Author | Mr.K Editor | Emma
Source | Technical Leadership (ID: jishulingdaoli)
Two days ago, at the gate of the community, I saw a dispute between a security guard and a delivery boy. They were scuffling and swearing. During the process, I heard the delivery boy say, "What's so great about you, a broken security guard, that you can treat us badly?" The security guard's reply was very direct, "You're right, I can't control others, but I can cure them." You guys, what can you do if you don’t accept it?”
Scenes like this are actually not uncommon in today's society. The security guard and the young man are both low-level workers and have many similarities in their backgrounds and experiences. Logically speaking, it is easier for them to empathize with each other. Even if there are some differences due to their respective work needs, it is still possible. You can talk and discuss things easily instead of insulting each other or even punching each other. We encounter this kind of thing too often, and it's easy for both parties involved to feel that it's too difficult to live in this world, so why can't we meet good people?
From their respective perspectives, they may all make sense. What the delivery boy encountered were customers urging food delivery and the obstruction of property security guards; while the security guards encountered accusations from other owners and various outsiders. Not cooperative. It’s so hard to find someone who can understand them and show them kindness and kindness.
This reminds me of the story of Huang Bo. Before Huang Bo became famous, many people around him often made sarcastic remarks to him and played tricks on him. But when he became famous, everything changed. In an interview with the media, he said with emotion, "Since I became famous, I am surrounded by good people, and every face is filled with smiles when they look at me."
What kind of value you have determines what kind of world you can see. This is the heartbreaking but true underlying logic of this society. When you are weak, what you see is indifference, carelessness, and disrespect. Because you are at the bottom of society, you have no value that others want, and no one will care about your emotions and feelings; but when you become strong, you have value and resources that can be exchanged, and others will treat you differently. If you ask for help, you will naturally be greeted with a smile and respect.
Therefore, a simple and crude conclusion is that if you want to see a better world, you must find a way to get out of the bottom and make yourself more valuable. Only then can you be qualified to see the world you want to see.
01
If you stay at the bottom for too long, you will become useless.
1. The bottom level generally lacks "starting point thinking"
"The end point of our lifelong efforts is just the starting point for others." I believe many people have heard and seen this seemingly "seeing through everything" argument. Behind such words, there is usually a strong sense of "fate", and the subtext is "It's not that I don't want to work hard, but it's useless if I try..." However, this is precisely the biggest difference between the strong and the weak in life. difference.
In the beginning, many people thought about changing their fate through their own efforts. However, after struggling for several years, some people found that they did not get the results they wanted, but were spinning in circles, even worse than before, so they began to Accepting your fate, thinking that you are "transparent" and can see the end of your life, so you lose the motivation to continue working hard, close yourself up, willingly accept the so-called "reality" early on, and indulge in the thought of relaxing and lying down. , completely gave up on the ideal of changing life and destiny.
Are these people really "transparent" and able to see the "end" of their lives? No, they are just using "end-point thinking" to justify and paralyze themselves. Some truly brave people think not of the end point, but of the starting point. The achievements a person can achieve will inevitably be affected by family background, personal talent, luck, opportunities and other factors. This is an indisputable fact, but it does not mean that your continuous and meaningful efforts alone will be worthless. On the contrary, if you face life with an open attitude of "begin with the end in mind" in everything, you may encounter unexpected surprises.
Brother K was originally a Shanghai drifter who had nothing, and lived in a youth apartment with eight people per room for nearly a year. Later, I performed well at work and was promoted and received a salary increase, so I rented a small "one-bedroom apartment". But I know that renting a house is not my goal in staying in Shanghai. I want to own my own house in Shanghai. So buying a house became my next goal. I became more serious at work, constantly improved my skills, taught myself management knowledge, and forced myself to do some social activities that I was not good at and didn't like before.
Slowly, I went from being a first-line coder to becoming a supervisor, director, and CTO, and I also got options in the company. My goal of buying a house in Shanghai was realized naturally. But at this time, "having a house and being an executive" is also not my end, but my new starting point. I have to be responsible for the second half of my career. I want to have my own "second curve in the career" and establish my own company, only in this way will I not be too passive in the rest of my life. Driven by this motivation, I started to learn how to do self-media from scratch and set up my own consulting company, and I did pretty well. Even so, I dare not say that I have seen through my "end", and I don't think about the so-called "end" at all. I just continue to work hard, continue to improve, and smile at life.
