Having knowledge may not necessarily change your destiny, but having no knowledge will certainly not change your destiny.

1. Smart

More than half a year ago, a speech hit the screen. It talks about the reality that 63% of rural children have never attended high school for a day.

Maybe you have read this speech. I read it at night, word for word, twice. I am that 37-year-old rural kid who went to high school.

In the summer of 2001, I was 15 years old. Sitting on the bus returning home from the high school entrance examination, the teacher leading the group shouted loudly: Are we all here? Count!

"1, 2, 3, 4...", the voice finally stopped at "27".

27 is the number of people who took the high school entrance examination in the third grade of junior high school in our year. I remember that in the first grade of junior high school, there were 6 classes with about 260 students.

So, in our class, the proportion of those who took the high school entrance examination was 10.38.

A month later, the results of the high school entrance examination were announced, and 7 people entered high school. Therefore, in our generation, the proportion of high school students was 2.6.

In fact, it is much lower than the figure of 37. Of course, that was 17 years ago, and perhaps the countryside today has changed.

Later, among the seven classmates in high school, I was the only one who was admitted to a key university. When they graduate from college, most students choose to go to graduate school, take civil service exams, or join foreign companies. And I changed three jobs and three cities in six years. In the eyes of others, this is called messing around.

When I was 28 years old, I gave up the opportunity to become a high-paying manager and started a business. I started an on-the-job training service organization-Jiaza Academy. According to market valuation, I am worth hundreds of millions. I should be considered as someone of the same age. The best among people.

Then, I was inevitably asked about my growth experience on some occasions, but I always felt uneasy and anxious in my heart. I didn’t know why I got to where I am today. It seemed to be full of chance and luck.

(1) Since the third or fourth grade of elementary school, my parents have not been involved in my study, let alone tutoring homework.

(2) Throughout my school days, my parents did not recommend any books for me to read, nor did they discuss many topics about the future with me.

(3) When I applied for my application in my senior year of high school, I still couldn’t figure out what a “finance major” was. No one could ask me, and I didn’t think it was important.

(4) After graduating from college, I have always relied on my own understanding to choose a job, and I was surrounded by voices about whether I should be an official or not.

The above is the environment in which I grew up. It seems that I have unlimited autonomy at every step, but at each crossroad: further education, employment, entrepreneurship, etc., I actually long for someone to teach me.

Especially, as the company grew bigger and bigger and experienced more and more setbacks, I felt more and more: There is a world outside the world, and there are people outside the world. If I just rely on my cleverness, I can start from 260 rural children. Win. But among 260 million working people, is it still possible to rely solely on intelligence?

2. Insights

During the high school entrance examination last year, there was a very hot news.

Xiong Xuangang, Beijing’s top liberal arts scholar, was asked “Do you believe knowledge can change your destiny?”, he replied:

It is becoming more and more difficult for rural children to pass the exam. I am here in Beijing Being able to enjoy educational resources in a big city allows me to take many shortcuts. Nowadays, many top picks come from powerful and capable families, so having knowledge may not necessarily change your destiny, but having no knowledge will definitely not change your destiny.

Xiong Xuangang’s parents are both diplomats. When he was very young, he visited many countries, including Europe and the United States, Brazil, East Timor, Indonesia, etc.

In terms of knowledge, he is already much higher than his peers. Many rural children have never left their place of residence throughout their lives, let alone traveled around the world by the time they were in middle school.

Share another story related to experience:

Once, Mr. Wang Guowei, a famous master of Chinese studies in the Republic of China, invited the last emperor Puyi, who had long since abdicated, to his home.

When he enthusiastically showed Pu Yi the antique calligraphy, paintings, gold, stone and jade that he had collected for half his life, Pu Yi was not very interested. Instead, he pointed at a few pieces and told Wang Guowei that they were fakes.

Of course Wang Guowei was not convinced. These treasures were selected by him based on his own aesthetic and historical attainments. How could they be fakes? Wang Guowei thought to himself that maybe the little emperor didn't look carefully.

After Puyi left, Wang Guowei couldn't wait to find his more experienced friends to help identify them. He also went to antique shops to find experts. The conclusion was unanimous: these "treasures" were indeed fakes.

After that, the "Master of Metal and Stone" Wang Guowei admired Puyi who was so young but had such a wide experience. Puyi said:

I don’t understand your identification methods and techniques. I just see the difference between the things you have and the ones I have at home.

Such a domineering response is just because I have seen it before.

When you have not seen the best, you often think that what you have now is the best, thus locking yourself in a small world and forgetting how big the world is.

My first job was in the government. It was a third-tier provincial capital city in the north. In the eyes of many people, it had stable development, good pay, and dignity. But I decided to leave there and go to a larger city to develop, and eventually joined a large state-owned enterprise group. To this day, I still remember the embarrassing situation during my first interview: I couldn’t press the elevator button.

Because I have never been in an elevator with the button outside the door, and I have never been to such a high office building. During the interview, I also discovered that the public bathroom in this office building is better than any hotel I have stayed in. This shocked me even more than reading many books.

This is the power of insight. Insight will make you feel something that already exists, and will make you understand that the world is so big.

Therefore, knowledge is 100 times more important than intelligence.

3. The truth

There is a joke that has been circulating on the Internet for many years:

The biography of Bill Gates, the world’s richest man, will not tell you who his mother is. IBM director, it was she who facilitated Gates’ first big business; stock god Buffett’s book will only tell you that he visited the New York Stock Exchange when he was 8 years old, but will not tell you that it was his father who was a congressman. When he went there, he was received by the directors of Goldman Sachs...

