Preamble:
Have we ever insisted on our dreams and worked hard for them? Bao was such a self-motivated young man back then.
However, in the end, he failed and fell into disrepute.
There must be lessons to be learned from this.
So, what kind of ups and downs has the history of the legendary tycoon in Shanghai Tang's entrepreneurial rise and fall?
What fatal mistakes did he make? Let's uncover the ups and downs of this entrepreneurial year.
The blue sky above his head, his heart is peaceful: the dream-chasing boy Bao always ushered in a turning point in his life
In the early 1990s, when the east wind of reform and opening up was blowing, Shanghai, a prosperous metropolis, ushered in unprecedented opportunities and challenges.
In the context of this "era rush examination", countless young people with dreams have gathered in Shanghai, hoping to develop their careers here and realize their ideals.
Among them, a young man named Mr. Bao is particularly eye-catching.
Mr. Bao was originally an ordinary person in a small county town in his hometown, living an ordinary and ordinary life.
His parents were both working-class and did not have a good family.
When he was a child, Mr. Bao had a lively and cheerful personality, excellent grades, and was deeply loved by teachers.
The villagers said that he had a bright future, and they expected him to go to university and develop in the city when he grew up.
However, due to the financial constraints of the family, Mr. Bao had to drop out of school after high school to help the family.
In his hometown, Mr. Bao tried a lot of work.
He worked as a brick movers, as a delivery driver, but neither of them was a long-term solution, and there was no prospect at all.
Mr. Bao is eager to change the status quo, get out of the small county town of his hometown, and make a career in a big city.
Whenever he accidentally caught a glimpse of the bustling pictures of Shanghai and the skyscrapers of Hong Kong in magazines, he couldn't suppress the yearning in his heart.
On this day, Mr. Bao suddenly heard that a Shanghai businessman was going to come to their county to invest in a chemical project and needed to recruit a large number of workers.
Mr. Bao's eyes lit up and he couldn't wait to apply.
The investor was later his uncle, and Mr. Bao impressed him with his proactive attitude and was hired as a general worker for the project.
A year later, the chemical project was completed.
Just when everyone was ready to return to their original life, Mr. Bao summoned all his courage and asked his uncle to give him a chance to work in Shanghai.
Maybe it was the ambition and determination in his eyes that moved his uncle, or maybe his uncle took a fancy to his potential, in short, his uncle promised to let Mr. Bao follow him to Shanghai to break through.
When Mr. Bao walked out of the train station for the first time, the oncoming high-rise buildings and the endless flow of people made him a little overwhelmed by the courage to move forward.
As he imagined, Shanghai was indeed a place of abundant resources and opportunities, and at the same time, he also saw the distance between himself and this strange city.
For a time, there were mixed tastes.
When he first arrived in Shanghai, Mr. Bao was full of yearning and longing for this modern city.
However, reality soon poured cold water on him - Shanghai was not the rainbow paradise of his dreams, but a highly competitive real society.
Mr. Bao thought that he would find a decent job, but who knew that he could only do some menial chores.
Due to the local hukou, it is difficult for Mr. Bao to get a position as a regular worker, let alone buy a house.
What's worse is that Mr. Bao has no housing of his own at all, so he can only send people under the fence.
So he had to rent a dilapidated wooden house on the outskirts of the city.
While working hard, Mr. Bao asked around for news of the purchase of a house.
However, it is more difficult for a foreigner to buy a house in Shanghai than to climb to the sky.
There have been several times when Mr. Bao has taken a fancy to the listings that have turned yellow for various reasons, which makes him feel frustrated.
In order to survive in Shanghai, he had to work hard to make money, living in a dilapidated wooden house every day, living an unsightly poor life.
In the face of such a difficult environment, there were several times when Mr. Bao wanted to give up and go back to his hometown.
But every time he was able to persevere, because he knew that Shanghai was in a period of once-in-a-lifetime development opportunities, and he could not fail to back down at this time.
During this time, it happened to be the golden age of Shanghai Tang's construction.
With the development of Pudong, many large enterprises have come to Shanghai to set up factories, open factories and build factories.
Because of its good geographical location and abundant human resources, Pudong has created countless new chaebols in Shanghai.
Mr. Bao watched as the people around him were making money and success on the cusp of this storm, but he was never able to turn over.
It made him feel very anxious.
Just when he was lonely and had no future, a fate accidentally broke into his world.
The uncle who invested in the hometown project back then has become a prestigious business tycoon in Shanghai at this time, and he met Mr. Bao again.
