Ray Dalio's daily habit for 42 years

how long have you been meditating for actually 42 years and what got you started the beatles when the beatles started meditating and they drew attention to it and it was a curiosity and i thought i would try it and then um it's changed my life it's the big the biggest uh influence in whatever success i've had in life so can you remember what it was like in the first few weeks or the first few months yeah i remember wrestling around with it i remember that uh you know you go into the mantra i went into the mantra then the thoughts would come back and it would be that back and forth and then as it got better and better and i got deeper into it the thoughts would become more valuable more tantalizing and it was almost you know more of a temptation to think about those particular thoughts because i didn't want to lose those ideas and then i knew that i had to push those away and it was almost difficult and then after a while i remember then disappearing into it and that was something what were the first uh benefits that you found in in the practice as as the habit grew as it became part of your life well the first the first benefits were that ability that they have the quietness the tranquility um the ability to get energy from it rather than sleep it would provide me more energy than sleeping um those kinds of benefits but then it went on to develop an ongoing equanimity that that centeredness that ability to go above myself and my circumstances and to look down at them from a higher level with a clarity and an objectivity and then it started to bring out my subconscious and my creativity because subsequently i've studied uh neuroscience i've been very interested in that and and i've learned that there's a part of our brain in the neocortex which is where imagination exists which is where creativity exists and it opened me to that i experienced it i didn't understand what was happening at the time but it provided those things as time went on where did the understanding of the the you might say the discipline of the mantra come from because you realize during the meditation you were having great ideas and imagination and creativity but you also knew that you had to let go of those ideas at the time of the meditation and keep going back to the mantra was that a natural instinct or well that was that difficult you know the natural instinct was to go to the ideas um but i also uh combination of a teacher and and and the realization that as i would go deeper i was going to get more um encouraged me to go deeper and it's not easy to throw away those good ideas yeah you told me once that uh your interest in in uh investment wasn't just to make money it was also the fascination of the the game uh what uh how did that happen well when i started when i was when i was caddying and i earned you know six dollars a bag i'd go around and have my 12 dollars and so two things were happening simultaneously um at that time i i was interested in making some money with that originally um but also the game of it caught me so i got very enthralled by the game of it and um money vast amounts of money was never a major major objective of mine even early on it was the game of it that uh hooked me so you wouldn't say you were caught up in any way in the in greed and the culture of greed that we see around no no no no no it was it's never been i'm a very simple person you know i can so no it's never been anything like greed i think greed is unhealthy and the meditation how has the meditation helped you stay as it were detached from the money and from all that came with it well i mean first of all let's be clear i mean money has no purpose other than there's something for it so the question is what are the things you're going after in life and they never you know bigger car bigger house these are not the most important things for me but in any case what meditation has done all for me is to be able to help me step back and see things at a higher level and when we talk about spirituality and i'm not a religious person but when we talk about spirituality um spirituality to me is the ascending to a level where you feel connected to the whole and so you realize you're part of that hole and literally brain science neuro neuroscience has shown how that comes because they if you take brain imaging through meditation that they show that the prefrontal cortex the part of the brain that really almost really defines man lights up and the part of the brain which is the animal part of the brain that produces these uh fight or flight reactions and that anxiety the amygdala calms down and so physiologically the brain changes as a result of that meditation and the result of that as we're evolving as brains evolve is to bring us above that and to create creates a connection okay so that's the science so we know that meditation isn't just theoretical it actually is biologically and neurologically uh grounded and can be described in those terms to some degree what's the what's the actual expression of that in terms of life relationships decisions work you say that you have this meditation gives you this higher perspective it's a higher level of detachment and so on uh at that higher level when you when you know we all go up and down maybe on it where you see things from that perspective what are the essential values of life well you're asking my essential values yeah okay my own essential values is that um i think evolution personally to evolve um and i think it's the nature of the universe that the most powerful thing in the universe is the only thing that lasts is evolution and for me it's to um evolve um in my learning and my getting a higher level of perspective it comes to having almost the sense of a greater understanding of the universe and then a greater appreciation of my connection with the universe so i feel very connected um in that way and with people with people so as and beyond people with nature people and nature um that wholeness that's that's that's for me you know i i think uh people are um one of 30 million species and there's the whole connection to that whole thing so you know that's what i but in a and again in a very um also um a very basic way when you find yourself under stress and anxiety things go wrong you get disappointments uh things don't work out as you hoped you must feel a moment of anxiety a moment of stress how do you deal with that what happens um i can go out of the stress i can at any moment like there are times when i i feel the stress of the circumstances and then i can at will go out of that stress and just see things in a different way and it makes me feel almost like a ninja you know when the in the ninja everything seems to come in slow motion you know and in the sense you could step back and it's coming at me at slow motion and i can deal with it in in a way that makes me feel more centered and in control but like tennis players they say at the height of their game the ball seems to go much slower the whole game slows down yeah and it's really that equanimity that produces that kind of a reaction as distinct from when you have the anxiety there's not the clarity there's it's all coming too fast okay so let's just take a scenario you're in your office and you've had made some decisions and then those decisions are you know you have to revisit them because if something has happened or the markets have changed or the advice has changed and then you feel disappointment or stress or anger irritation about something how does the where does the meditation does it is it at the same time or does it is it later in the day no no no for me the way it it it it's changed my perspective meaning i'm ex it's all the way reality works so in other words i i don't view it bad things are going to happen to me i just view it as things happen and so i view reality almost like a machine in which one thing happens after another and i accept reality i think reality is beautiful even though it's challenging so when i look at it i it's almost like everything is another one of those i put it in perspective and i don't know if i'm being clear but um so ole miss the same things happen over and over and over again so and so by sitting back and seeing away it's another one of those or why is it but when do you sit back and say that in the middle of the anxiety for me now it's it's become in the middle of simultaneously right so simultaneously in the middle of the anxiety um and it's taken me um you know a long time to get there but by and large as it's coming whatever the circumstances are i'm i'm so close to that sometimes i'll feel a you know that twinge of anxiety but i can bring myself into the position and i say okay let me step back and say how does the world work these things will happen it's not and it's not like there's um um [Music] it's a always a [Music] it's just the way reality works it's an acceptance of reality and i think it's almost an acceptance of reality works in a beautiful way and i have to just operate in harmony with that reality so it's my responsibility to be calm and to operate in harmony with that reality whatever that reality is by far the best investment you can make is in yourself if you invest in yourself nobody can take it away from

Channel: Invest in Yourself

Views: 241,803

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Id: 6R5LkGGtc7g

Length: 11min 29sec (689 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 31 2020