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Life Principle 1 | Embrace Reality and Deal With It.

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Life Principle 1 | Embrace Reality and Deal With It.

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There is nothing more important than understanding how reality works and how to deal with it. The state of mind you bring to this process makes all the difference. I have found it helpful to think of my life as if it were a game in which each problem I face is a puzzle I need to solve. By solving the puzzle, I get a gem in the form of a principle that helps me avoid the same sort of problem in the future. Collecting these gems continually improves my decision making, so I am able to ascend to higher and higher levels of play in which the game gets harder and the stakes become ever greater.

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There is nothing more important than understanding how reality works and how to deal with it. The state of mind you bring to this process makes all the difference. I have found it helpful to think of...

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Principle Of The Day: What It Means to Be Principled and Why You Need to Do It

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Principle Of The Day: What It Means to Be Principled and Why You Need to Do It

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What It Means to Be Principled and Why You Need to Do It

Having clearly written down principles = being crystal clear about what you stand for and how you will behave in various circumstances = having integrity = building trust  = knowing your direction = being effective. It’s all about eliminating duality and having consistency of what you say you will do and what you actually do, regardless of who you are with and regardless of whether or not people are looking, and accomplishing what you set out to do.  Being radically truthful and radically transparent is invaluable for doing that because it demonstrates that you are doing this and it holds you accountable for doing it.

While I wrote my principles down, I urge you to have and write down your own principles, feeling free to take anyone’s you like. To help you do that, I’m planning to share one of mine or one of someone else’s every day over the next year or so. I’d like you to ask me questions about them here and then take them or leave them as you see fit. I will also be taking the best posts of people who are participating in this exercise and will share them with people more broadly.  It should be fun and productive.

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Ray Dalio on LinkedIn: "What It Means to Be Principled and Why You Need to Do It Having clearly written down principles = being crystal clear about what you stand for and how you will behave in various circumstances = having integrity = building trust = knowing your direction = being effective. It's all about eliminating duality and having consistency of what you say you will do and what you actually do, regardless of who you are with and regardless of whether or not people are looking, and accomplishing what you set out to do. Being radically truthful and radically transparent is invaluable for doing that because it demonstrates that you are doing this and it holds you accountable for doing it. While I wrote my principles down, I urge you to have and write down your own principles, feeling free to take anyone's you like. To help you do that, I'm planning to share one of mine or one of someone else's every day over the next year or so. I'd like you to ask me questions about them here and then take them or leave them as you see fit. I will also be taking the best posts of people who are participating in this exercise and will share them with people more broadly. It should be fun and productive. "

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June 15, 2018: Ray Dalio posted images on LinkedIn

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Understanding, accepting, and working with reality is both practical and beautiful. I have become so much of a hyperrealist that I’ve learned to appreciate the beauty of all realities, even harsh ones, and have come to despise impractical idealism.

Don’t get me wrong: I believe in making dreams happen. To me, there’s nothing better in life than doing that. The pursuit of dreams is what gives life its flavor. My point is that people who create great things aren’t idle dreamers: They are totally grounded in reality. Being hyperrealistic will help you choose your dreams wisely and then achieve them.

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Understanding, accepting, and working with reality is both practical and beautiful. I have become so much of a hyperrealist that I’ve learned to appreciate the beauty of all realities, even harsh...

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Life Principle 1.1a | Dreams + Reality + Determination = A Successful Life

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Life Principle 1.1a | Dreams + Reality + Determination = A Successful Life

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People who achieve success and drive progress deeply understand the cause-eﬀect relationships that govern reality and have principles for using them to get what they want. The converse is also true: Idealists who are not well grounded in reality create problems, not progress.

What does a successful life look like? We all have our own deep-seated needs, so we each have to decide for ourselves what success is. I don’t care whether you want to be a master of the universe, a couch potato, or anything else—I really don’t. Some people want to change the world and others want to operate in simple harmony with it and savor life. Neither is better. Each of us needs to decide what we value most and choose the paths we take to achieve it.

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People who achieve success and drive progress deeply understand the cause-eﬀect relationships that govern reality and have principles for using them to get what they want. The converse is also true:...

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Life Principle 1.2 | Truth - or more precisely an accurate understanding of reality - is the essential foundation for any good outcome.

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Life Principle 1.2 | Truth - or more precisely an accurate understanding of reality - is the essential foundation for any good outcome.

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Most people ﬁght seeing what’s true when it’s not what they want it to be. That’s bad, because it is more important to understand and deal with the bad stuﬀ since the good stuﬀ will take care of itself.

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Most people ﬁght seeing what’s true when it’s not what they want it to be. That’s bad, because it is more important to understand and deal with the bad stuﬀ since the good stuﬀ will take care of itself.

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Life Principle 1.3 | Be Radically Open-Minded and Radically Transparent

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Life Principle 1.3 | Be Radically Open-Minded and Radically Transparent

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None of us is born knowing what is true; we either have to discover what’s true for ourselves or believe and follow others. The key is to know which path will yield better results

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None of us is born knowing what is true; we either have to discover what’s true for ourselves or believe and follow others. The key is to know which path will yield better results.

