On Purpose with Jay Shetty - Ray Dalio: ON How to Define Success for Yourself and Set Your Goals

Episode Date: June 10, 2019

On this episode of On Purpose, I sat down with billionaire investor, Ray Dalio.We talk about why pain is necessary in order to make progress and why we shouldn’t focus on being right all the time. Dalio also reveals what he believes is the greatest tragedy of mankind and gives us 5 steps to achieving success.If you’ve ever wanted insight into how billionaires think, this episode is for you!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The world of chocolate has been turned upside down. A very unusual situation. You saw the stacks of cash in our office. Chocolate comes from the cacountry, and recently, Variety's cacao, thought to have been lost centuries ago, were re-discovered in the Amazon. There is no chocolate on Earth like this. Now some chocolate makers are racing deep into the jungle.

To find the next game-changing chocolate, and I'm coming along. Okay, that was a very large crack it up. Listen to the obsessions while chocolate. On the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Jay Shetty and on my podcast on purpose, I've had the honor to sit down with some of the most incredible hearts and minds on the planet. Oprah, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Hart, Lewis Hamilton, and many, many more. On this podcast, you get to hear the raw real-life stories behind their journeys and the tools

they used, the books they read, and the people that made a difference in their lives so that they can make a difference in hours. Listen to on purpose with Jay Shetty on the iHeart Radio app Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Join the journey soon. Hi, I'm Brendan Francis Nunehm. I'm a journalist, a wanderer, and a bit of a bond-vivant, but mostly a human just trying to figure out what it's all about.

And not lost is my new podcast about all those things. It's a travel show where each week I go with a friend to a new place and to really understand it, try to get invited to a local's house for dinner, where kind of trying to get invited to a dinner party, it doesn't always work out. Ooh, I have to get back to you. Listen to not lost on the iHeart radio app

or wherever you get your podcasts. You have to diagnose those to the root cause. What is producing your problems? And that may be that you, or it may be those around you who are not good at things or whatever or you're doing something you need to do better or it may be that you're in the wrong place. But you have to get at the root cause to do that diagnosis. Hello everyone. Welcome back to on purpose the number one health podcast in the world. Thank you so much for being a part of this community.

Thank you for committing to your growth, to your self development, taking out the valuable time of your lives to use it to become better, to grow, and to learn. You could be doing anything in the world right now, whether you're walking your dog, whether you're commuting, or whether you're at work, and trying to learn more, thank you for making this commitment to wisdom and to knowledge. And you know that my commitment to you on this podcast is to introduce you to the people, the ideas,

the messages that can transform your work, life, and love. And today's guest is going to do just that. I'm so excited personally. This has been someone that I've been wanting to bring to you on the podcast for a long time. So I'm going to have to contain my excitement as well. But he's an American billionaire investor, hedge fund manager and philanthropist and the author of this incredible book called Principles. Now I read this book when it first came out and there were so many incredible insights of wisdom in there and today I get to sit down with the one and only Ray Dalio. Ray, thank you so

much for being here. Oh, I like, I don't deserve all that but back at you, thank you. No, you're very kind, you're very kind and I'm so grateful to have this opportunity with you because I truly believe that I'm so grateful you said on the phone when we were speaking that there are these different stages of life and I'm so grateful that you're at the stage of your life where you are sharing everything you've learned with all of us because I think there's such a wealth of knowledge that we all have to gain from. So thank you for me and everyone else who's listening and watching for taking this next stage in your life.

Well, it's a treat and responsibility, so I'm happy to do it. Thank you for helping me. Absolutely, absolutely. So today I want to dive into life and work and many different areas that you speak about in your incredible book, Principles. And the first thing I want to dive into is these stages of life you speak about.

Because when you say that to me on the phone the other day, they're really resonated. Why don't you guide the audience through those different stages and phases and how you see them changing our life? Well, I think there are to simplify there are three stages in your life. The first stage in your life is when you're learning and you're dependent on others. Go to school, come out, graduate from school.

It's very different from the second phase of your life where you're working. Others are dependent on you and you're trying to be successful. And that's what larger your audience is in that early stage, is why I'm so excited to speak to them. And that whole arc is totally different. Like on the first arc, first part of the life, you know, you pretty much follow a track. You know, what school's parents taking care of you, whatever it is, and then you, what decisions do you make? You can hardly make any decisions. You make, you know, okay, what college do you go to if you go to college, then you go to the college and you, what major do you have? And then you come out to

this world, the second stage, in which really the whole thing is wide open to you, particularly if you don't go stay on a track. And you realize that there's no instruction manual and you can go anywhere and you could do anything. And then it's a very different phase. It's a more difficult phase. And that second phase then has an arc to it.

And then somewhere in the vicinity of your last phase, that's the phase where you're free to live and free to die. And your preferences change. You change, your relationships with others change. So that's the life arc that I'm referring to. And so I'm in the transition from the end of my second phase to the beginning of my third phase. And at that phase, I just want to pass along what I've learned to help people who are early in their second phase. Yeah, absolutely. And you're so right, that is the majority of people that are listening and watching right now. And for me, you brought something up really interesting there.

