Feng Tang said: My management confusion is all in China. After repeated comparisons, the Chinese ancient books and sages have given me the best help. I have to admit that I read Zeng Guofan’s books the most, most frequently, and most rewardingly. Behind the paper is: Success! succeed! succeed!

In recent years, "anxiety" has become a keyword describing our society. One hundred million has become a small goal, and financial freedom will be achieved by the age of thirty. Everyone is thinking about how to succeed, and every dream is about what will happen after success. This is not normal.

In a normal society, there are not so many successful people. Success is 30% strength and 70% luck. Without the carrot of success, what is the meaning of life? My conclusion is that the meaning of life is to do things, do your own thing, do it one by one, and do it well.

Why do people want to succeed? Success does not make people financially free, but it can make people feel physically and mentally free. The feeling of physical and mental freedom is a religious experience. If you continue to do things, continue to accomplish things, continue to be free, and continue to have fun, life will be full of meaning.

Chengshi in the eyes of Zeng Guofan

In my opinion, Zeng Guofan is the first person in the history of Chengshi.

He was a teacher, a general and a prime minister. He was a man of great virtue and meritorious deeds. He saved China for decades and wrote tens of millions of words (not sure how much was written by him and how much by his staff). More importantly, he did practical things. In the late Qing Dynasty when it was very difficult to get things done, he did big practical things. He continued to do many big practical things, and what he wrote was all about how to get things done, providing unprecedented and unprecedented insights. The newcomer’s methodology and practice methods.

Zeng Guofan was a very traditional person, a traditional Confucian elite. His era was an era of reading the Four Books and Five Classics. His Confucian elite consciousness, leadership consciousness, mission and salvation sense were very strong, which we cannot understand. In our era, elites are "cutting leeks" in different ways.

Success in Zeng Guofan's eyes is very traditional, which is Ma Sanli's "three establishments", establishing morality, meritorious service and reputation.

Li De, through words and deeds, has immeasurable public morality and perfect private morality, setting a model of a social elite for his subordinates, his family and the Chinese scholars in the late Qing Dynasty. This elite consciousness continued from the era of Zeng Guofan to the early May Fourth period. He is the last scholar-official in China.

His meritorious service ended the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, started the Westernization Movement, and extended the life of the Qing Dynasty for fifty years.

Li Yan, in this regard, he was not artistic enough and was a bit of a failure. No famous poems have been handed down.

This is the case with great achievers throughout the ages. Establishing virtue and meritorious deeds while doing things, nagging, and cultivating three views and methodology ("virtue").

The first importance of success

In Zeng Guofan's view, there are many factors to success. If you exclude non-self factors such as "fate" and "luck", "ming" is the most important elements.

The word "明" has two meanings: cleverness and shrewdness. It should be noted that the meanings of cleverness and shrewdness here are different from those commonly used in modern Chinese.

Smartness means having an overall view, being able to escape from specific things, specific people, specific times, and specific temperaments, and see the unchanging laws, the core of the problem, and the principles for handling it. If you are wise, you can see the vastness of mountains and rivers, the stubbornness of people's hearts, and the cycle of reincarnation in the world. You can also lower your mind and restrain your ambitions, and see the background of silence and nirvana in all things, and gradually return to peace.

Nowadays, there are many sycophants, too many false moves, too many people have been hanging around for too long, and even more people have been fooled for too long. Actions speak louder than words, and quality speaks louder than appearance. This is not only the characteristic of Zeng Guofan's work, but also his wisdom in employing people.

Being shrewd means being precise, obtaining enough detailed information through investigation and research, not taking things for granted, reasoning from multiple sources, repeatedly demonstrating, and arriving at logical conclusions without patting oneself on the head. If you can seek truth, refinement, and accuracy in everything, bend your body, seek truth from facts, never "I think" and never take shortcuts, you will gradually become realistic and return to plainness.

Think big and start small. Being wise means thinking big and being shrewd means starting small. There is no real shortcut to doing things. The shortcut is to repeatedly do practical things from the perspective of being wise and shrewd, and to repeatedly temper your character.

The only way to achieve success

If you only remember one sentence of Zeng Guofan, remember "Think big, start small." This is the only way to do things.

When doing things and projects, you must have an overall plan; as a manager, you must always see and control the overall situation; to be a good manager, you must also see beyond your own situation. The bigger picture, the direction of the entire industry, the dynamics of the entire society, where are the outlets, where are the traps, and where is the future. These are all "big things".

