Ray Dalio ON: Principles for Making Better Decisions & How to Strengthen Relationships for Long-Term Success

Today, I am talking to a returning guest and good friend, Ray Dalio. Ray is the founder and co-chairman of Bridgewater Associates, which, over the last forty years, has become the largest and best performing hedge fund in the world. He is the author of #1 New York Times Bestseller and #1 Amazon Business Book of the Year, Principles. Dalio has appeared on the Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world as well as the Bloomberg Markets list of the 50 most influential people. He lives with his family in Connecticut. Ray genuinely shares the deepness of thoughts and what is his views on passing on your principles to others and picking up theirs and learn from it, the unappreciated value of journaling, knowing the right approach to having better relationships through thoughtful disagreements, the lessons we can learn from history, and the three things that mainly influence us and our society. We also exchange thoughts on asking approval and validation from others, how we react to others out of our emotional state, and how we can be of service to the world. This episode was filmed at Soho Works: 10 Jay Street. What We Discuss: 00:00:00 Intro 00:03:00 The first time you fear meeting someone 00:04:17 How did you develop clarity? 00:08:13 The smartness of your move determines the outcome 00:10:55 When did you start journaling? 00:18:19 The arc of life 00:21:08 The three people you must have in your life 00:25:12 The biggest problem of our society 00:29:50 How to win the debate of life 00:32:20 Looking at the sequence of discovering the truth 00:38:03 Three big things that influence us 00:47:00 The typical cycle for a new system 00:49:16 It’s more human nature than the system 00:57:26 Producing a reaction that becomes instinctual 01:03:36 Four important decisions we make in life 01:10:25 How do you approach money? 01:14:27 Don’t worry so much about the approval of others 01:20:27 Three practices of successful relationships 01:25:08 How do we serve the world? 01:27:56 What’s your view of love? Episode Resources Ray Dalio | Books Ray Dalio | LinkedIn Ray Dalio | Twitter Ray Dalio | Instagram Bridgewater Do you want to meditate daily with me? Go to go.calm.com/onpurpose to get 40% off a Calm Premium Membership. Experience the Daily Jay. Only on Calm Want to be a Jay Shetty Certified Life Coach? Get the Digital Guide and Workbook from Jay Shetty https://jayshettypurpose.com/fb-getting-started-as-a-life-coach-podcast/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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• 0:00Jay Shetty?

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• 0:44Jay Shetty?

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• 1:24Jay Shetty?

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• 2:08Jay Shetty?

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• 2:29Ray Dalio?

  And the path really to success, in my opinion, is to be able to align those, okay, what am I feeling? And then to reflect intellectually, is that the right thing? If I'm going to...

• 2:49Jay Shetty?

  Hey, everyone. Welcome back to On Purpose, the number one health podcast in the world. Thanks to each and every single one of you that come back every week to listen, learn and grow. Now, I know you're here because you love learning about new insights, ideas, principles that can transform your life, things that you can put into practice, ideas that you can actually take into your life, apply them and see changes and transformation.

• 3:15Jay Shetty?

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• 3:58Jay Shetty?

  That's indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. This episode is brought to you by Orange Theory Fitness. One of the best investments you can make is in your own strength. The choices you make today can help shape how you feel for years to come. Orange Theory Fitness provides a one-hour workout to build strength, burn fat and build muscle with an expert coach guiding you every step of the way. Head to orangesthery.com/onpurpose to learn more and get your first class free. Orange Theory Fitness, helping people live longer, more vibrant lives. Terms and conditions apply. See webpage in studio for details.

• 4:40Speaker 02

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• 5:09Jay Shetty?

  gonna happen. Today's guest is one of the few guests who's been on not just once, not just twice, but a third time. I don't think there's more than three guests out of our entire library that have been on as many times as today's guest. And I couldn't be more excited to talk to him. The first time I spoke to him, we were speaking about his book, Principles, an incredible book. If you haven't read it, highly recommend that you get it. Next time we spoke, we spoke about his second book, Changing World Order. And the third one, this interview, we're talking about his new journal called My Principles. I've been flicking through this over the past few days since I've had it. And it has given me so much self-awareness that I already believe I have, but the opportunity to reflect on it again and again consistently makes a huge difference. Of course, I'm talking about the one and only Ray Dalio. Ray, thank you for being here.

• 5:54Jay Shetty?

  Thank you for doing this.

• 5:55Ray Dalio?

  Jay, it's such a pleasure. All of these times, I love it.

• 5:58Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, it's a joy to see you after three years. We did one digital interview, maybe even two, I think we did in the middle of the pandemic. Maybe this is your fourth time, actually. Maybe I'm completely wrong, but either way, I'm just always grateful to be in your presence. I learned so much from you. I remember, I want to share this because the first time I met you, I'd heard so much about you. And, you know, your, your reputation precedes you and you have this, you know, huge brand beyond just, I'm not talking about brand in terms of social media, I think in the business world. And I had no idea what you were going to be like. And I was, I was nervous. I was, it was three years ago, but that was early in my career of doing this and. I was thinking to myself, I was like, what's he gonna be like? I have no idea, like, you know, how should I behave around him?

• 6:42Jay Shetty?

  And then you came in and you were the most, you know, charming, disarming individual that I'd met. You're so comfortable to be around. I was telling my whole team that I was like, you, you forget everything in your presence. You make everyone feel very comfortable, very respected, very, uh, very wanted and very valued. And I think that's a huge gift. So I wanted to say that because I probably have not told you that, but yes, three years ago, I was very nervous.

• 7:03Ray Dalio?

  Well, there are times where there's um, an esprit de corps, that there are similar values, that you're going after similar things and you can also play jazz together. It's almost like when we're, right now, it's almost like we can be playing together.

• 7:17Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, I love that.

• 7:18Ray Dalio?

  And that, and we have that, so I have the same respect and we can, so let's go play some jazz.

• 7:23Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, let's do it. I was gonna ask you, do you remember the first time you ever felt fear meeting someone? Because I know you talk a lot about uh, the truth and fearlessness, but yeah, was there ever a time when you remember meeting a mentor, a business person, a person in your world where you felt a sense of fear and how you dealt with that?

• 7:41Ray Dalio?

  Um, my reactions are, tend to be more like excitement. There's a nervous excitement.

• 7:47Jay Shetty?

  Yes, nervous excitement is probably the right word, yes, yes.

• 7:50Ray Dalio?

  Cause I'm, I'm walking in and I'm thinking, okay, wow, okay. But it's, it's a little bit like life, you know? The question at certain moments is, is that excitement? For some people, it's excitement, for some people, it's fear. And it's not just at those moments of meeting somebody like that. It, it happens a lot in life, you know? It's almost ambiguity, a taste for adventure. I think I'm, I'm more the taste for adventure. So I will nervously go in maybe with some palpitations and feeling more excitement at it. Like I feel excited about this.

• 8:28Jay Shetty?

  I think that's a great refinement. I, I would say I, I feel the same way. It's a nervous excitement. That's something special you have. You have this ability to be really clear about words, read really clear about emotions. When you read your work, when you're in your work. Was clarity something that you always found easy? Or how did you develop that ability to be so clear about the language you use? Even just what you did now, it was like, I used a word and you're like, actually I feel this. And I'm like, yeah, actually I feel that too. So tell me where that refinement came from.

• 8:57Ray Dalio?

  I honestly don't know. Um, I have a lousy rope memory. That means, I mean, really, rope memory means like, if it doesn't have a reason for being what it is, like a phone number, a name, or anything like that, like, I'm terrible. And in school, terrible, you know, memorize this one. But if it's within a context, and there's a story or there's something, I have a superb memory of how that transpires. And I think I was born that way. And so by being born that way, I'm wondering, does that enter into this particular question? And then I think my job requires me to be thinking in terms of that sort of clarity, but I really don't know.

• 9:39Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, yeah, no, I mean, it's fascinating for us to at least learn that and perceive that in you. But it seems like you've done a lot of reverse engineering as well to create the principles in the first place, like observing success, observing failure, observing wins. It seems like there's been...

• 9:55Ray Dalio?

  No, you're putting your finger on it. You know, what I did is I got in a habit at a very early age that whenever I would make a decision, I would pause and reflect, particularly if it was a painful decision or a painful moment. I'd pause and reflect. I have a principle, pain plus reflection equals progress. And then I would write down my reflections. That's why the journal, I would literally use a journal. This journal, by the way, is connected to an app that facilitates that. But, and that's what I want to pass along. And I think that that helped my clarity. Because at that moment of stepping back when there is greater clarity, when there's calmness after the storm, maybe,

• 10:40Ray Dalio?

  or the excitement of the adventure, whatever it is that you're reflecting on, that reflection, writing it down and thinking about it, and thinking, am I clear? I think helps my, I know, helps my clarity a lot.

• 10:54Jay Shetty?

  Wow. I remember a few years ago, when you went through something, you know, extremely tragic, I emailed you just a note of love and support. And you quoted that back to me then in an email. And I was just blown away by that because I have quoted, "pain plus reflection equals progress" by you a million times. I think I repeat that in every keynote I give because I think it's such a powerful... It's such a powerful principle because as soon as you remove the word reflection, progress disappears and all you're left with is pain. And when you repeated that back to me in that moment, I thought, wow, like to remember that principle in this moment requires so much,

• 11:37Jay Shetty?

  just so much depth and I was truly blown away by that because it's one thing writing it and it's another thing living it.

• 11:44Ray Dalio?

  The incident that you're referring to is the worst thing that could ever have happened to me. I would have rather died than have it happen was the loss of my son. But you know meditation helps a lot, right? So meditation and reflection because whenever there's pain, there's a reality, it tells you something about reality and it tells you something about how to deal with reality, the reflections. Yeah, life is life, it comes at you, it is reality. You can't change it, okay? You can influence it based on your reactions. But you have to deal with it and you have to deal with it in a calm way.

• 12:28Ray Dalio?

  So meditation helps you be calm, it helps you see the clarity and then move beyond that to deal with the circumstances well, I think.

• 12:35Jay Shetty?

  How did you come to accept that? I think a lot of people struggle with accepting that life's gonna come at you, it's gonna do what it wants. I think we have a desire for control and when someone looks at someone as successful as you, they would infer that, oh, Ray probably is good at controlling things. He's probably good at making things happen. What is that balance or what have you discovered about the idea of like control and acceptance, like where do you live in between that spectrum?

• 13:01Ray Dalio?

  Well, I think, you know, it keeps coming back, the Serenity Prayer. God give me the serenity to accept that which I can't control and give me the power to control that which I can and the wisdom to tell the difference. And I think that that really guides it, you know, what is your best? And so it is the combination of acceptance.

• 13:24Ray Dalio?

  But also the desire to influence, right? And so, yeah, and if you're going to influence, you have to have that equanimity, you know, like a ninja. You know, there are things coming at you and you can't be hijacked by your emotions. And the smartness of your move will determine the outcomes. And how do you learn that? Because it produces better results and the other one produces bad results. And it's like, do you learn anything? It's the same way you learn, don't put your hand on a hot stove.

