Smash Notes

Naval on why you have to be willing to start over: "There's the analogy around mountain climbing. If you find a mountain and you start climbing and you spend your whole life climbing it, and you get, say, two-thirds of the way, and then you see the peak is way up there, but you're two-thirds of the way up, you're still really high up. But to go the rest of the way, you're going to have to go back down to the bottom and look for another path. Nobody wants to do that. People don't want to start over. It's the nature of later in life that you just don't have the time. So it's very painful to go back down and look for a new path, but that may be the best thing to do. That's why when you look at the greatest artists and creators, they have this ability to start over that nobody else does. Like Elon will be called an idiot and start over doing something brand new that he supposedly is not qualified for. You have to be willing to be a fool and have that beginner's mind and go back to the beginning to start over. And if you're not doing that, you're just getting older."