Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Ray Dalio on Success, Failure and Meaningful Work

Episode Date: February 7, 2024

How does someone turn a two-bedroom apartment into the world’s largest hedge fund? Our guest today - the one and only Ray Dalio - knows. A master of global macro investing, Ray founded Bridgewater Associates and led it to unparalleled heights, redefining financial excellence along the way.Ray isn't just a finance legend; he's a visionary author and a vanguard in idea meritocracy. With bestsellers like 'Principles: Life and Work,' he's influenced minds around the globe. His journey from a finance graduate to a figure on the Time 100 and Bloomberg Markets' most influential people lists is nothing short of remarkable.Beyond finance, Ray’s a dedicated family man and philanthropist, deeply invested in ocean exploration and equal opportunity initiatives.In our insightful chat, Ray breaks down his success pillars: radical transparency, idea meritocracy, and the power of transcendental meditation. He also opens up about loss, failure and how to align your life path to your true nature.Prepare to dive into a mind that’s navigated the complex tides of global finance with steadfast principles and innovative strategies.Whether you're charting your course in business, sports, or any other area, Ray's insights offer keys to unlock your potential and create a life that resonates with your deepest aspirations._________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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You just can't not learn from them. Pain plus reflection equals progress. Welcome back or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Michael Gervais, by trade and training a high-performance psychologist. Many times, the most meaningful work we can do in our lives grows out of our childhood interests. So picture, if you will, a young boy from a modest middle-class neighborhood who is deeply fascinated by the stock market. Already at age 12, he's developed a sophisticated understanding, viewing the market as an intricate

and complex game. His intense interest is so much more than just a passing childhood phase. He starts to take action, consistently investing, earning from his part-time job, and learning valuable lessons along the way. He's planting the seeds of a lifelong passion. This is the real-life story of Ray Dalio, the visionary behind Bridgewater Associates, the world's largest hedge fund, which manages $124 billion in assets. Ray's path from humble beginnings to financial legend and one of Time's 100 most influential people in the world, is a case study in self-awareness, resilience, and the transformative power of foundational principles. So Ray's approach to challenges, both in the stock market and in life, offers a unique

perspective on navigating complexities with grace and determination. In our conversation, Ray opens up about the pillars of his success, radical transparency, idea meritocracy, and meditation. These aren't just corporate buzzwords for him. They're essential life tools for navigating decisions and relationships. So whether you're charting your course in business or sport or family or art or any other area, Ray's Insights offer keys to unlock your potential and to create a life that resonates with your deepest aspirations. So with that, let's dive right into this incredible conversation with the legend Ray Dalio. Ray, how are you? I'm great. Thank you. How are you?

I am fantastic as well. And I've been wanting to speak with you for a long time. And so just as we get going, thank you for spending the time to share your wisdom, to share best practices and to share your story and who you are. And so I'm really looking forward to this conversation. Well, thank you for letting me do it. I'm at a phase in my life which I'm trying to pass along the things that have been most valuable. So this is a great symbiotic relationship. It is great. Okay, good.

And you've got a lot to say. There's so many directions that we could take this conversation. I mean, your body of work is so extensive and the success that you've had and the depth of the psychological topics that have led you is so real. And so if we just started with first learning more about Ray, the person, you know, and if you could just point to one or two stories that help shape you, that would give us a feel and some context of who you are? I'll be happy to give you a couple of stories. The ones I would give you about are mostly about failures and learning. I think the most important thing is I grew up as a lower middle class kid whose father was a jazz musician.

My mom was a stay-at-home. And I worked at an early age. I would paper route and I caddied and so on. I got hooked on markets early. When I caddied, I played around in the stock market when I was 12 or so, and it was a game. It was like a game. It plays as a game. And I didn't like school.

I wasn't a good student. I drove my parents crazy. I got into C.W. Post College on probation, and I loved college. I did great at the top of my class, went to Harvard Business School, continued to play the markets. Very independent thinker and came out. And I think I had a lot of audaciousness. So let's go back to when you were 12. This is when you first started investing. What was that beginnings like for you? Was there a spark that you knew this was my thing or was it another way to express risk? Can you open up that moment for us? The people I would caddy for and I would talk about the markets.

So they were the ones, you know, like, okay. As a 12 year old would do, right? Talk about markets. That makes perfect sense for me. Well, honestly, a 12 year old has got the capacity to learn almost anything. And of course they're not an expert yet, but they, but they have a passion, can have a passion for it. And so what I, and it was like a game. I remember the first stock I bought was the only stock I ever heard of that was selling for less than $5 a share.

And I figured, well, I can buy more shares. So if it went up, I'd make more money. That was dumb. And so I bought it. And it tripled in price because it was about to go bankrupt. But another company acquired it. It tripled in price. And I said, I like this game.

