8 min to read
What I learned from Ray Dalio
A guy who knows how to make money
I recently read Principles by Ray Dalio
- People don’t write down their principles
- Don’t do chores at home get paid for doing it outside the home
- Fear boredom and mediocrity more than failure
- Horrible failure is at least interesting
- Investing in stock since high school
- Meditating since high school
- If you’re struggling to get yourself to do it pay someone else. You don’t have to do everything.
- If they reassure that a currency devaluation won’t take place then it’s very likely to take place. Always doing the opposite of what they say.
- As long as my basic living expenses were covered I was happy
- My business has always been a way for me to know interesting people and places if I make money on the trip that’s just icing
- Link to gold was broken in 1971
- I’m reluctant to endorse your idea
- You can have an ordinary life or extraordinary life it’s up to you
- Be around other people on the same mission as you and stress test your ideas against them
- Seek out smartest people who disagree with you and understand the reason for their feedback
- Don’t settle for the choice in front of you find the right path for you
- How did you come to see it that way?
- Clear mental map of how things need to get done and ability to question it in the real world
- Intolerant of people who aren’t excellent at what they do
- When faced with the choice of accomplishing it or making others happy always accomplish your goal be abrasive if necessary. Others will be disappointed anyway you might as well put your mission first. All shakers seem abrasive on tests. You have to be conceited to make it work.
- Connect what people are like with outcomes they produce - key attitude when selecting a team member
- Not immorality just trying to optimize for different interests
- Increasingly succeed more than you fail
- Nature optimized for the whole not the individual
- Nature made sex feel good so that you would propagate DNA. Without a carrot nothing moves.
- Reality is built for the whole rather than you
- Man needs difficulty its necessary for health so don’t run from it
- You’re a machine within a machine. At any time you can alter the way your habits work towards your goals. You’re a manager not a worker. A good manager knows not to expect more from the employee than they can execute nor put them into a job they don’t belong. They know what kind of character this person has and what can be expected from them. The same applies to your internal workers your habits and you.
- As designer manager of your own life when you find out you’re bad at something you don’t quit instead you hire the right person for this job
- Are you going after with what’s consistent with your nature? Can you be real enough with yourself to determine the boundary of your nature? Are you willing to compromise on your goals to align with your nature?
- Be audacious what you think of attainable is based on what you know at the moment
- Once you identify a problem don’t tolerate it. Tolerating it has same consequences as not discovering it
- Fierce intolerance of badness of any kind regardless of severity
- Focus on what is before moving on it spend 15m-1hr before you move. Find the root cause not the superficial cause. Distinguish the symptoms from the disease.
- Tasks narrative and goals don’t mix them up
- Arrogance will keep you stuck in the wrong mental map but being too open will make you give up prematurely
- If you can find your blind spots you can fix them. Remove the ego.
- You don’t have to be the executor you can hire people for that
- People try to prove they have the answer even though they don’t
- Close minded people aren’t interested in why you disagree they just want you to agree with them no matter what - anger
- Get 4 opinions on serious medical procedures
- The conscious and subconscious mind are always in a battle in humans. Animals are nothing but subconscious.
- Anything done frequently enough will become a habit
- Habit is inertia
- If you do something for 18 months you will do it forever
- Extroverts think out loud they need to talk through it
- Focus on goals versus tasks the day to day versus the big picture
- You collect all information relevant and not like pocket lint
- A good approximation quickly is vastly superior to a precise slow answer
- When people say not always they will talk about exceptions which always exist but practically don’t make a difference let them argue pedantically amongst themselves these people consider everything to be of equal importance
- If someone says it’s not totally true that means it is by and large true
- Be an an imperfectionist don’t get bogged down in the details it will zap too much time
- Animals who can’t optimize die
- Until you make the unconscious conscious it will rule your life and you will call it fate
- Your conscious mind is slow put it in subconscious as a habit
- Better to prepare for it then wish it wasn’t true
- Putting comfort before success benefits no one. You have to be willing to ruffle feathers.
- Be radically honest and let the ones who don’t want to play along leave. Don’t change your principles for people.
- Most people both do work and manage how others see the work they are doing
- Don’t talk about people who are not in the room
- Don’t let loyalty get in the way of truth
- Generosity versus fairness. Just because I give something to someone out of generosity doesn’t mean I will give it to you.
- You feel bad about mistakes because you think short term ‘I will be found out’ but but the long term of how can I learn from this mistake.
- Mistakes can be made but you have to learn from them. The worst is covering up mistakes out of fear of being punished.
- It’s not productive to yell at your ski instructor if he says you fell because you didn’t shift your weight and it’s no different when your supervisor gives feedback
- Pain is normally sign of a problem that should be fixed what if you’re always in pain?
- I’m willing to let you scratch or dent the car but I won’t let you total it
- Chirping versus actual constructive complaints
- Do big things well rather than small things perfectly
- Not everyone is believable and not everyone has track record of producing results
- Agreeing on big decisions is sufficient Protestant versus Christian agree on big things but still fight about small differences
- Once a decision is made everyone should get behind it
- Some people can’t see the bigger picture remove them
- Don’t design jobs to fit people if they don’t work out in this position don’t put then in another
- Someone who can ask great questions is better than someone who has great answers
- being in a job that’s not a good fit is bad for your personal evolution
- Need vision and responsibility
- Don’t just run after the ball to try to help remember your position
- Get on the field into the project otherwise you will believe the excuses you’re told
- ‘we’ means they are depersonalizing the mistake
- Don’t just act direct reports go one level below as well
- If you’re leading well expect enemies
- If you don’t have better insights than them you shouldn’t be a leader
- Don’t try to be followed try to be understood make sure you all want the same things
- Escalation is not failure you will run into problems you can’t handle
- Frog in boiled water you won’t notice the problem unless you look at it with fresh eyes
- Have informants tell you about problem while it’s ready to fix
- Don’t mask responsibility with ‘we’ or ‘someone’ name the person. People need to take responsibility for their actions.
- The person closest to the work has the best perspective so ask them don’t rely just on direct reports
- Did the machine work as it should have? Is the problem with the machine or the person?
- Why is this broken? Because Harry wrote it poorly. Why did Harry write it poorly? Because he was rushed. Why was he rushed? Go down the line.
- Is this a capacity issue or capability issue?
- Managers fail because they are too distant or lost perspective
- You’re reducing my sense of ownership
- Get at the best answers not answers that make most people happy
- How can you evaluate the work of you can’t do it yourself
- Helping a good person do better or a failing person not fail
- A few smart people is superior to many average people
- If you’re not excited for the goal stop working on it
- If something seems too hard don’t work harder step back and see if there is a better way of doing it