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Life Principle 1.3a | Radical Open-Mindedness and Radical Transparency are invaluable for rapid learning and effective change.

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Life Principle 1.3a | Radical Open-Mindedness and Radical Transparency are invaluable for rapid learning and effective change.

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Learning is the product of a continuous real-time feedback loop in which we make decisions, see their outcomes, and improve our understanding of reality as a result. Being radically open-minded enhances the eﬃciency of those feedback loops, because it makes what you are doing, and why, so clear to yourself and others that there can’t be any misunderstandings. The more open-minded you are, the less likely you are to deceive your-self—and the more likely it is that others will give you honest feedback. If they are “believable” people (and it’s very important to know who is “believable”), you will learn a lot from them. Being radically transparent and radically open-minded accelerates this learning process. It can also be difficult because being radically transparent rather than more guarded exposes one to criticism. It’s natural to fear that. Yet if you don’t put yourself out there with your radical transparency, you won’t learn.

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Learning is the product of a continuous real-time feedback loop in which we make decisions, see their outcomes, and improve our understanding of reality as a result. Being radically open-minded...

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Life Principle 1.3b | Don't let fears of what others think stand in your way

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Life Principle 1.3b | Don't let fears of what others think stand in your way

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You must be willing to do things in the unique ways you think are best – and to open-mindedly reflect on the feedback that comes inevitably as a result of being that way. Learning to be radically transparent is like learning to speak in public: While it’s initially awkward, the more you do it, the more comfortable you will be with it. This has been true for me. For example, I still instinctively ﬁnd being as radically transparent in the ways that I am in this book uncomfortable because I am exposing personal material to the public that will attract attention and criticism. Yet I am doing it because I’ve learned that it’s best, and I wouldn’t feel good about myself if I let my fears stand in the way. In other words, I have experienced the positive eﬀects of radical transparency for so long that it’s now uncomfortable for me not to be that way.
Besides giving me the freedom to be me, it has allowed me to understand others and for them to understand me, which is much more eﬃcient and much more enjoyable than not having this under-standing. Imagine how many fewer misunderstandings we would have and how much more eﬃcient the world would be—and how much closer we all would be to knowing what’s true—if instead of hiding what they think, people shared it openly. I’m not talking about every-one’s very personal inner secrets; I’m talking about people’s opinions of each other and of how the world works. As you’ll see, I’ve learned ﬁrsthand how powerful this kind of radical truth and transparency is in improving my decision making and my relationships. So whenever I’m faced with the choice, my instinct is to be transparent. I practice it as a discipline and I recommend you do the same.

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You must be willing to do things in the unique ways you think are best – and to open-mindedly reflect on the feedback that comes inevitably as a result of being that way. Learning to be radically...

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Life Principle 1.3c | Embracing Radical Truth and Radical Transparency will bring you more meaningful work and more meaningful relationships.

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Life Principle 1.3c | Embracing Radical Truth and Radical Transparency will bring you more meaningful work and more meaningful relationships.

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My experience, based on watching thousands of people try this approach, is that with practice the vast majority find it so rewarding and pleasurable that they have a hard time operating any other way.
This takes practice and changing one’s habits. I have found that it typically takes about eighteen months, which is how long it takes to change most habits.

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My experience, based on watching thousands of people try this approach, is that with practice the vast majority find it so rewarding and pleasurable that they have a hard time operating any other...

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Principle Of The Day: Principles are fundamental truths that serve as the foundations for behavior that gets you what you want out of life. | They can be applied again and again in similar situations to help you achieve your goals.

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Principle Of The Day: Principles are fundamental truths that serve as the foundations for behavior that gets you what you want out of life. | They can be applied again and again in similar situations to help you achieve your goals.

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Every day, each of us is faced with a blizzard of situations we must respond to. Without principles we would be forced to react to all the things life throws at us individually, as if we were experiencing each of them for the first time. If instead we classify these situations into types and have good principles for dealing with them, we will make better decisions more quickly and have better lives as a result. Having a good set of principles is like having a good collection of recipes for success. All successful people operate by principles that help them be successful, though what they choose to be successful at varies enormously, so their principles vary.

Q: Do we change our principles through out the time or when the situation changes ?
A: We have our principles through repeated experiences and reflecting on how well they apply to those experiences. By writing them down, reflecting and modifying, they get better. By having others see them and debate them they get better - eventually becoming practical polished gems https://twitter.com/RayDalio/status/1011990192427864065

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Every day, each of us is faced with a blizzard of situations we must respond to. Without principles we would be forced to react to all the things life throws at us individually, as if we were...

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Life Principle 1.4 | Look to nature to learn how reality works 

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Life Principle 1.4 | Look to nature to learn how reality works 

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All the laws of reality were given to us by nature. Man didn’t create these laws, but by understanding them we can use them to foster our own evolution and achieve our goals. For example, our ability to ﬂy or to send cell phone signals around the world came from understanding and applying the existing rules of reality—the physical laws or principles that govern the natural world. While I spend most of my time studying the realities that aﬀect me most directly—those that drive economies, the markets, and the people I deal with—I also spend time in nature and can’t help reﬂecting on how it works by observing, reading, and speaking with some of the greatest specialists on the subject. I’ve found it both interesting and valuable to observe which laws we humans have in common with the rest of nature and which diﬀerentiate us. Doing that has had a big impact on my approach to life.

