The world's most expensive EQ course for CEOs

Chapter 2 Improving Leadership with Emotional Intelligence (1)
why i have no leadership

Before starting this book, I thought of a conversation I had one day last fall.That evening, I met Shang Yan, a friend I hadn’t seen for many years, at a bar in Houhai, Beijing.He graduated from Tsinghua University, went to Shanghai and Guangzhou, traveled around Tokyo, Japan, flew to Paris, London, and San Francisco, and then returned to China to work for an IT company, living a life of leaving early and returning late every day.

The book begins with a discussion of "the struggle of life" and "the qualities of success."Our topics covered many fields, such as education, business, interpersonal relationship, wealth, family, house, and even how to adapt to the gray rules so that you can live a better life.

How to make oneself "live better" is the focus of this discussion.

Shang Yan is 35 years old this year, and he has some characteristics common to people of this age group in society:
He studied hard as a teenager, excelled in school and graduated with high ambitions.He has been outside for 9 years, but he has not achieved anything-at least in his opinion, he cannot be called a successful person.

Now, his living conditions are as follows: he has a regular girlfriend and a scooter of less than 10 yuan, but he has no house and his deposit is only 20 yuan.In the crowded city of Beijing, one can imagine the pressure of life he endured.

From the first topic, he made me feel the pressure in his heart.He talked about his experience of being driven to carry shoes in the United States, and sighed: "Why can I only work for others?"

He has enough "qualification" to ask this question.As a high-achieving student who graduated from Tsinghua University, he has won the highest scholarship in the department and participated in many national-level projects in the school's research department. He is a future star in the eyes of his tutors and a top talent hired by many domestic companies with high salaries. Nine years later, he became silent, and he no longer had the dream he had back then.

Now, his annual salary is only 12 yuan, and his future is gloomy. None of the plans he made at the beginning have been realized... The important thing is that some people who had the same education as him and whose opportunities were not as good as his had become his bosses. He owns a big house, drives a luxury car, and has the power of life and death under his control. In front of him, he commands the wind and rain, and is proud of the spring breeze, but Shang Yan is under him, bumping into walls everywhere, and his hands and feet are bound.

Isn't the severe situation worthy of people's deep thinking?
I understand Shang Yan's confusion very well. For every person who wants to be successful, when he takes the first step, he will have a vision for life.He might think: "There are 13 billion people in China. The market is so vast and opportunities are everywhere. If everyone gave me a dollar, what would it be like?"

As a result, he became a huge success and became a billionaire in all of China.Such a good thing is theoretically feasible, and everyone has the opportunity to do it when they enter the arena of life.But if you want to get this dollar, you must have a reasonable method.

There is no method, and any great plan is only on paper.There is no feasibility, what a wonderful dream, it is just some kind of illusory assumption.First of all, if you want to get this one dollar, it is impossible to rob with a knife and gun, you can only exchange it by legal means.You want to take over a project, compete in the market, and advertise; you have to recruit troops and find some people to work for you, because you are the boss, and you have a dream of making money from the pockets of billions of people.

Then comes the more important and indispensable question: You need to manage and control these people, control expenses, generate profits, accumulate wealth and achieve ultimate goals.

In the process, people saw difficulties and their dreams were shattered.Because if you want to do this, only dreams and money are not enough.If you earn this 13 billion, you need to pay a cost of 5 million.There may be several 10 people in the world who are eligible, but less than one-third of them dare to do this business, and less than one-third of them can make the company run normally.A company that can successfully make this money a year later may not even have a tenth of it.

This project requires more than courage, money, or precious opportunities. It relies on your brains.Identifying opportunities, managing people and money, and running a business all depend on a critical but often overlooked ability: your emotional intelligence.

Martin Luther King's sentence "I have a dream" touched the hearts of many people.Dreams are the driving force behind all good things.Everyone has a dream in their hearts, but it is also true that very few can be realized.You and I have all the desires that successful people have.Passerby A who posted small advertisements on the street and Ma Yun who attended the annual Internet conference have the same desire and potential in their bones.

Who doesn't want to stand at a height that people look up to, and have a double harvest in love and career?But the reality is cruel. The combination of IQ and dreams cannot produce results that match the inner desire.More people can only hold the eggs of their dreams and put in a lot of labor, but they can't see the ideal results breaking out of the shell.They are expecting and anxious, enthusiastic and impulsive, eager and impetuous, and lack some necessary qualities to realize their dreams.Such as rationality, calmness, self-control, patience, strength, long-term vision, modest character, and the ability to control emotions and improve self-character.

In my other book "The World's Most Expensive EQ Course", we have explained the concept of EQ in detail and provided effective methods for EQ training.Now, starting from this ordinary but meaningful conversation, we will gradually tell you how to use your emotional intelligence to manage work, life, emotions, and control our emotions.

This book will talk about a kind of emotional intelligence energy that can have a practical effect on our lives. It is called "KeyRing".If every ability in our reality is a key, emotional intelligence is the link that glues them together. Without it, we cannot gather all our energy.It may not be the key to help you open the door to life, and it will not play a direct and decisive role, but it will definitely affect the result of your search for the key of destiny.

