The famous philosopher Isaiah Berlin said: There are two kinds of people, the first: the hedgehog, who knows one big thing; the second: the fox, who knows many small things.
A hedgehog who knows a big event has only one thought in its heart, holding a hammer to see that everything is a nail, and adapting to changes without change. Very excited, very narrow-minded. If you touch it right, you can do great things (for example, entrepreneurs, such as: Alima Boss, QQ Ma Boss, Du Niang Li Boss, etc.). If you get it wrong, it can cause a great disaster (the wives and ions of entrepreneurial failures are scattered on the streets).
The fox is a realist, it knows many small things, it has no grand narrative in its heart, and it is not eager to find the fundamental answer. ever-changing.
We have met both types of people Latest Mailing Database in our lives. Hedgehog-shaped, we can't tell from a distance, just my high school classmates around me, they are bad at studying, but now they own a company with assets of over 100 million, a restaurant, multiple properties, and multiple luxury cars. . Foxy, that's like myself! Perhaps, and my colleagues?
So what kind of people should we be? Some people will definitely say that, of course, it is a hedgehog. That's right, if a hundred years ago, everyone would have thought that hedgehogs were good. Because in the concept of that era, people's understanding of the world was very simple. In that era, the so-called thoughtful people were able to abstract such a complex world into one thing, a reason, and a formula, so the thinkers of that era all had their own signature ideas.
To this day, there are still many people who would like to be able to abstract the world to this level, but have you observed it? The principle of simplicity is actually supported by complex operations.
Simple principles are often just a slogan and can't fall to the ground. For example, there was a book of "Principles" by Ray Dalio, the founder of Bridgewater Capital, which was very popular last year. It is mentioned here that Ray Dalio uses the "Tell the Truth" principle in his company management. He requires all the company's owners, including himself, to be extremely honest, and they must speak out in person if they have any opinions on people or things. Sounds right, right? But think about what it would be like if someone kept telling the truth, to the point of disregarding the situation, to the point of incomprehensible, and to the point of being unconvincing. Telling the truth makes Ray Dalio lose face, and sooner or later he will open people up too. This is like a joke circulating on the Internet before: the boss encourages employees to innovate, and draws a banner to write, what do you want to do, do it now. As a result, someone directly took the company's money and walked away.
So you see, the principle of telling the truth cannot be fully implemented. In fact, principles cannot be changed, but rules can be changed. For example, someone asked the priest, can I smoke while I pray? Of course not, the priest said. Then another person asked, can I pray while I smoke? Of course, the priest said. You see, the principle is that people should pray devoutly. It seems simple, but once it is implemented into real-world actions, it immediately becomes a paradox. That's the conundrum of living the hedgehog way, and there's a paradox in it.
Then you say, since the hedgehog is not good, is it good to be a realistic fox who "knows a lot of things"? The fox's way of life is actually what we often call the "multiple thinking model".
How does the fox act? They act on the feedback the world gives them. In the Internet era, we all know the benefits of doing this. The so-called "running in small steps and iterating quickly" are all summed up as a methodology.