This game is good. And so I decided to play the game. And then I, so I started to get into it. Like, I think it was Fortune magazine had the Fortune 500. And they had a little card in there. And this is which annual reports of the Fortune 500 would you have, I checked them all off. And then, you know, mailman would lug these reports in, and I'd get into it. And then I'd start talking, particularly with the people I was cattying for about this market, that market or, you know, that stock. And that's how I got into it. Yeah. So what is it about that, that if we're to use that as the first story, what is it about that that you point to now to say, you know what it is about trading or you know what it is about leading or it's this? This is all about life. It doesn't have anything to do with the particular of trading or whatever.

I've come to know the most successful people in the world. And I think in life, life is your game. What game are you into? What's your, you know, and so if you get hooked on the game, you know, Bill Gates was, you know, computers at the time. He played around with computers and he got into that. If you get into something, it's great to get into something. And if it's great, if that thing happens to be something that'll carry you through your life. So I was lucky that that happened to me. And I've watched other people in their own domains have the same thing happen. This is really good. And so what are some of the first principles that have been most important to

you? I've loved your book principles. It's so good. I would imagine just about everybody in our community has read your book. So congratulations on that. And if they haven't, please, I would support you to go check it. But can you think about what are some of your first principles? Because you've outlined many of them. But I want to drill down to the first principles that you live by. Life is a journey. It's an adventure, an adventurous journey in which you come into it with having a certain nature. And that nature, you're in a journey to find the path to match up with that nature.

And so then you go on that journey. And it's like a video game in that you go for your goals, you have your setbacks, the fighting to succeed creates your learning, your learning builds your skills, you become stronger, You go on to higher levels. So it's that kind of a journey. And for me, the most important thing was meaningful work and meaningful relationships. Like, am I into my game, my work? Do I really love it? And do I have meaningful relationships with people that I do it with?

I'm in deep, meaningful relationships, giving me meaningful work and meaningful relationships. And then in order to be successful, radical truthfulness and radical transparency so we can exchange idea. And then in 1982, I crashed. I had a big mistake. That was one of the best things in terms of giving me the epiphany.

I can tell you that story. And then that gave me the humility I needed to balance with my audacity because what it did is it helped me understand that people can see things differently and I can do a better job, you know, also worry about how I'm going to be wrong as well as being right, control risks better, and then, and be open-minded. And then because of that, that is the basis of my success. I'm going to pause the conversation here for just a few minutes to talk about our sponsors. Finding Mastery is brought to you by LinkedIn Sales Solutions. In any high performing environment that I've been part of, from elite teams to executive boardrooms,

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linkedin.com slash deal for two full months for free. Terms and conditions apply. Finding Mastery is brought to you by David Protein. I'm pretty intentional about what I eat, and the majority of my nutrition comes from whole foods. And when I'm traveling or in between meals on a demanding day, certainly I need something quick that will support the way that I feel and think and perform. And that's why I've been leaning on David protein bars. And so has the team here at Finding Mastery. In fact, our GM, Stuart, he loves them so much. I just want to kind of quickly put them on the spot. Stuart, I know you're listening.

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And a few of our teammates here at Finding Mastery have been loving the fudge brownie and peanut butter. I know, Stuart, you're still listening here. So getting enough protein matters. And that can't be understated, not just for strength, but for energy and focus, recovery, for longevity. And I love that David is making that easier. So if you're trying to hit your daily protein goals with something seamless,

I'd love for you to go check them out. Get a free variety pack, a $25 value, and 10% off for life when you head to davidprotein.com slash findingmastery. That's David, D-A-V-I-D, protein, P-R-O-T-E-I-N.com slash finding mastery. Let's jump right back into the conversation. Before we get into the first or this big failure, meaningful work is something that so many of us are yearning for or craving for or want in our lives. How would you help the people that you're directing, that you're leading? How would you help them be more connected to

meaningful work? Are you really into it? Can you work with other people like on the team and then you have a mission in which you get excited about it and you're building something and you're striving for something, a vision and whatever, and you do that with a team, like being on a sports team or something where you have that element. And I don't really almost care what it is, but, you know, being into it and experiencing the, you know, trying to be successful at it and then struggling and then with determination, continuing on and learning and then rising to the new level and all of that together with others.

