Ray Dalio 《Principles》

P RINCIPLES

Introduction

Chapter 1 – My Most Fundamental Principles

Chapter 2 – How to Get What You Want

Chapter 3 – My 5-Step Process

1) Goals, 2) Problems, 3) Diagnoses, 4) Designs and 5) Tasks

Chapter 4 – My Management Principles

Get the People and the Culture Right

Getting Specific

A) To Get the Culture Right…

…Truth is Essential

…Recognize That Mistakes are Good if They Result in Learning

…Constantly Get in Synch

B) To Get the People Right…

…The Most Important Decision You Make is Choosing the

Responsible Party

…Recognize That People are Built Very Differently

…Hire Right, Because the Penalties of Hiring Wrong are Huge

…Understand the Differences Between Managing,

Micromanaging and Not Managing

…Probe Deep and Hard

…Evaluate People Accurately, Not Kindly

…Train and Test People through Experiences

…Sort People into Other Jobs or Boxes at Bridgewater, or

Remove Them from Bridgewater

C) To Perceive, Diagnose and Solve Problems…

…Know How to Perceive Problems Effectively

…Follow a Systematic Approach to Diagnosing Problems

…Put Things in Perspective

…Design Your Plan and Your Machine

…Do What You Set Out To Do

D) To Make Decisions Effectively …

…Recognize the Power of Knowing How to Deal With Not

Knowing

…Think Probabilistically and About What Matters

Introduction

Principles are concepts that can be applied over and over again in similar circumstances as distinct from narrow answers to specific questions. Every game has principles that successful players master to achieve winning results. So does life. Principles are ways of successfully dealing with the laws of nature or the laws of life. Those who understand more of them and understand them well know how to interact with the world more effectively than those who know fewer of them or know them less well. Different principles apply to different aspects of life – e.g., there are “skiing principles” for skiing, “parenting principles” for parenting, “management principles” for managing, “investment principles” for investing, etc. – and there are over-arching “life principles” that influence our approaches to all things. And, of course, different people subscribe to different principles that they believe work best.

I am confident that whatever success Bridgewater and I have had has resulted from our operating by certain principles. Creating a great culture, finding the right people, managing them to do great things and solving problems creatively and systematically are challenges faced by all organizations. What differentiates them is how they approach these challenges. The principles laid out in the pages that follow convey our unique ways of doing these things, which are the reasons for our unique results. Bridgewater’s success has resulted from talented people operating by the principles set out here, and it will continue if these or other talented people continue to operate by them. Like getting fit, virtually anyone can do it if they are willing to do what it takes.

What is written here is just my understanding of what it takes: my most fundamental life principles, my approach to getting what I want, and my “management principles,” which are based on those foundations. Taken together, these principles are meant to paint a picture of a process for the systematic pursuit of truth and excellence and for the rewards that accompany this pursuit. I put them in writing for people to consider in order to help Bridgewater and the people I care about most.

Until recently, I didn’t write out these principles because I felt that it was presumptuous for me to tell others what would work best for them. But over time, I saw the people who I cared about most struggling with problems and wanted to help them; I also found that their problems were almost always the result of violating one or more of these principles, and that their problems could be solved by applying these principles. So I began writing down the types of problems and the broken principles that caused them. When I began, I didn’t know how many principles I would end up with but, through this process, I discovered that about 300 principles pretty much cover all the problems.1 I’m sure that I will come up with more as I learn more.

When I say that these are my principles, I don’t mean that in a possessive or egotistical way. I just mean that they are explanations of what I personally believe. I believe that the people I work with and care about must think for themselves. I set these principles out and explained the logic behind them so that

we can together explore their merits and stress test them. While I am confident that these principles work well because I have thought hard about them, they have worked well for me for many years, and they have stood up to the scrutiny of the hundreds of smart, cynical people, I also believe that nothing is certain. I believe that the best we can hope for is highly probable. By putting them out there and stress testing them, the probabilities of their being right will increase.

I also believe that those principles that are most valuable to each of us come from our own encounters with reality and our reflections on these encounters – not from being taught and simply accepting someone else’s principles. So, I put these out there for you to reflect on when you are encountering your realities, and not for you to blindly follow. What I hope for most is that you and others will carefully

1 Since I learned these principles by encountering reality and reflecting on my encounters, and I am still doing these things, I expect there are more principles to come. So I am still creating this document by throwing various thoughts down when they occur to me, trying to put them in some sensible order and trying to smooth over the bumps. Organizing these principles into a sensible order is a challenge since they relate to each other more like a matrix than as a sequence. To help guide you, I’ve tried to organize them around large themes like building a great culture, managing people well, and creative problem-solving. I will continue these things, so this is an evolving document.

consider them and try operating by them as part of your process for discovering what works best for you. Through this exploration, and with their increased usage, not only will they be understood, but they will evolve from “Ray’s principles” to “our principles,” and Ray will fade out of the picture in much the same way as memories of one’s ski or tennis instructor fade and people only pay attention to what works.2 So, when digesting each principle, please…

…ask yourself: Is it true?

Before I discuss the management principles themselves, it’s important for me to articulate my own most fundamental life principles because my management principles are an extension of them. So, in Chapter 1, I explain why I believe that understanding what reality is, how it works and how to deal with it to get what you want is both fundamentally good and rewarded.

In Chapter 2, I describe what I believe are the best ways of interacting with reality to learn what it’s like, and how to most effectively deal with it to get what you want. I also discuss what I believe are the most common traps that people fall into that prevent them from getting what they want, and how people’s lives can be radically better by avoiding them. This chapter is fundamental to understanding why we behave the way we do at Bridgewater.

Chapter 3 lays out a framework that I developed and follow for achieving goals, whatever they might be. This 5-Step Process is a specific and systematic structure that frames almost all of the discussions we have at Bridgewater about getting things done. It has broad applications in both business and life. I sincerely believe that people who follow these five steps can get almost anything they want out of life. In Chapter 4, I explain my management principles, which are based on the principles described in the first three chapters. What I convey here are not only individual principles, but a framework of principles that hang together to comprise our culture at Bridgewater. The chapter begins at the big-picture, conceptual level, with an explanation of why I believe that any company’s results are primarily determined by its people and its culture. It then drills down into what I believe are the important principles behind creating a great culture, hiring the right people, managing them to achieve excellence, solving problems systematically and making good decisions.

There are of course lots of other types of principles. For example, I hope to one day write about my investment principles. However, management principles are now what we need most, so here are the ones that I think make sense and have worked for me. I believe that for any individual and for any organization to live up to their potentials, they must have clearly understood 1) values, 2) goals that are consistent with these values, and 3) ways of operating that are consistent with these values and goals. I believe that, to be clearly understood, these values, goals and ways of doing things must be spelled out. The purpose of my writing the “Principles” in such a comprehensive way is to make them crystal clear. What you decide to do with them is up to you.