Shang Yan has long reflected on "intellectual determinism", and he finds himself a typical example.He has a very high IQ and a wealth of knowledge, but in the past few years, he has repeatedly fallen into absolute confidence in his own intelligence.

He said: "Technology determines the world. I once advocated this view, but now I find that it is wrong. What really drives the world is people's willpower."

I agree.Willpower is the most important emotional intelligence ability of human beings.We usually have this feeling in life. Many times when we do something in a mess, it is not because our intelligence is too low, but because we lack a strong soul to support us, and we always fail to persist at critical moments. at last.People always show inner fragility when they need to show persistence, and quit fighting in the face of difficulties.

Let's go back to the first question he raised and continue our discussion.I said: "The level of emotional intelligence determines the level of life that a person can achieve. This sounds frustrating to some people with high education. In reality, for people who lack emotional intelligence as a manager, even if they have With high working ability, you can only contribute these wisdoms to people with high EQ, become a loyal employee and aide of the other party, help the other party make a lot of money, and take a share of it."

Why are you always working for others?After careful analysis and rigorous self-examination, we will eventually discover that this is the secret: You do not have the qualities that a good manager should have.

The problem is as simple as that.If you don't want to work for others, you have to let yourself have these emotional intelligence, learn to use and manage money, know how to manage talents, design and realize dreams.Which ability is more important to create value by yourself or to inspire others to create value?It will depend on the choices you make about your life.

There is no harm in improving your emotional intelligence.It is not only in our aesthetic understanding of certain things, but also in the macroscopic help to life, and penetrates into every detail and step of processing, which can improve every aspect of our life and work.

Where did the business start
Like many people in real life, Shang Yan once superstitiously believed that capital determines a person's success. If you have money, you can start a career, and if you don't have money, you can't do anything.The logic of this understanding is that money is the only support for a career, and it is also the most fundamental "material" on which a building can be built.As long as you have money, your career will have a high starting point; otherwise, you can't do anything.I once had a good friend who thought the same way. If you have money, you will have a career and happiness. So he crazily pursues real profits and accumulates money.But after a business failure, I realized that it is not money that determines career, but people determine destiny.

He said: "Doing business is like singing an opera. I used to think that money plays the most important role. Money is like a diving platform for people. The higher we build, the more room we have to display and make more beautiful works. Actions."

However, after two investment failures, he has deeply realized that money is not the fundamental factor for a successful career.

There are many people like him who worship money and ignore people's inner qualities.However, if you don't understand the essence of money and don't know how to use it, money will become a hot potato and a man-eating tiger.As it is said, there are many rich people in this world, but very few achieve success.In fact, it is not enough to use money to increase value, the key is how to use the capital in hand.

Half a year after Shang Yan arrived in Tokyo, he raised 60 RMB to open a Chinese restaurant in an area with the most Chinese population.But he has no management experience, and he feels that as long as he has money, he can run a "small restaurant".From the perspective of financial ability, Shang Yan is self-made, and all his money is borrowed.He thought about this matter for a long time, planned carefully, and thought he was rational enough, but he still had a bad start. After three months of losses, he reluctantly closed down and sold it.The recipient was a middle-aged Guangdong man who had lived in Japan for many years, and he brought the store back to life in just one month.For the same store, the facilities, tables, chairs, and flavors are vastly different between him and that person, which makes him very annoyed.

"What's going on? He didn't increase his investment. Why can't I, but he can? How did that person do it?" Unwilling, he went to ask the boss if he had any tricks for doing business.The boss was also very surprised: "I don't have any unique skills, just like you, I get up early and go to bed late every day, and slowly survived the most difficult stage."

"It's that simple?" "It's that simple!"

After the Cantonese took over the store, they were also very desperate.Although the location of this store is good and there is a lot of traffic, but there are many restaurants around, and there are many places for diners to choose from, so it is not easy to make a name for yourself.Different from Shangyan, the Cantonese insisted on implementing the original business philosophy, gritting their teeth and persisting, accumulating small things into big things.However, Shang Yan was impetuous in the process of operation. At the beginning, he sold Lu cuisine, but when the business was not good, he immediately replaced the chef and changed his door to sell Hunan cuisine. After a few days, he found that it was not working, and changed his name to sell Sichuan cuisine... a few days later. Over the past few months, the store has become a hodgepodge, and the store's sign has not been erected.

Among the many restaurants, diners feel that there is no bright spot here, so naturally there are not many repeat customers.In this novice competition, it is not the amount of money that determines the outcome, but the inner strength of the boss, as well as whether your mind is clear and whether you can stick to your thinking.Frustrations in investment and financial management, company closures, business failures, bad luck... All kinds of evil consequences will inevitably happen in life. There are always a few unlucky things that make you feel like your life has entered a winter.No matter how bad the situation is and how the process evolves, you will eventually find that it is not that you have too little money, but that your emotional intelligence is too low.Funding is an indispensable condition, but emotional intelligence is the most important starting point of a person's career, it is the wings of a bird and the feet of a person.Money only plays the role of helping and pushing, and it has nothing to do with the final outcome of this sprint.

