---
title: "Four Stories to Understand in the Face of Major Trends"
description: "This article uses four stories to illustrate the importance of understanding slow variables over fast ones in business. It argues that while many companies rush to embrace change, true success comes from recognizing the underlying patterns and maintaining a 'trend antibody' to thrive despite minor shifts."
author: "赵波"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2022-02-20"
language: "en"
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# Four Stories to Understand in the Face of Major Trends

> This article uses four stories to illustrate the importance of understanding slow variables over fast ones in business. It argues that while many companies rush to embrace change, true success comes from recognizing the underlying patterns and maintaining a 'trend antibody' to thrive despite minor shifts.

**Four Stories First:**
**Li Ning and Laoganma**
The first story is a question posed by the author on Liang Jiangjun's public account: Which is more innovative, Li Ning or Laoganma? Which one is more actively embracing market changes? The answer is Li Ning. But which one faces less competitive pressure and lives more comfortably? The answer is Laoganma. TV ads, video ads, performance ads, live-stream selling, private domain traffic... Marketing trends have iterated several rounds, and Laoganma has missed every wave, or rather, it hasn't participated in any, yet it still thrives with high market sales. Laoganma has a 'trend antibody' that allows it to ignore minor trends and still do well. Currently, every company talks about 'embracing change,' but few can 'resist change.' Darwin's 'survival of the fittest' has influenced too many people, who often exhaust themselves chasing trends while overlooking larger, slower variables. Regarding 'slow variables,' I've seen an interesting analogy. First, a question: 'Why are there waves in the sea?' The most direct answer is wind, as no wind, no waves. But the great waves across the ocean are not caused by wind but by the gravitational pull of the sun and moon, known as tides. Here, wind is a fast variable, while gravity is a slow variable. If you're a captain and set sail without checking the weather forecast, you might be in immediate danger. But if you don't understand tidal patterns, you can't use them for fishing or salt production. **Every company talks about 'embracing change,' but few see the relationship between fast and slow variables behind change.**
Those who see the patterns of change can thrive even if they ignore minor trends. Doing business and building brands is the same: embracing change is good, but being exhausted by it is a slow suicide. **While embracing change, we should also have a 'trend antibody' and grasp the slow variables that truly influence the big picture.**
**Chilean Fishermen**
If you travel to Chile in South America, you'll see a strange sight: on one side is the blue sea, and on the other, an endless barren desert.
But the residents here are quite content because Chile's Pacific coast is one of the world's four major fishing grounds: with the right methods, you can catch many valuable fish—anchovies, cod, and sardines. However, starting in the spring of 1982, these fishermen suddenly noticed the fish disappearing. For the next two years, no matter what ancestral techniques they used, they couldn't catch those big fish again. So where did the fish go? What the fishermen didn't know was that they had been benefiting from a natural wonder. The richness off Chile's coast was due to a cold ocean current lurking 1,000 meters below the surface, flowing eastward from the central South Pacific. When it hit Chile's coast, this current brought nutrients from the seabed to the surface, attracting many fish to feed, which eventually ended up in the fishermen's nets. But in 1982, a warm ocean current from Southeast Asia crossed half the globe and invaded these waters. The lighter warm water sat on top of the cold current, preventing nutrients from rising. This phenomenon later became known as El Niño.
Without the nutrients, the fish starved to death, which was the real reason for the fishermen's heavy losses. Unbeknownst to them, what truly determined their catch wasn't their daily fishing skills but the ocean current 1,000 meters below—that was the real driver of all their harvests. Fishermen who couldn't see the ocean current patterns, no matter how hard they tried, could only be at the mercy of their fate. In an irreversible major trend, every enterprise and individual is vulnerable. When the train of the times hits you, it won't apologize. Most of us are like the Chilean fishermen, putting all our energy and effort into catching more fish. But our efforts and skills are nothing compared to the arrival of a real trend. Only by seeing the patterns behind trends can we understand how many possibilities we have. Many people noticed that Genki Forest became popular in the past two years, jumping from over 2 billion in 2020 to 7 billion in 2021, and thought the sugar-free trend had arrived. Suddenly, various brands launched sugar-free products. But many didn't notice that in 2021, Coca-Cola's global unit case volume grew 8%, sales revenue grew 17%, and profits grew 15%, with even more impressive growth in China. Those media outlets claiming Coca-Cola was finished didn't see that although both are carbonated drinks and consumers seem to favor Genki, these two companies represent two different trends: Coca-Cola represents the lowest-cost reward, while Genki represents the lowest-cost health. So we shouldn't just follow the trend of sugar-free products because Genki Forest does; we need to see the consumer trends behind both brands.
