I finished reading the first book this year, "The Navarre Collection". I originally read this book last year, but when I first read it, I thought the name was a bit like a copycat of "Poor Charlie's Collection". I thought it was a bit confusing, so I didn't want to read it. , then at the end of last year, this book was listed on the reading recommendation lists of WeChat and Douban. I thought it might still have something to offer, so I decided to read it. After reading it, I felt that there was indeed something to it, and some of the content was quite inspiring.
two games
The subtitle of the book is "A Guide to Wealth and Happiness". One of the author's views is to regard life as a game, then the ultimate goal of the game is happiness, and wealth is one of the tools to happiness.
There are two main types of games in the real world: the first is a money game; the second is a status game. Everyone is familiar with the money game. Although "money cannot solve all problems, it can solve all money-related problems", in the real world, there are many money-related problems that need to be solved. The status game is "your position in the social hierarchy. The status game is about hierarchy. Who is first? Who is second... The status game is a zero-sum game."
There is a certain similarity in comparing life to a game. Reality is like an open world game, money is just a series of numbers in a bank account, and status is like a leaderboard in the game. From childhood to adulthood, it has been composed of one game mode after another. When you enter school, you start playing the school game. This is essentially a status game, because the college entrance examination is based on rankings, and positions are limited. When you enter society and start working, the game is mainly about money, while the status game in society is much more difficult to play. The status game like the college entrance examination has a clear rule called scores, and the money game also has a relatively clear business rule, but the rules of the status game in society are much vaguer.
Therefore, I agree with Navarre’s suggestion. Don’t be obsessed with status games. On the one hand, the rules are vague, and on the other hand, status games are zero-sum. This game will be very involution.
How to play the money game
How to play the money game? The goal of the money game is to accumulate wealth quickly, and the only way to accumulate wealth quickly is to use leverage. Navarre pointed out that in general there are only three types of leverage:
labor leverage;
capital leverage;
Product leverage.
Labor leverage, that is, letting others work for you; capital leverage, which is easy to understand, is using money to make money; product leverage, the author believes that personally only "copying products with zero marginal cost" can be considered leverage. Successful entrepreneurs often successfully use the above three levers at the same time, and then gain huge wealth. People who can use the above three levers well at the same time often have extraordinary talent, courage, and luck.
If you just want to apply a certain lever alone, it's not that easy. For example, the first labor lever is managing others, which is non-standardized and extremely complex work. First of all, you have to get a management position, and you have to play the status game in a large company, and get a high-level management position by winning continuously. After all, if you manage too few people, it cannot be called leverage. Obtaining such a position does not mean that you can easily lead others. Someone must be willing to follow, otherwise such a position will not be sustainable and stable.
The second type of capital leverage requires someone to be willing to invest, or you have to accumulate capital yourself. After obtaining investment and accumulating capital, you must also have the skills to use capital. This is another extremely complex and non-standardized task. The third type of product leverage clearly limits that an individual can only create "products with a zero marginal cost of copying." If the marginal cost of copying is not zero, the individual may not be able to do it, and will need to hire others to complete the copy. Work. At present, such products are mainly media (books, videos, live broadcasts) and codes (software apps). It is not difficult to create such a product. The truly complex and non-standardized work is how to form dissemination and replication.
I have tried all three types of leverage. The problem with the first type of management leverage is that it will be too involved in the workplace; the second type of capital leverage is relatively comfortable, but it only requires a long period of accumulation of capital and learning the expertise to use capital. The third type of product leverage is very difficult to figure out personally. Even a blockbuster product like "The Three-Body Problem" did not explode from the beginning. How did the successful works of today's successful authors come to be? The path I have seen and summarized is to continue creating day after day, year after year.
Necessary conditions for obtaining wealth
Before you can use the above three levers, there is a prerequisite that you must have certain expertise. This is a necessary condition for playing money games to gain wealth.
There are three big decisions early in life: where to live, who to be with, and what career to pursue. These three decisions are the most important choices after leaving school, and basically determine the first stage of life (10-20 years). In school we acquire majors through study, but majors are not expertise. In Navarre's definition, expertise is "knowledge that cannot be acquired through training and cannot be outsourced or automated."
