5 lessons children learn from Jack Ma's inspirational... failure
24 people applied for a position, 23 were accepted, only Jack Ma was rejected, but he considered it "a training course".
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The things Jack Ma shared in his talks have become an inspiration to many people. |
Jack Ma, founder and chairman of the famous e-commerce group Alibaba, was not born into wealth. He had a difficult time before founding Alibaba, the world's largest retailer. Throughout his life, Ma has always had a positive attitude in the face of failure and economic hardship.
During the World Economic Forum 2018, Jack Ma also shared some important lessons he has learned while gradually conquering life's challenges. Some of them are considered useful for parents to raise their children to achieve success.
1. Teach your children to learn from their own failures
"In life, what matters is not how much we achieve, but how much we have gone through the difficult days and mistakes," Ma told young leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
"If you want to succeed, learn from other people's mistakes, not from success stories."
Ma advises young people to create their own competitive opportunities instead of basing their goals and aspirations on other people's success stories.
“As a kid – even now – I never thought I would be here,” he said. “When I look back, every problem I had as a kid benefited me.”
2. Failure is acceptable
There are many success lessons for your child to learn through failure. It's not about being defeated - it's about getting up, dusting yourself off, and being more determined than ever to achieve your goal.
"I failed many times. People may know that I applied for many jobs, more than 30 jobs, all of them were rejected, even had no chance: 24 of us interviewed for a job at KFC, 23 were accepted, I was the only one rejected," the famous economist recounted.
Another time, Ma applied for a supervisory position along with five others and was the only one rejected. Then one time, Jack Ma and his cousin applied for a waiter job at a four-star hotel.“We waited in line for two hours,” Ma said. Finally, his cousin was admitted and he was again rejected.
Jack Ma said that his mother could only shake her head at her son, but he did not feel discouraged because he knew "this is a training course for me".
"No matter how smart you are, you will make mistakes... You learn from mistakes not because you will be able to avoid those mistakes when they come, when we have to suffer them, you will learn how to deal with them, how to face them".
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Starting from an unfavorable point, Jack Ma has climbed the steps to success. |
3. The importance of love and emotional intelligence (EQ)
As parents, we focus a lot (sometimes too much) on nurturing our children’s intelligence. How should we feed our children so that their brains can develop? How many enrichment classes do we send them to? And we keep going.
Intelligence – and a good IQ – is important for children, but Jack Ma reminds us not to forget another standard that is essential for their future success. That is emotional quotient or EQ. In other words, it is the IQ of love.
“To achieve success, one will need a high EQ; if you don't want to fail quickly, you will need a high IQ, and if you want to be respected, you need a high LQ – the love quotient,” he explained.
4. Teach your children to be soldiers
Trying to overcome the unfairness of life is a difficult thing. Many people give up. But there are people who have trained in advance and accepted this challenge. Jack Ma is such a person and his life story can be seen as a lesson in patience to teach our children.
Ma also revealed that his favorite movie is Forrest Gump. He said that the movie taught him that life is difficult, but one should move forward despite the odds.
“Nobody makes money from whale fishing, people make money from shrimp fishing,” he said cryptically.
5. Teach girls about their self-worth
Parents of young girls need to know that you are raising a future leader, scientist, astronaut, engineer, or teacher. Teach your daughters that they can do anything they want. Empower them with the knowledge that they are strong, powerful, and capable. And remind them to never doubt their abilities.
Ma understands the value that women bring to the world, especially in the workplace. He explains: "If you want your company to be successful, if you want your company to operate with wisdom, with care, then women are the best.
37% of Alibaba's senior management are women. Part of the 'secret sauce' of our success is because we have so many female colleagues."
