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.

追求理想顺便赚钱

文/冯仑

怎样从现在看到未来，这是我们制胜的前提条件。有两种人看待未来的方法不一样，一种就是追求理想，顺便赚钱。还有一种是追求赚钱，顺便谈谈理想。

第一种人看得到，在钱的前面有一个方向、趋势、价值观，钱的前面还有一个东西。这就像一个老太太从青海磕头到布达拉宫，其实她是冲着精神的东西去的，这才有方向、不慌张。有理想的创业者也可以这样，能够严格自律使自己的精神不偏不倚。看到钱前面的东西，对于所有伟大创业者来说都是最重要的。

前几天，王石给我打电话，谈到房价的问题，他说：我们应该理性，应该更好地讨论一下怎样保持市场稳定，落实政府关于改善住房环境的政策。如果王石不把客户利益、股东利益放到最前面，而是把个人利益放到最前面，他不会关心这些事情。王石总是去想钱以外的事情，反倒使万科在每一次调控当中都恰好走在市场的前面。如今，王石创办这个公司已经27年，他从来没有谈到过个人究竟要赚多少钱，几乎没跟我讲过个人挣多少钱的问题。

这让我想到大家熟悉的琼瑶阿姨，她是“追求爱情，顺便结婚”。在华人历史上，她可以说是唯一一个追求爱情，享受爱情，靠爱情养活自己，最终成就爱情的女性。她的故事已广为人知，在中学因为谈恋爱被家里人责怪，最后失恋写了《窗外》，之后投稿投了十几年，最后和出版社老板爱上了，最后，所有作品拍成电视剧，广受欢迎。

我们也常常看到另外一类女孩子，她们追求婚姻，顺便爱情。同样，也有一些人开会的时候和对外发言的时候讲一讲理想，关起门来总是庆幸自己赚了多少钱。

很多房企，只考虑自己赚钱的事情，做出短视的决策。比如说客户有投诉，追求理想的企业会第一时间反应让客户满意，要改善；追求金钱的公司，会找保安威胁、收拾这个客户，把这个事摁下去。一远一近，处理事情的方法相去千里。

追求理想也会让我们算账的方法跟普通人不一样，企业最难的是算账。创业者之所以会面临算不清楚的账，大体有三个原因。

第一是时间原因，一个事情的时间会决定这个事情的价值。比如喝水，喝一下是解渴，喝很多是艺术，喝死就是文物。我们只要坚持，时间会改变一切。

第二个就是和谁做非常重要。和谁做呢？我们经常开玩笑说，天上人间有很多劳动妇女最近被清退。如果她碰到的是坏人就是卖淫嫖娼，是蔡锷就是千古风流。行为一样，跟的人不一样，结果就很不一样。

第三个就是价值观的问题。价值观会决定你做和不做。最差的钱叫赃款，最好的钱叫善款，中间的钱是利润。我们每天算钱取和不取，你取了赃款，事后抓起来钱就退了。如果把公司收入都当善款，公司不是对股东负责。假设你是一个股份公司，你是大股东，你要把钱全都捐出去，你对股东是侵占，对社会是伪奉献。这里有很多价值判断，让你对一件事情做和不做有很多选择。

坚持正确的价值观，你就会有长期的算账方法，也会找同类的合作伙伴。你坚持长期算账，找同类合作伙伴，你有正确的价值观，你就前程不可限量。另外一种算法相反，手里有钱，却不肯多花一点钱为理想付出，你在营销上就会把自己放在第一位，把客户放在第二位。所以说，坚持理想，顺便赚钱，就意味着我们要算长期的账，算价值观的账和合作伙伴的账，只有这样我们才能够走得更长远。

一个伟大的创业者一定是心怀理想、努力奋斗的人。取法乎上，仅得其中，虽不能至，心向往之。

（摘自《创业家》2010年第10期）