If You Want to Learn, Do

Naval:

I recently started another company. It’s a very difficult project. In fact, the name of the company is The Impossible Company. It’s called Impossible, Inc. What’s interesting is that it’s driven me into a frenzy of learning. And not necessarily even motivated in a negative way, but I’m more inspired to learn than I have been in a long time.

So I find myself interrogating Grok and ChatGPT a lot more. I find myself reading more books. I find myself listening to more technical podcasts. I find myself brainstorming a lot more. I’m just more mentally active. I’m even willing to meet more companies outside of investing because I’m learning from them.

And just being active makes me want to naturally learn more and not in a way that it’s unfun or causes me to burn out. So I think doing leads to the desire to learn and therefore to learning. And of course there’s the learning from the doing itself. Whereas I think if you’re purely learning for learning’s sake, it gets empty after a little while. The motivation isn’t the same.

We’re biomechanical creatures. My brain works faster when I’m walking around. And you would think, “No, energy conservation—it should work slower,” but it’s not the case. Some of the best brainstorming is when you are walking and talking, not just sitting and talking.

Which is why for a while I tried to hack the walking podcast thing because I really enjoy walking and talking and my brain works better. And so the same way I think doing and learning go hand in hand. And so if you want to learn, do.

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