Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Ray Dalio (Part 2): Principles of Happiness, Grief, and What Money Can’t Buy
Fri, 23 May 2025
In part two of Nicole’s conversation with Ray Dalio (founder of Bridgewater Associates and architect of the All Weather Portfolio), they move beyond the markets and into the personal. While part one tackled the economy, inflation, and portfolio strategy, this episode is all about legacy, happiness, and the limits of what money can buy. Ray opens up about the worst moment of his life, how he defines success, and what he hopes the next generation takes from his journey. It’s a rare side of one of the world’s most influential investors—and a conversation that will stick with you long after the episode ends. Pre-order Ray's latest book How Countries Go Broke here. Find all of Ray's books here.
Chapter 1: What are the principles of happiness according to Ray Dalio?
I'm Nicole Lappin, the only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. It's time for some money rehab. If you caught the first part of my conversation with the one, the only Ray Dalio, you know we went deep into the economy, inflation, debt cycles, and how to brace your portfolio for whatever comes next. It was classic Dalio.
Big ideas, tons of data, all grounded in decades of market experience. But in part two, we get versatile. Ray may have built the world's biggest hedge fund and coined concepts like the all-weather portfolio, but today we go beyond the balance sheet. We talk about life, about happiness, about what money can and can't buy.
He shares what he calls the worst moment of his life, and it has nothing to do with money. For the first time in an interview, he opens up about the death of his oldest son in 2020. Ray also opens up about what he wants his legacy to be, how he hopes the next generation thinks about success, failure, and meaning.
These are the kinds of conversations that don't show up in earnings reports, but they matter just as much, if not more. And I have to say, this is one of those rare interviews, and I even have chills as I'm saying this, that has stayed with me and will stay with me long after we stopped recording. Let's get into it.
And you have all the money in the world or access to all of the money in the world. We can agree on that. But you haven't been immune from pain. You and your family haven't been immune.
That's right. Every painful experience is a learning lesson. Yes.
And so that brings us to the age-old question, does money bring you happiness?
There's an amount of money that is good. What's that amount? Look, why money? Why money has to do with, is money something that brings your family security? It's freedom, freedom of choice. It's power to do the things you want to. You can have a dream and you can build it out. Money brings you all of that. It can bring you health. It can bring you many, many wonderful things, okay?
As it starts to be status or showing things off, insecurity, feeding it, that's not healthy. I believe that's not healthy. And I think people can get hung up on that. In my view, I think people really have to make sure it's not a reflection of an unhealthy state of mind or an unhealthy pursuit as much as it is the security, the freedom, and then the ability to savor things.
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Chapter 2: How does Ray Dalio define success?
I think money can buy you five things, right? Money can buy you stuff, which doesn't bring happiness. It can buy you experiences, which does. It can buy your time back. It can buy you charity and the ability to give to charity, which probably does contribute to happiness. And it also gives you the ability to save, which I think people...
gain happiness from seeing them be able to take care of their family and continue to save and have that momentum.
I think our perspectives are similar on that, and that's why in talking with your audience, I think it's good that they reflect on that.
You've been married for 40 years?
I think it's 47.
Congratulations.
Thank you.
What's this principle or the secret?
Any principle is not 100 percent true for everybody. Everybody has different tastes. So when I say that, I think in a general sense and certainly for me. I think probably the most important decision you can make is who you spend your life with. There's an extraordinary relationship of long, close relationships. Wow, are they valuable.
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Chapter 3: What is the impact of money on happiness?
Ah, the biggest joy and helping each other and fun with each other and all the different ways that you can have fun with each other. It's like old friends. There's nothing like it. You know. So anyway, I've been blessed with an amazing wife and family. And then life gives me difficulties. The worst thing that could have ever happened to me, that I would have rather died,
than have it was the losing of my son. I lost a son. Life brings you these things. This is life, right? So that's the nature of life. And we were blessed in some ways. We have the worst. It happens to everybody in their own ways. That's why I think taking a principled approach like pain plus reflection equals progress. About learning about how reality works. This is most fundamental.
Yeah, and money, unfortunately, can't immune you from those tragedies.
