"7 Principles for Understanding the Future" (Part 2)

The fifth principle is to do the opposite.

The opposite is true, that is, everyone else does it, but I try not to do it. This is a very effective way to deal with the future. This author once went to a public school. This public school is particularly short of funds. After he was invited to join, everyone complained to him, saying that there was insufficient attention, no money, and no funds. You know, what's the mindset of public schools? Just apply for funding. Because we are a public school, we applied, applied, and applied hard, but the higher authorities refused to grant us.

The author asked them, what resources do we have? What resources can we have? If we don’t just have classrooms and broken computers, what are these things for? !

This author said, ours is not a broken computer. We have thousands of computers in our school. Can we use them to make money? Then the teachers started to think together, and then what did they think of? There is a big pharmaceutical factory nearby. You know that when a pharmaceutical factory studies a molecule, it requires extremely high computing power and rents a lot of computing space. Then they rent this computer to the pharmaceutical factory.

If you think about it, the time children use computers is very short. As long as the children are not in class, thousands of computers will all be connected to the Internet and handed over to the pharmaceutical company, which will use their space to calculate the molecule. It is equivalent to taking out these computers to make money, which makes up for the lack of a large amount of funds. This is a completely different way of thinking that can help him solve the problem of insufficient public school funding.

He gave many interesting examples here. Innovation is indeed a very interesting topic.

Like Crocs, the Crocs shoes we used had a lot of holes and leaks, but they were able to sell so well.

There is another company that I particularly like, called zappos. Zappos is also an e-commerce company. What is the most unique thing about this company? When we usually recruit people, we are afraid that others will not come. After we recruit people, we tell them that this company is very good and you want to stay. This zappos is hiring and will let you intern for a month. After one month of internship, I said, you can choose not to come now. If you don’t come, I will give you 2,000 US dollars. If you don’t come, I will reward you 2,000 yuan, depending on whether you want to leave. Some people will be tempted and say, "I'll take the money."

But at this time, you find that people who can refuse 2,000 yuan to come in are completely different. This is very creative. He actually uses this method of driving others away and luring others away with money to select the people who want to do the job the most. This is what makes a difference.

This chapter makes a summary. He said, how can you be different from your competitors?

First, make a list of everything your competitors are doing, look at them one by one, and ask yourself: How can I do the opposite and seize the opportunity? Others are doing this, let me try and see if I can stop doing it.

Second, what is the mainstream thinking in your industry? Think reversely, look for opportunities, and be different from it.

Third, break down the goal, look at each part, and ask yourself: Is there a way to reverse one step, one part, or one factor to gain an advantage?

Fourth, list the key elements or steps that everyone in your field is engaged in, and check each one to see if there is an innovative way. Is there a way to do the opposite of what others are doing?

Fifth, cooperation can create a bigger cake. Look at your current job and ask yourself: Are there ways you can collaborate with others to make it more productive? This is the opposite principle.

The sixth principle is called redefinition and reinvention.

Change is an unstoppable trend, because change is the only constant in this world, and then reinventing yourself and recreating is the most important thing.

When the author kept teaching others and emphasizing this matter, one day, someone stood up and said, you always talk about innovation and you talk so lively, we are selling air conditioners, air conditioners are air conditioners, what's the point? So innovative?

You see, in our lives, why are the stocks of companies like Gree Electric and Haier relatively stable? ! I discussed with many people who study these economies and said that it is because they are engaged in white goods. The characteristic of white goods is that they are replaced slowly. It is rare that a white goods brand emerges and suddenly overturns both Haier and Gree.

Mobile phones are not good. Mobile phones are replacing them very quickly. I don’t know who suddenly comes out and wants to make a mobile phone. This mobile phone will subvert it. Therefore, he said that air conditioning is just air conditioning. What is so innovative about it? !

Then the author asked, do you think the hotel is a hotel? Hotels are hotels, but why is there such a thing as Airbnb? It has completely subverted hotels. So are taxis just taxis and traffic just traffic? Why is there Didi and Uber? Then movie theaters are movie theaters, so why are there companies like Netflix? !

Even when you say reading, isn’t it just reading? Printing and publishing have been in the industry for hundreds of years. Why do we listen to books and why do we create completely different learning methods? This is all because bandwidth is changing, computing speed is changing, and transmission efficiency is changing.

The changes in these major background technologies provide the possibility of such huge changes. Therefore, in any industry, there are always opportunities for innovation.

Then you have to think about whether you can create some ideas that don’t compete.

