Ray Dalio Principles
“Not knowing taught me more than knowing”
Do we have common principles? Are we clear about them? Do we write them down?
People can bootstrap their principles from Parents, Religion, etc.
Ray’s Principles:
Q: Does social media provide a fuzzy look into peoples principles?
“Strive for a lot and fail well - learn but don’t get knocked out“...“How do I know I’m right? Curiosity about why other peoples views are different.”
Sounds like Munger’s Mental Models, main focus of helping adjust against inherent decision bias? Understanding multiple points of view before making a decision.
Mistakes:
“Decision making is learned” - Disagree, there are many human biases that drive decision making. Perhaps biases are learned as well though?
“While everyone assumes the future is a modified version of the present, it most likely is not”
“Better make sense of other people, or other teams or places”...”Most everything has happened before for logical cause and effect reasons”
Go really deep - Ray’s story about understanding the complete grain + meat + livestock value chain and map was super detailed.
“Always assume you’re missing something” We deal with lots of complex systems! Break things down into simpler machines that you can model (chicken is a small machine that eats feed, so lock in feed future prices).
When you determine what you want, figure out the relative importance of each option.
Debate opinions with smart people with differing opinions.
Know when not to have an opinion.
Change can only happen if you admit what you’re not good at. When given a choice of two sub-optimal / hard things, there is almost always a better path, think hard about what that could be.
Best way to test your decisions is to write them down, try to lay them out algorithmically and backtest if possible.
If something is unusual, look deeper, likely something interesting there, correlate to previous knowledge and opinions.
“If you focus, work hard and are creative, you can have anything, but not everything.”
Be curious enough to understand what context causes people to see things differently than you.
*“Wise people stick to fundamentals during ups and downs.” * Best bet is to make a few uncorrelated bets.
- Put honest thoughts on table
- Have honest disagreements
- Honest ways to find out if disagreements still exist
How do you break down mis-understanding between people in a group / team? Ray uses “Baseball cards”. Much of how we think is physiological, being stuck in ones head is dangerous.
Academic realms are based on consensus, however industry (like finance) are about beating odds.
Shapers: strong independent thinkers, understand all levels of stack from details to vision, test mental maps, wide array of vision either from themselves or others.
Heros: cause larger than themselves, shaped by battles and tests.
1.1 hyper realist - choose your dreams wisely. What do you want to be?
1.2 truth - accurate reality
1.4 reality optimizes for the whole. Realty is given to us from nature.
Top down, think theory first, vs observation of bottom up. See where there is a disconnect.
Don't let how you think things should be get in the way of how things are.
Good needs to optimize for the best for the whole.
1.5 Individual incentives must align with the whole. Rapid trial and error. Put others ahead of myself? choice will happen.
Pain is healthy, pushes you outside comfort zone. Adapt quickly.
1.8 higher order consequences are important, ie. Working out sucks in first order, much better in second order.
1.10 look at the machine below you. No body can do everything perfectly. Ask people for help. Don't blame bad outcomes for anyone but yourself.
2.1 Goals, identify, Diagnose, designing, executing. Don't confuse goals with desires. Great expectations create great capabilities.
2.2 identify and RCA for your problems, find problems not causes. Don't look for proximate problems. Many path, just find one. Write down your plan, didn't take a lot of time. Design before.
Find one big thing thats holding you back.
Humility is key, mental maps as will.
Ego barrier and blind spots. Lower level amygmadela fights with higher level you.