Meticulousness

The professor introduced to a large audience of newly graduated university students:

• Today I have the honour of introducing a role model of successful entrepreneurship, who graduated from our university and is now the owner of the most powerful electric car group in Southeast Asia, Mr Trần Trí Thành. Mr Trần Trí Thành will share with the new graduates the story of his entrepreneurial life, and I hope it will inspire you on your own paths.
  Applause rang out.
  Mr Trần Trí Thành stepped onto the platform, greeted everyone and began his talk:
• Twenty years ago I also graduated from this university and sat here just as you do. At that time all my friends were eager to apply for jobs at some prestigious company. I went back home and applied to be an ironworker at an iron shop near my house. My parents were surprised, but they trusted that I had good reasons, since they saw that I was careful in everything I did. All day long I learned to cut iron, grind iron, weld iron, bend iron... to make iron gates for building projects. But I differed from the other workers in one way: I carried a magnifying glass that enlarged 100 times. Every time I finished a stage of work, I took out the magnifier to look for flaws and then corrected them. I believed that the flaws of a product cannot be seen with the naked eye. I looked for flaws with the magnifier and found a great many: edges not perfectly straight, joints not perfectly sealed, floral rings not perfectly round, surfaces not perfectly flat... I took the trouble to correct them until they were perfect.
  My products were finished slowly, but seeing how meticulous I was, the owner indulged me to see what would happen. After that, only my products were accepted by people, who then placed further orders. Customers were extremely pleased with their fine craftsmanship. So the owner ordered the whole shop to learn my meticulous care. The shop's reputation rose and there were more orders than we could fill.
  Then I switched to learning to be a mechanic, going into the details of combustion engines, reading books I borrowed and working in a garage repairing cars at the same time. I used a magnifier here too, but this time I built one myself that enlarged 500 times to inspect the components. Any engine that passed through my hands ran very durably, because it was so smooth and so exactly shaped: round was perfectly round, straight was perfectly straight. After I understood the rules of combustion engines and the mechanical principles of motion, I moved on to learn about electric motors.
  It was also thanks to that method of examining components at an extremely small scale that I found many techniques and made many inventions. When my passion was nearly full, I asked my parents to divide the family property for me even though they were still alive, so that I could research and build an electric car, because I knew that the environment would only love vehicles that run on electricity. My parents loved me so much it broke their hearts, and they sold their beloved house to give me half of its value.
  I went out to the outskirts of the city, bought land, built a workshop and bought materials and tools. I built only one small hut beside it for myself to live in, and a shed where the fellow workers who worked with me could lie down to rest, which was really pitiful.
  When I had built the first electric car, everyone cheered to see it run so well, but I believed it still had flaws. Sure enough, after a month of thinking, climbing in and driving back and forth, I discovered that it needed two hundred accompanying features to survive on the market. Today, in an age of integration, the Vietnamese market is no different from other countries' markets. If you win on the domestic market, you will win the whole world.
  I had to borrow many ideas and inventions from many places, add my own ideas, and in the end produced an electric car driven by the intelligence of Vietnamese people. The car integrates artificial intelligence that can take away control when the driver loses the ability to control the car. It comes with an app that connects to a satellite monitoring the road and to cars within 500 m at intersections so that they avoid one another by themselves. My car is almost missing only one function, the ability to fly and become a flying car, and then it would be complete.

The whole hall called out in an uproar, "Make a flying car, made in Vietnam!"

Mr Trần Trí Thành laughed and replied:

• Today I will tell you about the dream of a flying car. For now let's continue with the electric car.
  After I completed the first model, I went knocking on the doors of sponsors. Hearing my wonderful presentation, the corporations agreed to contribute capital to build a national electric car group. When they came to my poor workshop to see the electric car model with their own eyes, they gasped in praise, not expecting it to be so refined, meticulous and beautiful. They touched every part with their own hands and said it was no less than any car in the world.
  And so the electric car group was born.
  Here I want to share my secret: don't trust your own eyes; find ways to magnify everything and look very closely. Flaws are not easy to see. You must use whatever means you can to hunt for flaws most relentlessly. Never assume it is already good, because somewhere there is still something poor that we must find. When we are meticulous to the point of splitting a hair into a hundred, we will invent many new and strange things.
  I did not believe that a university-level education would help me succeed. I went back to being a worker at the most basic level and then climbed up again slowly, until by the time I applied my university knowledge in practice, I understood every angle of the work.
  I have one more dream in my life, which is to build a flying car to welcome the future. I want to pass this dream on to you, since you have more time than I do. I only promise that I will support any of you who pursue such a dream...

A student stood up and asked:

• There is a gap in your story: the money your parents got from selling their house for you would not be enough for you to spend such a long time researching and tinkering to build everything.
  Mr Trần Trí Thành laughed loudly and said:
• You are very clever. Yes, the money my parents gave was nowhere near enough, even though I was extremely frugal. I persuaded a female classmate to believe in my work and lend me money. Her family was very rich. I kept borrowing until her whole family knew I could not repay and began to put pressure on me. I said to her, "Hey Lan, shall I repay you with my whole life?" She agreed, so it cost me only a little for the wedding and all my debts were cleared.

The whole hall roared with laughter 🕵️‍♀️

A person of wisdom is one who sees very small things, so small that the naked eye cannot see them. Whoever relies only on the eyes, the ears or the hands will not know the truth. The truth is hidden deeper than that.
To find new and strange things, you must look at reality, and look deeply into small details.
To cultivate ethics, you must calm the mind and look deep into your own heart to find your hidden faults.
To understand people, you must see into the soul that hides behind their eyes and smiles.
To accomplish great things, you must start from very small, very lowly matters.
To treat people kindly, you must be very delicate in every little thing.
To have great wisdom, you must begin by seeking the very tiny things in everyday life.