RE-RELEASE: Ray Dalio, who just tragically lost his son
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[1:00]Zibi Owens.com. I'm speaking today to Ray Dalio, who's the founder, co-CIO, and co-chairman
[1:06]of Bridgewater Associates. He is the number one New York Times best-selling author of principles,
[1:10]life, and work, and the new younger readers edition principles for success
[1:14]and entertaining illustrated format for readers of all ages. He also wrote principles for navigating
[1:19]big debt crises, which I think I might skip. By following his own principles,
[1:24]Ray built the fifth most important private company in the U.S. was judged to be one of the 100 most
[1:28]influential people in the world and became one of the 50 largest philanthropists in the U.S.
[1:34]A graduate of Long Island University with an MBA from Harvard Business School. He currently lives
[1:38]with his wife and Greenwich, Connecticut. Welcome, Ray. Thanks so much for coming on mom's. Don't
[1:42]have time to read books. Glad to be here. So can you please tell listeners what principles,
[1:47]life, and work, and then the offshoot of that principle is for success are about what made you
[1:52]write these books and what's so important about principles? Well, I didn't actually
[1:56]start out to write a book. Whenever I was making a decision through a large part of my life,
[2:02]I would write down the criteria that I would use to make the decision and then I showed it to others.
[2:09]So it gave me good reflections on why I made decisions and I realized everything happens
[2:15]over and over again. So when that thing that I was making a decision about would happen again,
[2:21]pick up what I wrote and figure how did that principle apply to the next time and so on. So I
[2:28]developed these principles for operating in that way and then when I was, I suppose, 10 years ago,
[2:35]I started to get a lot of attention and then I put that online because people were interested
[2:41]and they were wondering what the way of operating was and it got downloaded by three and half
[2:46]people. Then when I decided to step out of the CEO job and pass it on. So others,
[2:51]I took that compendium, I made a book of it called Principles Life and Work Principles.
[2:56]That sold two and a half million copies and it puts a 600 page book and but a lot of people
[3:03]told me wow, which one of it had an important effect on them. And a number of parents said,
[3:09]can you make it a simpler version that I could reach my kids because I'd like to pass them along,
[3:14]it's different from the regular principles that they're learning. And then also other people
[3:20]wanted to get it in at the still version rather than the 600 page version. You know,
[3:26]I decided to make it real short and real easy to read. So it's like 125 pages with probably
[3:34]25 words on a page or something. So I needed to distill it down for that reason and that's why
[3:40]the kids book. It's a brilliant book of all ages, people adults like it as well as kids like
[3:47]in parentry to their kids. So it's a simple book that basically conveys the simple principles
[3:53]that help me and seem to be helping a lot of people. And you said this funny line at the beginning
[3:58]of principles. You said before I begin telling you what I think I want to establish that I'm a
[4:03]dumb shit who doesn't know much relative to what I need to know. Which is such a funny way to start.
[4:09]Why? And you said you didn't want to sound presumptuous by saying you know more than anyone else.
[4:13]And yet you've had this unique life and way of seeing the world of all the things. What do you
[4:20]think is the most important for people to take away that made you over and over, dedicate yourself
[4:25]to writing this book and then the offshoot of the book? Well, I think that sort of summarizes
[4:30]one of the most important principles like I think the greatest tragedy of mankind, that the greatest
[4:36]tragedy of individuals, is having opinions that are wrong that could be so easily stressed
[4:42]test or to think that their opinions are righteous because they have to them. And or to think
[4:48]that they have in their heads most of what they need, whereas if they instead realize that what's
[4:57]out there in a way of different thinking is so much greater than anything that they have in their
[5:03]and that if they were to just step back and harvest all of that and take in and stress test their
[5:10]opinions they can get so much more benefits. So when I say that I really mean that I think almost
[5:16]the whole really successful people at the point got became really successful not because of what they
[5:24]know although they learn a lot more by being radically open minded, but mostly by knowing how to
[5:31]deal with they're not knowing and taking it in and growing and triangulating. So that would be
[5:37]the number one thing and I think it's so different from school schools the opposite. I think that
[5:44]if you understand that learning from making mistakes and that everybody has strengths
[5:50]at weaknesses and that if you know how to make the most out of mistakes to learn from mistakes
[5:58]and not feel bad or diminished because you're making mistakes and realize that everybody has
[6:05]weaknesses and successes achieved by sort of knowing how to work with others who are strong or
[6:11]your weak and to accept your weaknesses you can be tremendously successful but school and a lot of
[6:18]the environment diminishes the appreciation from the states. You don't because people become so
[6:25]perfectionistic and they think oh I'm smart because I got a high grade on the test. Well a lot
[6:30]of life is when you fail. So learning begins really with the failure not because you get it right.
