Chapter 42 Text Yu Minhong: An idealist's real life lesson plan (2)

travel a dream On the road with a strong heart, there are completely different life experiences on the road.Because every successful person, even if he was poor and neglected, they all had different dreams a long time ago, because of the different dreams, all those people who are struggling on the road in the world have It's a world of different situations. Yu Minhong later wrote in an article: "We often hear people's various dreams, and every dream sounds beautiful, but in reality, we rarely see people who can truly persevere and go all out to realize their dreams. People are keen on I am good at talking about dreams, and regard it as a mantra, a kind of comfort to the day-to-day, boring, and poor life. Many people live with their dreams all their lives, but never seriously try to realize their dreams.

Only humans can dream and turn dreams into reality.There is no wonderful life without dreams. Dreams are people's yearning for the future.It means a life that has not yet been experienced, infinite possibilities, unexpected surprises, and confidence in oneself. But what stops people from realizing their dreams?We've heard a plethora of reasons.For example, you want to travel to a certain place, but you don’t have enough money; you want to learn English, but you don’t have enough time; you want to pursue someone, but you don’t think the conditions are mature enough, etc.People seldom attribute the reasons to themselves for things they can’t do or haven’t done. They often look for some external reason habitually, excuse themselves, breathe a sigh of relief, and then continue to live their mediocre life. Days, let the dream lie in a corner of the body and sleep soundly.

In fact, external factors only account for a small part of the reasons for whether you can realize your dreams, and subjective factors are the main reason for whether you can realize your dreams.For a person to realize his dream, the most important thing is to have the following two conditions: courage and action.Courage is the courage to commit.It also refers to a kind of courage to give up. If a person wants to fight for a certain dream, he must give up something that he is currently sticking to.It is impossible to want to experience the storms of the sea and keep the river calm; to climb the dangerous peaks with infinite scenery and walk on the flat and comfortable plains at the same time.Devotion means that once you determine a dream worth pursuing, you must devote yourself wholeheartedly.I think that things may not come true, but the prerequisite for success is to do it with all my strength. For example, if a person wants to learn to swim, the only way is to plunge into the swimming pool. Maybe he will choke on the water at the beginning, but he will definitely be able to learn to swim in the end. .

Therefore, the key to realizing your dreams is whether you can act decisively.Action is the most powerful force.A student once said that he wanted to travel all over the world in the future and become a traveler and adventurer like Xu Xiake and Marco Polo, to feel the boundless magnificence of the sea, experience the ups and downs of the desert, and explore the beauty of the sunset. The mysteries of the pyramids on the banks of the Nile, and the holiness of the Himalayas in the clouds.But he said that there is no money yet, and he will wait until he becomes a millionaire before doing these things.I asked him two questions, one is whether to travel if you don't become a millionaire in this life?Second, if you are too old to walk when you become a millionaire, should you travel?I told him that the best way is to go on the road now, take a stick and a bowl, and beg for food all the way to realize your dreams.Dreams cannot wait, especially not on the premise of realizing another condition. Many people have fallen into the stereotyped thinking that if they want to do this, they must do that first. In the end, they spend their entire lives in circles, and their lives never come out of the excitement.

Therefore, when we have dreams, we must take courage and action to pass through the fog of time and let life show a different color. " That's what Yu Minhong said, and that's exactly what he did, and his dream actually started from his father. In retrospect, many of Yu Minhong's rich and colorful life as a child were connected with his father. Yu Minhong's father often helped others build houses, and every time he finished building a house, he would pick up the broken bricks and tiles that others discarded.Over time, a pile of broken bricks and tiles has accumulated in their yard, and no one can figure out the purpose of this pile.Until one day, a small square house was erected in the yard. My father drove the pigs and sheep that had been raised in the open air into the small house, and then cleaned the yard, so that his family There is a pig house in the yard that is envied by the whole village.

