If You're Not Writing Down Your Ideas, Ray Dalio Says: 'That's Sort of Stupid.' The author of the bestselling 'Principles: Life & Work' thinks we miss out on far too many entrepreneurs insights because they never bother to write them down.

Some entrepreneurs live by a kind of oral tradition. They think out loud and share ideas with colleagues but rarely write them down — for themselves, or for others. "That's sort of stupid," says Ray Dalio. As the founder of Bridgewater Associates, where he built a multibillion-dollar asset management company, Dalio very famously kept his notes: They formed the basis of his 2017 New York Times number one best-seller, Principles: Life & Work. But he firmly believes that anyone, at any level, should be recording and sharing their ideas like he did. "Think about all the different successful people, and their recipes for success, and their recipes for encountering problems. I wish I knew about those things, because they're learning lessons," he says.

Today, Dalio is also the founder of Principles, a people-management software company, and author of the new book Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order. And he always tells leaders: Success starts with a written record.

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As I see it, an entrepreneur always has three audiences: They can write for themselves, for the people they work with, or for anyone who wants to learn from them. You've done all three, so let's take them in order. Why did you start writing things down for yourself?

Everything happens over and over again. Everything is just another one of those. So whatever it is, you're gonna have another one of those. When you're looking at things individually, it's like being in a blizzard. You're trying to deal with them one by one. So I always look at what is archetypical. You start to think, Ah, it's another one of those. How do I deal with those? OK. You have that learning, and that recollection, but you also have the recipe, which is evolving.

This is true for all learning. If you're a chef and you make meals over and over, you get better. If you're a doctor, the more cases you go through, you start to understand, Oh, that's how those cases go. You think differently, you think better, you rise above it, and you accept your realities. You know, a lot of people get hung up on the fact that reality isn't the way they would like it to be. No — reality is reality, and it doesn't give a damn what you think about it. So these reflections help that kind of reality thinking.

When do you make the time to write down your thinking?

It's just a little habit. I usually do it right after I make a decision, or at the time I'm making a decision, while it's fresh in my mind. I'll often go onto my iPhone, and I'll just dictate and blurb it out — and then I'll come back and edit it. But editing it isn't just for things like grammar and punctuation. It's about, Oh, no, but I think about this, and I think about that. Then I just take it and I put it in a pile. Eventually the pile is divided into categories.

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Now let's expand to writing for people you work with. I'll admit something: At work, I often share my thoughts and decisions verbally rather than in written form. Is that a mistake?

I'm not saying verbal conversation is inferior to writing it all down, although writing it down means it can stick. When you have a conversation, it disappears and it's subject to interpretation.

But it's more granular than that. When you're thinking, Do I let somebody go? Do I have the budget for that? or whatever, the people you're working with are watching you make decisions. Are you the Holy Grail that has all the answers? Or do you want them to think about your criteria? You know, I grew my company to 1,500 people. Am I giving them continuity and logic, or are they going to have all different interpretations of my decisions?

It's like making a recipe. How did you cook this thing? I want to emphasize that it's not meant, in any way, to result in blind following. It's the opposite. When you tell people what to do, that is intolerable to me. Because it disrespects them. It doesn't make them think about why. They're just doing it. That makes them dumber. You have to think about why.

The metaphor of a recipe is interesting, because a recipe just tells someone what ingredients to get, and what to do with them. But it generally doesn't teach them how to think creatively in a kitchen, or explain why the recipe works. But you call your writings "principles," which is meant to be applied outside of whatever particular situation the principle might have been born from.

Yeah. I'm trying to convey the instruction, and also deal with the nature of things — how these are put together into timeless and universal truths. So it's like, apples have these elements, and sugar has these elements. There has to be an element of why.

You're describing a mix of methodology and what sounds like philosophy.

I don't mean to be philosophical more than practical, but it does raise philosophical questions. What do you want your life to be? What are you trying to do?

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Now let's zoom out further. You wrote a book, which is something many entrepreneurs aspire to do. But I imagine others may wonder if their ideas are truly worthwhile to anyone else.

Sometimes very smart, very capable people I speak to say, "I feel it's so presumptuous to pass it along." And that's why they don't. Well, that's tragic. I think the best thing I can give somebody is how to be successful. It's like mentorship, which they can take or leave.

I will not always be around. When my grandkids get to be a certain age, they'll at least be able to look up my principles of life and take what I think. That's a motivation to me.

You know, look — it brings me joy that people come up to me and say, "You've changed my life." Or "This has helped in this way."

That's why I'm talking with you now. Three and a half million people in 34 countries read my book, which I wouldn't have guessed. But if it hadn't sold, that would have been fine, too. It's just like, I cooked this meal. You can take it or not. And you can decide if it tastes good or not. That's what it is.