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纳瓦尔谈销售的本质：真诚与信誉比技巧更重要

在最新一期播客中，知名投资人纳瓦尔分享了他对销售独特而反传统的见解。他认为，真正的销售并非技巧的堆砌，而是建立在真诚、信誉和客观之上的沟通艺术。

销售即传递真相

纳瓦尔坦言自己从未系统学习过销售，也不认为自己是在“销售”。“我只是试图弄清问题，如果我相信某件事，就尽可能准确、诚实地传达给对方。”他强调，人们天生抗拒被推销的感觉，因此信誉远比销售技巧重要。

他唯一推荐的销售类书籍是罗伯特·西奥迪尼的经典著作《影响力》，但指出书中的技巧应谨慎使用。“如果你感觉自己是在‘销售’，很可能你卖错了东西。”

信誉的三大支柱

纳瓦尔提出，成为优秀销售者的关键在于建立信誉，而这需要三个要素：真诚、专业知识和简洁表达能力。

“你生活中最想打动的人，恰恰是那些能看穿你的人。”纳瓦尔表示，顶尖人才能一眼识破销售伎俩，“如果你想与最优秀的人合作，就必须极其可信。”

魅力：自信与善意的结合

纳瓦尔将魅力定义为“同时展现自信与爱”。他认为，真诚的共情能让人在传递信息时保持善意。“如果你只讲真话却缺乏善意，对方不会听你的。问题在于你更想‘正确’还是更想‘有效’。”

领导而非管理

谈及团队建设，纳瓦尔引用圣埃克苏佩里的名言：“如果你想造一艘船，不要忙着召集人手、分配任务、砍伐木材，而是要教会他们渴望浩瀚无垠的大海。”

他认为，管理的本质是指挥，而领导力是激发意愿。“招募时我传递的核心是：创业是更好的生活方式，你会拥有更多自主权、更大乐趣和更高回报。”

交易哲学：专注增量，不纠结分蛋糕

纳瓦尔强调，在当今非线性回报时代，最重要的资产是时间和选择权。“为尚未做大的蛋糕争吵毫无意义。”他建议要敢于放弃不理想的交易，“妥协是建立伟大企业的敌人。”

他坦言自己宁愿多次从零开始，也不愿被不理想的合作关系束缚。“生活短暂，与其反复打磨同一件事去赚更多钱，不如在有限生命中体验几种不同的人生，追随自己的真正兴趣。”

中文翻译：

出售真相

纳维：大家好，欢迎收听《纳瓦尔播客》。我是他的常驻搭档主持，纳维。人生中你只需要掌握两项技能：如何创造，以及如何销售。今天我们来聊聊销售这个方面。

建立可信度

纳维：纳瓦尔是一位天赋异禀的销售者，有些人甚至指责他拥有自己的"现实扭曲力场"。

纳瓦尔：是啊，我从来没上过任何销售课程，也从未刻意去练习销售技巧。我甚至不知道销售到底是什么。我不搞销售那一套。我只是努力把问题想明白，然后如果我真信什么，我就尽可能准确、诚实地向对方传达我的想法。这里面没有任何销售技巧可言。

我想我全部的"销售训练"就是看过电影《拜金一族》。我觉得这片子不错，推荐给你。我还读过罗伯特·西奥迪尼的《影响力》——他关于说服力的那本原版书。第二本你可以跳过，跟大多数续集一样，没必要看。里面就一个有用的概念——锚定效应，也就这样了。西奥迪尼推广了"CLASSR"模型——也就是一致性、喜好、权威、稀缺、社会认同和互惠。这是影响他人的六种方式。后来他在后续的书里又加了第七种，基本上就是锚定效应。

但实际上，我并不相信"销售"这件事。如果你感觉到有人在向你推销，如果你觉得自己被"卖"了，那就会让人反感。人类天生就抗拒被推销。所以我认为，远比销售技巧更重要的是可信度。可信度比销售重要得多。如果你想擅长"销售"，那你真正需要的是变得可信。

你要让别人信任你。你要成为那种能引导客户避开烂交易、差地段和破房子的房产经纪人，这样当真正合适的房子出现时，他们才会信任你。你必须放下自我，设身处地为对方着想，搞清楚他们到底想要什么。

当你弄清楚他们想要什么之后，你就能"做成这笔交易"了。

但我并不是那种你可以找他去完成销售指标的人，比如那种一周或一个月必须卖掉50套软件的人。但我可以告诉你的是，你人生中最想打动的那群人，恰恰是能一眼看穿你的人。

他们会看穿你所有的销售伎俩；他们会看穿你所有的推销话术。而这些人是一流中的一流。所以，如果你想与最顶尖的人合作，如果你想成功地销售出最宏大的事物，那么你必须非常可信。

要做到可信，你必须真实。你必须讲真话。你必须知识渊博。他们必须能够信任你，相信你不是只做对自己有利的事——你是在考虑长远。你很诚实。你懂你在说什么，并且能用简单的方式解释清楚。

因为没有人是万事通。他们不可能在短时间内迅速跟上你的思路，所以你必须想办法用类比的方式传达给他们，但这不一定每次都奏效。你不能执着于结果。你不可能把每样东西都卖给每个人。我知道确实存在一种有效的模式，有些人极具侵略性，他们会说："绝不放弃。不断敲打。持续进攻。一直猛捶，最终你会突破的。"

我不是那种人——我很懒。我喜欢去容易的地方。所以，如果我的"销售"或我的说辞不能引起某人的共鸣，我就继续前进。我立刻就走，继续寻找能与我产生共鸣的人。

"是的，而且"

纳维：我注意到纳瓦尔使用的"技巧"之一，就是他疯狂地使用"是的，而且"。

不管你对他说什么，他都会用"是的，而且"来回应——即使他不同意你的观点。他会先说"是的"，或许会扩展一下你的观点，然后转向他想谈的话题。他不会立即否定你，或者直接给你一个很生硬的"不"。

纳瓦尔：那是一种技巧，但也有我直接反驳别人的时候。但我要说的是，大多数聪明的人，如果他们告诉你一件事，那是发自内心的。他们有理由相信这一点，通常你也能看到那个理由。这就是"是"的来源，你真正理解了："哦，好吧，那是你的问题。我明白了。"

所以你必须理解这一点。但如果我完全不同意他们的观点，我会直接表达不同意。我会说："不，我认为那不是真的，原因如下。"

