Principles You (Ray Dalio)
Principles You profiles how someone thinks, decides and works, based on Ray Dalio's approach of turning good decisions into explicit, written, testable principles rather than leaving them as instinct.
A single arrow carries the reader from a self-report questionnaire to one tested sentence someone could actually act on.
Reach for this when…
- Decisions in a team keep clashing and nobody can say clearly why in plain language.
- A leader wants a shared vocabulary for how they each think, before a big change lands.
- Someone repeats the same costly decision pattern and can't see it from the inside.
How to run it
- Complete the PrinciplesYou assessment online.
- Receive your profile of thinking and behavioural archetypes.
- Debrief with a coach: which archetypes actually show up under real pressure.
- Test the archetypes against recent decisions - where they helped, where they cost you.
- Convert what you learn into explicit written principles you can be held to.
A worked example
Situation. Chamika Perera co-founded a small fintech lender in Colombo, Sri Lanka, and kept clashing with his more risk-averse co-founder over pricing calls, with neither able to say why in plain terms.
Applied. His profile came back strongly exploratory and fast-deciding; hers came back structured and evidence-first. They used the debrief to write one explicit principle: no pricing change goes live without both a gut check and a data check, signed off separately.
Result. The arguments didn't stop, but they moved from personality clashes to a five-minute checklist conversation.
The catch
A profile explains a default, and it's easy to let it become an excuse - 'that's just how I think' - instead of a starting point for change. It's a proprietary, self-report instrument built around Dalio's own firm and worldview, not an independently peer-reviewed psychometric, so treat the archetype labels as useful language, not diagnosis.
A profile explains your default. It doesn't excuse you from changing it when the default is costing you.
Origin: Ray Dalio; Adam Grant; Brian Little; John Golden (PrinciplesYou)