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.
Work Principle
Think about both the big picture and the granular details, and understand the connections between them.
Avoid fixating on irrelevant details. You have to determine what's important and what's unimportant at each level. For example, imagine you are designing a house. First you need to start with the big picture: Your house will sit on a plot of land, and you have to think through where the water comes from, how the house gets hooked up to the power grid, and so on. Then you need to decide how many rooms it will have, where the doors will go, where you need windows, and so on. When designing the plan, you need to think about all of these things and connect them, but that doesn't mean that you actually need to go out and pick the hinges for the door yourself. You just need to know that you'll need a door with hinges and how it fits into the bigger picture of the house.
Work Principle
- Design Improvements to Your Machine to Get Around Your Problems
- Keep your strategic vision the same while making appropriate tactical changes as circumstances dictate.
- Think about both the big picture and the granular details, and understand the connections between them.
- Keep your strategic vision the same while making appropriate tactical changes as circumstances dictate.
Any person or organization can adopt Principles to better achieve their goals.
Learn what Principles are and how they are applied at Principles.com
