Nov 22, 2016 10:44 AM EST By Chris Brandt, UniversityHerald Reporter

Alibaba founder Jack Ma looks very unassuming with his short, lean figure. Considered as Asia's richest man, he made his fortune through Alibaba, an e-commerce empire similar to eBay. He is also the first mainland Chinese entrepreneur to grace the cover of Forbes magazine. What's surprising about him is the fact that he built his online empire considering he doesn't know how to code. Moreover, he only came across a computer when he was already 31 years old.

How did he do it? Here are nuggets of wisdom from Jack Ma as he shares his 3 surefire ways to success.

Never give up

Winston Churchill was empathic about not giving up, so is Alibaba founder Jack Ma. The world's 18th richest man is no stranger to failure and rejection. He failed his middle school exams three times and his college entrance exams two times after he got accepted at the Hangzhou Normal University as an English major. He tried to get to Harvard and was rejected ten times. Furthermore, he applied for 30 jobs and got rejected from all of them. Despite all these, he persevered and the rest is history. Ma added that giving up is the greatest failure of all.

Have a vision

One of the secrets for not giving up comes from having a vision. Jack Ma's vision is not about making a lot of money or getting rich. He said that the real successful people are not those who have a lot of money but those who are able to change the society and made people's lives much better. Seeing the change and impact you have made in the lives of other people is much better than material wealth. When you make this your vision and add value in people's lives, money and success will just follow you.

Love life

Like most successful and wealthy people, Alibaba founder Jack Ma admonishes people that if money is their ultimate goal, they have to change their mindset. He added that we live not to work but to enjoy life and you will just regret it if you spend all your life working.

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