Using Ray Dalio’s Life Principles to Build Better Professional Relationships

1. Make the Most of Bad Situations

“Time is like a river that carries us forward into encounters that require us to make decisions. We can’t stop our movement down this river and we can’t avoid the encounters. We can only approach them in the best possible way.” - Ray Dalio

Takeaway: You will not always work or interact with people you enjoy, you need to find ways to make it effective and come to the best solutions. Being able to deal with people like this in the short term will lead to working with and surrounding yourself with better people in the long term.

2. Don't Start From Scratch, Learn From Those Around You

“Ask yourself what you want. Seek out examples of other people that got what they wanted. And try to discern the cause and effect patterns behind their achievements to help you achieve your own goals.” - Ray Dalio

Takeaway: We need the examples of those that came before us in order to achieve more ourselves. Our success is measured relative to others. If we were independent in achieving our success, everyone would still be trying to figure out how to make fire with some sticks and stones. Instead, we interact with those around us, pick up on tough learnings they had through their failures and achievements, apply them to our process, fail some more along the way, and, ultimately, learn to be better. To be good at this we need to become great at interacting with those around us by:

• Observing them

• Learning from them

• Taking the positives forward

• Leaving the negatives behind

3. Understand the Power that Comes From Knowing How You and Others are Wired

"Our differences weren’t a product of poor communication; it was the other way around. Our different ways of thinking led to our poor communications…While I used to get angry and frustrated at people because of the choices they made, I came to realize that they weren’t intentionally acting in a way that seemed counterproductive; they were just living out things as they saw them, based on how their brains worked." - Ray Dalio

Takeaway: We aren't naturally going to agree with all the choices people make. This is mostly because of how our brains work, not necessarily because we have different beliefs. Understand that just like their method seems wrong to you, they may think the same about your method. The best way to get along is to try and understand their view to make fair judgements from their perspective. Taking that approach not only makes arguments less stressful, but helps you work together.

4. Be Radically Open-Minded and Radically Transparent

"The more open-minded you are, the less likely you are to deceive yourself—and the more likely it is that others will give you honest feedback. If they are ‘believable’ people (and it’s very important to know who is ‘believable’), you will learn a lot from them." - Ray Dalio

Takeaway: People often stick firmly to their beliefs and hardly state plainly what is on their mind. That's natural because being open to learning from others means "we weren't right" and speaking our mind exposes us to criticism. However, if we want to learn quickly, we need to surround ourselves with those more knowledgeable than us, be open to their takes even when they differ from ours, and state the way we think about it to invite criticism in order to learn. It’s a positive feedback loop at its finest!

5. Appreciate the Art of Thoughtful Disagreement

"When two people believe opposite things, chances are that one of them is wrong. It pays to find out if that someone is you. That’s why I believe you must appreciate and develop the art of thoughtful disagreement. In thoughtful disagreement, your goal is not to convince the other party that you are right—it is to find out which view is true and decide what to do about it" - Ray Dalio

Takeaway: Stop being afraid of being wrong or needing to be right. Instead, use the fear of missing important perspectives as the motivator to get to the correct answer. If you approach it as an exploration of what is true, have the disagreement in a calm manner, and use questions rather than accusatory statements, you will both come out feeling like you won. Often the "winner" learns valuable perspectives along the way and the "loser" actually wins because they learned as a result.

6. Ray Dalio's 5-Step Process to Get What You Want Out of Life

1. Have clear goals

2. Identify and don’t tolerate the problems that stand in the way of your achieving those goals

3. Accurately diagnose the problems to get at their root causes

4. Design plans that will get you around them

5. Do what’s necessary to push these designs through to results

Simply put, your goal choice determines your direction. While moving in that direction, you'll encounter unexpected problems. Get to the root causes of these problems by taking a calm and analytical approach. Craft a plan to help get you past any of the problems in your way. Use this to push onwards towards results. Then, expect the same cycle to happen again and again until you get to your ultimate goal.

It doesn't take too much to build relationships, here's what I'm committing to this week:

• 👋 Facilitating part of Covve’s virtual Connection Crew Masterclass on Thursday September 5th! (Join for free through my discount link!)

• 💒 Celebrating my college friend getting married

• ☀ Spending quality time with family while staying with them in LA

• 💑 Celebrating 6 years of dating my fiancée over dinner

What are you committing to this week? Reply to this email!