Honey blends oil, spends money like earth: the loser treasure always becomes famous and soars to the sky
In this reunion, Mr. Bao plucked up the courage to visit his uncle and told him about his predicament in Shanghai.
Perhaps it was fate, my uncle couldn't bear to see this young man living a miserable life, and decided to accept him as a subordinate and let him start a business in his own company.
At first, Mr. Bao was just an ordinary clerk in his uncle's department store.
However, he was diligent and studious, and his business ability was outstanding, and he was quickly appreciated by his superiors.
Through several years of hard work, Mr. Bao gradually rose to the position of general manager of the branch, and began to take charge of the whole branch's profit.
In this position, Mr. Bao was able to fully use his business acumen, he frequently developed new customers, boldly tried new models, and soon doubled the profits of the branch.
Mr. Bao began to become famous, and he also became prosperous within the company.
Three years later, Mr. Bao accumulated sufficient contacts and financial strength in his uncle's department store.
He believes the time is ripe to start his own business.
So he resolutely decided to resign from his uncle and create his own company in Pudong.
Uncle Bao had high hopes for Mr. Bao's proud protégé, he not only fully supported Mr. Bao's entrepreneurial decision, but also gave him the latest business philosophy as guidance, and provided the first pot of gold as start-up capital.
With the great help of his uncle, Mr. Bao soon opened a clothing import and export trading company in Pudong.
With excellent business acumen and rich network resources, Mr. Bao's business is booming, and orders are continuous.
As a Shanghai citizen in the 90s, everyone still remembers how popular the jeans launched by Mr. Bao were.
It was worn by almost all young people and became a popular symbol of the time.
Mr. Bao seized the opportunity to occupy the market, and the initial investment was quickly repaid.
Within a few years, the company had grown into one of the largest enterprises in Shanghai, and Mr. Bao had also made a name for himself in Shanghai and became a new generation of billionaires.
The reporter interviewed Mr. Bao's mansion by the Huangpu River, which is 5 stories high, and several luxury cars are parked in the yard.
At that time, this was definitely a wealthy configuration with a lot of money.
After reaching the peak of his career, Mr. Bao lived a very luxurious life.
Throughout the day, he would drive his sports car to the streets to shop or party with friends.
Mr. Bao's hand full of diamond rings gathers with celebrities in Shanghai's most exclusive hotels, and he does not hesitate to spend money between jokes.
In order to show his luxurious taste and status, he did not hesitate to throw money and extravagantly waste, as if the money was not worth mentioning to him.
And Mr. Bao, who was helpless when he first came to Shanghai, has been completely left behind, replaced by a swaggering second-generation sling style.
At this time, Mr. Bao had completely left the previous hardships behind and lived a prince-like life.
Treacherous and lazy: sit back and relax, always break the love and righteousness, and break the flesh and blood relationship
If Mr. Bao's initial success was due to the help of his uncle, a benefactor, then his subsequent actions made this benefactor deeply disappointed.
At first, my uncle had high hopes for Mr. Bao's proud protégé, regarded him as his own, and has been cultivating him to become his successor.
Uncle passed on his lifelong network resources and business ideas to Mr. Bao, leaving no reservations.
And the outside world often speculates that Mr. Bao is the only illegitimate son of his uncle, otherwise he would not be so important to this young man.
However, with the growth of Mr. Bao's career, his respect for his master and uncle is also weakening.
The uncle who has been a teacher for many years seems to have become a stumbling block on the road to his career.
In particular, the uncle often pointed fingers at Mr. Bao's friends, which made Mr. Bao very dissatisfied.
"I'm the boss now, why should I listen to him!" Mr. Bao was secretly more energetic in his heart.
But it was under the care of his uncle that Mr. Bao seized the market opportunity, seized the Pudong real estate, and completed a new round of rapid expansion.
Mr. Bao himself didn't realize that if it weren't for his uncle's foundation and funding, he wouldn't be able to get to where he is today.
What makes my uncle most sad is that Mr. Bao blatantly betrayed his mentor for a business.
It was a large jeans purchase order.
Originally, this business had basically been contacted by my uncle and was ready to be given to Bao's head office.
This order is crucial for Mr. Bao's sales target for the new quarter.
And Uncle also hopes that through this order, he will once again test the execution of Mr. Bao.
But a businesswoman named Miss Wang came out halfway and bought the goods at a high price.
It is said that Ms. Wang's temporary price increase is 20% higher than the market price.
No one can refuse such a condition.
And this Miss Wang is Mr. Bao's ex-girlfriend.
It turned out that Mr. Bao and Miss Wang had a very strong relationship before, and the two almost entered the marriage hall.
