The Crocodile and the Shark

Ma Yun was born near Shanghai, China.  Short and scrawny, Ma was teased about his size as a kid, but he was energetic and fearless when it came to defending himself against bullies.  There was no one he wouldn’t stand up to, regardless of how much bigger they were.

When Ma was still young, he decided that he wanted to learn English.  Every day, he rode his bike to a hotel 45 minutes away in order to meet and converse with the foreign tourists staying there.  He was charming, offering to guide them around the city for free so he could practice and improve his English.  He also bought a radio so he could listen to English broadcasts.

Although he took to learning another language easily, Ma wasn’t as strong in math.  In fact, when he took China's college entrance exam, his low scores on the math section caused him to fail the test twice.

After rigorously studying, Ma passed the test on the third try and became eligible for college.  He eventually graduated and applied for a number of jobs and was rejected for all of them — including a manager position at Kentucky Fried Chicken.  Eventually, he was able to become an English teacher, due in part to his fluency with the language.  He was earning about $12 a month.

Thanks to a number of economic reforms in China, many of the country’s enterprising citizens began experimenting with new businesses that brought their once closed-off society into closer contact with the rest of the world.  Ma became one such entrepreneur when he started a translation company.  This led to his first visit to the USA, where a friend introduced him to a new technology he had never seen:  the Internet.

Ma’s friend said that absolutely everything a person could think of was on the Internet, so Ma tested out the claim by searching for a number of Chinese products.  He found none, and quickly determined that there was almost nothing about China on the Internet.  When he returned home, Ma decided to start China Pages, the country’s first Internet company.

China Pages wasn’t a success, but Ma learned a lot from the experience, and in no time, he made another attempt.  This time, he gathered 17 of his friends into an apartment to create a company that would let Chinese exporters post product listings that online buyers could browse.  Once their site was online, it quickly started to attract members from around the world. 

Ma Yun, known to the rest of the world as Jack Ma, became the first Chinese entrepreneur to appear on the cover of Forbes Magazine just two years after founding Alibaba.  But his biggest challenge was still to come. 

The opening of the Chinese market to the rest of the world had caught the interest of the leaders at eBay, the largest online shopping website in America.  They decided to expand into China, first by purchasing one of Alibaba’s competitors, then by opening their own Chinese eBay site.  Jack knew his company was under attack and could lose many of their customers, so he decided to take action. 

He put together a small team to create a new site specifically to compete with eBay and maintain Alibaba’s position as the leading Chinese Internet shopping destination.  In talking about the coming battle between the two companies, Jack said, “eBay is a shark in the ocean.  We are a crocodile in China’s Yangtze River.  If we fight in the ocean, we will lose.  But if we fight in the river, we will win."  What he meant was, if his company tried to do exactly what eBay did, the giant would certainly crush them.  But if he specifically tailored his new site for Chinese users with flashy, fun, human touches, they might just be able to triumph.

Jack’s company went on the attack, using bold business model adjustments, hilarious publicity campaigns and shrewd partnerships to win over both users and investors, and, after a five-year struggle, Jack’s company emerged as the clear winner when eBay shut down its Chinese site.

Jack Ma went from being an unemployable college graduate to becoming a globally-recognized entrepreneur and the richest man in China, with an estimated net worth of over 29.7 billion dollars.  And stunningly, he made his fortune creating and operating an enormously successful internet business despite never actually writing a single line of code himself.  This just goes to show that not knowing how you’re going to reach your dreams will never stop you, as long as you’re focused on why you’re undoubtedly going to succeed.

Until Next Week…

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With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility

Tomorrow is thanksgiving in the United States, and I’m grateful to my brother Jadd for sharing a personal story with me so I could share it with you. In his own words, here’s his story, with a great message as well…

“During the second half of my high school career, I was required to take precalculus to help prepare me for college math.  I’ve always been good with numbers, but I never really enjoyed math classes.  The truth is, it takes a certain level of maturity to look ahead to the future and realize how doing something that isn’t very enjoyable right now may be helpful or useful down the road.  Unfortunately, I didn’t have that maturity, at least not in relation to precalculus.

“By the middle of the semester, I was barely passing.  Then I made it worse by not only blowing off studying for a particular test, but writing answers on the test in the form of notes to my teacher like, “I don’t know math,” “I have no idea,” and “How could I possibly know this answer if I didn’t know the last two?” 

“At the next class, when he handed our tests back, the teacher made a specific point of singling mine out in front of everyone.  I’d received a 4 percent.  Yes, that’s 4 percent out of a possible 100... and truthfully, I don’t even know how I got 4 percent right.

