Pain + Reflection = Progress.

Pain is unavoidable for people, especially when pursuing ambitious goals. Whether you believe it or not, feeling pain with the right attitude is your blessing, because it is a signal -- you need to find a solution to continue moving forward.

But most people are unwilling to reflect when they are in pain, and once the pain disappears, their attention will shift. Therefore, they are difficult to learn from reflection. If you can reflect well when you are in pain, you can learn and evolve quickly.

If you have not experienced failure, it means that you have not tried to break through your limits. If you do not try to break through your limits, you cannot fully tap into your potential. The process of trying to break through your limits sometimes fails and sometimes succeeds, but it always brings benefits.

Although this approach may not be suitable for everyone, if it is suitable for you, it will be a wonderful experience that is addictive. Life will inevitably bring you such tests, and whether you are willing to constantly try depends on yourself.
If you choose to fight on this path of personal evolution that is often painful, you will naturally "climb higher and higher." When you cross the things that surround you and reach a higher level, you will find that those things are not as important as you thought when you looked closer.

Most things in life are just a "replay of similar situations." The higher your level, the more effective you can deal with reality and shape the results that suit your goals. And things that once seemed incredibly complex will also become simple.

The five steps of personal evolution.

I have made many mistakes in the market throughout my life, and you must develop an independent thinking ability in this market. In the investment industry, you must be an independent thinker, otherwise your performance can only be the market average performance, or even lower.

To perform better than the market, you must think independently. Of course, the process of independent thinking is painful, and there are many opportunities to make mistakes, so you must constantly reflect and complete your evolution.

You must have the ability to diagnose the problems you face, and at the same time, you must change your attitude when facing pain. Treat the existing mistakes as puzzles to solve, form solutions so that you can produce better results in the future, and finally form the evolution of your abilities.

Therefore, I believe that the process of completing evolution and pursuing results should be divided into five steps.

First, you must pursue goals, and on the road to achieving these goals, you will inevitably encounter various problems.

The second step is to face and solve the problems.

The third step is to diagnose the problem and find its root cause, which may be your personal weaknesses or weaknesses of other people that ultimately lead to such problems.

I am very honored to know some very successful people in the world. They all have problems, weaknesses, and have made all kinds of mistakes, but the key is that they are very good at diagnosing themselves and finding the root cause behind the problems.

The fourth step is to make a plan and make changes based on the diagnosis, design new plans to adapt to changes.

The fifth step is to practice your plan.

Evolution is these five steps. All evolutions diagnose the problems you face, diagnose the solutions, adapt to the environment, make changes, and finally practice to achieve gradual evolution.

The biggest tragedy of human beings is that they have wrong ideas in their minds, but they are not aware of it.

My biggest personal failure was in 1980 when I determined that Bank of America lending large amounts of loans to foreign countries would eventually default. These countries cannot pay back the money.

For example, in 1982, Mexico defaulted and I realized that a financial crisis and economic crisis would occur. At that time, I participated in a congressional hearing, and also made related comments and articles on television and in the Wall Street Journal.

It is such an expressive and arrogant statement! At that time, I was so arrogant and seemingly confident, but I made a mistake and my judgement was completely wrong. I lost a lot of money and my clients also lost a lot of money because of my judgement. I was almost bankrupt at that time. Later, I had to rely on the $4,000 my father lent me to get through the difficult time. This was the lowest point in my life and it was extremely painful for me. However, this is also the luckiest thing in my life because it gave me a huge opportunity for reflection. The humiliation in my life made me realize that I am not absolutely correct and gave me fear.

This changed my view of life and taught me to learn humbly from people who are smarter than me. At the same time, this also gave me the opportunity to change my way of thinking and find a better way to make the likelihood of making the right decision in the future significantly increased.

People are different, and everyone has different opinions. How to choose the best opinions from various opinions is the most important issue in the decision-making process.

When you find differences with others, how do you think about others' different opinions and then discuss and learn to make the best ideas ultimately prevail.

The greatest tragedy of human beings is that they have erroneous ideas in their minds but are not aware of them. They don't know whether they are right or wrong and they stubbornly believe that they are right and others are wrong.

How can you think that you are right and others are wrong? How to judge whether this matter is right or wrong?

The best learning method is to fully realize that open-minded thinking is required to think deeply about various different perspectives. It is extremely important to select the best ideas in the differences.

What is 'best idea selection'?

The best idea is to have a system that allows the best idea to win. We are not letting the boss make the final decision or making decisions in a completely democratic way (one person, one vote), but through a systematic process, the best idea can ultimately win.

There are three elements in this:

First, you must allow everyone's true ideas to be presented and discussed together.

Usually people don't do this, and they don't want to put their own ideas on the table at the beginning. But to achieve 'best idea selection', first of all, the real ideas must be put forward.

Second, there must be a deliberate process to explore these differences. We need to think about why others have different ideas, and then learn from others, and we also need to have skills to learn.

These are not mutually exclusive. There is a natural tendency in human nature to treat different opinions as a debate rather than as curiosity exercise.

