Actions that compound

Books I Follow

Hey everyone, this is Allan. Yesterday I talked about a few things from a book, and today I want to discuss another book while also mentioning the first one. The three books I rely on most are The 4‑Hour Workweek, The One Thing, and The Almanack of Naval Ravikant.

4‑Hour Workweek

From The 4‑Hour Workweek I take the principle of trying to make more money while working less, not by cutting hours, but by working better. I aim to earn in a strong currency and spend in a weaker one. That goal guides both my current work and my future projects.

The One Thing

I haven’t recorded a video about The One Thing yet, but the book helped me realize what single activity in my work would generate the most results. It’s a powerful reminder to focus on the highest‑impact task.

Naval’s Almanack

The Almanack of Naval Ravikant is actually free online, but I bought the Portuguese edition when I saw it in a library with my girlfriend. I read it in a few days and found it incredibly useful. One key insight I extracted is how to use leverage. Naval describes four kinds of leverage: people, capital (money), software/code, and media. I would add AI as a fifth form of leverage.

I used to think leverage meant hiring people to do tasks I didn’t want to do or didn’t have time for. After reading the book I realized I could have focused from the start on building software that doesn’t require additional staff, because software offers exponential leverage. The same applies to media: if I had understood deeply how powerful media can be for leverage, I would have started recording videos earlier.

Media Leverage

The main takeaway from Naval’s book is that my actions need to compound over the long term. For example, posting a video on YouTube is more valuable than an Instagram story because the YouTube video remains accessible indefinitely, while an Instagram story disappears after 24 hours. If I record a video now and then stop, new viewers can still discover it later. Over two years, I’ll have two years of content that shows my progress, from speaking English with pauses and mispronunciations to speaking more confidently. Viewers can see how I’ve improved, which is especially important for someone who sells work online using my own image.

Ongoing Leverage

I’m constantly thinking about how to scale my results using leverage in my favor. In the future I may share more concrete examples of how I’ve applied these ideas. For now, the question I keep asking myself is whether the actions I take today will create compound effects in the future. If they won’t, maybe they’re not the right things to do right now, and sometimes it’s better to do the harder, but more valuable, thing. That’s it for today.