Principles are ways of successfully dealing with reality to get what you want out of life.
Ray Dalio, one of the world’s most successful investors and entrepreneurs, cites principles as his key to success.
In 1975, Ray Dalio founded Bridgewater Associates, out of his two-bedroom apartment in New York City. Over forty years later, Bridgewater has grown into the largest hedge fund in the world and the fifth most important private company in the United States (according to Fortune magazine), and Dalio himself has been named to TIME’s list of the 100 most influential people in the world. Along the way Dalio discovered unique principles that have led to his and Bridgewater’s unique success. It is these principles, and not anything special about Dalio, that he believes are the reason behind whatever success he has had. He is now at a stage in his life that he wants to pass these principles along to others for them to judge for themselves and to do whatever they want with them.
Life Principle
Keep in mind both the rates of change and the levels of things, and the relationships between them.
When determining an acceptable rate of improvement for something, it is its level in relation to the rate of change that matters. I often see people lose sight of this. They say "it's getting better" without noticing how far below the bar it is and whether the rate of change will get it above the bar in an acceptable amount of time. If someone who has been getting grades of 30s and 40s on their tests raised their scores to 50s over the course of a few months it would be accurate to say that they are getting better, but they would still be woefully inadequate. Everything important in your life needs to be on a trajectory to be above the bar and headed toward excellent at an appropriate pace. The lines in the chart below show how the dots connect through time. A's trajectory gets you above the bar in an appropriate amount of time; B's does not. To make good decisions, you need to understand the reality of which of these two cases is happening.
Life Principle
- Learn How to Make Decisions Effectively
- Synthesize the situation through time.
- Keep in mind both the rates of change and the levels of things, and the relationships between them.
- Synthesize the situation through time.
Any person or organization can adopt Principles to better achieve their goals.
Learn what Principles are and how they are applied at Principles.com