Third, to reach a consensus among all parties.

No matter what the relationship is, whether it is family or anyone else, there will be differences. Can we consider and handle differences in ideas, communicate ideas openly, and go beyond these differences after careful consideration?

The result achieved in this way will be better than the idea that one person came up with. Of course, there may still be differences between you, and we must find a way to transcend these differences.

I know that everyone's thoughts and ideas are different, and everyone's thinking is different. But everyone does not know each other's ideas.

So, I want you to feel that if you understand a person, you will know what expectations to have for them. Is it a good thing or a bad thing to know other people's strengths and weaknesses?

I think it is a very powerful tool to know your own strengths and weaknesses, as well as to understand others' strengths and weaknesses through "extreme transparency".

Without a "creativity-based selection" mechanism, everyone feels alienated, they cannot share your vision, and they cannot think well because they are just mechanically following some instructions.

Therefore, "creativity-based selection" can prevent errors from occurring and establish better interpersonal relationships.

Weight the credibility of your decisions.

I have found that communicating with highly credible people who are willing to express well-considered differences has always deepened my understanding of the problem and improved the quality of my decisions. This usually enables me to make better decisions and gives me exciting learning opportunities. I recommend that you do the same.

To do this well, you must avoid the following common mistakes: illogically overestimating your own credibility; failing to distinguish people with different credibility.

When there are differences with others, you should first see if you can agree on the decision principle. You should analyze the pros and cons of different principles behind the reasons in such discussions.

If you can agree on the decision principle, you can apply the principle to the problem at hand and come up with a conclusion that everyone agrees on. If there are differences in decision principles, you can try to resolve the differences by comparing each other's credibility.
This principle-based, credibility-weighted decision-making approach is very attractive and much better than the usual decision-making approaches.

For example, suppose we use this method to select the president. What conditions should a good president have, and who is the most credible when making the above judgments? Let's see what principles we can come up with. It should be interesting.

Our final discussion result will be whether to implement one person, one vote or other methods? If it is other methods, how should it be done? This will definitely bring very different election results. At the next election, we can conduct such exercises while conducting regular elections to observe the differences between the two.
Although credibility-weighted decision-making sounds somewhat complicated, you probably do it often, such as when you ask yourself, "Whose opinion should I listen to?" However, it is almost certain that if you do it more consciously, the effect will be much better.

Correctly face your own shortcomings.

If you find that you cannot do everything to the best and feel sorry for it, you are too immature. No one can do everything well.

Would you let Einstein join your basketball team? If Einstein didn't dribble and shoot well, would you look down on him? Should he be ashamed of this? Think about how many areas Einstein would be unable to perform, and think about how much effort he put in to become so outstanding even in the field where he was the best in the world.

Seeing how others work hard and showing others how hard you work can trigger various emotions, such as sympathy, pity, embarrassment, anger, and vigilance. You need to overcome all of these and no longer regard hard work as a negative thing.

Most of the best opportunities in life come from the experience of hard work. Hard work is a test of people's creativity and personality, and you should mine the greatest value from these tests.

You have four options when facing your own shortcomings:

1. You can deny your shortcomings (this is what most people do).

2. You can acknowledge your shortcomings and deal with them, striving to turn them into advantages (whether or not you succeed depends on your ability to change yourself). 3. You can acknowledge your shortcomings and find a way to work around them. 4. Alternatively, you can change your goals. How you choose to direct your life is crucial. The first option is the worst, denying your shortcomings only leads to continuously stumbling on them, enduring pain, and no other results. The second option, acknowledging your shortcomings while striving to turn them into advantages, may be the best approach if successful. However, some things you will never be good at, and changing also requires a lot of time and energy. If you want to judge whether you should continue down this path by a certain standard, the best standard is to see if what you want to do conforms to your characteristics (that is, the various abilities you have naturally). The third option, acknowledging your shortcomings while trying to find a way around them, is the easiest and usually the most feasible path, but it is the least traveled. The fourth option, changing your goals, is also a good choice, but it requires great flexibility to overcome your various preconceptions, strive to find goals that match you, and enjoy new experiences. Standing at different levels to think about problems.

We always look at things from different levels and switch between them, whether we do it consciously or unconsciously, whether we do it well or not, whether we are looking at objects, concepts or goals. For example, you can switch between two levels, one is your values, and the other is what you do to achieve those values. The situation is as follows: Higher level global: I want a meaningful job where I can learn a lot. Sub-level concept: I want to be a doctor. Sub-level point: I need to attend medical school. Further sub-level point: I need to get good grades in science courses. Again, further sub-level point: I need to study at home tonight. To observe how you are doing in this aspect of life, you can pay attention to your conversations. We tend to switch between different levels when we talk.

The fourth option, changing your goals, is also a good choice, but it requires great flexibility to overcome your various preconceptions, strive to find goals that match you, and enjoy new experiences.

The first option is the worst, denying your shortcomings only leads to continuously stumbling on them, enduring pain, and no other results.

The second option, acknowledging your shortcomings while striving to turn them into advantages, may be the best approach if successful.

