5.h 打造人脉不如打造自己

Make Time Your Friend 5.h: Building Yourself Beats Building Connections

> By Li Xiaolai · 2008-05-19 · [Original (web archive)](https://web.archive.org/web/20110925074215/http://www.lixiaolai.com/archives/447.html) (Chinese)
> Our translation from the Chinese original.

Once, at a lecture at Peking University, I met a student who asked me, "Teacher, which do you say is more important, studying or managing your network of connections?" Looking at the hodgepodge expression on his face, I first took out my notebook and wrote down this question, then told him that this is a rather big topic, and I'd carefully write an article and put it online, and then gave him my blog address. And then I added one more line, "Believe me, so-called connections, even if they're important, aren't anywhere near as important as they say."

> Go take a look in a bookstore: in that counter or section, how many book titles have the word "connections" (人脉) in them? Far too many. Connections: The First Productive Force of Personal Success, Winning with Connections, Learning + Connections = Success, Building Golden Connections, How to Get to Know Tens of Thousands of People: 55 Steps to Expanding Your Connections, Building Workplace Connections in 90 Seconds... and there are even more with "interpersonal relationships" in the title; searching "connections" on Dangdang (当当网) finds 521 books, searching "interpersonal relationships" finds 4949 books, and searching "success" finds 53879 results...

The nonsense you see everywhere is by and large all the same; it's all nonsense anyway. The following text, excerpted from a certain book, isn't even the most outrageous nonsense:

> In China, the most peculiar practical issue 裁 [Translator's note: the character 裁 here, in the quoted book text, appears to be a stray character or typo (possibly for 就, "is precisely"); kept as in the source] is "face." Typical examples of this are not only often seen in politics, but are even more common in business. For instance, when you want to sell goods to a client, another company is competing in the same way, and you estimate the odds of winning and losing at four to six, unfavorable to our side; in this situation, if you have a supporter whose "face" can reach the client's top management, then a single word from this person is all it takes to turn defeat into victory. Let's take another example: suppose you want to propose a plan to the company; whether the idea can be adopted depends on how many people in the company are willing to help you and support you, and from that the result can be roughly estimated. This is the practical side of human society. Seen this way, the saying "by the number of supporters one can judge whether someone is a capable businessman" is no exaggeration. In fact, people called masters at getting things done or capable all share one common condition: they have many personnel "channels" inside and outside the company; that is, their connections are very wide and their "face" very big.
> [Translator's note: quoted from another author's book, not Li Xiaolai's words.]

Managing to make one error after another in just a little bit of text is actually not that easy.

> ...if you have a supporter whose "face" can reach the client's top management, then a single word from this person is all it takes to turn defeat into victory.
> [Translator's note: quoted again from the same book, not Li Xiaolai's words.]

Apart from "corruption," in the normal world, could this kind of situation happen?

> ...suppose you want to propose a plan to the company; whether the idea can be adopted depends on how many people in the company are willing to help you and support you, and from that the result can be roughly estimated.
> [Translator's note: quoted again from the same book, not Li Xiaolai's words.]

Whether an idea can be adopted: in the normal world, shouldn't it depend on whether that idea has enough reason behind it? If the idea has been thought through very thoroughly and has obvious benefits, would so many people oppose it?

Getting everything by "face"—dream on.

Let's go through it in detail from the beginning. First use your brain and think: what kind of people are you willing to become friends with? Starting from kindergarten, everyone already has certain principles for choosing friends—even though they aren't aware of them. In fact, the uneven distribution of resources inevitably creates a certain relationship of dependence between people. Observe a little and you can see the fact: in kindergarten, children with many toys are more easily taken as friends by other children. So, does the child with the most toys have the most friends? The answer isn't necessarily yes.

If, like me, you have the chance, and also happen to be willing, to put a bit more thought into talking with that child with the most toys, you too will soon discover that in his mind, as with all adults, friends are divided into "true friends" and "ordinary friends." Below we'll provisionally call that child with the most toys "Xiaoqiang."