顺便说一句，我经常表示不同意。通常在我表示不同意的时候，也是我出丑的时候。那是我学会谦卑的时刻，因为那时候我往往是错的。

所以，"是的，而且"是个好策略，尽管我不是把它当策略用。这更像是一种理性的同理心——你通过理性思考，站到对方的立场上，看看他们的立场是否合理。如果是，你就说"是的"。但接着你会强化为什么你的立场也是合理的，因为希望你的立场也是经过深思熟虑并且同样合理的。

自私的诚实

纳维：我注意到的另一件事是，纳瓦尔的思想开放程度简直到了我认为有些荒唐的地步。

纳瓦尔：我想我是追求客观。客观意味着把自我排除在外。这意味着你不能总是从自己的角度思考问题，因为对方有完全不同的视角。这些年来，有几个人来向我寻求建议，他们简直把我当成咨询师，我常常摸不着头脑这是为什么。后来有一个人直接告诉我，他说："嗯，你有一种做法：你给我建议，但从来都不是从你自己的立场出发。感觉就像是我在跟自己对话，只是换了一种稍微不同的方式。你不是在告诉我你的想法，或者你想让我听到什么——你想让我做什么。"

我努力做到那样。

那就是客观；那就是诚实。这是一种"自私的诚实"，因为我想为自己做出正确的决定，这意味着我必须尽可能保持客观。顺便说一下，我犯过无数错误。我可能百分之八十的时候都是错的。所以，基于此，我不敢想象如果我不客观——如果我不诚实——会发生什么。我可能就像戴着眼罩走路，百分之九十五的时候都是错的。

魅力 = 自信 + 爱

纳维：我注意到的下一个技巧是，纳瓦尔能同时做到真实和积极。如果你来向我寻求建议，我可以做到真实，或者我可以做到积极，但同时做到这两点非常困难，这确实是一种罕见的技能。

纳瓦尔：是的，这正是我对魅力的定义。魅力是同时展现自信和关爱的能力——或者说，同时展现力量和善意。我认为，如果你 genuinely 有同理心——如果你真的在乎对方的感受和幸福——那么你就会想办法把信息传达得让人舒服。

不过，我的密友会告诉你，我并不总是积极和友善，我有时会刻薄地批评人。我喜欢取笑别人，喜欢赢得言语上的小交锋，喜欢表现得机智，我有时对人也挺不留情面的。但那是对我最亲近的人。是那些我不需要太担心他们怎么想的人，因为他们了解我的想法，我也了解他们的想法，我知道他们承受得住，他们只想直截了当。

但我认为诚实是基石。如果两者只能选其一，诚实比友善更重要。惹恼别人、激怒别人，但保持诚实，这比仅仅保持友善更重要。但我觉得可以两者兼顾。在几乎所有情况下，你都能做到两者兼顾。而现实是，如果你诚实但不友善，他们是不会听你的。

那么问题就变成了：你是想"正确"，还是想"有效"？如果你真的想有效，那么你就必须想办法在其中加入一些善意。

当然，这里面也有弱点。比如我非常不擅长解雇人。我解雇过人，但很少。要让我解雇一个人，需要很大的决心，我在这方面随着时间的推移有所改善，但以前一直非常差。在大多数公司里，我会依赖联合创始人来做这件事。这基本上就源于这一点：我只是不想不友善。所以当需要解雇某人时，即使他们可能拖累团队，或者这个岗位不适合他们，我也会共情。我会思考他们可能会受到的所有伤害，他们的感受如何，等等。

所以这对我来说变得非常困难。我找到的唯一对我有效的解雇方式是，我必须确信他们在别处的另一个角色会更有效率，然后我必须帮助他们找到那个角色，或者至少愿意为那个角色做推荐人。

我很少会解雇一个人，而事先没有想过他们在哪里会更有效率。

不要管理，要领导

纳维：顺便说一句，当我说"真实而积极"时，我指的"积极"是，你和纳瓦尔交谈之后，会充满干劲，想要立刻去实践刚才讨论的内容。

纳瓦尔：是的，这就引出了领导力与管理的一个很好的区别。管理是指挥人们做什么，而领导力是让他们想要去做。我认为领导力是一个组织必须驱动的核心中的核心。你只需要激励人们想要去完成工作。但这不能是虚假的。

它必须是一个真正的动力，与他们的能力和他们自己的目标——他们想从生活中得到什么——结合起来。所以你必须花时间去倾听那些人想要什么，然后找出与你想要达成的目标之间的重叠部分，然后激励他们去实现它。

安托万·德·圣-埃克苏佩里有一句名言。我推荐他——他是一位伟大的作家。他写过《风沙星辰》和《空军飞行员》。他有一句很棒的话，大意是："如果你想造一艘船，不要只是召集人手，发号施令，砍伐木材，点燃炉火。而是教他们渴望浩瀚无际的大海。"

所以，如果我招募某人，我总是向他们推销我认为正确的东西——这是诚实的；这是真实的——那就是，初创公司是一种更好的建立企业、生活的方式，也比在大公司工作有趣得多。你不是机器上的一个齿轮。你有更多的自主权，有更多的乐趣，能赚更多的钱。是的，短期来看很艰苦，但从长远来看，一旦你做过初创公司，就很难再去大公司工作了。

一旦你习惯了高度自主地工作，或者为自己工作，就很难再以传统意义上的"雇员"身份就业了。我想我最受欢迎的推文之一是："尝过自由的滋味，会让你变得无法被雇佣。"我大概就是这个意思，尤其是对那些有才华、有技能且自我激励的人。

并非每个人都如此，但如果你是那种自我驱动、有高度自主性的人，一旦你自由过，你就变得"不可雇佣"了。就像一个在家上学的孩子变得"无法上学"一样。他们尝到了自由的滋味。当你没有自由的时候，你无法发挥出最佳状态。

一起狩猎

纳瓦尔：所以，你应该待在为实现你设定目标所需的最小规模的团队里。

我内心深处认为，每个男人——有些女人也是——但男人肯定是这样进化来的。我们是在狩猎采集部落中进化而来的。所以男人们会去打猎，对吧？他们会聚集在一起，大约十到二十个人，拿起长矛，进行长途狩猎，追逐猎物。然后他们带着猎物回来——可能是一天、一周或一个月后——带回食物、皮毛和其他东西给部落。