• 13:58Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. I love that because I think we live in the world right now where it's like, is it this way or that way? It's always either or. And you're saying, well, no, it's both, right? We need both acceptance and control. We need both desires. And I think often we get lost thinking, well, it's one or the other, you can only choose one.

• 14:15Ray Dalio?

  And in all, either of those cases, it's reality. Okay, you're dealing with reality. So to go above it is so important, you know? Here I am in this situation. And what do I do? What resources can I use? Who might I speak with for help? All of that helps you navigate because you still have to deal with the reality.

• 14:43Jay Shetty?

  Yes, absolutely, absolutely. When, when did you, we were talking about my principles, the journal. And I know, like you said, there's an app attached to it. And for anyone who's wondering why this journal is different, there's so many reasons why it's different. A, because it has better prompts than most journals I've seen. But it also has this QR code that kind of you can scan on every page. And so whether it's doing the assessment or whether in this case it's, what's a case study of this principle in action? It's, it's an interactive journal, right? Which is very different. I think we have lots of journals where we write with a pen and you're jotting down your thoughts. But here, if you can see, there's, you know, exercises included as well. When did, I'm intrigued, when did your personal journaling practice start, Ray?

• 15:24Ray Dalio?

  About 25 years ago. But I want to say that by being, it gives you sort of an option. Do I want to have what I'm doing saved online? So then I can play around with it. In other words, I got the data. So now, once I've got the data online, rather than on a piece of paper, you can do things with it. But, but sometimes that piece of paper. But I started about, I guess about. Twenty-five, maybe thirty years ago, I can't tell you. I started, when I started to build my company, I, it was a point of having sixty-seven people.

• 16:03Ray Dalio?

  I remember it because every holiday season, I would, you know, I started my company from nothing. So I had two people, four people, well, okay, we got up to sixty-seven. I remember it was sixty-seven because it was holiday season. And every holiday, I would shop for their individual gifts and I'd write each individual log notes. And that was then long enough, took me long enough, to realize that I really need to communicate better with them. I also journaled because I needed to write down my decision rules for the markets. So that I could go back test them.

• 16:44Ray Dalio?

  So it's a very great power if you can know what your criteria would be and then say, "How could I, how would they have worked in the past? How would they have worked in this country or that country?" Because then you're not just making decisions, you have perspective on making the decisions. So those two things together got me into journaling. I wanted the world, my world, my people I worked with, we went up to fifteen-hundred people. How do you communicate in a really good way? And it wasn't just journaling, but then also I would combine the journaling with videos of cases. My culture was to have meaningful work and meaningful relationships through radical truthfulness and radical transparency.

• 17:28Ray Dalio?

  So what we would do is video everything or tape everything for everybody to see. So that way they could see it. And so by taking the principles and putting them together with the situations, it was fabulous exposure. So everybody was always informed. And they were going through like this reality TV type experience. And that, and then they would give answers as they were going through the experience. Because that way they would have that experience. But imagine a reality TV experience. Uh, but it's your reality around you. And then you're making these uh, this input. And then that input would be able to know what people would think.

• 18:07Jay Shetty?

  Wow.

• 18:08Ray Dalio?

  So we found all that experience really well. So we took the journals, the journaling of the principles. I, I did. Uh, and put that together with the videos. And that's, that's on this app. Principles in Action. It's called Principles in Action. It's uh, it's free and it's uh, rated four point nine. People love it. But that journaling experience, that reflecting and reflecting together and communicating together helps the people, bring people together. And it also helps people understand because too much stuff is stuck up here.

• 18:42Jay Shetty?

  Oh, wow. I mean, just hearing that, there's so many levels of journaling there. There's the journaling of, like you're saying, you writing down your principles or the gifts and working with people. Then there's the journaling of even videoing everything. I mean, that's journaling, right? You're documenting it, it's recorded, it's there to reflect upon. The, the most brilliant part about that though is that I think today people have started to think journaling just means writing down your feelings or writing down your thoughts, which is, yeah, this is.

• 19:11Ray Dalio?

  No, no. I mean, I think it's good to write down your feelings.

• 19:15Jay Shetty?

  Of course, yeah.

• 19:15Ray Dalio?

  To bring them forward, to look up to, up to, and to look at them is that a good, that's a good exercise. Religion is not, is a way of life, is an approach to life. I don't mean um,

• 19:27Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 19:28Ray Dalio?

  The god part of religion. I mean, just how do you, how do you approach life? And you get to make that decision. And so it's really when you're in a situation, what are you going to do in that situation? And why? And of course, it starts with your deeper needs, whatever they may be. What do I want out of life? Who do I want to be with? What are the directions? Okay? And then it comes down to the particulars. And the particulars can be um, aspirational. I'm seventy-three years old. I know that at this particular part of life, I want to pass along the things that are valuable for me. It could be on, how do you fire a person? How do you treat that person?

• 20:13Ray Dalio?

  It could be, what is your relationship like? And so those are the principles. It's not journaling feelings. And I found that very, very valuable. But I'm in a new phase of my life in which what I'm wanting to do is get the best principles from everyone. I've been passing along my principles and so on, and it's been, people find it helpful. What a joy it is, as you must have experienced, when people say, "Oh my God, you've changed my life." But, other people can do it. You're doing it. And I say to so many people, who are really very, very successful people, who have never written down their principles, that they're gonna die with them.

• 20:56Ray Dalio?

  And if they instead write them down and make them clear, then they're teaching other people, because there's a life arc, right? We have experiences, things, decisions we make, that make us successful, okay? Including how to deal with pain. And so if we write those things down, we can help other people. And I think, like, I probably won't be around to speak to my grandchildren in the way that I would like to then, but they will have those principles. And so now my aspiration is to get the best principles from wherever they come from. So this journal will be accompanied by

• 21:38Ray Dalio?

  an ability for people to submit their principles. And I'm doing that also with the most successful, impactful people in the world. That's why I'm gonna be grabbing your principles. And that'll be put online so that people can vote up, what are the best principles? They could either go to Jay Shetty's principles, or they can say, through that voting, what's the best principle for the thing I'm dealing with? So that way they can look and they say, "I am dealing with this situation. Push the button."

• 22:10Jay Shetty?

  That's fantastic.

• 22:11Ray Dalio?

  And then what are the best principles for that situation, wherever they come from? And then they could choose their principles. And that's, I think, foundational for life.

• 22:20Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, that's fantastic. And I know that's what you're focusing with this, is like, you want people to come up with their own.

• 22:25Ray Dalio?

  Yeah.

• 22:26Jay Shetty?

  And that's going to mean being exposed to a lot of different ideas, a lot of different insights to... Find what they can hold on to and then develop themselves. Did you always think, you've always said that to me since I've met you and obviously that's been the journey that you're on right now, that this phase in your life is giving back and sharing the principles you've learned. Have you always had a vision for different stages of your life? And I don't mean a five-year, 10-year plan. I mean more of like, this is the world I'm walking into. Like, is that how you?

• 22:54Ray Dalio?

  I would say, I don't know how many years ago, I started to realize the arc of life.

• 22:59Jay Shetty?

  Right.

• 23:00Ray Dalio?

  There's actually an exercise in the book on the arc in life.

• 23:03Jay Shetty?

  Oh, there we go.

• 23:04Ray Dalio?

  That's the arc in life.

• 23:05Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 23:06Ray Dalio?

  And these are all the different things that happen to you at that stage. It's almost like a script. And by going down this script, one can see where one is and one could see the things that are going to come at them. I started to realize that in a big picture, I don't know, maybe it was 25, 30 years ago. I can't say. But then I began to research it and understand it a lot greater. And then I began to feel it. You feel it. Again, when you can connect intellectually what's happening with subliminally and emotionally what's happening to you, you gain perspective.

• 23:50Ray Dalio?

  And so this, like this phase, it's not just an intellectual thing. I don't know, maybe nature has programmed us in our minds to have these needs and feelings at certain age. So I know that now, like the greatest joy that I can have is to help people be successful without me. I mean, I know what my time horizon is. And I know that my greatest joy is not any longer in being successful myself. That was, that was great and it's fine and so on, but I don't need more of that. And I really, my greatest joy is in helping other people.

• 24:31Ray Dalio?

  And I can't say whether that is a instinctual, how much of it's instinctual, how much it's cerebral by seeing that stage in life, but it's, it's apparent.

• 24:41Jay Shetty?

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• 25:25Jay Shetty?

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• 26:11Jay Shetty?

  I remember last year, my wife and I were doing a charity event to raise funds for COVID-19 in India, because we read a statistic that one person was dying every five minutes of COVID-19. And I reached out to you and you just gave such a wonderfully generous donation. And so, in so many ways, you're helping and supporting and it's been so beautiful to see. You're doing something, we were talking about this just before we started filming, but this idea of like coaching and mentorship, right? What you're saying is you're trying to preserve this coaching and mentorship for your grandkids, great-grandkids, everyone else's grandkids and great-grandkids as well, that will have access to this. And journaling is someone that we see so many greats did as well. It's a practice that has stood the test of time.

• 26:55Jay Shetty?

  There are two schools of thought. Some entrepreneurs believe that mentors and coaches are a huge integral part of their life. I know that I've had spiritual mentors, financial mentors, career mentors. I've had mentors in every area of my life. I see you as a mentor. On the other end, there are entrepreneurs who believe they're self-made, that you don't need mentors, you don't need coaches, you don't need to listen to anyone's advice. Where do you sit on that and how do you help young people navigate that today? Because I think a lot of people are stuck trying to figure it out, or they're not doing either properly as well.

• 27:28Ray Dalio?

  The second group is stupid.

• 27:32Ray Dalio?

  But just be clear, okay?

• 27:34Jay Shetty?

  That was very radically transparent.

• 27:36Ray Dalio?

  I just want to be clear. They may confuse the fact that they may have good instincts. They have to make their own decisions. They can be independent thinkers that might do controversial things in order to be successful. That all is true, okay? That all is true. But the perspectives gained, the learning, the wisdom that is gained, the open-mindedness, the power of stress-testing your ideas. I say that I think everybody to be successful should be assertive and open-minded at the same time. People ask, "Well, what does that merely mean?"

• 28:21Ray Dalio?

  It means you have to believe, you have to understand, then at the same time, you have to doubt and pull out and get the questions so that you stress-test it and you're learning, right?

• 28:35Jay Shetty?

  Yes, yes.

• 28:35Ray Dalio?

  And so there's a great power in getting the other perspectives. You know, triangulation for me is the key to success, one of the keys to success. Triangulation, I mean, get the three smartest people that you know, who will care about you, but will disagree with you, will stress-test you, and have those conversations. And I like to have them disagree with each other.

• 29:03Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 29:04Ray Dalio?

  So I'll bring them into a room and we'll have a conversation.

• 29:08Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 29:08Ray Dalio?

  And then, okay, do the back and forth. You want to learn about anything, like I have big initiatives where I don't know anything. And I have found that if I follow that approach by getting the best experts and I do that, I can go into things with a guidance. So it's so obviously stupid, I think, or so obviously beneficial to be able to draw upon the best thinking and then not to just blindly believe.

