Areté +1° #071: Dalio's 5 Steps to Success - & Mistake Learner’s Highs (#1,557)

Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another Arete 1°, one of the 451 microchapters from our new book, Activate youe Heroic Potential. Let's get to work. Dalio's five Steps to Success and Mistake Learners Highs. So now that we have a few powerful tools to help us properly handle challenges, it's time to learn how to deal with what you call failure. Here's the short story with that one. It's all data. All caps. It's all data. When we properly frame our experiences in life, there's no such thing as winning or losing. We either win or we learn. And learning is winning. So we win or we win, period. Of course, there will be times when we don't hit the targets we set for ourselves. But that in no way implies that we failed in the way we tend to think of that word. As long as we're practicing our philosophy and using that data to get a little bit better. Don't believe me? Perfect. How about Ray Dalio? As you may know, Ray Dalio is one of the most successful people alive. Time magazine says he's one of the 100 most influential people on the planet. While Fortune magazine says his company Bridgewater Associates and is the fifth most important private company in the US while Forbes tells us he's one of the 100 wealthiest people alive. How do you achieve that extraordinary level of success? In his book Principles, he walks us through precisely how he does it. In fact, he shares a five step process to get what you want in life. Before we take a quick look at that process, let's step back and and look at a complementary framework Dalio shares. He tells us that the whole point of life is to evolve. And he draws a beautiful upward spiral to capture the essence of a good life. In short, we start with an audacious goal. Then we fail. Then we learn, then we improve. Then we set even more audacious goals and we repeat the process forever. Now, did you notice that second step? Yeah. We set audacious goals and then we fail. More on that in a moment. For now, back to our five step process to get what you want in life. That mirrors his higher level process of evolving. The five steps include goals, problems, diagnosis, design and doing. The process goes something like this. Step one, we need goals. What do you want? Get clear. Visualize it. Know your why. Step two, Identify the problems you're facing that are preventing you from reaching your goal. Most unsuccessful people with a fixed mindset like to pretend that they'll be able to achieve their goals. Without hiccups. The best among us, Dalio tells us, know they will face obstacles and and use them as fuel to evolve. Step three Diagnose the problem. What's at the root of your problems? Get clear. Then step four Design a solution to the problem. What do you need to do to solve the riddle? As Dalio would put it? Build a machine that will solve your problem. Then step five get to work doing what needs to be done. Again, you start with an audacious goal. Then you fail. Then you figure out why you failed. Then you design a better solution to your challenge. Then you get to work on the solution. Then you spiral up and repeat that process of evolving into a slightly better version of you. For how long? Endlessly. Now Dalio tells us that it's really important to fall in love with that process, especially the part most people shy away from that whole failing part. Question but can't I just evolve without all those mistakes? Insert laughter from all wise teachers. Ever Answer no, you can't. Therefore, the wisest among us tell us that we want to fall so deeply in love with the process of making mistakes and then getting a little better that were kind of like a runner who hits a certain point during his or her run where the pain goes away and the runner's high takes over. Dalio calls this a mistake learner's high. You're so engaged in the dynamic process of optimizing that you learn to love the mistakes, knowing that they're just part of the process of going after something audacious and the perfect data fuel to activate your heroic potential. Just a little more today. I hope you enjoyed that Arete plus one degree from my new book Arete Activate your heroic potential. The book will be shipped on November 14, right before Black Friday. In time to make it the perfect holiday gift perhaps. I wanted to let you know that we have some special giveaways if you think you might like to pre order the book and even more goodies if you think you might want to give the book away this holiday season. Here's the deal. Pre order one copy and get a free advanced reader copy of the ebook today. Pre order three copies and get a free advanced copy of the ebook and the audiobook and a limited edition Arete coin that we'll send to you. Pre order 10 copies of the book. Bless you and get all of that plus and an autographed Advanced Hardcover reader copy sent to you immediately inside the fancy Arete VIP box, which is packed with other goodies including this Arete T shirt, a heroic t shirt and 10 free annual heroic memberships for your gift recipients. You'd be able to give them a book and a year's worth of Heroic for free. If you pre order 25 copies, you'll get all that plus a free ticket to our launch event party in Austin November 10th through 12th. And you'll get a personal voice memo thank you and a high five from me if you're feeling inspired to order over 50 copies of the book. We've been blessed to have a lot of CEOs and corporations do that. We'll give you a huge discount. Just let us know all of this. You can learn more about at Heroic Heroic Us Book. Of course you can order the book on Amazon, Barnes and Noble Independent bookstores will be everywhere you can buy a book, Hudson's airport stores, etc. And let us know of course when you've done that and purchased a copy or three or ten or more if you feel inspired to do so at Heroic Us Book. I appreciate you and I hope you love the book. I'm super excited about it, super proud of it, and I hope it helps you and your families transform your lives.