Brother K said this not to show off himself, but to say that he should not "see through life" lightly, let alone adopt a closed mentality early. When facing work and career, we are all in our prime years and are still far from the end of life. When thinking about problems, you should stay away from "end-point thinking" and don't rush to "end" everything for yourself. You may not have the ability and vision at all, unless you want to lie down.
2. It’s easy to fall into the “poor and busy” trap
Tian Beichen, a wealthy man from a Hong Kong aristocratic family, once participated in the filming of the reality show "The Rich and Poor". As a son of a wealthy family, Tian Beichen graduated from Harvard University and founded his own listed company. Needless to say, he is capable. When participating in the show, he confidently believed that with his own abilities, he could create miracles even if he started from the grassroots level. Later, he was assigned as a cleaner by the show crew, and everyone wanted to see if he could make a fortune from scratch as he said.
But the reality exceeded Tian Beichen's imagination. His meager salary as a cleaner, after deducting monthly rent, meals and other necessary expenses, left almost nothing left, and he could not save the "start-up capital" he imagined. In order to save money, he rented a house in a more remote area. He saved a little money, but the daily commute to and from work took 4 hours. His body was in a state of exhaustion all day long, which made his mental and physical fitness very poor. Difference. More importantly, in this state, he had almost no time to think about starting a business and making connections. All his time and energy were spent on how to live a humble life.
In the end, Tian Beichen announced his failure and quit the show after not persisting for a few days. When the reporter asked him about his feelings these days, he replied, "It's strange. I just think about eating these two days. I have no hope at all and don't think about anything. I work hard just hoping to have a good meal... For them (the bottom class) People), the most important thing is what to eat next. How can you have time and energy to plan your life and think about future development? It’s a dead end!”
Coincidentally, American columnist Barbara Ehrenreich also had a similar experience to Tian Beichen. She once chose to work in 6 different cities. She decided not to use her major, education and connections, but only relied on her savings of 1,000 US dollars to start from scratch and experience the life of the people at the bottom.
At first, like Tian Beichen, he believed that he would be able to stand out from the bottom with his ability. But reality also hit her hard in the face. She successively worked 6 jobs including sales, cleaner, waiter, etc., but she was never able to solve her basic survival problems well, leaving her trapped in an endless loop with no solution: not enough money, so she moved to a remote place to rent a house; But when you live far away and spend a lot of time on the road, you have less and less time to improve yourself, and your chances of finding a high-paying job become increasingly slim. Eventually, Barbara wrote this experience in the book "My Life at the Bottom."
If you want to ruin a person, make him so busy that he has no time to think about the future. The stories of Tian Beichen and Barbara Ehrenreich illustrate the connotation of this sentence very well. Elites like these two cannot successfully escape once they fall into the endless cycle of "the poorer they get, the busier they get, and the busier they get, they get poorer" at the bottom, let alone us who have mediocre abilities, qualifications, and knowledge.
3. "Learned helplessness", leading to the final giving up of efforts
In 1967, the American psychologist Seligman conducted a famous experiment. He locked the dog in a cage. Initially, as soon as the buzzer sounded, he gave the dog an electric shock. This uncomfortable electric shock was caused by being locked in the cage. There is no way the dog can escape. Later, after many experiments, as long as the buzzer sounded, even if the cage door was opened and the dog was not given an electric shock, the dog would not escape, but would moan and tremble as if it had been shocked. Having the opportunity to run away, but failing to do so, instead desperately waiting for the pain to come, is what is called "learned helplessness."
Later, learned helplessness was extended to the psychological state and behavior of a person who is helpless in facing problems after experiencing many failures and setbacks. When a person attributes uncontrollable negative events or failure results to his or her own intelligence and abilities, a state of helplessness and depression will appear, self-evaluation will be reduced, and motivation to continue will be weakened. At the lowest level, spiritual support and fighting spirit also collapse, until all efforts are given up and fell into despair.
