How Jack Ma managed to overcome his 7 biggest failures

Today, entrepreneur Jack Ma is 51 years old, his wealth is estimated at $ 23.3 billion, not counting 150 billion IPOs - the largest in history. However, he started from work as an English teacher for $ 12 a month (although he was satisfied with his life during that period).

Given the modesty and meagerness of the first steps of Jack Ma, it is almost impossible to believe in his achievements. During his life, he experienced more setbacks (and they were more impressive) than most of us could bear.
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Here are 7 moments when Jack Ma, faced with humiliating failures, managed to maintain his optimism . Just like his favorite character Forrest Gump.

So, Jack ...

1. Do not give up, many times failing at school exams

Jack Ma can not be called a diligent student. Moreover, he even had difficulty moving to high school.

“I’ve twice failed the primary test in elementary school, I failed three times in the secondary exam, I didn’t overcome the entrance examinations in college twice ...”

Oh, most people are lucky enough to never report such things to their parents.

But, amazingly, Jack is not alone. Great people (Winston Churchill, Albert Einstein, Abraham Lincoln - and, of course, Forrest Gump) have a tradition: to face difficulties in learning at the dawn of life, but then to achieve amazing heights.

2. Scored 1 point out of 120 possible for the math part of the college entrance examination

Failure is one thing. But to be honored with a grade that is not even up to 1%, trying to go to college is something completely different. And this could not be explained by the lack of opportunity to prepare. To this day, Jack Ma has difficulties with math, but this does not prevent Alibaba from being an information technology company.

As Ma himself says:

“I have a bad situation with mathematics, I have never studied management and still do not understand accounting reports at all”

But, as it turned out, he did not need mathematics to become a billionaire. And even more surprising is this fact: in his childhood the word “computer” was unfamiliar to him.

3. Not stopped, 10 times rejected from Harvard

First of all, it is not a surprise that he was not accepted to Harvard ten times, but that he filed documents so many times. This suggests that Jack Ma is an example of perseverance:

“It is very important that you have patience”

He also attended the Hangzhou Public Institute, where he specialized in English.

4. Kept optimism after he was not hired in 30 places

After graduating from college, he applied for 30 different vacancies, and everywhere he was consistently rejected.

He even tried to become a police officer. But there they didn’t even pay attention to him, having formulated the refusal in three words: “You do not fit.”

Fortunately, copying his favorite movie hero Forrest Gamp, Jack continued to run:

“Today is hard. Tomorrow is even worse. And the day after tomorrow will be beautiful. ”

5. He turned out to be the only (out of 24) competitor rejected by KFC.

In a group of 24 candidates, 23 people were hired at KFC. Jack Ma was the only one who refused. He associates this with his insufficiently attractive appearance and short stature.

His wife Zhang Ying (who had connected her life with him long before he became rich) had no complaints about his appearance:

“Ma Yun is not handsome, but I fell in love with him because he knows how to do many things that handsome men cannot do.”

6. I could not persuade Silicon Valley to subsidize Alibaba

Even after the launch of Alibaba, he faced many troubles. The first 3 years the project did not give profit. In the beginning, it expanded too rapidly and almost burnt out when the dotcom bubble burst. At some stage, Alibaba was only one and a half years from bankruptcy.

Looking down, Jack Ma says:

“I call Alibaba my“ 1000 and 1 mistake ””

7. Declared to his 18 Alibaba business partners that none of them would take the position of CEO

Having made the worst (both financially and motivationally) decision, which is only available to the CEO, Jack Ma told 18 partners (who made a total contribution of $ 60,000) that none of them can rise above the post the manager. He was going to hire managers from the outside.

This, he notes, was his greatest mistake.

“Hard times in Alibaba made me learn a lesson: you have to make sure that your team has values, innovative ideas and perspective”

If success does not come to you right away ...

Jack Ma is a classic example of a man who got "out of the mud into riches". But his extraordinary stubbornness is much more impressive than fabulous wealth. It serves as proof that no chain of failures (however humiliating they may be) can prevent a person from realizing his dreams.

As Jack likes to repeat:

“Until you give up, you have a chance. The most serious failure is an admission of defeat. ”

PS We recommend another useful article on the work on yourself - How successful people cope with procrastination .

The author of the translation is Vyacheslav Davidenko, the founder of the TESTutor company.