Would you do something to help them connect to the meaning of their work? Or would you just say, listen, if you're going to work here, your work has to be meaningful. Would you give more? You can't tell people that you can't. It's like, hey, we have this community and we've got and we're doing this thing. Are you can you get into this thing? Are you excited about this thing? Can you get into this thing? Are you excited about this thing? And then, you know, you make it exciting. And I also describe it as tough love and an idea of meritocracy. This is what worked for me after I had my crash and learned to operate this way. Can we be tough with each other? Okay, you're failing here. And how do you do? And what do you do? And how do you get to that higher level? And then with the love part, which is, you know, we really care

about each other, meaning, you know, we do things together. And, and, you know, through good times and bad, you're doing that, that combination of things. So it's gotta be, it's gotta be something that the person is into. Okay. But during the work hours, during the, the eight to eight or nine to five, whatever it was in your organization or earlier, I think you guys would work, but would you help them identify their vision, their principles, their, how, how meaningful work showed up for them or was it just they needed to do that work on their own yes yes uh very important like i say to know your nature i found that uh personality tests were very helpful i started with myers-briggs and Team Dimensions and a number. And then I created my own with three great psychometricians, Adam Grant and two others, to create that. And by the way, I put it on,

it's free. It's called Principles U. Anybody can take it. It will describe you to the T. And so just take it. It's free. You can't lose by taking it. And have others take it around so that you can know your nature and the nature of other people. So that is very important to know really what excites people and what their roles are. Because then the key is to put together the team well, so that they have different skills that are put together. And they appreciate the differences in other people, rather than get annoyed by them. Yes, discover where you are, you have to have, like I wrote in the book, the most important thing is values. What values do you have? What are you going after? Then your abilities.

Different people have different abilities. Do you remember everything quickly or are you creative and all that? And number three is skills. You know, what skills do you have? Skills you can learn along the way. And so to put together people that way and appreciate each other, like a jazz band, you know, different great musicians who can go back and forth and play well together. Yes, so it's very important to help them do that. And then it's just like playing jazz or playing a sport. Okay, do you

love doing it? And do you want to be excellent at it? Okay, it's true for everyone, the meaningful work of meaningful relationships, maybe the genetics, the environment helped to make me what I am. And therefore, it's reflected in my personality profile that you would see it. But if you take anybody's personality profile, the person who's almost the exact opposite, they're just as important because I need them and they need me. And the big thing to understand is we all have a personality profile and we all then have to work together in a sense on the mission. So the common mission is not a function of my particular personality profile or my particular back because we all come with them.

We just have to then strive for those. So like I say people ask me you know uh what would i tell you know a young person make and it is make your work and your passion the same thing and don't forget about the money part you get those three things together with a good team and i'm telling you that that's the that's critical to success whatever kind of father they had, whatever. So just for fun, are you a ESTJ or an ENTJ? ENTJ. ENTJ. No, ENTP.

You're a TP. Yeah. I would have thought that you were decisive, that you were quick with decisions. Oh, no, no, no. What happens is the difference for those who don't know Myers-Briggs, there's the J and the P. A J is a person who likes a plan, it's all planned out and wants to stick to the plan. And a P is a person who's constantly perceiving and adapting and can get way away from the plan. Okay, I'm much more the P, much more like I'm perceiving, I'm changing, I'm evolving. To keep me on track is a challenge, you know, for others and so on. The J is the one who's planful.

You know, they stick to the plan. They're uncomfortable to leave the plan, that kind of person. Yeah. So you're definitely an extroverted thinker. You share your ideas, you gather energy. Yeah. And so you're the, that's the E and the T. And the N standing for intuitive. N means really sort of going above it. Yeah. N means, okay, what perspective? Because an S is sensing. These are lousy terms, but what they mean is they pay attention kind of to the detail and how things are working. And then there's the N who sort of goes above it and says, what is life about? Where am I going? How should it be? And the S is very, you know, much more

detail and they see the detail. Yeah. Yeah. So when I think of it, I'm an N. You're an N. So that's that's what gives you this ability to kind of rise and see and feel not from a feeling emotional standpoint, but the sense from a sensing standpoint that we just talked about, you're able to rise and be able to get the big picture. Right. Seeing above it. The other thing is meditation has helped me to do that, which is another subject we'll get into but while we're talking about myers-briggs term so i'm an e n t for those who don't know myers-briggs there's thinking and feeling in other words we have a conscious logical mind and we have an

unconscious subliminal mind that has our emotions and they both control our actions. The subliminal controls them more than the conscious logical but when faced with that choice which do you go with? And I go with the thinking, in other words, I align it. It has to make sense to me. Some people will go with the feeling. And then P, perceiving. And so I took, you're going to love, because you know about Myers-Briggs, you're going to love my principles you test. Yeah, no, I'm very familiar with it.

It's awesome. The whole thing, the way you constructed the whole thing is great. It's very interesting. Only 8% of the population is ENTP, but a high percentage of the population of entrepreneurs is ENTP, which is interesting to me. I gave, in order to try to find what are the qualities to run a company, I gave these tests to super successful people. I gave it to Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Reed Hastings made Netflix,

Jack Dorsey made Twitter, Muhammad Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize for microfinance. Interesting things. And I could see the qualities that ended up being most important in their successes. Awesome. It's a great resource. And if folks haven't checked it out, I wanna encourage them to do that for sure. Now, on meaningful relationships,

I've heard you talk about work family and like that concept. And I don't see it that way. So I wanted to better understand. I do not wanna fire family members. Family is unconditional. Where the work relationship, there's an invisible handshake agreeing that you can stay as long as you perform and I can stay as long as I get my stuff done. And I do it at a high level. So can you talk about the way you think about family and work environments?

