For one to succeed, one must learn certain principles. Principles begin with values, one’s personal beliefs and wants. They serve as guide on how values can be translated into operational terms that could be applied in the real world or in real life. One can learn these principles from others or from organized religion. However, one must be able to understand the reasons why these principles exist in order to live them properly.
The starting point of knowing one’s values and finding out these principles begins with knowing oneself. One must know exactly what one’s wants and what one aspires to be. This is the starting point of everything.
It is also important to realize that no principles are invented or taken from thin air. These are part of a reality, of existence. They are an integral part of the natural law, the way how everything should exist, how everything in existence should behave. One needs to understand the laws of nature. This is the truth that a person should realize and accept before anything else.
Human beings are a part of nature. They are governed by the laws of nature, including the evolutionary process. People evolve through time; individuals evolve through life. People become better and stronger as a result of their experiences. Every experience—both good and bad—offers lessons that help people become better. People’s quality of life improves as a result the decisions they make.
Some experiences can be bad or painful. These experiences can teach one to become stronger. The improvement in a person’s life depends on the quality of decisions a person makes based on these experiences. One must always choose the action that would help him stand up again and move forward, and not those that would stall any action.
Dailo also mentions a five-step process into achieving one’s goals. The steps include: (1) define goals clearly; (2) identify potential and eliminate problems that can get in the way of the goals; (3) diagnose those problems correctly; (4) plan to get round the problems and to achieve goals; and, (5) implement the plans—act! These five steps seem to be at the core of Dailo’s formula for success. One must take care to do all of these steps, paying particular attention to every detail in every step.
Problems are not dead-stops; rather, these are meant to improving oneself. Weaknesses are also not obstacles. Precisely, among the reasons for accurately identifying the problems is to find ways round these weaknesses. Thus, part of planning to meet goals if identifying and finding solutions to problems.
These principles largely apply at the personal level. However, these can be converted to the group level and applied the same way. The group, however should agree on common values and principles upon which they can work together.
One acquires wisdom as one grows older and as gone through many experiences from which lesson should have been learned. Ray Dailo wrote this little book at a wise age of 60 years. Happily for him, he has learned how to accelerate the learning process and started to grow wise at much younger age, even before he went to college. Fortunately, one need not go through all the experiences that Dailo had gone through. One can grow wiser from the lessons that Dailo is sharing. For starters, one can learn to avoid crucial mistakes that he has suffered from.
Works Cited
Dalio, Ray. Principles. Westport: Bridgewater Associates LP, 2011. PDF. 9 Mar 2016. <http://www.bwater.com/Uploads/FileManager/Principles/Principles-By-Ray-Dalio.pdf>.
