One's life is paying for cognition.
Pattern, mind, and vision are all called cognition. One's life is paying for cognition.
Part of your cognitive system comes from practice, life experience and experience, and part comes from reading and learning, the touch of your surroundings, and your own perception and thinking.
Why do you want to read more? Those are all expanding your thinking boundaries and improving your cognitive ability.
Cognitive power represents the essential difference between people, and an enterprise can only grow in the cognitive space of entrepreneurs.
If you look at the real world from this, you will find that whoever has a high level of cognition can stand out.
There are no limits in life, there are limitless possibilities. Never rest on your laurels, keep on pursuing progress and breaking conventions to enrich your horizons.
Life is a practice. You need to work hard to find your own goal and direction in life, do meaningful things and invest in a strong interest, and keep improving.
Wu Shichun, the founding partner of Meihua Ventures and a well-known angel investor, defines cognition: cognition is the ability to solve problems that one does not know.
1. Know yourself and the world correctly
People's cognition of the world is often limited by their own cognition.
Generally speaking, our knowledge, experience, and experience will form a tunnel, and all people's cognition and judgment of things will be confined in this tunnel, and we will take it for granted that the truth is like this.
However, once new things appear, our cognition will be immediately subverted.
Everyone's cognition of the world is not the world itself. No matter who is not a god, there may be right and wrong, and perhaps there is no absolute eternal truth.
No one can bypass their own forms of perception to understand the objective world. The appearance of the objective world in people's minds must be shaped by its subjective cognitive forms. This is the famous "Black Swan Theory".
Cognitive self
Knowing oneself is a very difficult thing. Almost no one will feel that they don’t know oneself, but in fact, it is difficult for people to properly evaluate their brilliance and darkness.
A successful person will attribute his achievements to his own ability and foresight; a loser will attribute his failure to luck and environment.
Wang Yangming, a master of mind learning, advocates self-cultivation and uprightness, and the unity of knowledge and action. If a person's heart is not right, the cognition will be inaccurate, and there will be deviations, which will lead to wrong judgments.
We usually think that Moments is a place that can more accurately reflect the cognitive level of entrepreneurs.
If a person behaves extremely arrogantly in the circle of friends, with the style of "Lao Tzu No. 1 in the world", it is best to treat him with caution. Weakness and ignorance are never obstacles to survival, but arrogance is.
However, conceit ≠ bragging. From a certain perspective, "bringing" is a commendatory word, it is a label for young people, we have all boasted "bull" when we were young, and we have also struggled for the "bull" that we have bragged. Think of it as a dream.
In general, self-cognition is the insight and understanding of oneself, and the individual's awareness of one's own existence, including the cognition of one's own behavior and mental state.
Self-cognition is to know what kind of person you are, what abilities and resources you have that can help the activity, know the advantages and disadvantages of the product, whether it can meet the needs of users, and what you can create and bring to society Wait.
Know the world
In the information age, there are many channels for entrepreneurs to perceive the world, ranging from the international situation to trivial things. As long as they want to know, various cognitive channels can provide us with information. Since we all have many cognition channels and we can obtain the information we want to know, why are there obvious deviations in our cognition of the world, market, and competitors?
The answer is that there is a problem with their way of perceiving the world.
1. Without research, there is no right to speak, too much trust in industry reports
In mid-2019, "Internet Queen" Mary Meeker (MaryMeeker) released the latest Internet trend report. The report is 333 pages long, expounding all the important trends that occurred in the Internet industry that year and the impact these trends will have in the coming year.
The content of this report covers many areas, involving the growth of Internet advertising spending in the US market and the growth of digital services in Latin America. But what is puzzling is that in such an informative report, there is not much information about the parent company of popular apps such as Douyin and Toutiao, Beijing ByteDance Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "ByteDance") Information.
You must know that the impact of Bytedance on China and the world at that time, and the changes that phenomenal products such as Douyin and Toutiao brought to the entire Internet industry cannot be underestimated. The 333-page industry report released by Mary Mickel based on industry trends is not complete without this part of the data.
Of course, this report may have its own position, but this is not important. The important thing is that all industry reports that we can find on the Internet in 30 minutes are basically public information. On this basis, no matter how it evolves, it is difficult to form any competitive advantage.
Therefore, when obtaining information on customer needs and market size, do not draw conclusions from industry reports prepared by research institutions.
Due to budget and time constraints, research institutions usually only conduct a small number of sample surveys on the market, and then use the information obtained to speculate on the overall situation of the industry. The report obtained in this way can only see the vague overview of the industry; to judge and There is little or no deviation in decision-making. We must personally do market research and obtain key information to make rational market decisions.
