262 Quotes by Ray Dalio

I believe that the ability to objectively self-assess, including one’s own weaknesses, is the most influential factor in whether a person succeeds, and that a healthy organization is one in which people compete not so much against each other as against the ways in which their lower-level selves get in the way.

Everyone has weaknesses. They are generally revealed in the patterns of mistakes they make.

Constantly probe the people who report to you, and encourage them to probe you.

Remember that experience creates internalization. Doing things repeatedly leads to internalization, which produces a quality of understanding that is generally vastly superior to intellectualized learning.

Distinguish between you as the designer of your machine and you as a worker with your machine.

Avoid fixating on irrelevant details.

Experience taught me how invaluable it is to reflect on and write down my decision-making criteria whenever I made a decision, so I got in the habit of doing that.

Embrace Reality and Deal with It.

I should add, though, that putting responsibility in the hands of inexperienced people doesn’t always work out so well. Some painful lessons that you’ll read about later taught me that it can be a mistake to undervalue experience.