Meditation at work

Ray Dalio on Meditation: Institutional Investor's 2014 Report

A summary of Institutional Investor's February 2014 report from a New York town hall where Ray Dalio described 42 years of meditating.

By TM Business Review Newsroom
· 3 min read
A grey-haired man in a navy suit rests his chin on his hand and looks out of a window.
A grey-haired man in a navy suit rests his chin on his hand and looks out of a window. PHOTO: Canva

Ray Dalio, the founder of Bridgewater Associates, told a New York audience in February 2014 that Transcendental Meditation, more than anything else, explained his success, Institutional Investor reported on February 28, 2014, in a report by Michael Peltz. This article summarizes that report in our own words, with later context from other publications. The original is on Institutional Investor’s website.

A copy of the report was once posted on this website as a PDF, and that address now leads here.

The evening

The town hall took place on February 11, 2014, in an auditorium at the AXA Equitable Center, on the West Side of Midtown Manhattan. The David Lynch Foundation hosted it, and Institutional Investor counted about 300 people in the audience. Andrew Ross Sorkin of The New York Times DealBook and CNBC’s Squawk Box moderated. The report noted that the film director David Lynch had started the foundation in 2005.

The center that ran this website described the evening on its own events page. It said the program was split into three panels, on business, health and women in work, and that the money raised would pay for TM teaching for young people at risk and for veterans in New York. Our page on New York’s town halls lists the full panel for that night and the events that followed it.

What Dalio said

The magazine then described Bridgewater as the biggest hedge fund firm in the world, with $87 billion under management. Dalio had been meditating for 42 years. His claim that meditation was the main reason for his success is his own view of his career, and the report presented it as such.

The report also mentioned Bridgewater’s culture of open disagreement at its Westport, Connecticut, offices.

The same remarks elsewhere

Business Insider reported Dalio’s comments from the same evening on February 12, 2014, the day after the event. Its account added that he took up TM because of the Beatles, that he meditates on about two-thirds of days, and that he will stop during market hours to meditate if stress builds. It also reported that he offered to pay half of what his employees spent to learn TM from a teacher. And it tied his two themes together: Dalio said the calm that meditation gave his staff let them argue over ideas without getting emotional, which is what a culture of disagreement depends on.

Later context

Dalio’s support went beyond words. Business Insider reported in November 2016 that he had given about $20 million to the David Lynch Foundation over the previous decade through the Dalio Foundation, money set aside for students in New York and San Francisco and for veterans. The same report said Dalio’s first offer to staff, around 2008, was to repay half the course fee himself, and that about 500 Bridgewater employees had learned TM over eight years.

The Financial Times picked up the Bridgewater story that July; our summary of the Financial Times column covers what it found when it asked whether meditation takes the edge off a trader.

This page is general information, not medical advice. The Manhattan Business Review is not affiliated with the David Lynch Foundation or any Transcendental Meditation organization, and it does not sell courses. Transcendental Meditation and TM are trademarks of their owners.

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