0.2 ｜ What Success Manuals Couldn't Explain
II. After Twenty Years of Entrepreneurship, I Found What Success Manuals Couldn't Explain
If the story stopped here, this book could be renamed How I Earned My First Pot of Gold Through the Law of Attraction. But the problem is: the story was not that simple.
In the twenty years that followed, I started several companies. Some became top-three in their industries, some reached valuations of hundreds of millions of dollars, some died halfway, some were glamorous, and some ended in a mess. During this process, I did two things that challenged traditional "success manuals":
- I became a "Professional Planner." I joined a firm known as the "McKinsey of China," creating mid-to-long-term plans for state-owned enterprises, private firms, and listed companies. I knew exactly how to analyze industries, how to do top-level design, and how to formulate a "rigorous roadmap to success." Consequently, I had the opportunity to directly ask "Truly Great Entrepreneurs": "How did you succeed?"
I discovered a cruel yet consistent answer. Almost all great entrepreneurs agree on this point: All significant successes are unplanned; all beautifully crafted plans are ultimately rewritten by reality. They have diligence, ability, and judgment, but when they speak of the "true turning points," these words often come out:
- "I was lucky,"
- "I just happened to meet this person,"
- "Actually, I didn't expect it to turn out like this at first,"
- "At that time, I couldn't hold on much longer, then suddenly..."
Does it sound familiar? It was strikingly similar to my experience of earning my first pot of gold. Yet, the vast majority of them do not read or even know of success manuals; in fact, most true entrepreneurs hold "success manuals" in contempt.
Jack Ma once said: "If a young person becomes too obsessed with success manuals, they are ruined!"
- The "Idol" Paradox. Because I attributed my first success to those manuals, I promoted them intensely. My family had never seen anyone start from zero in Shenzhen and succeed, so I became the idol of my younger brother, cousins, and classmates. Many of these young friends and relatives read the books I recommended with extreme seriousness, following the instructions even more precisely than I did.
I even participated in "Success Training Camps," where the students were far more desperate, frantic, and devoted than I was.
Yet, ten years later, most of those relatives, brothers, and classmates—who studied harder, believed more fervently, and followed the instructions to the letter—did not achieve the success they sought.
This made me increasingly confused:
- Why does one person read Think and Grow Rich and turn their life around, while another sees no change?
- Why was manifestation so fast when I was in my twenties and "knew almost nothing," but became harder later on?
- Why do many of the most successful people never read success manuals—even despise them—yet live as if they were the textbooks themselves?
Traditional success manuals tell us:
- How to imagine,
- How to use autosuggestion,
- How to set goals,
- How to motivate ourselves.
But they do not truly answer one question: Who is deciding that "final leap"? What truly determines success? Who is guiding "all the failed plans" toward an unexpected result, following a predetermined pattern?
