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3.8 AVERAGE
3.8 AVERAGE
inspiring
medium-paced
Not so much principles for life, as a speech at a corporate business meeting. Stays in very generic, big picture lane, not much new or astounding, apart from”baseball cards” or whetever was the precise term they used, where each person has their weaknesses and strengths, avhievements and failures out in the open. Interesting idea, but not exactly revolutionary, since everybody had to come up with at least one fault/failure they have for an interview here and there. If you were to start reading this book for that idea alone, I’m afraid you will still come out unconvinced, s I failes to find a better argument in the book than „some people find they like it and some people dont” and „we found it very useful”. If you are looking to start your own business and you need some generic inspriing ideas of how to manage people or you are working for a boss who’s implementing strqtegies thqt qre presumqbely from this book, then you might find it useful, but I don’t see how much general public might consider it useful or interesting.
a very likable self-help book by a very likable author. I really liked what he said about how joy is about striving and struggling for a goal. I also like what he wrote about radical transparency . I wonder if people who believe in absolute political correctness would very much benefit from this.
informative
inspiring
Extraordinary. Not just another leadership book, but a series of insights (principles) into organizational design based on "radical transparency." Highly recommend.
Ok. Some of it I agreed with. Much would not work in my environment. Good overall.
informative
inspiring
slow-paced
challenging
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
How do you rate and review a book, that is both, (in my opinion) one of the best non-fictions out there and at the same time one of the most tedious reads ever?
The book contains three, more or less independent parts, so I will share my individual thoughts on each of them.
PART I - Ray Dalio and his biography - 3.5 ⭐️
I love reading biographies and the stories of interesting persons and Ray Dalio is definitely one of them. What he achieved and how he achieved it is super impressive and motivating. For those who don’t know him yet, he’s a pretty successful entrepreneur, investor and hedgefonds manager. For me, one of those people I would die to meet over dinner.
But even though this part was interesting, it was also quite challenging because he talks a lot about financial strategies, concepts and the relationship of economic development and investments on a detailed and sometimes even technical level. I didn’t mind per se, being an enthusiast for these topics, but I felt that it was easy to get lost in some passages.
PART II - Life principles - 5 ⭐️
On the other hand, his life principles and the responding chapters are what made the book one of my most loved non-fics. It might seem exaggerated, but for me they were truly life-altering and eye-opening and there are some principles that actually live rent free in my head since I’ve picked up the book the first time several years ago. Even if the rest of the book is not your cup of tea, which I can understand, I’ll never stop recommending these chapters. His perspective on life is astounding and yet so logical, reasonable and down to earth, I devoured these pages.
PART III - Work principles - 3 ⭐️
Lastly, the work principles. Or in other words, the reason this read took me over half a year. Don’t get me wrong, they weren’t bad or less insightful but not as entertaining. Maybe I’m not the primary target group (many principles are out of a management perspective) and I think you need a specific mindset and company culture to actually be able to live by them. It’s impressive if it works out, but out of my work experience so far, it’s often quite the opposite in reality. What made the part the most tedious is that it often felt repetitive - the chapters themselves and also to the life principles. I ended up diving the last 180 pages in smaller, digestible chunks because this part of the book was nothing I could pick up to get lost in and rather got exhausted from reading.
So would I recommend this books? Yes, but with a disclaimer. Read the first part if you’re into biographies and finance, and the third if you’re interested in management strategies, styles or corporate culture. Otherwise skip these and only read part two.
I thought the beginning of this book was a bit too focused on the Bridgewater background and investment strategies / principles, but i really enjoyed the last 2/3 and thought the concepts of seeing situations through an objective lenses and radical transparency were excellent things to strive for in work.