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This is the one podcast on Naval's Youtube channel that I found wired. Most of what Naval says makes clear sense to me, but the conversation with Kapil & Kapil'

This is the one podcast on Naval's Youtube channel that I found wired. Most of what Naval says makes clear sense to me, but the conversation with Kapil & Kapil's twitter+website gave me all kinds of wrong vibes. I have seen too many of these guru type scams in India. Naval is the only reason I want to explore Kapil's works a bit more, despite my instinct shouting at me not to. If a guy who has understood the game of life and money far better than me finds this guy a true intellect, maybe I am missing something ?

codr7 6y ago
It's called the age of false prophets for a reason. Trust your experience, it's as close to your reality as you will get. If it feels off, you don't need evidence, and that goes for everything. Right now you're acting like someone standing outside in the cold, freezing like crazy; but refusing to accept it because someone else says it's warm outside, and you think they might have figured something out that you missed. There are plenty of real teachers out there, no need to settle for scraps from the table. Which leads to the question: how do you know? You know because they will tell you to trust your own experience. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkHvZp-mrKk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkHvZp-mrKk
dkarl 6y ago
The way I see it is, there's no benefit to you if your involvement with a guru is to follow, support, admire, and believe. If that's all you do, then the benefit only goes to the guru. On the other hand, if you believe that any benefit will come through building your own understanding through work, thought, and experience, and they influence you to do this work, then you will benefit, and it hardly matters if they personally have any great insights or not. There are gurus who encourage the first kind of involvement at the expense of their students, but different people can take different things from the same teacher. Some people are strongly predisposed towards one or the other forms of involvement. Some people want to just sit and listen, and they'll get little benefit whether they're listening to a saint or a fraud. As for intellect, when someone is presented to you as a guru, all or nearly all of their specific insights are going to be well-worn, recycled cliches. A guru is more of a coach than an intellectual. An intellectual's job is to say new things, or old things in new ways. A coach's job is to say what you need to hear even if it's been said a hundred million times before. For some reason we get this all mixed up when it comes to "spirituality," and we believe everything hinges on the quality of the ideas. Instead, imagine your kid's soccer team is being coached by the great soccer manager Carlo Ancelotti. Imagine that they spend every practice sitting on the ground and listening to him lecture them on technique and tactics (not that he would make this mistake.) Meanwhile, the other teams are coached by parents who know nothing about soccer, who run their teams through dribbling and passing drills they looked up on the internet, followed by some chaotic scrimmaging. Your kid's team is not going to win a single game, even though they have a "true intellect" for a coach, and the other teams are coached by frauds.
- rramadass 6y ago
  Well Said! This is why blindly following somebody creates more confusion and is generally useless. Always think for yourself. As the saying goes; "A Teacher/Guru can only show you a doorway, you have to walk through it yourself to the destination".
jdmoreira 6y ago
I listen to everything Naval records and I find him quite insightful but then again he is no golden god, he is just a person like us who won't be right 100% of the time. I personally disagree with his view on bitcoin and that's fine.
timmytaplands 6y ago
I feel the same way (like Kapil might have something to say) but a little put off by the fact that his content is locked behind pretty steep paywalls. He seems very intent on cashing in by courting high-end exec / VC clients like Naval, dismissing those who won't pay as "not serious". On the other hand, he does have a book that you can find on Amazon which I haven't bothered to read. So maybe it's all in there.

codr7 6y ago

It's called the age of false prophets for a reason. Trust your experience, it's as close to your reality as you will get. If it feels off, you don't need evidence, and that goes for everything. Right now you're acting like someone standing outside in the cold, freezing like crazy; but refusing to accept it because someone else says it's warm outside, and you think they might have figured something out that you missed. There are plenty of real teachers out there, no need to settle for scraps from the table. Which leads to the question: how do you know? You know because they will tell you to trust your own experience. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkHvZp-mrKk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkHvZp-mrKk

dkarl 6y ago

The way I see it is, there's no benefit to you if your involvement with a guru is to follow, support, admire, and believe. If that's all you do, then the benefit only goes to the guru. On the other hand, if you believe that any benefit will come through building your own understanding through work, thought, and experience, and they influence you to do this work, then you will benefit, and it hardly matters if they personally have any great insights or not. There are gurus who encourage the first kind of involvement at the expense of their students, but different people can take different things from the same teacher. Some people are strongly predisposed towards one or the other forms of involvement. Some people want to just sit and listen, and they'll get little benefit whether they're listening to a saint or a fraud. As for intellect, when someone is presented to you as a guru, all or nearly all of their specific insights are going to be well-worn, recycled cliches. A guru is more of a coach than an intellectual. An intellectual's job is to say new things, or old things in new ways. A coach's job is to say what you need to hear even if it's been said a hundred million times before. For some reason we get this all mixed up when it comes to "spirituality," and we believe everything hinges on the quality of the ideas. Instead, imagine your kid's soccer team is being coached by the great soccer manager Carlo Ancelotti. Imagine that they spend every practice sitting on the ground and listening to him lecture them on technique and tactics (not that he would make this mistake.) Meanwhile, the other teams are coached by parents who know nothing about soccer, who run their teams through dribbling and passing drills they looked up on the internet, followed by some chaotic scrimmaging. Your kid's team is not going to win a single game, even though they have a "true intellect" for a coach, and the other teams are coached by frauds.

rramadass 6y ago
Well Said! This is why blindly following somebody creates more confusion and is generally useless. Always think for yourself. As the saying goes; "A Teacher/Guru can only show you a doorway, you have to walk through it yourself to the destination".

jdmoreira 6y ago

I listen to everything Naval records and I find him quite insightful but then again he is no golden god, he is just a person like us who won't be right 100% of the time. I personally disagree with his view on bitcoin and that's fine.

timmytaplands 6y ago

I feel the same way (like Kapil might have something to say) but a little put off by the fact that his content is locked behind pretty steep paywalls. He seems very intent on cashing in by courting high-end exec / VC clients like Naval, dismissing those who won't pay as "not serious". On the other hand, he does have a book that you can find on Amazon which I haven't bothered to read. So maybe it's all in there.