2 While this particular document will always express just what I believe, others will certainly have their own principles, and possibly even their own principles documents, and future managers of Bridgewater will work in their own ways to determine what principles Bridgewater will operate by. At most, this will remain as one reference of principles for people to consider when they are deciding what’s important and how to behave.

Chapter 1 – My Most Fundamental Principles

As mentioned in the Introduction, principles are concepts that can be applied over and over again in similar circumstances, as distinct from narrow answers to very specific questions. Principles are ways of successfully dealing with the laws of nature or the laws of life. Those who understand more of them and understand them better know how to interact with the world more effectively than those who know fewer of them or know them less well.

In the following pages, I will share with you many of the principles I have learned and believe work. I only ask that you consider them with an open mind. You have to assess them for yourself because I’m certainly not trying to tell you what to do, and I’m not 100% sure of anything. Also, I’m not saying they’re going to work 100% of the time. Like good principles you might use when deciding how to play a poker hand, they won’t work every time because “luck” (i.e., the unanticipated) also plays a role.

Every day, everything that happens has principles embedded in them. For example, putting your hand on a hot stove teaches you at least one principle. If you learn that principle, it will help you improve your ways of dealing with life. If you don’t, you’ll continue to get burned. So, I believe that there is an incredible beauty to mistakes, because embedded in each mistake is a puzzle and a gem to be had if you solve the puzzle. If you recognize that each mistake is probably a reflection of something you or others don’t understand about how to interact with the world as it is, and you figure out what that is, you will gain one or more gems, or what I call principles. People who recognize that all our experiences, rewards and punishments are essentially life’s instructions repeatedly thrown at us are more likely to learn how to live life more effectively (i.e., by principles), and favorably adapt their behaviors. What I am saying is that you don’t need to do much more than experience what the challenges and opportunities that life will bring you with an open mind, and you will learn how to get what you want out of life.

Though I might sound philosophical, I am a hyperrealist. I believe one needs to deeply understand, accept and work with reality to produce great results and to be happy. Whether it is knowing how people really think and behave when dealing with them, or understanding in detail how things really work in physics, economics or physiology, so that if you do X then Y will happen, understanding these realities gives you the power to get what you want out of life – or at least dramatically improves your odds. So, what follows is a description of how I believe reality works and how to deal with it to get what we want. When I say I’m a hyperrealist, people sometimes think I don’t believe in making dreams happen. This couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, I believe that without pursuing dreams life is mundane. I am just saying that hyperrealism is the best way to choose and achieve one’s dreams. The people who really change the world are the ones who see what’s possible and figure out how to make that happen. I believe that idealists, who simply imagine things that would be nice but are not possible, don’t sufficiently appreciate the laws of the universe to even know what would be nice. Let me explain what I mean.

I believe there is an infinite number of laws of the universe and that all progress or dreams achieved come from operating in a way that’s consistent with them. These principles have always existed. Man didn’t and can’t make them up. He can only hope to understand them and use them to get what he wants. For example, the ability to fly or to send cellular phone signals imperceptibly and instantaneously around the world or any other new and beneficial developments resulted from using and understanding previously existing laws of the universe. These inventions did not come from people who were not well grounded in reality. The same is true for economic, political and social systems that work. Success is achieved by people who deeply understand reality and know how to use it to get what they want. The converse is also true: idealists who are not well grounded in reality create problems, not progress. For example, communism was a system created by people with good intentions who failed to recognize that their idealistic system was inconsistent with human nature. As a result, they caused more harm than good. My belief is that truth – or, more precisely, accurate understanding of reality – is the essential foundation for producing good outcomes.

I know I’m pretty extreme in these beliefs. For example, as a hyperrealist, I have a non-traditional sense of good and bad. I believe that being good means operating consistently with reality (i.e., natural laws). Operating this way will likely result in rewards for you and for society as a whole. Being bad means operating inconsistently with these laws, which will likely result in punishment for you and harm to society as a whole. So I believe that for something to be good, it has to work to make things better; and to do that, it must be grounded in reality.

Understanding what is good is obtained by looking at the way the world works. But it is not obvious. I think it’s educational and enjoyable to study how things work in nature and to assume that however they work is in some way good. I like to try to figure out why they’re working this way is good in the context of the whole system.3 I also believe that sometimes the conclusions are at odds with traditional notions of good and bad, which can sometimes make accepting these laws of nature, or principles, difficult.

For example, when a pack of hyenas takes down a young wildebeest, is that good or evil? At face value, that might not be “good” because it seems cruel, and the poor wildebeest suffers and dies. Some people might even say that the hyenas are evil. Yet this type of apparently “cruel” behavior exists throughout the animal kingdom. Like death itself, it is integral to the enormously complex and efficient system that has worked for as long as there has been life. It is good for both the hyenas who are operating in their self-interest and the interest of the greater system, including those of the wildebeest, because killing and eating the wildebeest fosters evolution (i.e., the natural process of improvement). In fact, if you changed anything about the way that dynamic works, the overall outcome would be worse.

I believe that evolution, which is generally the natural move toward better adaptation, is the greatest single force in the universe. It affects the changes of everything from all species to the entire solar system. Based on how I observe both nature and humanity working, I believe that what is bad and most punished are those things that don’t work because they are at odds with the laws of the universe and impede evolution. I believe that the desire to evolve (i.e., to get better) is probably humanity’s most pervasive driving force.4 Enjoying your job, a craft, or your favorite sport comes from the innate satisfaction of getting better. Though most people typically think that they are striving to get things (e.g., toys, better houses, money, status, etc.) that will make them happy, that is not really the case. When we get the things we are striving for, we rarely remain satisfied,5 so we seek other things or we seek to make the things we have better, and, in the process of this seeking, we continue to evolve. The things we are striving for are just the bait to get us to chase after them in order to make us evolve, and it is the evolution and not the reward itself that matters.

It is only logical that it is that way – i.e., that our lives are not satisfied by obtaining our goals rather than by striving for them – because of the law of diminishing returns.6 For example, suppose making a lot of money is your goal and suppose you make enough so that making more has no marginal utility. Then it would be silly to continue to have making money be your goal. People who acquire things beyond their usefulness will not only derive little or no marginal gains from these acquisitions but they also will experience negative consequences, as with any form of gluttony. So, it is only logical that seeking

3 To me it’s probably wrong and certainly presumptuous to assume that one’s theory of life is right when it’s inconsistent with the way things work in nature. Man is a manifestation of nature – just one infinitesimally small manifestation among zillions. If mankind disappeared, it wouldn't change the universe one iota. So who makes the rules – man or nature? Whether we acknowledge it or not, we are governed by nature's rules. It is silly, futile and arrogant for man to think that he can make up rules that will work that are inconsistent with nature's rules. To be successful, we must understand and abide by nature's rules. Man thinks of himself as intelligent and much more evolved than animals, but the truth is that he has about as much understanding of the universe as moss growing on an apple. Most people find it difficult acknowledging they don’t know things, which causes them to spend too much time wrestling with questions that won’t be answered and/or coming up with wrong answers (which is worse than recognizing one doesn’t know the answer). For example, asking questions like “what is it all for” and expecting to come up with the answer is like expecting a crab to understand the meaning of the universe. It’s also not all that important to have the answers in order do what you need to do. All other species manage to pursue their self-interests, contribute to evolution and evolve without having a clue of how the whole thing works. They are virtually perfect and perfectly doing their jobs without knowing how they fit into the scheme of things.

