in most companies people are doing two jobs: their actual job and the job of managing others’ impressions of how they’re doing their job. - Ray Dalio

Because our educational system is hung up on precision, the art of being good at approximations is insufficiently valued. This impedes conceptual thinking.

It’s senseless to have making money as your goal as money has no intrinsic value — its value comes from what it can buy, and it can’t buy everything. It’s smarter to start with what you really want, which are your real goals, and then work back to what you need to attain them. Money will be one of the things you need, but it’s not the only one and certainly not the most important one once you get past having the amount you need to get what you really want.

The best behaviors one can hope for come from leaders who can weigh the benefits of cooperation, and who have long enough time frames that they can see how the gifts they give this year may bring them benefits in the future.