Long dry goods warning.

This will be a long article on pure dry goods.

People often complain to me that my life and work are very hard. Why didn't my efforts get a good return? I don't know when I can "get through it"

I have recommended this book to others more than once. Horse Sense: The key to success is to find a horse to ride, Al Ries and Jack Trout (the key to success is to find a horse to ride), whose Chinese translation is horse racing and life orientation.

This book has been published for almost 30 years. It's not a classic bestseller, and there should be no Chinese version. You may be more familiar with Jack Trout's another classic marketing book, Positioning.

I came across this book after two failed postgraduate entrance examinations.

The core idea of this book has a great influence on me, reminding me what I need to pay attention to at every intersection, and I can see the essence of things better.

Like most people, I used to think that under the traditional education of hard work, as long as I studied hard, got into a good school, found a good job, and then worked hard, I could step by step on the career path according to the "career plan".

The mistake is that if life is a race, we regard ourselves as a horse and run at our own speed, then the ceiling is very low, because your output is very limited, even if you don't eat or drink for 24 hours, you can't create much value.

And if you think of yourself as a jockey and all the resources around you as horses, then you can speed up your speed by choosing horses.

We often say that "learn to borrow money" means the same thing, but more people use "borrowing money" at the micro level, not at the macro level.

Riding and choosing horses are very important things.

But unfortunately, first of all, most of us can't even ride a horse well.

Most people have countless opportunities to play in their work, but most people don't seriously think about how to do their work better.

Fewer people will clearly realize and be willing to spend a lot of time on "horse selection".

Being able to use resources is a higher ability than "running hard".

It's a lot like investing. You don't need to do your own project. What you need is to take the time to understand what project is good, and then invest resources in this project.

This article is the same as the core concept in the book horse racing theory, but the content is different, which may be more useful for newcomers in the workplace.

Let's talk about the trap of degree first.

The trap of degree

I have asked many students why they want to take the postgraduate entrance examination. Many people cannot explain why. I'm afraid they feel guilty when they say "Let's find a job".

But it seems that once you study hard, you will fill your anxiety about the uncertainty of the future, because the idea that "hard work will lead to good results" has been rooted in your heart.

The elimination of this anxiety is only an illusion, and the final result is that you are working in the wrong direction and wasting your time.

In fact, most positions in most companies are not about whether you are a master, but about work experience and personal potential. A degree is more a reflection of one's potential. For example, students from key universities may be given priority.

But it doesn't matter whether you are an undergraduate or a master. If your personal abilities are insufficient, this degree will not even add to the icing on the cake.

If you don't have to have a master's degree in your future work, my suggestion is not to take the postgraduate entrance examination.

After working for a period of time, I want to know if I need to study, and if so, I will study for a high-quality master's degree (the tutor is good and the alumni are good).

When the theory of evolution recruits itself, it doesn't really look at whether the education is a master's degree or an undergraduate degree. Everyone knows what the years of a master's degree are like, and the gold content of a master's degree is not that high. We prefer to recruit young undergraduates because they are more flexible and active.

Think of learning as a horse

A degree is not a good horse in many cases, but knowledge is.

Everyone knows that a good school should be chosen when choosing a school, but when choosing what to do after work or in their spare time at night, most people will not choose "study".

And knowledge is the cheapest and most efficient horse.

Buying a book costs only a few tens of dollars, and after reading it, you may be worth several times. Listen to a few valuable lessons, or take part in training practice, these are horses with little investment but quick results.

"Continuous learning" and "seeking advice" are very difficult for many people. I have met many people who are at a loss, sitting there thinking for themselves, but after getting stuck, I can't think of any good ideas. It's no use telling them to "read information science" or "talk to experienced people".

Some people may also think that only the results of their own hard thinking can be called "efforts."

Those who continue to study and those who don't, after working for five years, can open a considerable gap.

This should be your first horse. After riding this horse, let's look at the second horse-the work.

The trap of work

Many people especially like to bask in how hard they work overtime, which in my opinion is very stupid.

Except for some urgent tasks, most overtime work is meaningless, either because of company management or personal management.

Nietzsche said in The Will of Power:

"Praise labor", which is the beautification of slaves to themselves-because they have no leisure ability.

Personally, first of all, if you always need to work overtime, you need to see if the workload is unreasonable or your own time management or work efficiency is problematic. If the workload arrangement is unreasonable, it is your own problem to communicate with your superiors and optimize the workflow quickly.