4 To be more precise, I believe that this desire to evolve occurs only after we have taken care of our survival needs.

5 Of course, we are often satisfied with the same things – relationships, careers, etc.—but when that is the case, it is typically because we are getting new enjoyments from the new dimensions of these things.

6 The marginal benefits of moving from a shortage to an abundance of anything decline.

something new, or seeking new depths of something old, is required to bring us satisfaction. For this reason I believe that it is the evolutionary process that occurs through the sequence of 1) seeking new things (goals), 2) working and learning in the process of pursuing these goals, 3) obtaining these goals and 4) then doing this over and over again, that creates personal evolution and fulfills most of us. And I believe that it is this process that moves society forward.

So, based on how I observe reality working, it seems that what is most rewarded (therefore what is “good”) are those things that are in harmony with the laws of the universe (i.e., reality) and that contribute to its evolution. Similarly, it seems that what is punished (and is “bad”) are those things that are at odds with the laws of the universe and impede its evolution. Look at all species in action: they are constantly pursuing their own interests and helping evolution in a symbiotic way. Like the hyenas attacking the wildebeest, successful people might not even know if or how their pursuit of self-interest helps society, but it typically does.

Along these lines, I believe that self-interest and society’s interests are generally symbiotic – e.g., I observe that society typically rewards those who give it what it wants and penalizes those who operate inconsistently with those wants.7 If you give society what it wants, you practically can’t help getting rewarded. That is why how much money people have earned is a rough measure of how much they gave society what it wanted. It’s also why most people who have made a lot of money typically never made making a lot of money their primary goal. Instead, they typically engaged in the game or craft of what they were doing, got very good at it and society rewarded them because it valued what they were doing. In other words, I believe that the way “reality” generally works is that it is the pursuit of self-interest that motivates people to push themselves to do the difficult things that are required to produce what society wants, and society rewards those who give it what it wants. That is why self-interest is a far more powerful force for good than mercy and charity, though mercy and charity are certainly natural and beneficial forces in some cases.8

As Darwin described, adaptation – i.e., adjusting appropriately to changes in one’s circumstances – is a big part of this evolutionary process.9 That is why some of the most successful people are typically those who see the changing landscape and identify how to best adapt to it.10 So the classic process for achieving success is trying to give society what it wants in order to gain its rewards in return.

This does not pertain just to moving forward; it also relates to dealing with setbacks. Inevitably one encounters major and painful setbacks. Those who have the ability to successfully adapt to setbacks will also be rewarded.

So what is success? It is nothing more than getting what you want. It is up to you to decide what that is for you. However, for most people success is evolving as effectively as possible – i.e., learning about oneself and one’s environment and then changing to improve. Personally,I believe that personal evolution is both the greatest accomplishment and the greatest reward.11

7 I want to be clear that I am referring to what the society wants as distinct from what is good for it. For example, over the short run, it often penalizes those who give it what is good for it, though society will pay a penalty for that, and the evolutionary process will continue by paying these consequences and then adjusting.

8 Said differently, I find that relationships are generally far more symbiotic than sympathetic. In some cases, though, such as parents taking care of their offspring, the reverse is the case, and I believe this is good. Still, mercy and charity are also rewarding, especially for people who have evolved beyond their basic needs and their superficial selfishness. However, only a small percentage of the population has reached this state, which is why self-interest is a more powerful force.

9 Darwin said “It’s not the strongest species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but those most able to adapt.”

10 Your ability to see the changing landscape and adapt is more a function of your perceptive and reasoning abilities than your ability to learn and process quickly.

11 It also seems to me that, for most people, happiness is much more determined by how things turn out relative to your expectations rather than the absolute level of your conditions. For example, if a billionaire loses $200 million he will probably be unhappy while if someone who is worth $10 thousand unexpectedly gets another $2 thousand, he will probably be happy. This basic principle means that you can follow one of two paths to happiness: 1) have high expectations and strive to exceed them; or 2) lower your expectations so that they are at or below your conditions. For those who choose the first path, which is most of us, there is another principle that’s worth keeping in mind. As Freud pointed out, meaningful work and meaningful relationships are the two main components for a happy life. The work doesn’t necessarily have to be a job, though I believe it’s generally better if it is a job. It can be any kind of long-term challenge that leads to your personal improvement. As you might have guessed, I believe that the need to have meaningful work is connected to man’s innate desire to improve. And relationships are the natural connections to others that make us relevant to society.

Chapter 2 – How to Get What You Want

Life consists of an enormous number of choices that come at us, and each choice has consequences, so the quality of our lives depends on the quality of the choices we make. We aren’t born with the

ability to make good choices; we learn it. The way life literally works is that we all start off as children with others, typically parents, directing us. But, as we get older, we increasingly make our own choices. Most importantly, we choose what we are going after (i.e., our goals), which influence our directions. For

example, if you want to be a doctor, you go to med school; if you want to have a family, you find a mate, and so on. As we move toward our goals, we encounter reality. Most importantly, we encounter problems, make mistakes and run into personal weaknesses. Above all else, how we choose to approach these impediments determines how fast we move toward our goals. Wrestling with these problems, mistakes and weaknesses is the training that strengthens us. It is also the pain of this wrestling that makes us appreciate our successes. People who make the most of the process of encountering reality, especially the painful obstacles, learn more and get what they want faster than

people who do not. Along the way, our skills and preferences change. It is a rare person who goes after the same things late life as they went after early in life. However, the core values and abilities 12 that influence the things that they go after typically do not change much.