2. One-sided view of the problem
We all know the story of "Blind People Touching Elephants". The four blind men touched the elephant. The first one touched the elephant’s body and said that the elephant was like a wall; the second touched the elephant’s tusks and said that the elephant was round and smooth and looked like a stick; third One person touched the elephant’s leg and felt that the first two people were wrong. He thought the elephant looked like a pillar; the fourth person accidentally touched the elephant’s tail and said that the three people in front were wrong. The elephant was exactly like a thick rope. ...
It is very scary to make random guesses and make judgments based on one-sided understanding or partial experience of things. If it is used to make business judgments, it is easy to push the enterprise into the "deep".
To better understand the world and obtain the most detailed, reliable, and grounded first-hand information, it is also necessary to communicate with a large number of market participants and obtain real information from them. This is the most basic cognitive attitude.
Because every market observer will have his own visual bias, only by widely absorbing the opinions of all parties can he gradually get the appearance of the whole elephant.
Everyone is credible or credible, and requires extensive learning and independent thinking and judgment.
3. Talk more and ask less
If we often communicate with market participants, we will find that the focus is not to communicate with them, but to ask targeted questions. But unfortunately, in the education that most of us receive, the training of problem-solving skills is often more than that of questioning skills.
Therefore, it is necessary to continue to communicate with market participants, express as little as possible of their own opinions in the process of communication, and exercise their questioning skills more consciously.
4. No effective information is refined
When our efforts have accumulated to a certain level, we will find that our level of awareness of the world and the market will be higher than that of many people. But it should be noted that the world is a huge, complex and constantly changing system, and we will never be able to grasp it 100%.
Therefore, when our cognition reaches a certain level and we can make relatively accurate assumptions, we need to use actual products to verify this assumption. Only in this way can we move forward more steadily.
The market is constantly changing, and the information we get today is likely to be out of date tomorrow. Therefore, we must continue to cultivate our own ability to extract effective information, especially to try to understand the owners of the latest market information.
5. Failure to summarize and review in time
Rehearsal is undoubtedly the top priority. In the beginning, there may be no direction, only enthusiasm; no strategy, only tactics. During this period, you will encounter some big or small setbacks and even failures, and these different sizes of setbacks are the nutrients in the process of doing things, and they are also gifts from the market. The greater the failure, the greater the success. But the premise is that you have the determination to overcome frustration and the courage to improve your cognition.
Stride forward is important, but it is more important to summarize and review in a timely manner. The larger the size of the business, the more you need to "look back" from time to time as you move forward, so as to discover subtle problems. The replay should also be integrated into the "blood", so as to adjust the direction in time to make it gradually see the way forward in the confusion, and improve the cognitive ability.
The process of replay is not only a process of recording, but also a process of summarizing the mistakes I have made and improving my own awareness.
6. Lack of communication with top figures in the industry
Colliding with people with the latest cognition can not only open the way for us to recognize the new world, obtain more and updated information, and thus improve our cognition, but also when we feel that we are not "crushed", I will get a kind of feedback-my cognition can basically support myself to communicate with them on the same level and on the same level.
If we invest again at this time, our attitude will be relatively more determined. Just like a Go player, only if he has played against the top players in the chess world, and everyone wins or loses, will he really feel that there is no problem in "going on the battlefield".
When a person's cognitive level is low, it is difficult to see a higher-dimensional world, and he will take it for granted that what he sees is the truth of the world. To break this curse, the best way is to communicate with people in the industry who have top knowledge or the latest knowledge, break it with external force, and crack it with all your strength.
Only by having a clear and accurate understanding of self and the world can it be possible to grasp the true value chain and industry development trends.
2. The four levels of cognition
Everyone lives in their own cognitive world. How much we can see and how wide our perspective depends entirely on our cognition and cognitive boundaries.
It is precisely because of this that we have cognitive biases, cognitive limitations, and four different levels of cognition from the bottom up, which is the "funnel model of cognition" in the figure below:
The first level: I don’t know I don’t know what
we see is a part of the world within our own perspective, and we can hardly see outside the perspective or higher-level cognition. The scary thing is that we haven't realized this yet.
We often hear the following 3 sentences in our operation and management:
The first sentence: "Our product or technology is currently the best." No matter what the product, it will say so. Few people say that their products are ranked second or something else.
The second sentence: "Our products or technologies have no competitors." Or "Compared with other companies, we have more technical advantages." Unfortunately, when our team is conducting investigations, we always find that their competitors are more competitive. All in all, they have no absolute advantage in technology.
