Why are people who used to be worse than you better than you now?

Sister Wang was a divorced woman 13 years ago.

Before the divorce, all the possessions that Sister Wang had worked so hard to save were squandered by her ex-husband, and the only house in her hometown was also sold to pay off her debts.

The villagers laughed at Sister Wang for marrying a man who failed to live up to expectations and ended up like this.

What others don't know is that because of her daughter's study and growth, Sister Wang gritted her teeth and insisted on this marriage. After her daughter graduated from high school, she decided to divorce and take her daughter to work in Beijing.

The only thing that made her feel sorry at that time was her elderly mother. In order to support Sister Wang's family expenses, her mother gave her daughter the hard money she had saved for tens of thousands of years.

Sister Wang, who left her hometown for the first time, is already in her early forties. It is a big challenge for her who has never traveled far away to work at this age.

However, since 13, she has been the trump card of the company. There has been no single loss for so many years, and customers have received rave reviews, and the income is of course considerable.

Sister Wang is the best in their village now. Although I don't have a home, I can only go back to my hometown in the same village every time, but I live very proudly and feel very comfortable and honest.

Sister Wang recalled that over the years, the most important experience was: willing to endure hardships and willing to invest.

At the beginning of my career, I need to spend money and time on training. Because of the uncertain industry prospects, many fellow villagers who came with me left soon because of hard work or too much investment in the early stage, and most of them went to do cleaning.

In the first few years, I couldn't make a new moon. Sister Wang started by raising children. In order to get praise from customers as soon as possible, she spent extra energy to learn some parenting knowledge, such as reciting ancient poems and three-character classics with her children, reading books after her children go to bed, and learning how to make more beautiful children's food.

Every client she has served thinks that hiring her is "worth it".

These hard and silent investments in the early stage have contributed to her later accelerated development and her position in the company today.

Compared with those villagers who have left, Sister Wang has no special advantage, but she has a stronger ability, that is, the ability to delay satisfaction.

This is a kind of ability to "give up the choice orientation of instant satisfaction for more valuable long-term results"

In 1960s, Walter Mischel, a professor of psychology at Stanford University in the United States, designed a famous "delayed gratification" experiment. The subjects are dozens of kindergarten children.

Each of them stayed alone in a small room with only a table and a chair. These children's favorite things-marshmallows, biscuits or biscuit sticks-are on the tray on the table.

The researchers gave them three choices:

You can eat marshmallows right away;

Or wait until the researchers come back to eat, so you can get another marshmallow as a reward;

Or ring the bell on the desk, and the researchers will come back as soon as they hear it.

For these children, the process of the experiment is quite difficult.

In the end, most children gave up in less than three minutes; Some children ate the candy directly without ringing the bell, and some children stared at the cotton candy on the table for half a minute before ringing the bell.

Only about one third of the children successfully delayed their craving for marshmallows. 15 minutes later, they waited until the researchers came back and got the cash reward.

After decades of follow-up research, Meshel found that:

This marshmallow experiment can predict the participants' future very well.

"If some children can control themselves and eat more marshmallows, then they can study instead of watching TV and save more money for their old age in the future. He got more than just cotton candy. "

I chatted with a senior a few days ago, and she told the story of her postgraduate entrance examination.

She studied in two colleges and rented a room with a fellow villager to prepare for the postgraduate entrance examination. Both of them are going to take an examination of two famous universities in Beijing.

My sister described the experience of postgraduate entrance examination as "a day of white terror", reading books, taking notes and doing problems day and night, and it was even more difficult to cross majors. In order to save more time to review my major, I got up at five o'clock in the morning to read English, and began to study related professional papers in "NPC Copywriting Materials" after 12: 00 in the evening.

The fellow villagers who prepare for the exam together have higher grades when they enter the university. They could have got 10 for a book because they didn't volunteer.

I filled it out and transferred to two universities.

There is no denying that she is really excellent and quick-witted, but one of her weaknesses in the postgraduate entrance examination is that she can never overcome the difficulty of "getting up early and going to bed late".

In order to replenish energy for the evening review, they will cook a pack of instant noodles and an egg in the dormitory around 10. My sister said that with this meal, she could hold on until 1 and 2 am, but her fellow villagers began to feel sleepy before 1 1.

Because I am reviewing in my room, the bed is in front of me. She always said, "No, I'm sleepy. I have to lie down first. " I slept for half an hour. Please wake me up later, for sure! "Every time my sister calls her after sleeping for half an hour, she will say,' I am really sleepy, so my study efficiency will not be good. Get some sleep and call me 12. "Later, 12, she would say," Just get up early tomorrow. Call me when you get up at 5 o'clock ... "Basically, as long as this classmate falls asleep, he is not successfully woken up.

Although she also wanted to be admitted, she was very serious and persisted until the end, but after all, she didn't get admitted because she didn't eat hard enough and didn't spend enough time to make a qualitative leap in the accumulation of quantity.

The essence of poverty wrote:

If you can't mobilize your willpower to resist temporary happiness, you may only get short-term benefits and lose long-term gains.

My sister said that mobilizing strong willpower is my firm long-term goal.

This reminds me of another bright spot of Sister Wang Yueyue-her planning and preparation for future life.

In order to cope with future risks, in addition to saving money for work, she also bought enough insurance for herself: long-term health insurance, pension insurance, short-term accident insurance and so on.

She said that at first, she and a dozen colleagues went to the insurance company to listen to the introduction, and others took the gift from the insurance company and left. They thought that although the insurance company said that it would be guaranteed in the future, it now has to invest expensive premiums every year, and there is no income in the past few years. Might as well take this money in your hand.

Only Sister Wang thinks that insurance is a good thing, which is exactly what she needs. In her words, "I have no social security, and I have no ability to make money when I am old. I can only rely on my daughter, who is somewhat controlled by others. I bought insurance, I didn't have any worries, and I also reduced the burden on my daughter. "

She said that while she is still working, she can use her salary to raise "insurance". In the future, she will be too old to work, and the insurance premium will be paid off. Insurance can support itself.

What she did was like teacher Yu making an image metaphor:

Sister Wang explained in simple language that she had a "long-term vision".

I have to say, Sister Wang is not only a diligent woman who can bear temporary pain, but also a smart woman who can see and wait patiently for the future value hidden behind temporary efforts.

Although sometimes this value takes a long time to appear, it also requires a lot of money and energy.

In Poor Dad Rich Dad, there is a story like this:

Around us, we can always hear some counter-attack stories:

For example, people who used to rank lower in the class were finally admitted to famous schools;

The richest businessman in the 20-year reunion turned out to be a classmate who was often criticized by the teacher as a parent in middle school;

The friend who has been in business for many years successfully raised 5 million yuan this year.

I think, these "dark horses" may be like "Sister Wang" who was forced to leave her hometown when she lost all her money, and now she is returning home with all her clothes on. They had similar counter-attack experiences.

As a "dark horse" on the Zhihu said, "The so-called dark horse really doesn't depend on luck. He not only needs to work harder than the average person, but also bears his own doubts about his ability. "

I think there is no shortcut to attack the dark horse, and it is only because they have a stronger and more persistent long-term vision and a stronger ability to "delay satisfaction" that they can get rid of those who were stronger than them before.

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