Addicted to Failure: Three Billionaires on How to Win the Game of Life
by Charles Chu

Not a lot of people know about Ray Dalio, and he prefers it that way.
Considered one of the “100 most influential people in the world” by Time magazine, Dalio is the founder of Bridgewater Associates, the largest hedge fund in the world, with $122 billion under management.
So he’s kind of a big shot.
But whatever image you have of Dalio, you are probably wrong.
Most of us have no clue what truly successful people are like. That’s something Dalio learned when he first started his hedge fund.
Here’s an excerpt from Principles, a brilliant (and freely available) manifesto of Dalio’s rules for life and business:
…the popular picture of success — which is like a glossy photo of an ideal man or woman out of a Ralph Lauren catalog, with a bio attached listing all of their accomplishments like going to the best prep schools and an Ivy League college, and getting all the answers right on tests — is an inaccurate picture of the typical successful person.
Instead, Dalio noticed that truly successful people have an interesting sort of humility:
Great people become great by looking at their mistakes and weaknesses and figuring out how to get around them. So I learned that the people who make the most of the process of encountering reality, especially the painful obstacles, learn the most and get what they want faster than people who do not. I learned that they are the great ones — the ones I wanted to have around me.
Take any self-made billionaire — or high achiever in any field — and you’ll find a large number of these “failure-loving” people.
For example, here’s a quote from another billionaire — Warren Buffett’s business partner, Charlie Munger:
“There’s no way that you can live an adequate life without many mistakes. In fact, one trick in life is to get so you can handle mistakes. Failure to handle psychological denial is a common way for people to go broke.” (From Tao of Charlie Munger)
Mistakes are the currency of success.