Remember this: The pain is all in your head. If you want to evolve, you need to go where the problems and the pain are. By confronting the pain, you will see more clearly the paradoxes and problems you face. Reflecting on them and resolving them will give you wisdom. The harder the pain and the challenge, the better. #principleoftheday

You need to be precise, because different problems have different solutions. If a problem is due to inadequate skill, additional training may be called for; if it arises from an innate weakness, you may need to seek assistance from someone else or change the role you play. #principleoftheday

If you just keep doing, you will burn out and grind to a halt. Build downtime into your schedule just as you would make time for all the other stuff that needs to get done. #principleoftheday

What an honor to present “Her Deepness” Dr. Sylvia Earle with the @oceanx lifetime achievement award at the OceanX Summit in Singapore. No one alive today has done more for the ocean, and without her help and inspiration, OceanX would have never even gotten started. Congratulations and thank you, Sylvia!

When there is pain, the animal instinct is flight-or-fight. Calm yourself down and reflect instead. The pain you are feeling is due to things being in conflict--maybe you've come up against a terrible reality, such as the death of a friend, and are unable to accept it; maybe you've been forced to acknowledge a weakness that challenges the idea you'd had of yourself. #principleoftheday

Over long periods of time, debts tend to rise faster than incomes, creating the long-term debt cycle. Even as people become more indebted, lenders freely extend credit because during economic booms, incomes rise, asset values soar, and the stock market thrives. People borrow more to buy financial assets, pushing prices higher and creating a bubble. So long as incomes keep rising, the debt burden stays manageable. But this cannot continue forever. Over decades, debt burdens slowly accumulate until debt repayments grow faster than incomes. This forces people to cut back on spending, causing incomes to fall and borrowing to dry up—eventually reversing the entire cycle. #RayDalio #Economy #LongTermDebtCycle #Finance

Thinking about problems that are difficult to solve may make you anxious, but not thinking about them (and hence not dealing with them) should make you more anxious still. When a problem stems from your own lack of talent or skill, most people feel shame. Get over it. I cannot emphasize this enough: Acknowledging your weaknesses is not the same as surrendering to them. #principleoftheday

Everyone makes mistakes. The main difference is that successful people learn from them and unsuccessful people don’t. By creating an environment in which it is okay to safely make mistakes so that people can learn from them, you’ll see rapid progress and fewer significant mistakes. This is especially true in organizations where creativity and independent thinking are important, as success will inevitably require the acceptance of failure as a part of the process. As Thomas Edison once said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found ten thousand ways that do not work.” #principleoftheday

Though it won't feel that way at first, each and every problem you encounter is an opportunity; for that reason, it is essential that you bring them to the surface. Most people don't like to do this, especially if it exposes their own weaknesses or the weaknesses of someone they care about, but successful people know they have to. #principleoftheday

Worrying about "blame" and "credit" or "positive" and "negative" feedback impedes the iterative process that is essential to learning. Remember that what has already happened lies in the past and no longer matters except as a lesson for the future. #principleoftheday

The holy grail of investing is knowing how to balance. When you can take equally good things where your expectation of return is equal, but because they are uncorrelated and move differently, they balance each other. That is how you can reduce your risk without reducing your returns. You have to understand that the market is a zero-sum game. The consensus is already reflected in the price, and trying to beat it is a difficult game. In fact, it is more difficult to compete and be successful in the markets than it is to compete in the Olympics. We must be humble about that. But achieving that balance so you can get a good return without losing a lot of money is everything. Most of my own money is invested in exactly that. #Investing #AssetAllocation #RiskManagement #Principles

This is a requirement. Being considerate means allowing other people to mostly do what they want, so long as it is consistent with our principles, policies, and the law. It also means being willing to put others ahead of your own desires. If the people on both sides of an argument approach their disagreements in this way, we will have many fewer disputes about who is offending whom. #principleoftheday

You need to develop a fierce intolerance of badness of any kind, regardless of its severity. #principleoftheday

They are rare. Such relationships take time to build and can only be built if you treat such people well. #principleoftheday

When we are in meetings, we use a tool for what we call "dotting." It allows everyone to convey what they are seeing and how each person is behaving in real time. You can look at a screen and see, in color, how people are seeing each other. You see who thinks something is the most arrogant thing, or the stupidest thing, or that you aren't being considerate. When you see that visualization in real time, you are forced to ask yourself: How do I know that I’m seeing it the right way? How do I know that I’m not the wrong one? You realize you are just one of those dots in that line and in that grid. It causes you to go above yourself and provides perspective. Once you see how everyone else is seeing the situation, it raises a fundamental question: Together, how do we know what’s best? Just because an idea is in your head doesn’t mean it’s best. To make the right decisions, we have to look past our own individual assumptions and work together to find the truth.

So I certainly don’t want to dissuade you from going after whatever you want. At the same time, I urge you to reflect on whether what you are going after is consistent with your nature. Whatever your nature is, there are many paths that will suit you, so don’t fixate on just one. Should a particular path close, all you have to do is find another good one consistent with what you’re like. #principleoftheday

While it isn't all about the quid pro quo between the company and the employee, this balance must be economically viable for the relationships to be sustainable. Set policies that clearly define this quid pro quo, and be measured, but not excessively precise, when shifting it around. While you should by and large stick to the arrangement, you should also recognize that there are rare, special times when employees will need a bit of extra time off and there are times that the company will require employees to give it extra hours. The company should pay for above-normal work one way or another, and employees should be docked for below-normal work. The give-and-take should roughly equal out over time. #principleoftheday

I know that my own life has been full of mistakes and lots of great feedback. It was only by looking down on this body of evidence from a higher level that I was able to get around my mistakes and go after what I wanted. For as long as I have been practicing this, I still know I can't see myself objectively, which is why I continue to rely so much on the input of others. #principleoftheday

Most people look at a resume to evaluate skills, but in my opinion, the priority should be the exact opposite. When evaluating someone, focus on three things in this order: values, abilities, skills. Skills are actually the least important because if someone has the right abilities, their skills can always adapt. Credit: Sam Parr, Shaan Puri, and @myfirstmilpod #Principles #Leadership #Hiring

Meaningful relationships are invaluable for building and sustaining a culture of excellence, because they create the trust and support that people need to push each other to do great things. If the overwhelming majority of people care about having an excellent community, they will take care of it, which will yield both better work and better relationships. Relationships have to be genuine, not forced; at the same time, the culture of the community will have a big influence on how people value relationships and how they behave with each other. #principleoftheday