Lunar New Year Lessons In Starting A Successful Business
Understanding the significance of the Lunar New Year, celebrated by Chinese all over the world, teaches us 3 important Lunar New Year lessons about how to start a business from scratch. Learn more.
Over the last few days, and indeed into next week, ethnic Chinese all over the world are celebrating the Lunar New Year.
Truth be told, I’ve never been big into the traditions surrounding the Lunar New Year, having been raised in a household that is ethnically Chinese, but being a third generation “mission school boy” myself, you would imagine that Christmas tends to be a celebration that we look forward to a lot more.
That being said, we still do observe the Lunar New Year traditions of gathering the extended family, for endless rounds of meals and celebrations, and so this year, in a bid to make the celebrations more meaningful by understanding their cultural significance, I decided I will look into what we are actually celebrating during the Lunar New Year.
I was really surprised by what I found…
The Lunar New Year, is typically referred to as “guo nian” – which means literally – to “cross the year” – “guo” being to cross, as in cross a road or a river, and “nian” being a year. So it stands to reason that there is nothing more behind the name.
Little did I know that “Nian” was also a mythical beast that tormented the ancient Chinese people, eating their crops and livestock, and taking their children. One year, a deity came to protect them from Nian, and while he was there, Nian did not appear. Alas, the deity could not remain with them forever.
The ancient Chinese feared that when the deity left, Nian would return. However, before he left, the deity taught them that Nian was afraid of strange creatures, red and loud noises. So they put into practice what they were taught, dressed the streets in red, made noises with drums and firecrackers, and put on masks, and had dances with strange looking lion costumes.
To everyone’s surprise Nian did not appear! And so, the Lunar New Year is celebrated each year with lots of red, noisy drums and firecrackers, children playing with masks, etc.
Lunar New Year lessons in overcoming adversity…
“Guo” also means to “overcome” and by now, we’re familiar with Nian. So besides crossing over a year, the Lunar New Year celebrates overcoming a huge obstacle.
There are many lessons we can learn from how the ancient Chinese overcame Nian. However, I will highlight the 3 most important Lunar New Year lessons that I took away.
Once they realized they needed to protect themselves without the deity…
- They learnt everything they could to overcome their biggest problem, Nian
- They got together as a community
- They put into practice what they had learnt.
As we come into the Lunar New Year, we can use these Lunar New Year lessons to overcome our biggest challenge. Perhaps, it’s worry about how we will retire, overcome inflation, or face redundancy. Perhaps we worry that we spend too much time at work instead of with our children and loved ones.
Applying these Lunar New Year lessons
Whatever it is do these three things – learn the skills you need to overcome those problems, then get a community of like-minded people so that you do not have to do these things alone, and then execute what you have learnt.
In my case, after 20 years of being a corporate lawyer, I was worried about all those things I listed – I was afraid of how I would retire, or even if I would get to retirement if I was made redundant; I was in a job that afforded me no time for my kids or loved ones.
So, I applied all 3 Lunar New Year lessons – (1) I learnt the skills needed to start an online business from home, (2) I immersed myself in a community of people looking to do the same, and (3) I executed the plan.
Within 6 months of starting my education, I replaced my corporate lawyer’s income, and now live free of all those worries. I have learnt to write my own paycheck that can pay me way past retirement, there’s no chance of being made redundant, and I can spend as much time doing the things that are important to me as I want.
I work with students all around the world helping them to start their online businesses from scratch, and there are openings now if you wish to enroll.
The most important of the Lunar New Year lessons
Having worked with all these students, I’ve learnt that of the 3 Lunar New Year lessons, the most important is execution – if the ancient Chinese learnt all those things the needed to, and even banded together as a community but didn’t execute, they wouldn’t have staved off Nian.
It’s like buying a gym membership, even learning how to use all the equipment, but not actually working out – this probably won’t surprise you, but you’re not going to get any fitter that way!
How you can use these Lunar New Year lessons to start your business today
Enrolling in this program will give you access to all the aspects of the 3 Lunar New Year lessons you need to succeed at starting a successful online business from scratch – from the education, and the community, to all the infrastructure you need to execute – taking action is of course up to you.
We’re taking applications now, so submit your application today.
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