这已经刻入我们的基因。我们天生就适合与小团队一起执行任务：从人们跳上船驶向西印度群岛或新大陆，到人们上战场，再到人们去创业。所以当你读到像《升空》这样的故事——讲述马斯克和他的团队建造第一枚SpaceX火箭的故事，或者《麦金塔之路》——讲述乔布斯和他的团队建造第一台麦金塔电脑的故事——还有其他各种书籍，比如《新机器的灵魂》等——这些都非常鼓舞人心。因为我认为，在内心深处，这就是每个人真正渴望的东西：如果你在建设某样东西，你就处在一个希望与一个小型、高效的团队一起工作的世界里，每个人都各尽其责，以最佳状态完成自己的工作，这样你就可以完全信赖他们，然后你就能最大限度地发挥自己的创造力。在另一端，你会得到不可思议的成果。

我们的整个社会都建立在这个基础上。例如，如果你看博弈论，一个常见的游戏是"囚徒困境"。囚徒困境讲的是：我们被警察逮捕了，我们两个人，谁会出卖对方？激励是背叛对方。但现实生活是另一场游戏。现实社会更倾向于被称为"猎鹿博弈"。猎鹿博弈是：如果我们各自单独狩猎，我们能杀死一只兔子。但如果我们俩一起狩猎，就能捕到一头鹿，这样我们就有更多的肉可以分享。

这更像是正常社会的模式。所以你会看到低信任度的社会，人们不信任彼此，或者结构使得合作变得不可能——税收太高，监管太多，官僚主义太严重，事情变得非法。你不能进行"猎鹿博弈"，结果就是充斥着大量微小、零碎的企业，也伴随着大量的贫困。

而在一个结构良好的社会里，你可以进行"猎鹿博弈"。你信任别人。有法治。你知道如果一起建设某样东西，你不会被骗。你会得到你应得的份额。你可以与高素质的人结盟。政府不会拿走一切。没有规则禁止这样做。

你周围都是志同道合的人。你处在一个高度信任的环境中。人们在社交网络中相互认识；他们可以相互考察。他们有声誉。然后你可以组建这些由10、20、50、100、200人组成的团队，完成那些被认为不可能的事情。这非常令人振奋，我认为这就是你想要运转的方式。

你想要与高度信任的人以小团队的形式合作，解决真正困难的问题。你的内心深处就是为此而生的——你渴望它。所以，当我"推销"人们加入一家公司时，这就是我推销的内容。我是在向他们推销："嘿，这就是你应该在的地方。在这里你能实现自我。这是你获得最大乐趣的地方。"

我使用的一个招聘技巧是——你必须把门槛设得超高。所以你直接告诉别人："嘿，你可以走进这里，面试任何人。你可以挑选坐在这个办公区里的任何人，现在就可以面试他。如果你不认为他们才华横溢，就别加入。他们都那么优秀。"

滋养你的（好）痴迷

纳维：我注意到的下一个技巧是，你从不推销任何无法激励你的事物。

我问了我们的一位朋友，来自Accomplice的杰夫·法格南，他对你的销售技巧有什么看法，他将其描述为"传教士式的销售"。

纳瓦尔：哈！哦，天哪，我否认这一点。我不知道。传教士式的。我觉得那只是诚实。你必须 genuinely 对那件事感到兴奋。如果你对那件事不兴奋，你卖它干嘛？卖你不在乎的东西，生活是很悲惨的。我知道在《华尔街之狼》之类的电影里，那种"嘿，把这个笔卖给我"的场景被美化了。

你知道，"把这个叉子卖给我"。

我不在乎把这只笔或这个叉子卖给你，除非我相信它是有史以来最好的笔。如果我相信它是有史以来最好的笔，我会免费卖它。你知道的，我热爱这支笔。所以对我来说，销售是可观的副产品，显然，善于表达和有同理心也很有帮助。

就实际的销售技巧而言，我知道西奥迪尼的那套清单。我可能一年也用不了一两次。如果我在写邮件，我可能会快速过一遍清单。但我不会刻意往邮件或推销里塞进一堆随意的评论，试图套路别人。生活中所有的框架——无论是你的健身框架、销售框架，还是你构建应用的框架——它们都次于你的动力，而且是远远地次于。

如果你真正有动力去构建一个应用，你会找到方法的。如果你真正有动力去创办一家企业，你会找到方法的。商学院、商业书籍、应用开发教程等等，这些都是次要的。你可以在事后用它们来分析事物，并说："哦，原来我是这么做的"，"哦，原来那是那种技巧"。

但现实是，你会去做是因为你有动力。我认为我那些晦涩的推文之所以比公式化的东西更有效，原因之一就在于它们关乎灵感和动力。如果你有足够的动力，你会自己搞明白的。这里也有一条微妙的界线。如果你是那种需要一直阅读励志推文、收听励志播客的人，那你可能也成不了事，因为从某种程度上说，你必须能够自我激励。

就像叔本华曾经说过的，阅读的意义在于引火——在你自己的大脑中点燃火焰。我想说，动力的意义就像引火——在你自己的心中点燃火焰。如果那团火点不着，那你可能一辈子都要听励志播客了。

阅读商业书籍没有价值。对我来说，即使是商业播客也只是一种娱乐形式，在我刷牙或者跑步机上听。它们不是真正学习有用东西的途径。如果你想学点有用的东西，唯一的办法就是去做。以热情、痴迷和真实的态度去做。

所以，回到"氛围编码"——"氛围编码"只是我最近的痴迷。我有一种痴迷型的性格。每六个月我就会对某样新事物着迷，随着时间的推移，我学到了一些东西：有坏的痴迷——比如暴饮暴食、吸毒、沉迷游戏之类的——那是坏的痴迷。但也有好的痴迷。智力上的痴迷就是好的痴迷。所以我学会了滋养我的智力痴迷。如果我迷上某项技术，如果我爱上某个能学到东西的播客，如果我开始热衷于某种特定的锻炼方式，我就滋养那份痴迷。

我会特意去纵容它。我不寻求平衡。我寻求滋养我的痴迷。然后当痴迷阶段过去——就像它不可避免地会发生一样（你对那件事有点厌倦了）——其中很大一部分会伴随你余生，你只需要学会如何将它融入你日常的心态、个性和存在之中。

所以我会说，纵容你的痴迷。不用担心商业书籍。比如你想擅长销售，那就找一件你真正在乎、真正想卖的东西，然后去卖它。那不会很难。不会感觉像是在销售。如果你感觉自己在推销，那你很可能在卖错误的东西。

但如果你只是在表达热情，如果你只是在传达你的热情，而且你无法控制自己，那你就找到了正确的东西去卖。所以，如果你现在做销售，却在卖你不在乎的东西，那你需要去找点别的东西来卖。

