Speaking of letters from home, we can easily think of letters from Zeng Guofan and Fu Lei. Letters from home contain the author's earnest teachings, the most sincere feelings, the most precious wisdom and life experience.
Teacher Wu Jun is my favorite writer since college. He used to work for Google and is currently the main designer of Google's search algorithm in China, Japan and South Korea. Now he is a famous investor in Silicon Valley.
The first book I read was Top of the Tide, which recorded the "business history" of IT giants at the top of the Tide, and there were many original opinions of the authors. After reading Wu Jun's works Beauty of Mathematics, Light of Civilization and Intelligent Age, I subscribed to two columns by Wu Junkai on the APP.
Teacher Wu Jun's attitude is based on the present, so Wu Jun's mode of thinking, cognitive mode, visual mode, attitude and method can give us great inspiration, and so can the way we educate our children.
In today's society, for the elite, the most precious inheritance of the family is not wealth or power, but thinking and cognitive ability, which the author calls "attitude" approachable.
At present, the education of many families in China is problematic, and for many parents, the attitude towards their children is problematic.
Children are neither the private property of parents nor the continuation of parents' unfulfilled wishes.
Therefore, parents should not care about their children's feelings, nor should they pass on their unfulfilled wishes to their children, especially asking them to do things they can't do.
In family education, the power of example is far greater than preaching, that is to say, "teaching by example" is not as good as "setting an example". Behind every Xiong Haizi, there are a pair of uneducated parents.
Why do some rich children in China fail to live up to expectations? Because their parents got on the shuttle bus of China's rapid economic development, many people didn't improve their quality or send their children to a better environment to grow up after "getting rich overnight", which led to "being rich but not being the only one".
Therefore, to ensure the success of education, parents should first ensure their "cognitive" high level, in addition, they should also pay attention to the correct ways such as teaching students in accordance with their aptitude and two-way communication. At this point, the so-called elites in Europe and America have done a good job.
What is the child's education? The author mentioned a bottom line in the book-"I am educated, friendly to people and care about the world."
The letters collected by Attitude are divided into six categories according to the theme, namely: philosophy of life, insight into the world, treatment of money, interpersonal relationship, effective study, and being a man and doing things.
Here is a brief introduction of some contents.
The author believes that an optimistic attitude towards life is more important than anything else.
Optimism is really important, even the most important. It is no exaggeration for the author to put it in the first chapter. However, most families in China always ignore this point. Instead of saying "be optimistic and be happy" to their children, they always say "work hard and struggle hard".
"Harmony produces happiness". Therefore, it is very, very important to find a like-minded partner. China's parents often don't talk about love with their children.
Because of harmony, it is unnoticed, so it is the easiest to be ignored. Many people say that dullness is happiness, and the so-called "floating in this life" is not what many people think, but harmonious happiness.
Happiness comes from the release of human nature. That is, "being yourself" in psychology, let your instinct gush out.
How to maintain an optimistic attitude towards life, the author puts forward the following points:
First, lifelong learning and keeping pace with the times.
Understanding the development of the world is a happy thing in itself. Of course, I think it will be great happiness if I can participate in the development of the world.
Second, we should have ideals and strive to realize our wishes.
Third, get along with others and respect and tolerate each other as much as possible.
Fourth, see through life.
The author says that people must see through many things in the end. This sentence is somewhat abstruse. What we can understand at present is to see through death.
Only by maintaining an optimistic attitude towards life can we pursue happiness. What is the source of happiness? The author mentioned a book called Blue Zone of Happiness, which was written by The New York Times's best-selling author, journalist and producer Dan Bitner.
"Blue Zone" is an anthropological term, which means those areas in the world with a particularly long life span.
Most scholars who study happiness believe that genetic inheritance is one of the most fundamental sources of happiness. When people see that their life span can be passed down from generation to generation through genes, they will unconsciously smile.
Therefore, having children will be happy, which is written in the genes. Will those Dink families feel unhappy when they are old? At the present level of human evolution, can we not need this kind of happiness? At least, this kind of happiness is instinctive and irreplaceable.
In addition, people's existence and behavior can leave a mark on the world or create happiness, which is also happiness in itself. In fact, this is the highest level demand in Maslow's demand theory-self-realization demand. If this demand is met, it will naturally bring happiness.
On the road to happiness, there will be all kinds of foreign temptations. How can we have the determination to resist them?
When people indulge in a simple and intense pleasure, they will lose interest in other things, just like the pleasure brought by drug abuse. For example, playing video games is addictive because dopamine is secreted quickly and easily.
Therefore, the author believes that the most fundamental way is to find a long-term goal, which is meaningful and makes you willing to work hard for it. This is why parents should cultivate interest for their children, or learn a musical instrument, or learn painting, or learn physical education and so on. Interest itself is a long-term goal.
Of course, as parents themselves, it is not too late to cultivate their own interests. Just don't put the cart before the horse.
When making decisions, the pattern should be big, and when doing things, the realm should be high.
The author believes that the size of a person's pattern refers to whether he can see big opportunities in the spatial dimension and do something with greater scope and influence. The word "realm" actually comes from Buddhism, which means how far people can see and how many layers they can see through, which is in the time dimension.
