The fear of going backwards is hurting people:
1. Taking a job for less pay in appropriate cases
2. Selling your big house for a smaller house when appropriate, or even renting
3. Breaking up with someone that isn’t right even though you’ve been together for 4 years
4. Taken a lesser title even though the business is better
… the “take the step back” is often the thing that launches people into happiness but their fear of judgement on the step back is stopping them from happiness. It’s unfortunate because a lot of that is based on society's current POV and judgement - not people's true decisions.
"I wasted time." "I made a wrong decision." "I married the wrong person." "I picked the wrong job." "I moved to the wrong city."
How about not believing that? How about believing it was just part of your fucking story? You think any book that's interesting doesn't have the chapters where there's adversity, where there's conflict?
Everybody's obsessed with like, "I wasted time." Everyone's wasted time always, forever and ever. I think the reverse. I have things that are obviously a waste of time, but I look at it as like, "I'm glad I did that shit."
I went through the process. I'm living fucking life. I'm a fucking human being. I'm living. I'm learning. It's life.
You think anybody goes to heaven and played it 100% correct?
Audit the shit out of what you consume and who you hang with.
It's just real! Who you hang out with determines your future success... so surround yourself with positive people who support you. Support paired with accountability is always a winning formula.
🚨 Naval just said in 8 words what most CEOs won't admit in an hour-long board meeting.
"AI is going to drain a lot of moats."
Let me tell you what moats are actually dying right now.
Your coding team was a moat. One kid with Claude ships faster than your 12-person engineering squad.
Your data advantage was a moat. Every AI model just got access to the entire internet.
Your brand was a moat. Until a faceless account with better content started outranking you in 3 months.
Your network was a moat. Until AI agents started doing outreach, sales, and partnerships while you slept.
Your degree a moat. Until the dropout with the right prompts started outperforming the Harvard grad with the wrong workflow.
The only moat left is speed. How fast you learn. How fast you adapt. How fast you let go of the thing that got you here.
Everything else? AI just drained it while you were reading this post.