I'll fight ten: one problem at a time
Originally written in Chinese. Translated with AI, reviewed by Gary. Read the Chinese original →
Over the past few days I've talked with a lot of founder friends. Some say they want to give up, some feel lost with no direction, and some are wandering in the gloom of failure. There's a sadness in the air.
I'm going through it myself, and I've also been here before. I want to write down a few thoughts, for those still on the road, and for myself right now.
I've had a business fail too. I ended up in debt and facing two court cases at the same time.
How did I get through it?
Looking back, there was no "killer move". It was just solving things one by one, slowly.
Ip Man's ten opponents
More than ten years ago, after graduating in the UK, I wanted to stay and work there, but I was unemployed for six months. I was rejected more than a dozen times and so discouraged I felt the sky was falling.
Then I was lucky enough to attend a career fair in London where Maybank was hiring. That day Tan Sri Abdul Wahid Omar, then the CEO, gave a talk I still remember today.
Someone asked him: how did you get to be CEO? Could you share the secret of your success?
He smiled and said that at the time his favourite film was Ip Man, which has a classic line: "I'll fight ten."
Everyone in the room who understood Chinese laughed.
But then he suddenly turned serious: how could one person fight ten at the same time?
He explained that if all ten came at once, Ip Man would definitely lose. The real way is to deal with one quickly, then the second, the third, all the way to the tenth.
He said life is just like that. Whether you're a fresh graduate looking for a job, building a career or starting a business, problems will always come up. The secret isn't solving every problem at once. It's solving them one at a time.
You came for yourself
Starting a business was never meant to be easy for anyone.
If you've decided to take this road, something must be driving you, something that makes you willing to carry the uncertainty.
Sometimes we feel it's unfair, and we care too much about how others see us. But that's actually the strangest part. Nobody forced you to start a business. You came for yourself.
Maybe it's the thrill of making money, maybe it's achievement, maybe it's an obsession you can't quite explain.
But whatever it is, it shouldn't be for other people's eyes. A startup should be about "living for yourself".
Mindset and reality
Adjusting your mindset won't make the problems go away. They'll just keep coming, one after another.
I also once naively believed that hitting some target, say one million in sales, would solve my problems.
In reality, after one million there are new problems. Don't ever think that once a competitor dies, you'll be fine. The next problem will still be waiting for you.
So the real way is to fight them one by one, like Ip Man.
Living in the present
These past few years I've also learned not to keep thinking "once this problem is solved, everything will be complete".
The road of entrepreneurship has no finish line. It's more like an endless practice.
Lately I've been fond of a bit of chicken soup my teacher 吴明光 poured for me: think about why you started.
Now and then, stop and talk to the deepest part of yourself, and understand why you chose this road in the first place.
Don't forget: you're not building a business for other people, but for your truest self.