Well, I think that there's family and there's team. They both can have very meaningful relationships. The team has got to win. The team has got to succeed. The Navy SEALs or a sports team or anything else, they've got to succeed. And the people have to know that they go through an evolutionary process and that if you have weaknesses, that's okay. That's just part of the discovery process of whatever the reality is. And the question is, what do you do with the reality? And you might move on to a new spot and a new spot until you find the really right click

for all the things you've got. So don't take a narrow view of your weaknesses. Try to find out, is it true objectively that I have that weakness or that somebody else has that weakness? In other words, if you're dealing with somebody and you think you have to fire them, the way that I do that is I think I have to be radically transparent with them. And I don't know if I'm right. So we have to go through a journey together of finding out what's true. We still have to succeed. And so it is like a team family kind of thing.

It lasts longer than a team. So it can become like an extended family. And what I mean by a family, it's like if you have a personal issue, medical issue or something, that there's the caring of that. I, you know, I went from the two bedroom apartment to 1500 people working there. And, and I felt a caring for those people each in their in their own way. And so when, if they had a real bad family medical issue, I just couldn't say go see your insurance insurance coverage and I'm going on to my work. What I did is I had my personal doctor not be their doctor as much as find out, do they have

the right doctor and the right thing? And then I hired him to be the doctor to do that for everybody in the company. It's what binds you together that you say, I'm on the mission. That's the meaningful work. And then the meaningful relationship is, are you in it with me? But while maintaining those high standards, yes, you might have to be cut. So to be clear, do you see team as family or do you see them at family and work relationships differently? The word team or family isn't clear enough in describing how you're behaving. On the family, you're going to have that family person and they can be a jerk. You may not like them and you'll have them for the rest of your lives, and they may not be reciprocal and all of those types of things, but they're family. Okay.

And in an office, you can be a jerk. The same things can exist. The real question is, how are you with each other. The consideration is your success and your wellbeing important to me. And we, are we in it together, whatever those forms are, but in, in the team, in the business or the team, you have to cut people and so on. And I believe it's good for people in that process. Okay. No one does it alone. And I want to share a couple sponsors that are making this show possible. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Momentus. When it comes to high performance, whether you're leading a team, raising a family, pushing physical limits, or simply trying to be better today than you were yesterday, what you put in your body matters. And that's why I trust Momentus. From the moment I sat down with Jeff Byers, their co-founder and CEO, I could tell this was not your average supplement company. And I was

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Felix Gray is offering all Finding Mastery listeners 20% off. Just head to felixgray.com and use the code findingmasteryMASTERY20 at checkout. Again, that's Felix Gray. You spell it F-E-L-I-X-G-R-A-Y.com and use the code FINDINGMASTERY20 at FelixGray.com for 20% off. And now back to the conversation. You and Bill Belichick, Bill Belichick, the current head coach of the New England Patriots, wild success. Both of you are friends and friendly, and both of you had wild success. Bill had Tom Brady.

And did you have a version of Tom Brady, the partnership between the two of you? It's always difficult to separate what is Bill and what is Tom Brady or what is one person or what is another. But it's certainly the coach or the CEO. It's the guy who the buck stops with and he's got to deliver success and he's got to deliver a successful team. So he came to me said, it's the same thing as you're doing it. Wow, can we brainstorm? I said, we can brainstorm, but just can we put it, can we record it so other people can benefit? So that that's online. But you'll see in all of that, he discusses Tom Brady. And he and when he discusses Tom Brady, he made very clear that it was very important that

the team be successful. And Tom Brady knew how important it was that the team be successful. Whoever the CEO is, whoever the leader is, they have to have a team. So nobody, the CEO won't make it. The star won't make it. It's got to be the team. And knowing that you've built some great teams and maybe you could point to some of the best practices. And I know you're going to say, listen, they've got to have meaningful work. We've got to have meaningful relationships. But what are the ways that you've gone about doing that? Would you point to radical trust and radical transparency? Yes. Radical, right.

Radical truth and radical transparency is critical. Like, how do we get at what's true? Let me just take that for a minute. Not only your skills, my skills, but there's so much scenarios that go on behind the scenes, you know, like somebody, they talk to each other at the water cooler, that the CEO should have done this, or the CEOs or high-ranking people talk about the other guy behind his back, and they think they're right, and so on. How do they get at radical truth?