His father explained to Yu Minhong all the mysteries of doing one thing through his actions—a brick seems to be of no use, and a pile of bricks seems to be of no use. If you don’t have a dream of building a house in your heart, even if you own the world All the bricks are just a pile of waste. If you only have a dream of building a house without bricks, the dream will not come true.Although Yu Minhong's father was an illiterate carpenter, he used to use the simplest actions to teach his son some broad and grand principles.Afterwards, when doing things, Yu Minhong usually asks himself two questions: first, what is the goal of doing this thing; That's enough for a day.

On the scene of "Win in China", Yu Minhong will pay attention to whether a player's project has a clear development goal, even if it is only a short-term goal. He believes that interest and liking cannot be the reason for you to do something or enter an industry , but there should be a more powerful and greater thing guiding you in front, this is the dream and the goal. In Yu Minhong's life, there are three events that prove the benefits of this kind of thinking.The first thing is Yu Minhong’s college entrance examination. The goal is clear: to go to university, you can’t do it in the first year, continue to take the exam in the second year, fail in the second year and try hard in the third year, and finally enter Peking University; the second thing is to memorize words , with a clear goal: to become one of the best English vocabulary teachers in China, so Yu Minhong began to memorize words one by one. In the pain of being constantly forgotten, the image of his father picking up bricks always floated in front of his eyes, and finally He finally memorized 20,000 to 30,000 words; the third thing is to do New Oriental, with a clear goal: To become the best English training institution in China, Yu Minhong teaches students an average of 6 to 10 hours a day. The teacher retreated and gave up, but he didn't. He seemed to have seen the hope that the house of New Oriental could be built, and he is still working hard until today.

a worthy dream Undoubtedly, a life with goals will be full and fulfilling. Goals have a guiding power. More people are willing to live in the direction, knowing where the eyes are and where the heart is pursuing. The guiding nature of it will lead life to different realms. How many people are misled by illusory or small goals, and finally drowned in the contempt of later generations. Goethe once said: "If you want to love your own value, you have to create value for the world." If you want your self-confidence not to be shallow and blind, at least you must first believe that the world will give you a recognition, a Solemnly rewarding, your goals are valuable to society.Yu Minhong’s strong spiritual support also comes from this. He mentioned more than once that a person should have value in society, and more than once he mentioned that he firmly believes in the significance of his education and training career. This value is the reason to persevere. It is the foundation of dreams.

At the competition site of "Win in China", Yu Minhong repeatedly commented on the contestants based on whether the "entrepreneurship project" has social significance. This is not just a choice of personal career, but also shows a vision and values, dreams Indeed, there are many kinds, but the criterion for choosing should not be one's own needs, but the recognition of society. Yu Minhong’s role as New Oriental undoubtedly promotes the exchange of Chinese and Western cultures. With the laurels of “Godfather of Studying Abroad”, he turned the TOEFL and GRE exams, which were once daunting to Chinese people, into a Ford-style production line. For the people trained by New Oriental, the feeling of New Oriental spirit may be far more than the comprehension of learning English. Many people are very impressed by the practice of New Oriental training, that is, New Oriental will print "New Oriental Spirit" at its own expense. Then give students a copy for free. So far, nearly 2 million students have received this book.

Yu Minhong said that New Oriental not only teaches students English, but also teaches them to be human, sublimating their ideals, pursuits and goals. Because of this, New Oriental's classroom is not only a world of English learning, but also a forum for nationalism and patriotism; New Oriental has successively held various free public lectures and activities to serve young students; New Oriental teachers will go to On the other side of the ocean, publicize the proud achievements of China's economic construction to Chinese students, and encourage them to return after their studies and serve the country.According to incomplete statistics, 70% of the Chinese students studying in famous overseas universities are disciples of New Oriental, and over the past 10 years, the number of people who have studied abroad from New Oriental and then returned to China to start their own businesses in the wave of "returnees" is even more numerous.

