In a nutshell, poor education, a poor culture (one that impedes people from operating effectively together), poor infrastructure, and too much debt c… - Ray Dalio

Investors think independently, anticipate things that haven’t happened yet, and put real money at stake with their bets. Policymakers come from environments that nurture consensus, not dissent, that train them to react to things that have already occurred, and that prepare them for negotiations, not placing bets. Because they don’t benefit from the constant feedback about the quality of their decisions that investors get, it’s not clear who the good and bad decision makers among them are.

I learned that if you work hard and creatively, you can have just about anything you want, but not everything you want. Maturity is the ability to reject good alternatives in order to pursue even better ones.

Remember that everyone has opinions and they are often bad. Opinions are easy to produce; everyone has plenty of them and most people are eager to share them — even to fight for them. Unfortunately many are worthless or even harmful, including a lot of your own.