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 Leading the largest internet company of China and one of the biggest online company in the world, Jack Ma is one of the top richest people on planet earth this time. With the net worth of 34.6 billion USD, at the age of 54, Ma is the richest Chinese businessman at this time, and the mark of his success and wealth is growing rapidly with each passing day. Fascinatingly, there is so much in his life other than being rich, as he has led an exemplary life right from the start and the establishment of his business empire is the result of a number of amazing traits of his personality. Here, I will tear down the different aspect of the motivating story of the world's renowned billionaire Jack Ma, thus to be inspired and let you inspired by the mesmerizing dimensions of his life.
• Major Reason Behind his Success
Putting things in a straightforward fashion, the basic reasons behind his success and popularity are his natural personality highlights which include utmost dedication, resilience, hard work, self-belief and to never give up. He has never surrendered on his dreams and has surely achieved the epic boom. In his own words, "We are never in lack of money. We lack people with dreams, who can die for those dreams."
Motivating others and leading by example, Jack Ma share his life lessons with others saying,
"Once in your life, try something. Work hard at something. Try to change. Nothing bad can happen."
Jack Ma is one of the most renowned, highly appreciated, and influential business of the world, and is surely among the richest people of Asia. He owns 7.8% stakes in Alibaba and 50% stakes in Alipay. Well, things have never been this beautiful and shining for him. His life long struggle is definitely one of the most inspirational and influential stories of rags to riches.
• Ambitious, and Diligent Early Years of Jack Ma's Life
Jack Ma was born in a below average family on 10th September of 1964 in the southeastern region of China. At this time, China was isolated from the rest of the world because of political reasons, and his family had very little to spend. Right from the beginning, Ma was an ambitious boy who had considered the world a place full of opportunities to succeed in a happy and prosperous life.
At the blooming age of 12, Ma developed a crazy interest in English language and to practice it he used to ride his bicycle for 40 minutes every morning to a hotel famous for having foreigners and be there for almost 8 hours daily. In that period of time, his hometown, Hangzhou had become tourists heaven, after the US president Richard Nixon paid a visit to this amazing town full of amazing people. There, Ma became friends with many foreigners who helped him not only grasping the English language as the natives but also taught him great life lessons. Because of his friendly and inquisitive personality, he became fond friend a boy who named him as "Jack", and since then he kept it with his family name.
This interaction with foreign people with an urge to learn more made Ma global thinker and elevated his effective communication skills, which are much needed to succeed in any profession. And that made him very different from almost every Chinese.
He graduated in English major and started working as an English professor at the Hangzhou University at the monthly wage of 12 USD. This is an inspiring chapter from the motivating story of the world's renowned billionaire Jack Ma.
• Learning from Rejections
Ma becoming billionaire haven't happened overnight, it's not an instant success, rather Ma has endured the pain of being failed and rejected several times. But his persistence, determination, and resilience created a proper path for him. In the motivating story of the world's renowned billionaire Jack Ma, the failures part is the most shocking one, as he had received plenty of them.
• Educational Twists and Turns
To name a few of his failures exactly, he failed two times in his primary school, three times in middle school and hurdles in his educational career didn't end there, he failed the university entrance exam thrice as well. Recalling his failure while talking to a bunch of students of a renowned university, Ma said: "I do not think I'm smarter than you, I slipped three times for the University entrance exam, but I did not give up, I failed, I did it again".
He had always taken failure as an opportunity to succeed further and work harder. His easy attitude towards rejections and focused mind towards success led him to immense success. In his own words, "At each failure, I went home and slept. Tomorrow will be another day to fight."
These failures in the educational path didn't shake his self-belief, as he applied to get admission at Harvard 10 times, and got rejected every single time. He did not have any strong connections or loads of money to get high-level education but that too did not stop him from trying hard. Recalling this he laughs saying, "I told myself someday I should go teach there may be," He lightly describe all this now, but had endured lots of pain at that time. But he took this pain as an opportunity to prepare to enjoy success in the future. While speaking at the University of Nairobi he said, "If you cannot get used to failure - just like a boxer - if you can't get used to [being] hit, how can you win?"
• Failing Teachers Institute's' Entrance Exam
Not only in the educational path, but Ma had also received several rejections and failed many exams while applying for a professional career. After loads of study, and immense hard work he passed Teachers' exam in the third try, and got admission at Hangzhou Teacher's Institute. There, he passed as a graduate student in 1988 and started applying at different places to start earning money.
