The night I wanted to give up

Author: Lin Hongyu

Picture: IC photo

Source: Zhenghe Island (ID: zhenghedao)

Everyone, more or less There are few nights when I want to give up.

Twenty-two years ago, Jack Ma passed by a church and saw someone praying. Suddenly he felt physically and mentally exhausted. He advised himself: Give up and let others who have the opportunity do it.

That year, Jack Ma was 33 years old, starting his own business for the second time, and was doing the Chinese Yellow Pages. He was carrying a briefcase and huddled respectfully at the door, promoting his website to people in the office.

It was also the first commercial website in China.

Some people were very rude, looked disgusted, and slammed the door, "They don't look like good people at first sight."

In the taxi, Jack Ma burst into tears: I hope the Chinese will succeed soon, and we can’t delay it any longer.

The first time I went into the sea, it was even more terrible. Ma Yun gathered his friends and pooled money to set up a translation agency, ready to show off his talents. They rented a small house and earned less than 500 yuan a month, but had to pay 1,500 yuan in rent. They suffered losses for three consecutive years.

In order to keep the company alive, Ma Yun carried a sack and went to Yiwu to wholesale a lot of gadgets. While accepting translation work, he went door-to-door to sell socks, underwear, and flashlights.

"I have suffered so many cold words and so many looks."

For a long time, Jack Ma has been a loser in the eyes of others, through and through. I failed the college entrance examination for the first time and got 1 point in mathematics. The second time I took the college entrance examination, I still failed, but my math improved, with a score of 19.

After failing the exam, Jack Ma looked for work everywhere. At that time, a four-star hotel in Hangzhou had just opened, and Ma Yun and his cousin applied for jobs in the laundry room. They stood in the bright sun for two and a half hours, and their clothes were soaked, before they got the chance to be interviewed.

Coming out of the hotel, Ma Yun couldn't hide his excitement. He scored well in the interview and his grades were higher than those of his cousin. In the end, my cousin was admitted, but Ma Yun was not.

The Hangzhou Police Department was recruiting, and Jack Ma and four classmates participated in the recruitment. All four classmates received employment notices, but Jack Ma did not.

Another time, Jack Ma and his friends participated in KFC recruitment. 24 people signed up, 23 were successfully hired, but Jack Ma was not.

They just told Jack Ma: You didn't get the job.

Later, Ma Yun’s father asked someone to find connections and arranged for his son to do odd jobs in the publishing house. During that time, neighbors often saw Ma Yun riding a tricycle delivering books to various publishing houses and printing plants.

Until one day, Ma Yun opened a book and felt his chest boiling.

He clutched the "Life" written by Lu Yao and swore: I must be admitted to college in this life. This time, Jack Ma scored 89 in the math test and was admitted to the English Department of Hangzhou Normal University.

A lot of rejections, a lot of failures. Jack Ma couldn’t figure out why, but he always said: I never gave up. When he founded China Yellow Pages, Jack Ma was in great pain.

At that time, China Yellow Pages was developing and was acquired by Hangzhou Telecom. In the eyes of everyone, this is the best thing, but it is torture for Ma Yun.

He hoped that China Yellow Pages could "spread China's trade and business information to the world." Unexpectedly, it would accept mergers and acquisitions, large and small decisions, various constraints, and endless disputes.

Ma Yun watched helplessly, everything was getting further and further away from the goal, and asked himself if it was time to give up.

At that time, he took a job as a translator and went on a business trip to the United States. Near the residence is the church.

Ma Yun is not a religious person, and he doesn’t know why. He walked in by accident, and Churchill’s most famous speech was being played inside, which was also the last speech in his life.

Ma Yun was stunned. He felt that Churchill said to him over and over again: never give up. Suddenly, tears flowed down his face, and his whole body felt relaxed.

To this day, Ma Yun feels that it was God’s will.

A year later, Jack Ma led his team to climb the Great Wall wearing cotton hats.