At the time I was very curious. I patiently waited for Xiaoqiang to tell me who his "true friends" were. In the end he told me he had only two true friends. One of them was a boy and the other was a girl. So I asked him, "Why do you think that boy is your true friend?" Xiaoqiang didn't hesitate for a second and told me, "He never grabs my toys; he trades with me." I asked him again, "Then why do you think that girl is your true friend?" This time Xiaoqiang hesitated for quite a while, and after making sure I'd keep it secret for him, stammered, "She's pretty. I give her all my new toys first..." I laughed. After a while I asked him again, "Does she think you're good-looking?" Xiaoqiang was taken aback, his eyes full of innocence, "Don't know..." I asked again, "Then whose are the toys she has in her hands now?" Xiaoqiang suddenly looked very nervous, "Not mine." I decided not to go and ask that little girl any questions.

For all sorts of reasons, in life it's always only a minority of people whom the majority want to befriend. But likewise for all sorts of reasons, most people don't know how that minority understands the behavior of the majority. Just now Xiaoqiang said that his "true friend" never "grabs" his toys but "trades." Note these two words.

Here we won't discuss so-called "scheming." There really are some people who are deeply calculating, at least more so than some others; they can use means that ordinary people can't think of, or couldn't carry out even if they could think of them, to achieve their goals. Here we'll discuss only the most common situation.

Everyone likes, values and even favors one kind of exchange, "fair exchange." Xiaoqiang may not have realized that the number of toys he owned made it, in terms of probability, very hard for him to come across a "fair exchange," because the vast majority of children don't have many toys, or even have no toys at all; so those children in fact had neither the opportunity nor the ability to make a "fair exchange" with him. For him, an unfair exchange is the same as "grabbing," and nobody likes "being grabbed from." And the boy who "traded" with him let Xiaoqiang feel fairness. Xiaoqiang also had things he wanted but didn't own, so he too would "trade" rather than "grab," because he himself didn't like "being grabbed from"—gave all the newest toys to that girl to play with first...

In a certain sense, although the vast majority of people are unwilling to admit it, their so-called "friendships" are actually nothing more than "exchange relationships." But if your own resources aren't plentiful enough or good enough, then you're more likely to become the "taking party," unable to make a "fair exchange," and ultimately become a burden on the other party. At such times, the so-called "friendship" slowly comes to an end without any fuss. There are also times when it continues, but more likely the other party is patiently waiting for the next exchange in order to achieve "fairness." In the film The Godfather, when the undertaker Amerigo Bonasera resolves to go to the Godfather Corleone to avenge him and get justice for his daughter, Amerigo is the "taking party." Many years later, the Godfather Corleone finally knocks on Amerigo's door late one night...

So, you can imagine that people with many resources prefer, and are more likely, to exchange with another person whose resources are equally plentiful or equal in quality. Because in this situation a "fair trade" arises more easily. In fact, examples like this are everywhere in life. Even on campus, where the nature of "exchange" isn't so evident, behavior of the same nature isn't rare. For example, the acknowledged prodigy of one department will "by chance" run into another acknowledged prodigy of another department and then become "best buddies." The common saying "great minds think alike" may be why they hit it off at first meeting, so their conversations and any other activities often make them feel very "in tune" with each other.

There are far, far too many examples like this.

> When 15-year-old Shen Nanpeng and 14-year-old Liang Jianzhang first met, these two naive teenagers wouldn't have realized that 17 years later the two of them would join hands to create a miracle of China's internet industry. At the first National Middle School Computer Competition in 1982, these two math "prodigies" won prizes at the same time.
> [Translator's note: quoted from another source, not Li Xiaolai's words.]

It's not because the two of them were close that they each became excellent. It's because they were each excellent that they could be very close, and then the collision of fate produced brilliant sparks.

And conversely, these people acknowledged as excellent are in fact often not "low-key," nor "approachable." This isn't deliberate on their part. They have no intention of annoying the people around them who seem "mediocre" to them; it's just that without realizing it they have this sense—"communicating with these people costs too much..." Unless one day these people finally realize they should protect themselves, because some misunderstandings simply have no chance of being explained. And so they began to be "modest," they learned to be "low-key," they appeared "approachable."

