Pursuing Your Dream and Making Money on Your Way

By Feng Lun

The way we look at the future might determine the possibility of being successful or not. There are two different ways for people to look out to their future. One is to pursue their dream and make money on the way, while the other is to focus on money and have a vague dream along the way.

The first group of people give priority to something like a direction, a trend, or values rather than money. For example, an old lady who kowtowed all the way from Qinghai Province to the Potala Palace in Tibet must have done so with a sacred spirit that directed her way and calmed her mind. It's the same with entrepreneurs who have dreams. They are usually self-disciplined and strict with themselves, so as to keep their mind on the right track. Placing weight on things above money is crucial for all great entrepreneurs.

A few days ago, Wang Shi1called me to talk about the issue of housing prices. He said: “We should be rational and discuss what we can do to help maintain housing market stability and implement government policies that aim to improve the housing environment.” If Wang Shi put his personal interests above the interests of his customers and shareholders, he wouldn't be concerned about it. Instead, Wang Shi puts other things above money, which is actually the very reason why Vanke has always been at the forefront of the market whenever change has occurred. It has been 27 years since Wang Shi founded his company, and he never talked about how much money he as an individual wants to make or how much money he has made.

This reminds me of the wellknown writer, Qiong Yao, who “pursued love throughout her life and picked up marriage on her way.” In the history of Chinese female writers, she's probably the only one who pursues love, enjoys love, lives on love, and eventually achieved love. Her life story is widely known. While in middle school, she fell in love with her teacher and was scolded by her family for it, then she fell out of love and created her first works, Outside the Window, based on her own experience. She kept on writing and publishing love stories for more than a decade. She then fell in love with the owner of a publishing house. All her works were adapted into TV dramas and won great popularity.

Meanwhile, there is another type of girl, whose aim is marriage while love is only a bonus. Similarly, there are people who talk about their dreams at meetings and public speeches, but behind closed doors they rejoice most in how much money they have made.

Many real estate companies are only concerned with money, for which they make short-sighted decisions. For example, when a customer makes a complaint, a company with vision will respond quickly to the customer and come up with ways to improve their work and make the customer happy; while the money-driven company will ask their security guards to deal with the customer, perhaps making threats to the customer to try and get rid of the trouble. As you can see, these two ways of handling things are very different from each other.

Pursuing one's dreams and ideals will also impact one's way of evaluating profit, which is probably one of the most difficult tasks for enterprises. The reason why entrepreneurs find it hard mainly lies in three aspects. The first aspect is timing, which can determine something's value. Take drinking water as an example, drinking one drop is quenching, drinking a lot might be called performance art, drinking oneself to death would make one a cultural relic. As long as we persist, time can change everything.

The second aspect is who to work with. Lately we often joked among friends that many working women have been laid off from the Passion Night Club. Those women became prostitutes because they were working with bad guys; if it was Cai E2they met, they probably would have made an eternal romantic story. As you can see, the same act might lead to completely different results because of the people we surround ourselves with.

The third issue is values. Your virtues and values will determine what you do and not do. The worst kind of money is illicit money while the best kind is charity money, and in the middle lies prof it. We evaluate our possible profit every day and decide what we take. When it's illicit money we take, we have to return it when we get caught. When we treat the company's income as charity money, we are not being responsible to the shareholders. Suppose you are a major shareholder in a joint stock company, and you donate all the profit out, you are encroaching on other shareholders and making false contributions to society. So there are a lot of value-based judgments happening here, which impact our decision as to what to do and not do.

By adhering to the right values, you can apply a long-term vision when it comes to profit evaluation, and you tend to find partners with the same values. With a long-term vision, agreeable partnerships, and the right values, you will find a promising future. Some people apply the opposite method for prof it evaluation. They have money yet they just don't want to spend it on their dreams or ideals, perhaps because they tend to put themselves before their customers. Therefore, pursing our dreams and making money on the way means that we have to estimate our profit from a long-term perspective, while taking values and partners into accounts, which enables us to go further.

A great entrepreneur is usually one with vision, and who works hard for his or her dreams. As a saying goes, “Shoot for the moon, even if you miss, you will still be amongst the stars.” “Even if we cannot achieve it, we can still earnestly yearn for it.”

(From Entrepreneur, Issue 10, 2010. Translation: Lu Qiongyao)

Note:

1. Wang Shi is a Chinese businessman, the Founder and Chairman of China Vanke, the largest real estate enterprise in China and the largest residential real estate developer in the world.