I wrote an article called "Thinking Caused by Financial Management" before-what is the pattern? In the article, I mentioned "the performance of insufficient pattern". The first one is in the time dimension, "I can't see things five years later", and the second one is in the space dimension, "I can only see myself and others". It coincides with the author's point of view.
The author tells us that life is concrete, and we can't always discuss problems in the abstract. We should be concrete, talk about numbers and facts.
The author warns us that when we do things, we must first assume that our luck is worse than others, so we have to work three times as hard as expected.
In the face of poverty, you can choose to sink or rise.
But poverty is not a mistake. Just because a person is poor doesn't mean that he doesn't work hard. This "utilitarian" heart is very narrow and short-sighted, and there is no responsibility and responsibility.
Only by admitting that you are poor can you be truly rich.
For the poor and the weak, sometimes the more you protect and take care of them, you will label them as weak and imprison them in their original social status.
Similar to admitting poverty, it is a great test of whether people can accept that they are inferior to others and whether they can work hard until they change their state even though they may be laughed at by others.
Don't spend money or save money. When using wealth, we should focus on the overall situation.
The author's suggestions on investment may give many people some enlightenment:
First, never feel that you can beat the market.
Every year, 70% of funds underperform the index. Anyone who tries to beat the market is challenging the basic principles of microeconomics. Therefore, for 99% individual investors, the best investment is to buy a large number of index funds. Buffett also recognizes this principle.
Second, have confidence in the market.
The stock market will rise and fall, and sometimes it will fall by more than half, but from the recorded history, it is still the best investment method. Buffett's greatest success is that he always believes that the stock market will rise for a long time.
Third, although the stock market will always rise back when it falls, a single stock may not necessarily.
There are only immortal enterprises in the world, and there are no immortal companies. Investing in a single stock, even if you meet a star company, may not be able to make money for a long time.
Fourth, time is your friend, but timing is not.
Patience is the first element of success. No one knows when the fastest growing ten days or dozens of days in the stock market will come. Smart investors always invest in the stock market instead of trying to speculate on the lowest and highest points.
Based on the above four points, the best way is to invest in index fund ETF. The best way to make a fixed investment is to treat yourself as a fool so that the stock market can buy both ups and downs. Once you buy a stock, don't stare at the price every day, it will make you suffer.
In addition to four suggestions, the author also puts forward three warnings about investment:
First, don't make investments that are too risky and will lead to disaster. For example, shorting stocks and leveraging investments.
Second, don't make investments you don't understand.
Third, never envy others for seizing fleeting speculative opportunities.
Of course, we talk so much about "money". In fact, in the United States, the standard for measuring elites is not money or academic qualifications, but influence.
Regarding friendship, the author believes that when making friends, don't be afraid to eat small losses.
It is generally assumed that people are honest, kind and upright. Of course, there is a great possibility of being fooled, but it doesn't matter, it will only be fooled last time, because people never get a second chance. This is equivalent to stop loss immediately when you lose money in business, and you can't lose more and more.
About love, the author thinks that the right person will let you see and get the whole world. Not lost.
As for communication, the author thinks that effective communication can only be achieved if the purpose of communication is achieved.
Regarding refusal, the author believes that if you feel that you can't help, just say so. If you feel embarrassed, don't force yourself.
Regarding leadership, the author thinks that two aspects are the most important and relatively easy to cultivate.
The first is organizational ability and working ability. I leave you one thing. Can you break it down and organize everyone to finish it?
The second is to unite the majority of people, so that everyone can play their own talents and play their role.
Regarding learning, the author puts forward what to learn in universities.
First of all, learn the scientific common sense and humanistic quality that you need all your life.
Second, learn to do things and master the ability of self-study.
Third, cultivate the spirit of cooperation.
The author believes that reading non-fiction classics has the following advantages besides increasing knowledge:
First, you can further improve your language ability, especially your understanding ability;
Second, masterpieces are often full of wisdom;
Third, reading famous books is a shortcut to systematically understand an idea.
The author thinks it is very important to learn mathematics well.
First, it is the foundation of all natural sciences, even for liberal arts such as economics.
Second, cultivate people's logical reasoning ability.
Third, improve reading comprehension.
Regarding scientific research, the author thinks that falsification is more important than confirmation.
For science, what matters is the process, not the conclusion. No amount of authority is enough to prove a proposition.
Science is not equal to correctness. People who have this idea are more likely to regard science as a religion. Religion has three characteristics: first, blind obedience; The second is the sense of moral superiority; Third, I like to believe the dogma in books and the conclusions given by authoritative people.
The author advocates that we should be "rational skeptics".
Don't overestimate the probability before doing something.
It's right to think twice before you act. But don't hesitate to think clearly.
After many things have been done, the probability of success in retrospect is only 5% or even lower. If you start to calculate the probability before you do it, many things will not be done at all.
The author mentioned that there is a big difference between doing things in industry and academia.
There are two important principles for working in industry:
The first is the input-output ratio. For example, when designing an algorithm, the fastest is not necessarily the best, and factors such as energy consumption and memory should be considered.
The second is to use the existing conditions as much as possible to solve the problem.
What kind of "attitude" exists in our hearts?
What kind of "attitude" will it help the next generation cultivate?