Okay, put what you think on the table, knowing you may or may not be right about it, both sides. You put it on the table, and then you find a way to try to find out what's true. What are your capabilities? What are the other people's capabilities? So that there's plenty of evidence along those lines in pursuit of that mission. These organizations where they have politics and people are behind the scenes saying one thing and doing another thing, or not even talking about what's not good in their organization because they don't like to talk about what's good or who's responsible for what's not good in the organization. Look, I have a view that anybody can make

mistakes. It's okay to make mistakes. You just can't not learn from them. You have to move forward. And so I think that that is really important. And when you do that with this meaningful work and meaningful relationships, or this kind of tough love, and you've got that balance, you can make a great team. How would you point to in a word or two, the culture that you are trying to build? Well, an idea meritocracy in which the best ideas win out, in which is meaningful work and meaningful relationships pursued through radical truthfulness and radical transparency. Got it. Okay. And by the way, you can see this if these people are interested. There's an app that I put out called principles in action and it and it'll show you videos of actually being

from real-world videos going on in the company that you can see it in action and it's very interesting because as it takes you through that as you go through the video it'll ask you questions like how would you feel at that moment can you be straightforward at that moment what do you think's going video, it'll ask you questions like, how would you feel at that moment? Can you be straightforward at that moment? What do you think's going on? And it's a real good experience in trying to convey experiencing what this is like. So that is principles in action. As we're talking about principles in action and we're talking about the culture that rests on radical truth and radical transparency for people that have meaningful work and meaningful relationships.

People are exhausted, right? One of my colleagues has talked about there's a human energy crisis right now that's happening amongst us, and the workforce is fatigued. I don't know if you had, it doesn't sound like you had that at Bridgewater, but multinationals, corporations across the globe are struggling with the energy and the vitality and the sense of zest and fire that people want to have in their life. They're tired. And how do you think about the next generation and maybe we ring the bell to say that now generation of leaderships how do they have to work how are you thinking about modern leadership right now i um i learned how to do transcendental meditation that gave me an energy. And so, and I've given it to everybody in the company. What I did is I say, I'll pay for half, you pay for half, so I know you have skin in the game.

And I did that meditation and it's changed my life. Whatever success I've had in life has probably been more due to Transcendental Meditation than anything else. I mean it certainly is big up there because it gave me the equanimity. Equanimity in other words this kind of centeredness. So while you're talking about that feeling, I can hear in your voice the grind, the exhaustion and the grind. And I'm saying what comes to my mind is meditation, Transcendental Meditation helps enormously on that. Sometimes it's just a matter that, yeah, you need to get the sleep and the rest. Sometimes it's the circumstances that grind on people and it's not the sleep.

And then you have to deal with what are your choices? Do you have a joyful life? Are you working with people and it's joyful? If you're excited about your work and the people you're working with, then the circumstances part of that grind shouldn't be too much of a problem. Then it would just be a matter of the, you know, you're running short on sleep and you need to sleep or you need to take a break. So by all counts, you are incredibly successful. And like, how do you think about success and failure? How do you shape the contour of those two ideas? To me, success is having the life that you want to have. It's not the conventional notions of, I made a lot of money. I did make a lot of money. But I made a lot of money. I did make a lot of money,

but I made a lot of money because I had a game that I played and that I loved and I was good at. If somebody wants to be a surf instructor, whatever it is that makes them have a happy life, they have to decide what is success for them. I think it's a terrible thing when they use status. I mean, that's a problem that'll get you into an addiction. I think in most elements of life, what you really need isn't much. And then you might say, I need

more time and I want less work. Like in the middle part of life, there's a work-life balance. Different people can make that choice, have to make the choice for themselves in terms of what success is. As I say, I think it's knowing your nature and finding the right path for it and, you know, and pursuing it. But life is more like making choices that have consequences. So know what you want or figure out what you want, which evolves over time, but just be in touch. What do you want?

What makes you happy? And then you make choices that have consequences. Don't blame others. You own your life. And the life will be largely a function of the choices you make and know how to make those choices well that have good consequences. I would emphasize triangulating well with others, with smart others. Triangulating well means like, don't be so attached to you thinking that because you think something, you have an opinion, that that opinion may be right. That was that story that maybe I'll tell you about, about the crash of really me learning that. But anyway, don't be so attached.

You may be wrong. You may be right. Triangulate among people who are believable. I'll call them believable. In other words, reasons to believe that they would have good input who care about you. Ideally, and if you can sort of knock it around and get different perspectives, you know, that which gives you the life that you want to have, and that's a successful life. When it comes down to it, for me personally, I believe evolution, personal evolution, and contributing to evolution is the most powerful force in the universe. And it's the only force that lasts. Everything disappears. But that notion of I'm evolving, I'm learning, I'm improving, and I'm contributing to evolution by those around me is something that I think it produces a successful life and it could produce it in many different ways. When we think about the next evolution,

we're going to need to have relationships with machines, with AI in general. How do you think about that evolution for us or the grand us or for individuals to be successful with this new technology? It's a one-way train. It's happening. It's incredibly disruptive to technology that's going to that is it's a one it's a one-way train it's happening it's incredibly disruptive to how we're going to work do you have thoughts on how to be successful navigating artificial intelligence yeah man is is blessed with different types of intelligences and this artificial intelligence will be more robotic, less loving, more like a tool. Let's say it's an advanced version of the combination of a computer and Google, in that you can look up whatever facts you want. It can give you coaching