出售真相

纳维：让我把杰夫发给我关于你"传教士式销售"的完整描述给你看。内容是：
"传教士式销售。
先带你看到全局，然后让你想做那些小事。
擅长讲故事。
他非常热情——无论是牙刷、餐厅，还是一个糟糕的初创公司。
这组合起来效果很好。"

纳瓦尔：嗯，那是外在的看法。肯定不是我想象的方式。老实说，我根本不去想这些。我只是在交谈。如果你想真诚，想让那些能看穿你的人们认真对待你，那就不要过度思考这些事情，这很重要。

因为，举个例子，如果我正在为一家公司融资——比如我的新公司Impossible，我们已经完成了一轮融资，可能某个时候还会再融一轮——我处理融资的方式不是受外部时钟驱动的。我不会说："哦，现在是九月了，让我把演示文稿准备好，然后去路演。"

我实际上是等待。我专注于公司本身；我专注于团队。我衡量自己的兴奋程度，当我的兴奋程度超过某个阈值时，我知道我准备好去融资了，因为现在我对业务的发展方向 genuinely 感到兴奋，并且我觉得这家企业真的值得进行新一轮融资。

在那个时候，去推销它对我来说并不难，那时我只需要去找一群人，向他们解释清楚。如果他们不理解，那是他们的损失——我就继续找下一个。我不会执着于那个不理解的人，因为大多数人不会理解。

但这更多地是基于业务的根本状况来衡量我自己的内在兴奋水平。如果我去融资，那就意味着业务已经到了一个让我足够兴奋的程度，我现在只需要真诚地传达我已经看到并知道为真的东西。

我不需要推销不真实的东西。我不需要夸大任何东西。我只需要真诚地传达那些让我兴奋的东西。

纳维：如果纳瓦尔要向你推销某样东西，或者沟通、说服，总会有一个开场白。他会设定一个更大的背景，无论是问题情境、一个故事，还是一个历史背景。他不会直接跳进推销里。那会是整个大故事的一部分。

要么好交易，要么没交易

纳维：关于交易，我们快速谈两点。
首先，我注意到一点，你愿意放弃任何你认为不好，或者可能不是最理想的交易——即使你处境稍微有点被动。

纳瓦尔：是的。我很少让自己陷入灾难性的境地，因为我生性多疑，所以我会提前计划。如果我为一家公司融资，我会在真正需要之前好几个月就开始——最好是提前六到十二个月开始。不是总能实现，但这是理想状态。所以我不想把自己逼到绝境。你必须能够放弃交易。

交易的问题在于它们是长期的；你被套在里面了。即使是一段婚姻，你也可以离婚。坏交易、坏合同、坏投资人？真要脱身很难。所以这取决于交易的性质。如果是一种容易解除的交易，做不成就做不成了，那当然可以更宽容一些。

但如果是一种交易——比如你从某人那里拿了钱，然后以后甩不掉他们了；他们会在你董事会里，持有优先股，有否决权，对你如何经营企业有发言权——那你就是不能接受这个坏交易。不被坏交易困住总比困住要好。

合同是双方同意约束他们未来的结果，以换取合作。所以他们说："好吧，将来我本可以做X，Y，Z，但现在我把自己限制在Z。而你呢，你本可以做A，B，C，但你把自己限制在A。然后作为交换，因为我们现在被约束以一种特定方式合作，我们创造了更大的价值，我们可以分享我们创造出来的成果。"

这是一场猎鹿博弈。我们将一起去猎鹿，这就是我们如何分鹿。但你别再去追兔子了，我也别再追兔子了，我们一起去猎那头鹿。所以这是约束性的。你是在给自己戴上未来的枷锁。

你在关闭你的选择。

这个世界很大。选择权非常强大。你本可以走很多不同的路。所以你必须相信这是其中一条更好的路。这是你面前最好的道路之一。那么，为什么要妥协呢？许多公司就是因此而死掉的。

创始人最终被解雇或离开也是因为这个。你会因为这样而形成次优的合作伙伴关系。所以多年来我学到的是，妥协是建立伟大企业的敌人。你内心知道这一点。你不需要问任何人。在内心深处，你会有那种被逼迫、被义务束缚之类的不安感觉。

我不是说不要务实。我不是说从不妥协。我只是说我 definitely 倾向于放弃次优交易，而不是为了完成交易而去做。

纳维：我在交易中注意到的另一件事是，你总是专注于未来的收益和把蛋糕做大，而不是如何切分它。所以即使情况要求说"你欠我这个，你欠我那个；我为你做了这个，你却什么都没给我"，你永远不会进行那样的对话。

非线性回报的时代

纳维：我在你的交易中注意到的另一件事是，你总是专注于未来的收益和把蛋糕做大，而不是如何切分它。
所以即使你对某件事的情感反应可能是"我为你做了很多，你却什么都没给我。你欠我这个，你欠我那个"，你永远不会进行那样的对话。
总是更像："如果我们能把这事解决，我可以继续帮你。"
所以你专注于你未来能给予他们什么。

纳瓦尔：嗯，我们生活在非线性回报的时代。未来的收益总是更大，收益可以是100倍、1000倍、10000倍更大。所以在蛋糕还没完全烤好之前，为了一小块而争斗毫无意义，尤其是在科技行业。任何待过一段时间的人都会告诉你，回报遵循幂律分布：排名第一的赢家价值超过第二名到第N名的总和。第二名大于第三名到第N名的总和，以此类推。在投资中，这意味着你在寻找那个一锤定音的"本垒打"式成果。你不是在寻找那个早期被卖掉的公司。即使这是一次成功的出售，它仍然不会是幂律分布中的第一名或第二名。

同样，当你做交易时，最重要的是你的时间。你必须保持你的时间和你的选择权可用。所以如果你要放弃这些，那只有为了那些有机会让你的时间或资本获得100倍或1000倍回报的东西才合理。

所以，为瓜分小利而争斗毫无意义。这完全说不通。

当然，有时候大利益出来了，刀子就上桌了，然后你就看到人们变得贪婪。在那些情况下，你确实需要保护自己。不幸的是，商业是战争的延续，所以这种事确实会发生。

我不会说一切都那么美好，每个人都和睦相处。很多时候你确实会被骗，你必须为自己挺身而出——有时仅仅是出于原则，以免将来再被利用。但总的来说，我认为你应该专注于未来的收益，你想保护你的时间、你的声誉和你的心理健康——你的内心平静。

