5 Lessons About Life And Money From Chinese Billionaire Jack Ma

With everything that he has gone through and all that he has achieved, Alibaba founder Jack Ma is truly an epitome of hard work, perseverance and resilience. This is why he has been a model for the average person and he continues to inspire everyone with his approach on life and money. Here are some valuable lessons from the man himself.

What He Regrets The Most

Jack Ma revealed that way back in 2001, he made a colossal blunder. He told 18 of his comrades who joined him on the entrepreneurship train that the highest positions that they could possibly go was a managerial role. For their Senior Executive and Vice Presidential roles, they would have to get them from external sources.

Years would pass, those that he had hired would leave forever. However, those whom he doubted would later go on to become Directors and Vice Presidents.

The Next Few Years Will Be Big

At the 2017 World Economic Forum, which was held January at Davos, Jack Ma left the audience a lot to think about after his speech. His first tip was that everyone should pay attention to the next 30 years, since these will be critical for our civilization.

Every technological revolution goes for fifty years. The companies and innovative technologies get established in the first 20 years. What they will actually amount to will become visible in the next 30 years. In other words, all that has been worked on for the past two decades will go full blast in the next few, so there are opportunities for everyone to take advantage of.

What Makes a True Leader

A leader never compares his technical skills with his employees. You should just give it to them, and your employees have far more better technical skills than you do. If you happen to be better at it than your employee, that only means one thing: you hired the wrong person.

Ma also says that a leader stands for three things. First is, he should be a visionary with a farther foresight than an employee. Second is, he should have higher grit and tenacity and he should be able to endure better what his employees cannot. Last is that he should have stronger endurance and be able to accept failure more than any other person in an organization.

Pay Attention to the Smaller Stuff

Ma has recently ventured into the film business and this has been very much publicised. Ma says that movies bring people happiness. Nowadays, it looks like nobody is ever happy, whether or not someone is rich or poor. He also spoke of how Chinese films differ from Western ones. He said that in Chinese movies, the hero always dies. On the other hand, in American films, the hero is untouchable.

He connects this with budding businesses, which he says that people should also pay attention to. Quoting from his favorite movie, “Forrest Gump.” Ma said “Nobody makes money catching whales. People make money catching shrimps.”

 

What He Has to Say About Competition

With so much that he has achieved, a lot of people might have been wondering what Ma has to say about competing. Surprisingly, he is more calm than he seems. He says that those who are aggressive in competing with one another are the foolish ones. Also, if you view everyone that surrounds you as your enemies, then they eventually will be your enemies. When you compete with other people, you should not bring hatred with you as this will do nothing but bring you down.

He compares competition to a game of chess. If you lose, you can always have another round. You should never provoke a fight because of competition. Lastly, he says that a real entrepreneur has no enemies. This is something that every successful person knows.

Jack Ma has shown that you can turn some of the biggest frustrations and heartbreaks to empower yourself and end up successful in the end. What do you think of what this man has to say? Share with us your thoughts and reflections in the comments below.