The winter in Beijing is very cold. One of the people stood in the corner and suddenly shouted into the distance: Why! Why!

They stayed in Beijing for 14 months, working extremely hard, including food and clothing, and not earning a penny.

On the night he left Beijing and returned to Hangzhou, Ma Yun invited everyone to dinner, but he didn’t say anything and felt uncomfortable in his heart. The last group of people sang "Real Hero" and surrounded Ma Yun, hugging each other and crying.

The road is difficult to walk, but it is no longer difficult for Jack Ma: "Today is cruel, tomorrow will be even crueler, and the day after tomorrow will be beautiful, but most people will die tomorrow night.

This It’s a cruel life. So, you have to work hard today to face the cruelty of tomorrow; you have to work hard tomorrow to see the sun the day after tomorrow.”

This is also the retreat, Ma Yun is here. Alibaba was founded in three rooms and one living room in Lakeside Garden. At the most difficult time, each of the 18 partners only received a symbolic salary of 500 yuan, but even this amount of money could not be paid out.

Jack Ma traveled around for financing, and every day when he returned to the company, he said to Peng Lei with dignity: Today I rejected another venture capital investment.

In fact, some investment institutions directly invited Jack Ma out before even hearing the introduction: It’s crazy to do e-commerce in China.

Many years later, Peng Lei learned the truth: Ma Yun had been rejected 37 times.

Later, Ma Yun even laughed at himself, getting used to being rejected. Jack Ma said: I am a person who has made countless mistakes. Today’s Alibaba has survived at least 100 disasters in the past 15 years. Even though I was seriously injured internally, I always had a smile on my face.

After gritting his teeth for the 38th time, a man named Son gave Ma Yun 6 minutes to introduce the project.

In these 6 minutes, Ali earned 20 million US dollars in life-saving money.

In the early years, some foreign media once questioned Alibaba. Although the slogan was shocking, it had not yet started to make money.

Ma Yun raised the corner of his mouth: Well, I want to change the world.

What used to be 18 partners has now become an elite force with more than 100,000 people and many good generals.

Alibaba, which was once evaluated by the media as a scam company, has today become a giant with a market value of more than 460 billion US dollars, ranking seventh in the world.

The Alibaba model, which was once sentenced to death by various authoritative business schools, has been iterated for 30 years and has grown into a forest.

In 2018, Jack Ma gave a speech in Israel. He said emotionally: "When Alibaba was founded, we had nothing. No one believed we could succeed. In the past 19 years, the only thing we have done right is to always Don’t give up.”

“In the past 19 years, Alibaba has experienced a lot. We have had failures, setbacks, and mistakes. I have said to myself, colleagues and friends more than 10,000 times. Never give up'. ”

The words of Churchill that “encouraged” Jack Ma are now told to the whole world.

On the day of the acquisition of Volvo, in an office in London, England, the contracts were piled half a meter high on the table. Li Shufu kept lowering his head to sign, handing each contract over to sign one by one.

It was the early spring of 2010. It took Li Shufu half an hour just to sign his name. After putting down the pen, he lay motionless on the table. The assistant next to him thought that the chairman was probably tired and needed a rest.

When it was time to connect to the Hangzhou headquarters, someone next to him had to wake up Li Shufu.

Li Shufu slowly straightened up. Before he could speak, tears flowed down like broken beads.

At that moment, many images came to his mind.

When he first planned to acquire Volvo, Li Shufu sent an English letter to its headquarters, and the reply read: "I'm sorry, Volvo is not for sale."

Li Shufu refused to give up, and he inquired Today, Volvo CEO will attend a Detroit Auto Show. After temporarily booking a flight, Li Shufu rushed to the United States. He also asked a public relations company to gain connections and barely exchanged for a 30-minute conversation.

After listening to Li Shufu's impassioned speech, the other party still said: "I'm sorry, Volvo is not for sale."

For three years, Li Shufu heard countless rejections.

