Black and white portrait of Ray Dalio: Narrator and Creator of Life Principles

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.

Work Principle

Don't give orders and try to be followed; try to be understood and to understand others by getting in sync.

If you want to be followed, either for egotistical reasons or because you believe it more expedient to operate that way, you will pay a heavy price in the long run. When you are the only one thinking, the results will suffer.

Authoritarian managers don't develop their subordinates, which means those who report to them stay dependent. This hurts everyone in the long run. If you give too many orders, people will likely resent them, and when you aren't looking, defy them. The greatest influence you can have over intelligent people--and the greatest influence they will have on you--comes from constantly getting in sync about what is true and what is best so that you all want the same things.

Work Principle

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Learn to get more of what you want out of life.

Life Principles

Work Principles

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