One of the biggest things is we become paralyzed by choice and decisions. Because so much of that early phase is where things were decided for us, which choices were made for us, and I often feel we bring that mindset to the second phase where we're still looking for someone else to help tell us what to do and what decision to make and what's the right thing to do. How have you seen through your experiences, how have you dealt with choice and decision as that phase of life changes? choice and decision as that phase of life changes? Well, I think first of all, one has to know their nature. You might have to discover it, but your nature means do you have a sense of adventure, do you seek security?

Are you an extrovert and introvert those types of things? So personal discovery is important. I think that who you're with and where you are is more important than what you do. Because in the early phase of that second phase, it's total discovery. So it's experimentation. You know, you went to India for three years, right?

Yes. And that, but if you have that sense of adventure to let go, you can discover. That's your opportunity. But discover yourself as well as to discover what the choices are like. And then, as you move later into that, you'll feel the pulls. And to feel never trapped, we were talking just before we began that so many people say, you know, I can't be that way because my job won't allow it, which is a silly concept because you have the freedom of those choices, even when you have constraining situations. So I think that's the life arc. Enjoy this wide open choice. You can be anywhere in the world.

You can do almost anything. Let go, experiment, and then move on. Absolutely. Did you feel that same freedom when you started as well? Or do you feel it's changed now? Do you think there's more? In my case, in my case, okay. In my case, when I was 12, I got hooked on trading markets.

So I love that game. So I discovered it early. And then I wanted to, but I had this sense of adventure. I was very, I discovered when I went to work at a company that I, working at a company was not my thing. I got fired, I punched my boss. I mean, I so and I really then learned the freedom. Not I didn't have any idea that I was setting up a company. I just sort of said I can do these

things probably like you you discovered okay I could do those things and then one thing leads to another, and then you build. And I always like the variety. So my nature is macro. So I like going all over the world, all different cultures, understanding how the world works. And so I found something that clicked through that experimentation.

But then there is ups and downs, right? Lots of ups and downs. So we need to talk about failure, how then there is ups and downs, right? Lots of ups and downs. So we need to talk about failure, you know, how great failure is. Yeah, let's do that because I think when I'm hearing you say that, it's so refreshing. Because when I hear you saying, yeah, I had to figure it out and I was experimenting and testing and I didn't even know what I was building. I love hearing that because that's what my experience so far has been too, as opposed to like a very rigid strategic,

you know, that there isn't strategy, of course there is, but something very rigid and planned. There is a lot of experimentation in that growth where failure is natural. Yeah. My son in 2014 gave me a book, Joseph Campbell, and it was called Here of Us, Thousand Faces, and it refers to the hero's journey.

And this is like at the end of my experience, and I found that that's very, very true. And so there's this cycle. [♪ piano music playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the background, playing in the heart of the Amazon rainforest, this explorer stumbled upon something that would change his life. I saw it and I saw, oh wow, this is a very unusual situation. It was cacao, the tree that gives us chocolate, but this cacao was unlike anything experts had seen, or tasted. I've never wanted us to have a gun bite.

I mean, you saw this tax of cash in our office. Chocolate sort of forms this vortex. It sucks you in. It's like I can be the queen of wild chocolate. We're all lost. It was madness. It was a game changer. People quit their jobs. They left their lives behind, so they could search for more of this stuff.

I wanted to tell their stories, so I followed them deep into the jungle, and it wasn't always pretty. Basically, this like disgruntled guy and his family surrounded the building armed with machetes. And we've heard all sorts of things that, you know, somebody got shot over this. Sometimes I think, all, all days for a damn bar of chocolate. Listen to obsessions while chocolate on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever

you get your podcast. I'm Danny Shapiro, host of Family Secrets. It's hard to believe we're entering our eighth season. And yet, we're constantly discovering new secrets. The depths of them, the variety of them, continues to be astonishing. I can't wait to share ten incredible stories with you, stories of tenacity, resilience, and the profoundly necessary excavation of long-held family secrets.

When I realized this is not just happening to me, this is who and what I am. I needed her to help me. Something was gnawing at me that I couldn't put my finger on, that I just felt somehow that there was a piece missing. Why not restart? Look at all the things that were going wrong. I hope you'll join me and my extraordinary guests for this new season of Family Secrets. Listen to season 8 of Family Secrets on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

The therapy for Black Girls podcast is the destination for all things mental health, personal development and all of the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves. Here, we have the conversations that help Black women dig a little deeper into the most impactful relationships in our lives, those with our parents, our partners, our children, our friends, and most importantly, ourselves. We chat about things like what to do with a friendship ends,

how to know when it's time to break up with your therapist, and how to end the cycle of perfectionism. I'm your host, Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. And I can't wait for you to join the conversation every Wednesday. Listen to the therapy for Black Girls Podcast on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Take good care. A certain type of personality wants a taste for adventure. You go out and have the adventure. And then there are the ups and downs. And then you crash. You will have a failure. If you're adventurous and you're pushing the limits, you will have a failure.

