---
title: "Zeng Guofan: Those Who Achieve Greatness Are Those Who Endure"
description: "This article uses the story of a successful employee and a failed one to illustrate that success comes from enduring hardship wisely, not just suffering. It introduces the concept of 'endurance quotient' and distinguishes between foolish, bitter, and wise endurance, emphasizing that wise endurance is a form of cultivation and strategy."
author: "东方赢"
publisher: "New Distribution"
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published: "2018-02-05"
language: "en"
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# Zeng Guofan: Those Who Achieve Greatness Are Those Who Endure

> This article uses the story of a successful employee and a failed one to illustrate that success comes from enduring hardship wisely, not just suffering. It introduces the concept of 'endurance quotient' and distinguishes between foolish, bitter, and wise endurance, emphasizing that wise endurance is a form of cultivation and strategy.

**01**
**This is how the gap in life is created**
This is a legendary story that happened around me.
One of my departments does management consulting, and we once had a client in the agriculture and animal husbandry industry. More than ten years ago, I started as a strategic and corporate culture consultant for this company. At that time, I went to its Hunan branch to conduct market research, accompanied by a regional manager surnamed Chen, whom I called Xiao Chen.
When we arrived at a county, I noticed he was very familiar with the local market conditions, speaking about them as if reciting his own family treasures. I asked, "How do you know this area so well?" He said, "After graduating from a junior college, I started as a salesperson in this company. Last year, I became the regional manager for these counties, so I moved my family from the provincial capital to the county seat. I spent the first week understanding the overall situation, then made a market expansion roadmap, and followed it village by village to open up the market. Sometimes, when encountering tough nuts to crack, I had to make more than ten trips back and forth." He spoke with ease and humor, but I knew that working in rural markets, braving wind and rain, was very hard. Without the ability to endure hardship and patience, it's difficult to achieve decent results.
A few years later, I met Xiao Chen again at the company headquarters in Beijing. He told me he had long left Hunan. First, because the branch changed its general manager, he was transferred to manage production. Two years later, the headquarters transferred him to a remote province as the general manager of the branch. He said the reason for this promotion opportunity was that during those two years of managing production, although his performance-based salary decreased, he used the time to familiarize himself with production management. This time, the headquarters transferred him to be the head of the branch mainly because he had experience in both production and sales, and they trusted him.
I also heard that Xiao Chen was quite forward-thinking. A few years ago, the company implemented an employee stock ownership plan. Most employees lacked confidence in the company's development and dared not buy shares. But Xiao Chen used most of his salary and bonuses each year to purchase company stock.
Ten years later, the company he had served for over a decade finally went public on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. It was said that his stock was worth over 100 million yuan that year.
Senior colleagues familiar with his experience all praised him: "This kid finally made it through!"
I also know another veteran employee of this company. Compared to Xiao Chen, he was even more capable and held a higher position at the time. But more than twenty years later, at nearly 50, he still has nothing. Why? Because after working at the company for a few years, seeing that the company was still small and his income was not high, he jumped to what he thought was a better company. Later, feeling unfulfilled, he thought, "Why not start my own business?" But he lacked persistence in entrepreneurship, always wanting to make quick money. He would switch to a new industry after a few years if it proved difficult. Although capable, he remains without achievement to this day.
The different life paths and outcomes of these two people remind me of a story circulating online.
A man heard that there was a wise monk in the mountains, so he went to seek the monk's guidance, hoping to find the secret to wealth. The monk asked him to clean the courtyard first. After one day, he became impatient and wanted to quit.
The monk held a small bag of rice seeds and said to him, "Look at these seeds. It takes four months for them to grow into rice. You can't even endure one day of work. Your patience is less than a grain of rice. How can you hear the voice of wealth?"
**02**
**Success is achieved through endurance, but this endurance is a form of wisdom**
Not long ago, various inspirational articles about "success is achieved through endurance" circulated online. One of my students, a senior executive, discussed with me, saying, "Nonsense. There are many people who endure in this world, but how many actually succeed?"
I looked at those articles and found them reasonable, but what my student said is also reality. This contradiction sparked my thinking. After some reflection, I reached three conclusions:
First, the word "endure" seems simple, but it actually touches on our outlook on life and success. As the saying goes, "Water flows downward, people strive upward," indicating that everyone aspires to success at the top. But striving upward is hard work and an uncomfortable experience.
Based on what I've seen and experienced, **all success lies not in the "comfort zone" of physical and mental feelings, but in the "discomfort zone."**
Second, anyone who wants to succeed and climb the mountain of success, big or small, **must enter the "discomfort zone" and learn to endure,** tolerating various physical and mental discomforts, not escaping, and persisting to the end to succeed.
Third, **endurance is a skill and a wisdom.** Endurance must be practiced with care and method; not all endurance leads to good outcomes.
**Therefore, I call the ability, level, and wisdom content of endurance the "Endurance Quotient."**
Endurance and "Endurance Quotient" can be divided into three types:
> (1) **Foolish endurance.** This type of endurance persists in the "discomfort zone" but is passive and unambitious. It endures but yields no good results.
>
> (2) **Bitter endurance.** This type has pioneering spirit but is too turbulent and chaotic, causing physical and mental exhaustion, and success is not easily achieved.
