In life, if you want to rise, you can’t help but learn to speak and listen.

The vast majority haven't been taught this because you don’t need it. From others’ eyes, you’re just a tool—a keyboard, a mouse, replaceable consumables, not talent. The world is blunt and straightforward only among the grassroots.

What does your refusal to learn how to speak or how to listen fundamentally reject?

It rejects your track.

Before you speak, you should already be able to predict the effect of your words; only then should you open your mouth. Otherwise, it’s just being meddling. Only when you judge that what you’re about to say will definitely get a “yes” from the other party should you actually speak. Otherwise, hold back, wait quietly for the moment—wait for the timing when they might agree.

You only speak after you’ve truly understood and read the room.

When you can read between the lines of those above you, you’ll be promoted quickly; when you can read between the lines of those below you, soldiers will fight for you. You need the former because it gives you the stage; you need the latter because once on stage, you must deliver results.

Otherwise, you’ll remain a court jester your whole life. When the tree you cling to falls, as a vine you cannot stand alone. Both matter. Stop being naive—unless you don’t want these things.

If you want a promotion and raise, if you want customers to place orders, if you want returns, if you want your family to thrive, if you want to avoid midlife crisis—then you might actually be willing to read this. Because you’re carrying your own future, carrying the weight of your family.

Sometimes, only those who bear weight can go far; the frivolous will eventually stop.