Why We Need Principles

Hey guys, this is your 179th Heuton Letter. Today, I want to talk about Ray Dalio’s Principles, which I briefly introduced a while ago.

It’s a hefty book of nearly 700 pages and after beating my lazy self up several times, I finally managed to finish reading.

Let’s get started.

1. The reason why we need principles is to achieve repeated success. It’s about repeatedly making the best decisions and executing them in the best way possible. This applies to life as well as work.

Getting lucky once doesn't require any principles. But to succeed over and over—once, twice, three times, and so on, in the long run—you do need principles.

I think that’s why Ray Dalio sets such a strict standard for who counts as a “believable person”: someone who has successfully done something challenging at least three or four times and can logically explain the approach they used. After all, such a person must have their own principles or patterns they follow.

2. Early in the book’s introduction, he says:

“Acting on principles means acting in accordance with principles that you can clearly explain.”

In other words, if someone can’t clearly explain why they made certain decisions or took certain actions, it means they don’t really have any principles—and that makes them hardly reliable.

Of course, it’s probably human nature to be fascinated by people who pull off successes that many people can’t.

But it seems wiser to filter out the stories of those who achieve success with nothing but pure luck, and instead pay more attention to people who have their own principles and consistently build success over time.

Adopting a principle-focused, compounding approach to life seems far more desirable.

3. The book introduces well over a hundred principles, big and small. Among them, Ray Dalio dedicates the most space to “radical open-mindedness.”

What he means by radical open-mindedness is an attitude of recognizing you could be wrong at any time and actively listening to other people’s opinions—especially opposite opinions from "reliable" people.

Why is this stance necessary? Because when it comes to achieving success, the goal isn’t to prove that you’re right; it’s to figure out what the truth is.

At first glance, you might think, “Sure, just be honest and accepting.” But the more you reflect on it, the more you realize how necessary—and how challenging—it is.

That’s because without a conscious effort, we all get narrower-minded over time and can turn into stubborn old folks. We stop listening to others, refuse to admit we’re wrong, and care more about protecting our pride than actually growing.

Everyone gains experience over time, but some people use that experience as a blinder that narrows their vision, while others use it as a cross-checker to expand their perspectives and see things more objectively. So it's all about attitude in the end.

4. Well I think I only said good things about the book. But to be honest, I also felt it was a bit longer than it needed to be in some parts, and certain sections even gave me some pushback.

For instance, there are classic American-style motivational lines that go something like: "you can achieve anything you want if you just try hard enough."

Also, because it’s a book about “principles,” it sometimes stays on a rather theoretical or conceptual level.

Still, if you’re an MBTI-xxTJ-type person, you’ll probably find yourself completely drawn in. If you think you need some guiding principles in life but aren’t sure what they should be, I’d definitely recommend starting with this book.

See you next week!