How to Get Rich Without Getting Lucky (A breakdown of Navals Tweetstorm)

How to Get Rich Without Getting Lucky

Read time: 6 minutes

Hey, welcome back.

Last week, we talked about how everything works out in your favour when you decide it does. You can read that (and all past issues, here)

Today, I want to unpack one of the most timeless ideas on the internet - from Naval Ravikant’s viral thread, “How to Get Rich Without Getting Lucky.”
It’s one of those rare pieces of wisdom that actually gets truer the more experience you gain.

Now, I know what you're thinking, "Everyone and their mom wrote their own thoughts about this Dan"

No doubt, however I have yet to do the same, so bear with.

What Naval Actually Means

Naval’s main idea is simple:
You don’t need luck.
You need leverage, specific knowledge, and time.

But like most simple ideas, it’s not easy to live by.

When you first hear “get rich without luck,” you think: impossible.
But Naval’s not saying success doesn’t require risk, he’s saying it doesn’t require randomness.
It’s about stacking your skills, your judgment, and your reputation until outcomes become inevitable.

Specific Knowledge

This is the first big idea.
Specific knowledge is what you can’t be trained for, it’s the mix of your curiosity, obsession, and life experience that no one else can replicate.

For me, that was combining mental health, science, and business.
I’d burned out, had insomnia, and learned how brain nutrition literally changed my life.
That curiosity became Heights.
No one else could have created it exactly the same way, because no one else had lived that story. (To my knowledge).

That’s the beauty of specific knowledge: it’s not what you learn from textbooks.
It’s what you can’t stop thinking about.
If you double down on that thing, that’s where wealth hides.

Leverage

Naval says there are three kinds of leverage:

Labor - people working for you.
Capital - money working for you.
Code or media - products that work for you.

For most of history, only the rich had leverage through money or people.
But today, anyone can build leverage with media and technology.
You can write something, record something, code something, and it works while you sleep.

That’s what changed my thinking about wealth forever.
The internet is permissionless leverage.
No gatekeepers.
No boss.
Just your ideas and consistency.

Accountability

You can’t build wealth without owning outcomes.
That means putting your name on the line.

Naval says, “Embrace accountability, and take business risks under your own name.”
Most people hide behind anonymity or their company logo because it feels safer.
But safety is expensive.

When I started speaking publicly about burnout, mental health, and braincare, it wasn’t a “marketing move.” It was vulnerability, but that vulnerability built trust.
And trust compounds faster than any ad spend.

The Long Game

Luck runs out.
Systems don’t.

Every rich person you admire plays long-term games with long-term people.
They build relationships, reputations, and assets that stack.

That’s what I’ve learned running Heights and Foundrs:
The real flex isn’t a quick exit.
It’s the freedom to do work you care about, with people you love, for as long as you want.

The Real Meaning of “Without Getting Lucky”

It’s not “never be lucky.”
It’s “don’t rely on luck.”
Luck is a spark. Systems are fuel.

If you build well, your outcomes stop feeling random.
Opportunities start chasing you, not the other way around.

Because when you have specific knowledge, leverage, and accountability, luck becomes predictable.

A Quick Challenge for You

Ask yourself three questions this week:

What do I know that few others do, because I’ve lived it?
How can I turn that into something that scales without me?
Am I taking enough responsibility for the outcomes I want?

You don’t need luck.
You just need leverage and time.

To compounding outcomes,
Dan

The Room where it happened from Jake Humphrey with Thea Green (Nails Inc)

I love Jake, and I’ve recently become friends with and highly impressed by Thea Green of Nails Inc

Listen Here

For the Culture by Marcus Collins

This book explores why brands become cool, how culture gets formed, why trends take off and how to pay attention to the cultural fabric in society.

Read Here

Tulsa King

I’ve been too busy for anything serious and this show is easy watching, no brain needed.

Watch Here

A 2018 study published in Frontiers in Psychology found that people who worked on projects aligned with their intrinsic interests, not just extrinsic rewards, achieved significantly higher creative output and long-term financial success.

The key variable? Autonomy. The more control they had over what they built, the more their outcomes compounded over time.

Quick Takeaway →
Freedom fuels wealth.
The more your work aligns with your natural curiosity, the less you need luck - and the more success becomes a byproduct of who you already are.

→ Link to study

In my goal to help more entrepreneurs/people who are looking to level up their careers, I've just started taking 1-1 consulting calls (only 1 a week)

Why book a call? Some of my expertise/success:

I've built 5 startups. 1 win, 1 fail, and 3 still going.
E-Commerce: Heights - with revenue over £20M a year.
Community: Foundrs, one of the UK's top founder communities
Podcasting: Leaders Media - I bootstrapped a media company that made the UK's top business podcasts including Secret Leaders, with over 50M downloads across the network.
Health/Mental Health: Overcame burnout, insomnia, depression & anxiety in pursuit of success. Hear me on Steven Bartlett's on Diary of a CEO
Angel Investing: I've invested in over 100 startups
Coached & Mentored: Certified coach & 5* mentor on Mentorpass
Personal Brand: Over 400,000 followers across social

So if you're interested in booking a session with me to talk all things business or building a personal brand, book for 30-minutes or 45-minutes. (limited spots).

Book a Call with Dan