Business
For every businessman who succeeds, thousands who tried have failed and vanished. Genuine competition, as opposed to winning through political favours, is brutal by design. So a success story should be read as a warning about the odds as much as an inspiration.
A child who feels unloved or passed over by a parent may spend life trying to prove their worth by excelling at everything. The hurt of being slighted becomes a lasting engine of ambition.
Winning the trust of a country's top leader can unlock a market for an outside investor. Once that first relationship succeeds, it clears a path for other businesses from the same home country to follow.
A leader who wins should spread the rewards among the people who helped win them. Keeping the gains to yourself erodes the loyalty that made the victory possible.
Skilled specialists such as engineers, ship captains and architects can always be hired on the open market. People with real business judgement are much harder to find. They are the true backbone of a firm and the asset most worth cultivating.
Growing up as a migrant's child on the edge of empires, watching one ruling power replace another, teaches a person not to rely on any single order lasting. The result is a sharp sense of place and purpose, and a strategic, practical habit of mind.
A businessman's habit of judging everything by what works can blind him to the emotions driving social policy. Policies meant to lift a disadvantaged group look inefficient on paper, but they rest on grievances that cold calculation overlooks.