2. Cai E (1882-1916) was a Chinese revolutionary leader and influential warlord, who was best known for his role in challenging the imperial ambitions of Yuan Shikai.

追求理想順便賺錢

文/馮侖

怎樣從現(xiàn)在看到未來，這是我們制勝的前提條件。有兩種人看待未來的方法不一樣，一種就是追求理想，順便賺錢。還有一種是追求賺錢，順便談?wù)劺硐搿?/p>

第一種人看得到，在錢的前面有一個方向、趨勢、價值觀，錢的前面還有一個東西。這就像一個老太太從青海磕頭到布達拉宮，其實她是沖著精神的東西去的，這才有方向、不慌張。有理想的創(chuàng)業(yè)者也可以這樣，能夠嚴(yán)格自律使自己的精神不偏不倚?？吹藉X前面的東西，對于所有偉大創(chuàng)業(yè)者來說都是最重要的。

前幾天，王石給我打電話，談到房價的問題，他說：我們應(yīng)該理性，應(yīng)該更好地討論一下怎樣保持市場穩(wěn)定，落實政府關(guān)于改善住房環(huán)境的政策。如果王石不把客戶利益、股東利益放到最前面，而是把個人利益放到最前面，他不會關(guān)心這些事情。王石總是去想錢以外的事情，反倒使萬科在每一次調(diào)控當(dāng)中都恰好走在市場的前面。如今，王石創(chuàng)辦這個公司已經(jīng)27年，他從來沒有談到過個人究竟要賺多少錢，幾乎沒跟我講過個人掙多少錢的問題。

這讓我想到大家熟悉的瓊瑤阿姨，她是“追求愛情，順便結(jié)婚”。在華人歷史上，她可以說是唯一一個追求愛情，享受愛情，靠愛情養(yǎng)活自己，最終成就愛情的女性。她的故事已廣為人知，在中學(xué)因為談戀愛被家里人責(zé)怪，最后失戀寫了《窗外》，之后投稿投了十幾年，最后和出版社老板愛上了，最后，所有作品拍成電視劇，廣受歡迎。

我們也常?？吹搅硗庖活惻⒆?，她們追求婚姻，順便愛情。同樣，也有一些人開會的時候和對外發(fā)言的時候講一講理想，關(guān)起門來總是慶幸自己賺了多少錢。

很多房企，只考慮自己賺錢的事情，做出短視的決策。比如說客戶有投訴，追求理想的企業(yè)會第一時間反應(yīng)讓客戶滿意，要改善；追求金錢的公司，會找保安威脅、收拾這個客戶，把這個事摁下去。一遠一近，處理事情的方法相去千里。

追求理想也會讓我們算賬的方法跟普通人不一樣，企業(yè)最難的是算賬。創(chuàng)業(yè)者之所以會面臨算不清楚的賬，大體有三個原因。

第一是時間原因，一個事情的時間會決定這個事情的價值。比如喝水，喝一下是解渴，喝很多是藝術(shù)，喝死就是文物。我們只要堅持，時間會改變一切。

第二個就是和誰做非常重要。和誰做呢？我們經(jīng)常開玩笑說，天上人間有很多勞動婦女最近被清退。如果她碰到的是壞人就是賣淫嫖娼，是蔡鍔就是千古風(fēng)流。行為一樣，跟的人不一樣，結(jié)果就很不一樣。

第三個就是價值觀的問題。價值觀會決定你做和不做。最差的錢叫贓款，最好的錢叫善款，中間的錢是利潤。我們每天算錢取和不取，你取了贓款，事后抓起來錢就退了。如果把公司收入都當(dāng)善款，公司不是對股東負(fù)責(zé)。假設(shè)你是一個股份公司，你是大股東，你要把錢全都捐出去，你對股東是侵占，對社會是偽奉獻。這里有很多價值判斷，讓你對一件事情做和不做有很多選擇。

堅持正確的價值觀，你就會有長期的算賬方法，也會找同類的合作伙伴。你堅持長期算賬，找同類合作伙伴，你有正確的價值觀，你就前程不可限量。另外一種算法相反，手里有錢，卻不肯多花一點錢為理想付出，你在營銷上就會把自己放在第一位，把客戶放在第二位。所以說，堅持理想，順便賺錢，就意味著我們要算長期的賬，算價值觀的賬和合作伙伴的賬，只有這樣我們才能夠走得更長遠。

一個偉大的創(chuàng)業(yè)者一定是心懷理想、努力奮斗的人。取法乎上，僅得其中，雖不能至，心向往之。

（摘自《創(chuàng)業(yè)家》2010年第10期）