For example, there is a world-famous old bookstore called Barnes & Noble. In the beginning, Barnes & Noble was dominant in that it was the largest bookstore. As a result, when Amazon came up, everyone said that the Barnes & Noble bookstore was doomed and that it would definitely go bankrupt. Amazon sells so many books.

You said, if Barnes & Noble insists on competing with Amazon to sell books, I guess it won’t win because its cost is too high. It has offline stores and decorations. Later, the entire Barnes & Noble bookstore was transformed.

When I go abroad now, I can often see that Barnes & Noble bookstores are doing well. It repositioned itself and became a place for reading. Therefore, it attaches great importance to decoration and makes a lot of seats so that you can sit comfortably and pick up a book, read all day, drink coffee, and eat. At this time, the nature of the entire bookstore changed from a warehouse-style place where people could choose and buy books, to a place like a casual cafe, completing the transformation.

We are a Fan Deng Bookstore, and our slogan is that a Fan Deng Bookstore lights up a community. We do not open Fan Deng Bookstore in the most expensive or luxurious place. We just put it in the community so that you can go to self-study, read, chat, make friends, and listen to classes, turning it into a community learning center. This means not having to compete. You don’t have to compete for the most prosperous place or the most expensive rent. Change your mindset to not compete.

Innovation must be able to break the scarcity mindset. Scarcity thinking makes us particularly fond of competition, but with a mindset of abundance (sharing, winning), you can discover that there are many things that can be done, and find many ways to solve many problems that seemed impossible to solve in the past. .

One hospital found that nurses were interrupted all day long at work. Later, everyone went to observe and found out who interrupted the nurse? It's those patients' families. The patient's family members came over and asked whether this should be changed, whether that should expire, and how that should be. They kept asking all kinds of questions.

Later, everyone asked, how to solve this? Someone invented a very simple method, which is to send a BB machine to the family members of these patients and that's it. Send a BB machine and put it there, and then come when it rings. If it doesn't, it's fine. That's it. Just like when we go to many places to eat now, we will give you a vibrator.

The vibrator squeaks and you come over to serve your food. You don't have to queue up or get angry. You can enjoy a good environment.

Therefore, with just a little change, it is possible to solve the long-standing problem in the past.

It is effective to identify your core strengths and innovate along your core strengths. Here's an example that kids will love.

In 1889, Kyoto entrepreneur Fusajiro Yamauchi founded a company to sell exquisite handmade traditional Japanese playing cards called "Hanafuda".

In 1929, he retired honorably and the business was passed on to his descendants. His grandson, Hiroshi Yamauchi, visited the United States in the 1950s and successfully obtained a license that allowed him to put Disney characters on playing cards.

In the 1960s, he began to further try to establish a taxi company, a hotel chain, a company that produces instant rice, and a television station, but all failed. He kept trying, eventually turning to the toy market.

In 1977, he hired a young student named Shigeru Miyamoto to help him develop some new products. If the name is unfamiliar to you, ask your child. Miyamoto later developed many best-selling games, including "Super Mario Bros.", "Donkey Kong" and "The Legend of Zelda", among others.

Today Hiroshi Yamauchi is the richest man in Japan. His company has a market capitalization of over $85 billion. The company is called Nintendo.

In the early days, Nintendo produced playing cards. What is the core competitiveness of such a playing card company? Entertainment (games based on classic characters). In fact, it has been providing entertainment to everyone, and in the end, the entertainment gradually turned into a game, and that's how it came about. This is a way of innovating along core strengths.

Another thing is that you have to be able to create your own uniqueness. This case here shocked me. It was said that there was an American couple who were a kind of second-hand housing agency, that is, an agency that looks at houses for people and then sells them. The couple's annual sales volume is 500 million U.S. dollars, which means that the annual housing transaction volume is 500 million U.S. dollars. If you calculate the average, it means that he will generate 250 orders a year. There are only 365 days in a year, and 250 transactions are required to sell a house. This is a terrible statistic.

Later, everyone studied and asked, how did these two people do it? They are all real estate agents. Others would do well if they open 10 or 20 orders a year. How do you do it if you do hundreds of orders? Lillian said, it's easy, we just think about our customers.

How do you think about your customers? This Lillian once traveled to the UK and found a kind of taxi - have you seen it? It is a big taxi, a bit like an off-road vehicle, but not an off-road vehicle; the hatchback type, the seat inside is Sitting facing each other. As soon as she got into the taxi, she immediately came up with an idea, saying that this taxi was perfect for selling houses.

