If I recommended Ray Dalio’s Principles to you, I apologize. I’m about two-thirds through and am throwing in the towel.

The first 121 pages (Part 1) are amazing!! In that section, he shares his background, what shaped him, and how he started Bridgewater (the largest and most successful hedge fund of all time).

• The storytelling around the politics and economy of that time (the mid-60’s) is fascinating. America was at its peak, representing 40% of the world economy (vs. 20% today). He started playing the stock market at age 12, with his caddying money. He also started ordering free annual reports of Fortune 500 companies and digging into each one to understand the intricacies of those businesses. At 12!!
• And then from 1967 to 1979 everything went to hell in a hand basket. He, along with most others, lost big on the stock market. But the experience shaped his analytical approach.  Every investment was reviewed, in-depth, including what his thesis was, where it missed the mark along with anything else he got wrong or had missed. That practice served him well his entire life. The reviews were initially done with handwritten notes but he was an early adopter of computers and AI. He is a firm believer in the power of the human mind working in tandem with computers. He is adamant that the best decisions are made when the emotion is taken out of the process which only occurs when algorithms are in play.
• The late-60’s is also when he first became interested in meditation. He was a huge Beatles fan and when they went to India, in 1968, to study with Maharashi Mahesh Yogi, he got hooked. He is frequently quoted as saying his TM practice has benefited him above all else throughout his life because it makes him more open-minded and allows him to think more clearly and creatively.

Which brings me to what has impressed me most about him. He is the most original and creative thinker I have ever run across. If you want to understand his unique way of modeling markets (and thinking in general) read pages 14-25. Mind-blowing.

Unfortunately, the last 300 pages of the book are just dreadful. I NEVER want to read, see or hear the word RADICAL again. Every page is littered with references to being “Radically Open-Minded”, “Radically Transparent”, and “Radical Truth.” At this point in the book, I started to feel that Bridgewater was indeed a radical cult more than a business.

That said, I still find Ray Dalio inspiring and fascinating. Read on below for his 5-Step Process for getting what you want out of life.

Here are the five steps, with descriptions by Dalio, as told to Recode executive editor Kara Swisher on her podcast, Recode Decode.

1. Set goals. “You have to have audacious goals.”
2. Notice your mistakes. “As you go to those, you are going to encounter your failures, your mistakes. You have to identify those and not tolerate them.”
3. Understand why you are making those mistakes. “You have to get the diagnosis to the root cause of them, which could be that you have a weakness or somebody has a weakness.”
4. Fix your mistakes. “You have to design what you are going to do about it to get around it.”
5. Persevere. “You have to push through to results”

“And if you keep doing that over and over again, you will inevitably succeed,” says Dalio, 68. “You do it over and over again because you have determination — you will inevitably succeed.”