and so on, but it's not going to give you love. It's going to be short of inspiration and so on. So it's something in your life as a valuable tool next to you. And then you'll have your love, the things you love and the people you love, and you'll pursue those things. It's not going to replace it. It'll be there, you know, next to it. And I think that's that, you know, that and go with your nature. You know, what feels good? Does it feel good? And not just feel good. You know, you have to align the two parts of your nature. You know, what feels good? Does it feel good? And not just feel good. You know, you have to align the two parts of your brain. There's the conscious, logical part of your brain, and then there's a subliminal, emotional part of your brain. If you align those two, so it makes sense intellectually, and it makes sense emotionally emotionally and so when you align those

two when you go with it then you know everything's going to be fine don't overlook the power of nature okay so you're going to look at the technology go out in nature you want to see power you You want to be inspired? You know, spend some time in nature. Yeah. I can hear your appreciation for meditation and the practice of meditation and the way that you choose your words. Not only the fact that you're saying go out to nature, you know, to be present in a different type of way, but just the way that you're talking about lining up. You haven't used this, but lining up your thoughts, lining up your thoughts with your words and with your actions. Yeah. Your

feelings with your thoughts. And now one final word from our sponsors. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Cozy Earth. Over the years, I've learned that recovery doesn't just happen when we sleep. It starts with how we transition and wind down. And that's why I've built intentional routines into the way that I close my day. And Cozy Earth has become a new part of that. Their bedding, it's incredibly soft, like next level soft. And what surprised me the most is how much it actually helps regulate temperature. I tend to run warm at night and these sheets have helped me sleep cooler and more consistently, which has made a meaningful difference in how I show up the next day for myself, my family, and our team here at Finding Mastery. It's become part of my nightly routine. Throw on their lounge pants or pajamas, crawl into bed under their sheets, and my nervous system starts to settle.

They also offer a 100-night sleep trial and a 10-year warranty on all of their bedding, which tells me, tells you, that they believe in the long-term value of what they're creating. If you're ready to upgrade your rest and turn your bed into a better recovery zone, use the code FINDINGMASTERY for 40% off at CozyEarth.com. That's a great discount for our community. Again, the code is FINDINGMASTERY for 40% off at CozyEarth.com. That's a great discount for our community. Again, the code is Finding Mastery for 40% off at CozyEarth.com. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Caldera Lab. I believe that the way we do small things in life is how we do all things. And for me, that includes how I take care of my body. I've been using Caldera Lab for years now. And what keeps me coming back, it's really

simple. Their products are simple and they reflect the kind of intentional living that I want to build into every part of my day. And they make my morning routine really easy. They've got some great new products I think you'll be interested in. A shampoo, conditioner, and a hair serum. With Caldera Lab, it's not about adding more. It's about choosing better. And when your day demands clarity and energy and presence, the way you prepare for it matters. If you're looking for high-quality personal care products

that elevate your routine without complicating it, I'd love for you to check them out. Head to calderalab.com slash finding mastery and use the code finding mastery at checkout for 20% off your first order. That's calderalab, C-A-L-D-E-R-L-A-B.com slash finding mastery. And with that, let's jump right back into our conversation i wonder if you have clarity on a framework for or decision tree maybe for making hard decisions when you're faced with something that's difficult it sounds like the process is that you're banging around with three people as an extroverted thinker would do and

you're working to discern to get to something that feels right for you. But beyond that, do you have a framework for making hard decisions? Well, when I think of hard decisions, I ask myself, which type of hard? There are hard decisions that, you know, you have to give up one thing to get another and so on. And you'd have to do the calculations and they're hard that way. And then there's another one, which is emotionally hard decisions. So I think of them, they're both types. The first type, like work-life balance, things where you have to have trade-offs, is what I've found is that when they come at odds, if I'm calm, thoughtful, and so on, while I can't have 100% of both of them, I can have 75% of both of them. It's a test of my

cleverness to approach these types of things. So what do I do to deal with that difficult trade-off? Like, for example, not having enough time, because in the work-life balance, I realized that the best path was to not view that as a trade-off between those two things and take my time as a given, but instead find out how do I get the most out of an hour of time. So that gives me less trade-offs. So these are like puzzles to solve.

How do you get that? And then recognize just calmly that life is these choices with consequences. Also realize that when you make a choice and you go down a path, if it doesn't work out, you could still change. So even if you make mistakes, mistakes are not that costly because you can adapt to those mistakes. So you recognize those things. You know, that would be good. If you're having emotional hard, like it's emotionally a hard thing to do, and I've had emotionally very hard things to do, again, go to that equanimity.