And that failure can be a transformative experience. I have an expression that pain plus reflection equals progress. So they call it the abyss. And change. The learning of humility to maintain your aggressiveness, your audacity, and to simultaneously learn humility. And that happened to me. I was, so you described it. I graduated from school. I, two years, I worked on Wall Street for two years. I got fired from my job, and two years later I'm running my little company.

Something like seven, eight years after that, I made terrible mistakes in the markets. I crashed and I lost everything. And I was so broke that I had to borrow $4,000 from my dad to help pay for my family expenses. And it was public, publicly, because I was on Wall Street Week and I made all those mistakes. And that was one of the most painful.

Pain can be great because it changed my whole perspective to decision-making. As I'm saying, it gave me the humility I needed to operate with my audacity. In other words, to simultaneously be bold and aggressive and also to know that I could be careful. You know, I learned that if you're doing risky things, anybody who does risky things, type rope walk across buildings or whatever, it's that they also know how to deal with the risks well.

So how to be bold and then to learn from the failures. And it changed my whole approach to failure. I began to think of failures like puzzles that if I could solve the puzzle, I'd get a gem. And the puzzle was, what would I do differently in the future? And the gem I would get would be a principle of how I would deal with the future differently. So understanding that if you press the limits, you're going

to fail, and it's okay, and life is a long journey. Failure has a tone to it that it sounds like it's an end. No, it's part of that process of learning and then making that great advance. But the humility combined with the audacity was helpful. Because of that, I would go to try to find the smartest people I could find who disagreed with me. That independent thinking. And I would also know how to deal with my risks better. So I kept my upside without losing my downside. So that's failure and pain. If you look at the second order effects, if you make the most of them, they're the most valuable. Absolutely. And I love that balance that you've just spoke about or that bringing up the two together of humility and audacity. I've never heard

it like that before. And I really value that because I can see why humility is so powerful, but not that that humility stops you from having that boldness and that courage. And almost like, how have you maintained that? Because I'm guessing that being at rock bottom, like having to borrow $4,000 can be very painful. And then when you're experimenting again and going on your next adventure,

you've got to be okay with the fact that that could happen again, or was that humility holding that back, having that happen again? I think the Type Rope Walker, crossing the building is the example, right? You fall and you fall hard. Now, some people won't get on the Type Rope again. Yeah.

Some people will get on the Type Rope again. Yes. And then they think, how do I do that? So how do I be bold and aggressive? And I pull it off. And it's the same way, right? You start to think, well, maybe I do this or that differently. And I practice more. It's that combination of the caution and practice that allows you to take it to the limits that you never would have been able to take it to before. Right? I learned that.

Once I learned that, everything changed. Because I also would know how to take the hits. In other words, I don't mind getting banged, but I don't wanna get knocked out of the game. Yes. So the willingness to get banged, but not knocked out of the game is a big part of that. Absolutely. Yeah, like a good fighter, right? You just giving that analogy for me. It's like

sometimes a boxer or a fighter needs to know which punches to take in order to be able to drop a bigger punch. That's that's part of the game. And that's where you were saying about solving a puzzle. I love that analogy because I think if we see everything as puzzles that there's a way of figuring it out, right? You know there's an answer to a puzzle. Yes because I think if we see everything as puzzles that there's a way of figuring it out, right? You know there's an answer to a puzzle. Yes, I think the key is to think of reality as you're given reality is reality and think of it as working like a machine There are cause-effect relationships that make the realities around you Okay, now if you go above yourself

and you look at that, how does that machine work? And then how do I interact with that machine to get what I want? And you do that with an equanimity. Meditation also helped me a lot. Yes. I learned to meditate very many years ago. And if you have equanimity and you look at it above and you

look at with curiosity and you say, all I must not be interacting well with at my reality and how do I change it and how does it work? It's a very powerful way of approaching life. Absolutely. And that definition of equanimity too, equanimity means to deal with good and bad. Yeah. And so how have you, I'd love to know how have you celebrate and embrace successes in your life too? We just spoke about failure. I'm intrigued to know how someone like yourself deals with success. Well, I think my, my thinking about successes evolved over a

period of time. I, I thought about success. I today think about success differently. It's like the way I thought about it originally when I, you know, you have this failure, I thought that it's like there's a jungle out there. I want to have the great, look, greatest life possible, but in order to be successful, I have to cross this dangerous jungle. Now, I could stay on the one side of the jungle and have a boring, safe life, but unless I deal with the risks, risks in return go together and it's like going into this jungle. So, what would I choose? Would I choose to go into the jungle

and cross the jungle and have the greatest life possible, but I might, bad things might happen. And then I started to think when I went into that jungle, of course I had to cross the jungle, but I started to realize how to cross the jungle most importantly with people who could see things differently than I could on the mission with me. And so, and we would protect each other in that jungle. And that's what it was like. So life is a lot like that. Who are you in the jungle with? And they might see things differently from you. And then you protect each other and you go through. And the thing that I discovered was that as I had these successes and failures and much more successes than failures, I began to realize that I didn't care as much about the success

as I cared about the journey. Okay. In other words, I didn't want to get out of the jungle. I didn't want to get to the other side. Yes. Because it might be like, I don't know, climbing mountains or doing whatever you realize. There's a new peak and there's a new level of success and they won't keep you happy, okay? You don't sit there, you wanna go on. And it is the ups and downs of that journey and the striving and to becoming better that becomes the new definition of success.