[6:39]So interesting. I love how you call it the blind spot barrier where you have others who help you
[6:44]and see what you can't see and sometimes you don't even realize that right.
[6:49]Right. We all see differently our minds work. Some people see the big picture. Some people
[6:55]see details. It's so interesting. It's like the you know the table of the seven black men and
[7:01]the elephant. We're all touching different pieces and when you can triagulate and see things through
[7:07]other people's eyes and you could do that with melody you can see many dimensions that you
[7:14]individually could not see and so it's so stupid to hold on to your warm opinion and not do that
[7:21]triangulation and not do that stress testing and then appreciate mistakes for learning.
[7:28]I'm throwing out all my opinions after this call.
[7:33]Well I say I describe it I describe it the capacity to be open minded and assertive the same
[7:39]time. In other words to have humility and to be curious but don't accept things that don't
[7:46]make sense to you. So keep asking the questions and learning but do it with great open mindedness
[7:54]and great humility and learn the most appreciate failures like I would describe it as my reaction
[8:01]to making mistakes changed. I in writing down these principles I realized that every time I made a
[8:09]mistake it was like a puzzle and if I could solve the puzzle I would get a gem and the puzzle was
[8:18]what would I do differently in the future to make a better decision and the gem I would get
[8:25]would this be this principle of how I could be better and I'd write it down and so the mistakes
[8:32]themselves I didn't feel bad about in other words I realized that they would bring me things
[8:39]that were learning that they would bring me things that helped my process. I think so many people
[8:46]feel bad about mistakes and feel bad about themselves rather than have that instinctual reaction
[8:53]like oh this is just learning. Excellent advice. You also said another way to look at things that
[9:00]we're pursuing is you said the things we strive for are just the bait the struggle to get them
[9:05]with people that we care about gives us the personal evolution and the meaningful relationships that
[9:11]are the real rewards which I loved because it's such a different way of thinking about goals and
[9:17]there's so much in the culture about like achieving things and goals and this is sort of like the
[9:21]journey is more important than the destination type of philosophy right. Yes I learned that I learned
[9:28]exactly what you're what you're saying like I'd go after something and I did achieve a goal or
[9:33]wouldn't achieve a goal but I would be on the mission with somebody and then you get to the goal
[9:38]and it was enjoyable but it was enjoyable for a little bit of time that I'd never settle on that
[9:44]and then I keep going and so it's a little bit like maybe trying to climb Everest or trying to climb
[9:50]a mountain and what you realize is now your ambition and the struggling with other people is going
[10:00]Because when to achieve that goal, we want to get a, whatever it is, you want to get a,
[10:09]I believe that goal is satisfied and it's in that mission of climbing or working that achievement.
[10:21]So I'd, I'd believe that what brings us satisfaction, greatest satisfaction is having
[10:26]meaningful work and meaningful relationships to be on a mission to achieve something that's
[10:32]meaningful work.
[10:33]I'm learning, I'm contributing, I'm doing that and to do it with meaningful relationships
[10:39]with other people, that's the greatest source of reward.
[10:43]It's not the thing you get.
[10:44]This is sort of how I felt about business school.
[10:47]I know we both went to Harvard Business School.
[10:49]I feel like the whole point was being stressed out and bonding with all the people you went
[10:54]through the program with not necessarily the MBA degree at the end of it.
[10:57]Right.
[10:58]And that's what life is.
[10:59]Yes.
[11:00]You're excited now because you've got your mission, an on the side of your mission.
[11:05]You've got your mission to convey these things in a very palatable way, the different
[11:10]perspectives to moms.
[11:12]That's a great mission.
[11:14]And so then when you get to do it with other people, that in and of itself is satisfied.
[11:19]Just imagine, well, you'll feel if you were done with it.
[11:22]Yeah.
