One of the books on my bedside table is billionaire investor and hedge fund manager Ray Dalio’s Principles.

The book is over 500 pages and absolutely choca-a-bloc with axioms, truisms and maxims.

There’s no fluff, no filler and no padding.  Just a short bio, then straight into hundreds of principles, split into “work” and “life”.

I’ve read the book.  And while I disagree with a few of the principles, most of them are worthy of anyone’s time.

So worthy of your precious and valuable time, in fact, that I’ve compiled the cream of the crop for you right here, right now, so you don’t need to fret about finding a dodgy pdf knock-off on an equally dodgy looking website.

Instead, you can simply keep reading.

I’ve focussed on “life”. Because I daresay any principles about life will also be relevant to work.

So here are the top 10 principles as I see them:

(handily cross referenced for anyone who wants to dig deeper into the book)

1.6c It is a fundamental law of nature that in order to gain strength one has to push one’s limits, which is painful

1.10h If you are open-minded enough and determined, you can get virtually anything you want

2.1d Don’t mistake the trappings of success for success itself

2.2b Don’t avoid confronting problems because they are rooted in harsh realities that are unpleasant to look at

3.2a Sincerely believe that you might not know the best possible path and recognise that your ability to deal well with “not knowing” is more important than whatever it is you do know

3.2c Don’t worry about looking good; worry about achieving your goal

3.6c Get to know your blind spots

5.3d Be an imperfectionist

5.6c The best choices are the ones that have more pros than cons, not those that don’t have any cons at all

5.7c Don’t mistake possibilities for probabilities

A few of these I write about already.

But a few I don’t. 

And for anyone who is willing to ponder, I suspect there are undiscovered a-ha moments waiting to be found here too.

That’s it for today. 

 - Tom

p.s. which of these is your favourite? 

Feel free to hit reply and let me know