My exam grade ranked No. 1 in my high school class. But I am definitely not the most successful person within my classmates. Well, you might say, there are many dimensions of success, yes, any dimension I don’t think I am still No. 1. Why? With this question in mind, I do some research.
In an article from Lin Qing Xuan, a famous Taiwan author, he mentioned:
In fact, the world's elite are not the top students of the year, they are ranked 7thto 17th in the class. Why did he mention the 17th place? Because there were only 17 children in his class when he was a child.
So I interpret the message, even the last one can succeed, but not the top students. When I looked around, the fact is the same, some of the low degree students in my high school class become successful entrepreneur or investor. Same as my university classmates, low degree students become entrepreneur and high degree students become employees, and most interesting thing is, the worse degree student achieve double doctor degree and devote himself to research.
Two name lists were posted on the internet, one is the champion in imperial competitive examination (科举考试), the other is some eminent persons in history, and the conclusion is those eminent person were not those who were good at exam.
Is that true top student can’t be successful? Definitely not!
Another report come to my eye that lists successful people who used to be No.1 in the college entrance exam, to name a few:
Wang Qiang: The co-founder of the Zhenge Fund, or known as one of the “three carriages” of new oriental school, was the champion in the Inner Mongolian province in 1980.
Liu Qiang Dong: The founder of Jing Dong, was the champion in Suqian city in 1992.
Li Yan Hong: Baidu founder, was the champion of Shanxi Yangquan city in 1987.
So it’s obvious to me that the academic achievement is not directly correlated to later life success. Now my question change, why some top students are not as outstanding as their academic achievement? What’s their weakness?
High degree at school is not wrong. Those high degree students are typically hard working, smart, self-discipline, efficient, focus, and even have better life chance. The problem is not high degree itself but character formed in pursuit high degree.
Firstly, Lack of adventurous spirit. This is because top students always get high scores. High scores or even 100 scores mean 0 error, 0 mistake. Once you form the habit of 0 mistake, it is easy to become conservative, you don’t want to take risk. The true is those elite either in research field or business world, need adventurous spirit and action. I found good job after my graduation and I stay in one company for 12 years, I really don’t want to take risk to find another job. But look at one of my high school classmate, who started with no job, and then run his own business. It was so hard in the beginning but with 20 years effort he becomes a successful entrepreneur. The elites of the scientific and technological industry, the elites of the business world, are all related to the adventurous spirit and behavior. Now I’m trying to push myself hard for more challenging thing.
Secondly, lack of generosity. Because top students are strict to themselves, so they tend to be strict to others as well, this will result in less cooperation and less friends. This is true for me as well. In a busy day, what kills me is not doing a project or solving a problem, but those trivial could be handled by others. Are those trivial things really harder? No, it’s the angry on why people ask me while that could be handled by others, it’s the guilty that I could handle but I push back to others, it’s the unwillingness when I can’t refuse, kills me. I was so stupid that even senior leader ask me, I kick back. Maybe some are good chances to make good impression to the leaders. Taking another example of my high school classmate, who is successful investor now, he told me, he was so grateful to work in a fund company because his bad education background, and he did everything that colleagues ask him to do, and most were things that other colleagues didn’t want to do. He did so great and promoted very soon. This is a problem I need to fix and the key is to be more generous! This will definitely increase my interpersonal relationship.
The 3rdproblem is humbleness. I take other people's praise seriously, even though I might said otherwise like “na li na li” politely but in my heart, I said I’m really good at it. The problem is when I start to think I’m good, I lost passion to seek excellence. Humble is not just politeness but the inner passion to learn from others. Sometimes I let thing go without asking and clarifying even though I haven’t got the point. When I talked to a senior leader, she told me she always skip the praise and go directly to what she needs to improve. When I start to think I’m good, that stop me from improving. If you are top students but you don’t think you are, Cool, that’s true humbleness pushing for excellence.
My conclusion is the success of life is not linked to academic performance.
Being a top student is just a small part of life. I’m glad this research give me right direction moving forward. Try to take more risk, be more generous, and humble to learn, I believe I can exceed myself. The most important thing in life is not to strive, but to choose the right direction, although also a B, all the way north is NB, all the way south is SB!
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Another report says Luo Chong Min, director of the former Education Department of Yunnan Province, who has conducted a survey of 124 No.1 students in college entrance exam, and found that "no one has become a leading figure in their field of occupation". Cai Yuan Hou, a professor at the University of Central and Southern China, also published the first "survey report on the professional status of the champions in college entrance exam", which concludes that there are few leading figures in those champions. Although people's understanding of the leaders is not exactly the same, but their common question is, why are the top students in high school so brilliant, while to the society is "slowly mediocre down"?
The reason is that these children have a better interpersonal relationship, can be friends with the first one, can also be friends with the last one, and the child's pressure is small, live easier, has better creativity.
对于家长来说，有必要明确一个道理：当孩子从良好变成优秀的时候，我们要欢呼。当孩子从优秀变成学霸的时候，就要通过培养孩子的冒险精神、宽容之心及其他意志品质，而使其获得人生大成功。
Let me define three type of students in my speech: highdegree student (学霸), lowdegree student (差生), andhigh degree student without effort (学神)who is beyond my imagination so I cannot talk about them. There is a saying, high degree student become employee and low degree student become entrepreneur.
https://www.wenji8.com/p/255PuBz.html
人生最重要的不是努力，而是选择正确的努力方向，虽然同样是一个B，一路朝北就是NB，一路朝南就是SB！
王强：真格基金的联合创始人,1980年，内蒙古文科状元，
刘强东：京东创始人1992年，宿迁高考状元，考入人民大学社会学系。
李彦宏：百度创始人1987年，山西阳泉市高考状元，考入北京大学图书情报专业(现信息管理专业)。
第一份名单：傅以渐、王式丹、毕沅、林召堂、王云锦、刘子壮、陈沆、刘福姚、刘春霖。
第二份名单：李渔、洪昇、顾炎武、金圣叹、黄宗羲、吴敬梓、蒲松龄、洪秀全、袁世凯。
设问：哪份名单上你认识的人多一些？
答案是：第一份名单，所列全是“状元”，一般人很少知道；第二份名单所列，都是历史名人，可谓家喻户晓，但他们全是当时落第秀才，因此来说明读书好并不意味着未来会成功。
多年以来也有一种观点，认为改革开放恢复高考以来，没有一个“状元”成为某领域的精英人物，进入社会后，他们多数默默无闻，与当初人们所期望的相差甚远。这种论调把“状元”说得很不堪，仿佛“状元”们百无一是。
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