[11:23]It's not as, okay, then you, you need something else and it's that journey.
[11:28]That's what life's journey is to evolve personally and to contribute to evolution.
[11:33]Do you think people actually can understand this in the moment or do you think you have
[11:39]to come to this realization?
[11:40]Like do you think you're telling people because it's so true?
[11:44]Do you think it's enough for people to realize or do they have to go through something kind
[11:48]of like when you go through loss, you realize all these things.
[11:51]But even if people tell you, you might not realize it.
[11:54]You have to live it.
[11:55]Feel like that with this or have you found that trying to teach people from your experience
[12:00]is enough.
[12:03]I think it requires both.
[12:05]I think it requires the help to reflect on what's happening.
[12:11]In other words, I think it's a real contribution when somebody goes through experience
[12:17]to simultaneously have a good reflection on their experience that they're going through.
[12:24]So I think it requires both a perspective and the experience.
[12:31]So I think I could communicate these things and we get intellectually say, right, I get
[12:36]it.
[12:37]That makes sense.
[12:38]Then your moment and if in the moment you can reflect, well, that is the best learning.
[12:46]I have an expression principle, pain plus reflection equals progress.
[12:52]If you just have the pain through that moment and then you go on and you don't have
[12:58]quality reflections on that pain or that mistake, whatever, then you're not going to make
[13:05]the progress.
[13:06]You need the both the experience and the reflection.
[13:09]So I know that you've been successful in your financial area of the world in many other
[13:14]ways.
[13:15]And I have been very focused recently on the book world and the way that you've approached
[13:20]this book, I feel like, is so genius because you didn't just deliver the book.
[13:25]But you do have, as you mentioned, this book for all ages, but also the series that you
[13:30]did with the eight episodes in under 30 minutes of the mini series adventure.
[13:35]And then this amazing app that you created, which basically gives the book away and allows
[13:39]readers to customize their own principles, it's really genius because it just like makes
[13:45]you engage with the content that much more.
[13:47]Tell me how you thought about this way of delivering a book.
[13:50]Well, a book is only a vehicle to deliver information just like you have what you're doing
[13:56]because you're drawing on all the books, but you're drawing the information out of the
[14:00]books with the authors to convey the information.
[14:04]So I wanted to convey that information because I'm at a stage in my life on 70 years
[14:10]old and I want to pass along with things that have been valuable to me.
[14:14]And so it was important to realize that people see things differently, they, you know,
[14:19]there needs to be a quick and easy way of conveying most important things.
[14:26]And then there needs to be a more complete, extensive way of conveying the most important
[14:30]things.
[14:31]And so I was just thinking about what are the best ways to convey it to different people.
[14:37]Like the economics of the book are not relevant.
[14:40]I give it away, like you say, there's principles in action is an app that is free on
[14:47]the Apple App Store and it includes the book.
[14:51]But it also includes instances, videos of real life situations that our people can look
[14:59]at and see it or there's that animation, principles for success, the animation of 30.
[15:05]Whatever vehicle is easy to digest and entertain for the right audience is what I want
[15:11]to use and I realize I need more than one to get it through.
[15:15]And then on the other thing I've done, which I really enjoy and on, by the way, I'm not
[15:18]going to do this for long, I'm just doing it in a while and testing in a long.
[15:23]But I've found that interacting with people on social media has been great too because
[15:27]then there's a principle of the day, they get the principle of the day, we have interactions
[15:32]and so on.
[15:33]And that is something that becomes a more effective way of communicating.
[15:39]And then I'm done.
[15:40]I work people to write their own principles so that's basically it.
[15:44]So if I'm sitting down and saying, okay, tonight I want to write all my own principles
[15:49]and I went through the exercise in the app, which was fantastic and helped me.
[15:52]But if someone's listening and says, you know what, this is a great idea.
[15:55]I need to spend time sort of figuring out my own guiding principles in life.
[16:00]How would you recommend they approach that?
[16:02]I would say that when they're in the situation that either they can go look at other
[16:08]people's principles, they could think about their principles or they can actually make
[16:13]a decision and say, I made that decision and write down their principles at that time.
[16:20]So let's say you're dealing with mom's race and kids first realize that whatever you're
[16:25]encountering has been encountered many times before by the people.
[16:30]And so it's not your first.
[16:32]So think, is there a principle for the best way of doing that?
