After the outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic in 2020, the number of infections grew rapidly, and the complicated situation of the epidemic dealt a blow to the people. Micro，small and medium-sized enterprises have suffered serious economic losses. Zhang Meng, an entrepreneur, time management researcher and best-selling author, took the initiative to lead young entrepreneurs in donating money and materials to support Wuhan. Following calls from the government, she managed to help soothe the anxiety of people during the epidemic through online classes; she also inspired entrepreneurship in young people by teaching them how to transform and upgrade themselves. Her live streaming has reached as many as 41.27 million viewers.
Zhang Meng:
We solicited donations on the first evening and the second day of the Chinese New Year, when most people were still celebrating the Spring Festival. We raised money online and made the first donation to the Wuhan Red Cross in no time. I was particularly moved that everyone took it as their own responsibility to make donations to Wuhan to help the city survive the epidemic. I was delighted to see how the smaller self (or the individual) integrated into the greater self (or the collective). When we solicited donations for the second time, we had already gone back to work. At that time, I remember, people were resuming work and production, and we were working on the supply chain, trying to find more disinfection facilities. Basically, all our staff members were involved, so were the entrepreneurs we supported. As we are a business incubator, the entrepreneurs we supported naturally regarded what we did as part of their own responsibilities too. Local Wuhan entrepreneurs and our online followers volunteered to help us make contact with the recipient organizations and attend to all formalities, since we did not have a Wuhan office and therefore lacked local contacts. Actually, all of us worked together to make it happen, with everyonecontributing their precious time during the Spring Festival holiday.
Zhang Meng:
To me, the whole thing was an expression of the idea that we not only live for ourselves but for others too. Actually, many enterprises, especially manufacturing ones, were unable to resume work and production at that time. Most people who worked in Beijing were working from home then. A lot workers were laid off after reopening, or had been notified that their company had closed down. They had no choice but to face unemployment, which was a sudden blow that caught everyone off guard. For this reason, we started doing a lot of live streaming every day, talking about ways of promoting online economy. During that period, we trained many micro-entrepreneurs, who realized the so-called 0-1 transformation, including those who began to work online. They earned a stable incomewith our support in skills training.
Zhang Meng:
During the course, while we were helping ourselves and our entrepreneurs to grow stronger, it occurred to us that maybe those people who knew us or our stories could also break through the rigid self-imposed limitation of cognition and arm themselves with the power of knowledge, in the same way that we did. I still remember that we initiated both online emotion channeling groups and physical exercise groups. To most people, the epidemic was more of a change than an immediate crisis. The crisis comes after the change. However, while some people can always seize opportunities amid big changes, others lose all the territory they used to occupy. Everyone has equal opportunities, and it is you who must embrace the changes with the right posture. As we can see, some businesses thrived during the epidemic, and some had their fortress taken because they failed to adapt to the changes. Everyone faced the same situation, and it was their choices that mattered. Wisdom is critical when one is faced with unexpected problems. I mean whether one is capable of solving the problem with knowledge and perceptions. Our government spared no effort to help micro, small and medium-sizedenterprises, like cutting taxes and administrative fees, helping them increase per capita income and providing various training and solutions, from which we also benefited a lot. So, while some enterprises, like those brick-and-mortarcatering companies, were hit hard during the epidemic, they also helped boost the live streaming economy in the sector, and maybe they can also introduce a product that can be delivered online in the same way. Offline businessesin various sectors started to introduce online business lines, and the trading companies constantly updated their product lines. We can see that many enterprises took active measures to improve themselves. That’s how you draw strength from national development to facilitate the development of your own business.
Zhang Meng:
It is one thing that the government is offering help; it is another thing, also the most important thing, that every private enterprise and every individual should think about how to grow stronger on their own. This is critical!