Many years ago I noticed a phenomenon: when others asked me for help, I often resisted strongly inside, but was afraid people would say I was a so-called "someone who doesn't do right by his friends," and so forced myself to do things I didn't like doing. Once, when I was especially hurt, a sudden flash of thought made it clear: so this awkwardness essentially didn't come from my lacking the character of "being glad to help others," but from my own energy not being abundant enough—not so abundant that, while handling my own affairs with plenty to spare, I'd still have loads of time and energy to do things for others—in fact, I myself was already a clay bodhisattva crossing the river. Later I began to suspect that Lei Feng's leader was too much of an idiot, because he didn't assign his subordinate enough work. —This was a very pleasant surprise for me that night, because I discovered I was thinking independently.

Admitting that one's ability is limited is the precondition for mental health. From the day I rethought Lei Feng's leader, I struggled to learn how to do things within my capacity. It's funny to say, but my IQ was so limited that in the past I never even thought that "acting within one's capacity" is such a difficult pattern of behavior—1) admit that your ability is limited; 2) don't be afraid of showing your ignorance in front of others; 3) dare not to prove you're a "good person"...

So, **it's often only excellent people who have effective connections.** And precisely because these people may at any time and any place need to avoid attempts at "unfair exchange," they pay all the more attention to their own quality, and know that not creating trouble for others and keeping oneself in good order are virtues. The common saying "too many troubles and old friends leave" is a very accurate observation. And those who aren't excellent often don't know such seemingly simple principles; they don't even realize that their situation only allows them to play the role of "taker"; and so they turn every one of their "exchanges" into an "unfair exchange," which in the end is more likely to make the exchange fall through—because nobody likes "unfair exchange"; each failed exchange causes them further loss, so that the resources they have either decrease in quantity or decline in quality, which further makes them more likely to sink into being a "taker"—a vicious circle, possibly even one they'll never escape.

There are also some people who are overly eager to build so-called connections, completely disregarding what their situation actually is. For such people, others often use some special words to describe them: "fawning," "currying favor," "bullying those below and flattering those above," even "forming cliques for private gain," and so on. Such people often aren't deliberately determined to be like this either. They just vaguely realize that their strength as one person is too small, and so they hope to borrow other strength. And the smaller a person is, the more it sets off how intensely strong his desires are. Such people's characteristics are very obvious; one of them is that in daily life they often, intentionally or not, mention figures everyone looks up to in an intimate way, whether or not they really have any personal friendship with the "big shots." In the Chinese context, they'll say only the given name and not the surname: Kai-Fu Lee isn't called "Li Kaifu," in their mouths he's "Kaifu"; Robin Li isn't called "Li Yanhong," in their mouths he's "Yanhong"; Shen Nanpeng isn't called "Shen Nanpeng," in their mouths he's just "Nanpeng"; what I've heard recently that's even more terrifying, even more hair-raising, is "Little Yu" (Yu Minhong), "Little Deng" (Deng Feng), "Big Xiang" (Li Xiang)...

Looked at overall, connections are of course very important. However, for any given individual, what's more important is the resources he has. Some resources are hard to obtain in an instant, such as money, status, reputation, especially in a real world where obtaining these resources depends more on birth and luck. However, some resources can very easily be started from zero, such as a person's talent and learning. Talent and learning alike are things that can certainly be obtained through effort. Once a person's mental faculties are properly switched on, he'll find that in this world where information is at your fingertips, as long as he makes a normal effort and has patience and makes time his friend, he can easily become an expert in at least one field. Effort isn't as arduous as legend has it; it's only "concentrating on study and work for at least six hours a day"; patience, however, is far greater than most people imagine: "you must keep company with time for at least five years at the shortest, and as long as twenty years."

Today, many years later, I've discovered another thing that I, with my average IQ many years ago, couldn't possibly have figured out or foreseen (of course I still have an average IQ now; I just have a bit more wisdom): when everyone around a person is excellent, nobody asks him for help—because the excellent people around him almost without exception are ashamed of wasting other people's time, and at the same time, these people are regarded as excellent precisely because when they run into problems they can solve them.

