An inspirational story about how struggle is an addictive thing

Fourteen years ago, he was a rural boy in Feidong, Anhui Province. He left Hefei by train for the first time. He slept on the train floor for the first time, surrounded by the smell of feet. Fortunately, the dream was so sweet. Dream of looking at the sea. Seven years ago, he was a graduate student at Xiamen University, still receiving subsidies from his family, and the only way he made money was as a tutor. Now he is the "Brother Hao" of 800 young boys, the leader of the largest "private school business" in the southeast region, and the president of Happy Learning Education Group, Zhang Hao.

Crazy idea

I started my business in 2005. During the winter vacation of 2004, I returned to my hometown, Hefei, and suddenly found that my parents were old, and I was still studying, useless, and had to rely on them to support me. My father is a primary school teacher and rides an electric car to get off work every day. Hefei is very cold in winter, which makes my heart hurt. Maturity in boys is often accomplished suddenly. When I went back to school in Xiamen, I missed home, my parents, and myself when I went to bed at night, so I quickly made an impulsive decision—to buy a car for my dad before he retired.

After I came up with the idea, I felt very nervous. He was about to retire and I hadn’t graduated yet. I immediately had a second thought - to make money, I must earn 100,000 yuan. I happened to be reading Carnegie's "Success Learning" at that time, and I was a little crazy. I took a piece of paper and printed out the two characters "One Hundred Thousand" and posted it on the wall.

What can you do to earn one hundred thousand? At that time all I could do was tutor. I did the math and found that tutoring in Xiamen at that time was 50 yuan for two hours, which was 50 yuan for one night. I decided to tutor six nights a week for 300 yuan, and tutor four times a day on Saturdays and Sundays for 400 yuan. Four weeks a month, less than 3,000 yuan, less than 40,000 yuan a year. But my goal is 100,000 yuan. Is it possible for me to collect 100 yuan in two hours?

I can find a tutor first, and after getting good results, I can use this as a case study and then increase the price. I worked as a tutor for a boy in the second grade of junior high school through an agency. After taking him for a year, he went from being the 50th from the bottom out of 360 students in the grade to being ranked second in the school during the high school entrance examination. He was admitted to Xiamen, the best middle school in Xiamen. middle.

Later, the child’s parents took the initiative to help me introduce a tutor for 100 yuan. Later, many people came to me, so after a few months, my spare time was full, but I felt very tired. Say it over and over again. I tell the parents: Send your children to Xiamen University on weekends so that they can experience the humanistic atmosphere of Xiamen University. So I found a small classroom at Xiamen University and taught children of the same age group together. Just do this until the summer vacation. I held two classes during the summer vacation, recruited more than 20 students, and earned more than 18,000 yuan.

At that time, there was an Everbright Bank across from Xiamen University. Every time I got money as a tutor, I would deposit all the money into it. What I was particularly happy about every time was looking at the last number on the passbook. Sometimes, in order to round up a round number, I would add all the change in my pocket. When school started after the summer vacation, I had four classes. In November of that year, when I deposited the last amount of money, it was a total of 100,000.

The beginning of the business

This was in 2005. Later, I rented up to 4 classrooms at Xiamen University at the same time and held 16 classes. At that time, I had already begun to recruit part-time tutors. I posted job advertisements, interviewed, trained, and taught in person. Many of our company's current vice presidents and directors of the Shanghai Business Unit joined at that time. They were only in their sophomore or junior years of college at that time, and they have never left "Happy Learning" since then.

In 2008, I returned to Hefei from Xiamen and bought a car for my father. My father became the only teacher in their elementary school who drove a car from the countryside to class. They will all be parked on the school playground.

From 2005 to 2009, I stood on the podium. For five years, I taught eight hours of classes every weekend. At noon, we went to the small classroom to eat lunch, then we lay down on a mat and immediately fell asleep for half an hour. After we got up, we washed our faces and read the afternoon lectures. We then continued classes in the afternoon until 8 p.m. Before 2009, we did not hire a cleaner. We did all the cleaning ourselves, had dinner at 9 o'clock in the evening, and prepared lessons afterwards.

Those things in struggle

Extracurricular tutoring must first meet the utilitarian needs of parents, which is to change grades, so it must be effective in this regard.

But if an organization only does this, we say it has a present but no future. We have a "3S happy learning method": the first step is to stimulate your interest in learning. If your child doesn't want to read, even the gods can't help him. The second step is to teach children learning methods and habits. The third step is to cultivate children’s values.

Regarding competitors, the biggest competitor is actually yourself - can you calm down and do this well? Education is a slow industry. It needs to focus closely on building the core competitiveness of enterprises and be patient and do it slowly. "Enterprises, like all things, have their own natural laws of growth." If you violate the laws, you will have to pay back sooner or later.

There is no risk in education industry policy. As long as the college entrance examination is not cancelled, parents’ demand for tutoring will definitely exist. We hope that "happy learning" will be the most diligent and solid in the training of teachers in this industry. (Inspirational article) Stable teacher resources are the greatest asset of "Happy Learning". In the future, we want to be an institution with the most soul among all educational institutions, not just to satisfy children's classes and exams.

At that time, there was a lot of pressure on enrollment. Sometimes after preparing for classes, I had to carry a big bag full of flyers and stuff them into the mailboxes of each community. I often encounter interference from uncles and aunts, and sometimes I feel embarrassed when I meet acquaintances. What's worse is running into security.

Once we went to a community, there was a row of mailboxes, very long and many. I was very excited every time I saw this, a bit like the one played by Chaplin in the movie "Modern Times". The screws required crazy labor, so I stuffed leaflets into them very quickly.

Unfortunately, the security guard came and told me that advertisements were not allowed in the community and that I had to take the flyers out of the mailbox one by one. If I didn’t, I would be beaten. A group of security guards surrounded me. At that moment I Most helpless.

I took my wife out every night, especially during the peak enrollment season before summer vacation, when I applied until one or two in the morning. My wife didn’t want to go, so I said you should accompany me. You don’t have to do anything, just stand next to me and talk to me. Just to overcome psychological fear.

Sometimes I think about it, why do we have to work so hard? I graduated from the Department of Business Management of Xiamen University. I have no problem finding a decent job, but I will continue to post after thinking about it. Why? Maybe struggle is an addictive thing.