Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Book Club: My Top 5 Takeaways from Principles by Ray Dalio

Episode Date: October 8, 2018

It’s rare for a billionaire legend to take his time to carefully outline his own personal “operating system” for achieving success and fulfillment in work and life, and that’s exactly what Ray Dalio has done with Principles. Inside, you’ll find many of his ideas and procedures for many aspects of his professional and personal life, ranging from his definition of meaningful work to his recipe for turning pain into pleasure, his prerequisites for deep relationships, his “fierce intolerance” of badness of any kind, and much more. Unlike similar books, Principles doesn’t try to entertain you with anecdotes or fancy prose or sell you with references to science or history. Instead, it simply presents Dalio’s thoughts, experiences, and practices in a clear and highly organized manner, which I appreciated because it allowed him to share an almost overwhelming amount of high-value information. By the end of this book, I had made a ridiculous amount of highlights and notes. I also appreciated that Dalio also isn’t one to mince words. He professes an unwavering fidelity to discovering, facing, and embracing truth, and he communicates accordingly. His goal isn’t to make you feel better about yourself or help you justify your shortcomings, but to challenge you to change your core beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors for the better. I also found his personal story rich and inspiring, and especially the period immediately after his first downfall. Imagine this for a minute: you and your growing team spend eight years working tirelessly to build an investment firm, which is well on its way to becoming a thriving enterprise, and then, in one very public and humiliating deathblow, you lose it all by betting the farm on a market downturn that never comes. Soon after, you’re borrowing money from your dad and selling your second car to feed your wife and two kids. What would you do? I won’t spoil the rest of the story for you, but Dalio not only didn’t give up (obviously), he applied one of his primary principles to turn the catastrophe into an invaluable learning experience that ultimately led to his development of a revolutionary new investment strategy that would catapult him to greater success than ever before and set the trajectory for the rest of his life. So, if you’re looking for powerful but unvarnished and sometimes unpalatable advice on achieving more happiness and satisfaction in your life, then Principles is for you. Want to be notified when my next book recommendation goes live? Hop on my email list and you’ll get each new installment delivered directly to your inbox. Click here: https://www.muscleforlife.com/signup/

Hey, this is Mike from Muscle for Life, and I'm often asked about books. People ask me for book recommendations on various topics. They ask me what book I am currently reading and what books I have recently read and what my favorite books are and so forth. And as an avid reader, I am always happy to oblige and get some book recommendations in return as well. I also just like to encourage people to read as much as possible because I think that knowledge benefits you much like compound interest benefits your bank account in that the more you learn, the more you know, and the more

you know, the more you can do, and the more you can do, the more opportunities you have to succeed. And on the flip side, I also believe that there is little hope for people who aren't perpetual learners. I know that might sound a little bit pessimistic or cynical to you, but let's face it, life is overwhelmingly complex and chaotic. And if we look around, we can find plenty of evidence that it simply suffocates and devours the lazy and ignorant. So if you are a bookworm and you're on the lookout for good reads, or if you'd like to just get into the habit of reading more,

then this book club is for you. The idea is very simple. Every week, I'm going to share a book that I've particularly liked, and I'm going to tell you why I liked it and give you several of my key takeaways from it. I'm also going to keep these episodes short and sweet so you can quickly decide whether or not a book is likely to be up your alley or not. This episode is brought to you by me. Seriously, though, I'm not big on promoting stuff that I don't personally use and believe in. So instead, I'm going to just quickly tell you about something of mine, specifically my newest book, the little black book of workout motivation. Now this book was fun to write because it really is my personal and 100% practical and hands-on blueprint for transformation, both inside and outside of the gym.

And I promise you that it will provide you with new and valuable knowledge and skills that you will use for the rest of your life. In short, I wrote this book to help you fix the things that are most holding you back from doing and achieving the things you care most about. So if you want to learn how to overcome the mental blocks that are making you unmotivated, unhappy, and unhealthy, then the little black book of workout motivation is for you. And you can find it on all major online retailers like Audible, Amazon, iTunes, Kobo, and Google Play. And I should also mention that you can get the audiobook 100% free when you sign up for an Audible account, which I highly recommend that you do if you're not currently listening to

audiobooks. I love them myself because they let me make the time that I spend commuting, prepping food, walking my dog, and so forth more valuable and productive. So if you want to take Audible up on this offer and get my audiobook for free, simply go to www.workoutmotivationbook.com slash audiobook, click the sign up today and save button, create your account, and voila, you get to listen to my little black book for free. All righty, that is enough shameless plugging for now at least. Let's get to the show. Okay, let's get to the featured book, which is Principles by Ray Dalio, who is the founder of one of the world's largest hedge funds, Bridgewater