And so I started to see my life in this life arc way, with my preferences changing, because your preferences naturally change, as one has kids, and I was there as they start to think. I mean, everybody that you're dealing with is going through in life arc. If you think about who are the people you love, what is your relationship with your parents,

what are your relationships you have children, who they will have a life arc. And as you go through that life arc and you see those things changing, then you start to realize that operating consistent with that life arc is, and on that journey to evolve well, is what success is. It's not the money.

It's like money loses its marginal utility very quickly, right? If you, studies of happiness, there's a Harvard professor, many professors, I suppose, and they tell you the same thing in terms of studying happiness around the world. There's very little correlation between how much money you have in the level of happiness past a basic substance level. The element that there's the highest correlation with is an element of community who you're

with. So it's this meaningful work, are you on a mission and meaningful relationships through a life arc that evolves. So that's, my definition of success is more like evolving well and contributing to evolution. Yeah, absolutely. And I couldn't agree more. And those stand so true from my monk training, too. So hearing them from you in a different context is so encouraging to hear. And for anyone who's watching or listening right now, please make sure that as Ray is speaking,

you're visualizing his beautiful analogies. Because as I'm sitting here listening to you, I'm visualizing being in the forest, I'm visualizing being around people, and looking at the people in my life and seeing them as different aspects, and Ray paints such a beautiful picture as he speaks. So if you're listening right now,

anytime he shares an analogy or a story, put yourself in that place because it's going to help you go there deeper. And I think you do a brilliant job of that ray. And some of your videos I saw as well, the animations really bring that to life. So I can see them in my mind. Tell us about how you've been so careful about curating and constructing that community for yourself.

You said that you found people in the woods who could see what you couldn't see and you protected each other, which I love. It was an evolutionary process, you know. So you're on a mission. You're on a mission. Yes. And you have people around the mission with you. Yes.

And then you start to, I started to find, what do I want in those people and what should the relationship be? And I first just pick people I liked and I didn't realize how we see things differently, how we process things so differently. Our minds work so differently. And so when you start to see, let's say there's a big picture thinker, there's a detail thinker.

And we all become frustrated with the other person because they like the big picture thinker, there's a detail thinker. And we all become frustrated with the other person because they like the big picture says, why are you so hung up with those details? Let's go to the big picture. And the detail thinker thinks, you've got your head in the clouds, you've got to come down to the nuts and bolts. And they're both right. And they start to realize that you need each other. You start to need the different ways of thinking. So I would convey that, that many people see things very differently. And how do you deal with those differences in seeing their disagreements? How do you deal with disagreements?

My approach, and I learned, is whenever you're in a disagreement, and you don't know how to deal with it well because it's not going well, pause and then step above the disagreement together and then say what are the protocols for us to disagree well? How should we do this thing? Always go to the higher level and think how should you do that thing? And so you get protocols. I've developed these protocols, like a protocol would be like if we're not being able to communicate well together, a standard protocol is let's mutually agree on someone who will help moderate this conversation and then we'll work things through or talking. How do I repeat what you're saying so that I'm conveying that I

understand. And you start to develop those types of protocols and start to develop the appreciations of people seeing things differently. You discover also differences in values, differences in the more the most core principles of how people should be with each other. In my case, it was so essential that we're going to be completely, radically truthful and radically transparent with each other, right? And that was my discovery. And it's difficult, but I've also learned that many cases, the difficult things are only

the first order consequences, they're difficult. The second order consequences is they're rewarding. And so by being able to have that radical truthfulness and that transparency to demonstrate that there's no spin was a discovery. So there's an evolutionary arc. I would say in my culture, in my building an organization, a community that was a beneficial, I'll describe it in one sentence, long sentence. It's an idea meritocracy. In other words, it's a place where the best ideas win out regardless of hierarchy. So an idea meritocracy, and with the goal in which the goals are meaningful work and meaningful

relationships, meaningful work to be on a mission together, and meaningful relationships is an equal importance of that. And that produces this tough love. So I'll repeat it. I'm saying it too many words. So it's an idea meritocracy in which the goals are meaningful work and meaningful relationships through radical truthfulness and radical transparency.

Anyway, that was my, that's what worked for me. That's incredible. And I guess all of these tools you were mentioning earlier about these protocols are to consistently realign everyone with that because as we start wearing away and you start seeing lack of transparency or lack of truthfulness or lack of meaning and mission, you're constantly having to realign everyone. Right. That, let's talk about that radical truthfulness and radical transparency. Let's talk about that radical truthfulness and radical transparency.