所以，如果你处于被利用的境地，并且你知道如果不解决它，未来一年你都睡不着觉，那你确实必须去斗争。但如果你觉得："我可以放弃这个，我能找回我的时间，我知道以后不再和这些人合作了，"或者"我知道这些利益太小了，不值得去争"，那你就不去做。

总的来说，我认为人们花了太多时间在小利益上斤斤计较，而没有花足够的时间专注于大收益。大收益才是关键所在。

现在，你看，我做的很多事在赚钱方面并非最优。我不是一切向钱看。有很多钱我都没去赚。我有过只做一次就重新开始的经历，因为我觉得无聊了。所以我的第一个小风险基金非常成功，但它是个小基金。我本可以用它去募集大规模基金，但我没有。这个模式在我管理的其他不同类型、不同结构、不同行业的基金中重复了好几次。但我从来没有把一个大的基金扩展成几十亿的基金。同样，即使是我创办的公司，到了某个阶段，我也会退到一边。我不再继续运营和扩大它。也许Impossible会改变这一点——我希望如此，因为我觉得它潜力巨大。

但话虽如此，我不相信盲目地追求某事，或为之争斗，或分崩离析，或做某些交易。我认为你必须总是把自己置于最快乐、最平静的境地，因为那样你才能有生产力。但你也能获得快乐和平静，这些才是最终的目标。所以，如果你能带着结果安然入睡，没有巨大的压力，相对放松，并对下一件事持开放态度，那这就是最好的结果。

因为生命苦短。

反复磨同一件事，只是为了赚更大的一堆钱，但你的整个一生却因此飞逝而过，又有什么意义呢？更好的是，在这一次生命中活出几种不同的人生——每一种都做你想做的事，追求你真正感兴趣的东西。我相信，即使这可能不是最完美的结果，结果也一定会很好。