Associates. Now, it is rare for a billionaire legend to take his or her time to carefully outline their own personal operating system, so to speak, for achieving success and fulfillment in both work and life. And that is exactly what Ray Dalio has done with his book Principles. Inside this book, you are going to find many of his ideas and procedures for many different aspects of both his professional and his personal life, ranging from his definition of meaningful work to his recipe for turning pain into pleasure, his prerequisites for deep relationships, his fierce intolerance of badness of any kind, and much, much more. Now, unlike similar books, Principles doesn't try to entertain you with anecdotes or fancy prose or sell you with references to science or history. highly organized manner, which is something that I appreciated because it allowed him to share an almost overwhelming amount of high value information in the book. By the end of this book,

I had made a ridiculous, truly ridiculous amount of highlights and notes. I extract all of my highlights and notes into a single Google document after I'm done with a book. And this is one of the longer Google documents I've ever made for a book, if not the longest. Anyways, I also appreciated that Dalio is not one to mince words. He professes an unwavering fidelity to discovering, facing, and embracing the truth. And he communicates in this way as well. His goal is not to make you feel better about yourself or help you justify your shortcomings, but to challenge you to change your core beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors for the better. Hey, quickly, before we carry on, if you are liking my podcast, would you please help spread the word about it? Because no amount of marketing

or advertising gimmicks can match the power of word of mouth. So if you are enjoying this episode and you think of someone else who might enjoy it as well, please do tell them about it. It really helps me. And if you are going to post about it on social media, definitely tag me so I can say thank you. You can find me on Instagram at Muscle for Life Fitness, Twitter at Muscle for Life, and Facebook at Muscle for Life Fitness. and Facebook at Muscle for Life Fitness. I also found his personal story rich and inspiring, and especially the period immediately after his first downfall. So imagine this for a minute, you and your growing team of colleagues have spent eight years working tirelessly to build an investment firm, which is well on its way to becoming a thriving enterprise. And you've also established your reputation as a rising star in your field. And then in one very public and very humiliating death blow, you lose it all. And in a very embarrassing way by betting the entire farm

on a market downturn that just never comes. And soon after that, you have nothing. You've had to lay off all of your employees and you are borrowing money from your dad and selling your second car to feed your wife and two kids. Now, what would you do? Well, I won't spoil the rest of the story for you, but Dalio not only didn't give up, obviously, he applied one of his primary principles that he touches on multiple times in the book to turn that catastrophe into an invaluable learning experience that led directly to his development of a revolutionary new type of investment strategy that would catapult him to greater success than ever before and really set the trajectory for the rest of his life. So if you are looking for powerful but unvarnished and sometimes

unpalatable advice on how to achieve more happiness and more satisfaction in your life, then Principles is for you. So let's get to my five key takeaways from this book. The first is this, quote, Reality is optimizing for the whole, not for you. Contribute to the whole and you will likely be rewarded. Now, my note here is, for me, this is a simple reminder that all the various marketplaces that we participate in life, whether intellectual, commercial, or interpersonal, operate according to some form of natural selection that strives to retain and pass along positive and desirable qualities and squash negative and undesirable ones. Not to satisfy,

validate, or improve any of us individually. In other words, reality could care less about our intentions, our efforts, our struggles, and only cares about the quality of our results. And so whenever I am faced with a failure of any kind in my life, I choose not to blame others or bemoan my circumstances, but to assume that I should have and could have done better, that there is a lesson to be learned that will help prevent similar failures in the future. Okay, takeaway number two, quote, I saw that to do exceptionally well, you have to push your limits and that if you push your limits, you will crash and it will hurt a lot. You will think you have failed, but that won't be true unless you give up. Believe it or not, your pain will fade and you

will have many other opportunities ahead of you, though you might not see them at the time. The most important thing you can do is to gather the lessons these failures provide and gain humility and radical open-mindedness in order to increase your chances of success. Then you press on. So my note here is much has been said about the importance of overcoming the fear of failure. And for whatever they're worth, here are some of my knee-jerk thoughts on the matter. First, as I said in my recent episode on the importance of necessity, I wholeheartedly believe that in order to escape the universal pull toward decay, entropy, and create and sustain anything worth having in life, whether we're talking a body, a career, a relationship, or even a society or planet,

