the co-founder, chairman, and former CEO of AngelList. In this podcast, David Senra discusses the key lessons he’s learned from reading the Almanac of Naval Ravikant.

Here are a few of my takeaways:

1) Career and Education

The internet has massively broadened the possible space of careers. Most people haven’t figured this out yet.

2) Reading

I probably read one to two hours a day. That puts me in the top .00001 percent. I think that alone accounts for any material success I’ve had in my life and any intelligence I might have.

3) Wealth Creation

You will get rich by giving society what it wants but does not yet know how to get. At Scale.

4) Specific Knowledge

Specific knowledge is found by pursuing your genuine intellectual curiosity and passion rather than whatever is hot right now. Building specific knowledge will feel like play to you but look like work to others.

5) Decision Making

Simple heuristic: If you’re evenly split on a difficult decision, take the path more painful in the short term.

6) Happiness

A calm mind, a fit body, and a house full of love. These things cannot be bought, they must be earned.

7) Miscellaneous

To make an original contribution, you have to be irrationally obsessed with something.

Become the best in the world at what you do. Keep redefining what you do until this is true.

Health, love, and your mission, in that order. Nothing else matters.

Source: Naval Ravikant (A Guide to Wealth and Happiness)

3: Questions To Solve Your Life Questions

Tim Ferriss is the author of the best-selling book The 4-Hour Workweek and host of the Tim Ferriss Show.

He wrote about the 17 questions that changed his life. Here are 5 of my favorites:

• Am I hunting antelope or field mice?

• What if I did the opposite for 48 hours?

• What if I created my own real-life MBA?

• What would this look like if it were easy?

• What would I do/have/be if I had $10 million?

Source: 17 Questions That Changed My Life

See you next Monday,

- Jay + The Z Fellows Team

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