Education is important, and more important than education is the subtle influence. New Oriental has educated a group of people and influenced a generation. Most of the time, the development model of an enterprise often comes from the dreams and values ​​of the enterprise leaders. The entrepreneurial experience can be used for reference. The cultural atmosphere and value pursuit of the enterprise are determined by the entrepreneur's own background and ultimate goal, which cannot be imitated. No way to copy.As Yu Minhong said in "Win in China": "The ceiling of an enterprise is the boss of the enterprise. If the boss is like a small businessman, then the enterprise will always be a small business." The reason why any successful company can stand out in the brutal competition must be determined by certain characteristics of its leaders. Just like when He Long started a revolution with two kitchen knives, he did not necessarily know that he would be the marshal of the Republic. But there must be such a seed buried deep in his heart, and when the time is right, it will blossom and bear fruit.What kind of seedlings are planted will bear what kind of fruit, what kind of seeds are sown will bloom like flowers, that is a potential buried deep in the heart. The leader's value choice will determine the company's employment standards, and the company's employment will affect the company's development prospects.Someone once asked Yu Minhong, "What are your criteria for choosing a teacher?" He said, "Up to the standard in English, agree with New Oriental's philosophy, be good at expressing and understand humor, and add a little bit of humanistic feelings." In this way, because he knows that only such a teacher can truly teach students knowledge and correct life guidance. And just like the boss of Starbucks, Schultz, was also attracted by the values ​​and enthusiasm of the founder of Starbucks, came to work in Starbucks, and then hoped to convey this value to others.Because of the values, Schultz eventually not only became the boss of Starbucks, but also created a new business model and a Starbucks coffee culture that represents the way of life.The group of real people who work around Schultz are also full of enthusiasm, pursue their dreams, and dare to try. They adhere to the company's values ​​and concepts, and finally successfully created a "respectable" and "cute" Starbucks brand. The same is true for New Oriental. Although Yu Minhong himself may not have a clear understanding of this, this is actually the hidden force behind all successful brands: behind corporate profits must be people, a group of people with dreams and adherence to certain values, and This group, in turn, is selected or attracted by the values ​​of the business leader. This point seems to be worth pondering for all companies today when vested interests are very important. Among the rich men in China, Yu Minhong is the first teacher. Among the Chinese teachers, Yu Minhong is the first rich man.Therefore, he has a different temperament from other successful entrepreneurs, and New Oriental also has a culture that other companies do not have.New Oriental's unique culture and value system comes from Yu Minhong, and from his sense of social responsibility and humanistic feelings that are true, affectionate, and kind deep in his heart, and this is closely related to his tortuous growth experience.He once said: "For me, the spirit of the New Oriental is a series of unforgettable stories in my life: it is the pain without tears after being punished by Peking University, the endless despair after being rejected by American universities, and the endless despair after being rejected by other universities. The trembling of the whole body after being threatened by the organization is the heart-piercing cry after being rescued by the doctor; for me, the New Oriental spirit is the effort to never turn back after pain, the persevering pursuit after despair, The unyielding courage after trembling, the strength gathered after crying." Nan Huaijin once analyzed the two situations that people who grow up in hardships and finally succeed in this way usually have. He believes that they "or often lead to abnormal deviations due to psychological shadows. People always have a kind of hostility, don't trust anyone, let alone sympathize with anyone, love money like life, and psychological perversion are secondary phenomena. Or, on the contrary, those who are magnanimous, A man of insight, although he grows from hardships and difficulties, has more compassion and generosity, because his experiences let him understand life and the joys and sorrows of the world." Yu Minhong is undoubtedly the latter. It is the tolerance, control, encouragement and thinking in the face of all kinds of suffering that give Yu Minhong a kind of brilliance. This kind of brilliance is the humanistic feelings of knowing the joys and sorrows, knowing the cold and warm, and also a kind of broad idealism, which makes others pale in comparison.For this reason, in the lectures and speeches summed up by the students as "inspirational" style, he often used his own experience as an example, and the people who listened to him, when faced with such an idealist's real life lesson plan , there are very few who can not be deeply infected