The Pandora’s Box of Life
A person is like a machine—starting it up takes time. Let’s say half an hour just to get going, then another two hours to ramp up to high speed.
In other words, only after you’ve fully immersed yourself in learning or working for two hours do you actually reach that high-performance state.
But if you work for thirty minutes, zone out, check the internet for a bit, study for half an hour, then slip away to snack, you never truly start the engine at all.
You might look like you’ve been studying and working eight hours straight, but your machine never actually fired up—it’s still cold. There’s no way you can run it hot, red-hot, let alone at high speed, so how could there ever be any efficiency?
Efficiency is simple: once your machine is warmed up and running, don’t let it stop. Think about a hundred-year-old restaurant—the pot of broth simmering day and night never stops.
Why can it never stop?
Because stakeholders won’t allow it to. Why do most people have to keep working? Because their families won’t let them stop—there’s no income otherwise. Once you place yourself inside a web of mutual interests, countless forces will push and prod you not to quit. That’s external discipline compelling internal discipline.
The more people pushing you, the higher your efficiency. Pressure itself is the engine.
Take on big responsibilities, and you’ll tie yourself to more stakeholders. The moment you slip up, a crowd will be right behind you chasing accountability. Blow your own trumpet, put your chest on the line, and opportunities for learning and work will follow—and then you won’t need to worry about chasing them anymore.
Everyone will push you toward success. Countless stakeholders don’t want you to fail, don’t want you to stop, don’t want you doing anything else—they want you to keep doing what you’re best at, so they can keep profiting.
For someone without inherited privilege, every background connection, network tie, resource, and opportunity you want to acquire ultimately comes from one thing: diving in headfirst.
Only by wrapping yourself into a game of mutual interests, only by making yourself useful, can you create room for your own gain. Where does power come from? It’s earned through getting things done. Born with power but never act, and it’ll be hollowed out—you’ll become a puppet. Born a eunuch with no power over even your own life, yet if you involve yourself in affairs and entangle the interests of many, you too can become “Lord Ninth,” the most powerful figure at court. Every new stakeholder, every additional person who stands to profit through you, is another reason you might profit yourself. True success is when one person becomes the linchpin for countless others’ interests—everyone pushes you to succeed, because when you do, they get to share the spoils. So you have no choice but to succeed.
True success is when one person becomes the linchpin for countless others’ interests—everyone pushes you to succeed, because when you do, they get to share the spoils. So you have no choice but to succeed. Let more people rely on you, let more people exploit you. One person giving you pressure makes you a migrant worker; everyone giving you pressure makes you the chairman.