• 29:37Jay Shetty?

  Of course.

• 29:38Ray Dalio?

  So when I say be assertive and open-minded at the same time, don't just follow, okay? Do the back and forth, hear the disagreements and then resolve the disagreements. It's an extremely powerful approach.

• 29:50Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, no, there's this amazing study I read a few years ago in MIT where they said that, they did a study, MIT did a study on the most innovative people inside an organization. And they showed two graphs to people and they said, who do you think is more innovative? And in graph number one, it was where one person is connected to lots of different people like this. And then graph two was people connected to people and then the people they knew were connected to each other. And they asked, who do you think is more innovative? And most people said the second. I don't know if that's because people don't know how to read graphs or whether people really thought it was, but the answer was that if you know people who all know each other, chances are you're going to be less innovative and less effective because you

• 30:35Jay Shetty?

  live in an echo chamber. But if you know people who don't know each other, who have more random ideas, disagreements, are less likely to affirm each other's beliefs, which is what you're saying, you're actually going to get to a better answer. And so they were saying that if you know people from different backgrounds, different walks of life, different expertise, therefore there will naturally be debate, you get healthier answers. So I think that study always stands out to me.

• 31:01Ray Dalio?

  And this is a problem, the biggest problem of our society now. The biggest problem of our society now is individuals who are highly opinionated.

• 31:13Ray Dalio?

  Who will not exchange, open-mindedly, the different opinions about things. And are in their echo chambers, whether it's on the particular media that they're connected to and so on. Who are then having conflicts with each other. This is a threat to our society.

• 31:32Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, and, and let's talk about that. I think that's such a fascinating topic and idea because I couldn't agree with you more. If I had to say for myself, I feel like, I think maybe it was from, you know. Working, I love both my parents, but I, I was mediating their marriage since I was a kid. And so I was very good at being on both sides. I love them both individually and. I would always like, I'd know, I could listen to my mom and I could hear her side and I could empathize with her. And I'd do the same with my dad and I'd be there for both of them and it. It became a natural thing that I was able to do, I think, because of that. When I, when I reflect on it, I think that's how I gained that skill. So I've always found it very natural to be able to understand different sides, to really. Empathize and connect with different people and see that there's truth and challenges in both. But I think that's hard to do because.

• 32:17Jay Shetty?

  I think today we feel ideology is our safety. Right? And ideology is what makes us feel secure and who we are. And so, right?

• 32:25Ray Dalio?

  That's a serious mistake.

• 32:26Jay Shetty?

  Right. So yeah, let's, let's dive into that. How do we let go of that in recognizing that actually? Knowledge and knowing is far more a safety than holding on to one ideology.

• 32:37Ray Dalio?

  I think it's simple, the fear of making bad mistakes or being wrong. Should be a motivator to take in these different perspectives and then weigh things. Okay? An ideology though, let's say it's a political ideology. I want my children to be educated in a certain way. That's a very particular important ideology. Still means that there are choices that you have. And then the question is, have you made those choices in the best way? And then after you've made those choices, what are you gonna do about it? Should you move from one place to another? Should you, uh, what schools do you pick? I mean, you know, those kinds of things.

• 33:22Ray Dalio?

  Life is just a matter of those particular choices. And there are win-win relationships and there are lose-lose relationships. And win-win relationships are a lot better than lose-lose relationships. So knowing the approach to that, knowing live and let live. I can make my choices, I can move here, I can do this. Or the mutual respect that you have for, uh, it's okay, you can have your point of view. To be less judgmental is better. I mean, not, it's better for everybody.

• 33:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:53Ray Dalio?

  Is somebody doing you harm, that's a whole different thing. But the, all of that, I think, is very, very important. The art of thoughtful disagreement is the basis of a very uh, innovative and also harmonious society. If you wanna have an innovative, harmonious society, you have to have the art of thoughtful disagreement. And the mediator is a very, uh, important role so that you play. Um, because like I, I wrote in my other book, Principles, one of the handy things is, if you're having a disagreement, one of you might be wrong. And how do you know? And how do you get past that? And so the, uh, uh, classic thing is to find, to agree on somebody who you mutually agree

• 34:37Ray Dalio?

  will, uh, be a fair judge and a fair mediator. And if you mutually agree on that person, then you bring them, then they can get you, they can help you along. And the exercise of going above it and saying, okay, here is this disagreement. And how do we deal with disagreement and? Are each other related to the disagreement? That is a good perspective to have.

• 35:03Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 35:03Ray Dalio?

  And so I think that as we look at all those things, I think that it's so clear that approaches like that are, and perspectives like that are very, very helpful.

• 35:14Jay Shetty?

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• 35:59Jay Shetty?

  so you keep every dollar you earn. This episode is brought to you by Amtrak. You know that feeling when you're already tired and you haven't even gotten there yet? That's where Amtrak comes in. Leave the driving behind and settle into a comfortable seat with plenty of room to stretch out. Catch up on work with wifi, grab a snack at the cafe car, or just sit back and enjoy your favourite podcast. Choose a seller or North East Regional and get there without the stress of getting there. Visit amtrak.com to plan your next trip. This episode is brought to you by Whole Foods Market. If you're talking about quality food, you can't forget Whole Foods Market, who've been holding themselves to the highest standards since they opened in nineteen eighty.

• 36:44Jay Shetty?

  That means you'll see thousands of organic products across their stores, from the produce department to the aisles. It also means you'll never see certain ingredients. They've banned artificial sweeteners and colours, high fructose corn syrup and more, so you can shop with peace of mind. Shop Whole Foods Market in-store or online. And I love how you call it an art, because I remember when I was at, in my high school, I was part of my debating team at school. And I first got into it because I I found public speaking natural and I enjoyed it. And you know, I I guess as a young man, I thought it was fun to argue with people and defeat them and things like that.

• 37:24Jay Shetty?

  And I'd I'd go up there and I'd I'd know how to pick apart someone's argument and I'd know how to bend it and twist it. And then I remember one of our teachers or or coaches, he he sat me down and he said, Jay, do you think you're good at this? And I hadn't had a young person's ego, like I was fifteen, sixteen years old. And I was like, yeah, I'm I'm really great at this. And he said, well, actually, you you are just winning because you're good at arguing. But he goes, you don't actually know how to debate. And I said, what do you mean? And he said, well, he said, you're debating based on why your point is better. But he goes, you don't know the other person's point well enough. And so he said, the only way you become a great debater is if you also deeply study the opposing argument. He goes, you can't just win on the merit of your argument.

• 38:08Jay Shetty?

  You have to actually understand where that person's coming from. And it changed my whole view of.

• 38:13Ray Dalio?

  Yes, I'll I'll take that and I'll go one step further.

• 38:16Jay Shetty?

  Oh, I'd love for you to, yeah.

• 38:17Ray Dalio?

  The one step further is not to win your point of view. The one step further is to get a truth. The real winner is somebody who learns something.

• 38:34Jay Shetty?

  Absolutely.

• 38:34Ray Dalio?

  Okay, so I'm I'm talking about in life. Maybe on the stage you say, ah, you won the debate because you ended up with the position you started with.

• 38:42Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 38:43Ray Dalio?

  And and you won it, we gave you the most, no, our points.

• 38:46Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 38:46Ray Dalio?

  But the real winner in life is to try to find what the best path is. And the one who comes out of it, who has improved their understanding and makes a step forward is the real winner.

• 38:59Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 38:59Ray Dalio?

  So losing the debate in many cases can make you a better winner.

• 39:03Jay Shetty?

  I couldn't agree more, couldn't agree more. And I think I think that's the challenge. I remember there's there's a famous phrase, I don't know where it comes from, but there's three sides to every story. One's yours, one's mine, and then the truth, right? Like there's we but we so often feel that our side is the truth.

• 39:18Ray Dalio?

  I know it's such a terror, we've been raised that way, you know? The educational system means, okay, you take a test, I came up with the right answer, I won, okay? It doesn't take you through the journey of saying, I'm now having experience and I was wrong. And how do I go above that? That's one of the big reasons why people often who are very successful in school are not very successful in life.

• 39:42Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, it's so true. Yeah, it's so true. And I hope that this podcast at least reminds people that any argument you have this week, this doesn't just supply with a debate in the workplace or a disagreement at home with your friends, with your family, wherever you are. If you can take a moment to reflect on finding the truth, as you rightly said.

• 39:59Ray Dalio?

  And then a bad experience can become a good experience. In other words, if you approach it as a fight, it's going to produce a lot of anxiety. If you approach it as a curiosity and a game almost that you're playing with each other. Okay, to try to get at truth. Okay, then that could be really a wonderful experience.

• 40:23Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, but somehow we feel that admitting a mistake or admitting we were wrong or discovering the truth makes us weak and makes us.

• 40:30Ray Dalio?

  Bad education system, bad, you know, because it it just looks at that particular answer and it doesn't look at the sequence of discovering truth. And that's that's a that's a problem. It's a it's a problem. But I found in people that it's not a problem that they can't get over. I've found that we have this culture in which that's the culture, right? It becomes obvious if you're not doing it.

• 40:59Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 41:00Ray Dalio?

  And when you have in an environment like that, then people's behaviors change pretty quickly. I would say in, I don't know how many months, it'll vary, but maybe eighteen months or so. That they would be curious, what are they, what might they be missing? And they understand that it almost is so silly to be a blocker of ideas and to be antagonistic when there's a different point of view. It's it's really stupid to do that. And when they start to see themselves doing that and asking why are they doing that? That reflection and that then changing behavior then produces changed behavior that produces rewards, better decisions and better relationships.

• 41:45Ray Dalio?

  When you have better decisions and better relationships, you have a better life.

• 41:48Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, and it does take time. You said eighteen months there, I think. I was talking to my team before we kicked off and I was just saying that I feel like we finally in my company have a culture where everyone is so self-reflective and.

• 42:03Jay Shetty?

  Self-focused on what they can improve and how they can be better. That it makes it easier to have conversations where there's disagreement and debate and a difference of opinion because everyone is reflecting on themselves. They're not coming into something going, no, my idea is the best and we're getting it wrong. But I think that takes a certain kind of person and human who who has that ability to do that while not losing their self-esteem.

• 42:27Ray Dalio?

  Yes, but that can be trained. Okay, here's the way it works. There is an intellectual analytical part of our brains, logical and so on. And then there's this subliminal, which means we don't even know what it's thinking. Emotional part of our brains that is operating that. If you speak with somebody and you have, you put them in the position of saying, would you like this or would you not like it? And they start to experience the two U's, as I call it. Then they start to see that they may not make, they may make a different choice.

• 43:06Ray Dalio?

  For example, if I say, Jay, I have these thoughts about what you're not doing well. Would you like me to discuss it with you? Or would you not like me to discuss it with you?

• 43:20Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 43:21Ray Dalio?

  Or I think you have, I don't know, it could be even a fatal flaw.

• 43:25Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 43:26Ray Dalio?

  By the way, fatal flaws are not fatal because you may not be able to change yourself. But you can work with people who are strong where you're weak to be able to be successful.

