The gap between people is not determined by wealth, but by cognitive ability.

With the right cognitive abilities, wealth will naturally follow. Lack of awareness, even if you have temporary wealth, it is difficult to maintain it for a long time. IQ and EQ are important components of cognition, and so is money quotient.

Why is it so difficult for the poor to change their circumstances? The reason for this is that they lack a clear competitive advantage. These strengths include, but are not limited to, background, connections, support, cognition, abilities, and talents.

While factors such as background, relationships, and support can be difficult to work through, an individual's cognitive abilities can be improved. Without raising awareness, everything is empty talk.

The higher the level of cognition, people tend to have the following four traits that set them apart.

1. Stay rational and avoid impulsive behavior.

Human beings are naturally emotional, easily driven by emotions, and often lack the necessary rational thinking.

In human society, because there is a screening and elimination mechanism, rationality is one of the important criteria. As a result, people who lack rational thinking are often marginalized or even eliminated from society.

So, how do we understand reason?

Think about it, what kind of attitude will you adopt when facing the villain? Many will fight it to the end because they hate villains.

However, such an irrational reaction will only make enemies for no reason. What's more, villains also have their use value, and there is no need to blindly reject them.

Elites often do not have an absolute black and white concept, they pursue "practicality". They believe that practical ideas are worthy of admiration, avoiding emotional decision-making or inherent biases.

Cultivating rational thinking and looking at problems with "practicality" always promotes personal development.

2. Adapt to change and refuse to be conservative.

From a materialist point of view, the world is in constant flux, and the environment is not static.

As individuals in this environment, we should keep pace with the times and adapt to the changes of the times. Conservatism only leads to backwardness, while change leads to progress.

Just as reading books should not be limited to the Four Books and the Five Classics, we also need to read books in different fields. It is necessary to study both classical knowledge and modern knowledge.

While the workaround sounds simple, it can be challenging to practice.

The key is that people often have "thinking inertia", and after getting used to a certain way or mode of thinking, it is difficult to think outside the box and think innovatively.

Today, in the 90th century, if you still stay in the thinking of the 0s of the last century, isn't it out of touch with the times?

If you are poor, you will think about change, and if you change, you will be smooth. The rich are rich in large part because they know how to keep up with the times, rather than being stubborn. In contrast, the poor often struggle to break free from the inertia of thinking.

3. Combining rigidity and softness, and being wise and self-protecting.

How to ensure one's own security and interests in a complex social environment has become an unavoidable issue.

Some may scoff at the act of being wise to protect oneself, saying that it is too cautious. However, this view often stems from a misunderstanding of the nature of life.

Life isn't always a rosy utopia, it's more like an asura field that requires constant fighting, following brutal rules of survival.

Believe it or not, the rule of the jungle is always there. Either you replace someone today or you will be replaced by someone else tomorrow.

The wisdom of wise self-preservation is precisely to deal with this ruthless competition for survival.

At its core, it is a combination of rigidity and softness: both strong and soft-hearted. The best strategy is to be flexible and adaptable to the situation.

Fourth, use positive and negative thinking to gain insight into the essence of things.

There is a famous saying in "The Godfather": The fate of a person who can see through the essence of things in an instant is completely different from that of a person who cannot see clearly in a lifetime.

The former is always in the minority, the latter is the majority.

It is not easy to see through the appearance of things and see the essence. Many people are easily confused by superficial appearances.

How do you gain insight into the essence? It is necessary to use both "positive and negative" ways of thinking.

For example, one plus one equals two, which is the result of forward derivation. And to verify this, we can think backwards: two minus one is also equal to one.

Both forward and backward derivations can reach consistent conclusions, proving that one plus one is indeed equal to two.

Here's another example: bosses encourage employees to work hard for the company and work overtime to achieve a better future for themselves and the company.

Forward thinking may think that the boss is thinking about the company and the employee.

Reverse thinking may reveal the true intentions of the boss: making employees work more overtime is actually to make themselves more profitable, and employees get only hard work and fatigue.

Similarly, other problems can be analyzed and solved in this way.