I believe that is how reality works: We make our dreams into realities by constantly engaging with reality in pursuit of our dreams and by using these encounters to learn more about reality itself and how to interact with it in order to get what we want. So, I believe that if you are determined in the pursuit of your dreams, and if you learn from your encounters with reality, you will almost certainly have a successful life .13

In other words…

However, there a few big differences in the approaches people use to make decisions that radically affect their effectiveness. These differences don’t have anything to do with one’s abilities. In fact, for reasons explained in the next chapter, they are far more important than abilities in determining one’s success. The following decision trees show these choices. Those who don’t move effectively to their goals do the things on the top branches and those who move to them most quickly do the things on the bottom branches:

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Ones values and abilities are determined by ones genetics and environment. In the early years, the environment is determined by the parents (or other care giver) and in later years it is determined by the individual. However, by the time one gets to make one’s own choices, the way they are made will be heavily influenced by the environmental and genetic influences that came before. That new learning and new choices can’t be made, because they certainly will be made, especially if one approaches them well. I just mean that the momentums behind these choices are set by the time one has the opportunity to direct one’s own life. 13 For me a successful life is getting the most of what I want out of life, which means evolving as fast as possible in learning what I want and how to get it. Because I want to evolve as fast as possible and because I believe that there are valuable lessons in all experiences, I view all – the painful ones as well as the enjoyable ones – as rich in what they have to offer me. Reality

Dreams

Determination

A Successful Life

+

=

+

People who worry about looking good hide what they don’t know and hide their weaknesses, so they never learn how to properly deal with them so that they aren’t a problem in the future. As a result, their impediments remain impediments .14 These people typically try to prove that they have the answers, even when they really don’t. They typically believe the silly but common view that great people are those who have the answers in their heads and don’t have weaknesses. Not only does this view not square with reality, but also it stands in the way of progress. The truth is that 1) great people don’t have their greatness in them; they constantly learn and earn their greatness; 2) the amounts of knowledge and the capabilities that anyone does not have, and that could be used to make the best possible decisions, are vastly greater than that which anyone could have within them; and 3) successful people have weaknesses like everyone else – they have just learned how to deal with them so that they aren’t impediments to getting what they want.

By contrast, people who are interested in making the best possible decisions rarely are confident they have the best possible answers, so they seek to learn more (often by exploring the thinking of other believable people, especially those who disagree with them) and they are eager to identify their

weaknesses so that they don’t let these weaknesses stand in the way of them achieving their goals. In other words, people who get what they want out of life make better decisions because they are not defensive about not knowing or defensive about their weaknesses, so they 1) are more open to learning, 2) access the vast resources that can help them make better decisions, and 3) create successful strategies for making their weaknesses irrelevant.

It is a fundamental law of nature that one has to push one’s limits, which is painful, in order to gain strength – whether it’s in the form of lifting weights, facing problems head-on or in any other way. Nature gave us pain as a messaging device to tell us that we are approaching, or that we have exceeded, our limits in some way. At the same time, nature made the process of getting stronger require us to push our limits this way. Gaining strength is the adaptation process of the body and the mind to encountering one’s limits, which is painful. In other words, both pain and strength typically result from encountering one’s barriers. When we encounter pain, we are at an important juncture in our decision-making process.

Most people react to the pain badly. They have “fight or flight” reactions to it – they either strike out at

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For example, if you are dumb or ugly, you are unlikely to acknowledge it, even though doing so would help you better deal with that reality. Recognizing such “harsh realities” is both very painful and very productive. … Allow pain to stand in the way of their progress .

… Understand how to manage pain to produce progress.

GOOD

BAD …Worry about appearing good. …Worry about achieving the goal.

whatever brought them the pain or they try run away it. As a result, they don’t find ways around their

barriers, and so they encounter them over and over again and make little or no progress toward what they want.15 However, those who react well to the pain standing in the way of getting to their goals – those who understand what is causing it and how to deal with it so that it can be disposed of as a barrier – gain strength and satisfaction. For example, most learning comes from making mistakes, reflecting on the causes of the mistakes and learning what to do differently in the future, but most people find making mistakes painful, so they let the pain that comes from making mistakes and encountering one’s

weaknesses cloud their objectivity. As a result, they don’t learn and progress toward what they really want. Believe it or not, you are lucky to feel the pain if you approach it correctly, because it will signal you that you need to find solutions and to progress. People who recognize that pain is an important signal and reflect deeply on the causes of the pain in order to understand the signals will resolve their dilemmas and move toward achieving their dreams more quickly than those who do not . Since the only way you are going to find solutions to painful problems is by thinking deeply about them – i.e., reflecting 16 – if you can develop a knee-jerk reaction to pain that is to reflect rather than to fight or flee, it will lead to your rapid learning/evolving.17

So, remember that:

Pain + Reflection = Progress

People who confuse what they wish were true with what is really true create distorted pictures of reality that make it impossible for them to make the best choices. They typically do this because facing “harsh realities” can be very difficult. However, by not facing these harsh realities, they don’t find ways of

properly dealing with them. In contrast, people who know that understanding what is real is the first step toward optimally dealing with it make better decisions . So remember…

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There are literally two different parts of each person’s brain that influence these reactions: the pre-frontal cortex and the

amygdala. They work as though they were two different brains that fight for control of decision making. The pre-frontal cortex is the logical part of the brain that evaluates choices logically and the amygdala is the “animal instinct” part of the brain that triggers

emotional reactions like the instinct to fight or flee. When faced with an obstacle or threat, an emotional reaction (e.g., pain) can be triggered that can lead to a fight or flight reaction that “hijacks” decision making away from the pre-frontal cortex, where the rational choices are being made. This can result in our making decisions that produce consequences that we do not want. This typically causes really big problems . 16 Your very unique power of reflectiveness – i.e., your ability to look at yourself, the world around you and the relationship between you and the world – means that you can think deeply and weigh subtle things to come up with learning and wise choices in a way that few people can. Asking other believable people about the root causes of your pain in order to enhance your reflections is typically very helpful. 17 If you can reflect deeply about your problems, they almost always shrink or disappear, because you almost always find a better way of dealing with them than if you don’t face them head on. The more difficult the problem, the more important it is that you think hard about it and deal with it. After seeing how effectively facing reality – especially your problems, mistakes and weaknesses – works, you will become comfortable with it and won’t want to operate any other way. I also believe that one of the best ways of getting at truth is reflecting with others who have opposing views and who share your interest in finding the truth rather than being proven right. …Avoid facing “harsh realities”.

…Face “harsh realities”.

GOOD BAD

…ask yourself: Is it true?

…because knowing what is true is good.

When making a decision it is important to consider all of the important consequences in light of your goals. Yet, it is common for people to overweigh the first order consequences and ignore the 2nd and subsequent order consequences. Since the1st order consequences often have opposite desirabilities from 2nd order consequences, this can cause big mistakes in decision making. For example, the 1st order consequences of exercise (e.g., pain and time-sink) are commonly considered undesirable, while the 2nd order consequences (better health and more attractive appearance) are desirable. Similarly, food that tastes good is often bad for you and vice versa, etc. Quite often the 1st order consequences are the temptations that cost us what we really want and sometimes they are barriers that stand in our way of getting what we want. It’s almost as though the natural selection process sorts us by throwing us trick choices that have both types of consequences and penalizing the dummies who make their decisions just on the basis of the first order consequences. People who choose what they really want, and

avoid the temptations and get over the pains that drive them away from what they really want, are much more likely to have successful lives.

