3 minutes a day to learn about the real Zeng Guofan
Successful people, believed to be due to personality reasons, let him achieve success.
The person who fails, believing that it is a character reason, makes him always achieve nothing.
It is precisely because of this that many people think that "character determines destiny", and if we can understand a little bit of mental thinking, we may have a different answer.
Zeng Guofan, a famous minister of the late Qing Dynasty, was a man of changeable personality, he was sometimes open-minded, sometimes he was tough and fierce; he was sometimes vicious, sometimes benevolent and kind; he was sometimes angry, sometimes timid and cowardly.
However, Zeng Guofan achieved great success, as an official, he achieved the best quality, became the mainstay of the Qing Dynasty; as a teacher, he taught talents such as Li Hongzhang and became a model for the literati under the heavens.
Character can't determine destiny? Without character, fate can be determined. This is the concrete application of Zeng Guofan's mind science in practice, and he has achieved the effect of combining "Dao Xin (Tianli)" and "Human Heart (Human Desire)" into one, and completely applying the idea of "Heart One (Dao Heart and Human Heart) advocated by the master of Mind Studies Wang Yangming" to real life.
Especially those of us ordinary people, we must understand the wisdom of Zeng Guofan earlier.
Character can't determine destiny?
Everyone has a character, some people think, I am so arrogant, what can you do with me? If personality can really determine fate, Zeng Guofan will not succeed, and his personality will be very arrogant.
When Zeng Guofan first entered the dynasty as an official, because of his outstanding knowledge and a sense of superiority in his bones, not everyone could see it.
We see how Zeng Guofan's friends evaluated him.
His good friend Chen Yuanyan, because he and Zeng Guofan are both fellow hunan and also jinshi in the same year, the two are closer and speak more directly. Chen Yuanyan knew that Zeng Guofan's body was "full of sloppiness", that is to say, Zeng Guofan was arrogant and self-righteous.
Another good friend, Shao Yichen, also commented on Zeng Guofan:
Slow, that is, making friends can not be respected for a long time.
This means that when making friends with Zeng Guofan, he initially felt humble, but after a long time, he showed his arrogant nature.
Arrogance is an attitude that is displayed when you feel superior or superior to others, which is a kind of personality, which is caused by the "human heart" being greater than the "Taoist heart".
Zeng Guofan's personality made him run into walls everywhere in the official arena, and not only did he have a very poor relationship with his colleagues, but his superiors also disliked him. Therefore, for the first three years of his work, he achieved nothing and achieved nothing.
Without character, fate can be determined
What kind of personality you are, there is no impact on others at all, only by changing yourself, can you cater to the surrounding environment and crowds.
So, after Zeng Guofan knew that personality could not change his fate, how did he do it?
The influence of xinxue thought on Zeng Guofan was very great, and he found a way to determine his own destiny just by making up his mind. In the twenty-second year of Daoguang (1842 AD), Zeng Guofan mentioned his ambition in a letter to his brothers:
The determination of a gentleman is also to measure the people's things, to have the inheritance of the inner saint and the outer king, and then not to be born of his parents, and to be worthy of the perfection of heaven and earth.
If you want to be a "king of the inner saints and the outer king," you must merge the "Tao mind" and the "human heart" into one. That is, what character others need, they are what kind of character.
Without character, you can decide your destiny, which is the shortcut to Success of Zeng Guofan. For example, whether it was the Daoguang Emperor, the Xianfeng Emperor, or the Empress Dowager Cixi, they all needed loyal ministers, and the series of work behind Zeng Guofan were all to meet the needs of the rulers of the imperial court to change themselves, such as:
During the Xianfeng Emperor's reign, the imperial court needed someone to stand up against the Taiping Army, so Zeng Guofan created the Xiang Army. In the era of Empress Dowager Cixi, because Cixi was afraid that after the Han people had seized military power, the power in their hands was too large, threatening the security of the imperial court, so Zeng Guofan decisively dismissed the Xiang army.
Letting your personality conform to different environments and face different people is the real wisdom and the way to succeed in Zeng Guofan. These mental methods of Zeng Guofan are systematically explained in the "Zeng Guofan Psychology".
Through detailed case analysis, we have made an in-depth and simple analysis of how Zeng Guofan was promoted, how to become an official, how to create the Xiang Army, etc., which is worth reading carefully.
References: The Complete Works of Zeng Guofan, The Biography of Zeng Guofan, The Great Biography of Zeng Guofan, The Annals of Zeng Guofan, and The Draft History of the Qing Dynasty.