• 43:37Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 43:38Ray Dalio?

  But when you ask that, those things that they find a barrier, it's quite often the case that intellectually they understand it. Yes, obviously it's desirable for you to tell me maybe things I don't want to hear. Okay?

• 43:55Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 43:56Ray Dalio?

  But I know that of course, first of all, I want to know that you're hearing those things. And secondly, maybe they're true. And so that exercise of speaking where the intellectual and the subliminal are at odds.

• 44:13Ray Dalio?

  And they see that it's at odds. And then they begin to pursue a way of being is a training process that can help them to say, I want that.

• 44:23Jay Shetty?

  Yes, yes, it's almost like the debate that we're seeing externally is actually a debate going on internally between them already. Yes.

• 44:31Ray Dalio?

  That is it.

• 44:32Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 44:32Ray Dalio?

  The biggest debate we have is that debate, the emotional us with the intellectual us. And the path really to success, in my opinion, is to be able to align those. Okay, what am I feeling? And then to reflect intellectually, is that the right thing? If I'm going to, I don't know, punch the person? Or if I'm going to maybe eat what I shouldn't eat or something? And then intellectually, I can have the reconciliation between that emotional and that intellectual to make the decision. And I get alignment, and by the way, I find meditation helps a lot. Um, I can get alignment. And then I can take that view that I have and then triangulate it with others.

• 45:17Ray Dalio?

  The probability of me making a much better decision has increased immensely. And it's, and all success in life is, is making the better decisions.

• 45:27Jay Shetty?

  Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. You, it's, it's really interesting, the path that we've gone down, and I, and I love it. When you said jazz, it's like, it's definitely been like that because we've gone down a completely different direction, which, which I love. But you, you said something, you was like, you know, this is one of the biggest challenges in society today. What are some of the challenges you see in society that we should be addressing at the core? Because this isn't just going into like the current events. It's really looking at root challenges that we have.

• 45:54Ray Dalio?

  I've been in a global macro investor for about, well, over fifty years. And one of the things that I learned in my life is that many of the things that surprised me just hadn't happened to me before, but they happened many times in history. So by studying history, I could then do well. So for example, studying the Great Depression allowed me to do very well in the 2008 financial crisis. What's happening now is allowing me to do very well when others are having problems because of things that have happened in the past. The three big things, and there are a couple more too, but the three big things that are happening to us is first the financial that's happening at a macro level,

• 46:37Ray Dalio?

  which is the creation of a lot of debt and the printing of a lot of money to pay for that debt. So you don't pay it back with hard dollars and so on. And that's putting a lot of money out there and that's producing the stagflation that we have. And the magnitudes of that are unprecedented. You have to go back to the 1930s to see something like that. And so the value of money and what you do with money and its economic impact affects everybody. The second big influence is the amount of internal conflict that is existing

• 47:16Ray Dalio?

  because of larger wealth gaps, the largest wealth gaps since the 1930s, the largest values gaps. And then this intransigent win-at-all-cost type of mentality, which is reflected in populism. In other words, a populist is a political representative who says, "I will fight for you and win at all cost." And that means not compromising. And that win-at-all-cost is why you see the January 6th incidents and things like that. We may be in a position where neither side in the next presidential election accepts losing in the next presidential election. That conflict produces the most irreconcilable differences

• 48:01Ray Dalio?

  and people who are in that mindset. And that is what causes civil wars, types of civil wars. You can easily imagine that the central government might give directions to the local government or people and they say, I'm not going to follow that law. You might see the Supreme Court, you may not find that. And that's a world problem right now. So that second problem is a problem. It's particularly a problem when you have the first problem because the first problem produces financial problems, which produces stress and antagonism and says, this wealth gap or whatever is values gap, I'm going to fight for. You have the second, that's dangerous. And the third is the rise of powers.

• 48:45Ray Dalio?

  The United States is no longer the dominant power. In other words, if you look at the percentage share of world GDP or military superiority and those types of things. And so you have these rising powers and the United States, and so you have bigger powers in bigger conflicts. We see it obviously with Russia today, but we see it with China and so on. And so the whole geographic world order is changing. All of these things make for greater conflict, right? The financial conflict, the financial pain, how do I deal with inflation? Where should I keep my money? It's not the same. How do I deal with that? Together with the internal conflict and that external conflict produces a very stressful

• 49:30Ray Dalio?

  and risky period for the world. We are in a risky period in the world. And so that, those are from the macro, bigger perspective, the biggest influences. I studied, when I studied this, I studied the last 500 years of history and to see the arcs because the arcs typically take 100 or 150 years to have an arc, a big cycle. And so I needed to study the 500 years and I put it out in a book, Changing World Order. And there's also a video, free video, online, 24 million people seen it. It's easy to see because I wanted to convey the message. And you you see those arcs repeating over time for certain reasons.

• 50:14Ray Dalio?

  I think it's very important that people understand those arcs. And then again, with the equanimity and the other things that we're talking about, approach that set of circumstances. So that's the mix of circumstances that I would say creates the environment that we're in. And the key to any environment is to know how to navigate it well. So in that book, I wrote different principles of, you know, how do you deal with that kind of an environment? I'm not saying that environment, there's nothing sure in what I'm saying.

• 50:44Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, of course, yeah.

• 50:45Ray Dalio?

  But it does come back to some basics. And those basics means are, how are people with each other? How am I going to be with you? Can we have thoughtful disagreement? Can we have compromise? Can we have a country in which we are more together? That more invite and to understand how that choice, that together figuring it out is going to be a whole lot better than fighting with each other.

• 51:09Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, and I think that's the challenge we're seeing is this massive disparity between the challenge getting more and more extreme and our skills still being at the same level. Like that ability to have that conversation or that debate or that disagreement, the skill level we have is so low.

• 51:26Ray Dalio?

  That's right. And you see by studying the French Revolution, Chinese Revolution, the Russian Revolution, all of these Cuban revolutions and so on. When it starts to intensify, you get past the point of listening to each other and then you go into the fighting mode. And that's a cycle. So like in the French Revolution, there were many in the middle who said this system is not working and for both sides and there should be a reformation and making move. But if you were in the middle. You were guillotined or anyone in the middle. You have to pick a side and fight.

• 52:06Jay Shetty?

  Wow.

• 52:06Ray Dalio?

  And that's the nature of that dynamic. It's all within us. Because if you take any measure of living standards, the world. The world has more wealth than it ever has. It can have greater longevity because there's greater science. So what we have in totality, the world has more than it has ever had.

• 52:26Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 52:27Ray Dalio?

  Right? So our opportunity is great. If we could just work it out, right? But we can destroy each other. We can hurt each other very badly because of human nature. And it's the same human nature that existed through time. There are lessons. Just don't do this.

• 52:45Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, I mean, when you say that, I start thinking of. When you're studying history and you're studying those 500 years, and I'm gonna ask you this in a second, but there was an example that came to my mind. I was thinking about like, where did someone get it right? Or where is their progress as well in history? And I recently got to visit Rwanda. And I would never thought I would have visited and it wasn't part of my plans. I went because one of my friends opened up a conservation center for the environment for gorillas. And it's a beautiful space out there. So I went there and we got to trek with the gorillas every day and walk with them. And it's a really beautiful thing because you're walking with them in the wild. They're not, you know, kept in a zoo or anywhere like that.

• 53:29Jay Shetty?

  They're in their home and you get to go and observe them in their home. But more importantly, I went to the memorial, the genocide memorial museum there. And the genocide was just 20 years ago. And you learn about the two tribes that, you know, completely, I think 1 million people died in the genocide out of the 10 million population that the country has. So it's huge, right? Like, and what I was blown away by was I met with some of the survivors and I sat with them because I was just curious and intrigued. Because everyone there now has let go of the names of the tribes. They've let go of, you know, the heritage almost from their parents. Most of these people's parents would have.

• 54:09Jay Shetty?

  Killed each other, like it's a, it's a very like violent environment, but there's such a healing, there's such a forgiveness, there's such a path to letting go. Now, of course, there's other challenges that are going on in the country and poverty, et cetera, but the leadership has spearheaded this journey towards collective conscience and like bringing people together and recognizing that we're more alike than we are different. And I was just astounded at how a country twenty years ago in that much turmoil is, is rising from that. I, did you find any examples in history where people did have positive mediation?

• 54:44Ray Dalio?

  Well, uh, what you're describing is the, uh, is the typical cycle. So I'm just going to make clear what the typical cycle is. The typical cycle is that you have a war, a civil war or an international war, that you have a fight for power. And then you have a horrendous experience, okay? And then out of that comes a new water.

• 55:10Jay Shetty?

  Oh, good.

• 55:11Ray Dalio?

  Comes a new system. Somebody is dominant, like a Spanish civil war. Uh, is brothers fighting each other and so on, a horrendous experience. And then some force gains the power, wins, and it becomes such a horrendous experience, the French Civil War, the, all of these civil wars. They become such a horrendous experience, um, that, uh, nobody wants it again. And so the pendulum swings so that you then don't have a war. Right? So, for example, my father, um, and that generation fought in a war.

• 55:54Ray Dalio?

  Okay. In the beginning parts of these wars, they're into the war, you know? They're brave and they're gonna go there. And then the war is so horrendous. Um, and it goes on so long. And by the way, it's a great equalizer. They destroy wealth, so wealth equality then becomes greater. And they go into that environment, and then it just, it, it ends. And then when it ends, there's so much hurting and so much not wanting war, that you come to a period of peace and prosperity. And the cycle goes for peace and prosperity. And then a new generation comes along, okay, who has not experienced uh, the war, and then comes into that and says, uh, we will fight and so on.

• 56:39Ray Dalio?

  Like, our generation has not experienced those things. And yet they're intransigent in terms of those fights. And they, so, many people could say, hell yes, I'm, I'm gonna fight. And then you go through that cycle. So that's how the cycle normally works.

• 56:56Jay Shetty?

  How do we then make sure that people understand the ramifications and consequences of it?

• 57:03Ray Dalio?

  I think, that's what I put out the book, because I want people to worry about this. I have a principle. If you worry, you don't have to worry. And if you don't worry, you need to worry. Okay? If you worry, then you will take care not to do the thing you're worrying about. If you don't worry about it, you're probably gonna do it. Okay? So, when I look at the set of circumstances, I believe that we as a society are at a juncture. We recognize it, this conflict, or can we have win-win relationships? Can we compromise? Can we have this together? Can we work well together, or not? Okay?

• 57:45Ray Dalio?

  We're at that. I think by seeing those alternatives, and, and having a middle, I, I, I, you know, I pray for a strong middle. I pray for avoiding the extremes and the fighting between those extremes. And maybe if that's the case, then we will get it.

• 58:04Jay Shetty?

  And it's hard when the system's been set up for the extremes, right? Like, it's difficult when...

• 58:09Ray Dalio?

  I think it's more human nature than the system. Like, okay, we've had this democratic system over, through a period of time. But we had one civil war, and we've had others. How are we gonna be? Democracy worked very, very well for a lot of times for in a variety of ways. I mean, I don't have to recount them. But at the same time, uh, the history of democracy and cycles. Plato in his book, The Republic, tells about these cycles over and over again.

