On Eric Jorgenson
Edition 43
Naval says, “I would rather read the best 100 books over and over again until I absorb them rather than read all the books.” And I say, "Eric’s book is one of the 100."
I was a sophomore driving home from high school, the first time I listened to “The Almanack of Naval Ravikant.” I got home. My brain became blueballed. I wanted more, but a "family supper" forced me to pause. Over the next few days I finished listening to the pod-io-book.
I wrote in my post-listening reflection, “This will be a book where I buy a hard copy and read it every year.” And yes, I’m a man of my word.
Who?
The best learning is the learning that changes your perception of reality to match reality itself.
The learning that makes you say, “Wait a damn minute, that’s brilliant.” Followed by a pause, some pondering, and a complete contemplation of your entire life. I have yet to read a piece of Eric’s that hasn’t made me feel this way. No Eric, that’s not a challenge.
Eric Jorgenson combines strategy, wealth, storytelling and leverage-building to help you create a better life. His writing will make you think bigger and better, a rare combination. It will make you approach your life and work in a smarter way.
Eric Jorgenson is disrupting the publishing world as the new CEO of Scribe Media. He took this role partly because he believes that authors deserve the full financial benefit from their work and the full creative freedom to create and use their books AS THEY SEE FIT. After all, authors deserve leverage, too.
He’s authored The Almanack of Naval Ravikant, The Anthology of Balaji, and Career Advice for Uniquely Ambitious People. He’s a Rolling Fun Partner, investing in pre-seed and seed stage tech companies. He hosts a podcast called Smart Friends. He’s also created a course to help you build more leverage.
And his work that I’ll be sharing with you, isn’t even linked above. Eric has a blog, once called Evergreen, and although it isn’t called that anymore, it still is.
Learning Leverage
In a podcast with Nathan Barry, Eric said, “Some of the most highly leveraged people on earth are just people with big fan bases.”
I’ve found it’s best to learn the concept of leverage through examples. And some great examples, common in today’s world, are the influencers who make millions from audience leverage.
Leverage, in short, is how you get more done with less.
To build leverage is to build a better life. Although most of what Eric writes about is leverage-related, if we dig deeper, the core of almost everything he writes about is building a better life. He approaches life strategically.
Just as a smart athlete asks, “How can I position myself for more success?” Eric seems to ask, “What can I do to live a better life?” – because he sure as hell answers it.
He uses leverage to think BIGGER and BETTER:
Financial Leverage: Instead of just investing in stocks – he created a rolling fund.
Audience Leverage: Instead of giving one-time “talks” to people – he’s created a million little digital clones of himself (through podcasting).
Product Leverage: Instead of just consuming all of Naval’s blogs – he curated The Almanack.
In an interview, Eric said, “I learned a lot creating this book, and writing a book is a great way to hold myself to a very high standard of learning something I'm interested in.”
What’s the common theme in each bullet point? (Hint: If you said, “He’s building leverage in all of them.”) Then congratulations – you’re starting to see through the lens of leverage!
Why Should I Care?
You should care because you want a better life. You can create one by playing a different game.
“Those building, growing, and reinvesting leverage are playing a different game” – Eric.
A good example of someone playing a different game: MrBeast. How? It's what I call the "Leverage Loop." Makes money from Youtube ➡ Reinvests that money back into his channel ➡ Makes more money from Youtube ➡ ️Reinvests it.
“Leverage is tricky to get into your head as a mental model, but once it’s there, it’ll be there forever and it will change your life” – Eric.
Eric’s work has inspired me to approach life, business, and wealth creation in a better way.
As of today, my phone has been on B&W mode for 46 days in a row. I’ve started using Sam’s Club online pickup, saving myself time. I’ve automated my personal finances and investments. I’ve done the work to get more done with less effort.
For example: Building leverage is the difference between paying off your loans directly OR investing in something that will pay off your loans. Why pay off student loan debt directly if I can invest in real estate that will pay off my student loan debt?
Again, high-level living and wealth creation all goes back to a strategic and leveraged approach to life.