The third sentence: "Our product or technology is the most lacking and most needed in the market." Whenever I hear this sentence, I will always ask: "Why do users have to use or buy your product? Your product What are the specific differences?" But the responses I got were mostly ambiguous statements or simply silent.
These may be because they have been immersed in their own field for too long, especially technology-oriented. They occasionally read some market reports or professional speech related information, but they lack in-depth understanding of the market, and they have not directly contacted and listened to customers. Feedback, so they always take it for granted that their products will inevitably solve users’ problems.
"It is important for people to have self-knowledge." Those who have nothing outside their minds and lack of cognition must be trapped by their own insights and experience. One sentence must be remembered: problems that are not aware of are often the biggest problems.
The second layer: know you don't know
Only by knowing one's cognition shortcomings can one make up for it and see a wider world.
Cognitive power is easy to be backward compatible, but it is difficult to be upward compatible. It is not easy to go from "I don't know I don't know" to the level of "Know I don't know" and complete the transition.
First of all, we need a certain degree of cognitive support. We must know more to have a wider perspective and a larger boundary. Second, we need to be sensitive enough to the outside world. Finally, we need an "empty cup mentality." "Knowing my own cognition shortcomings, I always remain awed and curious about the unknown.
The "empty cup mentality" is very important. Only when a person has the "empty cup mentality" can he truly let go of his little achievements. This is the starting point of learning.
The more a person knows, the more he will feel that what he knows and what he has learned is limited, and he does not know more. In the end, he will find that what is known is always a small part, and what is unknown is the invisible iceberg below sea level.
The so-called growth and diligence is to maintain a high degree of sensitivity, know the parts that you don't know, complete the cognitive upgrade, and constantly break your own cognitive boundaries.
The third layer: know that you know
In the final analysis, cognition is that we make comprehensive judgments about ourselves and the world based on various complex situations. The higher the level of cognition, the closer our judgment is to the facts.
When we have delved deep enough and long enough in a field, we have entered the level of "experts", able to see ourselves from a more macro level and from a broader perspective, believing in what we know, and knowing where our boundaries are. Where can one's own ability cover. This is the third level of cognition-knowing that you know.
The fourth layer: I don’t know I know
"I don't know I know" is a relatively abstract concept, and we can understand it as "instinctive reaction." That is to say, when we enter this level, the knowledge and skills we have learned will be internalized and cost-responsive. We do not need to deliberately measure and compare things rationally, and we can also make good choices.
It's like doing Tai Chi. The highest state of Taijiquan is "forgetting shape", so that things can be forgotten, and there is no bondage in the heart. Only by doing this, can we do whatever we want when we are discussing, respond to things naturally, and reach a state of emptiness and emptiness.
Of course, after reaching this level, it's not that you really don't know that you know it, but an unconscious state that you feel like you are in a state of transformation. It should be noted that we need the stimulation and stimulation of the environment and opportunity, only in this way can we understand things from ignorance to clarity.
However, we do not necessarily have to pursue this kind of advanced realm, in fact, we can also choose from input to output. For example, you can record your thoughts and feelings in WeChat through the file transfer assistant at any time, including going out to lecture, doing internal sharing, etc. These are some ways to clarify your thinking, which are very important for the improvement of philosophical thinking and cognitive ability. Meaning.
Through the above four levels of cognition, we can see that human cognition is actually like that huge funnel. The smaller the space, the fewer opportunities, and the easier it is to be constrained by the inherent sinking route; the higher the space, the larger the space, the more opportunities, and the easier it is to see the wider world.
From "I don't know I don't know" to "Know I don't know", then to "Know I know", and finally to "I don't know I know", this is the process of cognitive upgrading and the process of a person's growth.
Between self-denial and affirmation, it is difficult to move forward and spiral upward. This process is bound to be accompanied by pain. But we must believe that the sun will always follow the wind and rain, and one day we will find that it has a strong and charming resonance with the higher dimensional world outside.
3. Construct a thinking framework and enhance self-awareness
The famous writer Shi Tiesheng once said: "The difference between people is greater than the difference between people and pigs."
In his view, the genetic difference between any person and any pig is constant and quantifiable, but the difference between people will be so great that it is completely beyond our imagination and even unpredictable.
The reality is also true. Only when people raise their cognitive ability from a low level to a high level can they break the ceiling and make progress.
What can we do to improve our cognition?
If you want to improve your cognition, in addition to the accumulation of knowledge, experience and skills, you must first change your thinking, and you must build the following four thinking frameworks.