We are always unable to face the value of family background. We often rudely shame the "rich second generation" and "struggle for dad", and then use the words "diligence and hard work" A bowl of chicken soup, poor and stubborn in ignorance and confusion.

As everyone knows, what ordinary people like us lack is not diligence at all. Diligence is almost in the genes of poor people, we are born to be diligent. In our rural hometown, almost everyone can live frugally, get up early and stay late, and are not afraid of hardship. But what's the use?

They will refuse to send their children to school because they spend two or three hundred yuan more; they will fight with their neighbors because they dig an extra shovel of soil; they will play with their children because they are greedy for playing mahjong. They will teach children many bad habits because others are like this...

They have been living in small towns with tens of thousands of people for decades, so they must be ignorant in their bones. of. Please note: "ignorance" here is not a derogatory term, but a fact.

Do you know what are the two most fatal thoughts of ordinary people?

Poor and stubborn. Ultimately, it comes down to ignorance.

Let me give another example of ignorance: When I was in high school, I didn’t even know that “companies” existed in this world, let alone “multinational companies.” What we had in our minds was called “ unit".

As for job choices, we have exhausted our imagination, that is, being a teacher or an official.

If you tell me that starting a business can change the world, are you kidding me?

Looking back at the "rich second generation", the most enviable thing is not wealth at all, but the ability to understand the truth of the world that they have cultivated since childhood.

What is the truth of the world?

The truth is that the strong prey on the weak, not gentleness and humility; the truth is that you take a loan to buy a house, instead of saving money to buy a house; the truth is that no one is perfect, and most successful people have mixed reputations, instead of being cautious and seeking perfection in everything; the truth is It means having the courage to embrace changes and risks, rather than blindly seeking stability and being content with the status quo.

Do children from ordinary families believe this? Of course I don't believe it. What we have been taught since childhood is the "gold mean".

I have a former colleague who has worked in this company for 15 years and is still just a small manager with a monthly salary of 10,000 yuan. In my impression, he likes to say three things to me:

(1) Don’t ask for too much, it’s almost enough.

(2) You are too stubborn, be careful of offending others.

(3) Going out to work is not necessarily better than what you are doing now.

In the real workplace competitive environment, can you win by relying on these? You have been working for 15 years and only earned a monthly salary of 10,000 yuan. Why do you expect me to trust you?

Let’s take my personal experience as an example. After I got angel investment for my business, my mother’s first words were: Son, you won’t be cheated, right? Why do people send you so much money? Because my mother has never started a business and does not know how to invest, she naturally has no "truth" in her heart.

If I hadn’t dared to do it, let alone start a business, I might not have changed jobs 10 years after graduation, because my first job was in the government.

So, do you still believe that the children of poor people have already become the masters of their families?

I really have doubts about this. This is by no means encouraging you to be greedy for wealth and ungrateful. But I hope we can face up to the advantages of the "rich second generation".

Don’t have the excuse of being “narrow-minded” and “short-sighted” just because you were born poor. We cannot hide in old ideas and fail to make progress.

4. Master

I have a good friend who graduated from Peking University and received a full scholarship from one of the top five business schools in the United States. After graduation, he entered Wall Street (the best investment bank in the world). 1) Work and earn an annual salary of millions.

I asked her, what is the biggest gain on Wall Street in two years? She said:

Wall Street has gathered the world's top financial talents and served the world's top customers. This made me completely understand that the world is too big and the sky is endless. There are some things that cannot be told to you personally. , you have no chance in this life to know, let alone understand.

She said that the most difficult thing to bridge between people is not the gap between intelligence and diligence, but the gap between experience and knowledge.

However, not everyone has the ability to work on Wall Street. So, for most ordinary office workers, how can they understand the truth about the workplace to the greatest extent and accelerate their career advancement?

My experience is to act immediately and learn from top experts.

Let me share a personal experience. In the process of starting a business, the most difficult thing is to lead a team. I have gone through many detours in this area, and one day I was exhausted, so I had the opportunity to consult the famous management scientist Chen Chunhua.

I asked her: How to become a good manager?

Teacher Chen said: If you want to be a good manager, you must first learn to manage yourself. What you should do, do it resolutely, and what you shouldn't do, resolutely don't do it. You will become a good manager.

I didn’t fully understand it at the time, but I believed in Teacher Chen very much, so I followed it “blindly”. My daily work was immediately reorganized, deleted and optimized. As a result, within half a month, the relationship between me and my subordinates really improved significantly.

In fact, most of the problems in this world have been solved by experts. There is no need to go through the experience that masters have gone through, especially the detours and pitfalls. There is no need to re-verify the truth discovered by the masters, especially the rules and methods, just use them first.

So, let me use my personal experience to remind you to face up to the advantages of the rich second generation. What is the biggest advantage of the rich second generation? There are many experts around. Don't be stubborn anymore, don't believe that the children of poor people have already become the head of the family.

Our family is too small. It would be nothing if it were 100 years old.

The world is a big place, put aside your arrogance and learn from the masters.

5. Conclusion

During the Spring Festival this year, my brother gave birth to a baby, so I went to Shanghai.

Because this is the first new member of our family, and I am both the eldest son and the eldest brother, I spent a lot of time thinking about family building and child training during this Spring Festival.

I also checked specifically: What is aristocracy?

In fact, the answer is very simple: the class with wealth and education.

If you are a child from a poor family and happen to read this article, I hope you can understand that being born poor is really a serious problem in many cases.

The most important thing is not that the living conditions are difficult, but that our background will affect our vision and horizons to a great extent, and will make us limited and blind in many things.

Only by facing up to the issue of family background can we treat personal development and family construction objectively from the bottom of our hearts.