**Mexican Parrots**
Parrots usually stand on a stick with a chain on their foot to prevent them from flying away, but Mexican parrots don't have that. Actually, Mexican parrots have an invisible chain on their feet. When the parrot is just born and featherless, the trainer makes it stand on a stick, then suddenly yanks the stick away, causing it to fall. Then it's made to stand again, and the stick is yanked again, and it falls again. To avoid falling, it grips the stick tightly, so tightly that no matter how you yank, it won't fall. It develops a strong fear of not gripping the stick, believing that only by holding on tightly can it feel safe. So when it grows wings and can fly, because fear and risk awareness have filled its mind, it thinks that to be safe, it must hold onto that stick.
The owner doesn't need a chain to tie its leg; it just stands on the stick and won't fly away. Even if the owner leaves for days and food is on the table, it won't fly down to eat. This parrot will hold onto the stick until it starves to death. A similar story is about elephants in Thailand. For these animals, their physical space is actually large—they have wings, strength, and plenty of room to move. But their psychological space is zero, so their physical space becomes zero as well. **Strategy is essentially about trade-offs, but the correctness of trade-offs depends on the decision-maker's vision, which we can understand as the ability to judge space.** There are two types of situations: visible and invisible. Visible situations are external, spaces everyone can see, while invisible situations are internal, not visible to everyone. Having vision means being able to see through invisible situations and having a large inner psychological space. The Mexican parrot story shows that when inner space is insufficient, even if outer space is vast, it's hard to break free from the stick.
**Three Versions of the Empty City Strategy**
**Version 1: Zhuge Liang Outwits Sima Yi** Both Zhuge Liang and Sima Yi were masters, and masters automatically ignore visible situations; their contest is in invisible situations. **Visible:** This is an empty city. **Invisible:** There are ambushes inside; Zhuge Liang calmly plays the zither on the city tower to lure Sima Yi to attack. Sima Yi's action: He thinks against instinct—since Zhuge Liang has set up an ambush, I won't fall for it; I'll retreat immediately. Result: Zhuge Liang stops Sima Yi's army without using a single soldier and makes him retreat. **Version 2: Sima Yi Sees Through Zhuge Liang's Cards** Sima Yi sees there's a trick, and within the trick, another trick; this empty city strategy is just Zhuge Liang's last resort. **Visible:** The city is empty, and Zhuge Liang is bluffing. **Invisible:** Because of Zhuge Liang, Sima Yi has value. Once he eliminates Zhuge Liang, his mission is complete. After winning this battle, he might immediately return to prison. Result: Sima Yi retreats to protect his position. **Version 3: Zhuge Liang Is the Big Winner** Zhuge Liang set up this empty city strategy because he knew Sima Yi's situation. **Visible:** The city is empty, and Sima Yi is about to attack. **Invisible:** Sima Yi must fight Zhuge Liang but cannot eliminate him; he needs to keep a rival to maintain his own ecosystem and protect his living space. Result: Sima Yi retreats and gets a plausible excuse to give Cao Rui, while Zhuge Liang successfully defends the city without using a single soldier.
This story shows why contests between masters are not about visible situations but invisible ones, with layers of hidden strategies. The true winner is the one who holds the real cards in these layered invisible situations. This story again confirms what we said earlier: competition is not just about strength but also about vision. Although the external space was gone, both Zhuge Liang and Sima Yi saw the invisible situation—where their inner living space was—so both survived. **Summary:** Linking these four stories, **for an industry or an individual, our achievements are essentially determined by two types of variables: without mastering fast variables, we can't survive; without mastering slow variables, we can't make money.** So we need to see clearly what our slow variables are—our core values, direction of effort, and basic business foundation. Fast variables are our fishing skills; slow variables are the ocean currents. No matter how skilled we are at fishing, if there are no fish, our efforts are useless.
So, we must see the changes and trends in the world, but we must understand that not all changes are trends. There's a typhoon today, but it may not come tomorrow. We shouldn't focus on the typhoon but on meteorological science. Many people are anxious because their business isn't doing well. Essentially, it's not that our market space is really being squeezed out; most of the time, it's that our mental space is insufficient.
Many distributors in county towns think daily about how to achieve 30% growth in a small county of 300,000 people, but they don't see that the internet can greatly expand our living space. Even with 300,000 people, we can do omnichannel marketing and achieve multiplied growth. Some categories have high online penetration; that's a visible situation and a fact, but it doesn't mean there are no opportunities for survival and development. The key is who can see the industry opportunities beneath such high penetration and survive in the ever-changing market competition. **Seeing slow variables, grasping invisible patterns, holding the basic foundation, and seeking larger living space—these are the four questions we should consider now.**
| Founder of New Distribution, expert in FMCG industry channels, with over 400,000 words of original research articles on the FMCG industry. For communication, you can add WeChat by long-pressing. When adding, please indicate your company, position, and name.
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