‘The Best Advice That I Could Give Anybody’: Billionaire Ray Dalio Credits One Daily Habit With All of His Success
Dalio sets aside forty minutes a day to meditate and has been doing so since 1968.
Key Takeaways
- Ray Dalio is the billionaire founder of Bridgewater Associates, the largest hedge fund in the world.
- He says that the one piece of advice he would give anyone would be to meditate.
- Dalio has practiced transcendental meditation since 1968.
There’s a little-known secret that 75-year-old billionaire Ray Dalio credits for his success: transcendental meditation.
Dalio is best known for founding Bridgewater Associates in 1975 and building it into the , with in assets as of 2023. He is worth over $16 billion at the time of writing, per the , with most of his fortune coming from his $6.65 billion stake in Bridgewater.
“The best advice that I could give anybody, I think, it would be to meditate, and that’s because it gives you a calmness and equanimity,” Dalio earlier this week. “Whatever success I’ve had in life has been more due to my meditating than anything else.”
Dalio to the outlet that he practices transcendental meditation, which involves repeating a mantra or a short sound or word for a set amount of time, for twenty minutes, twice a day. The aim is to focus the mind and help the practitioner achieve a state of deep relaxation.
Dalio says that each 20-minute meditation session feels like a “20-minute vacation” that calms him down and helps him make better decisions. He comes up with creative ideas during his sessions, emerging with a clearer mind.
has shown that transcendental meditation can reduce trauma symptoms and improve mental health. A published in the journal “Brain and Cognition” showed that participants who practiced transcendental meditation felt less depression, anxiety, and stress.
Dalio first started meditating , seven years before founding Bridgewater Associates. He was inspired by The Beatles, who in 1967. Dalio sustained the practice for the following five decades of the hedge fund’s growth before stepping down as co-CEO in 2017. Under his leadership, Bridgewater established a management style called “,” which means that all meetings are recorded and available to the entire organization and constructive criticism of colleagues is encouraged.
Dalio isn’t the only billionaire who swears by meditation. Virgin Group founder Richard Branson meditated 30,000 feet in the air on the with Virgin Australia in 2018. The same year, the billionaire a meditation, sleep, and stretch room in the London Virgin office.
Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey shared in a February 2025 of the “In Good Company” podcast he used to go on a 10-day silent meditation retreat every year for five years before the pandemic. At these retreats, he would meditate from 4 a.m. to 9 p.m. and stop speaking entirely.
Key Takeaways
- Ray Dalio is the billionaire founder of Bridgewater Associates, the largest hedge fund in the world.
- He says that the one piece of advice he would give anyone would be to meditate.
- Dalio has practiced transcendental meditation since 1968.
There’s a little-known secret that 75-year-old billionaire Ray Dalio credits for his success: transcendental meditation.
Dalio is best known for founding Bridgewater Associates in 1975 and building it into the , with in assets as of 2023. He is worth over $16 billion at the time of writing, per the , with most of his fortune coming from his $6.65 billion stake in Bridgewater.
“The best advice that I could give anybody, I think, it would be to meditate, and that’s because it gives you a calmness and equanimity,” Dalio earlier this week. “Whatever success I’ve had in life has been more due to my meditating than anything else.”
