One Common Mistake Entrepreneurs Are Doing — Which is 🔥 Burning Your 💵 Money! [Gary Halbert, Naval Ravikant]

Nugget from Gary Halbert, Naval Ravikant

Hello friend!

I’m writing this letter from the living room of a nice hostel in Lisbon, after a “family dinner” in which I got to meet super interesting people—I love to do these kinds of weird things to maximize my exposure to serendipity, which I learnt from Nassim Taleb. Also, it’s fun and cheap!

I picked today’s insight from the brilliant book “The Boron Letters”, which I started reading after hearing Sam Parr and Nicolas Cole calling it “life-changing” (from different interviews). I also connected it to an insight from Naval Ravikant, which reinforces its meaning.

It addresses a very common mistake among entrepreneurs, but it’s crucial to avoid it if we want to be successful entrepreneurs.

👤 Authors of Today’s Nugget

💡Nugget

The passage below comes from The Boron Letters — arguably the single best book in Copywriting (an essential component of Marketing). 

And ironically it was not even intended to be a book or get published! It’s an archive of Gary's personal notes written to his 15-year-old son, Bond Halbert.

✦ Gary Halbert:

Now, pay attention. The very first thing you must come to realize is that you must become a "student of markets". Not products. Not techniques. Not copywriting. Not how to buy space or whatever. Now, of course, all of these things are important and you must learn about them, but, the first and the most important thing you must learn is what people want to buy.

The only way to build wealth, is by creating something that people want!

"Wealth is what people want" - Paul Graham (Book: Hackers and Painters)

And it's easy. You see, the way to deduce what people want to buy is to simply observe what they DO buy!

It's as simple as that. But be careful. You want to know what people actually DO buy, not what they SAY they buy.

Here's a true story. Once upon a time, a beer company did a survey to find out which of their products customers preferred. You know what? To their astonishment, they found that 80% or so of the people they surveyed preferred their premium beer as opposed to their regular beer.

Why were they astonished? The answer is easy. You see, their sales figures were showing that most people bought their regular beer and NOT the premium.

What's going on here? Well, for one thing, it is very common. You see, the surveyed people were trying to give the "right" answer and so they put down as an answer the beer they felt they SHOULD DRINK.

It happens all the time. But pity any poor fool who decides to go into the brewery business based on this kind of erroneous marketing information.

Sorry. But that's the way it is. And, if you want to be a top notch marketing man, you have to know how it is. How it really is. Not how people (or you) wish it was or how they think it is. No. You must become a "student of reality."

Book → The Boron Letters

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✦ Naval Ravikant:

What we wish to be true clouds our perception of what is true.

Suffering is the moment when we can no longer deny reality.

The good news is, the moment of suffering—when you’re in pain—is a moment of truth. It is a moment where you’re forced to embrace reality the way it actually is. Then, you can make meaningful change and progress. You can only make progress when you’re starting with the truth.

Book → The Almanack of Naval Ravikant

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✦ Gary Halbert:

Here's another little glimpse into one of the vagaries of human behavior: Once I asked at class at USC how many of them preferred to go to plays more than movies.

Lots of people raised their hands.

"Bull!" I said to them. "You are all fooling yourselves, and I'm going to prove it." I then asked for a show of hands of those people who had seen a play in the last week or so.

No hands.

I then asked to see the hands of people who had seen a movie in the last week or so.

Many hands.

Bond [Gary’s son], this phenomenon is common. All of us, including thee and me, have a slightly shrewd idea of ourselves. We often try to convince others and ourselves that we are something we are not, something we have an idea we "should" be.

Therefore, truth, my good son, can be determined NOT by how people use their mouths, but rather, how they use their wallets.

I want to burn this message into your mind. Be skeptical of what people say. Be skeptical of surveys. Of questionnaires. Instead, believe in numbers. For example, if everybody you talk with says they like plays more than movies, and yet the numbers say that 10,000 times more people buy movie tickets, then you believe the numbers!

Book → The Boron Letters

"Never ask your client for advice." - Nassim Taleb

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💭 Reflections

This is not only a useful lesson for making money, but also for life in general. One simple way to see someone’s real integrity is simply observe his actions, and how he treat others.

And that’s precisely Naval Ravikant’s shortcut for knowing whom to trust → “See how they treat other people.”

(If you want to hear the clip where Naval shares this advice, click here)

✨ My Latest YouTube Video

(You can also watch it ad-free by becoming a member of my Patreon page)

Highlights:

💡Chapter 1 - Move Beyond Prescriptions

• Prescriptions (How-To’s) will never lead to Greatness. 

  • Prescriptions (“How-To’s”) are useful to just be OK at something.  

  • It works for mechanical things.  

  • It does not work for becoming the best in a field or succeed at something creative. 

💡 Chapter 2 - Get What You Want out of Life

• “The only true test of intelligence is if you get what you want out of life” - Naval Ravikant

💡Chapter 3 - Find your Why

• "Reality is neutral. It’s just a bunch of stuff happening." - Naval Ravikant 

• "Meaning is assigned by the observer. It’s not inherent in the medium." - Naval Ravikant 

• "It’s up to you to make things exciting." - Naval Ravikant 

• "There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." - Albert Einstein  

💡 Chapter 4 - Build Yourself in Solitude

• “It’s becoming easier and easier to be social, but exceptional people are built in solitude.” - Naval Ravikant 

• "Solitary trees, if they grow at all, grow strong." - Winston Churchill 

• “Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice.” - Steve Jobs 

• "One can be instructed in society, one is inspired only in solitude." - Goethe 

• "Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god" - Aristotle 

• “With Solitude, it’s impossible for you to fail." - Naval Ravikant

💥 Stuff I Loved (this week)

🚨 Now a bit of spam from my pics in Lisbon

This picture was taken right before the “family dinner” began. I had a delicious pumpkin soup and stew with rice, and 3 “Sagres” beers (local Portuguese beers).

During dinner, I had the chance to meet someone who runs a franchise of “Chungchun rice dog” in Canada, someone who edits media content for a TV channel, and someone who runs a business of kid’s garment in India. Super interesting talks!

Me writing this letter in the hostel’s living room :)

Wishing you a lovely weekend!

Julio xx

P.S. If you liked this article, you'll definitely enjoy my free 80-page ebook. It’s packed with 23 big ideas (from top influential doers and entrepreneurs) to become better, richer and wiser. Download your copy here!