Gary Vaynerchuk

The GaryVee Audio Experience · Ray Dalio, Principles, the Evolution of Bridgewater Associates &…

• When Does Ray Dalio Say a Person Actually Controls Their Mind?

  Ray Dalio told Gary Vaynerchuk that needing noise is evidence you do not control your mind. Vaynerchuk said he wants music on and feels worse in silence than in chaos. Dalio called that the tell. Restlessness in quiet means you never leave the busy layer of the mind. If you cannot sit in that quiet without getting antsy, you are not in control, because control is being able to. Dalio was speaking as the founder of Bridgewater Associates, which he started in 1975 after he began trading at 12, while caddying. The meditation point did not depend on the fund. Stimulation is easy to love. The quiet is the test.

  ▶ at 14:11 Share Transcript

• Who Does Ray Dalio Think Should Invent Your Principles?

  Ray Dalio told Gary Vaynerchuk that the Ten Commandments and the Bill of Rights are principles, but people are not walking around checking the list. Religion used to hand the list over. His claim is that each person now has to write their own. He wanted Vaynerchuk to record the decision he actually makes when a situation repeats, until those notes become Gary's formula. Dalio said he started with nothing, stumbled forward, and reached a stage where passing on his own recipes mattered, as long as other people would examine theirs. Self-awareness is the tool that separates a real principle from a habit you never noticed.

  ▶ at 7:23 Share Transcript

• Why Does Ray Dalio Say Written Principles Beat One-off Decisions?

  Ray Dalio told Gary Vaynerchuk that he wrote down the criteria for every decision, and those notes became his principles. Saying them let him use the same rules with a partner, with family, and at Bridgewater Associates, where the best idea is supposed to win. They later turned the rules into algorithms. A principle, he said, is how you handle something that happens again and again: skiing, raising children, or investing. You recognize the pattern and you already know the move. He had worried that readers of his book Principles would find this too abstract. He was surprised they could connect a repeated event to a written rule.

  ▶ at 3:30 Share Transcript