• 58:36Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 58:36Ray Dalio?

  And, and the real risk to democracy is anarchy.

• 58:40Jay Shetty?

  Hmm.

• 58:40Ray Dalio?

  Because you can't have strong leadership because everybody's fighting over everything and it produces a chaos. And that chaos becomes intolerable and everybody wants to fight. And then you have the fight. So I think it's more human nature than a system.

• 58:55Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, human nature just goes in that direction regardless.

• 58:59Ray Dalio?

  It's also like, um, people who went, who didn't have anything. And are broke and are in the worst possible positions.

• 59:08Jay Shetty?

  Mm hmm.

• 59:08Ray Dalio?

  And a society that likes that. And then they come out and then they work well together, they make things. And then they can become decadent.

• 59:18Jay Shetty?

  Hmm.

• 59:19Ray Dalio?

  The society can become decadent.

• 59:21Jay Shetty?

  Mm hmm.

• 59:21Ray Dalio?

  I, I think our society is decadent now. I think this, it's got a problem in that, um, the, the lower levels of society. I have intimate contact through my wife particularly, who is helping the, what is called disengaged and disconnected population of high school students in Connecticut. Those are students who disconnected, uh, means they're no longer in school. They are out, they don't know where they are. Um, and disengage means that they have an absentee rate of greater than 25% and they're failing classes. 22% of the high school students in Connecticut are one of those. One out of five, education isn't working. They're living in poverty.

• 1:00:02Ray Dalio?

  We have created a self-reinforcing cycle that in, in children have, uh, we didn't create an acceptable bottom. You create a situation where children, uh, uh, guns and gangs and children can't walk to school. Uh, safely shootings regularly in Hartford, Connecticut, Bridgeport, Connecticut, just right up the road from us. Okay, exists pockets throughout this and then equal opportunity. We do not have equal opportunity. And to simultaneously have a situation in which we are not taking care of the basics, but we are.

• 1:00:41Ray Dalio?

  Really over, you know, doing the luxuries is creating a set of circumstances that's a problem, I think. And so I think that's how man is with each other. So you, it's a cycle. If you get spoiled, like this is the thing I worry about. You know, our family does, make sure our family doesn't get spoiled or the kids don't get spoiled. Because what happens is then they're not strong.

• 1:01:10Ray Dalio?

  That's a cycle.

• 1:01:12Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:12Ray Dalio?

  You know, it's like three generations, the classic three generation cycle. You know, somebody works hard, they make it, they have those sound values. Then what happens is then they inherited it and then they are in a position where, you know, they don't have the same and they're spoiled and they're, and they say, I don't have to work as hard. I'm living off of what I've gotten. Why don't I enjoy life and so on? And then while people around them maybe are suffering and, you know, but I see it.

• 1:01:42Ray Dalio?

  I live in Greenwich, Connecticut. It's Bridgeport, Connecticut. People just don't have contact. They don't see it. And so there are these cycles that happen, many of them, they coincide. The cycle that I'm talking about, about attitude, about protecting and how do we make a good society for the most? Let's say the basic idea that we should strive for equal opportunity.

• 1:02:02Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 1:02:03Ray Dalio?

  I mean, that's a fundamental thing, equal opportunity, right? But that doesn't become the banner that either is pursuing. So these cycles of conflict, wealth gaps, and all of those things exist.

• 1:02:18Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, it seems like to me when I hear that it perpetuates and the cycle continues because it seems that not enough people have experience.

• 1:02:27Ray Dalio?

  Exactly.

• 1:02:28Jay Shetty?

  Right, yeah.

• 1:02:29Ray Dalio?

  The cycle lasts longer than a lifetime. So you're only going to experience that piece of the cycle. In your lifetime, right? Wars, depressions, okay, they happen throughout history. Are we not going to go into a war again? Are we not going to have another depression? That's of course, at some point, we're going to have those things. Okay, but we were lucky. Nineteen forty-five was the end of the last war. We began a new era. We had this cycle in which things got better and better. And, and there was equality, better equality. I know the world I went, was born into. I was lucky. I was born in nineteen forty-nine. I had two parents who could take care of me.

• 1:03:11Ray Dalio?

  I went to a public school and I came out to a world which for me was a world of equal opportunity. Okay, you, and you have those types of things. And then things evolve. And we're in a very different part of the cycle now. The amount of printing of money, the internal conflict, the external conflict, those types of things. We're in a different environment now. And we have to recognize that. And why? We never experienced it.

• 1:03:36Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:37Ray Dalio?

  If we experienced it and had that, that terror for it or the choice of what could be the joy of the alternative, we would be in a different position.

• 1:03:47Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, it also sounds like we haven't experienced that, but we also haven't experienced what it feels like to live in a culture of higher values. Right, so like when you were talking about earlier, and I'm going a bit more micro, but to take it macro again. When you said, and you know, we create an organization where it's about meaningful work, meaningful relationships. You know, radical transparency. If you've never worked in a culture like that, you don't know the value of it. And therefore you naturally have a culture of disagreement, arguments, disconnection. And so it's almost like, how do we get to a point where? Everyone does it, like you'll always go and I'm going very micro here, but

• 1:04:28Jay Shetty?

  you'll always go for the junk food unless you've had healthy tasty food. Right, it's just natural because we've been programmed to look for sugars, carbs, fats. You'll go for that unless you've had healthy tasty food accessible.

• 1:04:42Ray Dalio?

  Yes.

• 1:04:42Jay Shetty?

  And so on a macro level, the challenge again comes that if you have junk values and you have healthy values, you naturally go for the junk values because that's what served you. And so it's like, how do you give people at scale? An experience of how living with equal opportunity or other healthy values is actually better for everyone? Right, like it's how do we do that? Is that, is that possible? Is that the goal?

• 1:05:06Ray Dalio?

  I, I, I think it's the same as good parenting, good mentoring, and the good work that you're doing. Right? There are people on this broadcast and you're helping a lot of people. And I'm trying in my way to do the same. And then it's up here, comes in here. And then it has to be that visceral experience it so that you start to experience the rewards of it. So that you're afraid of not doing it. Right? Habit. Okay. I talked about eighteen months. Okay, you can change the behavior in eighteen months. By and large, behavioral change is like an eighteen month thing.

• 1:05:50Ray Dalio?

  If you take somebody, Alcoholics Anonymous, or if you take other things. Can you develop the subliminal cue that you're working off of to produce a reaction that becomes instinctual? So you do it. That is the path. And wherever it comes from, whether it's coming from this, that, whatever we're doing, and then action that's taken to change one's habit and then experience the rewards of it. That, you know, that's the cycle. I'm just answering you scientifically, right? Psychologically, scientifically, that's what it is. It's not a philosophical answer. It's just the way it is.

• 1:06:31Jay Shetty?

  Yeah. No, but that's what it is. It's, it's building a new culture. And the culture starts with each individual, building it within themselves.

• 1:06:38Ray Dalio?

  Right. And it was, you're making another good point. It's those things that I just said in a reinforcing environment in which others share those things. And then it makes it the better because that group reinforcing it, which is a culture, has a great, great power over what's going to happen. Culture is destiny.

• 1:07:01Jay Shetty?

  Culture is destiny, well. What are some of the things that you think after all these years, after all this study, after all this research, have become healthy things to aspire for? I think to be a human means to aspire. Like, we're always seeking, aspiring, wanting something. What do you think are healthy things or how can people discover? Because I think we all, you know, everyone could go down the path and think, okay, there was a time, it's what you said, like, there was a time when all I wanted was money or success. And then often when people get that, they go, well, that was good, but that wasn't it. Is the goal to just seek and aspire for what you feel at the time and then change it when you get there? Because you realize that wasn't it? Or are there certain healthy characteristics or values that you think people can aspire for?

• 1:07:45Ray Dalio?

  I do agree on the journey and the evolutionary process. Of, in other words, you go after something, you experience it, you learn and you evolve. And you're, so it's, I believe it's an evolutionary process.

• 1:08:00Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 1:08:00Ray Dalio?

  Okay. So I think it is evolve well and contribute to evolution. If I was to say for me, what my aspiration is, is evolve well and contribute to evolution. To know yourself. That's why, to know yourself means know your nature. I put out a free test for everybody who wants it. It's called Principles You.

• 1:08:26Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 1:08:27Ray Dalio?

  It's, it's the universally determined, like, the most effective test. Principles You, it's free online. You can go online and, and understand yourself. And it helps you understand other types of people. So knowing one's nature and then finding the path for that nature is a very important thing. And number three, I would say, is meaningful work and meaningful relationships.

• 1:08:54Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:55Ray Dalio?

  For most people.

• 1:08:56Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 1:08:56Ray Dalio?

  If you have something you're into and it's a passion and you have wonderful relationships, it's for almost all people wonderfully rewarding. So I would say it's, you know, those, those three things.

• 1:09:10Jay Shetty?

  Right, there's a beautiful answer. It's always such a... Joy and pleasure to talk to you. I always learn so much and you set the tone. When you said jazz, you gave us full permission to just go off piece and really co-create. And I love where we got to. You know, when we spoke last week and we were saying, what should we talk about? And I never thought it would go in this direction, but I'm so satisfied by this meaningful conversation. Because I think we went somewhere we didn't plan to. And that always feels like a better end than what you did plan to as well.

• 1:09:41Ray Dalio?

  Well, this was like playing good jazz, but this is in the end.

• 1:09:44Jay Shetty?

  No, no, no, please.

• 1:09:45Ray Dalio?

  Like, what I'm telling you is that I'm coming back at you, man, right?

• 1:09:49Jay Shetty?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:09:49Ray Dalio?

  So I am going to, you asked me a lot of questions, okay? But what I'm gonna do is I'm coming at you for your principles, okay? I want you to articulate, and I'm gonna give you those things. Because I want that to be put out, okay? And distributed. And I want people to vote them up for the best situation. How do you deal with a divorce, a death in the family, whatever? I'm gonna give you a bunch of those types of questions. What's your formula for success, okay? So imagine now there's Jay Shetty's and there's other people there that they can vote those things up to get whatever they think is the best. Which is essentially creating the principles for themselves

• 1:10:33Ray Dalio?

  or almost the way of life, the religion for themselves, that they think is going to be best. So I think that's a paramount importance.

• 1:10:41Jay Shetty?

  I can't wait for that. I'm so excited. I'm so excited to contribute, more excited to use. It sounds like a fantastic resource. You're developing that right now, yeah? And the goal is that it will be every area of life.

• 1:10:53Ray Dalio?

  Every area of life.

• 1:10:54Jay Shetty?

  Business, family.

• 1:10:56Ray Dalio?

  That's right. I want anybody on anything to give the principles, right? And you just push the button. You say, I need help with, I've got a, I don't know, an ADD four-year-old.

• 1:11:07Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:11:08Ray Dalio?

  Okay?

• 1:11:09Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:09Ray Dalio?

  Push the button. What's the best principle?

• 1:11:12Jay Shetty?

  That would be amazing.