Emotional intelligence is manifested in specific actions, which we call the starting point of thinking.Different levels of thinking and different angles will make people have completely different judgments and feelings about the same thing.It is comprehensively reflected in the judgment of risks and opportunities, the foresight of planning, and the courage of action.

Some people have a bad start, and after losing some money, they just worry about it and can’t get out of the shadows; some people don’t care about it, laugh it off, and continue to move forward according to the original plan. This is the gap in thinking.The former discovered the problem and was troubled by it, but the latter could find a way in the problem and strengthen his confidence.Many upstarts are on the verge of bankruptcy soon after making money, destroying that precious capital because they can't help speculating and showing off.People who really know how to do business, even if they are worth tens of millions and have money that can't be spent in a lifetime, they will manage wealth prudently and frugally, restrain their inner impulses, and show good self-control ability.

The real career gap between people is here.The secret of who is the ultimate winner lies in our hearts, not our wallets and bank accounts.

What excellent qualities determine the starting point of your career?First, whether there is sufficient knowledge reserve for the corresponding industry.

This includes your understanding of the industry or occupation, knowledge preparation, common sense learning, and experience accumulation (you can learn from others or experience it through reading).In short, making corresponding preparations is the most basic starting point of our career.It is specifically manifested in the technical preparations we make for a job and our understanding of related processes.If you are in the catering industry, you have to be familiar with every aspect of it, how to spend and control costs, and how to design profit mechanisms.These are important knowledge reserves.If a person does not understand this knowledge, it is difficult for us to imagine how he can do things well.

Second, whether a long-term development plan and contingency plan has been formulated.This plan should be aimed at a stage of 3 to 5 years, with detailed design and planning for each step.Among them, it is necessary to take into account the corresponding variables and make plans for all possible problems.For example, when Shang Yan opened his store, he encountered the following situation:

What types of restaurants are there on this street?
When were they established, what was their initial business situation, what difficulties did they encounter, and how did they solve them?
How big and effective are they now?How can I highlight my own brand and create advantages that other stores do not have?
What should I do if things go wrong?How to adopt a new strategy, whether to stick to it or choose another brand?
The important thing is, how should I find out the objective reasons and make the most correct plan?If you lack understanding of these details, you will, like Shang Yan, make fatal mistakes when problems arise, ruining the achievements of the previous period.Even if you have money, you can't afford a few twists and turns.Obviously, these basic preparations cannot be exchanged for money.

Third, whether you have enough willpower and the psychological preparation to bear failure.Of all the qualities, this is the most important one.If you are a person who is frustrated, angry, yelling or starting a new job when things go wrong, it means that your starting point in your career is very low and you are not suitable for taking responsibility for doing things independently.Too much care about temporary gains and losses is also one of its manifestations.You are very concerned about short-term rewards and achievements, and have no long-term vision.In other words, such people are eager to succeed, impatient, do not know how to persevere, and do not want to be patient. This is all a manifestation of low emotional intelligence.

How to build a sense of spiritual security
Most of the time, people are misreading "sense of security".From the perspective of the whole life, we can see that people's sense of security does not come from money, nor is it a kind of greenhouse environment provided by career.Do you feel safe when you have money and a career?Reality often gives us the opposite answer.The sense of security in the heart is similar to a vague experience of the human subconscious about the outside world, but it directly comes from inner self-confidence and judgment on the future.

During the conversation, Shang Yan told me that he traveled from Beijing to Shanghai, Guangzhou, and then abroad, and traveled all over the five continents in a few years.Compared with his social class, his income is not low, but he does not find a sense of security.

If, like Shang Yan, I had the experience of running around, but did not think calmly, I would also lose my position.The human mind is like a glass of mellow milk. If you are always dangling it around, what you get is definitely not a sense of security. Only by putting it into a suitable cup and settling down can you absorb the rich nutrition. "What am I suitable for?"

"How should I live and how can I realize my self-worth?" The answers to these two questions are the basis for us to build a sense of spiritual security.People who are too impetuous and inferior will deviate from the direction of "solving problems" and go to two extremes.This involves the "self-positioning" of emotional intelligence. What kind of positioning do you give yourself? After a certain amount of effort, you will have what kind of ability.

Shang Yan is overconfident in his ability and eager to make his dream come true in a short period of time. He is uncertain, impetuous and aggressive. He wasted 9 years without finding a satisfactory answer for himself.

He set himself too high and lacked an executable approach.This aggressive attitude towards life aggravated his inner anxiety, so that no matter how safe his current life was, he believed that he was living in an environment that made him seriously uneasy.

In the past few years of research, we have been paying attention to a question: what are those people who have "persistent low self-esteem" thinking?Why are they always unable to change their fate of submitting to a strong leader?

(End of this chapter)