Following Principles

Following principles is for me simply like following good recipes that get me what I want. However, when operating in a principled way one can see things from a higher level so that one wants to operate with a high standard of behavior. 

Principle Of The Day: Fail Well

Everyone fails. Anyone you see succeeding is only succeeding at the things you’re paying attention to—I guarantee they are also failing at lots of other things. The people I respect most are those who fail well. I respect them even more than those who succeed. 

That is because failing is a painful experience while succeeding is a joyous one, so it requires much more character to fail, change, and then succeed than to just succeed. People who are just succeeding must not be pushing their limits. Of course the worst are those who fail and don’t recognize it and don’t change.

You Must Stretch Yourself

It’s a basic law of nature: You must stretch yourself if you want to get strong. You and your people must act with each other like trainers in gyms in order to keep each other fit. Force yourself and the people who work for you to do difficult things.

Principle of the Day: Meaningful Work & Relationships

I asked if people were finding Principles useful in guiding them through this time and I was so glad that a large number of folks said they were. Over the next few weeks, I’d like to pass along some of the principles that people said they were finding most helpful.

Principle of the Day:

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.

Video: Principles For Success

Join me on a thought-provoking adventure in my new animated mini-series, Principles for Success. I've taken my book Principles, and distilled it into a 30 minute ultra mini series that focuses on the life principles that have helped me the most.

1+1=3

Two people who collaborate well will be about three times as effective as each of them operating independently, because each will see what the other might miss—plus they can leverage each other’s strengths while holding each other accountable to higher standards.

How Our Current Situation Compares To The 1930s

I want to clarify my comments from yesterday’s Ted Talks describing how our current situation compares to the 1930s. As I have often shared with you, I believe that that time period is the most analogous to what we’re seeing today.

Best Principles

I asked if people were finding Principles useful in guiding them through this time and I was so glad that a large number of folks said they were. Over the next few weeks, I’d like to pass along some of the principles that people said they were finding most helpful.

There is nothing more important than understanding how reality works and how to deal with it. The state of mind you bring to this process makes all the difference. I have found it helpful to think of my life as if it were a game in which each problem I face is a puzzle I need to solve. By solving the puzzle, I get a gem in the form of a principle that helps me avoid the same sort of problem in the future. Collecting these gems continually improves my decision making, so I am able to ascend to higher and higher levels of play in which the game gets harder and the stakes become ever greater.

Distinguishing Big Problems From Small Ones

You only have so much time and energy; make sure you are investing them in exploring the problems that, if fixed, will yield you the biggest results. But at the same time, make sure you spend enough time with the small problems to make sure they’re not symptoms of larger ones.

A New World Order

The last period of destroying and restructuring happened in 1930-45, which led to the new period of building that began in 1945. More specifically, the 1930-45 depression, which was due to the breakdown and restructuring of the money and credit system, led to the new US dollar-based global monetary system (Bretton Woods) that was created in 1944. The large wealth gaps that came about in the Roaring ’20s were narrowed by the depression and war, which led to radical changes in how wealth and power were distributed, and the global war changed world leadership and the world order.  

So, in 1945 there was a new beginning with a new money and credit system that was US dollar-based and a new world order that was the American world order. That new American world order was the natural consequence of the US being the richest country (it then had 80% of the world’s gold stock and gold was then money), the dominant economic power (it then accounted for half of world production), and the dominant military power (it then had a monopoly on nuclear weapons and had the strongest conventional forces). It is now 75 years later and conditions have evolved in a number of measurable ways that we will explore in subsequent chapters. That will bring us up to date. Then we can attempt to squint into the future.