Legendary guru Ray Dalio (Trades, Portfolio) founded Bridgewater Associates in 1975 from scratch at the same time as he was starting his family. Today Bridgewater Associates is the world's biggest hedge fund firm, which now manages $155 billion, according to Forbes.com.
On the Bridgewater Associates website Dalio has written an excellent article on principles. He talks about how he has gained the most experience from making mistakes. Here is a passage about experience and making mistakes from his article on principles: “I have gained a lot more experience that taught me a lot more, mostly by making mistakes and learning from them. Most importantly: I learned that failure is by and large due to not accepting and successfully dealing with the realities of life, and that achieving success is simply a matter of accepting and successfully dealing with all my realities.”
He then went on to say, “I learned that there is an incredible beauty to mistakes, because embedded in each mistake is a puzzle and a gem that I could get if I solved it, i.e., a principle that I could use to reduce my mistakes in the future. I learned that each mistake was probably a reflection of something that I was (or others were) doing wrong, so if I could figure out what that was, I could learn how to be more effective. I learned that wrestling with my problems, mistakes and weaknesses was the training that strengthened me. Also, I learned that it was the pain of this wrestling that made me and those around me appreciate our successes.”
Dalio also said, “I met a number of great people and learned that none of them were born great – they all made lots of mistakes and had lots weaknesses – and that great people become great by looking at their mistakes and weaknesses and figuring out how to get around them. So I learned that the people who make the most of the process of encountering reality, especially the painful obstacles, learn the most and get what they want faster than people who do not. I learned that they are the great ones – the ones I wanted to have around me.”
Multibillionaire and Forbes top 400 list guru Dalio’s advice is great, and everyone can learn from it. Below is a YouTube video by Evan Carmichael in which he features Dalio's and his top 10 rules for success.
His No. 2 rule for success is fail, learn and move forward. He says in this video, “Failure is a part of the learning process. What’s the risk of failure? You’ll be embarrassed? How do you distinguish failure from learning? In your whole life, failure implies that the game stops if it’s part of your failing and then you learn that learning is part of the moving forward – that is what the process is like: Fail, learn, move forward and constantly do that."
This reminds me of the words of Investor and philanthropist Tai Lopez when he says that the greatest marketing words ever were placed on a shampoo bottle saying “rinse and repeat.” This is what Dalio is referring to when he explains what failing and learning are.
Another key principle that I learned about Dalio's success is meditation. This is a quote from Dalio's principles article on how he started practicing meditation. “At that time the Beatles had made a trip to India to learn how to meditate, which triggered my interest, so I learned how to meditate. It helped me think more clearly and creatively, so I’m sure that enhanced my enjoyment of, and success at, learning. I still meditate and I still find it helpful.”
In the video above Dalio goes on to describe how important meditation is. “It eliminates the stress; it eliminates the emotion.” Dalio says he’s been practicing meditation for 44 years twice a day for 20 minutes, and it’s such a good investment. “I would say that, more than any other factor having any effect on my success, it’s been meditation.”
“It’s the biggest gift that I could give to anyone.”
Cheers to your investment success.
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