My 5 Biggest Takeaways from Ray Dalio – Principles

I recently posted the below article on my personal LinkedIn page. I also wanted to share the article here on the Pleighties blog for I found tremendous value in Ray Dalio’s book, Principles.

I hope you enjoy the article on my 5 biggest takeaways from Ray Dalio’s Principles.

My 5 Biggest Takeaways from Ray Dalio – Principles

I came across Ray Dalio and his book, Principles, on a #AskGaryVee show Episode #275. After listening to the episode and hearing Dalio talk about his life, work, and his recent book – I immediately bought it.

After spending some time on my “to read” pile in 2019, I finally picked it up and began reading it as I rounded out 2019 and headed into 2020.

The book took me a bit longer to read on account of the holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the New Year) and balancing work/life, but upon finishing it – I highly recommend it to everyone.

Whether you’re an employee, employer, manager, senior executive, entrepreneur, start-up founder, HR department, investor, or anyone else – I’m sure you’ll find some valuable insights into one of the greatest investment firms and companies of the 20th and 21st century.

There’s so much real world knowledge, experience, case studies, information, and insights packed into the 590+ page powerhouse.

Below I’ve listed my 5 biggest takeaways from Ray Dalio – Principles:

#1. Bridgewater’s Values and Strategic Goals:

Bridgewater’s values and strategic goals have been the same from the beginning. To produce excellent results, meaningful work, and meaningful relationships through radical truth and transparency.

I truly believe that the above values and strategic goals are what laid the foundation for Bridgewater’s future and current success. I mean, who doesn’t want those values and goals out of their work life?

#2. Bridgewater’s Culture:

Radical Truth + Radical Transparency + Believability-Weighted Decision Making = Idea Meritocracy

The idea and notion of an idea meritocracy truly resonated with me after learning and reading about it. As I was reading what went into making Bridgewater Associates an idea meritocracy, the principles and logic behind it just made sense to me. However, with much in life, it’s easier said than done. The idea meritocracy takes tons of work, commitment, and accountability, but once you’ve fully committed to it – the results will follow.

#3. The Power of Documenting the Process(es) to Create Algorithms:

When it comes to believability-weighted decision making, hiring, organizational processes, and investing – it’s best to document the thought and logic that went into making those decisions. By doing so, you can not only test your logic, but you can create algorithms to stay consistent with your decision making process on similar instances as they arise in the future. In certain scenarios, you can retroactively test you logic/algorithms on past events and markets to see how they’d stand the test of time.

# 4. The 5-Step Goal Process: 

1. Have clear goals

2. Identify and don’t tolerate the problems that stand in the way of your achieving those goals

3. Accurately diagnose the problems to get at their root causes

4. Design plans that will get you around them

5. Do what’s necessary to push these designs through to results

It’s always good to have a solid framework when you’re setting goals for yourself whether that be personally or professionally. Ray shared his 5-Step Goal Process as a way to help others set goals and ensure they can work through them to achieve the intended results.

#5. In regards to hiring for your business or organization, make sure you know the difference between valuesabilities, and skills.

Values are the deep-seated beliefs that motivate behaviors and determine people’s compatibilities with each other.

Abilities are ways of thinking and behaving.

Skills are learned tools, such as being able to speak a foreign language or write computer code.

“At a high level, we look for people who think independently, argue open-mindedly and assertively, and above all else value the intense pursuit of truth and excellence, and through it, the rapid improvement of themselves and the organization. Because we treat work as more than just what we do to make a living, we look at every potential hire not just as an employee but as someone we’d want to share our lives with. We insist that the people we work with are considerate, and have a high sense of personal accountability to do the difficult, right things. We look for people with generous natures and high standards of fairness. Most importantly, they must be able to put their egos aside and assess themselves candidly.” -Ray Dalio

Although this section pertains more to HR, management, startup founders, and entrepreneurs who are hiring potential employees – I found Ray’s insights into the difference between values, abilities, and skills interesting. Most of us have all been on the receiving end of interviews and can empathize with the strange, arbitrary process that is applying and interviewing. Overall, I found his reflections on the hiring process and what Bridgewater looked for when they were hiring refreshing and insightful.

I hope you enjoyed the above 5 takeaways from Ray Dalio’s Principles.

What was your favorite takeaway? Did you read Principles and feel I missed anything? If so, leave your comments on what insights, principles, and perspectives you took from the book.

Finally, if you haven’t had a chance to read the book yet – I highly recommend you do.

Source article: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/my-5-biggest-takeaways-from-ray-dalio-principles-tyler-dolbin/

The Best Video Marketing and Advertising Strategy For Your Brand or Business

Did you know Instagram boast 1 billion active users every month and approximately 500 million people use Instagram stories every day?

It’s also no wonder that Facebook is one of YouTube’s biggest competitors when it comes to video marketing and advertising (although new and emerging platforms like TikTok are giving them both a run for their money).

 

However, it’s one thing to want to drive conversions and sales directly from the social media platforms of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and TikTok, but one of the biggest hurdles for most brands and businesses is just getting top of the funnel attention and awareness of their brand, business, and products and services.