“What’s interesting is how much this motivated me.  Whether it was out of embarrassment or deciding that I didn’t like the thought of my teacher viewing me as a slacker, I decided that I was no longer content to just scrape by.

“For the next test, I buckled down and studied hard.  I went in with confidence, and although I don’t recall taking the test itself, I certainly remember what happened the next day.  Everyone in the class received their tests back with grades written at the top except for me.  Mine had a sticky-note that read, “See Me.”

“After class, the teacher laid my test on his desk.  He pointed to several problems at random, asking me to explain my work and how I’d gotten the answers.  After I did, he looked at me, then took a marker and wrote “108%” on my test.  I had gotten every problem right, plus extra credit problems for bonus points.

“I looked at my grade, then at my teacher, and asked, “Is that the highest grade in the class?”  He nodded.

“I thought for a second, then said, “You wanted to make sure I actually knew how to do the problems, right?  That I didn’t cheat?”

“He looked at me, sighed, and said, “You’re really frustrating,” which I took to mean that it frustrated him that I could do next to nothing for half a semester, then score the highest out of a class of forty students when I actually applied myself.

“Obviously, he had a good point, and I learned an important lesson from that experience.  We all have weaknesses and strengths, but just as important as figuring out our strengths is making sure we’re not wasting them.  What good was I doing myself by knowingly underachieving?  None. 

“When you have a strength, it’s not just a good idea to utilize it, it’s imperative that you do so.  It’s not enough just to be good at something if you don’t contribute that value to the world.  When you unleash your strengths and maximize your value, there’s no telling how great of an impact you may have.

“For example:  People know that Albert Einstein originated some of the most revolutionary scientific theories and discoveries of the last century and a half.  But did you know that, after graduating from college and being certified to teach math and physics, he was unable to find a teaching position for two years?  In fact, he was so frustrated that he finally took a job in a patent office, where he worked for seven years evaluating other people’s inventions and discoveries!  Can you imagine what the last hundred years may’ve been like for humanity without the scientific breakthroughs Einstein made after leaving that job to focus on his strength? 

“In the words of Michelangelo, “The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.”  Aim high with your life!  Dream big, expect amazing things, and don’t hold back.  Your unique gifts may be exactly what the world is waiting for and desperately needs!”

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The World's Youngest Billionaire

The most common misconception about the Passion First Mindset is that simply having passions and thinking about them will bring them into your life.  It’s important to start there, but to truly live Passion First, you need to be willing to make sacrifices and take risks when you’re pursuing what’s most important to you.  This may involve doing something out of your comfort zone and going against the advice of others, even if they have your best interests at heart.  Or, if you ask Shark Tank’s Mark Cuban, it might mean living on ketchup and mustard sandwiches while everything else goes into pursuing your dream!  Here are a few examples of other individuals who faced huge risks and sacrifices in pursuit of their passions…

Ellen left college after just one semester to pursue her passion for stand-up comedy.  While holding down jobs at the likes of J.C. Penney and T.G.I. Friday's, Ellen sharpened her material, slowly pursuing her dream.  Within three years, she had become the emcee at a local comedy club, but it would take a more than a decade of castings, cancellations, setbacks and successes before Ellen DeGeneres truly established herself as a recognized comedic talent.  Today, she is ranked as one of the 50 most powerful women in the world, a status she attained only through determination and perseverance.

In 1995, Matthew's young daughter, who had shown incredible vocal talent since the age of 8, decided that she wanted to pursue singing as a career.  However, Matthew wasn't sure he could trust a manager he didn’t know to look out for her best interests.  Faced with a difficult choice, he understood his daughter’s passion and believed so powerfully in her that he resigned from his job to manage her singing group himself.  This cut the family income in half, creating immense strain on them, and even led Matthew and his wife to separate briefly.  Finally, though, the risk paid off when the group, Destiny's Child, was signed to Columbia Records, and his daughter Beyoncé started on the path that would eventually make her the highest-paid African-American musician in history.

When Elizabeth was a 19-year-old sophomore at Stanford University, she began to feel strongly that her tuition money could be used for a greater and more benevolent purpose.  She decided to drop out to start a company that would revolutionize global healthcare.  When she told her chemical engineering professor what she planned to do, he was concerned about her leaving her degree unfinished. Her reply was that she believed deeply in the idea of helping humanity at all levels, regardless of geography, ethnicity, age or gender. 

