Compared with IQ, AQ is more important in the current era.

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Editor's Note: At the moment when algorithms are widely popularized and experience depreciates rapidly, IQ (Intelligence Quotient) is increasingly less important than AQ (Adaptability Quotient). Adaptability Quotient is not an innate talent, but a set of thinking systems that can be acquired after birth. Our real challenge is not to fight against technology, but to hold on to human subjective judgment, take the initiative to control changes instead of passively accepting fate. This article comes from translation and compilation, hoping to bring you inspiration.

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In a fast-paced environment where every decision is more or less accompanied by the risk of failure, what qualities are needed to gain a firm foothold and even achieve success? When you realize that you cannot rely on past experience to predict the future direction, how can you find the right direction? When it is time to make up your mind to take action, how can you get rid of deep-rooted inherent prejudices, manage your own emotions, and jump out of your inherent perspective? The premise of all the above is that you not only face upheaval and unknown calmly, but also be full of confidence and regard turbulence and uncertainty as a norm.

To achieve achievements in this kind of environment, what we rely on is not a specific type of person, but a specific thinking mode.

Over the past 30 years, I have founded and managed a number of investment institutions, served as a trading executive successively, and then transformed into an entrepreneur and investor. The environment I was in required me to make decisions full of uncertainty quickly, and once I made a wrong judgment, it would bring real consequences.

During the 30 years, I made high-speed decisions day after day, and at the same time deeply studied the behavior patterns of decision-makers in all walks of life. I gradually found that those who continuously achieve excellent results are not necessarily the smartest, boldest, or even the most experienced people. But they often have extremely strong adaptability: they will "simulate" alternative solutions in their minds before taking action; they can learn quickly, correct mistakes in time in the process of advancing; they have a humble attitude, let go of personal obsessions, turn around and adjust strategies in time.

In fact, I think those people with outstanding achievements, especially serial entrepreneurs and people who continuously get results across multiple industries, no matter whether they are subjectively aware of it or not, are using a common set of tools and work processes. Outsiders seem to be extremely lucky, but in fact, they are not betting blindly, but actively creating opportunities, constantly increasing their odds of winning like in a casino. They rely on better decisions to increase the probability of success, while avoiding completely devastating major failures.

This is the high Adaptability Quotient (AQ). Adaptability Quotient is not innate. The vast majority of people who achieve continuous success, except for a very small number of special cases, do not rely purely on luck, nor are they born geniuses. They have exactly the same brain "hardware" as ordinary people, the difference only lies in the way they use this set of hardware and the activity level of its operation. It is like an operating system that can be acquired after birth, specially designed to make better decisions in an environment full of uncertainty. This group of people has mastered a common implicit action manual, and this underlying logic has been running silently in the background for those who have maintained success for a long time.

This also means that cultivating the thinking system of high Adaptability Quotient that can continuously achieve results even in chaos is not exclusive to a small number of elites, and ordinary people can fully master it through acquired learning.

Iteratively Upgraded Intelligence

The entire human society is increasingly relying on algorithms: we give the right to judgment to artificial intelligence, and let recommendation engines define our own tastes, preferences and desires. Many of the so-called "progress" we talk about, in the final analysis, is nothing more than a decent and comfortable compromise and concession.

The rebellion of machines will not be like Skynet in science fiction, sending Terminator robots to hunt down humans. This change has already arrived, which is manifested in the fact that people are content with the status quo, leave everything to tools, and get used to the default options of the system. The real threat is not the awakening of machines, but that we allow ourselves to gradually lose the motivation to think and fall into spiritual laziness.

The effective half-life of professional knowledge seems to be getting shorter and shorter. Industries rise and fall rapidly with the iteration cycle of products. The generation that once experienced the changes personally can no longer keep up with the changes of the times. The curve of change is getting steeper, and growth is not a simple acceleration, but an exponential rise. The gap between adapters and laggards is no longer measured in years, but divided by version updates one after another. We have entered a new era, and the only sustainable competitive advantage is that the speed of learning is faster than the speed of change of the surrounding world.

In this critical period, the times are calling for an awakening of adaptability, whose goal is not to fight against machines, but to re-preserve the unique core traits of human beings.

This does not mean resisting changes. On the contrary, we need to learn to skillfully control changes, take charge of uncertainty, and turn chaos into our own advantages.

One of the very important points is to refuse to treat the future as a gift received passively. At least for now, the future is still built by our own hands.

Translator: Teresa