Blaming bad outcomes on anyone or anything other than oneself is both incorrect and subversive to one’s progress . It is incorrect because bad things come at everyone, and it is your challenge and test to successfully deal with whatever comes at you. Blaming bad outcomes on anyone or anything other than one’s self is essentially wishing that reality is different than it is, which is silly. It is also subversive because it diverts one’s attention away from mustering up the personal strength and other qualities that are required to get one to produce the best possible outcomes. Remember, nature is testing you, and it is not sympathetic.

As you can see, most of the impediments to success are emotional. Ego is the biggest single one,

though not all of them are due to ego. In a nutshell, what I am saying is that you can probably get what you want out of life if you can suspend your ego and take a no-excuses approach to achieving your goals with open-mindedness, determination and courage. Because I believe this, I believe that …Make their decisions on the basis of 1st order consequences.

…Make their decisions on the basis of 1st , 2nd and 3rd order consequences.

GOOD BAD …Don’t hold themselves accountable.…Hold themselves accountable.GOOD

BAD

whether or not I achieve my goals is a test of what I am made of. It is a game that I play, but this game is for real. In the next chapter I explain how I go about playing it.

As mentioned, I don’t believe that limited abilities are a barrier to achieving your goals, if you do the other things right. That is because I believe that this barrier, like all other barriers, won’t stand in your way if you know that it exists and have a plan for getting around it. We will explore this in the next chapter.

As always, it is up to you to ask yourself if what I am saying is true.

Chapter 3 – My 5-Step Process

Over the years, through trial and error and lots of reflection, I have developed a systematic process for getting what I want. Like the rest of what I discuss here, you need to decide for yourself if what I describe makes sense. I can however say that this framework has been the basis of any success I’ve had.

There are five things that you have to do to get what you want. First, you have to choose your goals, which will determine your direction. Then you have to design a plan to achieve your goals. On the way to your goals, you will encounter obstacles or problems. This is the juncture in decision making that throws most people off. At this stage, your challenge is to make the choices that will get you beyond your problems in order to achieve your goals. As mentioned, these problems typically cause pain. You will either react badly to the pain or react like a ninja problem solver. That is your choice. To figure out how to get around these problems you must be calm and analytical to accurately diagnose your problems. Only after you have an accurate diagnosis of them can you design a plan that will get you around them. Then you have to do the tasks specified in the plan. Through this process of encountering problems and figuring out how to get around them, you will become progressively more capable and achieve your goals more easily. Then you will set bigger, more challenging goals, in the same way that someone who works with weights naturally increases the poundage. This is the process of personal evolution.

“The Process” consists of five distinct steps:

1) Know what you want; i.e., have clear goals.

2) Identify and do not tolerate the problems that stand in the way of achieving your goals.

3) Accurately diagnose these problems.

4) Design plans that explicitly lay out tasks that will get you around your problems and

on to your goals.

5) Implement these plans – i.e., do these tasks.

You need to do all of these well in order to be successful. Before discussing these individual steps, I want to make a few general points about the process.

1) You must approach these as distinct steps rather than blur them together. For example,

when setting goals, just set goals (don’t think how you will achieve them or the other steps);

when diagnosing problems, just diagnose problems (don’t think about how you will solve them

or the other steps). Blurring the steps leads to suboptimal outcomes because it creates

confusion and short-changes the individual steps. Doing each step thoroughly will provide

information that will help you do the other steps well, since the process is iterative.

2) Each of these five steps requires different talents and disciplines. Most probably, you

have lots of some of these and inadequate amounts of others. If you are missing any of the

required talents and disciplines, that is not an insurmountable problem because you can

acquire them, supplement them, or compensate for not having them, if you recognize your

weaknesses and design around them. So you must be honestly self-reflective.

3) You must approach this process in a very clear-headed, rational way rather than

emotionally.

To help you do these things well – and stay centered and effective rather than stressed and thrown off by your emotions – try this: Treat life like a game or a martial art. These require you to figure out how to get around your challenges on the way to your goals. In the process of playing the game or practicing martial arts, you become more skilled. As you get better, you will progress to ever higher levels of the game that will require – and teach you – greater skills. I will explain what these skills are in the next section. However, the big and really great news is that you don’t need to have all of these skills to succeed! You just have to 1) know they are needed; 2) know you don’t have some of them; and 3) figure out how to get them (i.e., either learn them or work with others who have them).

This game will challenge you in ways that will be uncomfortable at times. But if you work through this discomfort and reflect on it in order to learn, you will get what you want. By and large, life will give you what you deserve and it doesn’t give a damn what you “like.” So it is up to you to connect what you want with what you need to do to get it and you then need do those things so that you’ll then deserve to get what you want.

That’s just the way it is, so you might as well accept it. Once you accept that playing the game will be uncomfortable, and you do it for a while, it will become much easier (like it is in getting fit) and when you excel at it, you will find your ability to get what you want thrilling. You’ll see that excuses like “that’s not easy” are of no value and that it pays to “push through it” at a pace you can handle. Like getting physically fit, the most important thing is that you keep moving forward at whatever pace you choose, recognizing the consequences of your actions. When you think that it’s too hard, realize that doing the things that will make you successful is a lot easier than being unsuccessful. With practice, you will eventually play this game like a ninja, with skill and a calm centeredness in the face of adversity that will let you handle most of your numerous challenges well. However, you will never handle them all well18 and there is no end to learning how to play the game better.

That’s basically the whole concept. Please pause and reflect on this before moving on. What follows is a closer examination of each of the five steps. You should not proceed until you agree with this basic concept. If you have doubts, speak to me or others about it. Either you will get comfortable with it and internalize it; or you will point out something that is wrong, and the concept will get better.

The 5 Steps Close Up…

1) Setting Goals

Knowing what you want is the first and most important step to setting goals because it will determine what you get out of life – and what you want to get out of life will be an expression of your fundamental values. This means that setting goals is typically the most difficult step because it forces you to decide on what you really want. You can have virtually anything you want, but you can't have everything you want. Life is like a giant smorgasbord of more delicious alternatives than you can ever taste.19 Because there are too many great alternatives to pursue, in order to be successful, you have to reject having some things you want in order to get other things you want more.20 And you can have an enormous amount: much, much more than what you need to have a happy life.21 So don’t get discouraged by not being able to have everything you want and, for God’s sake, don’t be paralyzed by the choices. That’s nonsensical and unproductive. Get on with making your choices.22

Put another way: To achieve your goals you have to prioritize – and that includes rejecting good alternatives (so that you have the time and resources to pursue even better ones).23

18 When you make mistakes, it is important to recognize that a certain number are inevitable. Think of every decision like playing a poker hand and focus on what the right way to make that decision so that you have the highest possible percentage of winning decisions. Because you will have an enormous number of decisions to make, there will be plenty of opportunities to build a track record. The outcome of your life will depend on the track record you build over all of these decisions.

