How do ordinary people succeed?

At the age of 18, he dropped out of high school, carried a plane ticket to the United States, and spent 10 years traveling the world, shopping for antique books, starting by selling the pages of old magazines, and becoming a successful publisher and writer. He is known as "the most life-savvy man in Japan", and "self-discipline", "counterattack", "ideal life", and "life aesthetician" are his labels.

He is Yataro Matsuura.

Why can he live to the envy of everyone? Perhaps the answer lies in this book Beyond Expectations.

In the book Beyond Expectations, Yataro Matsuura tells us the simple truth that ordinary people can succeed by working hard:

Provide each other with something beyond expectations, let more people be happy and moved, in order to harvest surprises, all successes in the world are based on this rule.

What is success? Yataro Matsuura believes that the basics of success are to exceed people's expectations.

So how do you exceed expectations? The book gives an important answer: stick to altruism.

What is altruism?

Yataro Matsuura first explores altruism from the perspective of doing business: most businesses are founded on the basis of money and time that the world spends. So the essence of business is to make people willing to spend time and money for you.

So why would others want to do this?

People are always good and avoid bad, and if you can give them some sweetness and benefits, they will come close to you. If you can't be altruistic, or even harm him, then they will avoid you.

Yataro Matsuura said in Beyond Expectations,

People are willing to spend time and money on things that can solve the troubles they are facing, eliminate their current uneasiness, forget their unpleasantness, and solve their own confusion.

For example, when the author is depressed because of frustration at work, he will want to go to the night convenience store for a walk.

At the convenience store, when he finds a product that relieves his depression, he will buy it.

He suddenly realized that perhaps many people who came to the convenience store were the same, because they saw the goods that made him feel comfortable, so he would buy them.

At this time, these goods allow them to solve the immediate troubles and eliminate the uneasy mood, so they are willing to pay.

Convenience stores, on the other hand, are altruistic, so they succeed in getting people to spend time and money.

So should ordinary people also adhere to altruism?

The answer is yes. In Beyond Expectations, Yataro Matsuura proposes a theory of "increasing the number of touches.". He believes that

Just as the sales of a commodity are proportional to the number of people who are happy because of it, a man's income is also proportional to the number of people he can impress. All businesses in the world run on this rule. If you want to get a higher income, you must consider how to make more people happy and moved.

This theory of emotion is also mentioned in his other book, Slowly Getting Rich, and I think this formula can more accurately summarize its meaning:

Income = number of people who are touched ×.

Yataro Matsuura explained that the essence of profit is to move, profit is directly proportional to the number of people who are moved, all work is based on people's touch, the key lies in how many people you can move. High profits indicate that you are touched by more people, and low profits indicate that you are touched by fewer people.

To put it simply, as an ordinary person, if you want to do a good job and exceed expectations, you may wish to gradually increase the number of people who recognize you, that is, people who can be impressed by your work performance. If your company has 200 employees, 150 of whom are touched by your performance, it won't be long before you get a promotion and a raise. Trying to increase the number of people who recognize themselves will have such an effect.

Yataro Matsuura tells us the simplest truth: Altruism is the greatest self-interest.

I think of the personal experience of Zhou Ling, author of the famous best-selling book "Cognitive Drive".

At the beginning, he embarked on the road of writing with an egoistic heart, and strongly hoped that he could also write 100,000+ explosive articles, eager to become famous, eager to monetize. However, after persisting for a while, it had little effect.

Later, he adjusted his writing mentality and began to establish a sense of mission in his writing: to write in order to change himself and influence others.

So, he calmed down to read and polish himself, and also opened a Q&A column to provide readers with free growth advice. He believes that "as long as it is conducive to the growth and change of the reader, it is worth the energy to do." ”

Slowly, through the contact of a large number of samples, he combined the theories he learned with practical needs, so that he applied them to his own articles, so that his articles could not only maintain the height of theory, but also hit the pain points of readers, and wrote a large number of articles with both depth and temperature.

His articles grew in popularity and attracted more and more readers, and after three years of writing, he published his first book, Cognitive Awakening. Two years later, he published his second book, Cognitive Drive, fulfilling his dream of being a writer. He was surprised to find that the result of altruism was self-interest, and those efforts that were not utilitarian would eventually be doubled back through some form.

It can be seen that such a person will be more powerful by doing everything with a grateful heart and love. Insisting on altruism and surpassing expectations complement each other, and it is precisely because of an altruistic heart that everything will be done conscientiously, so as to exceed expectations.

So, how do ordinary people achieve altruism beyond expectations?

Yataro Matsuura tells us, first of all, we need to establish the direction:

In the chapter "Not Deliberately Distinguishing Between Work and Rest," the author mentions what one operator said: It's important to find work that is worth betting on.

When you find a job where you are worth gambling on, you will feel that your work is happy, and you will not even feel anxious and nervous because of work.

If you want to find such a job, you can start with something you are good at.

Some people know what their specialty is, so it's easy to find the right job.

But some people are not so lucky, and they never even think about what they are good at. Let's learn the practical methods that Yataro Matsuura taught us in Beyond Expectations:

If you can't find something you're good at, then please put more thought into your work. For example, think about what you can do to get the job done faster, what you can do to make the data easier to understand, or compare yourself to those who have good sales performance.

In fact, many people find themselves good at things at work. Because hard work is recognized by everyone, so as to gain a sense of accomplishment and self-efficacy, so gradually become confident.

If you want to turn your work into something you are good at, it is indispensable to practice more.

The book Beyond Expectations uses speeches as an example to mention the importance of exercises:

Practicing is like buying insurance, it can eliminate your own uneasiness. While you don't need to aim for perfection, practice everything you can think of to make sure you do everything you can. This way, you can greet the day of your presentation with confidence. Even if something unexpected happens that day, you can respond calmly without panic.

Practicing is like buying insurance, and I know this very well. Before each exam, there are always some people, the closer they get to the exam, the more they feel flustered, and they can't review it at all. In fact, at this time, you only need to calm your mind and do some simple basic topics, on the one hand, to consolidate the basic knowledge, on the other hand, you can also eliminate uneasiness.

"Beyond Expectations" is a life management epiphany for ordinary people, teaching people how to manage themselves. Yataro Matsuura tells us at the end:

When you're in pain at work, try to imagine yourself ten years from now.

Please take every effort seriously, no matter what, giving up the effort for no reason is equivalent to giving up your life.

May every ordinary person be able to exceed expectations with an altruistic heart.