Billionaire investor Ray Dalio is counted among the biggest names in the world of finance today. In 1982, however, the founder of Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund, had lost nearly all his money after making a bad bet.
Ray Dalio, then 33, was so broke that he had to borrow $4,000 from his father to pay his family bills. In contrast, he is today worth a staggering $16 billion.
So how did the billionaire come back from the brink of financial ruin? Dalio credits the incident for changing his mindset and his approach to business, saying that it led him to build Bridgewater Associates into the renowned hedge fund it is today.
All of this was possible through the practice of Transcendental Meditation, which Dalio says allowed him to clear his mind and reflect on his mistakes.
“I had learned Transcendental Meditation,” Dalio told Business Insider in a 2019 podcast. The practice helped him balance his aggression and think more creatively, he said.
“When the pain passes, don’t just go forward, reflect, because that’s where your progress is.”
Transcendental Meditation is a form of mantra meditation that eschews chanting and focus on breathing in favour of repeating a mantra in silence.
In his book Principles, Dalio said he became interested in Transcendental Meditation after the Beatles learned it during this 1968 trip to India. On a normal day, Dalio does two 20-minute sessions of Transcendental Meditation, as he told CNBC last year. “You’re peaceful. You’re quiet,” he said. “You’re not awake, but you’re not asleep.”
He has also credited this practice of mantra meditation as “the single most important reason for whatever success I’ve had.”
In a 2018 Facebook post, Ray Dalio wrote: “Transcendental Meditation has probably been the single most important reason for whatever success I've had.”
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