19 Because the selection is so great, it doesn't really matter if some things are unavailable to you. That is why many people who had major losses – e.g. who lost their abilities to walk, to see, etc. – and who didn't, narrow-mindedly obsess about their loss but rather open-mindedly saw and enjoyed what remained, had equally happy lives as those who didn't ever have these losses.

20 Time is probably your greatest limiting factor, though, through leverage, you can substantially reduce time’s constraints.

21 Recognize that you don’t really need much and that one step above your needs are numerous sources of enjoyment. So it’s silly to let your attachments to certain things make you unhappy when you can have many other wonderful things. For example, don’t get depressed or stressed if your car gets scratched. With this perspective, you will enjoy life more and can more readily take the chances and accept the setbacks that are required for extraordinary success.

22 (a) It’s really silly to get stressed and be unhappy because you have to choose between great alternatives. (b) Life offers you an infinite number of ways to be happy so that, if one or a few of them are closed to you – i.e., you can't have your first or second choice - that doesn't matter at all, because you have so many other great ones to choose from.

23 Many people find rejecting good alternatives difficult and fail because they pursue too many goals at the same time, so they achieve none or few of them.

In setting your goals, it is important not to confuse “goals” and “desires.” Since both are things that you want, they’re often confused. Goals are the things that you really want, while desires are things you want that can prevent you from reaching your goals. As previously explained, desires are typically first order consequences. For example, a goal might be physical fitness, while the urge to eat good-tasting, unhealthy food is a desire (i.e., a 1st order consequence) that could undermine you obtaining your fitness goal. So, goals are good and desires are bad, in light of how you assess the consequences.24 Don’t get me wrong; since there are just choices and consequences, I believe you can choose any goal you want as long as you consider the consequences. So, staying with this example, it is perfectly okay for you to make your goal to enjoy eating good-tasting, unhealthy food if that choice will bring you what you really want, in full consideration of the consequences. Failing to make the distinction between goals and desires will lead you in the wrong direction, because you will be inclined to pursue things you want that will undermine your ability to get things you want more. Another common reason people fail at this stage is that they lose sight of their goals, getting caught up in day-to-day tasks.

Avoid setting goals based on what you think you can achieve. It's foolish to rule out goals due to a superficial assessment of their attainability. Once you commit to a goal, it might take lots of thinking and many revisions to your plan over considerable time in order to finalize the design and do the tasks to achieve it. So you need to set goals without yet assessing whether or not you can achieve them. This requires some faith that you really can achieve virtually anything,25 even if you don't know how you will do it at that moment. Initially you have to have faith that this is true, but after following this process and succeeding at achieving your goals, you will gain confidence. If you like, you can start with more modest goals and, when you build up the track record to give you faith, increase your aspirations.

Every time I set goals, I don't yet have any idea how I am going to achieve them because I haven't yet gone through the process of thinking through them. But I have learned that I can achieve them, if I think cleverly and work hard.26 I also know that I can “cheat”: – i.e., I can ask others for answers or even ask them to do the things I don’t do well. So if I fail, it just tells me that I am either not clever enough or committed enough to do what it takes to achieve the goal. That no-excuses approach helps me do whatever it takes to get whatever I want most. It also means that the goals I set tend to be higher than they would otherwise be. Since trying to achieve high goals makes me better at it, I become more capable of achieving more. Of course, not all goals are achievable. There are some impossibilities or near-impossibilities (living forever, flying with just the power of your arms), but almost all goals are attainable.

Remember that achieving your goals isn’t just about moving forward; it also requires you to deal with set-backs. So goals aren’t just those things that you want and don’t have. They might also be keeping what you have, minimizing your rate of loss, or dealing with irrevocable loss. Life will throw you challenges, some of which will seem devastating at the time. Your goal is always to make the best possible choices, knowing that you will be rewarded if you do. It’s like playing golf: sometimes you will be in the fairway and sometimes you will be in the rough, so you have to know how to play it as it lies.

Generally speaking, goal-setting is best done by those who are good at big picture, conceptual thinking, synthesizing, visualizing and prioritizing. Don’t forget the big and really great news here, though: It is not essential that you have all of these qualities yourself, because you can supplement them with the help of others.

24 Some societies define evil to be the desires that can take you away from your goals. I think that this is a good way of seeing the difference between goals, which are good; and desires, which are bad. That doesn’t mean I don’t think that there is room for desires (or a little “bad”), but I do think that the kind of desires that divert you from your goals should be avoided at all cost.

25 This might sound inconsistent with the previous point that you can’t have everything. It’s not. I am saying that, at this stage of goal setting, don’t set your goals based on what you think you can achieve. In the process of doing the other four steps (especially designing) you will thoroughly think through what is possible. Then you will circle back and enter the goal-setting mode again. As mentioned, this five-step process is iterative, but it must be pursued one step at a time in order to do each step excellently.

26 The cleverer I am, the less hard I have to work.

In summary, in order to get what you want, the first step is to really know what you want, without limiting yourself because of some imagined impediments that haven't been properly analyzed.

2) Identifying and Not Tolerating Problems

After you set your goals, you must come up with a plan or a design to achieve them and then you must execute that plan by doing the tasks. On the way to achieving your goals and executing your design, you encounter problems that have to be diagnosed, so that the design can be modified to get around these obstacles. That’s why you need to identify and not tolerate problems.

Whenever a problem surfaces, you have in front of you an opportunity to improve. Most problems are potential improvements screaming at you. The more painful they are, the louder they are screaming27. In order to be successful, you have to 1) perceive problems and 2) not tolerate them.

If you don’t identify your problems, you won’t solve them, so you won’t move forward toward achieving your goals. As a result, it is essential to bring problems to the surface. For various reasons, most people don’t like to do this. But most successful people know that they have to seek them out and eliminate them.

Some of the most common reasons people don’t successfully identify their problems are: ?They can be unpleasant to look at so people often subconsciously put them “out of sight,”

so they will be “out of mind.”

?Thinking about problems that are difficult to solve can produce anxiety.

? People often avoid recognizing that their own mistakes and/or weaknesses are causing the problems. This aversion to seeing one’s own mistakes and weaknesses typically occurs

because they’re viewed as deficiencies you’re stuck with rather than as essential parts of the

personal evolution process.

?Sometimes people are simply not perceptive enough to see the problems.

?Some people are unable to distinguish big problems from small ones. Since nothing is perfect, it is possible to identify an infinite number of problems everywhere. If you are unable

to distinguish the big problems from the little ones, you can’t “successfully” (i.e., in a practical

way) identify problems.