Go to the calmness. Feel yourself. Feel your emotion. Bring it in. But also look at those emotions. Feel them that way. And work with others to help it make less hard emotionally. It sounded like you maybe were wanting to share some of the emotionally hard things that you've

been through. Did you? Well, I lost my son. Yeah, I didn't want to be insensitive. So no, no, I share this with people because different people have their own. I want to share with people because it may help people. And that but thank you. I, I'd rather have died. I'd rather have lost everything than to lose my son. So the most difficult experience, most painful, difficult experience. And I went through it and I'm not finished going through it. But I know what it's like, feeling how I felt, how the loved ones who shared my wife and his brothers and our family, how I felt their pain, I felt our pain, but to go into the pain together, to make sure we experience that, we bring it to the surface, we don't control it, to look at it, how do we feel, how do we feel with each other, and then to evolve with it. And there's a process, of course.

You know, there's a period of time. It's structured in almost all religions and so on. There's a period that you have to allow time, and you go through that, and then there's an evolutionary process. And it's like the serenity prayer. God, give me the serenity to accept that which I can't control. Give me the power to control that which I can control and the wisdom to tell the difference. And so through a combination of the meditation, these experiences, I internally feel that, you know, but the point is that life will give you what life gives you. Some things are in control, some things are the best, some things are the worst, and if you have that calm equanimity or even allow yourself to feel the emotions but also look at yourself and how you're doing and

that, again, meaningful relationships. That's the most important thing, meaningful relationships to me. Anyway, I'm rambling, but that was the experience. It sounds like the process that you just described, to feel together, to bring it to the surface, is so honest and so real that I go, that's aspirational. That is incredibly aspirational to be able to do. When you were speaking, it sounded like right when you said, I'm still going through it. It sounded like you had a flood of emotions in that nanosecond. And if you did, how did you manage

it? Why did you make the choice that you did to manage it the way you did just now? It never becomes like it was before. You know, in other words, when I'm saying it becomes a different thing over time, know like I can visualize him um for me there's an acceptance and the way I chose to do it was I want to continue the relationship in a certain different way I know there's no actual relationship in the sense but um, um, um, we, I can visualize him being there and so on and there's, and it's bittersweet. Yeah. Oof. Um, I don't know if there's, I'm a parent and it's something I think that, um, all parents fear or think is the worst case scenario in life. And so thank you for sharing something that I know is

still raw different than when it first happened but still raw so I I again I think you know to be natural to be oneself what I'm doing is something I'm recommending to others because again I told you like at the beginning of this I don't want to make this thing about me. I want to make this about other people doing how they can approach things to have a better life, things I've learned. And along those lines, what I'm saying is there's feelings and there's thoughts. And if they're aligned and you realize you're dealing with reality and reality brings you good and bad things and you have to make your decisions in the best possible way, given good and bad things, and you savor the things that are wonderful and you're inspired by that and also you're smart, that doing that is a good approach. So while we're talking about the transitions in grief, you've also had radical transitions.

You've hinted a few times at like your big failure. And if we can maybe segue between the transitions, like what you learned, what the failure for folks that aren't familiar, maybe just share what the failure was and then how you transitioned from that as well. In 1982, I had formed Bridgewater. It was a little company and so on. And I had analyzed, that was in 1979, 80, 81, was the tightest monetary policy and the highest rate of interest rates ever. And I had calculated that American banks had lent more money to foreign countries than those countries were going to be able to pay back and that we were going to have a debt crisis. And I got a lot of publicity for that. And then in August 1982, Mexico defaulted on its debt and a number of the countries followed. And I thought that that was going to produce a bad economic set of circumstances

and I couldn't have been more wrong. That was the exact bottom in the stock market. So I lost money for me. I lost money for clients. I was so broke that I had to borrow $4,000 for my dad to pay for family bills. And that was very painful. And of a principle I learned. Pain plus reflection equals progress. And so what that pain told me is it gave me a humility, a fear of being wrong without taking away my audacity. In other words, I still wanted the greatest life I can. I still wanted all the upside. From that point on, till I handed over Bridgewater, I learned how I could diversify my portfolio to reduce risk without reducing returns,

so I could get as much upside from that. And I learned how to have this idea meritocracy where everybody's stress testing each other to find out what's true and worked. I wouldn't have gotten that if I didn't have that experience. Love it. I love it. And I love your formula. It's really practical and it's built on my insights that come from meditation as well. Those a bit about pain and reflection. And so thank you for sharing that. And, you know, you and people in your industry, but specifically, you are really good at projecting out and thinking about variables from a macro perspective and how they're going to impact others in the markets and whatever. So if you just could just bless us with the way you're seeing,

