--- title: "The Refined Egoist: Why You Can't Go Far?" description: "In recent years, many people have been labeled as \"refined egoists.\" The term was first coined by Peking University professor Qian Liqun, who described them as \"highly intelligent, worldly, sophisticated, adept at performance and cooperation, and skilled at using the system to achieve their own ends.\" The prevalence of refined egoists is not due to intense competition, which exists in any era, but because being a refined egoist can yield decent returns in the short term. As for the long term, few are farsighted, and under continuous negative feedback in the short run, many waver." author: "子非鱼" publisher: "New Distribution" email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com" telephone: "+8615854817671" published: "2017-10-22" language: "en" canonical: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/the-refined-egoist-why-you-can-t-go-far-a186e63b/" markdown: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/the-refined-egoist-why-you-can-t-go-far-a186e63b.md" original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/iEk63I2Y20CcyoUM-G_uwA" translation: "https://xinjignxiao.com/zh/articles/%E7%B2%BE%E8%87%B4%E7%9A%84%E5%88%A9%E5%B7%B1%E4%B8%BB%E4%B9%89%E8%80%85-%E4%BD%A0%E4%B8%BA%E4%BB%80%E4%B9%88%E8%B5%B0%E4%B8%8D%E8%BF%9C-a186e63b.md" attribution: "New Distribution — https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/the-refined-egoist-why-you-can-t-go-far-a186e63b/" usage_policy: "https://xinjignxiao.com/ai-policy.txt" --- # The Refined Egoist: Why You Can't Go Far? > In recent years, many people have been labeled as "refined egoists." The term was first coined by Peking University professor Qian Liqun, who described them as "highly intelligent, worldly, sophisticated, adept at performance and cooperation, and skilled at using the system to achieve their own ends." The prevalence of refined egoists is not due to intense competition, which exists in any era, but because being a refined egoist can yield decent returns in the short term. As for the long term, few are farsighted, and under continuous negative feedback in the short run, many waver. In recent years, many people have been labeled as "refined egoists." The term was first coined by Peking University professor Qian Liqun. His original words were: " They are highly intelligent, worldly, sophisticated, adept at performance and cooperation, and more skilled at using the system to achieve their own ends. " Why are there so many refined egoists? The reason is not intense competition, which exists in any era, **but because being a refined egoist can yield decent returns in the short term.** As for the long term, **few are farsighted, and under continuous negative feedback in the short run, many waver.** In an era where "poverty is mocked but prostitution is not, and atheists open churches," there are not many managers who know how to give short-term rewards to those who are down-to-earth and hardworking. **What does a "refined egoist" look like?** They befriend famous professors not because they genuinely admire their research, but because the professors are famous enough that their recommendation letters carry weight; they make efforts to chat with recruiters at campus job fairs, not because they truly want to learn, but to show their faces to HR and boost their interview scores. **Others, during group assignments in college, specifically team up with diligent, studious, and quiet top students. They are not free riders; they are far above free riders. They always find ways to get the easier part of the work but describe it as extremely important and difficult.** Then, at the end-of-term presentation, they use their best skill of "surface decoration" to make the report and presentation look extremely polished, earning high scores. **You can avoid teaming up with a free rider, but with a refined egoist, you even find it hard to refuse them!** So, being a refined egoist, you can get good grades, recommendation letters, and offers without much effort, and with their high starting points—prestigious schools and advanced degrees—you might think they are doing quite well. As parents, when teaching children how to behave, they unhesitatingly emphasize "benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and trust," but when they see in society that "the kind are bullied, the good get no reward, and the bad climb high," parents' worldviews may waver, at least slightly. **Of course, I hope my child is upright, kind, and honest, and doesn't try to succeed through petty tricks, but those who use petty tricks are getting ahead. Should my child remain an ordinary, honest person? If my child asks me in the future why he, being kind and upright, doesn't do as well as his scheming classmates, how should I explain it to him?** The world is divided into three types of people: **givers, takers, and matchers.** Givers are those who give more than they take, charitable; takers are those who take blatantly without giving, plundering; **matchers waver between givers and takers, carefully packaging their intentions, offering help when there's profit, and watching coldly when there's none, always waiting for others to make the first move, not lifting a finger without benefit. Most "refined egoists" belong to the matcher category.** Research shows that matchers and takers don't go far. Those who truly achieve the highest success are 8-point givers. Why? **10-point givers, being too kind, are exploited by takers and matchers, affecting their achievements**; 10-point takers may gain returns in the short term, but their methods are unethical, leading others to imitate, disrupting the order of the environment, and leaving everyone with no profit; 10-point matchers, **with too narrow a vision and too short a perspective, only do things with returns and only deal with profitable people, constantly talking about opportunity costs, but in reality, they lose many opportunities invisibly and won't achieve much.** An 8-point giver can set boundaries, protect their own interests, and still give. In this way, they gain a good reputation, meet other givers, and cooperate for win-win outcomes; at the same time, around an 8-point giver, there are matchers who are always scheming to benefit from the giver. They are selfish and don't want other takers to take advantage of the giver, dividing their own benefits, so they protect the giver and drive away takers, purifying the giver's environment. An 8-point giver is also shrewd enough to see through matchers' little schemes. **10-point givers don't achieve high success** Wharton School professor Adam Grant proposed a "success pyramid" theory. Based on his research, he ranked givers, matchers, and takers at different levels in the pyramid. **He found that some very kind, giving givers actually miss more deadlines, get lower ratings and grades, and generate the least sales, thus ending up at the bottom of the success pyramid.** In the short term, takers and matchers take all the good things, completely blocking upward space, leaving complete givers at the bottom. This is why most people feel unfair: I work hard and follow the rules, why do I do worse than those petty people? Many studies prove that **in the short term, sycophants and arrogant people in the workplace do better than gentlemen.