• 1:11:13Ray Dalio?

  Okay, that's what I'd like to do. So, tell me, in terms of the journey of life, what are you going after? And why? How do you look at your journey of life? What are you going after? Why? And that's you. And then, what do you think other people should do for their journey of life? Because they may go after different things, so give me the more general answer that may not be...

• 1:11:42Ray Dalio?

  Just yours.

• 1:11:44Jay Shetty?

  So there's a few steps to this. The first thing I'd say as a general is that there are four really important decisions that I believe we have to make in life. And the first principle is how do I feel about myself? I think that's a really important decision and choice we get to make every day is who am I? And how do I feel about who I am and who I want to be? How do I feel about myself?

• 1:12:11Ray Dalio?

  Now, when we get there, I'm gonna go to a principle that's gonna help that. I'm gonna pull it out of you, okay?

• 1:12:17Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:18Ray Dalio?

  So what do you do? Do you then, as you're making these choices, say, "I'm experiencing this and therefore I feel better"? And then therefore that helps guide me on what I should do?

• 1:12:32Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, so I think with that one, I think we're very aligned on the aspect of nature. I think we're very aligned on that. It's why I love the principles you assessment. Like, the idea of knowing that there is a wiring in the way that we've been created and evolved that allows us to be effective. And so for me, I have a short formula for that. And it's passion plus strengths plus service. So I believe that your passion is what makes you happy. And when you use your passion in the service of others, it makes other people happy. And so when you add your passion to your strengths and you add it to service or contribution.

• 1:13:11Ray Dalio?

  It equals what?

• 1:13:13Jay Shetty?

  It equals purpose.

• 1:13:15Ray Dalio?

  Okay.

• 1:13:15Jay Shetty?

  It equals purpose, yeah.

• 1:13:16Ray Dalio?

  Okay, so people have to have a purpose, okay? And that equals the passion.

• 1:13:24Jay Shetty?

  Plus the strengths.

• 1:13:25Ray Dalio?

  Strength.

• 1:13:26Jay Shetty?

  Plus contribution or service, the ability to use that in the service.

• 1:13:30Ray Dalio?

  Okay, there we go. There's a formula there. Right, there's a principle.

• 1:13:34Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 1:13:34Ray Dalio?

  Okay?

• 1:13:34Jay Shetty?

  Yep.

• 1:13:35Ray Dalio?

  That's the general.

• 1:13:36Jay Shetty?

  That's the general. Like, that's only the first decision. And that's the formula for the first decision.

• 1:13:41Ray Dalio?

  Overarching.

• 1:13:42Jay Shetty?

  Overarching, yeah. Like, that for me has been... My dedication is to help people figure out their purpose. Because I believe that if we have people of purpose, they'll be better people, they'll be better partners, they'll be better parents, they'll be better professionals. Because I think what's missing in the world... Is a feeling of individual and collective value.

• 1:14:03Ray Dalio?

  I see. And then we, they know that they're getting it.

• 1:14:07Jay Shetty?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:14:08Ray Dalio?

  Because of how they feel about themselves.

• 1:14:11Jay Shetty?

  Mm hmm. Yes, I think.

• 1:14:12Ray Dalio?

  Is that right?

• 1:14:13Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, when you have purpose, you, I, what I've, what's fascinating about purpose is, I think one of the, and this is probably quite a nuance, but one of the signs of a lack of purpose is that we envy everyone. We, we wanna be like everyone. We look at what someone does and we're like, oh, I wish I could do that. I wish I could do that. When one finds a sense of purpose, one can actually appreciate someone else for what they do really well. Because you realize that's their nature and that's what they were born to do. And this is mine and this is what I was born to do. And so there's a lack of envy, I think is a great indicator to a sense of purpose. Like, I, I love what you do. I admire what you do. I could never do what you did over all these years.

• 1:14:55Jay Shetty?

  Not because I'm insignificant or invaluable or I'm not smart. It's just because my spots are different and I'm, I'm meant to be following a different path.

• 1:15:03Ray Dalio?

  And we so agree of knowing what your nature is and getting that feedback.

• 1:15:08Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:09Ray Dalio?

  And by the way, I, I, we both like principles, you as a way, as a step toward, toward that. What about the life arc?

• 1:15:16Jay Shetty?

  Yes. The second most important decision applies to the first is, what do I do for money? I think that's one of the, that's the same, and that applies to what we said, yeah.

• 1:15:23Ray Dalio?

  Right.

• 1:15:24Jay Shetty?

  So that, that applies to the two things. Those first two things are solved by the equation we just discussed, like, what do I do for money? That's an important decision we have to make in life. Everyone needs to make money. Everyone needs to pay bills. So that's already there. The third most important decision we make in life is.

• 1:15:37Ray Dalio?

  I don't wanna skip over that. Do you, can we drill into that or should we go to the next one?

• 1:15:42Jay Shetty?

  No, so we can, we can drill into that. I think, yeah, we can drill into that, absolutely, yeah.

• 1:15:46Ray Dalio?

  How do you approach that question?

• 1:15:47Jay Shetty?

  I think that's what I'm saying. Some parts of it apply to the nature aspect. And I think the part that is missed mostly in that, and I love the author of Flow, who talked about the. Beautiful synergy between our challenge and our skills. So he said that we experience flow when our challenge meets our skills. When our skills are high and our challenge is low, we feel bored, we feel disconnected, we feel disengaged. But when our challenge is high and our skills are low, we feel depressed, we feel lost, we feel confused. And so if we want to feel, experience flow in life, we have to find where our skills meet our challenge. And to me, that's where, how what we do for money. I think one of the biggest mistakes we make is today, people are only focusing on passion

• 1:16:32Jay Shetty?

  and not building their skills and their strengths. And so to me, when you're figuring out what you want to do for money, you have to figure out what skill am I willing to get really good at? What am I genuinely willing to discipline myself to become phenomenal at?

• 1:16:46Ray Dalio?

  Right.

• 1:16:47Jay Shetty?

  And if I can do that, then that's a good thing.

• 1:16:48Ray Dalio?

  You're saying, and which I, I agree with, and as we covered, know your nature and, and discover it along the way. Um, but also for me, it's, uh, if I can make my work and passion the same thing and not forget about the money part.

• 1:17:03Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 1:17:04Ray Dalio?

  Um, then I am going to probably be successful because I'll be happy. I'll also be good at what I'm doing.

• 1:17:14Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 1:17:14Ray Dalio?

  And the money part is an important part that you can't forget about.

• 1:17:18Jay Shetty?

  Absolutely, absolutely.

• 1:17:19Ray Dalio?

  I think, um, another principle ideally is, um, to be self-sufficient plus. What I mean by self-sufficient plus is that, um, you're not dependent on, on the money coming from anybody else if you can.

• 1:17:33Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 1:17:33Ray Dalio?

  Right?

• 1:17:33Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 1:17:34Ray Dalio?

  That because you then have, if it doesn't come from anyone else in that way. First, you're raising yourself to the level to be self-sufficient. And I don't really care whether that's a, a high level of income.

• 1:17:46Jay Shetty?

  Of course.

• 1:17:47Ray Dalio?

  Or a low level of income. The important thing is that you're happy, that you pursue goals.

• 1:17:53Jay Shetty?

  Um, yes.

• 1:17:54Ray Dalio?

  And that happiness and, and that particular thing. But if you're self-sufficient plus, it means you're free, you're self-sufficient. And it means also that you can help others if you, because you've got some plus. Um, what are your thoughts about, um, where, that, that's one of mine.

• 1:18:10Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:10Ray Dalio?

  What about yours in terms of that measurement about money? How do you approach money? What is the right amount of money?

• 1:18:18Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, I I would say that we're very aligned. I think the right amount of money is what's right for you and what you're creating. But I love the self-sufficient plus because I I had this conversation. I I had to really rewire my relationship with money as I grew older because I was kind of trained to believe that I always needed just enough. I always grew up with just enough. I saw zero in my bank. I started working when I was fourteen and saw zero in my bank account for many, many years. And that was fine. It was like, OK, I had just enough. I paid for that thing. OK, if I have zero, that's good. Like, I lived like that from fourteen to twenty-one. And then when I went back into the world of work, I just realized that that was not the way to live. And it wasn't I I lived that way because I had luxuries. It was just what I had. It wasn't that I was wasting money.

• 1:19:02Jay Shetty?

  It was just that I never knew how to make it, keep it, save it, invest it. And so when I rewired my relationship with money, I love self-sufficiency plus because to me, I also realized that being able to contribute, being able to give back, being able to pass on was such a healthy part of it. But so often we're trained that simplicity is having enough for yourself. But having enough should include being able to also give, whatever that may be.

• 1:19:26Ray Dalio?

  Same experience happened to me, and we're talking about the life arc. Like, for me, up until, I I guess it was probably, it was certainly my early twenties. I was exactly like you. Like, I like to do the things I like to do. If I've got enough money to do them, I'm having a blast. I don't need any more than that.

• 1:19:45Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 1:19:45Ray Dalio?

  And then I got to a point where I started to calculate how many weeks I could live if not a dollar came in.

• 1:19:56Ray Dalio?

  OK, if I could live, can I live a month? Can I live twelve months?

• 1:20:02Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 1:20:03Ray Dalio?

  Um, I would calculate if I'm spending at this and I have this. And I wanted to live, uh, uh, have enough freedom of that worry that I could have that amount. Um, and I, and I got to the point where uh it was about three years. If, if I could have three years that I knew like I'm downtime. And that gives me enough wiggle room. And so I started to realize that if I took the amount of money I had. By the rate at which I spent it. And I calculated how long it would last.

• 1:20:37Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:38Ray Dalio?

  That that gave me that kind of perspective.

• 1:20:41Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 1:20:41Ray Dalio?

  And that, and that, and then I have a family.

• 1:20:44Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:45Ray Dalio?

  And then as I start to think of the family, that number changes. And of course, what, like you say, everybody then is an investor.

• 1:20:52Jay Shetty?

  Correct.

• 1:20:53Ray Dalio?

  Because everybody's, how has that, has to put it somewhere, gotta know about it. But I had the same experience. I think that experience is part of the life arc.

• 1:21:02Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 1:21:02Ray Dalio?

  You know, in the earlier part of your life.

• 1:21:05Jay Shetty?

  Reassuring to hear that, yeah.

• 1:21:06Ray Dalio?

  It's, it's normal, then you get to a certain other part of your life.

• 1:21:10Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, and, and I think the other thing for me and, and the measure that I give people is that. Let's say when you start your working life, hopefully it isn't this case, but I think for the majority of people it will be. When you first start your career, a hundred percent of your time at work is potentially doing something you don't love. And I think.

• 1:21:27Ray Dalio?

  That's good for you.

• 1:21:28Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, that's good for you, it's important, it builds resilience, it builds character, it's great. But I think success and happiness to me is that as life goes on. That percentage starts to get lower and lower and lower.

• 1:21:38Ray Dalio?

  I think it is, I, I think it's just that you do things, for me anyway.

• 1:21:43Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:43Ray Dalio?

  It's that I do things that I don't love because I get things that I love more.