There isn’t a person whose blogs I enjoy or share more than Eric’s. Every minute spent with his work is an investment in the person I want to become.
Picking the top five Eric Jorgenson articles is like trying to nail Jell-O to a wall - you can’t. So, here are some of my favorites. He writes mostly about leverage, which affects so many areas of our life. Building leverage allows us to work smarter, accomplish more with less, increase income, and save us time. Ultimately, building leverage is about building a better life.
The Frontiers of Humanity: Art, Science, and Entrepreneurship - Humanity progresses in these 3 buckets and in each bucket, they’re best done casually, not rigidly. Pablo Picasso experimented with new styles, this led to some of his most iconic works. Alexander Fleming's tinkering led to the discovery of penicillin while he was studying bacteria in his lab. Steve Jobs started Apple by tinkering in his garage. Spend more time tinkering.
How Personal Leverage helps you Accomplish the Superhuman - Building leverage is doing the work that gets more work done. Building leverage allows you to accomplish more by changing your effort/impact ratio. Building leverage is essential, re-investing leverage is exponential. With each year you’ll accomplish more than the last.
Personal Proximity to Profits - This is the measure of how much of the value you create you capture. The more layers between you and the profits, the less you capture. To maximize your personal proximity to profits, minimize the number of layers between you and the final customer - aka own a business. But, there’s benefits to compromising this control for simplicity… Ever hear, “Diversify your (stock) portfolio?” The same is true with your business relationships.
How to Manage Opportunity Cost: Attention Thresholds in Personal Wealth Building – Have you heard a Shark Tank Investor say, "You’re not offering me enough of your company to get me to care" and you think, wow what an asshole? Yeah me, too. But really they're not being rude, they just have a higher attention threshold. “The higher your level, the more expensive your opportunity cost.” The key lies in knowing your net worth and your context.
50 First Levers – Want to start building leverage? Now’s your chance with 50 ways to build leverage, today.
“Bought a robot vacuum. I used to think they were pricey. Then I realized that I'm not buying a vacuum cleaner...I'm buying the ability to spend wayyyyy less time vacuuming, and also vacuuming way more frequently.”
“Enabled color filters on my iPhone (B&W mode). Every time I've done this it significantly reduces the amount of time I waste doing zero leverage/negative leverage things on my phone. Everything is less appealing/interesting/distracting.”
Bonus: The Almanack of Naval Ravikant – Eric’s curation of Naval’s best all in one place, oh, and it’s free!
“Earn with your mind, not your time.” “Desire is a contract with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want.” “Your real résumé is just a catalog of all your suffering.”
Note: The idea of an aspirationally hourly rate broke my brain as it did Eric’s (click for a rare Eric talk – worth every second.)
After reading it in the Almanack of Naval Ravikant, I outsourced cleaning in my dorm room. My roommate thought I was crazy, and I was – for not doing it sooner.
Odds and Ends
When a person’s work transforms your perception of the world, it’s helpful to read the books that person found most influential. This is a list of books that Eric has recommended on X (aka the bird app). I’ve read 5 already. 7 If you count re-reading The Almanack! I hope you find Eric’s work as life-changing and brain-breaking as I do. Send me a message if you’d like to discuss :)
Reflection Questions:
How are you building leverage currently?
What’s the work that will get more work done for you?
What topic ignites your curiosity enough to write a book about?
What’s your aspirationally high hourly rate? Are you outsourcing?
Huge thank you to
, Anthony D'Apolito III , , , and for their feedback on my 5th (and final) Write of Passage essay!
Dylan - excellent piece of writing. I definitely need to check more of Eric's work out, and of course read the Navalmanack once again.
This part was a banger:
"I was a sophomore driving home from high school, the first time I listened to “The Almanack of Naval Ravikant.” I got home. My brain became blueballed. I wanted more, but a "family supper" forced me to pause.
The book blew my mind. Curious if you've heard of Akira the Don? He turns Naval's principles into songs on Spotify and Apple Music so you can imprint Naval on your cerebral cortex.
Thanks for sharing this!
PS: what's you aspirational hourly rate?