Rise and fall

The private detective went into the director's office, closed the door tight, sat down and reported:

• Director, our team of three has been observing how Phúc Chính company works for over a month now. We tried to get access to their contracts and transactions, assessed their internal cohesion and followed the director's private life, and here is our assessment.
  First, when Phúc Chính negotiates to sign contracts, it goes very smoothly, and they easily sign high-value contracts, for no clear reason. Partners quickly come to trust them. We studied the content of their negotiations and there is nothing special: they speak clumsily and do not give priority to customers much. We don't understand why they still get the contracts signed.
  Second, internally they are fairly united. The reason is that their leadership seems fair, with accurate rewards and punishments and no favouritism, so everyone understands that if they work diligently and stay united, good results will follow.
  Third, Director Hưng's private life is somewhat complicated. This Mr Hưng has an ex-girlfriend who divorced her husband and is a single mum, but he often takes his own wife to visit and support the mother and child. Also, Mr Hưng often drops by a retreat for calming the mind on the outskirts of the city in the late afternoons.

Director Bình was thoughtful for a moment and then said:

• Hưng and I were classmates. The two of us took turns being first and second in the class. At university he studied construction and I studied information technology. After graduating we both started businesses with empty hands. At first my company grew very well, and then it slid down gradually. He, on the other hand, kept rising slowly. His ex-girlfriend is Hương, of course, also a classmate. I was too proud to ask him for the secret of his business growth, so I asked you gentlemen to study it for me. This report doesn't tell me anything strange either. Well, I'll send your fee and thank you for your help.
  The detective hesitated and then said:
• Would you allow me to add one small detail?
• Go ahead.
• Your company and Phúc Chính have one opposite point. Your company always requires staff to suggest to themselves that they are the number one information technology company. Phúc Chính, on the other hand, requires its staff to tell themselves that they are still a very poor company. See whether this detail helps you at all.
  Director Bình stared at the detective as if he wanted to eat him alive. The detective involuntarily drew back and slid off his chair. After a while Director Bình sighed and said:
• He really is better than me on this point. I remember now. Back when we studied history, I suffered terribly and struggled to get through each test, but only he really loved history. He told me that every dynasty is prosperous at the beginning, but when later kings become arrogant and consider themselves first-class, that dynasty inevitably declines. He drew a precious lesson from history and applied it to business: always think of himself as inadequate in order to strive, so as not to fall asleep on victory and not to be complacent, and yet he keeps being lucky.
  Thank you very much for this small detail, it helps me a great deal. In a moment I will change the company's slogan to "Toàn Thịnh company has not yet contributed much to the country's common development; let each of us try harder." I hope this slogan will work 👫

The rise and fall of a person, a family line, an organisation, a business, a dynasty or a religion often begins with just one thought. If someone rates themselves higher than their real worth, their group will decline. If someone rates themselves in line with their real worth, their group will stand firm.

People's age-old illness is to exalt themselves more than their true worth, and so they fall right into the law of decline. Even highly ethical religions suffer from this illness: the clergy consider themselves lofty because they are tied to the divine, and as a result that religion gradually declines. The feudal dynasties of old suffered from it too: from birth, the crown prince was lifted into the clouds by his environment and circumstances and so formed a complacent, arrogant mentality. They were victims of circumstance, but that arrogant mentality still destroyed the dynasty later on.

Some large companies in Japan and Korea today always check their employees' mentality very carefully on this point, not letting staff think that their company is the best in the world, because the adverse consequences come at once. Good intelligence agencies teach their staff to be careful and wary of arrogance, complacency and underestimating the enemy. They must always think the opponent is better than themselves.
There is a martial arts school that also applies this ethic of humility, teaching its students to respect every other school, because it understands that the other schools are better than its own.

But when we work hard, study hard and practise hard, as soon as we have a little result, our arrogance exaggerates it, and we all rate ourselves above our true worth. A practitioner thinks they have attained high sainthood; a business thinks it has reached the top ten; an artist thinks they are the most loved. The result is ruin.

We must try to rate ourselves in line with our true worth, and to be safe from error, we should rate ourselves very low, and yet move forward steadily.