Final thinking
Endgame thinking is reverse thinking, deduced from the present to the future, and then standing in the future to look at the present, the core of which is "start with the end".
That is to say, before we do a thing or decide on a thing, we have to think about what this thing might develop in the future and what kind of impact it will bring, and then reverse the current course of action to implement the corresponding behavior. And tactics.
Give a simple example. People who do not have an end-game mindset buy stocks will habitually look at the current market conditions and consider what gossips will be tomorrow. This is easy to be confused; and those who have an end-game mindset buy stocks, they will think about everyone in 10 years. What kind of consumption is the situation, what kind of products you like, and what kind of company will continue to grow and develop. Then reverse push, so that it's easy to make a decision.
Many people like to ask: Is there any value in what you are doing now and whether it makes sense to continue doing it... What I want to say is that if you don’t think about the end and only focus on the current situation, then you will always follow the trend and always look for it. The direction, without a stable development, is always catching up with the next opportunity.
According to the logic of final thinking, we will find that many things seem reasonable at the moment, but in the long run, they will not stand the test of time. On the contrary, if you think about the end, you probably know what you are doing now and what the future is like, there will be many very clear paths, so you will have a stronger strategic driving ability and the ability to solve long-term problems.
Although strategy may not solve current problems, it can solve future problems.
First principles
We are in an era of information explosion, surrounded by various and complex information. However, if all information is paid attention to, the underlying reasons cannot be seen.
First principles are the laws that determine the most essential of things. The way of thinking is to find the most essential and most important factor of a matter, and always put this factor in the first place to deal with it.
Its greatest significance lies in focusing on the core of the problem, helping to see the most essential things of things, so that when they encounter problems, they can be free from the constraints of the status quo and fixed thinking, ignore the details, are not satisfied with simple explanations, and focus on the problem. In essence, quickly find the breaking point, so as to truly improve one's cognitive level and problem-solving ability.
Incremental thinking
Many people in the industry know that Fun Learning Car and Mengmeng Learning Car were once competitors. However, due to poor management by Zhang Zetao, the founder of Mengmeng Xueche, the capital chain was broken, and the company went bankrupt and liquidated.
Competing each other, if ordinary people see their opponents go bankrupt, they will ridicule or even fall into trouble. But to my surprise, Liu Laomu, the founder of Quxueche, did not do this. Instead, he sent a WeChat message like this to Zhang Zetao:
"Ze Tao, I am very touched by the bankruptcy announcement you issued, and I feel sorry for you. The last time I saw you, you gave me the impression that you are a solid, reliable, hardworking person, and a very good person. Product-based entrepreneurs. Starting a business is difficult. It doesn’t matter whether you succeed or fail. Everyone is worthy of respect. In the entrepreneurial direction of the Internet driving school, Mengmeng Learning Car is our comrade-in-arms! We have made a lot of efforts to improve the driving training industry and change the status quo. , But in this process we are also faced with huge challenges and pressures. So I can understand your feelings and appreciate the sense of responsibility on your shoulders."
After a few words, the love of the heroes is fully revealed.
Perhaps it was this pattern and sentiment that enabled Zhang Zetao to quickly emerge from the haze of entrepreneurial failure, and joined Quxueche and Liu Laomu to polish the product together.
After Zhang Zetao joined Fun Learning Car, he felt that he was not good enough, so he invited Zhao Pan, a very famous product manager in the industry, to be his superior. "Since you are better than me, then you will lead me." This pattern of cooperation is admirable.
In my opinion, excellent entrepreneurs must be people with a pattern. They can not only recognize and tap the top figures in the industry through various channels, but also attract these top figures to join the team through personality charm and corporate mechanisms, but also create top figures A stage to maximize value.
Miya is China’s largest cross-border e-commerce for mothers and babies. Its founder, Liu Nan, once said: “The hardest thing for people is to break through themselves. Before, I was narrow-minded and thought,'My own is mine, and your best is mine. ', this is not right. When breaking through the boundaries of cognition, you can only turn the cooperation between people into an empowerment by holding the mentality of'mine belongs to everyone, and yours belongs to everyone'. Cooperation, more people will help you break through your cognitive boundaries."
In order to continuously break through the cognitive boundary, Liu Nan put most of her energy on team formation. With some hard work, she almost turned all of the great talents in cross-border business business such as Letao, JD.com, and Haolebuy. Dug it again.
Who you walk with is far more important than the destination. Only when you have a group of partners who are willing to walk with you can you have the courage to move forward in the dark; only if you know how to share the entrepreneurial cake with others, can you have more people willing to walk with you, and this cake will grow bigger and bigger.