• Beginning from the First step
Ma had applied at dozens of places small or big but got a rejection from everywhere. To be exact he applied at 30 different places and received no from every local company at his home town. It was something like, nature was playing tricks with him while having planned a great path, fame, and success in the future.
His rejection story from KFC is epic. He applied there with 23 other applicants, and all 23 of them got hired except him. While speaking as an astounding business leader at World Economic Forum, Ma said, "I failed so many times, people probably know that I applied for so many jobs, over 30 jobs, all rejected, not even got a chance: 24 of us interviewed for a KFC job, 23 got accepted, I was the only guy rejected,"
Similar pattern occur when he pursued to become a cop. There 5 applicants interviewed including him, and 4 got hired and only he received a rejection. He tells similar story of specific rejection in a speech saying, "My cousin and I waited for two hours [in a] long queue to be the waiter for the four-star hotel in my city, on a very hot day, My cousin's score was much lower than mine, [but] he was accepted and I was rejected!"
During his talk for the students of the University of Nairobi, he said, "You have to get used to failure,"
• Rejection from the Overpowering and Domineering Business World
Now coming to his current professional career, that wasn't smooth either. In the initial days of his business ventures, Ma lost two entrepreneurial undertakings but kept moving on. He started his company, Alibaba, in 1999, when he was about 35 years old, which has become an e-commerce giant in China and all around the world. And at the beginning of this chapter of life, he got many "no" as well.
During an interview he explained a few of this rejection, "I remember year 2001, we went to raise some $5 million from venture capitalists in the USA and got rejected" But these didn't stop his resilience, he said, "I said we [will] come back raising a little bit more."
He described that he felt the failure, and till the 30s but never ever thought of quit trying. He always pictured himself his own competition. He said, "No matter how smart you are, you will encounter mistakes, You learn from mistakes not because you will be able to avoid mistakes when these mistakes come, [when] these suffers come, you learn how to deal with it, how to face it."
After a decade, these capitalists must have felt disappointed, as in 2017 the company had a market value of 400 billion USD and when it went public back in 2014 Alibaba had the largest initial offering ever in the market. Surely they did not have the insight, that is the true hallmark of a leader, but Ma had it in him. In his own words, "A leader should be visionary and have more foresight than an employee. " He knew how to be a leader and take the team with you till the top, and he had achieved immense success.
He beautifully summarizes the truth about success and its differentiation from failure saying, "When you read too many successful stories, people go crazy, They think 'I can be successful.'" He has amazingly put the mantra of success in the simplest words, "Do not accept success to come immediately to you next month or next year. You may have to prepare yourself for the next 10 years". Ma says that the truth lies, "When you share a lot of failure stories, you learn."
Surely, the motivating story of the world's renowned billionaire Jack Ma is incomplete without addressing his struggle through loads of failures and rejections, and there is a lot to learn from his resolve, will power and strong mental power.
• A man with Innate Leadership Qualities
Talking at the annual meeting on the stage of World Economic Forum in Davos Switzerland, Ma engaged with young leaders, saying "In life, it's not how much we achieved, it's how much we've gone through the tough days and mistakes. If you want to be successful, learn from the other people's mistakes, don't learn from the success stories."
Jack Ma is an inspirational icon and motivational speaker for all of the learners in the world. His leadership skills and business tactics are surely unmatchable, but his words hide a treasure within. While describing what the young leaders should focus on to achieve their goals in the next 3 decades, he said, "When you are 20 to 30 years old, you should follow a good boss [and] join a good company to learn how to do things properly, When you are 30 to 40 years old, if you want to do something yourself, just do it. You still can afford to lose, to fail,"
He devised an incredible lifelong plan for people who want to lead a successful and prosper life. In his own words, "when you're 40 to 50 years old, my suggestion is you should do things you are good at. When you are 50 to 60 years old, spend time training and developing young people, the next generation, When you are over 60 years old, you better stay with your grandchildren."
• Powerful and Uplifting Interactions with Students
Persistence is the major lesson he taught while speaking to students anytime. He said,
"When you want to do something today, you should say: "I will succeed in the next 10 years". We need 10 years to succeed. The right time, right people and wait 10 years later you will succeed. To be an entrepreneur, you should be optimistic about the future. Although you are not successful right now, you must be confident and optimistic".
"On the path to success, you will notice that the successful ones are not whiners, nor do they complain often."
There you go, it was the motivating story of the world's renowned billionaire Jack Ma, jampacked with lessons.
By Amna A. for Ezega Blogs
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