Jack Ma: I've Had Lots Of Failures And Rejections | Davos 2015

Lesson 1Rejection teaches resilience

Well, I think we have to get used to it. We are not that good. Even today, we still have a lot of people reject us. So, I applied jobs for 30 times, got rejected. I went for a police, they said, no, you are not good. I went to even the KFC. When KFC came to China, come to my city, 24 people went for the job. Twenty-three people accepted. I was the only one guy. And we went for police. Five people, four of them accepted. I was the only guy that did not receive it. So, to me, being turned down, rejected. Oh, by the way, I told you that I applied for Harvard for ten times rejected.

Lesson 2Learning English with tourists

And there's no place you can learn English at that time. There's no books, English books. So, I went to the Hangzhou Hotel now called Hangzhou Shangri-La Hotel because that was the hotel that can receive the foreign visitors. So, every morning for nine years, I showed them around as a free guide, and they taught me English. And I think that changed to me. And people, when people talk to me and say, Jack, how can you speak English like that? Why sometimes you talk like Western guys? I think that was the nine years. These Western tourists opened my mind because everything they told me are so different from the things I learned from the schools and from my parents. So, now I have a habit. Whatever I see, whatever I read, I use my mind. Think about it for two minutes.