If society can train you, then society can train others to replace you. Any skills that can be trained in batches are skills that can be hired. Something that everyone can learn is unlikely to make you rich.
So the reality is that most people will have some employable skills, but no expertise. The areas in the workplace where expertise is developed are non-standardized, extremely complex jobs. A major feature of this type of work is the mismatch between input and output, which requires a high degree of skill and creativity. The reason why the input and output of this type of work are disconnected is because there is a leverage effect. The more closely the input and output match the work, the less leverage it has, and it can be replaced by large-scale outsourcing and automation.
“A major goal in life should be to control your own time, and the ideal job is a job that leverages the leverage effect. In this work model, you can control your own time and be responsible for your own output. You don’t need to Meetings for the sake of meetings do not require you to work hard to express yourself, nor do you need to show your workload through reporting materials.” Only in this working mode can we have the conditions to build and continuously hone our expertise. When you have certain expertise, you will have the necessary conditions to obtain wealth, but this condition is not sufficient. Because the acquisition of wealth is often a joint reaction of "timing, location, and harmony" at the same time, expertise belongs to "humanity", and subjectively we can only play a role in "humanity".
Navarre said that a boss once warned him: "You will never make a fortune, because your intelligence is obvious and obvious to all, so there will always be people who provide you with 'just the right' job opportunities, making you feel that it is a pity to give up." Yes, the job opportunities that were once "just right" will gradually be replaced by cheaper people, younger people or robots as time goes by, age increases, professional aging and technological advancement, and become less than "just right". Lopsided. Therefore, "No matter what stage of life you are in, the goal of your efforts is to continuously improve your independence."
Wealth goes to the left, happiness goes to the right
If everything goes well and you create a lot of wealth, will you feel happy? Wealth is only one of the necessary conditions for happiness. There are three major elements in life: wealth, health and happiness. “We pursue wealth, health and happiness in that order, but in order of importance, it’s the other way around.”
Everyone may have a different understanding of happiness. Navarre's understanding is: "I think happiness is a state that does not require active action." When the "sense of shortcomings" is eliminated from life, happiness will arise spontaneously. Wealth can solve many "shortcomings" in life, solve personal financial problems, and satisfy material needs. But needs continue to rise into desires, desires are dissatisfaction, and dissatisfaction produces anxiety, and then feelings of unhappiness. After making money, it is easy to upgrade your lifestyle and improve your standard of living, until you find that the money seems not enough, and then you continue to play the money game anxiously, and the cycle continues endlessly.
Desire is the agreement you make with yourself. The content of the agreement is: I will not be happy unless I get what I want. I recently understood a truth: it is more important to work hard to adjust your desires than to do something that is not 100% what you want to do.
Adjust desires and maintain a neutral state. The neutral state is a state that only children can have. When I observe my child, he can easily enter this state, immerse himself in the moment, and maintain a very happy feeling. In fact, only children are more likely to be in this state, because at this stage they neither play the money game nor the status game, and can easily match their preferences with the surrounding environment. Although children also have some small desires (to get a snack or a toy), they are also easy to forget and not obsessed with them.
As an adult, it is actually difficult to enter the neutral state of a child. Even the entry is short-lived. I like what Navarre said: "Peace is static happiness, happiness is dynamic peace." Happiness is satisfaction with the status quo, while success comes from dissatisfaction with the status quo. I can only seek peace in the dynamic, and choose one desire at a stage to fight for. Too many desires can only fill my heart with anxiety, distracting energy and increasing pain. Choosing the game of success and wealth means continuing to transform the current situation for the next desire; choosing happiness means returning to a peaceful neutral state; perhaps life is about constantly switching between these two states.
...
Some people say that people have two lives, and the second life starts from the moment you realize that you only live once. When did your second life begin? How did it start? This is a very profound question. Most people feel this way when they reach a certain age. They live in a certain way and after reaching a certain stage of life, they have to make huge changes.
Yes, life is a game. We enter the game with nothing, and we cannot take away everything in the game. You can't change the nature of the game, you can only change the way you play the game, and then continue your serious gaming life.