英文来源：

Sell the Truth
Nivi: Hi, you’re listening to the Naval Podcast. This is his regular co-host, Nivi.
There are only two skills you have to have in life: How to build and how to sell. Today we’re going to talk about the sales side.
Be Credible
Nivi: Naval is a particularly gifted seller, and some people have accused him of having his own reality distortion field.
Naval: Yeah, so I’ve never taken a class on sales. I’ve never tried to be good at sales. I don’t even know what sales is. I don’t sell. I just try to figure things out, and then if there’s something I believe in, I try to convey that as accurately and honestly as possible to the other person. And there’s no sales skills involved.
I think the full extent of my sales training is that I watched Glengarry Glen Ross. I think that was good. I recommend it.
I read Robert Cialdini’s Influence—his original book on persuasion. You can skip the second one. Like most sequels, it’s just not needed. It has one good idea in there, which is anchoring, but that’s it.
Robert Cialdini popularized CLASSR—which is consistency, liking, authority, scarcity, social proof, and reciprocity. Those are like the six ways in which you influence people. And then in his subsequent book he added a seventh, which was basically anchoring.
But yeah, I actually don’t believe in sales. If you feel like someone is selling to you, and if you feel like you’re being sold, it’s a turnoff. Humans are hardwired to resist being sold to. So I think what matters much more is credibility. Credibility is way more important than sales. If you want to be good at “sales,” then really what you want is you want to be credible.
You want people to trust you. You want to be the real estate agent that steers people away from bad deals and bad neighborhoods and bad houses, so that when the right one comes along for them, they trust you. You really have to take your ego out of it, put yourself in the other person’s shoes and figure out what they want.
And then once you’ve figured out what they want, then you can “make the sale.”
But I’m not the guy you would talk to for making the sales quota, where you have to sell like 50 pieces of software this week or this month. But what I can tell you is that the people you most want to impress in life are the ones who can see right through you.
And they will see right through your sales tactics; they will see right through your pitching them. And these people are the top of the top. So if you want to work with the people who are at the top of the top, if you want to successfully sell the biggest things that are out there, then you have to be very credible.
And to be credible, you have to be authentic. You have to tell the truth. You have to be knowledgeable. They have to be able to trust you, and that you’re not just doing what’s expedient for you—you’re thinking about the long term. You’re being honest. You understand what you’re talking about, and you can explain it simply.
Because nobody’s an expert in everything. They’re not going to come up to speed quickly enough, so you do have to figure out how to analogize it and convey it to them, and it doesn’t always work. You can’t be attached to the outcome. You can’t sell everyone on everything. I know there is a model out there that does work, where some people are incredibly aggressive. They’re like, “Never give up. Just keep hammering. Just keep going on it. Just keep beating on it, and eventually you’ll break through.”
I’m not one of those people—I’m just lazy. I like to go where it’s easy, so if my “sale,” or if my pitch does not resonate with somebody, I move on. I move on instantly, and I just keep looking for the person whom it will resonate with.
“Yes, And”
Nivi: One of the “techniques” I’ve noticed Naval use is that he uses “yes, and” like crazy.
Whatever you say to him, he’s going to “yes, and” it—even if he disagrees with it. He’ll say “yes,” maybe expand on your point, and then pivot to what he wants to talk about.
He’s not going to immediately disagree with you or give you a very direct “no.”
Naval: That’s a technique, and there are times when I do contradict people outright. But I will say that most smart people, if they’re telling you something, then it’s genuine. They have a reason to believe that. And usually you can see that reason. And so that’s where the yes comes from, where you truly understand, “Oh, okay, that’s your issue. I get it.”
So you have to understand that. But if I completely disagreed with them, I would just disagree. I would just say, “No, I don’t think that’s true, and here’s why.”
And, by the way, I do disagree a lot. And usually when I disagree, that’s when I get humiliated. That’s when I learn to be humble, because that’s when I’m often wrong.
So “yes, and” is a good strategy, although I don’t use it as a strategy. It’s more about rational empathy, which is you reason your way to their position, and you see if their position is valid. And if it is, then you say “yes.” But then you reinforce why your position is valid. Because hopefully your position is thought through and also valid.
Selfish Honesty
Nivi: The next thing I’ve noticed in Naval is that he’s just incredibly open-minded to the point of what I consider to be ridiculous.
Naval: I think I want to be objective. Objective means getting the ego out of it. It means that you can’t always think of it from your perspective because the other person has a completely different perspective. I have had a couple of people who come to me for advice through the years, and they’ll literally use me as a counselor, and I’m always kind of scratching my head why. And then one of them just told me outright, he said, “Well, you have this thing you do where you give me advice, but it never comes from you. It feels like it’s me talking to myself, but in a slightly different way. You’re not just telling me what you think or what you want me to hear—what you want me to do.”
I try for that.
That’s objectivity; that’s honesty. And it’s selfish honesty because I want to make the right decisions for myself, which means that I have to try to be as objective as possible. And, by the way, I make huge numbers of mistakes. I’m probably wrong 80% of the time. So given that, I shudder to think what would happen if I wasn’t objective—if I wasn’t honest. I’d just be walking around with blinders on and probably be wrong 95% of the time.
Charisma Is Confidence + Love
Nivi: The next technique I’ve noticed in Naval is that he is truthful and positive at the same time. If you ask me for advice, I can be truthful or I can be positive, but it’s incredibly difficult, and it’s a really rare skill to be able to do both at the same time.
Naval: Yeah, it’s my definition of charisma. Charisma is the ability to project confidence and love simultaneously—or just power and good intentions. I think if you genuinely are empathic—if you do care about the other person’s feelings and wellbeing, then you’re going to figure out how to deliver the message nicely.
Now my close friends will tell you that I am not positive and I’m not nice, and that I can really rip into people. I like making fun of people. I like winning little verbal combats. I like being witty, and I can be brutal with people. But those are the people closest to me. Those are the people where I don’t have to even worry too much about what they think because they know how I think, and I know how they think, and I know they can take it, and they just want to cut to the chase.
But I think honesty is the bedrock. If you have to pick one of the two, honesty is more important. It is more important to annoy somebody or to anger them and be honest than it is to be kind. But I think you can do both. In almost all situations you can do both. And the reality is, if you’re honest but not kind, they’re not going to listen to you.
So then it’s a question of do you want to be right or do you want to be effective? And if you actually want to be effective, then you have to figure out how to layer it in with some kindness.
Now, there are weaknesses in there too. Like I’m very bad at firing people. I have fired people. It’s rare. It takes a lot for me to fire someone, and I’ve gotten better at it over time, but I’ve historically been very bad at it. In most companies I’ll lean on my co-founders to be the ones doing that. That basically comes from exactly this point: I just don’t like to be unkind. So when it’s time to fire someone, even though they might be a drag on the team or it’s not the right place for them, I’m empathic. So I think through all the ways they could be hurt and how their feelings are, and all of that.
So it gets very difficult for me. And really the only way I’ve found to fire people that works for me is I have to be convinced that they’re going to be more effective somewhere else in some other role, and then I have to help them find that role or at least be available as a reference for them on that role.
It’s very rare that I’m going to fire somebody, and I haven’t thought through like where they would be more effective.
Don’t Manage, Lead
Nivi: By the way, when I say truthful and positive, what I mean by positive is that you leave the conversation with Naval energized to actually work on the discussion you just had.
Naval: Yeah, so this goes to a good definition of leadership versus management. Management is telling people what to do, and leadership is making them want to do it. And I think leadership is one of the core, core things that you have to drive in an organization. You just have to inspire people to want to do the work. But it can’t be fake.
It has to be a true motivator rolled into their capabilities and their own objectives—what they want out of life. So you do have to take the time to listen to what those people want, and then figure out where there’s an overlap in what you want done, and then inspire them to go do it.
There’s a famous Antoine de Saint-Exupéry line. I recommend him—he’s a great author. He wrote Wind, Sand and Stars and Airman’s Odyssey. So he has a great line, which goes something like, “If you want to build a ship, don’t just gather the men, and issue orders, and cut the wood, and start the fires. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”