If you, if you can achieve it, there's no confusion. Because if we're really truthful, we're taking all those hidden agendas and all those other things and we're not confused, we're putting them on the table. Yes. And if you understand the art of thoughtful disagreement, how to disagree well so that you can then learn from each other or get past your disagreement in an idea meritocratic way, it is incredibly powerful. And we're not taught that. We're not taught some of these things. We're not taught the value of failure. Definitely not. We're not taught, um, we're taught to be right, to be attached to our views of being right. Yep.

You can't learn. No. If you're attached to being right, because you think it's embarrassing because you don't know. Hmm. So that notion of thoughtful disagreement, because if there's disagreement, somebody must be wrong. And how do you know that wrong person isn't you? So these are the things that if you have thoughtful disagreement, radical truthfulness, radical transparency, you build trust and effectiveness.

Yeah. And that really sounds like it requires the pulverizing of the ego. Like that to me sounds like we really have to crush and break down this ego because our ego is what we're confronted with, the believing I'm right, I'm going to win, right? Whenever you're in a disagreement and you hand it over badly, it's you think it's win or loss. That's right. I think the greatest tragedy of mankind, big statement, the greatest tragedy of mankind. Okay. The greatest tragedy mankind, because it's so much, it stands in the way of so many people making decisions well and operating well with each other, is holding an opinion in your head that's wrong. And it's such a tragedy, meaning it's so easily fixed, that all you have to do is put it out there and stress test it,

and say, I might be wrong. And how do I stress test it? And by stress testing, you raise your probabilities of being right. So I think the education system rewards being right. So many things reward that being right, that stands in the way of taking in all that's out there to really help you be right. I think that's such a powerful point. I'm just nodding away if you're only listening

that I'm nodding away because when you say that, I think that's so true that all of our conditioned patterns are about being right. It's never being to understand things from different angles or perspectives, which is what reality is much more of than being right or wrong or black or white. And so much of our patterns in our mind are always win or loss, right or wrong. One or two, there's rarely this cohesive synergy that you're speaking about. That actually takes a lot more work to get to. The greater whatever success I've had in life has had much more to do with my knowing, how to deal with my not knowing,

than anything that I know. Because what I don't know is vastly greater. Think about all the experts that you can turn to, and all the perspectives that you can get, and how the perspectives that you can get and how much you can learn By being what's being out there and that maximizes and it's a kick I'm Dr. Romani and I am back with season two of my podcast Navigating narcissism Narcissists are everywhere and their toxic behavior in words can cause serious harm to your mental health.

In our first season, we heard from Eileen Charlotte, who was loved by the Tinder swindler. The worst part is that he can only be guilty for stealing the money from me, but he cannot be guilty for the mental part he did. And that's even way worse than the money you took. But I am here to help. As a licensed psychologist and survivor of narcissistic abuse myself, I know how to identify the narcissists in your life. Each week you will hear stories from survivors

who have navigated through toxic relationships, gaslighting, love bombing, and the process of their healing from these relationships. Listen to navigating narcissism on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In the 1680s, a feisty opera singer burned down a nunnery and stole away with her secret lover. In 1810, a pirate queen negotiated her cruiseway to total freedom, with all their loot. During World War II, a flirtatious gambling double agent helped keep D-Day a secret from

the Germans. What are these stories having common? They're all about real women who were left out of your history books. If you're tired of missing out, check out the Womanica podcast, a daily women's history podcast highlighting women you may not have heard of, but definitely should know about. I'm your host Jenny Kaplan, and for me, diving into these stories is the best part of my day. I learned something new about women from around the world and leave feeling amazed, inspired,

and sometimes shocked. Listen on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm David Eagleman. I have a new podcast called Inner Cosmos on I Heart. I'm a neuroscientist and an author at Stanford University, and I've spent my career exploring the three-pound universe in our heads. On my new podcast, I'm going to explore the relationship between our brains and our experiences by tackling unusual questions, so we can better understand our lives and our realities, like, does time really run in slow motion when you're in a car accident? Or can we create new senses for humans?

Or what does dreaming have to do with the rotation of the planet? So join me weekly to uncover how your brain steers your behavior, your perception, and your reality. Listen to Intercosmos with David Eagleman on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. One of the things, the other thing which we've already diving into today, you called your

book Principles, and I thought that that was quite a counterculture way of doing it in a good way. And the reason I say that is today so much of the language around business and work or entrepreneurship is around doing, it's around having, it's around grinding, it's, you know, these are the terms and the language that's used around business. Whereas you go back and you talk about principles. And on the phone when we were speaking, you were talking about this differentiation between doing and then living a principled life. Just explain that to us and why you believe we have to start with principles. I'm going to start by explaining how I learned it. Yes. And what principle thinking is and how

it's different from other types of normal thinking most people do, right? And there's also a suggestion I'd like to pass along to those who are listening. What I found was that whenever I would make an important decision, I would write down my criteria for making that decision. Because that situation come along again. So I could be clear, it helped me clarify my thinking. And when the next time it came along, I would start to see how to deal with that.

