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
Practice radical open-mindedness.
If you know that you are blind, you can figure out a way to see, whereas if you don’t know that you’re blind, you will continue to bump into your problems. In other words, if you can recognize that you have blind spots and open-mindedly consider the possibility that others might see something better than you—and that the threats and opportunities they are trying to point out really exist—you are more likely to make good decisions.
Radical open-mindedness is motivated by the genuine worry that you might not be seeing your choices optimally. It is the ability to effectively explore different points of view and different possibilities without letting your ego or your blind spots get in your way. It requires you to replace your attachment to always being right with the joy of learning what’s true. Radical open-mindedness allows you to escape from the control of your lower-level you and ensures your upper-level you sees and considers all the good choices and makes the best possible decisions. If you can acquire this ability—and with practice you can—you’ll be able to deal with your realities more effectively and radically improve your life.
Most people don’t understand what it means to be radically openminded. They describe open-mindedness as being “open to being wrong,” but stubbornly cling to whatever opinion is in their head and fail to seek an understanding of the reasoning behind alternative points of view.
Life Principle
- Be Radically Open-Minded
Practice radical open-mindedness.
- Sincerely believe that you might not know the best possible path and recognize that your ability to deal well with "not knowing" is more important than whatever it is you do know.
- Recognize that decision making is a two-step process: First take in all the relevant information, then decide.
- Don't worry about looking good; worry about achieving your goal.
- Realize that you can't put out without taking in.
- Recognize that to gain the perspective that comes from seeing things through another's eyes, you must suspend judgment for a time—only by empathizing can you properly evaluate another point of view.
- Remember that you're looking for the best answer, not simply the best answer that you can come up with yourself.
- Be clear on whether you are arguing or seeking to understand, and think about which is most appropriate based on your and others' believability.
Any person or organization can adopt Principles to better achieve their goals.
Learn what Principles are and how they are applied at Principles.com