Just one hour before signing the contract, Li Shufu received a call from the relevant leaders saying that he would not be able to attend the signing ceremony. In order to invite them, Li Shufu had spent a lot of effort.

Li Shufu looked at the officials who came on stage to give speeches temporarily and had mixed feelings for a moment. That person also declined him several times.

A week before the signing, the entire Geely negotiation team was still worried, feeling that the project team might be disbanded at any time.

The situation was at a stalemate for a while. The person in charge of Volvo at that time was so angry that he slammed the table and wanted to leave the table several times. Some Geely employees flew to London to provide assistance as planned, but received a text message as soon as they got off the plane: No need to come, we can't continue talking.

Everyone stayed awake for several days.

Some employees went for a jog in the nearby Financial Street at 5 a.m. to adjust for the time difference. They caught a glimpse of a short man wearing a suit from a distance. When they walked in, they discovered it was Li Shufu. He has been walking there for a long time.

No one knew what Li Shufu was thinking after he had not slept for several nights.

In order to raise the 8.1 billion to acquire Volvo, Li Shufu went around to get loans, but failed. None of the banks were optimistic about this. Only one Zhejiang branch of China Construction Bank agreed to spend 200 million yuan.

Unable to borrow money from banks, Li Shufu even told several entrepreneurial friends about his financing plan. Some of them expressed interest, but ultimately the deal didn't work out.

Li Shufu even found the fund of Li Ka-shing in Hong Kong, and the other party responded: He is not interested in cars.

After going round and round several times, Li Shufu contacted the Beijing Municipal Government. They decided to invest 3 billion to support the Geely merger. Everything was settled, Geely rented an office in Beijing, and established a company with a registered capital of 500 million.

"The contract of intent and framework were signed, and when it came time to actually pay, suddenly, within a few hours, the whole situation changed."

The countdown to the signing is in progress. , the money has not yet arrived. Li Shufu was caught off guard by various variables. He ignored reasoning and flew back and forth to several cities every week to contact officials at all levels.

In the end, Li Shufu signed two lifetime counter-guarantees and finally loaned 7 billion from the Chengdu government, Shanghai government, and Daqing government.

"I put my life and fortune on the line." Li Shufu said.

The assistant could not hide his excitement and said to Li Shufu: "Congratulations, Chairman, the long march of thousands of miles has finally come to an end."

Li Shufu was very calm, neither cheering nor beaming with joy. He just said: "We have just taken the first step."

20 years ago, Li Shufu gave up his profitable motorcycle factory and secretly spent 1 billion to research cars, and almost went to jail.

Everyone laughed at him as a lunatic. At that time, he was almost in tears and begged the Vice Premier of the State Council: Please give us a chance to fail.

In 2018, Geely invested US$9 billion and became the largest shareholder of Mercedes-Benz. Li Shufu stood at the China Private Economic Forum and told everyone: I want Chinese cars to travel around the world.

Some people say that the tragedy of an entrepreneur is that you yourself are walking on thin ice and may go bankrupt at any time, but you still have to create a sense of security for others; you have no one to tell you, no one to help you, and you have to pretend to be confident and strong to encourage you. others.

Real warriors often break down and cry in the dark, but start again during the day.

Aren’t ordinary people like this?

Many times, in the adult world, there is no option to "give up".

Maybe life makes you despair at this moment, but there must be people in this world who are experiencing things that you can't even imagine.

The life you despise now may be a life that others can’t even reach on tiptoe.

Life is not easy, but it is never difficult.

Looking back after everything has passed, it is actually not a big deal.

So just hold on, you are not a failure, nor are you alone.

Reference materials:

1. The night when I wanted to give up (don’t say anything, adults)

2. I want to go back to 1999. Do you have anything to say? Take it back? (Supplements)

3. The new manufacturing era: Li Shufu and Geely, Volvo’s super manufacturing (Wang Qianma, Liang Dongmei)

4. This is Jack Ma (Chen Wei)