Page 88 - Ray Dalio - Principles

my grip. I worked intensely with his caregivers to understand
what was going on and what to do about it. Thanks both to the
help he received and his own great character, Paul worked

through this and is now better off than if he hadn’t fallen into
his abyss, because he developed strengths he didn’t have but
needed. Paul was once wild—staying out till all hours,
disorganized, smoking marijuana and drinking—but he now
faithfully takes his meds, meditates, goes to bed early, and
avoids drugs and alcohol. He had loads of creativity but lacked
discipline. Now he has plenty of both. As a result, he is more

creative now than he was before and is happily married, the
father of two boys, an accomplished filmmaker, and a crusader
helping those who struggle with bipolar disorder.

His radical transparency about being bipolar and his
commitment to helping others with it inspires me. His first
feature film, Touched with Fire, which received lots of
acclaim, gave many people who might have lost their lives to

bipolar disorder both the hope and the path forward they
needed. I remember watching him shoot one scene based on a
real conversation between us in which he was manic and I was
struggling to reason with him. I could simultaneously see the
actor playing Paul at his worst while the real Paul was at his
best, directing the scene. As I watched, my mind flashed over

his whole journey—from the depths of his abyss, through his
metamorphosis into the strong hero standing in front of me,
someone on a mission to help others going through what he
had gone through.

That journey through hell gave me a much deeper
understanding of how and why we see things differently. I

learned that much of how we think is physiological and can be
changed. For example, Paul’s wild swings were due to the
inconsistent secretions of dopamine and other chemicals in his
brain, so he could change by controlling those chemicals and
the activities and stimuli affecting them. I learned that creative
genius and insanity can be quite close to each other, that the
same chemistry that creates insights can cause distortions, and
that being stuck in one’s own head is terribly dangerous. When

Paul was “crazy,” he always believed his own illogical
arguments, no matter how strange they sounded to others.