Model thinking
The difficulties encountered by enterprises at each stage of development are different, and the focus of their operations will also change accordingly.
For example, the most important thing at the beginning is the product, which requires trial and error and rapid iteration; the next is data, which tests the operational capability; the next is revenue, and the product must be monetized; and then the next is to resist the "big" because of the "big" May come to suppress us, grab market share with us, and so on. Of course, companies will also encounter some difficulties throughout, such as team building.
Therefore, I think it is necessary to have model thinking and provide different solutions to different difficulties in the process. For example, the equity structure of the team must be set up reasonably; the partners must be relatively complementary; the official account and Weibo must be available on the first day, because we cannot do without the support of "fans"...
For a company, how to operate and manage it is certainly important, but the internal thinking mode is more important. Only by building a model thinking framework can it be possible to break through the real dilemma.
4. How can I know I don’t know
There are actually many ways to "know that you don't know", but one way I want to emphasize is to build a network of people. Because of contacting people with higher cognitive level than ourselves and dealing with top figures in various industries, we will find that every conversation with them is a rare opportunity to improve our self-cognition.
"Chunjiang Plumbing Duck Prophet", with regard to trends and opportunities in a certain industry, top figures who have been in the industry for a long time can often perceive them first than ordinary people. They can make more precise directional judgments from some small details and compare those Meaning filtering of noise that is not conducive to thinking.
In other words, the information we obtain from them is almost the essence. By listening to their judgments on industry trends, we will learn about some new opportunities and trends, thereby completely breaking our own cognitive boundaries and embracing infinite possibilities.
So how to build your own personal network?
Learn to appreciate
If you want to have good interpersonal relationships, you must first learn to appreciate others.
There are many people in the world who are better than us. We communicate with these people in an appreciative manner and treat them as teachers, and we will gain a strong network of interpersonal relationships. If you don't build relationships from the perspective of appreciation, you are unlikely to have a strong network of relationships.
Of course, this appreciation is by no means blind worship. Everyone has his own cognitive boundary. He may indeed be better than us in a certain field and industry, but this does not mean that his cognition and insights in each field are correct. Essence, discard its dross".
The final point to remind is that when I speak of the top figures in the industry, I do not mean the so-called "experts." Especially in the Internet field, if you encounter the kind of "experts" who claim to have observed the industry for more than ten years or even decades, but have never made correct predictions, and have failed to play any role in promoting the progress of the industry, don't worry. Don't communicate with them too much, communicate with them often, but it is easy to lose.
Let others think you are a reliable person
The most important thing in interpersonal communication is to trust each other. Only by letting others trust us and believing that I am a very reliable person can weave an unbreakable network of interpersonal relationships.
If you want to take a sedan chair, you must first make others feel that we are reliable and able to help them succeed and achieve each other.
Learning will benefit
It is not enough to build a long-lasting network of personal relationships to make others feel that we are reliable. We must also learn to make profit.
When doing business with others, if you can get seven or even eight points of profit, then it is better to take six points, because only in this way can you win a good reputation for yourself and attract more people to cooperate.
If you can get seven cents of profit, but you have to get eight cents of profit, or even nine cents of profit for crossing the river and bridge, then who will cooperate with us?
So, many times, we need to share our interests and reputation with others. Sharing does not mean that oneself is less. We often say "to be willing". Only when there is "to give up" can there be "to get." For example, we use our personal brand to endorse reliable people. After the endorsement is over, our personal brand will not necessarily be damaged. On the contrary, the more we are willing to endorse others, the more valuable our personal brand will be.
The establishment of a personal network is a gradual process. At the beginning, it may be like riding a bicycle. Every time you move forward, you need to push forward with all your strength. Slowly, with the help of others, you can drive a motorcycle. At this time, you only need to control the direction and step on the accelerator to move forward.
When we do a lot of things for others, we will be rewarded by others, and we can naturally build our own network of relationships. When our abilities are strong enough and the network of relationships is large enough, we are not pushing things by ourselves, but things pushing us forward. This is the law of interpersonal relationships that can change the fate of every entrepreneur.
The future business war is destined to occur on the battlefield of corporate managers' cognitive ability. Imagination drives the upgrading of cognition, and the only thing that can limit the size of the company is the level of cognition of the founder of the company. Only when the founders of a company enhance their cognitive ability, constantly challenge themselves, and refresh their knowledge of people, things, and the world, can the company go further and more steadily on the road of development.