So if I’m recruiting someone, I’m always pitching them on what I think is correct—it’s honest; it’s authentic—which is that startups are just a much better way to build businesses, to live your life, and much more fun to work in than large companies. You’re not a cog in a machine. You have a lot more autonomy. You have a lot more fun. You can make a lot more money. And yes, in the short term it’s grueling, but in the long term, once you’ve done startups, it’s very difficult to go work for a big company.
Once you have worked with a lot of autonomy or worked for yourself, it’s very hard to be employable in a traditional sense. I think one of my most popular tweets was, “A taste of freedom can make you unemployable.” And that’s kind of what I mean, especially for talented and skilled people who are self-motivated.
And not everyone is that way, but if you are one of those self-motivated, high-agency people, when you’ve been free, you become unemployable. It’s like a kid who’s been homeschooled becomes unschoolable. They’ve just tasted freedom. And you’re not going to do your best work when you’re not free.
Hunt Together
Naval: So you want to be in the minimum-sized group to do the scope of the job that you set out to do.
And I think deep down, every man—some women—but definitely men are evolved this way. We evolved in hunter-gatherer tribes. And so men would go on the hunt, right? They would gather together, there would be 10 or 20 of them, and they’d grab their spears, and they’d go on a long hunt and they’d chase something down. And then they’d come back from the hunt—maybe a day, a week, a month later—and they’d have food and pelts and other things for the tribe.
That’s baked into us. We are designed to go on missions with small groups: everything from people jumping on a boat and sailing to the West Indies or to the New World, or people going to war, or people going to build a business. So when you read these stories like Liftoff, which is a story of Musk and his team building the first SpaceX rocket, or The Macintosh Way, which is about Jobs and his team building the first Macintosh—and there are other various books, like there’s Soul of a New Machine, etc.—these are incredibly inspiring. Because I think deep, deep, deep down, this is what every person really craves, which is if you’re building something, you’re in that kind of world where you want to be with a small team of highly competent people, each pulling their weight and doing their job to the best, such that you can completely rely on them, and then you get to do your creativity at the max. And then at the other side, you get this incredible outcome.
And our whole society is built on that. If you look in game theory, for example, the popular game that comes up is Prisoner’s Dilemma. Prisoner’s Dilemma is all about: we’ve been arrested by the police and there’s two of us, and who’s going to rat the other one out?
And the incentive is to cheat on the other person. But real life is a different game. Real life societies tend to be what’s called a stag hunt. A stag hunt is: if each of us are hunting by ourselves, we can kill a bunny. But if the two of us hunt together, then we can take down a stag and then we can have a lot more meat to go around.
And that’s more of the model in normal society. So you see low trust societies, where people don’t trust each other, or where the structure makes it impossible to work together—the taxes are too high, the regulations are too high, there’s too much bureaucracy—things are illegal. You can’t engage in stag hunts, and you end up with lots of small, tiny, tiny little businesses, but also lots of poverty.
And in a well-structured society, you can engage in stag hunts. You trust people. There’s rule of law. You know that if you build something together, you won’t be ripped off. You’ll get your fair share. You can ally with high-quality people. The government won’t take everything. There aren’t rules against it.
You’re around like-minded people. You’re in a high-trust situation. People know each other in the social network; they can check each other out. They have reputations. And then you can get together these teams of 10, 20, 50, 100, 200 people who can do what was considered impossible. And so that is very invigorating, and I think that’s the way you want to function.
You want to function with high-trust people in small groups to solve really hard problems. And deep down you’re built for it—you crave it. And so when I’m “pitching” people on joining a company, that’s what I’m pitching. I’m pitching them like, “Hey, this is where you’re meant to be. This is where you will self-actualize. This is where you have the most fun.”
One of the recruiting tricks that I use is—you’ve got to keep the bar super high. So you just tell people, “Hey, you can walk in here and interview anybody. You can pick anybody who’s sitting on this office floor and you can interview them right now. And if you don’t think they’re brilliant, don’t join. They’re all that good.”
Feed Your (Good) Obsessions
Nivi: The next technique I’ve noticed is that you don’t sell anything that you’re not inspired about.
I asked Jeff Fagnan from Accomplice—a friend of ours— what he thinks about your sales skills, and he described it as an “evangelical sale.”
Naval: Hah! Oh man, I reject that. I don’t know. Evangelical. I think it’s just honest. You have to genuinely be excited about the thing. If you’re not excited about the thing, what are you doing selling it? It’s a miserable life if you’re selling things that you don’t care about. I know in The Wolf of Wall Street and all those kinds of movies, it’s lionized like, “Hey, sell me this pen.”
You know, “Sell me this fork.”
I don’t care about selling you this pen or selling you this fork, unless I believe it’s the best pen ever made. If I believe it’s the best pen ever made, I’ll sell it for free. You know, I love the pen. So I think for me, sales is a byproduct of credibility, and obviously it helps to be articulate and it helps to be empathic.
In terms of the actual sales skills, I know the whole Cialdini checklist. I might use it once in a blue moon. If I’m writing an email, I might just run down it. But I’m not going to artificially fill an email or a pitch with random comments, just trying to close in on people. All frameworks in life—whether it’s like your working out framework or your sales framework, or even your building an app framework—they’re all secondary, and distant secondary, to your motivation.
If you are truly motivated to build an app, you will figure it out. If you’re truly motivated to create a business, you will figure it out. The business school, the business books, the app development stuff, all of that is secondary. You can use that later ex post facto to analyze the thing in hindsight and say, “Oh, that’s how I did it,” “Oh, that’s what that technique was.”
But the reality is, you’ll do it because you’re motivated. One of the reasons why I think my cryptic tweets work better than formulas is because they’re really about inspiration and motivation. If you are sufficiently motivated, you will figure it out. There’s also a tricky line there. If you’re the kind of person who needs to read motivational tweets and listen to motivational podcasts all the time, then you’re probably not going to make it either, because you have to be self-motivated at some level.
It’s like Schopenhauer used to say, the point of reading is a kindling—to light a fire in your own brain. And I would say the same way, the point of being motivated is kindling—to light a fire in your own heart. And if that fire can’t be lit, then you’re just going to be listening to motivational podcasts until the end of time.
There’s no value in reading business books. Even business podcasts to me are a form of entertainment, while I’m brushing my teeth or I’m on the treadmill. They’re not a way to actually learn anything useful. If you want to learn something useful, the only way to learn it is to go and do it. And to do it with fervor and obsession and authenticity.
So closing the loop on vibe coding—vibe coding is just my latest obsession. I have an obsessive personality. Every six months I get obsessed with something new, and I’ve learned over time, there are bad obsessions—like, if you are overeating, or if you’re doing drugs, or you’re playing too many video games, or anything like that—that’s a bad obsession. But there are good obsessions. The intellectual obsessions are good obsessions. So I’ve learned to feed my intellectual obsessions. If I’m into some piece of technology, if I’m loving some podcast where I might be learning something, if I’m getting into some specific kind of workout, I feed that obsession.
I go out of my way to indulge in it. I don’t look for balance. I look to feed my obsessions. And then once the obsession phase passes, like it inevitably does—you get a little tired of the thing—some large piece of it stays with you for the rest of your life, and you just learn how to work it into your everyday psyche and personality and being.
And so I would say indulge your obsessions. Don’t worry about business books. Like if you want to be good at sales, then find something that you really care about that you want to sell and go sell that thing. And it won’t be hard. It won’t feel like sales. If it feels to you like you’re selling, then you’re probably selling the wrong thing.
But if you’re just being enthusiastic about it, if you’re just conveying your enthusiasm, and you can’t control yourself, then you found the right thing to sell. So if you’re in the sales business right now and you’re selling something you don’t care about, you need to go find something else to sell.
Sell the Truth
Nivi: Let me give you the full text Jeff sent me about your evangelical sales. Here it is:
“Evangelical sell.
Takes you through the bigger picture then makes you want to do the small things.
Good at storytelling.