People at the bottom never lack hard work and are not afraid of hardship, but they are often limited by various realistic and difficult-to-change reasons, making their efforts again and again become meaningless struggles. I originally thought that if I worked hard with my boss for two or three years, I would get a promotion and a raise in salary, but the reality was that the company closed down after less than two years. I planned to live frugally for three to five years and save a down payment to buy an apartment. I didn’t expect that the price would drop by then. It has already doubled several times... Faced with such blows again and again, many people no longer want to get a promotion or raise their salary, or buy a house in a big city to take root. Over time, they will slip into the abyss of "learned helplessness" , and gradually gave up the beautiful dream of a breakthrough in the workplace or a leap in life.
02
How to stay away from the bottom and realize class leap?
1. Stick to a craft and hone a skill that you can rely on for survival.
In the book "The Moat of Life", the well-known blogger Zhang Hui divides the life business model into four types: the first is selling time without leverage, that is, unit time can only be sold once and to one person; the second is selling time to one person; Selling time with leverage means that you can sell multiple times per unit of time and to many people. The number of shares sold and the number of customers are related to the leverage ratio, which is basically controlled by your personal brand; the third way is to spend money to buy time. , you can make profits by using "other people's time and other people's money"; the fourth way is to spend money to buy the time of "powerful people" (essentially similar to the third way).
A careful comparison reveals that the first model refers to our lowest-level "brick builders" who work a full 8 hours a day (overtime is not considered) and get paid at the end of the month. You don’t need a calculator to calculate how much you earn in a year or ten years; the second type is like well-known figures and IPs with certain influence. The books they write, the paintings they draw, and the lessons they sell can be calculated on Sell to anyone at any time, and you can enjoy time compound interest and after-sleep income; the third and fourth types (simply classified into one category) mainly refer to entrepreneurs and boss groups. They hire people at different levels and start from They earn varying degrees of "price difference", thereby generating geometric multiples of income.
It is obvious that most of us ordinary people are in the first "life business model", which not only has a limited income scale, but also has a single income structure, poor risk resistance, and low anti-fragility ability. In order to hedge against this fragile ability to resist risks, ordinary people must consciously pursue a competitive craft and build the survival skills they rely on for a living.
Writer Feng Jicai said in "Fantastic People in the World": "In every walk of life, there are several living gods with extraordinary skills, such as Brick Carver Liu, Clay Figure Zhang, Kite Wei, Machine King, Brush Li, etc. With exquisite craftsmanship and great reputation, Those who have special skills eat meat, shine, and stand in the middle of the street; those who have no ability eat vegetarian food, languish, and stay aside. This routine is not determined by anyone, it is an authentic way of living."
Ordinary people have a skill that not only allows them to make a better and more stable "living", but also has the opportunity to jump into the second life business model of teaching people and selling training after mastering this skill. Especially in the current recessionary atmosphere, many people feel insecure and worry that they will be cut or laid off. However, if you have a skill and are not dispensable, you may feel more at ease. This kind of skill that you have mastered by yourself is not only your ability to eat, but also your ability to be respected and treated by others.
2. Stay away from consumerism and delayed gratification.
There is a "ratchet effect" in the field of economics, which means that after people's consumption habits are formed, they are irreversible, that is, they are easy to adjust upward but difficult to adjust downward. Especially in the short term, consumption is irreversible and its habitual effect is large. To put it more simply, as a consumer, it is easy for a person to increase consumption as his income increases, but it is difficult for a person to reduce consumption as his income decreases. That is to say, as the old saying goes, "It is easy to go from frugality to luxury, but it is difficult to go from luxury to frugality."
In real life, many people are very concerned about what others think of them, or they like to follow trends. They are afraid that they will not be "respectable" in the eyes of others and will appear out of place in a certain group, so they blindly think that they want what others have. Yes, I also want to buy what others buy, so under the coercion of the "ratchet effect", regardless of my own economic situation and objective conditions, I slowly slide into the quagmire of consumerism.
Some time ago, LV teamed up with three coffee shops in Shanghai to launch a "limited time bookstore" pop-up event. The event stipulates that if you purchase two brand books in the store, you will get a canvas bag with the LV brand logo printed on it. Among the books sold, the cheapest "City Guide" costs 290 yuan. In other words, you have to spend at least 580 yuan on books to get the gift LV canvas bag. Moreover, there are three different colors of LV canvas bags in three stores. To collect all three colors, you have to go to these three stores to purchase them separately. Although the cost is high, there are still many people queuing up in front of coffee shops. This matter also caused widespread discussion at the time, and the "fans" who bought the book were directly described by a major media as "stupid, poor and vain".