[16:36]I don't know.
[16:37]Maybe I'm a grandparent now and I watch my kids have their kids want to come in there
[16:42]and they want to sleep with them at night.
[16:45]So how do you do with that?
[16:46]Well, that's not the first time that's happened and there are probably good principles.
[16:50]So they might say, let me go try to find whatever those good principles are or they might
[16:56]discover it themselves, they encounter it and then they write it down and they say,
[17:01]what is the way of dealing with children who want to come into the room in the middle
[17:08]of the night or at a certain hour and sleep with you?
[17:12]What is the best way for dealing with that?
[17:14]Now there's a principle.
[17:16]So whether you write it down ahead of time or not, it is almost incidental as much as you
[17:21]write it down.
[17:22]You look at where you can get it from others and then you accumulate it.
[17:28]Time, you will have your collection of principles.
[17:31]You can't make it abstract.
[17:33]Don't you sit down and say, I want to now write my principles down because it's not realistic.
[17:40]It's not the real encounter.
[17:42]I don't give you the vividness of reflecting on what you're doing.
[17:45]And when you start to do it that way, then you start to think in a principled way.
[17:51]And it's a whole different way to thinking because most people are sort of in a blizzard
[17:56]of things that are coming at them and they're just dealing with those things.
[18:01]And they don't realize that everyone of those things is just another one of those that
[18:05]happens all over and over again.
[18:07]And if you start to think in a principled way where you're saying, okay, well, what one
[18:13]of those is it and how should I deal with those?
[18:17]You start to deal in a higher level way than this blizzard of stuff that comes at you.
[18:23]So anyway, that's what I would recommend, the experiences and the reflections and writing
[18:29]it down and looking at it in that way.
[18:31]Well, I've tried everything else to get my kids to not come into my room at night.
[18:35]So maybe writing a principle about it will finally help.
[18:37]Maybe that's the secret ingredient I've been missing.
[18:40]But I'll bet you dollars to donuts that there's a good principle out there that could
[18:45]probably help you.
[18:46]You don't have to do it alone either.
[18:48]You know what I mean?
[18:49]Yeah.
[18:50]I feel like I've tried eight million principles.
[18:52]But I won't give up.
[18:54]I know it isn't easy.
[18:55]Parenting is, oh, that's a tough job.
[19:00]So as a grandfather, giving everybody all these principles, if you're a grandchildren,
[19:06]we're listening and you wanted to tell them like one or two things not to ever forget.
[19:10]What would those things be?
[19:12]No, as a by the way, my grand my oldest grandson is six years old, and I read the book with him,
[19:19]and we have most fabulous conversations, and so we go through all of those, and he has,
[19:27]so, but the main things have to do with life as a journey and you will have these encounters
[19:35]and reality works in a certain way.
[19:39]And if you have determination and you have your dreams and you encounter the reality
[19:45]well, so how does reality work and you learn your strengths and weaknesses,
[19:52]and you learn others through mistakes and through learning, and you do that well with others,
[19:58]you will get to where you want to be.
[20:00]ago.
[20:01]And that success, my message for success, is that you determine what success is, and
[20:07]it'll challenge with time.
[20:09]So there's no notion of success means making a lot of money, or there's no notion.
[20:14]There's no particular thing, but you have to feel that pull, and you will experience
[20:19]the failures and your end successes, and there's so much value in that self-discovery process
[20:28]of that.
[20:29]And it's an adventure.
[20:30]So don't feel bad about the mistakes, and along the adventure, you know, it's that kind
[20:35]of stuff that can be, except we get much more, you know, into the nitty gritty of what
[20:40]that's like in the book.
[20:42]And from a writing perspective, I know you self-published and then went to Simon & Schuster
[20:46]afterwards.
[20:47]Now you have this huge principle of sort of empire that you've created.
[20:52]What advice would you have to aspiring authors who want to attempt something similar or something
[20:57]out of much smaller scale?
[20:58]Well, just to be clear, Simon & Schuster did my first book.
[21:02]They asked me to do it.
[21:03]And that's the one that's so, you know, two and a quarter million copies.
[21:07]The second one, what I wanted to do was I wanted to, fortunately, be able to give it
[21:11]away free, and so on.