 

How is your business supposed to drive potential conversions or sales if people on social media don’t know who you are, where you’re located, and the products or services you offer?

 

Many brands and businesses today still rely solely on the Facebook algorithm for organic (unpaid) distribution of their content on social media to their current and potentially new customers and clients.

 

Not that organic, unpaid distribution doesn’t have its place on Facebook and Instagram, but it needs to be paired strategically with a paid content amplification strategy.

 

Fortunately for local businesses and SMBs (small & medium sized businesses), the social media platforms of Facebook and Instagram allow for an unbelievable opportunity to use video content to market and advertise to a highly targeted and engaged audiences.

 

Gone are the days where brands and businesses solely rely on getting the attention and awareness of their ideal customers and clients from local radio, television, billboard, and print media ads.

 

Plus, most of those mediums cost way more to reach a broader, generalized audience (if they are even there and paying attention).

 

How great of an opportunity is it for brands and businesses to marketing and advertise on social media?

 

I recently put a video together to explain all the wonderful benefits and opportunities for brands and businesses to leverage video marketing and advertising on the Facebook, Instagram, and Facebook Audience Network of websites in 2020 and beyond.

 

More importantly, I explain the video content strategy, the organic social media distribution strategy, as well as a way to analyze your social media post to identify which pieces of content you should amplify to your existing and potentially new customers and clients.

 

To recap the above video marketing and advertising strategy:

Step #1: Determine Target Audience

Determine who your target audience is based off of current and existing customers and clients

Step #2: Create Content Strategy

Create a content strategy that allows for multiple types of video content to be created so you can test with your target audience, customers, and clients.

Provide value by educating, entertaining, and informing them about your brand, business, and products or services.

Step #3: Distribute The Content

Post (distribute) the video content on your brand or business’s social media accounts organically (for free).

(i.e. – Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok, etc.)

Step #4: Allow for Content Consumption and Engagement

Give your existing customers, clients, and followers time to consume and engage with your content.

Post and test content over a 1-6+ month time frame.

However, if you have an arsenal of existing video content and assets already – you can hit the ground running on the next step.

Step #5: Analyze the Results

Analyze the results of your organic video posts.

Determine what’s the best performing video content based off of the engagement (i.e. – comments, likes, shares, video views, and organic reach/impressions.)

Step #6: Pick the Best Post

After you’ve analyzed the post to determine what video post were the most successful – pick the X amount of post/video content that you want to pay to amplify to your current and potentially new customers, clients, and audience.

Step #7: Select Your Highly Targeted Audience

Utilize the 5 most important targeting options to begin to hone in on your highly targeted customer, client, or audience.

  1. Location/Geo-Location
  2. Interest and Behaviors
  3. Demographics
  4. Facebook Pixel Events
  5. Custom/Lookalike Audiences

Step #8: Pay to Amplify Content

Pay Facebook to amplify that video content to your highly targeted audience on the Facebook, Instagram, and the FB Audience Network.

By utilizing the Facebook Video Views Ad Objective, you can gain additional reach and impressions while only paying for the people who actually engaged with a certain percentage of your video (ThruPlay).

Step #9: Assess Results of Paid Amplification

Assess results and success metrics of the campaigns based off your brand’s and business’s needs and goals. 

Ideate, iterate, and optimize the video content and campaigns on a regular and ongoing basis.

 

Final Thoughts

I hope you found the above article and video valuable with actionable video marketing and advertising tips, tactics, and strategies.

 

Please let me know if you have any questions in regards to any of the concepts, ideas, or strategies in the comments below.

 

Also, if your business needs any help with video production for branding, marketing, or advertising purposes or you need help running and managing paid amplification campaigns via Facebook or Instagram ads – feel free to contact us for a free consultation today!

 

 

 

Carpet Barn Business Spotlight Video

We recently had the pleasure to work with Sam, the owner of the Carpet Barn in New Cumberland, Pennsylvania, to highlight his flooring business.

It’s awesome to see this locally family owned and operated (2nd generation) business providing quality flooring products to local families and businesses since 1974.

If you’re in the market for quality flooring and an excellent buying experience – contact Sam and the good people over at Carpet Barn for more information or your Free flooring estimate today!

Carpet Barn contact information:

Phone: (717) 938-1609
Email: carpetbarn717@gmail.com
Website: https://www.carpetbarn717.com/

 

Are you interested in the many wonderful benefits of video production for your business or organization?

If so, contact us here for more information and to get started today!

Pleighties Podcast – Ep. 2 – How The RiverCats Won: Lessons on Relationships and Competition – Kyle Wagner Interview

In this episode of the Pleighties Podcast, I sit down with my former High School Baseball Coach, Kyle Wagner. We discuss his latest book How The RiverCats Won: Lessons on Relationships and Competition and how to navigate baseball, school, education, parenting, and life from both the micro and macro approach.

Sit back, relax, and enjoy this episode of the Pleighties Podcast!

Buy or Download a copy of the book – How The RiverCats Won: Lessons on Relationships and Competition

Connect with Kyle on Twitter and Instagram or @HowTheRiverCatsWon on Twitter

Email: gowags.kyle@gmail.com – Subject Line: RiverCats