And I could refine my principles. So the book is a compendium of these principles that I wrote over 25 years on that situation. It changed my way of thinking and it also changed my way of interacting because then I would see everything as another one of those rather than be in the blizzard of these bits and pieces of things coming at me. I would start to think, all, it's one of those.

And I would then operate as what was my principle. And those principles became like internalized. So think of it almost like a batter, batting against a pitcher who sometimes throws curve balls, sometimes throws fastballs, sometimes throws sliders. And if you do that over a period of time, you begin to learn, oh, that's a fastball. And then you start to think, okay, the fastball, I operate this, and you start to internalize. You become better and better, and life becomes simpler for you. Because you're not seeing those millions of bits and pieces.

You're seeing it as another one of those and you have that instinctual ability that allows you to then make that decision and operate that way. And then you can communicate with people on principle levels thinking. You know, it's particularly important because I would say the decline of religion, the decline, in other words, even your values, you have to think what is your religion. If you chose a religion and it's not a preconditioned religion, what are your values? What are your principles? How do you think life really works and you're making choices for yourself? That is the form of those principles.

So when you start to think about those, and you're clear about those, and you can communicate with others, you can see whether your principles are aligned with others or not. Because if you don't get along with somebody, and those irreconcilable differences are due to the fact that there are deep differences in principles,

not differences in interpretations of things and so on. It's like any great relationship. There'll be arguments along the way, but it is those core beliefs. And by being clear about them, to clear to yourself and clear to others, it's very powerful. Yeah, absolutely. I can agree more. It just makes it so much more simpler to navigate because you're so right that when you don't have that clarity, all you're being attacked with is so much noise. And there's just so many millions of different pieces of noise that are coming at you, that you haven't filtered, you haven't clarified, you haven't carefully selected.

And that's why we feel so overwhelmed today. We're drowning in all of that noise. Exactly. And what for? Exactly. Where are you going? What for? What are you seeking to fulfill? What is it in you? Yeah. And I think that this is where I'd recommend everyone who's listening or watching right now, I'd love for you to take a moment to do that exercise in your own time that Ray's just laid out. I've really figured out what are your criteria behind decisions?

Why are you making those decisions? What's pushing you towards them? For me as well, whenever I have a number of options, what I do is I write down all my options and choices I have, and I write down on top of them why I would take them. And often my why for something would be just pride or ego, and often above one of them it will be love and depth and values. Well, here's the exercise you're talking about the writing down. Yes. Okay. I'm saying the writing down. I recommend to your listeners. Please. Write them down.

Okay. Do your reflections. And then you write them down. It helps. It clarifies it. The other thing that happens is I think of the mind as being there almost to use in you. There is a conscious logical you and there's a subliminal emotional you. Yes, that you don't understand. That was Freud's great discovery. Yes. That there is a part of your brain that is really controlling you. But because it's not conscious to you, you don't know it's there and it's controlling it. And the key, I think, is to align those things like there's intuition or there's those emotions. And when they come up and you're seeing yourself doing things, if you can reflect on yourself and align your subliminal with your cerebral, it helps you because you have a double check. That emotional thing, like maybe it's an intuition, well, maybe it's right and maybe it's wrong. So respect it, it's coming up. But look at it with that logical. And when

you achieve that alignment, writing helps you do that. Absolutely, absolutely. I couldn't agree more. And if you're sitting there going, I'm not a writer, first try. And if after trying, if you still feel you're not a writer, voice note yourself, speak it out to yourself and hear yourself back. Because when you hear, because you're used to listening to other people, you'll also be able to start listening to your subconscious self. And that's going to help you really try and bring that alignment and clarity together. And then you start to see that there's a limited number, maybe a few hundred, maybe a couple hundred circumstances, or whatever. You're going to start to see everything happens over and over again.

You're going to understand each yourself better. Who, it's very wonderful. Absolutely. I love that. In one of these principles, you talk about this scale of savoring the experience, savoring life, then making an impact. And I wanted to know how you reconcile the two and how you've seen them. Well, I think the big choice in life, and a lot of big choices in life, but is accomplishment

versus savoring life. Okay. So, you know, savoring life is smell the roses. And what a beautiful day or that moment, make sure you time with the people that you love and all of that. And then there's the other, which is accomplishment and impact, right? So there is those kinds of choices. You have to discover yourself, well, where are you? And how do you deal with those types of things?