If, one day at last, you've become an expert in some field, you'll be pleasantly surprised that connections in the true sense—valuable, so-called efficient connections—come bursting through the door. The people you meet will come from completely different levels, from all sorts of unexpected different directions. And you yourself will no longer be the good-for-nothing you of the past; you'll no longer be a "taker"; the role you play will be that of "being glad to help others"—few people dislike well-meant help, especially when you've been sought out to provide help.

What's more, you'll receive unexpected help. If you're an excellent person, a valuable person, then many other excellent, valuable people will offer you help. At such times, such help is often truly "selfless." Just as no doctor, having healed the wounded and rescued the dying, would fly into a rage merely because the pay was too small, those whose character is excellent to a certain degree and whose outlook is broad to a certain level can often truly "do kindness without seeking repayment." Because for them, having the chance to "test their own ideas" is in itself already more important than anything, and can make them happy in body and mind. But the really interesting phenomenon is that you, the one being helped, precisely because you're no ordinary person, will certainly understand the principle "a drop of kindness should be repaid with a gushing spring." In the end everyone is happy, simply because "the cost of communication is almost zero," and at the same time the effect is naturally that "the gains of exchange are relatively magnified without limit." A virtuous circle.

The wisdom of life lies in concentrating your energy on changing what can be changed, and temporarily ignoring what can't be changed. Concentrating on building yourself, building yourself into an excellent person, a useful person, an independent person, is more important than anything. Building yourself is the same as building connections—if connections really are as important as they say. In fact, I always feel the legend that connections lead to success is actually very illusory, nothing but a phantom that people who don't know the truth have had to fabricate.

I'm not saying that from now on you don't need to care about anyone around you, or that from now on there's no need to deal with anyone. Being good at dealing with people is also a skill that has to be learned and that also takes a great deal of time to practice. I'm only reminding you: don't overestimate yourself and mistakenly think you have so much time, enough to properly handle your relationships with everyone around you. Browse the names in your phone's contact list: how many have you not contacted in a long time? In all these years I've only met two or three people who answered me, "Even the one I've gone longest without contacting, it's no more than two weeks." One of them is an especially stubborn and special person; in his phone's contact list there are only 22 names in total.

Bi Shumin once mentioned something about herself:

> ... My taking psychology courses was pure chance. My friend XX broke a lumbar vertebra, was put in plaster trousers, and lay paralyzed in bed for three months. On the hanging calendar on my wall at home I wrote a line: "Phone XX every week." Having started out as a doctor, I knew that bedridden patients are very lonely and hope to be able to chat while lying down. Later, following the reminder on the calendar, I phoned this person every week, chatting idly about this and that. Although I was very busy, I'd still 磨成 [Translator's note: the quoted text here reads 磨成, apparently a typo for 磨蹭, "linger"; LX231 quotes the same passage as 磨蹭] a little longer to make her happy. Then once, she mentioned in passing that Lin Mengping, professor of psychology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, was coming to Beijing Normal University to teach students... I asked, can I study with her? My friend said, that I don't know. Later I thanked that friend, saying: that I could study psychology, I owe it to your breaking your back.
> [Translator's note: quoted from Bi Shumin, not Li Xiaolai's words.]

In fact, true caring in the end has only one expression: willingly spending time on it, even "wasting" time. This is also easy to understand. Because when you spend time on a person, it's equivalent to pouring a stretch of your life into him—whatever the final result, anyway, that person and that matter have become part of your life, whether in the end you like it or not. Everyone's time is limited. So in the end, anyone has only a few "really good friends."

This really is a topic big enough that you could write two books on it. Below are a few of my suggestions that are simple but not so easy to put into practice:

- Concentrate on doing things that can improve yourself; learn and possess more and better skills; become a person worth associating with;
- Learn to keep yourself in good order, take not creating trouble for others as a virtue; win respect with your independence;
- Unless there's a special reason, you should try to avoid people who can't even keep themselves in good order in their material lives; those who can't keep themselves in good order in their spiritual lives you should avoid all the more—although they're harder to identify;
- Truly caring about a friend means you're willing to spend, even waste, more time on him;
- Remember, a person's degree of happiness often depends on the degree to which he can break free of dependence on the outside world.

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