and moved by it. Yu Minhong once had a description of the various hardships that salmon experienced in his life, and thus summed up the three factors of the main line of life: growth, experience and maturity.He said: "We should strive to grow up and make our lives mature at all costs. In order to mature, we should experience nature, humanities, society and history to make our lives perfect; we need more sense of mission. Living is not only Just to live, there is a mission behind our life, this mission may be different, but in the ultimate sense, it should be the same, it is for us and our future generations to live happily in a harmonious and natural world The rich people in China are used to a selfish and greedy lifestyle, and when they are enjoying themselves, how many of them still think about the people at the bottom of their lives, not to mention future generations." This is Salmon's life, a life of experiencing hardships, having dreams, and always having a mission. It is also Yu Minhong's life. Bravely go through for a worthy dream Yu Minhong believes that the experience of life should be more precious than the ending. He uses the process of suffering like a salmon purgatory to describe the process of a valuable life: growth is a must, an unchosen destiny, but experience is expansion and enrichment. , is to make an active choice under the established destiny, while maturity is a qualitative change after accumulation, and it is a situation in another village. Similarly, Yu Minhong himself has been walking on the road of brave experience, full experience, and seeking sublimation in this way. The road he walked is still a long way to go, and he never thinks that this is the final ending. Even now, New Oriental has developed from a school with only a dozen students at that time to the largest comprehensive foreign language training institution in China. Not only that, New Oriental occupies about 80% of the current overseas training market in Beijing and 50% of the country. There are 350,000 students, and branch campuses have been established in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Wuhan, Tianjin, Nanjing, Yangzhou, Xi'an, Shenzhen, Toronto and other places.At this time, Yu Minhong said: "Now that New Oriental is getting bigger, I am facing more and more difficulties. Looking around, I began to understand that as long as New Oriental exists and develops, the difficulties and pains I will face It will be endless. How many times when I was in great pain, I made up my mind to give up New Oriental, hoping to be as far away from New Oriental as possible, but I know that I can't leave. What I need to do is not only to get out of the embarrassment of life, but also to face it bravely. Stress and difficulties at work." From a rural child who can’t speak Mandarin well to an excellent English teacher; from being rejected several times abroad to helping countless people go abroad; from a teacher who was expelled from Peking University to a principal; from once carrying a bucket of paste on a telephone pole Swipe small advertisements, and now manage a group company with branches all over the country, and then make it listed on the New York Stock Exchange... Yu Minhong still believes that the difficulties and pains will be endless, and he can never stop walking. Just as Yu Minhong himself said: "Life is a process." Indeed, life is just a process, but after going through this process, you have wealth, whether it is wealth in a practical sense or in a metaphorical sense. This kind of wealth makes life free from burnout and regret, just as the poet Guo Xiaochuan said: "I hope that every time I remember, I don't feel guilty about life." Everyone will grow old one day. When memories are filled with shining things, we are the winners. It seems that those truly successful entrepreneurs have gone through the only way from an ignorant natural person to an excellent business manager. This road is their road of cultivation. During this process, fear and anxiety have almost become their common The lingering feeling that in the end only those who overcome the confusion can go on easily. Entrepreneurs must also withstand this double adversity of life and business. Instead of being knocked down by this adversity, they stand up bravely. Will understand strength and insignificance, know respect and responsibility. How did Yu Minhong go through this path of cultivation? If we put aside all the halos on Yu Minhong's head for a while, what remains may be an eternal symbol of China's training industry, and if we pick and choose all his deeds, achievements and achievements, what remains will be—as Yu Minhong, a teacher, and Yu Minhong, a wealthy businessman. These two identities determine the difference between Yu Minhong and more businessmen, and also determine that what he experiences will be a role determined by history. The heavens will send great responsibilities to the people, and they must first work hard, work hard, and in a sense Speaking of it, the success of New Oriental is a stage set up by history, and Yu Minhong bravely rushed up to it.Some people say that the miracle of New Oriental cannot be replicated, and it is true. In the current training industry, it is almost impossible to become a Yu Minhong again.What kind of experience is