Principles by Ray Dalio                         Ray Dalio - From Wiki

Part 1: The Importance of Principles 

What are principles?

Why are principles important?

Where do principles come from?

Do you have principles that you live your life by? What are they?

How well do you think they will work, and why?

People who have shared values and principles get along.

Part 2: My Most Fundamental Life Principles 

Time is like a river that will take you forward into encounters with reality that will require you to make decisions. You can’t stop the movement down this river, and you can’t avoid the encounters. You can only approach these encounters in the best way possible.

I want you to work for yourself, to come up with independent opinions, to stress-test them, to be wary about being overconfident, and to reflect on the consequences of your decisions and constantly improve.

1) working for what I wanted, not for what others wanted me to do; 2) coming up with the best independent opinions I could muster to move toward my goals; 3) stress-testing my opinions by having the smartest people I could find challenge them so I could find out where I was wrong; 4) being wary about overconfidence, and good at not knowing; and 5) wrestling with reality, experiencing the results of my decisions, and reflecting on what I did to produce them so that I could improve.

I learned that being truthful was an extension of my freedom to be me.