let's call it six years from now, 2030. Do you think out that far from projections? Yeah, I do, albeit highly imprecisely. Okay. One of the things I learned in my over 50 years of investing was that things that surprised me often surprised me because they never happened in my lifetime, but they happened many times before. I always look to history. For example, the reason I and my company, Bridgewater, anticipated the 2008 financial crisis and did very well in it was because of studying the Great Depression from the 1920 to 1945 period, which, by the way, this period is very similar to. So there were three things that are happening in our lifetimes that didn't happen before in our lifetimes that happened in history that made me study history. The three big things were the amount of debt creation and the money

printing that went on. The amount of that debt creation is an extraordinary amount. You have to go back in history. So what's happening with the debt, the money, the interest rates, all of that in the economy? The second is internal conflict, the fighting that we're seeing over wealth and values that has become populism, political populism. A populist is a person who will fight and win at all costs. There's no compromising, there's no rules. I mean, the most important thing is winning. And so what we see is the country is at war with itself, with different people, and you see it particularly in political, and you'll see it in the 2024 elections, how that

works. That never happened in my lifetime before, but it happened many times in history. And the third big force is the changing world order in which a dominant power, the United States, which won World War II, had 80% of the world's money, gold was money, and we had that. We had a monopoly on atomic weapons and all of that becomes a less dominant power. And there's the rise of other, most importantly, China, to have a power, a world order conflict, like how should the world order be and how do you deal with these power differences? So those are the three, the debt money one, the internal conflict one, the external conflict one. That prompted me to study history. And when I studied history on those 500 years, I learned that two more factors were very dominant also. Acts of nature, particularly droughts, floods, and

pandemics, killed more people than wars and toppled more orders than anything else. And so climate is a very big, big issue for us. It's going to be extremely expensive. One way or another, it's going to be a very big force. Economically, it's estimated between $5 and $10 trillion a year. And that's 5% to 10% of world GDP. It's an enormous thing. Okay. So that's force number four. And number five is always man's inventiveness, particularly of technologies. So now if you look at those five forces, and they're interrelated, that is the nature of the picture. And they affect each other. Like the climate cost is going to affect the money part, and the international conflicts are going to affect the money part. So where are you going to get the money to pay for the war, the wars? I mean, that's something that they're arguing about

now. Do you support the wars? There are two sides, and there's great polarity. And one side cannot beat the other side. They will not give in to the lives that the other side would want to impose on them, I don't believe. I believe there's only one path to success, and we're probably not going to have it, and that is a strong middle and bringing together the strong middle of working together in a smart way and then making major reforms because a lot of the problems that we're having we need to reform the system so that people have equal opportunity that have equal anyway we have to reform it you need a strong system with strong reforms in there and so we are at risk of having irreconcilable differences become manifest in a bad way. So the way I think about it is we're going to go through

a revolutionary changes. I could take any one of them and I can explain how they work together, but I think they're going to be revolutionary changes. It's going to be like going through a time warp. So if you go out five years, you're going to see radical changes. Now, how that exactly pays out, I'm not sure. But I do know the most important thing is how we deal with each other. Like, can we deal with these issues well together? Or are we going to fight over them? If we could deal with them well together, logically, calmly, smartly, and so on, you know, we can deal with those challenges. If we fight over everything, you know, I really worry about that. Knowing what you know now, let's just round home base here. Knowing what you know now, what guidance would you give to a 30-year-old that is kind of mid-stride, just starting to get

their feet underneath of them professionally? They've got all the fight in them and with some anxiety about what you just described? First of all, don't have the anxiety. View it as an adventure in which, like it's a real-world video game. You have to make the choices, and how do you play the game? First line in my book, Principles, was something like, to begin with, I want to establish the fact that I'm a dumb shit, and whatever success I've had in life has more to do with my knowing how to deal with what I don't know than anything I know. And so if you really don't take a pride in knowing, take it in and learn and do that triangulation and so on in terms of figuring your path through your adventure,

right? It's an adventure. It has ups and downs. You're dealing with reality. Understand and learn how does reality work? How do you make your choices in your best possible way? And don't lose sight of what you feel and love to give you the life you want. Man, Ray, you're a legend. This is like the insights per minute in this conversation are unreal. Ray, thank you for sharing your wisdom, for sharing your path, your scar tissues, your insights, and the practices that you've invested in to help not only yourself, but your loved ones and your teammates be better. And so it is noted. Thank you for letting me do that. Because as I say, I'm 74 years old. And at this stage in my life, my hope is that I can pass along

some of the things that might be helpful to others. And you're doing that. So I appreciate you letting me do it with you. Thank you. I feel your gratitude. I feel your humility. And I feel all of the fire you have to live the adventure well. And so again, Ray, appreciate you. All right. Thank you so much for diving into another episode of Finding Mastery with us. Our team loves creating this podcast and sharing these conversations with you. We really appreciate you being part of this community. And if you're enjoying the show, the easiest no-cost way to support is to hit the subscribe or follow button wherever you're listening. Also, if you haven't already, please consider dropping us a review on Apple or Spotify.

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