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All the laws of reality were given to us by nature. Man didn’t create these laws, but by understanding them we can use them to foster our own evolution and achieve our goals. For example, our ability...

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Life Principle 1.4a |  Don't get hung up on your views of how things "should" be because you will miss out on learning how they really are.

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Life Principle 1.4a |  Don't get hung up on your views of how things "should" be because you will miss out on learning how they really are.

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It’s important not to let our biases stand in the way of our objectivity. To get good results, we need to be analytical rather than emotional.
Whenever I observe something in nature that I (or mankind) think is wrong, I assume that I’m wrong and try to figure out why what nature is doing makes sense. That has taught me a lot. It has changed my thinking about 1) what’s good and what’s bad, 2) what my purpose in life is, and 3) what I should do when faced with my most important choices.
To help explain why, I will give you a simple example.
When I went to Africa a number of years ago, I saw a pack of hyenas take down a young wildebeest. My reaction was visceral. I felt empathy for the wildebeest and thought that what I had witnessed was horrible. But was that because it was horrible or was it because I am biased to believe it’s horrible when it is actually wonderful? That got me thinking. Would the world be a better or worse place if what I’d seen hadn’t occurred? That perspective drove me to consider the second- and third-order consequences so that I could see that the world would be worse. I now realize that nature optimizes for the whole, not for the individual, but most people judge good and bad based only on how it aﬀects them. What I had seen was the process of nature at work, which is much more eﬀective at furthering the improvement of the whole than any process man has ever invented.
Most people call something bad if it is bad for them or bad for those they empathize with, ignoring the greater good. This tendency extends to groups: One religion will consider its beliefs good and another religion’s beliefs bad to such an extent that their members might kill each other in the mutual conviction that each is doing what’s right. Typically, people’s conﬂicting beliefs or conﬂicting interests make them unable to see things through another’s eyes. That’s not good and it doesn’t make sense. While I could understand people liking something that helps them and disliking things that hurt them, it doesn’t make sense to call something good or bad in an absolute sense based only on how it aﬀects individuals. To do so would presume that what the individual wants is more important than the good of the whole. To me, nature seems to deﬁne good as what’s good for the whole and optimizes for it, which is preferable.

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It’s important not to let our biases stand in the way of our objectivity.  To get good results, we need to be analytical rather than emotional.
Whenever I observe something in nature that I (or...

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Life Principle 1.4b |  To be "good", something must operate consistently with the laws of reality and contribute to the evolution of the whole; that is what is most rewarded.

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Life Principle 1.4b |  To be "good", something must operate consistently with the laws of reality and contribute to the evolution of the whole; that is what is most rewarded.

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For example, if you come up with something the world values, you almost can’t help but be rewarded. Conversely, reality tends to penalize those people, species, and things that don’t work well and detract from evolution.

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For example, if you come up with something the world values, you almost can’t help but be rewarded. Conversely, reality tends to penalize those people, species, and things that don’t work well and...

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Life Principle 1.4c | Evolution is the single greatest force in the universe; it is the only thing that is permanent and it drives everything.

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Life Principle 1.4c | Evolution is the single greatest force in the universe; it is the only thing that is permanent and it drives everything.

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Everything from the smallest subatomic particle to the entire galaxy is evolving. While everything apparently dies or disappears in time, the truth is that it all just gets reconfigured in evolving forms. Remember that energy can’t be destroyed—it can only be reconfigured.

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This evolutionary cycle is not just for people but for countries, companies, economies—for everything. And it is naturally self-correcting as a whole, though not necessarily for its parts.

"The key is to fail, learn, and improve quickly. If you’re constantly learning and improving, your evolutionary process will look like the one that’s ascending. Do it poorly and it will look like what you see above, or worse. #PrincipleOfTheDay"

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This evolutionary cycle is not just for people but for countries, companies, economies—for everything. And it is naturally self-correcting as a whole, though not necessarily for its parts.

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This evolutionary cycle is not just for people but for countries, companies, economies—for everything. And it is naturally self-correcting as a whole, though not necessarily for its parts. https://t.co/7N77DJPt5x

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This evolutionary cycle is not just for people but for countries, companies, economies—for everything. And it is naturally self-correcting as a whole, though not necessarily for its parts. pic.twitter.com/7N77DJPt5x
— Ray Dalio (@RayDalio) June 28, 2018

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This evolutionary cycle is not just for people but for countries, companies, economies—for everything. And it is naturally self-correcting as a whole, though not necessarily for its parts. https://t.co/7N77DJPt5x

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This evolutionary cycle is not just for people but for countries, companies, economies—for everything. And it is naturally self-correcting as a whole, though not necessarily for its parts. https://t.co/7N77DJPt5x

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This evolutionary cycle is not just for people but for countries, companies, economies—for everything. And it is naturally self-correcting as a whole, though not necessarily for its parts.