People have the freedom to consume, whether it’s for the LV logo or books. I’m happy that it’s hard to buy things when you have money. People have the freedom to consume whatever they have the ability to do. But according to reports, there are also some young people who have just entered the society, and even college students, who use Huabei, swipe credit cards, or even borrow other students’ living expenses to spend money. The purpose is to “have the first place in life at the lowest cost” A genuine LV item." This kind of transcending one's own financial capabilities and forcing consumption of some dispensable items in pursuit of temporary satisfaction is obviously a misunderstanding of consumerism.
Buffett's father taught Buffett since he was a child that people should have an internal scorer, and their hearts should be firm and confident enough without letting the outside world define themselves. Everyone has different desires, and there is no problem at all to satisfy them within our capabilities, and it may even inspire us to keep moving forward. But before we have the strength, we should still learn to control our desires and stay away from the trap of consumerism and instant gratification of dopamine. Instead, we must learn to delay gratification and use limited money and resources in more worthwhile places. Such as self-investment and personal improvement, rather than being swallowed up by the desire to consume.
3. Make good life plans
Hollywood star and former California Governor Schwarzenegger was born in an ordinary family. However, when he was 10 years old, this thin and poor boy set his ambition to become the President of the United States and made a careful life plan for this purpose:
If you want to become the President of the United States, you must first become the Governor of the United States;
If you want to run for governor, you must get the support of a large financial group;
To obtain the support of a consortium, you must first integrate into the consortium;
To join the consortium, you need to marry a wealthy daughter;
To marry a wealthy daughter, you must first become a celebrity
The quick way to become famous is to be a movie star
Before becoming a movie star, you must have an attractive figure and develop a masculine look.
Schwarzenegger made a plan and followed the relevant path. Through hard training in bodybuilding, he first became the European bodybuilding champion, then went to Hollywood to become an action star, then married a woman from the Kennedy family, and was successfully elected as the governor of California. Although he did not become the president of the United States, his life planning and execution abilities are amazing enough and worthy of our thinking and reference.
A life without a plan is called a puzzle, and a life with a plan is called a blueprint. People who know how to plan usually have long-term goals and clear paths. They often know what they want very early. No matter what class or environment they are in, they will not have no direction or follow the crowd, but will firmly and persistently move towards it. Go towards your own goals. Those who do not understand planning have no clear goals and will only be passively pushed forward by various realities, going around and around with the torrent of fate, with almost no initiative.
How to carry out effective life planning, Stanford University's Life Design course may give us some reference. This course has been one of the most popular courses at Stanford University for many years. Its content mainly tells everyone that in the process of designing life, we must be able to understand what we really want and who we want to be, and we must self-examine and reflect on ourselves through the "health/work/entertainment/love" dashboard. You can realize your ideal life design by improving your outlook on life and work, recording a "good time diary", formulating an "Odyssey plan", and finding a life mentor. Due to space limitations, Brother K will not elaborate much, and interested friends can learn about it on their own.
Many people often talk about "class jump". In fact, the word "jump" is originally a vocabulary in the field of physics. It refers to the process of electrons jumping from one orbit of an atom to another, and this process requires huge energy. . To achieve a leap in life, it also requires a huge amount of energy. Especially today, when the social structure is becoming increasingly solidified and the Matthew Effect is becoming more and more clear, everyone knows how difficult it is to achieve a class leap. Should you make some efforts and attempts, or should you let nature take its course and take things as they come? Everyone has different choices. There is no right or wrong in life. It all depends on your own choices. It’s good if you can enjoy yourself. Let’s encourage each other.
Introduction to account owner
Introduction to the account owner: Mr.K , Huang Zhekeng, an expert in enterprise digital transformation, founder of "Sudden Enlightenment Hill", technology blogger, former technical executive of Haier, Zhongtong, and Yiyao.com, author of "The Way of Cultivation of Technicians" "The Top of Technology Management". Share: growth tips, technology trends, digital transformation, and business insights.
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