However, some things you will never be good at, and changing also requires a lot of time and energy. If you want to judge whether you should continue down this path by a certain standard, the best standard is to see if what you want to do conforms to your characteristics (that is, the various abilities you have naturally).

The third option, acknowledging your shortcomings while trying to find a way around them, is the easiest and usually the most feasible path, but it is the least traveled.

The fourth option, changing your goals, is also a good choice, but it requires great flexibility to overcome your various preconceptions, strive to find goals that match you, and enjoy new experiences.

Standing at different levels to think about problems

Reality can be divided into different levels, each of which can provide you with different but valuable perspectives. When you analyze and make decisions, you need to keep these levels in mind and know how to switch between them. For example, if you are looking at your hometown on Google Maps and zoom in to where you can see buildings, you can no longer see the surrounding areas of your hometown, which are important information. Your hometown might be near the water, but if the map is zoomed in too far, you will not be able to determine whether it is along a riverbank, a lakeshore, or a coastline. You must know which level to examine in order to make a reasonable decision.

We always look at things from different levels and switch between them, whether we do it consciously or unconsciously, whether we do it well or not, whether we are looking at objects, concepts or goals. For example, you can switch between two levels, one is your values, and the other is what you do to achieve those values. The situation is as follows: Higher level global: I want a meaningful job where I can learn a lot. Sub-level concept: I want to be a doctor. Sub-level point: I need to attend medical school. Further sub-level point: I need to get good grades in science courses. Again, further sub-level point: I need to study at home tonight. To observe how you are doing in this aspect of life, you can pay attention to your conversations. We tend to switch between different levels when we talk.

You must know which level to examine in order to make a reasonable decision.

We always look at things from different levels and switch between them, whether we do it consciously or unconsciously, whether we do it well or not, whether we are looking at objects, concepts or goals.

For example, you can switch between two levels, one is your values, and the other is what you do to achieve those values. The situation is as follows:

Higher level global: I want a meaningful job where I can learn a lot.

Sub-level concept: I want to be a doctor.

Sub-level point: I need to attend medical school.

Further sub-level point: I need to get good grades in science courses.

Again, further sub-level point: I need to study at home tonight.

To observe how you are doing in this aspect of life, you can pay attention to your conversations. We tend to switch between different levels when we talk.

How to analyze the situation?

1. Comprehensive analysis of changing situation

To understand the relationship between different points over a period of time, you must collect, analyze, and identify different types of information, which is not easy.

For example, imagine that eight events happened in a day, and some were good and some were bad. We draw the day's situation, with each event type represented by a letter, and the quality of each result represented by its height.

To comprehensively analyze this day, you must classify the results based on type (represented by letters) and quality (from low to high, the higher the better), which will require summarizing a rough evaluation for each category.

To make this example more specific, imagine that you are operating an ice cream shop, W represents sales, X represents customer experience ratings, Y represents media coverage and reviews, Z represents employee enthusiasm, and so on.

Please remember that our example is relatively simple - only eight events happened in a day.

In the first image, you can see that the sales on this day were great (because both W's were at the top), but the customer experience was poor (as seen by both X's). You can think about the reasons for this, such as a crowd arriving, resulting in many sales but also causing a long line.

People who are good at finding patterns in things are rare, but like most skills, the ability to analyze changes in the situation is not entirely innate. Even if you are not good at it, you can improve this ability through practice.

2. Comprehensive analysis of the current situation

Every day you encounter countless things. Let's call these things "points" for now. To be efficient, you must be able to distinguish which "points" are important and which are not.

Some people collect all kinds of scattered opinions and views throughout their lives, rather than just keeping what they need. They have "detail anxiety" and worry about unimportant things.

Sometimes small things are also important. For example, if the engine in your car rattles, it may just be a piece of plastic loose, or it may be a sign that the timing belt is about to break. The key is to have a more macro perspective, so that you can make quick and accurate judgments about the real level of risk without getting stuck in details.

① One of the most important decisions you can make is who to ask.

Make sure they are trustworthy and have a comprehensive understanding of the situation. Whatever you want to understand, find the person responsible for that area and ask them. Asking someone who doesn't know the situation is worse than not being able to find an answer.

② Don't believe everything you hear.

Opinions are cheap and almost everyone is willing to share their opinions. Many people express opinions as facts. You need to distinguish between opinions and facts.

③ Everything feels bigger when it's in front of you.

In all aspects of life, things that are happening seem big, but looking back, they may not be. So you should step out to see the big picture, and sometimes you can make a decision after a period of time.

④ Don't exaggerate the benefits of new things.

For example, when choosing what movie to watch or what book to read, do you prefer time-proven classics or the latest sensational works? In my opinion, it is wiser to choose the best instead of the latest.

⑤ Do not over-analyze details.

A "point" is just a piece of data from a moment, and when you analyze it, you should always see the big picture. Just as you need to distinguish between size, specific events, and general patterns, you also need to know how much knowledge you can gain from each "point" instead of overestimating its importance.

Edited by Jeffrey