• 1:21:48Jay Shetty?

  Yes, I, I couldn't agree more, I, I say that about my life today when everyone's like, oh Jay, you must love your life. And I'm like, I do plenty of things that I don't love to do. In order to make time and space to do what I love to do and do more of, I fully agree. But I think that percentage needs to shift. Because you don't want a hundred percent of your time at work to be doing something you don't love.

• 1:22:06Ray Dalio?

  Another principle I would say, and I want to get your thoughts, I'm gonna pull out your principle. Is uh own it and don't be the victim.

• 1:22:15Jay Shetty?

  Hmm.

• 1:22:16Ray Dalio?

  Uh, what I mean.

• 1:22:18Jay Shetty?

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 1:22:18Ray Dalio?

  That person.

• 1:22:21Ray Dalio?

  Who describes, you know, this terrible thing and also tends to blame others. I didn't, this thing happened and that thing happened. Is probably not looking at it as what do I do in this chess lit game of life?

• 1:22:40Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:40Ray Dalio?

  That is now having these things come at me. Where if you own it and you say, listen, this is your game.

• 1:22:47Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:47Ray Dalio?

  This is your life and these things come at you.

• 1:22:51Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:51Ray Dalio?

  And now it's your move and you gotta make those moves right. So you're thinking not woe is me, but you're thinking, okay, now I've got to do that.

• 1:23:01Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 1:23:02Ray Dalio?

  I think that's an important approach to life. What do you think?

• 1:23:05Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 1:23:05Ray Dalio?

  And what is, or your version of something like that? Feel free to totally disagree with me.

• 1:23:10Jay Shetty?

  No, no, I, I, I wish, I mean, I, I'm not saying I wish I disagreed with you. I, I don't because I, I think there's a lot of similarities. I've always called it change the situation, change yourself. And it's like, I think a lot of us, those are two choices. And, and I think a lot of the time we put a lot of energy into changing a situation. And to me, that's a lot of the time, that's out of our control, what we were discussing. Like I can't decide the weather today. I can't decide whether someone's going to like me because of how I behave with them. I can't change someone's complete energy or aura towards me. I can't always change the situation, but I can change how I view it. I can change myself. And Wayne Dyer had a beautiful statement where he said that when we change the way we look at things, the things we look at change.

• 1:23:55Jay Shetty?

  And I think that's always been very important to me is that if I can't change the situation, how can I look at it differently? How can I change the lens through which I'm perceiving this?

• 1:24:05Ray Dalio?

  So I hear that connected to the thing that you said earlier about whether you're feeling good for yourself.

• 1:24:10Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:10Ray Dalio?

  And it brings up another is, uh, don't worry so much about the approval of others.

• 1:24:15Jay Shetty?

  Yes, yeah, that's a great one. I mean, that's, that's a huge one. I mean, that's at the core of so much of this. It's, I, I talk about, in, in my book, Think Like A Monk, I talk about the four Cs for the four types of people you'll meet in your life. And the problem is we're trying to find one person to do all the four of them. So some people in your life are going to have character. You go to them because you know they have high character. That's why you trust them. They may not always be around, they may not always be available, they may not be, you know, they may not be next to you every day, but you go to them because you know, if you wanna make a decision with high integrity, that person is a person of high character. Then you have someone in your life who's consistently there. You have someone who's always been your friend, they've always been around, they don't necessarily give the best advice or the worst advice, but they're consistent, they're there, they're with you,

• 1:24:57Jay Shetty?

  they, they will go through the trenches with you and they're consistent, they don't always have the best next move or the best idea or insight, but they have value in the fact that they're loyal, they're consistent, but that is their value and knowing that. Uh, the third is care, someone who cares about you, I always give the idea of my, my mother, like, if I called my mom right now, I was like, "Mom, I was just with Ray, I just interviewed Ray Dalio, I learned all..." She would just be like, "Have you eaten today?", like, that's what my mom would ask me. She's like, "What did you have for breakfast?", I'd be like, "Mom, like, I just spoke to Ray", and she'd be like, "No, no, no, what did you have for breakfast, what are you having for lunch?", right? That's, it's someone who cares for me, I'm not necessarily gonna go to my mom to ask her for advice for my podcast, but I know she's the person that cares for me, like, I know she'll be there for me no matter what. Uh, and the final one is competence.

• 1:25:39Jay Shetty?

  There are people in our life who are high competence, they may not care about us, they may not have high character, but they're very competent in what they do, and I may take advice from them in that. So to me, knowing who to get approval of in different areas, if I try and get career approval from my mom, she may never give it to me, because she's not happy for me to be on a plane and she's not happy for me to be running around and missing meals, she, she doesn't approve of that. Uh, at the same time, I don't need, uh, my spiritual teacher, for example, I go to him because he's of high character, but if I asked him for business advice, he'd say to me, "Well, this is my integrity principle", but he's not necessarily gonna give me investment advice. So I think becoming very clear about who I went to approval for what, became very useful.

• 1:26:21Ray Dalio?

  You see, um, these are coming out nice and, uh, quickly, it's like playing jazz, you know?

• 1:26:27Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 1:26:27Ray Dalio?

  There's, uh, something that happens really quickly and it happens. But it's very important to slow that down because I'm going to be able to take this.

• 1:26:35Jay Shetty?

  Okay, yes, I have it in the book.

• 1:26:36Ray Dalio?

  No, no, no, not here. No, no, no. This is playing jazz together, okay? I'm saying then to convert it to principles.

• 1:26:42Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 1:26:43Ray Dalio?

  So that somebody can look it up.

• 1:26:44Jay Shetty?

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 1:26:45Ray Dalio?

  Okay, is going to be, this is why it's so great.

• 1:26:47Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:47Ray Dalio?

  Because I can take what you've done and we can put it there. And then somebody says, when I go for that moment, how do I push the button?

• 1:26:56Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:56Ray Dalio?

  And get the answer.

• 1:26:57Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:58Ray Dalio?

  Right?

• 1:26:58Jay Shetty?

  It's gonna be brilliant.

• 1:26:59Ray Dalio?

  Okay, that, that's, this is, this is an important thing.

• 1:27:02Jay Shetty?

  It's gonna be fantastic.

• 1:27:03Ray Dalio?

  Right. So I want to just keep pulling these.

• 1:27:06Jay Shetty?

  I love it, I love it.

• 1:27:07Ray Dalio?

  Things from you, right?

• 1:27:08Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, I love it. I, I can't wait to do more and, and, you know, I won't, we won't go into depth on these. Decision three and decision four, the third most important decision we make in life is who do we give our love to? And who do we receive love from? I think it's a huge decision.

• 1:27:21Ray Dalio?

  The most, maybe the most.

• 1:27:23Jay Shetty?

  Maybe the most.

• 1:27:24Ray Dalio?

  One of the most important decisions, right? The most important decision, I, I just, I, I'm sorry for the interruption.

• 1:27:30Jay Shetty?

  No, I want to hear from you, please.

• 1:27:31Ray Dalio?

  I was just at my, uh, one of my son's weddings and I was just describing what it is and the peace that I have. And I was making the point, which I truly believe, is who you pick as your life partner.

• 1:27:45Jay Shetty?

  Hmm.

• 1:27:46Ray Dalio?

  The person you wake up with in the morning and who is in that life partner.

• 1:27:51Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:52Ray Dalio?

  Is the most important decision you can make, probably. It's, it's certainly right up there. So you're touching on that. So go, I didn't mean to.

• 1:27:59Jay Shetty?

  No, no, I want to, I mean, no, hearing about your son's wedding, that's beautiful. I fully agree. It's such a huge decision.

• 1:28:04Ray Dalio?

  That's what I hear you saying. So keep going.

• 1:28:06Jay Shetty?

  Exactly that. And, and I think for me, I broke that down from, from research, from cultures, from working with clients in that space who have been married for a lot longer than I have. And of course, it would be wonderful to get your feedback. And, and wonderful Jim, who's both of our book agents as well, who's had a very long marriage himself. And so I'm, I'm always stress testing my ideas with Jim. I'm saying, Jim, what do you think of this? Uh, but I came with three things. Uh, the first thing is, this is the obvious one. It's like liking someone's personality. You have to like them. They have to like you. That's obvious. We know that. There's a sense of compatibility more than just chemistry. Uh, I think people often, I was likening recently an analogy of like chemistry is like a spark, like you light a match. There's like this spark, you hear the sound, you see the fire.

• 1:28:49Jay Shetty?

  But then the flame's gonna burn out, the match is gonna last like this long. But if you use that match to burn a candle, that candle's gonna give scent forever. It's gonna last, it's gonna burn and be beautiful for so many people to experience. So that's that compatibility piece. The second piece, which I think is rare, is like a deep awareness and respect for each other's values. So I think if you really love someone, they don't necessarily have the exact same values. I don't think they have, they may have similar versions, but they're never exactly the same. And I think respecting and being aware and encouraging the other person towards their values is really healthy. So I always give the example of me and my wife. My wife, her first value is family, that's her number one value. And my number one value is purpose.

• 1:29:33Jay Shetty?

  They're very different and they can be conflicting often. I wanna be on a plane when we have a family event, I'm at an event when we're doing this. But we found a way of respecting each other's values and then showing each other that we respect it. But we're not forcing each other to have the same value because we're different people. And then the third and final one I found is a dedication to helping that person get to their goals, for them to reach their potential. That I love you so much, that I'm gonna help you get to your goal. Not my projection of who you should be or who I wish for you to be, but who you wanna be, I'm gonna help you. Because I think that's the greatest act of love, is that if you really love someone, you wanna see them become the best version.

• 1:30:13Ray Dalio?

  Well, I'm very excited about taking these and putting them in the writing and pushing the button so everybody can.

• 1:30:18Jay Shetty?

  I'm excited, and they're all in my new book, Eight Rules of Love. So that comes out next year, thirty first January.

• 1:30:22Ray Dalio?

  What is it called?

• 1:30:23Jay Shetty?

  Eight Rules of Love.

• 1:30:24Ray Dalio?

  Okay, it's interesting, yeah.

• 1:30:25Jay Shetty?

  So there's eight in there.

• 1:30:26Ray Dalio?

  Have you taken the test of five types of love?

• 1:30:29Jay Shetty?

  I have, yes, yeah.

• 1:30:30Ray Dalio?

  Very good.

• 1:30:31Jay Shetty?

  It's a great test, yeah.

• 1:30:32Ray Dalio?

  It was so interesting to see it. We did it at family, you know, my son's daughter-in-laws and everybody.

• 1:30:39Jay Shetty?

  What are yours? I'm interested, what are your love languages? I wanna know.

• 1:30:41Ray Dalio?

  Well, I'm acts of love.

• 1:30:45Jay Shetty?

  Okay, acts of service, yeah.

• 1:30:46Ray Dalio?

  I am not the compliments.

• 1:30:49Jay Shetty?

  Yes, yeah, not words of affirmation, yeah.

• 1:30:51Ray Dalio?

  Words, I'm not words of affirmation, right?

• 1:30:54Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:54Ray Dalio?

  Don't give me the words, okay?

