Why do more successful people become more superstitious?

1. Current status of superstition

In reality, you will find that the more successful people are, the more interested they are in Feng Shui and the more they believe in it.

In the corporate world, people such as Jack Ma, Li Ka-shing, Zong Qinghou and others all believe that

Boxing champion Joe Louis must wear his left glove before a match, and Spanish Cazorla must wear his left glove before a match. The right foot steps on the court first, while DelaRed's left foot must not step on the line; NBA star Kidd must touch his butt, lick his fingers, and touch the basket in one go when shooting free throws, and then he can feel confident Full of free throws...

2. What is superstition

Superstition refers to a state of obsessive trust and confused belief in things

Confidence itself It is a kind of positivity, and self-confidence is a positive attitude in self-evaluation. .

3. Why do people become superstitious?

Business competition is a highly complex and uncertain game environment. When you start a business, you are actually placed in an uncertain gaming environment with boundless complexity. Any change in business and other changes caused by it are impossible to calculate and cannot be accurately predicted. If a competitor takes the lead at a certain convenience, we may panic, and the variables are increasing all the time, geometric multiples. In addition, and then to the company's execution, the action may become increasingly out of shape.

What do you need most at this time? It’s about rolling up your sleeves and working hard, rather than being suspicious. You need something to stop cognitive complexity, and the most cost-effective tool is superstition.

For example, let me walk on a cliff. The road is about two meters wide and there are cliffs on both sides. Do I dare to leave? Don't dare. In fact, if you think about it, if you draw a two-meter-wide passage for me on flat ground, I will have no problem walking through it. But if there are cliffs on both sides of the passage, it will not affect the road itself, nor my walking ability, but my cognition. There will be a lot of complexity and entropy in my cognition. The thing stuck in my brain is not how to move, but what to do if it falls. There are so many ideas. Then there is no way out.

What to do at this time? Add fences on both sides. In fact, I don’t need to hold on to the two-meter-wide road and the fence. It didn't do anything to actually support me in walking over. It just puts a boundary on my perception. With this boundary in place, my cognitive complexity is greatly reduced. I am no longer afraid and can walk steadily.

Think about it, if I don’t support this fence, how do I know it exists? Maybe it's flimsy, papery, or even just a video image? To me, it's a scam. But it doesn't matter, the effect is the same. As long as I believe it to be true, it saves me from a sea of ​​complexity. Isn't this also a function of superstition?

Not because it works, it is true, but because its existence, in my action scene, helps me shield the complexity, it has already helped me. This is the answer to our topic today – the role of superstition.

Don’t think that this happened under some special circumstances.

Broadly speaking, without this kind of superstitious ability, in fact, we have no way to live and work in modern society.

Give an example. You are leaving for a meeting today. A very common action, right? Well, if you want to go to this meeting in a calm mood, you actually need to have a lot of superstitions.

For example, you have to believe that it is enough to leave half an hour early and you will definitely be able to get a taxi or the subway and bus will be on time. You have to believe that the road conditions are normal. You also have to believe that most people attending the meeting are as lucky as you. They have a car, the road conditions are normal, and they can get to the venue in time. You also have to believe that the meeting place has water, electricity and wifi. etc.

Excuse me, do you really know that there will be no problems with them? You actually don't know. There is no evidence for this, and there have been a lot of counterexamples in history, such as traffic jams and being unable to catch a taxi, but you just believe it. Isn't this superstitious?

Yes, living in modern cities, we live in huge complexity. Even if you can successfully hold a simple meeting, the system complexity involved behind it is massive. But we humans can't live with that much complexity, that would be crazy. We must rely on some unreasonable beliefs to shield these complexities. This is superstition.

Religion is everywhere even in modern society, even among people who claim to be scientific and rational. Think about it, thousands of people work in a skyscraper every day. Everyone believes that the building will not collapse, that the facilities on each floor are normal and running in an orderly manner, and that everyone in the building is in good spirits. They will attack each other. In fact, this cannot rely on any evidence, but can only rely on unreasonable belief.

Speaking more broadly, with the development of human society to this day, all prosperity has been achieved through division of labor, and division of labor means trust in others. And that trust is often unverified and likely to collapse. However, without this kind of belief, which is actually superstitious, people would easily fall into endless suspicion and consumption, leading to the complex disaster we are talking about today.

Let’s switch to a personal situation and see the role of this superstition.

In the past, we believed more that we need to improve our cognitive abilities in order to grasp complexity. For example, if you are engaged in financial investment, you need to know more and see more dimensions of facts and variables in order to do well.

But in reality, there is another way of thinking, which is to rely on some unreasonable beliefs to narrow one's cognition and actions into a narrow channel.

For example, if a writer keeps writing all year round, he must believe that the more he writes, the better he writes. Sooner or later, readers and the market will treat him fairly, give him due rewards and honors, and even win Nobel Prize in Literature.

Is that true? No. A writer actually lives in huge complexity. The subject matter of his work, market trends, the operating capabilities of the publishing house, the performance of similar works, and the mood of the judges will all affect his final score. But the problem is that if he really wants to grasp this complexity, no matter how far his cognitive upgrade is, he will not be able to grasp it, and he will not be able to do anything.

Therefore, you will find that anyone who has accomplished something actually has one characteristic, that is, he believes that his efforts can be related to a certain result. He drew a narrow causal path from effort to result that did not actually exist. He used this belief to shield himself from the complexity trap. This is a superstition that each of us could use.

4. What should we do?

Cognitive complexity is something we cannot avoid.

There are two ways to deal with it: first, upgrade your cognition and use your wisdom to grasp it; second, on the contrary, narrow your cognition and use superstition to shield it.

So in this world, great people and stupid people each have their own blessings and opportunities, that's it. Just choose a strategy that works for you to deal with the unmeasured uncertainties of the real world.

This article

Reference materials:

"Lao Liang's View of the World"

"Luo Zhenyu"

"Xinhua Dictionary"

"Bofan Rizhilu"