Social scientists have recently started an experiment

<Not information, but attitude changes a person's life!>

1. In the late 1800s, William James, the founder of psychology, made this bold claim: "By age 30, our character hardens like plaster and can never be soft again."

2. It means that children's character may be able to develop, but when they become adults, their character development will pass away.

3. Social scientists have recently started an experiment to test this hypothesis. They recruited 1,500 founders from West Africa and randomly assigned them to three groups.

4. One was a control group, and they ran the business 'as usual'. The other two groups learned new concepts for a week as a training group, studied the cases of other businessmen, analyzed the newly learned concepts, and applied the concepts learned in their business through role play and reflection practice.

5. However, there was a difference between the two training groups, with one group focusing on 'cognitive competence (based on information)' and the other focusing on 'character competence'.

6. In cognitive competency training, founders took business administration courses created and accredited by the International Financial Corporation. They studied finance, accounting, personnel, marketing, and pricing (required for business), and applied what they learned to solve difficulties and seize opportunities.

7. The founders, who have been trained in character, took classes designed by psychologists who teach individual leadership. They studied leadership, self-control, and persistence, and practiced putting these qualities into action. (Which of the two groups had a greater effect?)

8. Character competency training produced the most dramatic effect. Founder only devoted five days to improving character competency, and over the next two years, company profits increased by 30% on average. This was almost three times the profit from cognitive competency training.

9. Knowledge of finance and marketing may have helped to monetize opportunities, but leadership and self-control have enabled them to create them. They have learned how to predict changes in markets, created far more creative ideas, and introduced more new products.

10. They also persistently tried to obtain loans by fully mobilizing all available means without giving up when faced with financial difficulties. And it turned out that there is no age limit for these changes.

11. (i.e.) William James was a very wise man, but his argument about character competence was very wrong. Character does not become as hard as plaster. It maintains its softness (for life).

12. People often confuse 'character' with 'character', but they are not the same. Personality is a person's trait or tendency. Personality is a primitive instinct to think, feel, and act.

13. (On the other hand) Character is the ability to prioritize values over your instincts. When you 'know a principle', it does not mean 'you even know how to practice it'. (In other words, character competency refers to the ability to put a principle you have set into action.)

14. (Especially when you are under stress or pressure, you are more likely to abandon principles and act on instinct)

15. (So) the real test of character competence is 'can you defend those values when things flow against you?'

16. In other words, "character" determines how you react in normal times, and "character" determines how you react when you are in trouble.

17. Personality does not determine your fate. Personality is a tendency. (It is personality that you do what you always do, and your life will not change if you do what you always do.)

18. Character transcends such trends and helps you adhere to principles. Therefore, how you use this character is the key, and there is no reason why you cannot develop your character skills. (You can consciously follow your own principles even in difficult situations.)

19. (And) if human cognitive competence distinguishes between 'human' and 'animal', (in the future) character competence will promote humans to beings more than machines. As more and more cognitive competencies are automated through computers and robots, we will be in the middle of a character revolution.

20. With the development of technology and the importance of interaction and relationships, the importance of character capacity to make humans human will increase. They say that success and happiness are the most important goals in life (in that sense), but I don't know (why) developing character capacity is not considered an important goal. (What really matters is character.)

- Adam Grant in Hidden Potential