I found that whenever I encountered a situation, rather than just reacting to it, it was tremendously useful to think carefully about how I should react to it and other situations like it. Besides providing me with more thoughtful responses in each of these cases, approaching things this way provided me and others with guidance on how to deal with similar situations when they came up in the future.
Ray DalioNever say anything about a person you wouldn't say to them directly, and don't try people without accusing them to their face. Badmouthing people behind their backs shows a serious lack of integrity and is counterproductive. It doesn't yield any beneficial change, and it subverts both the people you are badmouthing and the environment as a whole.
Ray DalioIn return, society rewards those who give it what it wants. That is why how much money people have earned is a rough measure of how much they gave society what it wanted.
Ray DalioThe main reason I write the daily observations is because I want to know where I'm wrong. So lots of times if somebody points something out it helps me, and I want to have a diversified bet of uncorrelated bets.
Ray DalioTo have an idea meritocracy, one needs to do three things. First, they have to put their honest thoughts on the table, for everyone to look at and everyone to work through. Second, they need to have thoughtful disagreement, by which there are quality exchanges, in which there's open mindedness and the realization that no one has all the right answers. And you can work through that and get to better answers because good collective decision making is better than any individual decision making. And third, you have to have ways of getting past the disagreements if they remain.
Ray DalioI was about twenty and the Beatles were meditating and I heard about it and they had a center in New York and I came to the center and I learned about it.
Ray DalioSuccess is not in obtaining the thing. Because there's always another thing. And then you look back on it, and for me, through my evolution, yes I have success by most measures - but for me, when it comes to the greatest joy of reward, there's an emotional element and there's an intellectual element. Emotionally, my greatest joy was the personal relationships I've had. That was the greatest joy. Intellectually, my satisfaction was that I do feel I've evolved well and I'm doing my best to contribute toward evolution.
Ray Dalio