Principles for Success: "The Abyss" | Episode 4
- [Narrator] Principles For Success,
an ultra mini-series adventure
in 30 minutes and in eight episodes.
Episode Four:
The Abyss
We progress forward until we encounter setbacks.
Whether or not we get out of them
and continue forward or spiral downward
depends on whether or not we're willing
to face the failure objectively
and make the right decisions to
turn the loop upward again.
Something terrible happened to me in 1982,
when I bet everything on a depression
that never came.
(dramatic orchestral music)
(birds chirping)
The period between 1979 and 1982
was one of extreme turbulence.
For the global economy,
the markets,
and for me.
And I believed that the U.S. economy,
with the world economy tied to it,
was headed toward a catastrophe.
This view was extremely controversial.
I wanted the great upside
and very publicly took a big risk and was wrong.
Dead wrong.
After a delay,
the stock market began a big bull market
that lasted 18 years and the U.S. economy
enjoyed the greatest growth period in its history.
(birds chirping) This experience was
like a blow to my head with a baseball bat.
I had to cut my losses
so that my company, Bridgewater,
was left with one employee:
Me.
(door slams shut)
I was so broke, I had to borrow $4,000
from my dad to pay my bills,
but even worse was having to let go
the people I cared so much about.
I wondered whether I should give up my dream
of working for myself and play it safe
by working for someone else in a job
that would require me to put on a tie
and commute every day.
Though I knew that, for me,
taking less risk would mean having
a less great life.
Being so wrong,
and especially being so publicly wrong,
was painfully humbling.
I am still shocked and embarrassed
by how arrogant I was
in being totally confident
in a totally incorrect view.
(dramatic orchestral music)
Though I'd been right much more than I'd been wrong,
I had let one bad bet erase all my good ones.
I thought very hard about the relationship
between risk and reward and how to manage them,
but I couldn't see a path forward
that would give me the rewards I wanted
without unacceptable risk.
This kind of experience happens to everyone.
It will happen to you.
You will lose something or someone
you think you can't live without.
Or you will suffer a terrible illness or injury.
Or your career will fall apart before your eyes.
You might think that your life is ruined
and that there's no way to go forward,
but it will pass.
I assure you
that there is always a best path forward
and you probably just don't see it yet.
You just have to reflect well to find it.
You have to embrace your reality.
In Episode 5, I'll show you how this
realization drove me to wonder how reality works
and how to best deal with it.