Because you know, if you sell a house in an ordinary car, the agent usually sits in the front row, with the clients behind you, and you have to turn your head to talk to them like this. If you feel uncomfortable, you will talk less. Therefore, she bought a British taxi, took it back to the United States, and parked it in their community. Whenever a guest comes, he gets on the bus and sits across from her. She sits upside down and explains to them. The customer's experience immediately feels different and interesting. This is what this agency does. This is the first one that is different.

Second, she observed that many people buy houses because the middle class wants to improve their housing, including many people from all over the world who buy houses there to send their children to school. Then she got through all the schools around the house she was selling, and learned about the various conditions for admission. Then, while looking at the house, introduce to him the nearby schools, which school can do it, and how can I help you get admission, which dispels the concerns of a large number of people who want to buy a house.

Third, the reason why many people don’t buy a house is because they are afraid of the trouble and difficulty of moving. She said, you don't have to worry about moving at all. After you buy the house, I will move it for you. She formed a small moving team to handle moving problems for others.

The moving problem has been solved, the schooling problem has been solved, and these two people are still so reliable. All her personal spaces and websites are in languages ????from all over the world. You can choose: English, You can read Chinese, Arabic, and Italian. So, very international.

You see, such a seemingly inconspicuous job is a real estate agency, which can achieve a turnover of 500 million US dollars a year. Just two people, it’s a mom-and-pop shop.

So, I have a prediction. Based on this book, we predict that in the future, the power of individuals will become greater and greater, that is, more and more super individuals will appear. Because of technology, the Internet empowers individuals so much that everyone can be copied continuously. Real estate agencies like this sell 500 million yuan a year - which is US dollars, equivalent to billions of RMB in transaction volume, and will become more and more numerous.

Therefore, everyone can strive to be such a super individual. This is the sixth principle.

The seventh principle is called dominating the future.

What does it mean to dominate the future? That is, you have to know that if you want to know the future, you first have to know what your dream is. It's a bit like being on a talent show. If you don't know what your dreams are, predicting the future is meaningless to you.

This author said something that I find particularly convincing. He said that even for the same stock, people buy and sell it every day. You said that everyone’s judgment is accurate or not. For the same stock, you think, wow, I finally got it, this stock is great, after all, I will buy it.

How can you buy it? The reason you buy it is because someone is selling it. It is just such a thing. Some people judge it to be good, and some people judge it to be bad. The core reason is that we have different views on the future, and we have different perspectives on the future.

The author had a friend who was in a car accident and became paralyzed. After he became paralyzed, everyone was very sad and tried to comfort him by telling him that it was not easy for him. As a result, this friend said something, he said, it actually doesn't matter, because I used to have 10,000 possibilities in the future, but now the number has been reduced by about 1,000, and I still have more than 9,000 possibilities. It is not easy to realize all of the more than 9,000 possibilities. So, even though I am paralyzed, I don’t want to just stare at my 1,000 impossible things all day long, I want to stare at my 9,000 possible things. This is how we look at the future differently.

So, your educational vision, your work vision, your family vision, if you can’t figure these things out, what kind of person do you want to be in the future and what kind of education do you want to receive? If you are not clear about what kind of contribution you want to make to this society and what kind of family you want to live in, then predicting the future has nothing to do with you. We can only hope for any future to happen.

Once you determine these visions, learn to fail quickly, then collaborate, trust, and work in a more humane way.

Finally, there is a suggestion that I think makes sense. If you have the opportunity, you can try it, which is called the one-hour Tomorrow Laboratory every week.

What is the weekly one-hour Tomorrow Lab? Just take an hour a week to think about the future.

Think about your future life and your future job. How could your work be done better, or are there possibilities for more creativity? Not much, just an hour a week, do something like this.

At the very least, if you can do these three tricks of stopping, looking, and listening, you can find opportunities. When you see the water receding, you can tell yourself whether it is a tsunami. This is called the ability to discern opportunities.

Therefore, we call on everyone to take an hour to think about the future, instead of getting stuck in various problems in life all day long and unable to extricate themselves. When you are stuck in problems all day long, you can only be tempted to narrow your vision to deal with those problems.

In fact, the answers to many questions do not lie within this question at all. By skipping this question, you may be able to get a better answer more broadly and more easily.

For future prediction, we can summarize it into seven principles, which may actually be an oversimplification. So I want to emphasize again that the future is very difficult to predict. Don't base your life on predictions of the future, and don't believe in the many masters who predict the future. But it is not ruled out that we can think about the future and we can learn more about the future.

Therefore, these 7 principles for understanding the future are only a reference for us, and they are definitely not golden rules. We hope that everyone can control their own future. Thank you everyone and see you next week.