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- May 16, 2026, 10:35 PM
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- “All frameworks in life—your workout framework, your sales framework, even your building-an-app framework—are all a distant second to your motivation.”
— @naval
“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.
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. 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.’
But the reality is, you’ll do it because you’re motivated. 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.”