>
> (3) **Wise endurance.** Wise endurance is about enduring with clarity, calmness, effectiveness, and efficiency, without escape, passivity, blindness, confusion, or anxiety. This type of endurance can achieve both personal growth and success in endeavors.
The billionaire employee in the opening story belongs to the "wise endurance" type.
**03**
**Endure, persist, endure again, persist again**
**Life is like a marathon; often endurance is the only right choice, and you must rely on it.** Endure and submit to necessary discomforts, strive step by step, do not give up easily, and only by enduring can you emerge and see the light at the end of the tunnel.
For example:
> **The hardship of learning and growth,**
>
> **The humility, setbacks, and grievances of being at the bottom during development,**
>
> **The steps, trivialities, pressure, and worries in the process of doing things,**
>
> **All these, you must endure,**
>
> **Not only persist but also endure and submit.**
For example:
> **When facing difficulties,**
>
> **When encountering failures,**
>
> **When suffering losses,**
>
> **When in a dilemma where you can neither advance nor retreat,**
>
> **At these times, you must endure,**
>
> **You must persist and hold on, and not give up.**
A seasoned investor has seen many entrepreneurs rise and fall. She said, "When facing adversity, many founders panic. Employees leave, executives resign, competitors get funding, and growth stops. They are very anxious. I want to tell you, there's nothing to panic about. If you think of a company's life cycle as 20-30 years, this year's pain is just a short time. Many great companies have gone through such pains. These pains are nothing. As long as you survive, there is hope."
If you endure, you stand out; if you don't, you're out.
**04**
**Endurance is a form of cultivation**
Mencius said, "When Heaven is about to confer a great responsibility on a man, it will first test his resolve, exhaust his muscles and bones, starve his body, impoverish his life, and disrupt his undertakings. By these means, it stimulates his mind, hardens his nature, and supplies his incompetencies."
In plain language: When Heaven assigns a great mission to a person, it first makes his heart suffer, his muscles and bones weary, his body hungry, his skin thin, his life poor, and his actions thwarted. Through these, it awakens his mind, strengthens his character, and increases his abilities.
**Endurance, on the surface, is suffering, but in essence, it is cultivation and elevation, as Lin Yutang said: "Holding a teapot, boil life down to its most essential essence."**
On the road of life, no one has a smooth path or everything going their way. If you regard endurance as a preference, if you regard endurance as cultivation, and if you can withstand all trials, then when the road turns, you will harvest extraordinary joy, perseverance, and inner peace.
Thus, some endurance can turn bitterness into joy; some endurance can make your heart as hard as iron.
From then on, whether facing favorable or adverse circumstances, you will not be arrogant, impatient, fearful, confused, worried, reckless, or retreating; you will live in the present, sleep when it's time to sleep, eat when it's time to eat, work when it's time to work, with patience and calm, immersed in the moment, achieving tranquility and far-reaching goals.
**05**
**Endurance is a strategy**
Decades ago, during the early stages of the War of Resistance against Japan, there were two subjective opinions among the Chinese people: one was blindly optimistic "quick victory" theory, and the other was pessimistic "defeatism." Mao Zedong calmly and realistically proposed the "protracted war" thought, believing that the quick victory theory would lead to reckless action and failure, while defeatism would lead to abandoning resistance and surrender. Both were wrong. The correct choice was to build and leverage China's advantages over Japan in space and endurance to win the war with the weak defeating the strong. The final victory of the War of Resistance confirmed Mao's strategic foresight.
Endurance must be based on profound and far-sighted cognition.
Every thing we want to accomplish has its own laws and time cycles. Endurance is the recognition, respect, and submission to these laws and cycles, and the persistence in strategic execution.
Endurance is the recognition, respect, and submission to opportunities, waiting, and accumulation.
Endurance is the recognition, respect, and submission to timing, waiting, and accumulation.
We must not only endure at the tactical level but also be good at enduring at the strategic level! Endure in more valuable fields or on the path to greater value goals.
The road to success is not crowded because few people are good at enduring.
**06**
**Endurance is refinement: build strong fortresses, fight dull battles**
Zeng Guofan deeply understood this. He required himself to read page by page, not turning to the next page until he fully understood the current one. Only by cultivating this kind of refinement can one achieve learning and become a great talent!
In a letter to his son, he wrote: "In all things, I use the effort of learning through hardship and practicing with perseverance. You must not seek fame too quickly or results too hastily. When in difficulty, do not interrupt; endure through this hurdle, and you will make a little progress. Then advance again, encounter difficulty again, endure again, and strive again. There will naturally come a day of smooth progress. Everything has its most difficult moments; those who can break through are true heroes."
It seems he opposed the impetuous, superficial style of seeking shortcuts in work and study.
"Build strong fortresses, fight dull battles" was the basic tactic of the Hunan Army. Zeng Guofan was a person who valued "simplicity" and never believed in clever tricks. Whenever the Hunan Army arrived at a new battlefield, regardless of cold or rain, they immediately dug trenches, adding one after another until the enemy's castle was completely surrounded. When the city ran out of supplies, they easily captured it.
In this way, Zeng Guofan used the world's most foolish method to win the world's most brilliant battles.
Bio: Dongfang Ying, father of leapfrog development theory, advocate of true industry mind science, former president of a large industrial company, author of "Enterprise Hypergrowth" and "Leapfrog Strategy," one of China's Top Ten Economic News Figures in 2007. Publisher of the WeChat public account "Leapfrog Enterprise." His works with over 10 million reads include "Companies That Are Tolerant to Employees All Die" and "How to Be Reliable."


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