I met a girl in a retouching photo studio before. She said that she was always tired from work, and it would take hours to make some simple pictures. I was curious, so I went to see why she was so slow and tired, only to find that she used stupid methods to take screenshots every time, and many shortcut keys could not be used, so she used the mouse to click one by one.

Really, I won't sympathize with her even if she works so hard.

If you work overtime because the company's management is inefficient and you can't learn anything, I suggest you change your job. Because every minute you work overtime is a waste of your time.

Treat work like a horse

In the first few years in the workplace, two things are the most important:

Learn skills at work and make achievements. (This is the foundation)

Charge yourself in your spare time and create higher value than the work itself. This is an investment in the future.

Let's start with the first one.

All work experience needs to be able to quantify their work results. That is, the achievement, which is stronger than others.

If you have been working, but you find that you don't have any "achievements" worth mentioning, then maybe you need to think about what the value of your work is and how to make "achievements".

If a company does not have a KPI, it can establish its own KPI. For example, the KPI that the editor of Evolution likes is probably how high the opening rate of her article is, how much it is forwarded, and how much readers like it.

It will be a very good achievement if Xi Meng Duo can be the first in the industry in all indicators of such articles.

But this is just the standard of a good employee.

Take Xi Meng Duo as an example. She studied product design in her spare time, jumped out of the framework of content writing, and designed a set of tools for selecting suitable clothes online with her existing knowledge of clothing and product design, which created higher value than the work itself.

She can even use this design to organize team financing.

So is our lawyer. She is not only an excellent lawyer, because she is combining the law with the Internet to make an automated legal tool.

This is the first step to maximize personal value and create new value for new products.

So choose a company and position that can make you learn something and give full play to your personal value. It's your good horse, and then all you have to do is ride it well and make it run faster.

When the first two horses are finished, say the third horse.

The trap of contact

Many newcomers will waste a lot of time on accumulating "contacts".

The "contacts" accumulated by most people are not contacts, but "address books".

There have been many articles saying that if you are a little-known younger brother, even if you add a hundred older brothers as WeChat friends, they are not your effective contacts, and you have not entered their "circle".

People in the circle must be equal in strength.

If you don't ride the first two horses well, you may not be able to ride this one.

Treat others like horses.

Learn knowledge well and make achievements, and then you can start thinking about how to ride this third horse well.

Alumni, industry circles and others around you are your horses.

When I was studying, I didn't expect that alumni relations would bring great resources.

Whether looking for a job or business cooperation, if you have strong alumni, many things will become very easy. Whether it is the college entrance examination or graduate school, you must remember to pay attention to the development of alumni in your professional field. Choose excellent colleges and majors for alumni.

Keep in touch with those outstanding alumni after graduation and learn about their trends. There are more opportunities for alumni relations than you think.

There are also great opportunities brought to you by industry circles, especially after starting a business. At the beginning of the venture, I accumulated a lot of contacts, including investors, media and other resources. (The premise is that I have good industry performance. )

These resources have played a great role in the past two years, and the biggest role is forward-looking information. Because you are in the industry circle, your sensitivity to the industry is definitely higher than that of outsiders.

In addition, starting a business itself is actually because the circle I contacted prompted me to start a business. If there is no such circle around me, I may not choose to start a business, because I have no idea what entrepreneurship will bring me.

Many people who don't belong to the internet circle or the media circle, but want to start a business, talk to me about my experience. If you talk too much, you will find that outsiders have poor sensitivity. It takes a long time to explain to them a concept that insiders already think is common sense, and maybe they don't fully understand it.

This information gap is a very, very important factor.

Finally, the people around you are actually your horses, and many people don't know how to use others.

Many people would rather spend time and energy to do something that is not beneficial to their value-added at all (such as cleaning) than spend some money to find someone else to help them do it. This "saving money" is the most uneconomical.

There are still many leaders who like to do things themselves, but they are too tired to speak, and the effect is still very poor.

I know some students from the media. They always complain that they can't recruit people who can write, and they don't want to spend time training new people. As a result, they are exhausted by their own writing and have no time to recharge their batteries.

Summarize this article.

Many people are "trying" to think of themselves as horse racing, but they don't know if they can actually be jockeys, and they don't know what horse to ride and how to ride, so they have been trying to run, but the speed is very slow.

So what we can do is:

Ride the first easy-to-ride horse and use all your spare time to study hard and add value to yourself.

Ride the second horse well, make good use of your job and create your own value.

Ride the third horse well, make use of others and amplify your own value.

Good horses are always reserved for good jockeys.

The reason for the space is written here first, and then the host will write an article telling everyone how to study systematically and how to create "achievements" at work.