Right Action, Wrong Context

At any given time I'm reading and researching material in 3-5+ different books and thought I would start sharing what I'm learning as I go.

I've just started Ray Dalio's book Principles and in the Introduction he shares his simple process to have success at anything in life.

It is, "Think for yourself to decide 1) what you want, 2) what is true, and 3) what you should do to achieve #1 in light of #2 . . ."

As Founders, executives and sales people the danger is that we're all pretty good at defaulting immediately to #1 but often overlook the opportunity to fully unpack #2.

This happens with solopreneures as well as the biggest companies.

Think Steve Ballmer, Microsoft and the missed opportunities with mobile, search and the internet.

Acting with an incomplete understanding of where we are is like when tech support tells you to reboot your computer when they haven't checked with you that it's plugged in.

We do what we think is the right thing but in the wrong context and we fall behind because we didn't clearly see the context.

Ray Dalio's principle is effective. Know what you want, know where you are, THEN make your plan to get there.