this, which cannot be replicated? Some people say that Yu Minhong is a desperate man who has fulfilled a long-cherished wish of Chinese intellectuals: the unity of knowledge and action. When the ancient Chinese business tide was rolling forward, engulfing countless people with the business experience of surfing life, that is, the myth of making money, Yu Minhong started from scratch, built a family with intellectual capital, and finally became a major capital player in the integration of international business capital.The encounter and acquaintance between the teachers who are familiar with the teaching rules and the students who urgently need to pass the exam have created a sample "enterprise" of foreign language training: first, the tuition fees of their own students are used to realize the operation of the "enterprise", and then the investment of international capital is attracted Heat waves, "double-faced gods" and "amphibious people" have become Yu Minhong's essential attributes. It is most appropriate to use a sentence on his lips to describe it: "a teacher, a person with a fighting spirit." In 1991, Yu Minhong, a teacher at Peking University, resigned and entered the foreign language training department of Dongfang University where he had taught.After leaving Peking University, Yu Minhong went to work in a private school called "Dongfang". Two years later in the winter, Yu Minhong fired his boss again. Yu Minhong, who had never been a "good boy" or a "good student", founded New Oriental.Like all self-made entrepreneurs in the early stage, New Oriental’s early development was also difficult beyond imagination: those classrooms with air leakage in winter and sweltering heat in summer, only a few teachers, threats from other training classes from time to time, and Yu Minhong’s forever Unforgettable moment - in the cold wind, carrying a bucket of paste and brushing a small advertisement on a telephone pole... At that time, he founded his own English training school, New Oriental, in a 10-square-meter hut, leaving his wife on duty at the school, while Yu Minhong rode a bicycle to post enrollment advertisements on telephone poles along the street. Later, These classic moments became the "brain teaser" widely circulated in New Oriental: What is Yu Minhong's favorite? — Telephone poles.Thinking back to that cold winter night, the paste that was painted, was frozen to ice before the advertisement was posted... And these are all things that Yu Minhong never thought of when he was teaching at Peking University, but now they all happened.Yu Minhong was once helpless, but in the end he could only use his brain and learn bit by bit in his life: how to market himself and his products, how to identify the unspoken rules of various places and departments, how to deal with various people... Rousseau made it clear in his book: "Man is born free, but he is everywhere in chains." For Yu Minhong, the chains are the three most frequently used words by us Chinese in the past 28 years: making money, doing business, and running a business.Anyone who broke the shackles and transformed from a free class into a class for itself has achieved Chinese-style commercial success.And Yu Minhong is just one of them.Yu Minhong, who is between "freedom" and "shackles", is jumping and struggling in the law of negation of negation. He has the final say, doesn't look at anyone's face, and just relies on his own ability to eat. He wants to be a company with a Chinese background with a kind of arrogance and arrogance.The career that Yu Minhong wants to accomplish is a dream that all intellectuals in China have dreamed of but could not realize for thousands of years. Wang Zhenghua of Spring Airlines once described the difficulty of persisting in dreams: "You have to know that no one can put you to death if you are a real strong man. Only you can ruin you." In fact, each of us is not like this, Many times, because of my giving up, I am far away from my dream day by day. And Yu Minhong has struggled for this ideal for at least 13 years, 13 years, 47 years less than Goethe wrote "Faust", and more than Jia Dao who "one word in ten years, one song and two tears" Pleasure, New Oriental has been growing gradually under Yu Minhong's careful care. In 1995, New Oriental’s registered students reached 15,000, which indicated that New Oriental had gained a foothold in the highly competitive English training market. At this time, Yu Minhong was finally convinced that he could survive even if he gave up the iron rice bowl of Peking University, and he could survive without studying abroad. have a future. When he stopped worrying about food and clothing, a kind of instinct made him feel that New Oriental could no longer be content with small workshops, so he began to think about the mission and future of New Oriental.In order to carry out a grand plan of developing private education, in the winter of 1995, Yu Minhong came to the United States and Canada, found his former classmates to lobby around, looked forward to the vision of New Oriental with them, and invited them to join him.A group of "returnees" including Xu Xiaoping, Wang Qiang, Hu Min, Yang Ji, and Qian Yongqiang returned to China one after another, gathered under Yu Minhong's command, and became the leader of New Oriental.These