The seven-piece board training project of the Outward Bound company is a classic indoor Outward Bound training project. In this activity, everyone needs to cooperate and find their own board resources in order to piece together shapes and get scores from the coach. However, the boards required to complete the shape are often insufficient, so we need to borrow from other teams. Meanwhile, other teams will also come to us for borrowing. The contradiction here is that there is competition between teams, patterns, and scores. People always think: if we lend them our boards, what will happen to our score? And who can lend us the boards?
There is a Chinese saying: "Prosperity does not last beyond three generations." This saying describes a social phenomenon, it's not some kind of truth, nor absolutely correct. But if you observe carefully, it really verifies many real-life situations. The father starts from scratch, works hard to build a substantial family business; the son inherits the business from his father and continues to operate it, possibly accumulating more wealth or maintaining a steady state. For the third generation, he hasn't seen his grandfather's struggle process, doesn't even have the patience to listen, thinking that such hard work is far from his world. He also doesn't possess the skills of management and preservation that his father learned from his grandfather. Born with a silver spoon, the third generation knows nothing about hardship and doesn't realize how complex management can be. Therefore, when the industry is passed down to him, it is either easily lost or poorly managed because he lacks the ambition to start a business and the skills to maintain it.
Li Shun is an ordinary technical worker who performs repetitive actions every day - screwing on cars, unscrewing, changing screws. This life has continued for many years, receiving a fixed salary each month, living as usual. At the beginning of the month, he dines out a few times, in the middle of the month, he cooks for himself, and by the end of the month, he mostly eats instant noodles. Seeing others doing business, he once wavered, but considering that failure would mean losing even this job, though he felt the life was too tasteless, he still couldn't break free from the routine.
One day, Li Shun and a few friends bought a few lottery tickets unintentionally. He didn't believe he would win, thinking good luck wouldn't easily come to him. Unexpectedly, he won the second prize, with a bonus of about 1 million yuan. Although it wasn't as much as the first prize, it was equivalent to his income over 20 years. Li Shun suddenly obtained the wealth that would take 20 years to accumulate.
So, how did he distribute this money? He had thought about opening an auto repair shop, which would cost about 300,000 yuan. After receiving the bonus, during the Outward Bound training, he wanted to make a bigger investment instead of a small-scale repair shop. He thought for a long time but couldn't find a suitable project. During this period, he spent several ten thousand yuan celebrating his win by treating guests and giving red envelopes to relatives and friends. Someone then suggested that it was unlikely to win again in a lifetime, so it was best to save a portion for old age. Thus, Li Shun saved 500,000 yuan as retirement money, bought a house with 300,000 yuan, and invested the remaining 200,000 yuan in stocks and funds. Unexpectedly, soon after Li Shun entered the market, he got stuck. To avoid losing money, Li Shun kept adding capital, eventually losing all his savings. He had to stop, otherwise, he would lose even his house. To pay off the mortgage and support himself, Li Shun had to go back to work, still as a car mechanic.
Li Shun unexpectedly gained a fortune, but he didn't use this wealth as a starting point; instead, he treated it as an endpoint, ultimately losing it. Wealth is a means, not an end. Never treat wealth as an endpoint; instead, see it as a way to reach the endpoint.
In the activities of Outward Bound training companies, cases like Li Shun's often occur. Should we hold onto these resources or utilize them to bring greater returns? How should we reasonably use these resources? These are issues that constrain our success. Whether one-for-one exchange or unconditional contribution, for equally important resources, we cannot contribute unconditionally, but it's not impossible to lend to others temporarily. This requires specific evaluation. The final results of the Outward Bound projects will fully explain this point, indicating whether our decisions were right or wrong.
Article reprinted from: http://www.blwh.cn/rz_more.asp?id=339