I think the most effective is where they align. Right. Okay. That's what that's I think the key. Right. Like to make your work your passion one in the same, right? That kind of thing. Yes. So that's I think that's the best. Okay, you're accomplishment. If you're passionate and then you maybe have those things aligned. But that's the choice in life, right? And you could see it in different cultures. Yes, yeah. And today we see a lot of, today with all of the generations

that we're in and seeing in work right now, there's a desire to have it all. There's a desire to have great pay, a great job that's meaningful, and have lots of time off to go on holiday and be able to go out on a Friday night and have a good time. And I feel like this desire to have everything is quite a challenge because then you're trying, striving to have all of these different paths. That's what the second phase of the life is like. First phase of the life is, you know, you learn, and really it's generally a lot of fun. And also, by the way, you think you can conquer the universe. And then you come to this other phase where it's all open

and so on. And what you find out is there are too many things to do. You don't have enough time. Okay, you don't have enough time for each one of those things. And so the question is, how do you deal with that? Well, there are two ways you can deal with it. You can, of course, prioritize. And you need to do that. But the real way, most importantly, is to know how to get the most out of an hour. In other words, you can put more life into life if you know how to get leverage and if you know how to be as effective

because if you get more out of each hour, wow, then it's like more life within those constraints, a number of hours. Absolutely. I've always described that for me as time management versus energy management. And for me, if I can bring all my energy into one hour, that's more powerful than me having 10 hours of half the energy. And in, but in addition, there are techniques, right? I love to hear some. Well, like, for example, I learned leverage throughout the people.

Once you learn leverage, in my particular case, of course, I built up to this. I have about 30 direct reports. What it means is, now this is after years of, I had nothing, by the way. But what I can do is, I'm with the good relationships and how that works. Basically they can typically work for about 50 hours on something that I'm trying to accomplish for every hour that I deal with them. So I get an enormous amount of leverage. Or I know how to prioritize. Or I know how to break my schedule, knowing I mentioned meditation or other things to get myself the clarity. So there are many, many techniques I wrote a bunch of them

in the books and many other people have other techniques to. But as you start to realize that you can have much more life by knowing these various types of techniques. I'd love to know some of your tips and techniques around prioritization. I think that's something that people are so challenged with right now. What have been some of your

best principles or rules around how to prioritize something? I don't want I don't want to give people my priorities, but I do want to give them the notion of To go above it. Okay, like the same rule if you're in a disagreement you go above it Okay, so many people are in the blizzard of all these things coming at them and they're in it and they're trying to deal with every one of those. Okay, so pause and step back and then start to think, what are you really going after? You have to look subliminally. It may be deep seated in your childhood. It may be, but what is that pull? Okay, and that that becomes and then how do you apportion it?

You do need a plan. You need some sort of self-discipline as you look down and you say, well, I'm gonna spend dinners with my kids or I'm going to Y, Z in terms of those to-dos. But at the highest level, you're saying, what do I want? What are my choices? Because you have to realize. And then what I find is, if you pause and you do that slowly over time, don't just try to do it in a minute, you can find that you can have a lot of your cake and eat it too. I used to take my kids on my business trips.

What a great education. Do I? Some crazy. It's an example that sometimes you discover with time that you can have your cake and eat it too. Take the time. Mm-hmm. Yeah, patients, patients is...

I think that there's five steps to success. First is you have to know your goals. You have to know what you're going out there. And that does require prioritization. The second is on your way to your goals, you're going to encounter your problems, your failures, your problems. So, that's step two, encounter them, the standing in your way. Number three is you have to diagnose those to the root cause. What is producing your problems? At the root.

At the root cause. And that may be that you you or it may be those around you who are not good at things or whatever or you're doing something you need to do better, or it may be that you're in the wrong place. But you have to get at the root cause to do that diagnosis. Once you know the specific thing that's standing in your way, that personal discovery process, you have to go to the fourth step, and that fourth step is to design a way to get around them. If it may be, for example, that if you have a particular weakness, work with somebody who is strong where you're weak, or it may be a change your job, or whatever it is, but

you've got to get around that specific thing that you've diagnosed as standing in your way. And then when you have a design, you have to do it. A lot of people come up with designs, but they don't push through and do it. And I think life is just the constant five step process over and over and over again. Because if you can do those five things, you will be successful, you'll evolve fairly quickly. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And you add two methods or keys to succeeding,

which you call flexibility and self accountability, because within that, within those five steps, there's gonna need to be a bit of flexibility or a lot of flexibility and self accountability. And I love it, you point this out, you said, don't blame bad outcomes on anyone but yourself, which is like huge self accountability. Yeah. I really do believe, give your mindset.

I do believe that I can do anything and that it is just a matter of my character and my creativity so that it is a personal test of me. It may be difficult and I have to be creative enough and made with the help of others. And that is largely true. You really, if you're creative enough with, and you don't have to do it yourself, you can get the ideas from other people

and then you are enough character in it to do it yourself, you can get the ideas from other people. And then you are enough character in it to do it. Wow. Absolutely. And I think, and I think that's the biggest challenge that we try and do all on our own. We think we have to be everything. We think we have to be the face and the background and the side and everything in between. And actually, collaboration coming together with other people is so much more what is brought success in the world. Yes. When you start to realize that actually you can't see, it's like going from two dimensions to three dimensions, or black and white to color, that when you start to see things through other's eyes, you can see the world in a totally different, much richer way. And you know how to navigate it. It's such a power, such a gift.