[21:13]So I made the part of making a deal that I had like a second book, which is that that
[21:18]principles I self-published and then I started to give it away free because that's not,
[21:23]that wasn't going to work for that.
[21:24]And then this book is Simon & Schuster again.
[21:27]So I guess what I would say is I was fortunate in the fact that I knew that I'm
[21:33]Simon & Schuster knew that there would be a pretty big demand for the book.
[21:37]We didn't know that it would be so giant, but we knew that there would be a book.
[21:42]So if you're in a position where you have a publisher and you don't know what you're, you
[21:46]know, what you're doing, pick yourself, the right publisher, someone who understands
[21:51]wants to help you get to where you want to get and will work with you in that way.
[21:57]And then if you, then there's the mechanics of the publishing.
[22:02]So there's a, there's a benefit sometimes for self-publishing and maybe because you can find
[22:08]somebody who wants to publish your book in which case then that probably maybe tells
[22:12]you something about the man, but maybe you give it a shot or it may be that you want
[22:17]to just have total control over it and then you would stuff publish.
[22:21]I think for most people, I wouldn't self-publish.
[22:24]I think that really it's great to find the right publisher to work with you to accomplish
[22:30]what you want to accomplish.
[22:34]And then one last question about you as a, as a parent and when you look back on all the
[22:39]time you spent building your business and also parenting for sons, right, for sons.
[22:46]What do you think you did really well, like what would you advise people try to emulate
[22:52]about your parenting experience and what do you maybe wish that you could have done better?
[22:57]I think that to know that the quality of the time, two things, to know that the quality
[23:06]of the time with the person, with the child, with the, is the most important thing.
[23:13]It doesn't necessarily have to be the quantity of the time.
[23:16]Most parents in general work-life balance and then how do you achieve that?
[23:22]And the way to achieve that is to know how to get the most out of an hour.
[23:27]In other words, most people who feel that there's any conflict between two things probably
[23:35]didn't realize that there are better approaches to get the most out of an hour.
[23:40]And so what that means is the quality of the time is very important.
[23:45]And the second thing I would say was letting them make decisions and their own opinions
[23:51]out of very, very early age.
[23:54]In other words, what do you think that to do the back and forth to recognize that one's
[24:01]own path, my parents own desire path for the kids may not be the best path because they
[24:07]have to discover things through their own experience and try to maximize it.
[24:14]So I have four sons who are very, very different people and chose some different paths
[24:19]in life and I like that.
[24:22]The challenge I would say that I have is maybe a little of those lines may be being too
[24:27]big of a person in their lives, too much of a shadow, maybe I create too much of a shadow.
[24:36]I would say that would be probably my biggest challenge.
[24:40]I have to make sure that I shut up a lot more, you know, and make sure that I'm the
[24:48]more the quietest if we're in a family event or so on, I really want to make sure that
[24:54]I do the best job possible of not talking of a receiving and letting them flourish.
[25:02]So more and more, the more they can flourish on their own experience, life on their own,
[25:12]and then that I can't, not only for any fluents, but just respond to them, you know, the
[25:18]better that is.
[25:19]That's wonderful.
[25:20]Well, I'm sure the shadow that you cast is a very pleasant shadow to be under.
[25:25]You have so much great advice and insights.
[25:27]Anyway, thank you so much for sharing them with me and for listeners on Moms and have
[25:31]time to read books.
[25:32]And thank you for the multimedia format so that your content is just so easily and readily
[25:37]digestible.
[25:38]So thank you so much.
[25:39]Well, thank you for helping me have so many things here.
[25:47]My pleasure.
[25:48]Certainly helpful to me.
[25:49]So thank you.
[25:50]Bye bye.
[25:51]Bye bye.
[25:52]Thanks for listening to Moms.
[25:53]Don't have time to read books.
[25:54]The award-winning podcast.
[25:56]Today's episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books was sponsored by pediatrician in your
[26:01]pocket by Dr. Jennifer Tractenberg, Dr. DashGen.com, and your code PIP20 PIP20 for 20%
[26:09]off of these can't miss modules that will make your parenting life so much easier.
[26:14]You can follow me on Instagram at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[26:19]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at TextureSound for the sound editing.
[26:23]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and out trim
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[26:27]Thanks for listening.
[26:28]You can email me at Zibi at Zibi Owens.com.