91WiseSuccess Stories are Paintings, We are Real People
“Vivid and three-dimensional”—what comes to mind when you hear these words? The first thing that pops into my head is what my elementary school Chinese teacher often said when critiquing our essays: “When writing about people, make them vivid and three-dimensional. Don’t just say ‘very hardworking’—use specific examples and details, depicting them from multiple angles: appearance, speech, actions, and psychology. Only then will the person come alive.”
More than 30 years have passed, and these words have come alive in my heart again. This realization began when our company started implementing the “Amoeba Management System.”
When talking about Amoeba Management, one cannot help but mention Kazuo Inamori. He founded two Fortune 500 companies, Kyocera and KDDI, and in his later years, he rescued Japan Airlines from the brink of bankruptcy, leading it to record profits. His books like “A Passion for Success” and “The Six Attitudes of a Businessman” became global bestsellers.
The halo surrounding “Elder Inamori” grew layer upon layer, so bright I could barely open my eyes.
There are many other remarkable figures of the same era: Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos internationally, Jack Ma and Zhang Yiming in China.
These extraordinary people share a common trait: they are extremely successful, one in a billion, with dazzling resumes. Every word they say becomes a quotable line, making ordinary people like us bow in admiration and respect.
After hearing their quotes, reading their books, and even trying to replicate their thinking patterns and methods, why don’t I see obvious results? Not only are the results not evident, but why do I feel more anxious and insecure? It must be my problem—my approach must be wrong…
This perfectly illustrates the saying: “You can know all the principles and still not live a good life.” There are two perspectives to this statement, and today I’ll focus on one: What we see of these “successful people” is like a painting—a two-dimensional world, just one angle. To be more direct, we only see what they want us to see and hear what they want us to hear.
We are living, breathing people existing in a three-dimensional space, facing 360-degree challenges with no blind spots!
- Health precariously balanced
- Marital relationships with occasional friction
- Children’s education causing headaches
- Office politics and workplace intrigue
- Personal growth at a standstill
Plus the worries of supporting a family and caring for aging parents—which of these issues doesn’t make us scratch our heads?
Those successful people don’t lack these problems; rather, their outstanding achievements overshadow the issues they haven’t handled well. Another possibility: magnifying their successes helps them become even more successful, ultimately making things harder for ordinary people like us.
Of course, we shouldn’t generalize. There are certainly some successful people who excel in every aspect, or at least do better than most.
The key question is: how can we acquire the abilities and wisdom of these outstanding individuals?
Finding Role Models
The answer is actually quite simple: find role models around you. These are people we can see frequently and have opportunities to communicate and collaborate with—people who are “vivid and three-dimensional” to us.
You can have multiple role models; anyone with qualities worth learning from can be marked as a “role model.”
For instance, some people have extensive knowledge about healthy eating and take care of their family with attentiveness and harmony—learn from them.
Others might be experts in child education—you can seek their advice too.
I have a friend who has consistently updated his public account daily for over 700 days. He is my role model, and I ask him many detailed questions:
- Why did you start a public account?
- Why do you update it daily?
- Are there times when you can’t think of what to write?
- Do you have time to write?
- Have you encountered any special circumstances?
- How do you feel about it now?
- Can you keep going?
See how practical and down-to-earth my questions are? No wonder it’s easy to learn from him.
Role models around us are the ones we should learn from. Those “lofty and distant” successful figures—it’s enough to know they’re impressive, but no matter how brightly their famous quotes and halos shine, they cannot illuminate our real lives. And we should never use their swords to pierce our soft hearts.
Stay grounded, learn from those around you, and live your own vivid and three-dimensional life—that’s the true wisdom of ordinary people.
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