Lessons from ALIBABA'S WORLD by Porter Erisman

Porter Erisman (former Vice President of Alibaba) tells a captivating and charming story of how Jack Ma rosed from obscurity and went on revolutionary ride in e-commerce.

Photo sourced from Amazon.

Erisman's personal account of Jack Ma's struggles and triumphs are shared with disarming candour. It's thus hard not to fall in love with such real life valour. It's also hard not to share how a school teacher, a "Tech Dummy," found Alibaba and lead it to become dominant e-commerce player world wide. Such extraordinary success serves to be beacon of encouragement by exemplifying how an individual can realize his dream by overcoming inevitable obstacles through passion, diligence, and resilience. 

This article is thus written to share some of the selected lessons from the book which is "both essential and instructive" to those who may love to read through or accidently come across my blog.

The ideals from the book may sound business oriented however, the ideals can also be applied in various fields of life. It's thus shared for educational purpose.

Introduction to Chapter 21
1. Believe in your dreams, find good people, and make sure customer is happy. (Jack)
2. ...combine Asian wisdom and Western operations. (Jack)
3. ...we are going after the shrimp. It's easy to catch a shrimp. But if you try to catch a whale, you might get hurt. (Jack)
4. A wrong decision is better than no decision in Internet time. (Jack)
5. Our problem, it seemed to me,  was that we had a lot of lofty talk and not enough tangible results.
6. It is better to be the head of chicken than the tail of a phoenix.
7. eBay may be shark in the ocean, but I am a crocodile in the Yangtze River. If we fight in the ocean,  we lose- but if we fight in the river,  we win. (Jack)
8. As a business, if you cannot change the law, follow the law. (Jack)
9. If we have no enemies in our heart, we will be invincible to the world. (Proverb)
10. We must stick to our promises. Today you've begun to have a little money.  You've begun to have a little prestige.  Don't change because other people see you differently. Don't change because you have money in your pocket. Because there is one thing that can never change: our dreams, our values, and promises.  (Jack)
11. If you don't imagine it, it will never happen.  (Jack)
12. Today is tough. Tomorrow is tougher. The day after tomorrow is beautiful. But most people die tomorrow night and don't get the chance to see the sun rise the day after tomorrow.  (Jack)

Although the book contains numerous profound lessons and meaningful phrases I've chosen to be selective and listed only few. 

To be continued...