In Principles: Life and Work (Amazon,) Ray Dalio, a highly successful hedge fund manager tries to write out rules for living one’s life and conducting business.
He should have stuck to managing other people’s money and spared us this tome. It is highly repetitive and completely off the rails. He thinks the world and our minds work like “machines” and that if you can figure out how that machine works, you are all set. The problem is that once you call something a “machine,” your imagination is handicapped by the fact that most machines are deterministic. Real life, business and investing is a system – a complex dynamic system. A system that changes based on how the people in the system behave. Good luck trying to “figure it out.”
The book is gibberish. If you really want to read a self-help book, read the very entertaining The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck (Amazon.)