Well, that's reality. You have to accept reality. You have to understand reality, and you have to know how to best deal with reality, and those are principles.
I could cry thinking about the news of your son in 2020 when I saw that. As a new mother, I can't imagine. Ray, I'm so sorry.
Thank you.
I'm just curious how, at that point, you changed your principles.
First of all, it's not just my feeling. It's my wife's feeling. It's his brother's feeling, all the love and so on. But what I did is, as we went through it, I meditate. I do transcendental meditation. I've done this since 1969, so I've done it forever. I would say, by the way, there's nothing that I can pass to your listeners that would be more valuable, and there's nothing...
that I would attribute my success to more than Transcendental Meditation. The answer to your question was there's this dichotomy between the emotional you and the intellectual you, and it becomes irreconcilable. It was the reflections and being open and articulating what I felt. And I've been very also open to help others.
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Chapter 4: How can grief shape our understanding of life?
What would you say to somebody who might be dealing with the unthinkable?
Although there's a process that I go through. Each has to do it in their own way. There will be first the shock. And it'll go through a phase. You're going to go through phases. Know that you're going to go through phases. What I did was my wife and I would have tea each morning and we had a picture of him because our tradition is to sit and have a cup of tea each morning. There he was.
And then we would journal memories of him. This was after my family and I all went away. We want to just do whatever came naturally. I would recommend people doing whatever comes naturally and well. If you cry, if you want to, don't be thinking about the obligations and the protocols.
It sounds like you spent time in nature, too.
We spent time in nature, all of these things. There are these phases, and then I think most importantly to keep him with me, keep him with us together. Have the pictures, think, not... to try to avoid thinking of. And then with time, there's a bitter sweetness that what happens is first there's the bitterness, the great pain, and it's very difficult.
And then there's a sweetness of that memory and so on. You will find that the sweetness will increase and the bitterness will decrease. The ache will always be there, but it'll come and go depending on your attentions, what you're paying your attentions to. And then you will really start to enjoy and smile and think of the memories and so on and then appreciate what you have.
I'm sure there's not a day that goes by that you don't think about it.
Yes, but it ebbs and flows. There are some times, and I see an empty seat, and I imagine, and that's what it's like. And then my mind's elsewhere. I'm going to be going to the 100th anniversary of the Grand Ole Opry, and when I'm looking there at the concert and having fun with the people I love, okay, it will not be top of mind.
So you learn how to dance with a limp.
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Chapter 5: What lessons did Ray learn from losing his son?
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Of course.
In 2011, didn't you sign the giving pledge with your wife, Barbara? So half of your money will go to charity.
Yeah.
And where is the rest going?
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Chapter 6: How can we support those dealing with loss?
Chapter 7: What is the significance of community in happiness?
Chapter 8: What are Ray Dalio's thoughts on meaningful relationships?
I could cry thinking about the news of your son in 2020 when I saw that. As a new mother, I can't imagine. Ray, I'm so sorry.
Thank you.
I'm just curious how, at that point, you changed your principles.
First of all, it's not just my feeling. It's my wife's feeling. It's his brother's feeling, all the love and so on. But what I did is, as we went through it, I meditate. I do transcendental meditation. I've done this since 1969, so I've done it forever. I would say, by the way, there's nothing that I can pass to your listeners that would be more valuable, and there's nothing...
that I would attribute my success to more than Transcendental Meditation. The answer to your question was there's this dichotomy between the emotional you and the intellectual you, and it becomes irreconcilable. It was the reflections and being open and articulating what I felt. And I've been very also open to help others.
who have gone through this, because there's ways of going through that, which is a whole other podcast. And that's why love and mutual support, and also then starting to appreciate things more. You asked how it changed.
boy it helped to put things in perspective right it reminds you because we can get hung up on the trivial things and almost everything is trivial in relationship to that so not only the feeling of the loss and the pain of that but the feeling of the appreciation for what i have
in the loving of my wife the loving of my family and what we have we never appreciated it as much as a result of that and then how do we nurture that and how do we make sure that that's such an important part of our lives while keeping in a sense him my son still with us in our own way
It's so kind of you to do that, to help others who might be going through this.
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