The most powerful antidote for all of these impediments is to have others point them out to you and objectively consider whether what they identify is true.28 Remember that you don’t have to be good at any of these steps (in this case, identifying problems) to be successful, if you get help from others, so push through the pain of facing your problems, knowing you will end up in a much better place.

At this stage of the process – identifying problems – it is important to remain centered and logical. People often react emotionally to their problems and the pain these problems cause, they seek sympathy, or blame others, all of which accomplishes nothing.29 Whatever the reasons, you have to get over these impediments to succeed. Remember that the pains you are feeling are “growing pains” that will test your character and will reward you if you push through them. Try to look at your problems as a detached observer would. Remember that identifying problems is like finding gems embedded in puzzles; if you solve the puzzles you will get the gems that will make your life much better. Doing this

27 Though I’ve said it before, it’s worth saying again: I understand that recognizing harsh realities can be extremely painful. But I’ve learned that if you can stare hard at your problems, they almost always shrink or disappear, because you almost always find a better way of dealing with them than if you don’t face them head on. The more difficult the problem, the more important it is that you stare at it and deal with it. After seeing how effectively facing reality – especially your problems, mistakes and weaknesses – works, you will become comfortable with it and won’t want to operate any other way.I also believe that one of the best ways of getting at truth is reflecting with others who have opposing views and who share your interest in finding the truth rather than being proven right.

28 There are also other antidotes that we will delve into in the next sections of these principles.

29 This is typically because they let their emotions control their behavior and/or they haven’t learned how to deal with their problems.

continuously will lead to your rapid evolution. So, if you’re logical, you really should get excited about finding problems because identifying them will bring you closer to your goals.

Be very precise in specifying your problems because that will make it easier to come up with accurate diagnoses and successful solutions. For example, rather than saying something like “people don’t like me,” it is better to specify which people don’t like you and under what circumstances. Also, don’t confuse problems with causes. For example, “I can’t get enough sleep” is not a problem; it is a cause of some problem. What exactly is that problem? To avoid confusing the problem with its causes, try to identify the sub-optimal outcome, e.g., “I am performing badly in my job because I am tired.”

Once you identify your problems, you must not tolerate them. Tolerating problems has the same result as not identifying them (i.e., both stand in the way of getting past the problem), but it has different root causes. Tolerating problems might be due to not thinking that they can be solved, or not caring enough about solving them.30 People who tolerate problems are the worst off because, without the motivation to move on, they cannot succeed. In other words, if you are motivated, you can succeed even if you don’t have the abilities because you can get the help from others. But if you’re not motivated to succeed, the situation is hopeless.

People who tend to be best at this step of dealing with problems have strong abilities to perceive and synthesize a clear and accurate picture, as well as demonstrate a fierce intolerance of badness (regardless of the severity).

Remember that you need to do each step – in this case, identifying and not tolerating problems – independently from other steps. Only when you are done, should you go to the next step. You will have made great progress if you can comfortably identify your problems without thinking about how to solve them. It is a good exercise to just list them without thinking about what to do about them. Only after you have created a clear picture of them should you go to the next step.

3) Diagnosing the Problems

It is a very common mistake for people to move directly from identifying a tough problem to a proposed solution in a nanosecond without spending the hours required to properly diagnose and design a solution. This typically yields bad decisions that don’t alleviate the problem. People would be much more effective if they could focus on diagnosis and design rather than jumping to solutions. Diagnosing and designing are what spark strategic thinking.

As mentioned, problems are like puzzles with embedded gems – i.e., lessons for the future that you will be able to apply in the future – that you get if you can solve the problems. Solving problems makes you progressively better at it, so dealing with them is essential for your training. Because life will inevitably raise lots of problems, becoming a good problem-solver will greatly help you get what you want from life. You must be calm and logical when diagnosing problems. Reacting emotionally, though sometimes difficult to avoid, can undermine your effectiveness as a decision-maker. By contrast, staying rational will serve you well. So if you are finding yourself shaken by your problems, do what you can to get yourself centered before moving forward.

You must diagnose your problems as accurately as possible.

You must get at the root causes. Root causes, like principles, are things that manifest themselves over and over again as the deep-seated reasons behind the actions that cause problems. So you will get many everlasting dividends if you can find them and properly deal with them. It is important to distinguish root causes – which speak to the personal qualities that lead to action or inaction – from what I call

30 Not caring to solve problems often occurs when the expected reward is less than the expected cost. For example, when someone is working toward someone else’s goals without being well supervised, well rewarded or well punished.

proximate causes, which are more superficial reasons for what happened. For example, a proximate cause is typically the action or lack of action that led to the problem – e.g., “I missed the train because I didn’t check the train schedule.” By contrast, the root cause tells us the deeper “why” behind it: “I didn’t check the schedule because I am forgetful” – a root cause). Typically a proximate cause is the action or the lack of action that led to the problem (e.g., “I didn’t check the schedule.”) while a root cause is the quality that led to that action or inaction (e.g., “I am forgetful.”).

Identifying the real root causes of your problems is essential because you can eliminate your problems only by removing their root causes. In other words, you must understand, accept and successfully deal with reality.

Many problems are caused by people’s mistakes. So recognizing and learning from one’s own mistakes and the mistakes of others who affect the outcomes are critical to eliminating our problems. As mentioned, most learning comes from making mistakes and learning from the pain of them (putting your hand on the hot stove). But people often find it very difficult to identify and accept their own mistakes. Sometimes it’s because they’re blind to them, but more often it’s because ego and shortsightedness make discovering their mistakes and weaknesses painful. Because people are often upset when their mistakes are pointed out to them, most people are reluctant to point out mistakes in others. As a result, an objective diagnosis of problems arising from people’s mistakes is often missing and personal evolution is stunted. It is at this stage that most people fail to progress. More than anything else, what differentiates people who live up to their potential from those who don’t is a willingness to look at themselves and others objectively.

I call the pain that comes from looking at yourself and others objectively “growing pains,” because it is the pain that accompanies personal growth. No pain, no gain. Of course these “growing pains” are illogical to anyone who really understands that no one is perfect and that these discoveries are essential for personal growth. For them, these discoveries elicit “growing pleasures.” But it seems to be in our nature to overly focus on short-term gratification rather than long-term satisfaction, so this connection doesn’t come naturally. However, if you can make the connection between this behavior and the rewards it brings, such moments will begin to elicit pleasure rather than pain. It is similar to how exercise eventually becomes pleasurable for people who hardwire the connection between exercise and its benefits. Remember that:

Pain + Reflection = Progress

This is a reality that you should just accept and deal with. There is no getting around the fact that achieving success requires getting at the root causes of all important problems, and people’s mistakes and weaknesses are sometimes the root causes. So to be successful, you must be willing to look at your own behavior and the behavior of others as possible causes of problems.