• 1:30:56Jay Shetty?

  Good to know.

• 1:30:57Ray Dalio?

  And it's so interesting because.

• 1:31:01Ray Dalio?

  I see it all the time in our relationship.

• 1:31:04Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 1:31:04Ray Dalio?

  So being able to articulate that.

• 1:31:07Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 1:31:07Ray Dalio?

  I forgot what the other ones are.

• 1:31:10Jay Shetty?

  There's words of affirmation, acts of service, gifts, touch, and time.

• 1:31:16Ray Dalio?

  And time.

• 1:31:17Jay Shetty?

  Quality time, yeah.

• 1:31:18Ray Dalio?

  Yeah, quality time. That's important too. But I see it when we did the little test.

• 1:31:23Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:23Ray Dalio?

  And we did it, we could see where sometimes it was going like that.

• 1:31:28Jay Shetty?

  Yes, yeah, oh yeah, completely. It can be totally opposite.

• 1:31:31Ray Dalio?

  Yeah, in other words, I'm giving you something.

• 1:31:34Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:35Ray Dalio?

  And you're not appreciating it because you're looking for the other type.

• 1:31:40Jay Shetty?

  Exactly.

• 1:31:41Ray Dalio?

  And it's so handy to do. And these personality profile tests are valuable in finding out our nature.

• 1:31:48Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:48Ray Dalio?

  And operating that way. So I'm looking forward to your book.

• 1:31:51Jay Shetty?

  No, thank you. I think what you're doing in extrapolating principles and putting them in one place, I think that's really special because, yeah, if I went through my first book and now my second book, there's so many principles in there. But like you said, you know, you have to flick pages to find them. To be able to just search into an engine is a brilliant idea.

• 1:32:09Ray Dalio?

  I created a, what I call a coach. And it's in this app, Principles for Action. And the way it works is, because I was thinking, what do I need an answer to? And then it gets you to the right principle.

• 1:32:23Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:32:24Ray Dalio?

  Because if you have a book of principles, you don't have that access. So the app is needed to be able to say, okay, here I am, I'm in this situation. Boom, button, get the right ones. Because you'll never find them, you'll never raise that book again.

• 1:32:44Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:44Ray Dalio?

  Why not use an app?

• 1:32:45Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, absolutely, much quicker and easily accessible. And I think the fourth one, to finish off, to finish off my piece at least, was the fourth most important decision in the world is, that we make in our lives is, how do we serve the world? How do we help the world? And it's interesting to hear you because those four decisions that I talked about, they move through the four stages of life as defined by the Vedas, which is what I studied as a monk. And so the four stages which I've reconfigured into my language are: love yourself, love others, heal from pain, and then love the world. And I feel like that's the journey that we're being encouraged to go on in life is, we first have to learn to love ourselves, second, we learn to love others, wives, kids, families.

• 1:33:30Jay Shetty?

  Third, we have to actually heal from the pain of love, because sometimes, love can, you know, there's a few thorns along the way, there's a few challenges, and I feel sometimes we hold on to that bitterness. And when you cure that bitterness, you actually get the ability to love everyone, love everyone you meet, and love the world. So the fourth stage is how do we learn to serve the world? How do we contribute to the world, which you're demonstrating? At this stage in your life, where you're like, I wanna give back, I wanna, I want to help. And so that's the fourth one.

• 1:33:56Ray Dalio?

  And it's so wise. I think that I didn't really appreciate, in the middle part of my life, the power of love. I think that there's accomplishment, and you're focused on accomplishment.

• 1:34:10Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:11Ray Dalio?

  And sometimes that has conflict, and you do the conflict. But you don't realize how enjoyable love is. How enjoyable giving love is.

• 1:34:24Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 1:34:24Ray Dalio?

  And receiving love is.

• 1:34:26Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 1:34:26Ray Dalio?

  Or being in a loving community, which is also one of the reasons that the environment that I perceive now is so repugnant to me. Because it has so much the opposite of love. It has so much hate, it has so much anger, it has so much fighting in it. That's so destructive, that's so toxic. So that love and a society that has that, oh, it is true that the greatest joy you get is that experience of helping others, and them, and the connections, and all of that. And it produces an environment that you wanna be in.

• 1:35:03Jay Shetty?

  Absolutely, absolutely. And I think that for those who are listening and love feels... Ethereal or elusive, I think as a basic for me, love is like safety plus understanding. Right? If someone feels safe and someone feels understood, that is the beginning of love. It isn't love in itself, but people need to feel a sense like I feel safe with you and I feel understood by you. You know, that's the beginnings of that feeling. And in a workplace, safety and understanding are very core aspects that could easily be implemented. And even in a relationship, family.

• 1:35:36Ray Dalio?

  My view of what love is, is that I feel what you feel so that it brings me happiness.

• 1:35:48Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:49Ray Dalio?

  Because you have a relationship that, ah, you're well.

• 1:35:52Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 1:35:53Ray Dalio?

  Ah, you're happy.

• 1:35:54Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 1:35:55Ray Dalio?

  And that brings me happiness.

• 1:35:57Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 1:35:57Ray Dalio?

  That's what.

• 1:35:58Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, that's beautiful. Yeah, yeah. Feeling other people's pain, feeling other people's love, like being able to have that ability.

• 1:36:04Ray Dalio?

  It hurts me.

• 1:36:04Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:05Ray Dalio?

  Or it brings me joy.

• 1:36:06Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:07Ray Dalio?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:07Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, that is love. That is really beautiful. And yeah, I think that's what, it's so crazy, we've talked about so many different topics today, and it's amazing how love is that one unifying force that we're all seeking for, but it's almost like, there's just so many, we've created so many barriers to love because we think love makes us weaker to some degree. We feel that feeling someone else's pain or feeling someone else's joy somehow takes it away from us. And think like a monk, I call it the, I say that there are unlimited seats in the theater of happiness. But we're living in a world that has made us believe there are a finite number of seats.

• 1:36:50Jay Shetty?

  Because now, if you want to go see a big sports game, there are a finite number of seats. There are a finite number of VIP tickets. And so that mindset has made us believe that even in the theater of happiness, there are a finite number of seats, but be reassured that your name is on a seat. And you can claim it. No one else can have that seat. It's there waiting for you.

• 1:37:10Ray Dalio?

  Well, for me, love works in that it reinforces my well-being and it reinforces my joy. Because it's part of that evolutionary process, because I also get what your happiness is. And that's the sense. Because it's interesting, psychologists, in terms of what has produced happiness. They show that past a certain basic level of income or money, there's not a correlation between happiness and money.

• 1:37:41Jay Shetty?

  Yes.

• 1:37:42Ray Dalio?

  The highest is community across societies. If you have a sense of community,

• 1:37:49Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:50Ray Dalio?

  you have a higher level of happiness, you live longer, all of those things. That is love. That is connectivity. I think that's a real power.

• 1:38:00Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, it's almost like saying like, it's not about the journey, it's not about the destination, it's about community. Like, that's the key thing.

• 1:38:07Ray Dalio?

  Meaningful work and meaningful relationships is a powerful combination.

• 1:38:11Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:12Ray Dalio?

  I could do this with forever.

• 1:38:13Jay Shetty?

  Oh, so could I. I mean, we could literally, I'm so glad you did this.

• 1:38:16Ray Dalio?

  This is jazz, right?

• 1:38:17Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, this is beautiful. I'm so happy that you flipped it back on me. I got to share some things that I haven't really talked about in that way yet.

• 1:38:23Ray Dalio?

  Well, you can expect more.

• 1:38:25Jay Shetty?

  Yes, I'm all in.

• 1:38:26Ray Dalio?

  And I've got to organize it. You have to help me organize it.

• 1:38:28Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, I'm all, I'd love to.

• 1:38:29Ray Dalio?

  So that we put those principles in a good way.

• 1:38:31Jay Shetty?

  I think that is such a genius idea. Honestly, I'm all in. Any help and support I can give to formatting, sharing, amplifying, I'm in.

• 1:38:39Ray Dalio?

  Great.

• 1:38:39Jay Shetty?

  It sounds incredible, honestly.

• 1:38:41Ray Dalio?

  The world would be a better place.

• 1:38:42Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, I'm looking forward to that. What is it called? This is the app? This is on the app or this is separate to the app?

• 1:38:47Ray Dalio?

  Well, this is going to be built out on the app.

• 1:38:50Jay Shetty?

  Perfect.

• 1:38:50Ray Dalio?

  We have the means by which we can collect them now. We haven't built the voting them up yet.

• 1:38:55Jay Shetty?

  Got it.

• 1:38:56Ray Dalio?

  So there's going to be connected to this.

• 1:38:59Jay Shetty?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:59Ray Dalio?

  All people will input their principles and we're going to have all of these things. And they can go on and they say Jay Shetty's principles.

• 1:39:06Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, that's so cool.

• 1:39:07Ray Dalio?

  That'll exist.

• 1:39:09Jay Shetty?

  That's so cool.

• 1:39:10Ray Dalio?

  And take a clip of this tape and put it on or whatever it is so that people can see it. But the voting up was building, so that has to be built.

• 1:39:20Jay Shetty?

  That's brilliant.

• 1:39:21Ray Dalio?

  And we have a tool called the coach that will help to get them to the right principles, but that's got to be built up more.

• 1:39:28Jay Shetty?

  That's amazing. Well, we figure out the coach as well. There will be some synergies there.

• 1:39:31Ray Dalio?

  Oh, okay. I'll show you the coach.

• 1:39:33Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, show me that, yeah.

• 1:39:34Ray Dalio?

  Because we have the first version of it.

• 1:39:36Jay Shetty?

  Exactly.

• 1:39:36Ray Dalio?

  And I'd love your feedback and we can talk about how to do that.

• 1:39:39Jay Shetty?

  That'd be incredible.

• 1:39:39Ray Dalio?

  Yeah, it's cool.

• 1:39:40Jay Shetty?

  Amazing. Everyone who's been listening and watching, I hope you've enjoyed the jazz. I can't play any instruments anymore. I don't know if Ray still plays any.

• 1:39:47Ray Dalio?

  No, my dad was a jazz musician.

• 1:39:48Jay Shetty?

  Oh, really?

• 1:39:49Ray Dalio?

  And I can't play and it breaks my heart.

• 1:39:51Jay Shetty?

  Yeah, I learned the piano and the drum kit. Now I can't play either. But either way, I hope you enjoyed the music. I'm so grateful to sit down with Ray to have this free-flowing conversation. These are my favorite conversations where I literally feel like we're just co-creating, collaborating, inventing together. I highly recommend that you grab a copy of the journal, my principles. It's out right now. We've referred to a lot of different things, books and apps in the conversation. We'll put them all in the show notes, so you have access to each of them. We have interviews with Ray on Principles You, Changing World Order and Principles as well on the show. So if you want to go back and reference those, please feel free. A big thank you to Ray for being so generous with your time. I think we've been together for a couple of hours. I'm so grateful, honestly.

• 1:40:33Ray Dalio?

  Big thank you to Jay. This is fun to play jazz with you.

• 1:40:36Jay Shetty?

  Ray and Jay.

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