He’s so passionate—whether it’s a toothbrush, restaurant, or a shitty startup.
It works well together.”
Naval: Well, that’s the external view. It’s certainly not how I think about it. I don’t even think about it to be honest. I’m just talking. If you want to be genuine, if you want to be taken seriously by the people, again, who can see right through you, it’s important not to overthink these things.
Because, for example, if I’m raising money for a company—like so for my new company, Impossible, we’ve raised a round already and we’re probably going to raise another one at some point—the way I approach that fundraising is I’m not driven by an external clock. I don’t say, “Oh, it’s September. Let me put the deck together now and go pitch it.”
I actually wait. I work on the company; I work on the team. And I measure my own excitement level, and when my own excitement level gets above a certain threshold, then I know I’m ready to go raise the money because now I’m genuinely excited about where the business is, and I feel like the business really deserves another round of financing.
At that point, it’s not hard for me to go and sell it, and at that point I just have to go find a bunch of people, explain it to them. And if they don’t get it, that’s their loss—I just move on to the next one. I don’t fixate on the person who didn’t get it, because most people won’t get it.
But it’s much more about measuring my own internal excitement level based on the fundamentals of where the business is at. And if I go out to raise money, that means the business is at the point where I’m excited enough about it that I now just have to genuinely convey what I already see and know to be true.
I don’t have to pitch something that isn’t true. I don’t have to exaggerate anything. I have to just genuinely convey what’s down there that’s getting me excited.
Nivi: If Naval’s going to pitch you on something, or communicate, or persuade, there’s always going to be a preamble. There’s going to be a larger context that he sets, whether it’s the problem situation, a story, a historical setting. He’s not going to jump right into the pitch. It’s going to be part of a larger story.
Good Deal or No Deal
Nivi: Let’s do two quick things on dealmaking.
First, one thing I’ve seen is that you’re willing to walk away from any deal that you don’t think is a good deal or perhaps not the ideal deal—even if you’re in a slightly tight situation.
Naval: Yeah. I rarely let myself get to disaster because I am paranoid, so I plan in advance. If I’m raising for a company, I’ll start raising months and months before we need it—preferably six to 12 months before we need it. It doesn’t always happen, but that’s the ideal. So I don’t want to be in a situation where my back’s against a wall. You have to be able to walk away from deals.
The problem with deals is they’re long term; you’re stuck in them. Even in a marriage, you can get a divorce. Bad deal, bad contract, bad investor? Really hard to walk away. So it depends on the nature of the deal. If it’s a kind of deal that’s easy to unwind, if it doesn’t work out, then sure, you can be a little more forgiving about it.
But if it’s a kind of deal—like say you’re taking money from somebody and you can’t get rid of them later; they’re going to be on your board, they’re going to have preferred stock, they’re going to have veto rights, they’re going to have a say in how you run your business—then you just don’t take the bad deal. It is better not to be trapped in a bad deal.
A contract is when two parties agree to constrain their future outcome in exchange for working together. So they say, “Okay, in the future, I could have done X, Y, Z, but now I’m going to limit myself to just Z.
And you could have done A, B, C, but you’re going to limit yourself to just A. Then, in exchange, because we’re now constrained to work together in a certain way, we create something of greater value, and we can share the spoils from whatever we create.”
It’s a stag hunt. We’re going to go on a stag hunt together, and this is how we’re going to split the stag. But you’re going to stop chasing rabbits, and I’m going to stop chasing rabbits, and we’re going to hunt the stag down. And so it’s constraining. So you’re putting shackles on yourself for the future.
You’re closing down your options.
And the world is a big place. Optionality is very powerful. There’s a lot of different paths you could have taken. So you have to be convinced that this is one of the better paths. It’s one of the best paths available to you. And so why compromise? Companies die based on this.
Founders end up getting fired or leaving based on this. You end up with suboptimal partnerships because of this. So I’ve just learned over the years that compromise is the enemy of building a great business. And you know it in your gut. You don’t have to ask anyone. Deep down, you’ll have that slightly sinking feeling of being forced into something, or obligation or whatever.
And I’m not saying don’t be pragmatic. I’m not saying never compromise, but I’m just saying I definitely lean on the side of walking away from suboptimal deals rather than doing something just to get it done.
Nivi: The other thing I’ve noticed on dealmaking is that you’re always focused on the upside and increasing the size of the pie, as opposed to splitting it up. So even if the situation calls for, “You owe me this; you owe me that; I’ve done this for you and you haven’t given me anything,” that’s never the conversation you’re going to get.
The Age of Nonlinear Returns
Nivi: The other thing I’ve noticed in your dealmaking is that you’re always focused on the upside and increasing the size of the pie as opposed to splitting it up.
So even if your emotional response to a situation might be, “I’ve done a lot for you and you haven’t given me anything. You owe me this; you owe me that,” that’s never going to be the conversation you’re going to get.
It’s always more like, “I can keep helping you if we can work this out.”
So you’re focused on what you can give them in the future.
Naval: Well, we live in the age of nonlinear returns. The upside is always bigger in the future, and the upside can be 100x, 1,000x, 10,000x bigger. So there’s no point in fighting over the small pie before it’s fully baked, especially in the tech business. Anyone who’s been in for a while will tell you that it’s power law distribution of returns: their number one winner is worth more than numbers two through N put together.
Number two is bigger than three through N put together and so on. In investing, that means that you’re looking for that one grand slam outcome. You’re not looking for the company that gets sold early. Even if it was a successful sale, it’s still not going to be that number one or number two in the power law.
The same way when you’re doing deals, the most important thing is your time. You have to keep your time and your optionality available. So if you’re going to give that up, it only makes sense to do that for something that has that opportunity to be 100x or 1,000x on your time or on your capital.
So there’s no point in fighting to divide up small spoils. It just doesn’t make sense.
Now, sometimes the big spoils come out and then the knives hit the table, and then you see people get greedy. In those cases, you do have to defend yourself. Unfortunately, business is war by other means, and so that does happen.
I’m not going to say it’s all hunky dory and everybody gets along. A lot of times you will get ripped off and you do have to stand up for yourself—sometimes just on principle so that you don’t get taken advantage of in the future. But generally speaking, I think you want to focus on the upside and you want to preserve your time and your reputation and your mental health—your peace.
So if you are in a situation where you are being taken advantage of, and you know that if you don’t solve this you won’t sleep at night for the next year, you do have to fight. But if you feel like, “I can walk away from this and I can recover my time and I know not to work with these people again,” or “I know that these stakes are too small to bother fighting over,” then you just don’t do it.
Generally, I think people spend too much time splitting hairs on small stakes and not enough time focusing on the big upside. And the big upside is entirely where it’s at.
Now look, a lot of the stuff that I do is suboptimal for making money. I’m not all about making money. There’s a lot of money left on the table.
I have a history of doing things once and then starting over because I get bored. So my first little venture fund was hugely successful, but it was a tiny fund. I could have used that to go raise massive funds, but I didn’t.
And that pattern repeated multiple times across other funds that I ran of different types and different structures and different industries. But I never scaled up the one big fund into the multi-billion dollar fund. The same way, even companies I started, at some point they got to a certain point where I stepped aside. I didn’t keep running and keep growing it. Maybe that’ll change with Impossible—I hope, because I think it’s very meaty.
But all of that said, I don’t believe in just blindly pursuing something or fighting over something or splitting something or doing some deal. I think you always have to put yourself in the situation where you are going to be most happy and most at peace because you get productivity out of that. But you also get happiness and peace, which are really the end goals at the end of the day. So if you can sleep at night with the outcome, and you don’t have huge stress around it, and you’re relatively relaxed, and you’re open for the next thing, then that’s the best outcome.
Because life is short.
What’s the point of grinding on the same thing over and over to make an even bigger pile of money, but then your whole life ran you by? It’s better to live a couple of different lives, crammed within this one life—each one, doing what you want, pursuing your own genuine interest. And I believe that even if it may not work out the absolute best, it’ll work out fine.