However, the good times did not last long, and the two finally broke up due to the disparity in family background.
In this reunion, Miss Wang wants to defeat Mr. Bao emotionally and prove herself with career success.
Mr. Bao may have been out of revenge, and secretly helped Miss Wang without her uncle's knowledge, so that she could easily win this big order.
In fact, he himself knows how much of a blow this will take on the company's sales plans.
However, in the face of his ex-girlfriend, Mr. Bao lost his mind and only thought about revenge.
Uncle was disappointed, but also angry.
He asked Mr. Bao to question, but Mr. Bao was upright and at ease.
"That's the rules of business in the mall!" Mr. Bao sternly refuted his uncle's accusations.
Uncle suddenly realized: I accepted you as an apprentice back then, but I was really blind!
I regard you as a relative, but you trample on our affections.
From now on, you and I will have no light!" After that, my uncle slammed the door and left, and there was no more news.
Since then, my uncle no longer cares about the ups and downs of Mr. Bao's career, and lives in seclusion in the countryside to cultivate himself.
Due to the loss of his mentor's guidance, Mr. Bao's business eventually failed in the stock market, and the company went bankrupt.
A dream, after all, I woke up.
While Mr. Bao was on the peak, Miss Wang was on the trough.
After winning a large order, she waved her hand and invested heavily to set up her own trading company.
However, due to the limitations of her ability and the fact that Mr. Bao no longer helped, her company soon lost a lot of money and was on the verge of bankruptcy.
In fact, Mr. Bao gave advice to Miss Wang on a whim, and later the company's own big orders couldn't be accepted, so how could he still take care of Miss Wang.
Miss Wang is a female streamer, and it is too difficult for her to gain a foothold in Shanghai.
She took Mr. Bao's sweet words seriously, and only then did she end up ruined.
At this moment, Ms. Wang was ruined and forced to liquidate the company.
She crouched alone in the empty office, tears streaming down her face.
At this time, her old friend Mr. Wei came to the door and asked Miss Wang to marry her.
Mr. Wei has been pursuing Miss Wang for a long time, but he has not been able to touch her heart.
Now seeing Miss Wang falling from the clouds to the dust, Mr. Wei can't help but feel distressed.
He offered to use his fortune to help Miss Wang tide over the difficulties, but the only condition was to become his bride.
At first, Miss Wang was extremely reluctant to accept Mr. Wei's kindness.
In her heart, Mr. Wei is too mediocre and not bold enough.
And she herself has a lot of superiority, thinking that Mr. Wei is not worthy of herself.
But the reality is ruthless, she has nothing, so she can only reluctantly nod and agree.
In this way, Miss Wang, who was originally just devoted to her career, put down her body because of the failure of her business and married her boyfriend Mr. Wei, who loved each other.
After marriage, she lived a petty-bourgeois ordinary life.
Although Mr. Wei took good care of her, she never forgot the passion and excitement brought by business.
As for Mr. Bao, his business empire collapsed in the stock market crash.
The once richest man in Shanghai suddenly fell to the brink of bankruptcy, not only did his mansions and sports cars be nationalized, but he also owed huge foreign debts.
Mr. Bao was no longer able to throw money on the beach, so he could only hide from the creditor and live a hard but low-key life.
When he woke up from a big dream, Mr. Bao understood a lot of truths.
If it weren't for the cultivation of my uncle at the beginning, there would be no commercial kingdom later.
After he got his will, he even betrayed his teacher, and he was simply dizzy.
Now it's too late to set sail again, so I can only continue to live in the painful experience.
Maybe the love of children is not as deep as the love of flesh and blood.
While we are chasing career success, we should not lose the things that are really important in life.
Those hard-won feelings are the true meaning of life.
Epilogue:
The inspiration contained in Mr. Bao's entrepreneurial story is particularly profound.
When we strive for our ideals, we should not be carried away by success, and we must always maintain a humble and loving heart.
First and foremost, we need to be grateful to the people who have helped us grow.
For example, Mr. Bao must be grateful for the help given by his uncle, and he must not be ungrateful.
Secondly, we must maintain high business ethics.
Treachery will eventually reap its own consequences, and we must not compromise the bottom line for the sake of interests.
Thirdly, we need to maintain a positive mindset.
In case of failure, don't be discouraged, still stick to your original intention and start again.
Finally, don't forget to cherish the people around you.
Perhaps it is these ordinary feelings that make our lives complete and meaningful.
We are all moving forward in the flow of time, and we hope that everyone can keep their hearts and live the meaning of life.