Today, Elizabeth Holmes’ passion has become reality.  Her company, Theranos, has created a blood test that is painless, more accurate, fast and cheap, making it perfect for use in poorer countries with little or limited access to traditional clinical blood testing.  At just 30 years old, Elizabeth has become the world’s youngest billionaire, but only because she was willing to step away from what was safe and expected, risking her future to pursue her dream.

There are thousands of stories like these.  Tom Hanks left college to be a full-time theater intern, and became one of the most respected and recognized actors in the world.  Tech-whiz Kevin Rose used money planned for a down payment on a house to start the social news website Digg instead, and today is the millionaire head of Google’s entrepreneurial investment division.  But remember, these aren’t just stories of individuals who dropped out or took risks without a goal or plan.  They’re examples of people who needed to chase their passions, and didn’t feel compelled to follow conventional thinking in doing so. 

If the path to your dreams requires a college education, a significant track record doing a particular job, or twenty hours a week at the gym, then get the most out of every minute you spend whichever of those you’re doing, and leverage the experience to bring your passion into alignment with your life.  If you're just following along and doing what’s expected without a clear idea of what you want from life, think about whether your time and actions are really getting you where you want to be.  You might need to take a different route, one that involves risk, sacrifice, and uncertainty, in pursuit of what you’re most passionate about.  That is, if you’re ready to put your Passion First.

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No Flip-flopping

On a warm spring day not many years ago, 8-year-old Madison came home from a trip to the beach with her family and went straight to her room, closing the door behind her.  A half hour later, she came out with a drawing to show her father:  it was of a pair of flip flop sandals with fish designs on them.  Madison looked at her father and said, “They’re fish flops!  Can you make them for me?”

At the time, Madison’s father Dan was a full-time bank employee who had a side business selling a line of fishing shirts he’d created.  It was more a hobby than anything else, but he had made a few connections in the clothing manufacturing world.  More importantly, he thought his daughter’s idea was ingenious in its simplicity.  That night, he went online and bought the fishflops.com domain name.

During the next several years, the father and daughter got serious about their business.  Madison's idea was to make flip flops that showed off her love for swimming, fishing and drawing.  When she wasn't in school, she worked on the designs, drawing them herself and choosing the color combinations digitally.  Dan threw himself into working on the brand, reaching out to his network of connections to find the right manufacturer and soliciting investments from family and friends. 

It took some time, but once they got some samples made, Madison and Dan went to a large clothing trade show to see what kind of interest they could get from retail stores.  The interest level was there, with the pair getting orders from several dozen stores who wanted to offer Fish Flops as part of their spring catalogs.  Convinced they had a worthwhile idea, Dan placed an order with their new manufacturer to get a huge quantity made by January.  However, they encountered their first speed bump when manufacturing was delayed dramatically.  The first shipment wasn’t delivered until May, and almost a quarter of their initial batch of orders was cancelled.

They were convinced they had a great product, but it took time and hard work.  With thousands of pairs of FishFlops sitting in a warehouse, Madison and Dan went to numerous trade shows.  At one point, they got a big order for 10,000 pairs, but the retailer needed them delivered in different packaging.  Every day for a month, Madison and Dan, along with the rest of their family and friends, unpacked cases of FishFlops and re-packed them according to the retailer’s request to fulfill the order.  Dan himself was in the warehouse until 6pm on Christmas Eve finishing the re-packing.

Meanwhile, Madison learned her way around everything from packing shipments and checking inventory to explaining their pricing at a trade show booth.  But the great thing about being a kid in business is that you don’t know how hard some things are, and not knowing means you’re not afraid to try them.  What they really needed was to get in the door with a big, recognizable retail brand.  While scanning through her Twitter feed, Madison saw a tweet from a Nordstrom buyer who was looking for new lines to add to the store's collections.  She wrote a letter to the buyer, and within just a few days, she got a response that they were interested. 

After six years of work between Madison and her father, Nordstrom’s began carrying FishFlops, and things really started to move.  Within a year, they were selling out all over the country, and Madison herself was getting noticed in the media for her entrepreneurial spirit.  As of this year, FishFlops are still selling well, and Madison, now 16, has her own clothing line for young girls.  Dan left the bank to dedicate himself to the business, and Madison has already put away enough of the profits to pay her own way through college.

Have you ever come up with an idea that you felt was great at first, but then you or someone else thought it might not work, so you gave up on it?  The story of Madison and Dan making FishFlops a reality is a great example of how important it is to follow through on your dreams.  In basketball, they say that you’ll always miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take, which means that if you never try, you’ll certainly never succeed!  Think about your big idea, and don’t let trying to be “realistic” stop you from figuring out how to take it to the next level!

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