Yeah. It's amazing. Thank you so much, Ray. This has been such an incredible experience diving in with you. Anyone who's listening and watching, I hope you've been taking notes. I hope you stopped and did certain activities when Ray and I spoke about them and Ray, we finished every interview with a final five, which is our final five quick fire round, rapid fire round. So these are answers that are one word to one sentence maximum.

So I'm gonna start with the first one. What's one trait you look for in a potential employee? Character. Character. Amazing. Okay, great. Number two, what is one trait you possess that you believe you got to where you are today?

One of your traits Fear humility fear and acceptance of failing. Wow. I love that answer. That's awesome. I was not expecting that It's a great answer Sorry, I'm You can explain For and a taste for adventure because the joy of the adventure, it makes it all worthwhile. And I've come to appreciate the pain. Yeah.

What's the best thing you've learned from this transition in your life where you're now passing it on? What's something you've learned from the process of passing lessons on? That it's hard. And to let go. To let go of? To let go of caring while caring. Right, yes, yes, that's such an important point. Absolutely, as a teacher, as a guide, as a coach,

you can only facilitate growth, but you can't force it. Just let it, yeah. Yeah, you've got to give everyone the opportunity to't force it. Just let it. Yeah. You've got to give everyone the opportunity to let it out. Okay, number four. What's one thing in stage three you're looking forward to the most, to the stage of life that you're in right now? Well, as Joseph Campbell said,

to be free to live and free to die, I think that you're in an arc in which you gain freedom, total freedom, no obligation. The greatest enjoy now is no obligation. I'm free. Yeah. Amazing. And to watch others be successful without me. That is the greatest joy to watch others to be successful without me. That is the greatest joy to watch others to be successful without me.

I'm free and they are successful without me. Wow. Amazing. Well, you wrote this book of a number of principles and the fifth and final question is, what's a principle that you've learned this year or that you're currently trying to learn or learning or testing this year. Well, this is my transition year. I guess what I've learned, I've been so pleased to have the interactions with people who are learning. I don't know if it's a principle, it's not a principle, but it's an experience that the interactions that I'm having on social media, the conversations, so many nice people and the exchanges have just been so beautiful. I think that was my main discovery as I'm also going through my evolutionary process

of that I described. I absolutely love that. That's amazing, Ray. You're absolutely incredible. If anyone loved the conversation today, make sure you go and grab a copy of Principles by Ray Dahlia. If you haven't already, if you have read the book, which I know many of you are very excited, we're going to have Ray on the podcast.

Go ahead and follow him on social media and across all the other channels. If you don't already, Ray, is there a particular channel that you would prefer everyone to go follow you on? Or every other Facebook, there's Instagram, there's YouTube, go ahead and follow Ray across all the channels. Thank you so much for listening. Make sure you grab a copy of the book. Today we just literally scratch the surface of all the incredible principles.

I'd like to add one. Sure, please. I put the book and also video case studies and everything in a free app. So if you don't have to buy a book, you can get the book. It's on the iOS Apple store. It's a free download and it has videos. Well, I didn't know that.

That's cool. Oh, that's awesome. So the book is great if you like books, but you also have this other video which is alive. You might like that. That's awesome. And there's so many great episodes that I've been watching on Ray's social channels as well

that really break down and visualize these principles for you to check out. Thank you so much for being a subscriber to on purpose, Ray and review this podcast. And most importantly, share what you learn. There were so many great insights from Ray today. So many great moments of wisdom and principles. Extract them, share them on Twitter or on Instagram

on YouTube on Facebook. And I'll share my favorite ones as well. Make sure you tag Ray and I in those messages. And we can't wait to see you again next week. Thank you so much. Thanks, Ray. Thank you so much. So grateful, yeah.

Thank you. Hope that was good for you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for. Hope that was good for you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for listening through to the end of that episode. I hope you're going to share this all across social media. Let people know that you're subscribed to on purpose. Let me know. Post it. Tell me what a difference it's making in your life. I would love to see your thoughts. I can't wait for this incredibly conscious community

we're creating of purposeful people. You're now a part of the tribe, a part of the squad. Thank you for being here. I can't wait to share the next episode with you. Hey, it's Debbie Brown, host of the Deeply Well Podcast, where we hold conscious conversations with leaders and radical healers and wellness, around topics that are meant to expand and support you on your wellbeing journey. Deeply well is your soft place to land, to work on yourself without judgment,

to heal, to learn, to grow, to become who you deserve to be. Deeply well with Debbie Brown is available now on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Namaste. I'm Danny Shapiro, host of Family Secrets.

It's hard to believe we're entering our eighth season, and yet we're constantly discovering new secrets. The variety of them continues to be astonishing. I can't wait to share ten incredible stories with you, stories of tenacity, resilience, and the profoundly necessary excavation of long-held family secrets. Listen to season 8 of Family Secrets on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

The therapy for Black Girls Podcast is your space to explore mental health, personal development, and all of the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves. I'm your host, Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia, and I can't wait for you to join the conversation every Wednesday. Listen to the therapy for Black Girls podcast on the iHart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.

Take good care. video app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Take good care.