people, like Yu Minhong, have the pursuit of freedom and dreams of Peking University people. They came together for an exciting goal and formed the core team of New Oriental. With their joint efforts, New Oriental has been pursuing excellence for many years. The spirit and unique educational concepts have been widely disseminated throughout the country, and now New Oriental has become a famous brand and is well-known at home and abroad. Every brand has a brand story.Zong Qinghou sold Wahaha nutrient solution in a yellow croaker cart, Zhang Ruimin smashed 80 unqualified refrigerators with a hammer, Pan Keton mixed soda water... and Yu Minhong's brand story is none other than "telephone poles"—— No one has ever forgotten that New Oriental started when Yu Minhong posted small advertisements on telephone poles. Since then, with the development of New Oriental, Yu Minhong has also experienced the continuous transformation of his personal role. In this transformation, he has gained not only wealth, but also life experiences that ordinary people cannot gain. The intellectual Yu Minhong entered the business world as a teacher, eager to run education and training, and he made a fortune from a teacher to a boss.To be a boss, Yu Minhong must first learn how to manage, and the essence of management is to say a thousand words and ten thousand, which is not as good as the Chinese saying "fairness is at ease with people's hearts". Therefore, Yu Minhong used the highest standard of lecture fees to attract the most A talented foreign language teacher, in this way, he not only has a group of excellent teachers, but also powerfully conquers the hearts of the people, and he "learned" management - the salary strategy is the "strategic eye" of the human resource strategy . In fact, what Yu Minhong has experienced is far more than this. Immediately afterwards, he must undergo the transformation from an academic elite to a marketing master.Yu Minhong must not only ensure that he must be the best teacher of professional courses in New Oriental, but also become a marketing master who can turn stones into gold in the Chinese training market.For marketing, Yu Minhong adopted a strategy of using more than 10% of the operating income for advertising and promotion fees to earn attention, expand communication, and build a brand. Therefore, in this chaotic training industry, New Oriental was able to win in the chaos. Yu Minhong Slightly better. As the saying goes, what is a businessman?Does a businessman's success look at how much money he makes or how he spends the money he earns?The general understanding is the former, and Yu Minhong's spending of these two sums of money has to be said to be stronger than that of many industrialists and businessmen-this happens to be the quality of intellectuals who are not stingy with money, and it is obtained in this way here. Performance. It is true that for today's entrepreneurs, Yu Minhong's experience may not be a sample that can be followed and followed. However, for China's education and training industry, Yu Minhong's experience has indeed become a symbol and a representative of a stage. The commercial symbol of the development process of the training industry. Experience is always the most important foundation. If you don't experience it, all your dreams will be empty talk. The success of the rich man Yu Minhong has made countless Chinese teachers want to move again and again. The power of role models is infinite, but Yu Minhong told everyone with the attitude of a successful man that he is not very satisfied with his current life. so big.In fact, anyone who knows Yu Minhong knows that this is actually his true idea, because he "focuses on the meaning of his dedication, focusing on experience", which has to be said, is a noble outlook on life, and more importantly, it is Behind this nobility, it is believed that the mentality of "experience is more important than results" will make people feel calm when facing fate, broaden their minds and horizons, and such people are always down-to-earth and humble, and it is easier Favored by fate. With the development of New Oriental, Yu Minhong has lost the opportunity to go into the classroom by himself, but he still insists on giving two to three hundred speeches all over the country every year, almost one every day on average, just like the beginning of New Oriental, using the power of language Bring joy and hope to every student.The artist repeated arias one by one thousands of times, while Yu Minhong repeated words, sentences, and lectures again and again. The seemingly identical repeated experiences of the two were not simply repeated, but realized through repetition. Brilliant. For all this, the students and teachers of New Oriental described it this way: "No matter how busy Lao Yu is, every summer class will visit various branch schools in person, walk among the students, and bring a ray of warm sunshine and care to the students. .Although his jokes have been repeated tens of thousands of times, every time he uttered them, the only reaction of the students is to laugh and applaud. For more than ten years, Yu Minhong has been conscientiously telling one after another modern fables about despair and hope. At this moment, Yu Minhong seemed to be still the same Yu Minhong.