Leadership | Tizeng Guofan: Two Great Bad Virtues in Life, Must Be Quit

In the eighth year of the Xianfeng reign, Zeng Guofan wrote a letter to Guoquan, saying: In ancient times, the saying 'evil virtue leads to defeat' had two sides: 'long arrogance' and 'many words'. Dan Zhu's incompetence is characterized by arrogance and noisy litigation, which means he speaks too much.

Throughout history, many famous nobles and nobles have lost their lives due to these two ends.

Arrogance, the way to defeat

Once a person has an arrogant heart, they will inevitably relax their vigilance in various aspects, and disasters and failures will inevitably follow one after another. Arrogance is the path to self destruction, so the ancients said that the arrogant will inevitably be defeated.

In the West, Shakespeare once said, 'A proud man always destroys himself in his pride.'.

A proud person cannot tolerate others and cannot handle interpersonal relationships well. Wang Yangming said, "Therefore, if you are proud of your son, you cannot be filial; if you are proud of your younger brother, you cannot be filial

A proud one. Arrogant people do not have any interpersonal relationships or networks. Moreover, they may not even be able to handle the basic relationships between parents, spouses, and brothers well.

The failure of Guan Yu in "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" is entirely due to his excessive pride. Guan Yu is a fierce general with courage and strategy. His extraordinary abilities include slaying Yan Liang and Wen Chou, slaying Hua Xiong with warm wine, traveling thousands of miles alone, and going to meetings with a single sword.

But being too arrogant and narcissistic led to Guan Yu's downfall. When Guan Yu heard that Sun Quan had appointed Lu Xun as a general to replace Lu Meng, he said, "Your son Lu Xun is not enough to shock us

After Lu Xun, who was rich in strategy, replaced Lv Meng, he wrote letters and gave gifts, doing his utmost to flatter and flatter, while Guan Yu was even more careless.

When it comes to what others say, Guan Yunchang simply doesn't listen and always feels that his conclusions are completely correct, while what others say is useless. Eventually killed.

Talking too much can cause endless harm

Zeng Guofan's "refrain from speaking too much" originated from a small incident. At that time, he had just entered the Hanlin Academy and was feeling proud. One time, while celebrating his father's birthday, he boasted to his friend Zheng Xiaoshan, who came to congratulate him. He was somewhat arrogant and forgot himself, which caused Zheng Xiaoshan to dislike him and leave.

Afterwards, Zeng Guofan regretted deeply and reflected on his three major mistakes in his diary.

One is to be self righteous in ordinary times;

Secondly, those who speak without opening the door and say whatever they want;

The third is to argue forcefully with someone, even to the point of being inhumane, despite clearly offending them with their words.

To summarize these three points, Zeng Guofan said that as a standard Confucian intellectual, he couldn't even understand the principle of "bad words don't come out of his mouth, and angry words don't reflect on himself" in the Book of Rites. He couldn't even pass the language barrier. What could he have accomplished?

Zeng Guofan has made great efforts in "abstaining from saying too much" all his life. He not only often criticizes himself for "the loss of daily words, which is really a ghost situation!" I often ask myself, "how much is said and bantered, but not from the sincerity of my heart", this kind of speech habit and personality shortcomings, "when can I pull out this root plant?"

He not only has this requirement of "quitting and saying more" to himself, but also regards it as a very important part of the wisdom of family motto, especially for his two sons and several younger brothers.

Zeng Guofan believes that if you want to use words to overpower others, even if you win, others will not be convinced. It is better to be humble in dealing with people.

Quarrels often have no right or wrong to speak of, and the results are often emotional. If a person complains too much, the end will inevitably be suppressed. If he complains about heaven without reason, heaven will not allow it. If he complains about others without reason, people will not accept it. Depression and injustice often hurt others and themselves.

The essence of "abstaining from talking too much" is to achieve self-control when facing people and things, so as to avoid disaster from the mouth and chaos from the mouth. In essence, this is a kind of action wisdom that is not entangled and less controversial.

Ten Characteristics of People's Education

1. punctuality:

Whether for meetings or appointments, educated people are never late. They understand that even if they are unintentionally late, it is a sign of disrespect for other people who show up on time.

2. conversation:

There is a section to pay attention to never interrupt other people's conversation casually, always listen to the other party's speech first, and then refute or supplement the other party's views and opinions.

3. kind attitude:

When talking to others, always look into each other's eyes and keep your attention focused; instead of flipping through things, reading books and newspapers, absent-minded, showing a look of indifference.

4. tone to the point:

Avoid loud noise, in dealing with people, calm, to convince people, often can achieve satisfactory results. Talking at the top of your voice can not achieve the desired purpose, but will affect the people around you, and even make people hate.

5. pay attention to conversation skills:

Respect the views and opinions of others. Even if you cannot accept or explicitly agree, you should not accuse the other party of "nonsense", "nonsense", "nonsense", etc., but state your own opinions, analyze things, and clarify the truth.

6. not proud:

When dealing with people, they never emphasize the special side of the individual, nor do they intend to show their superiority.

7. keep our promise:

Don't break your word even if you encounter some kind of difficulty. If you talk about it yourself, you should try your best to finish it. It is the best promise to practice it.

8. care for others:

No matter when and where, we always show concern and give the greatest care and convenience to women, children and the elderly.

9:

Get along with people broad-minded, not for a little thing and friends, colleagues and quarterments, or even cut off.

10. compassionate:

When others encounter some kind of misfortune, try to give sympathy and support.

Source: Youzhi Management (Public Number)