When people cause problems, the root causes are typically the fact that someone has not yet learned how to do a good job (i.e., a lack of training and/or experience) or that they have innate weaknesses that can’t be successfully overcome with training and/or experience. When diagnosing the root cause of people problems it is important to try to determine which is the case, because each has different solutions. Problems due to inadequate learning might best be solved with training, whereas those arising from innate weaknesses should probably be overcome with assistance or role changes. It doesn’t matter which is the case; it only matters that the true cause is identified and appropriately addressed.31

31 Though some people get upset when they learn that they’re weak at some things, that doesn’t make sense. These people are typically too worried about how good they are so that they don’t recognize that understanding their impediments is essential to getting around them. They also typically don’t understand that everyone has weaknesses and that “successful people” (i.e., those who get what they want out of life) often have as many or as severe weaknesses as anyone else. The difference is they developed effective ways around their weaknesses. Once they did, their weaknesses didn’t bother them.

Of course, some problems aren’t caused by people making mistakes. For example, if lightening strikes, it causes problems that have nothing to do with human error. All problems need to be well diagnosed before deciding what to do about them.

The most important qualities for successfully diagnosing problems are logic, the ability to see multiple possibilities, and the willingness to touch people’s nerves to overcome the ego barriers that stand in the way of truth.

4) Designing the Plan (Determining the Solutions)

In some cases, you might go from setting goals to designing the plans that will get you to these goals; while in other cases, you will encounter problems on the way to your goals and have to design your way around them. So design will occur at both stages of the process, though it will occur much more often in figuring out how to get around problems. In other words, most of the movement toward your goals comes from designing how to remove the root causes of your problems. Problems are great because they are very specific impediments, so you know that you will move forward if you can identify and eliminate their root causes.

Creating a design is like writing a movie script in that you visualize who will do what through time in order to achieve the goal. It is a practical, creative act in which you need to visualize the goal or problem standing in your way, and then visualize practical solutions. When designing solutions, the objective is to change how you do things so that problems don’t reoccur – or reoccur so often. Think about each problem individually, and as the product of root causes – like the outcomes produced by a machine. Then think about how the machine should be changed to produce good outcomes rather than bad ones. There are typically many paths toward achieving your goals, and you only need to find one of them that works, so it shouldn't be too tough. But it requires thinking things through and visualizing how things will come together and unfold over time. It’s essential to visualize the story of where you have been (or what you have done) that has led you to where you are now and what will happen sequentially in the future to lead you to your goals. You should visualize this plan through time, like watching a movie that connects your past, present and future.

Then write down the plan so you don't lose sight of it and include who needs to do what and when. The list of tasks falls out from this story (i.e., the plan), but they are not the same. The story, or plan, is what connects your goals to the tasks. For you to succeed, you must not lose sight of the goals or the story while focusing on the tasks; you must constantly refer back and forth.

When designing your plan, think about the timelines of various interconnected tasks. Sketch them out loosely and then refine them with the specific tasks. This is an iterative process, alternating between sketching out your broad steps (e.g., hire great people), then filling these in with more specific tasks with estimated timelines (e.g., in the next two weeks choose the headhunters to find the great people) which will have implications (e.g., costs, time, etc.). These will lead you to modify your design sketch until the design and tasks work well together. Being as specific as possible (e.g., specifying who will do what and when) allows you to visualize how the design will work at both a big picture level and in detail. It will also give you and others the to-do lists and target dates that will help direct you.

Of course, not all plans will accomplish everything you want in the desired time frame. In such cases, it is essential that you look at what won’t be accomplished and ask yourself if the consequences are acceptable or unacceptable. This is where perspective is required, and discussing it with others can be critical. If the plan will not achieve what’s necessary in the required time, so that the consequences have an unacceptably high probability of preventing you from achieving your goal, you have to either think harder (probably with the advice of other knowledgeable people) to make the plan do what is required or reduce your goals.

It doesn’t take much time to design a good plan – literally just hours spread out over days or weeks – and whatever amount of time you spend designing it will be only a small fraction of the time you spend executing it. But designing is very important because it determines what you will do to be effective. Most people make the very big mistake of spending virtually no time on this step because they are too preoccupied with execution.

People successful with this stage have an ability to visualize and a practical understanding of how things really work. Remember you don’t have to possess all these qualities if you have someone to help you with the ones you are missing.

Remember: Designing precedes doing!!!! The design will give you your to-do list (i.e., the tasks).

5) Doing the Tasks

Next, you and the others you need to rely on have to do the tasks that will get you to your goals. Great planners who don't carry out their plans go nowhere. You need to “push through” to accomplish the goals. This requires the self-discipline to follow the script that is your design. I believe the importance of good work habits is vastly underrated. There are lots of books written about good work habits, so I won't digress into what I believe works. However, it is critical to know each day what you need to do and have the discipline to do it. People with good work habits have to-do lists that are reasonably prioritized, and they make themselves do what needs to be done. By contrast, people with poor work habits almost randomly react to the stuff that comes at them, or they can’t bring themselves to do the things they need to do but don't like to do (or are unable to do). There are lots of tools that can help (e.g., thank God for my Blackberry!)

You need to know whether you (and others) are following the plan, so you should establish clear benchmarks. Ideally you should have someone other than yourself objectively measure if you (and others) are doing what you planned. If not, you need to diagnose why and resolve the problem.

People who are good at this stage can reliably execute a plan. They tend to be self-disciplined and proactive rather than reactive to the blizzard of daily tasks that can divert them from execution. They are results-oriented: they love to push themselves over the finish line to achieve the goal. If they see that daily tasks are taking them away from executing the plan (i.e., they identify that problem), they diagnose it and design how they can deal with both the daily tasks and moving forward with the plan.

As with the other steps, if you aren’t good at this step, get help. There are many successful, creative people who are good at the other steps but who would have failed because they aren’t good at execution. But they succeeded nonetheless because of great symbiotic relationships with highly reliable task-doers. The Relationships Between These Steps

Designs and tasks have no purpose other than to achieve your goals. Said differently, goals are the sole purpose of designs and tasks. So you mustn’t forget how they’re related. Frequently I see people feel great about doing their tasks while failing to achieve their goals, which of course is silly because the only purpose of tasks is to achieve goals. In order to be successful, your goals must be riveted in your mind: They are the things you MUST do. To remember the connections between the tasks and the goals that they are meant to achieve, you just have to ask why. It is good to connect tasks to goals this way (with the “why”), because losing sight of the connections will prevent you from succeeding. I often see people fail to achieve their goals because, after setting their goals and determining the plan that specifies the tasks, they focus on doing the tasks and forget the goals.

Again, this 5-step process is iterative. This means that after completing one of the steps you will probably have acquired relevant information that leads you to modify the other steps.

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