But things are done one by one, and the situation is broken through and completed bit by bit. The wind starts from the bottom of Qingping. These are all "small things" and must be done well in a down-to-earth manner.

"Thinking big" requires more talent, "thinking small" does not require too much talent. Just lean down and work hard. After a long time, you will get it.

After mastering "starting small", practice looking up at the road and "thinking big", the effect is also very good. Even if you can't practice or practice well, you still have to "start small" to protect yourself and you are still a person who can achieve things.

A group photo of Feng Tang and Bao Damin, the author of the recommended preface to "Getting Things Done" - former global chairman of McKinsey & Company

Three major ways to get things done

Zeng Guofan's ways to get things done, Simply put, it means managing yourself, managing your team, and managing things.

Manage yourself, manage what you can do, and manage what you cannot do; manage the team, he put forward two basic requirements for the team: do not sleep in, do not lie; manage things, his famous saying is “Think big, start small.”

When people reach middle age, they are prone to be greasy. When a company reaches a stable stage of development, it is even easier to be greasy. How to avoid being a middle-aged greasy man and how to avoid being a greasy enterprise all focus on management. The former manages oneself, while the latter manages others.

To achieve success, the most difficult thing is to "know yourself" and know what you can and cannot do.

There is an old saying, "Be kind to others and be kind to others." The meaning of this sentence is different from what we usually understand. To put it simply, we gather what the team considers to be good and make everyone on the team better. What Zeng Guofan is best at is that while accomplishing things, he also accomplishes others. It's hard to be ambitious and selfless. This is what managers should learn.

It is not easy to achieve success, but it is even more difficult to become an adult

It is not easy to achieve success, and it is even more difficult to cultivate into a successful person. If a successful person wants to achieve great things, he still has to go through eighty-one hardships and nine deaths on the road to immortality.

How did Zeng Guofan practice? In the early days of his war, he was defeated repeatedly and was scolded to death; in the middle stage, he also thought about quitting, laughing at the sea and not caring about world affairs, but he had already fooled so many people, how could he have the nerve to leave? The original intention of starting the army at that time was not to be greedy for money and not afraid of death, and not to be afraid of death. Why should we be afraid of being scolded? I am not an opportunistic person, nor a self-sufficient person. If I retreat and watch the people who have been deceived charge into battle for loyalty, I cannot afford to be embarrassed. If you can't afford to embarrass others, you can't do it, so you can only continue to do it and never look back.

Zeng Guofan said, "The soul is still ashamed"! This is not the poetic meaning of "when I think of things I regret in my life, plum blossoms will fall all over Nanshan", but the determination to never look back. In the front is the inevitable insult and possible death, and in the back is the hot bed of his wife and children.

In order for a person who has cultivated to achieve success to be able to move forward without hesitation, in addition to being familiar with the methodology of success and the desire for immortality, he must also have a wild power deep in his heart. This wild power depends on genes and destiny, not on reading this book, nor on reading any book.

Today, knowing that "the soul is still ashamed" and cannot afford to embarrass others, how many people can do it?

Without physical and mental strength, how can we accomplish anything?

There are many theories for success, but all theories have a premise: strong energy, extraordinary energy, and long-lasting energy.

The real elites are all energetic supermen. Without physical and mental strength, how can they talk about doing things and achieving success? If you can’t bear hardships and stand hard, and you’re mentally strong as a bastard, how can you talk about leading thousands of troops through snowy mountains and grasslands, and through one economic cycle after another?

The mind is the king, and the body is the minister. If the body is not tired but the mind is not tired, no matter how tired you are, you will not be exhausted, and you will even be happy. Zeng Guofan’s talk about health preservation is also true: worry less, struggle less, worry less; walk more, keep fit and exercise more. This is easier said than done.

The simple and effective methods I have observed one by one

"Save your thoughts and eliminate your worries": Look at your phone less and limit the average time you spend looking at your phone to four hours a day. Within the time saved, you can read, think, drink, chat, be in a daze, and have sex.

“Walking frequently and moving your muscles and bones frequently”: Exercise intensively at least twice a week for an hour each time. Make dinner appointments within three kilometers. Go to the restaurant before meals and walk back to your residence after meals.

Conclusion

There is a lot to say about Zeng Guofan. Finally, I recommend to everyone the five most recognized management sayings:

1. Respect and be strict with yourself. ;Forgive, be lenient to others.

2. Don’t sleep in, and don’t lie.

3. Think big and start small.

4. Be patient.

5. But do your best and don’t ask God’s will.