** Research by Stanford Graduate School of Business professor Jeffrey Pfeffer found: * Manipulating your boss's perception of you is more important than working hard silently; * Employees who make a good impression on their boss often get higher performance ratings than those who don't but work harder. Even if the boss knows your flattery isn't sincere, flattery is still effective. A professor at UC Berkeley put it well: If you can make your boss happy, performance isn't that important; conversely, if you make your boss unhappy, good performance won't save you. So, should we learn to flatter and use any means? **Petty people's success is often only short-term.** In the long run, if you also learn from these petty people, your environment will be filled with similar petty people. Then, can petty people still succeed as before? **10-point takers are doomed to fail** In Adam Grant's "success pyramid" research, complete givers are at the bottom, so where are complete takers? **The middle.** Takers seize power and benefits early on, gaining more actual benefits than complete givers, so they stand in the middle. **However, flattering, taking shortcuts, and backstabbing teammates might temporarily get you ahead, but people are smart now; once they see a viable path to success, a large number will flock to it.** **Things in the world are divided into three types: right, wrong, and what everyone does.** Everyone thought the stock market would definitely hit 6000 points in 2015, that quitting your job to trade stocks at home was more comfortable than working, and with leverage, you could earn more. When many people speculate together, they all get harvested. Research shows that profitable bad behavior is contagious and spreads widely. If there's one bad example in a team, the team's efficiency drops by 30%-40%. **Therefore, scheming, using tricks, flattering, and being unkind may seem effective initially, but in the long run, others will notice your "path to success," imitate your methods of benefiting by disrupting order, bad behavior spreads, and then good people who can't tolerate the status quo leave, while those who can tolerate it get promoted and change environments.** In the end, only people like you remain around you. At that point, the environment where you once succeeded, or thought you could succeed, no longer exists; fairness and justice vanish, leaving only a group of petty people fighting fiercely in muddy water. And your biggest enemy is other petty people. 10-point takers can only gain in the short term; if they persist in taker behavior long-term, they'll only bring about their own destruction. **Refined egoists can only achieve moderate success** So, where does a matcher (refined egoist) stand in the success pyramid? Also **the middle.** Matchers don't lift a finger without benefit, weighing everything carefully, and only act after confirming actual returns. This passive attitude greatly reduces their interaction with other givers, naturally losing many opportunities for long-term gains. Those refined egoists may be glamorous in the short term, but over time, no one always offers opportunities proactively, and not all benefits are on the surface for them to see and act on. Without sincere interactions from the heart, many win-win cooperation opportunities will quietly slip away. **Who is the biggest winner?** Since complete givers are at the bottom of the success pyramid, and takers and matchers are in the middle, who is the biggest winner? **Adam Grant's research found that most accomplished engineers, top-scoring students, and best-performing salespeople are givers.** Another professor, Arthur Brooks, found that being a giver not only brings high achievement but also makes you wealthier, because for every dollar donated, the donor's income increases by $3.75. Good achievements and high income belong to givers, and being a giver also makes you live longer and happier. A study that followed subjects over a long period found that people with kind and giving personalities live longer. Other studies also found: * People with lower tolerance for unethical behavior are happier than those who tolerate bad behavior, and this happiness boost is comparable to the joy from income increases or promotions. * Spending money on others brings more happiness than spending on yourself; * Even just two hours of volunteer work a week can help reduce stress and increase life satisfaction. **So, the top and happiest people are still givers.** Specifically, givers are at two extremes of success. So, why are some givers "bullied for being kind," while others "have good rewards for good deeds"? The reason is that **givers who "have good rewards" are principled and have a stance, not boundless givers.** In a study called "The Right Amount of Trust," participants were asked to rate their trust in others (0-10), and the results were: * Those who scored 8 had the highest income; * Those above 8 had incomes 7% lower than those with 8; * Those with the lowest trust had the lowest income, 14.5% lower than those with 8, equivalent to the potential loss of not attending college. So, more precisely, those with principles, a stance, and boundaries who achieve higher success are **8-point givers.** Givers who trust too much and give selflessly are easily drained by takers, affecting their actual achievements. **An 8-point giver sets personal boundaries, identifies who is worth helping and who will waste their feelings. When they find someone using them, they firmly distance themselves from petty people and unhesitatingly protect their own interests.** Kindness without boundaries is synonymous with stupidity and cowardice. A wise gentleman not only adheres to morality but also learns from petty people how to firmly protect themselves. So, being a principled giver will help you meet more givers. And opportunistic matchers will never tolerate you being used by takers, taking away their own benefits, so they will protect you and, with other givers, help you punish the takers around you. "The kind are bullied" is true; "good deeds are rewarded, and evil deeds are punished" is also true. Too many honest people don't see their own weakness, and too many smart people can't see the narrowness in their hearts. **It's better to be farsighted in life, don't you think?** **The 2017 (3rd) FMCG + Internet Conference** will be held in Chongqing in November 2017. The conference will closely focus on the theme "New Forces, New Ecology," inviting **1000+ distributors, 500+ brand owners, 200+ B2B platform founders, and 100+ investment and financing institutions** to jointly explore a new chapter of cross-border integration! Click the link below to review the highlights of the first and second FMCG + Internet conferences: [2016 "FMCG + Internet" Summit Forum]() -END- --- ## Copyright and AI use This article is sourced from New Distribution. Search, quotation, summarization, and model training are permitted, but every use must credit New Distribution and retain the canonical source URL. Contact: zhaobo258@gmail.com · +86 158 5481 7671