we have to each and every one of us learn how to run faster than we ever thought possible. And doing that means that, yeah, we're going to stumble and we are going to fall sometimes. And yeah, it's often going to hurt. Nobody in the history of the human race, no matter how brilliant or talented or accomplished, has avoided this. And neither will we. Who wants to die without a few emotional and psychological scars anyway, right? What are we really afraid of? To quote Fight Club, It's nothing anymore to have a beautiful stock body. You see those cars that are completely stock cherry right out of a dealer's showroom in 1955. I always think, what a waste. Furthermore, whatever is happening or hurting today will always seem like a much bigger deal than it will in the future. In fact, eventually it will probably be completely

forgotten. My final thought here is we are ultimately judged in this world by our results, not by how sloppy or bumbling the process was. In other words, so long as we can emerge victorious, nobody cares how many mistakes we made along the way. Takeaway number three, quote, view painful problems as potential improvements that are screaming at you. My note here is I liked this because it forces you to stop playing the helpless victim and empower yourself to find solutions. And when you can do that, when you can begin to view trying situations or circumstances as puzzles that once solved will provide you with both short and long-term value in the form of immediate pleasure and practical experience, it is far easier to find the energy and motivation to solve them. Takeaway number four,

quote, it seems to me that if you look back on yourself a year ago and aren't shocked by how stupid you were, you haven't learned much. And my note here is things either get better or they get worse. And if we are not continually educating and improving ourselves, it is very safe to assume that we are continually getting dumber, lazier, and quite frankly, less valuable as people, even if by small degrees. Therefore, a simple but very effective way to assess which direction we are generally heading in is to periodically check ourselves against this benchmark of Dalio's. Okay, my fifth and final takeaway, quote, the courage that's needed the most isn't the kind that drives you to

prevail over others, but the kind that allows you to be true to your truest self, no matter what other people want you to be. And my note here is we live in a society that is full of now you are supposed to's that stretch from the very beginning of our lives to the very end. So I have a lot of respect for people who are willing to reject the expectations of the status quo and go discover and pursue what is truly meaningful to them. I've also noticed that almost one for one, the most fulfilled and satisfied people that I know have done just that regardless of their level of material success. mind doing me a favor and want to help me make this the most popular health and fitness podcast on the internet, then please leave a quick review of it on iTunes or wherever you're listening from.

This not only convinces people that they should check the show out, it also increases its search visibility and thus helps more people find their way to me and learn how to build their best bodies ever too. And of course, if you want to be notified when the next episode goes live, then just subscribe to the podcast and you won't miss out on any of the new goodies. Lastly, if you didn't like something about the show, then definitely shoot me an email at mike at muscleforlife.com and share your thoughts on how you think it could be better. I read everything myself and I'm always looking for constructive feedback. So please do reach out. All right, that's it. Thanks again for listening to this

episode and I hope to hear from you soon. Oh, and if you liked this episode, then you are going to love my newest book, The Little Black Book of Workout Motivation. You should definitely check it out because this book is my personal and 100% practical and hands-on blueprint for transformation, both inside and outside of the gym. I promise that this book will provide you with new and valuable knowledge and skills that you will use for the rest of your life. In short, I wrote this book to help you fix the things that are most holding you back from doing and achieving the things that you care the most about. So if you want to learn how to better overcome the mental blocks that are making you unmotivated, unhappy, and unhealthy, then the little black book of workout motivation is for you. And you can find it on all major online retailers like Audible, Amazon, iTunes, Kobo, and Google Play. Now I

should also mention that there's an audiobook as well, one that I recorded myself. So if you like listening to me talk about this kind of stuff on the podcast, then you'll definitely like listening to the audiobook. And you can actually get that audiobook 100% free when you go to www.workoutmotivationbook.com slash audiobook and sign up for an Audible account. Now, I myself love audiobooks and highly recommend them to everyone because they let you take downtime that you spend commuting, prepping food, walking dogs, stuff like that into something more valuable and productive. So if you want to take Audible up on this offer and get my audio book for free, simply go to www.workoutmotivationbook.com

slash audio book, click on the little sign up today and save button, create your Audible account and voila, you get to listen to my little black book for free.