Progress requires consciously reflecting on painful experiences rather than avoiding that reflection and staying stuck in the pain.
Dalio describes his 'pain plus reflection equals progress' formula: pain arrives involuntarily, but growth only comes if you force yourself to reflect on it instead of getting stuck. ✦ AI generated
Ray Dalio · My First Million · 2026-07-17 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 18:36
“Can you guide us on the reflection part... what is your process to actually do the reflection?”
Pain comes involuntarily — that hits you when the pain comes. Eventually the pain will go away, but people can skip the reflection and they can be hung up in their pain. So you first have to make this transition.
verbatim transcript · starts at 18:36
18:36you talk to do you have two or three people you call who tend to give you high signal like feedback or advice like what is your process to actually do the reflection pain part comes involuntarily that that hits you when the pain comes um eventually the pain will go away but you can skip the people can skip the reflection and they can be hung up in their pain so you first have to make
18:57this transition now meditation has helped me a lot I I've done meditation transcend al meditation since 1969. >> Explain what that even is. I' I've only heard you and Jerry Seinfeld swear by transcendental meditation. What is it? >> Transcendental meditation is a very simple exercise of um you sit there calmly and you repeat a sound that is a word that is called a mantra that doesn't have any meaning. And so um let
19:28me an example might be okay so you're sitting there and you repeat m in your head and when you do that you can't have thoughts because when your thoughts are in your thoughts are in m and the thoughts can't come in and then eventually when you get this habit down then the m goes away and you go into pretty much a subconscious state you know very relaxing very uh calm and so
19:55it's a real calming exercise and it brings you into your subconscious mind. Okay, your subconscious mind is really controlling you a lot almost, right? There's a conscious mind, a logical conscious mind that you hope is logical and you're aware of. And then subconscious means below your awareness. There are all the things in your mind that influence you, your emotions, your subliminal stuff, and it goes into that
20:24subliminal stuff, and it calms you down. And it's also where creativity comes from. It's like if you take a hot shower and these ideas come to you, but you try to muscle ideas, you can't make the m you can't make them come, but that hot shower, that relaxation and so on. I found that very helpful. You know, I know I've I've developed a an instinct. Habit is a very uh important tool like