How to make better decisions: consider Believability
Ray Dalio is an immensely successful investor who, for many years, assembled his principles for life in written form and distributed those within the organisation he built — Bridgewater Associates.
I’d like to just highlight one of these principles which I have come to find particularly useful of late: Believability.
Let me explain.
I have been in a few situations recently where people I respect and love have given me their opinion on certain matters. I have also had the dubious pleasure of listening to less-than-credible ”specialists” mouth-fart about subjects they in actually did not know a lot about.
And this idea of believability came up again and again in my mind, so I thought I’d share it.
It is important for us, social beings that we are, to ask those close to us for their opinion and views on issues we may be grappling with. These help us evaluate the problem and balance and complement knowledge or perspective we may lack.
However, these viewpoints must then be looked at though a very important filter which is ”how believable is this person giving their opinion?”
All opinions are not equal. And it is not the person we love or respect who necessarily has an opinion which really counts, at least…
