I have a bad rote memory, but I tend to learn through my experiences. And then when I went into the markets, and then starting my business as an entrepreneur, that affected my thinking a lot, too, because in order to be successful as both an investor and an entrepreneur, one has to be an independent thinker and bet against the consensus and be right. Because the consensus is built into the price, and if you're not an independent thinker in the markets you won't succeed. And if you're not an independent thinker as an entrepreneur starting out, you're not going to bring anything special.
With the media, we don't know what's true, and we don't have radical transparency because we're seeing everything through somebody else's eyes. There's no other industry that has as much power and as much freedom and as little quality control. I can't imagine how anyone could not think that's a problem.
When you're faced with a choice, you have one of three choices that you can have. You can have those with power decide. You can have one man, one vote. Or you can have believability-weighted decision-making.
I notice a difference from the moment I meditate.
I don't think there is such a thing as the perfect system.
I'd like to be clear that a number of people find me intolerable, and they don't hesitate to say so - which they and I cherish.
Once you accept that playing the game will be uncomfortable, and you do it for a while, it will become much easier (like it does when getting fit). When you excel at it, you will find your ability to get what you want thrilling.
I'm just saying that if you understand how the economic machine works, it just works like a machine. There are cause-effect relationships.
Meditation helps you stay in a calm, clear-headed state so that when challenges come at you, you can deal with them like a ninja - in a calm thoughtful way. When you're centered, your emotions are not hijacking you.
Some people have subject matter expertise in one thing. Some people tend to be creative but not reliable, and others are reliable but not creative. Everybody has different dimensions.
Nature is a machine. The family is a machine. The life cycle is like a machine.
The world is still in deleveraging.
The economy is like a machine.
Over time, it also became important for me to share my management principles with the people I worked with because we had to agree on how we should be with each other - and that way is unique. Because the logic behind being radically honest and radically transparent with each other wasn't clear, it had to be spelled out in these principles.
I believe that understanding what is good is obtained by looking at the way the world works and figuring out how to operate in harmony with it to help it evolve.
In China anything less than 6% growth is a recession meaning that it also causes financial problems and it's disruptive and it's a problem.
Success is not in obtaining the thing. Because there's always another thing. And then you look back on it, and for me, through my evolution, yes I have success by most measures - but for me, when it comes to the greatest joy of reward, there's an emotional element and there's an intellectual element. Emotionally, my greatest joy was the personal relationships I've had. That was the greatest joy. Intellectually, my satisfaction was that I do feel I've evolved well and I'm doing my best to contribute toward evolution.
Each person assesses each other person's credibility on different dimensions, because people are strong and weak in different things.
We don't know what truth is anymore. You or other media people can say there's no problem, but you're losing your credibility. There's distortion, and it's hurting our society. And as a result of that, there will be forces that, one way or another, are going to naturally bring that into equilibrium.
In order to get past disagreements, you just can't have one person with power decide. In other words, so just because I'm a boss, it would be terrible if I then said, "Okay, we're gonna go do this." That's why, after that thoughtful disagreement, there has to be a process of an idea meritocracy. That means okay, now you have to vote, not that the decision resides with power. And then you vote and move beyond it.
I'm scared of one man, one vote because it suggests that everybody has an equal ability at making decisions, and I think that's dangerous.
If it didn't happen in your life before, then you're not paying attention you don't think it's possible. But almost all important events never happen in your life before.
I believe there are an infinite number of laws of the universe and that all progress or dreams achieved come from operating in a way that's consistent with them. These laws and the principles of how to operate in harmony with them have always existed. We were given these laws by nature. Man didn't and can't make them up. He can only hope to understand them and use them to get what he wants.
Credit is a promise to deliver money. It will produce GDP but you'll create credit... So you reach a certain point that that you can't do that anymore... There are choices. And how do we best support, apportion the money? How much is going to be transferred?
I was about twenty and the Beatles were meditating and I heard about it and they had a center in New York and I came to the center and I learned about it.
