Principles

“Principles are ways of successfully dealing with reality to get what you want out of life.” – Ray Dalio

These are fundamental principles I’ve found to be true and try to live by. I wrote these out for myself after having used them, some for many years, others just long enough to stress-test. I have made very minor edits for language or clarity and added included relevant links. I will occassionally update this as I add to or modify my principles.

Per Ray Dalio’s version, if you’re a smart person and disagree with any of these, email me and tell me why. I want to be proven wrong. These are not here as dogma, but to actually generate results and happiness. I am not tied to any of them – only to what is true. Which brings us to the first and most fundamental principle…

1. Truth first. Harsh reality and deal with how things really are not how you wish they were.
2. Be fucking good. Skills are important. You must be valuable. Become a master of your craft.
3. Always be asking, “what can I do better?” A tight feedback loop fixes problems quickly when combined with harsh reality.
4. Social skills are a multiplier and necessary but not enough if you don’t also have skills.
5. Oftentimes it’s “better” to allow yourself to be worse. Have a shit day. Let things be imperfect. Don’t over-optimize everything. There’s only so much you can stress over and give a shit about.
6. If you don’t have an extremely deep friend who is equally committed to building a great life, get one. Not a “friend”. Go deep. Someone who knows everything and vice versa. This is lacking for a lot of people and EXTREMELY important.
7. Move. Get into your body. Men, lift heavy weights, fight, or both. Being fat is a decision. I don’t care about your genetics or your kids or anything. Believe having “curves” is sexy all you want – you are unhealthy. It’s not about beauty, it’s about health.
8. Real gratitude is important. Appreciation. Some gratitude journal where you shit out five random things on paper every day doesn’t do anything for me. Sit on your balcony with a close friend, or even alone, and genuinely marvel at the life you’ve built. Actually feel appreciation, deep down.
9. Choose what to give a fuck about. Separate what you can control from what you can’t.
10. Remove before adding. Start with the news and TV. You can’t add broccoli to your diet of McDonald’s and expect to get healthy – it’s the same with information. Cut out the crap first.
11. Sleep! You are not superman. No, 6 or 7 hours is not enough for you. Get 8-9 a night if not more. This instantly fixes so many problems it’s stupid. No stress. Calm. Better thinking. More happy and sociable. It’s as close to a panacea as you get.
12. Be T-shaped.
13. You alone are responsible for your life. The cards you were dealt might be worse than what someone else got. That sucks. Really. But what are you gonna do about it? Make those cards your excuse for having a shit life? It’s not your fault you got bad cards but it’s your responsibility to deal with it. You can complain about the poor cards or build yourself a better life.
14. You are who you spend your time with. But if you don’t have good people around, read – you can make an author one of those five people. Your environment is critical.
15. Do stuff. Solve problems. Give a shit about something and be actively pushing forward on something almost always. Leisure is not a path to happiness. Happiness is progress, it’s solving problems. It’s meaning.
16. Never do anything just to get casual sex.
17. Goals are for direction only. Once you have the goal, setup the process of getting there and focus on the process, the things that will actually generate the result.
18. What could you do that makes this easier or unnecessary? Oftentimes the fastest way to achieve something is by doing something else first. For example, for charitable impact, it’s faster to start a company, get rich, and then leverage the company/your money for good, than spending all of that time as a community worker.
19. One thing a time. Focus. You only ever have one true priority. Know your non-negotiables. Be deliberate about it.
20. Be either ON or OFF. Half-working while chilling means you never recharge and feel overwhelmed, and half-chilling while working means you work way longer than needed for low-quality work.
21. Lean towards shutting the fuck up. Keep your head down and do your shit.
22. Study relationships, love, sex, the mind-fuck of developmental psychology behind who we pick as partners, how attraction works. This is the one of the biggest parts of your life and you don’t want to screw it up.
23. Read. Every successful and smart person I know reads, and the actually goes and applies what they learned. Here’s a great book list to start from.