Recently, a TV drama titled Song of the Ordinary Man (凡人歌) has been airing to widespread acclaim on CCTV and major streaming platforms. With its nuanced, realistic storytelling, the show follows three couples who moved from small towns to Beijing to build their lives and careers, tracing their struggles at work and at home as their external circumstances shift dramatically. It stands out as one of the few realist works of art in recent years. Given the wave of layoffs and unemployment sweeping across China's macroeconomic landscape over the past few years, countless viewers are living through the same career confusion and professional pain—either their own or that of those around them. The show has struck a powerful chord.Like the male protagonists in the drama, I—a presales coach—am also a "small-town test-taker" turned "self-made man." Now in my 50s, I've experienced nearly all of the major challenges faced by the three male leads over the past two decades (except divorce—yes, I've been fortunate there), and even some major life upheavals they never had to endure. Against the backdrop of China's four decades of rapid economic growth, our world has been remarkably kind, but it also shows its cold, even cruel, side from time to time—just as the protagonists and most people in the real world have experienced, or are experiencing right now."At first you hear the song without understanding its meaning; by the time you truly understand, you've become the person in the song." For this song, for this drama, maybe you still feel like you're just watching someone else's story unfold. But chances are, you'll walk a similar path someday. Drawing on the plot and my own experiences as an ordinary man, I'd like to share some reflections. If any of this proves useful or inspiring to even one person, I'll be genuinely delighted.Your meteoric rise is mostly because you're just getting started"Riding high on spring breeze, my horse swift; seeing all of Chang'an's flowers in a single day." Young people from small towns, fueled by relentless hard work and an intense hunger for a better urban life, pushed past the disdain of city natives to not only get into top universities but also, carried by momentum and impressive credentials, storm into the workforce—landing respectable jobs that made their peers envious. From their early twenties to around thirty (30–35), with at least one tailwind among the macroeconomy, their industry, or their employer, they charge through their careers on the inertia of hard work (often even harder), savoring the joy of rapid growth and rising income. You believe it's all the fruit of your labor. You're brimming with confidence about the future. Your career plans and life goals keep getting shattered and rewritten—upward. Your goal: to become, as fast as possible, the "person above others" you were taught to crave since childhood.In the show, Na Jun embodies the "lucky" representative of the new Beijingers (new big-city dwellers). A Tsinghua-Peking University graduate who rode the massive wave of the information security industry, he climbed to team lead through sheer technical skill and a habit of sleeping at the office. With an annual salary of one million RMB, he's full of ambition and self-satisfaction. When his older brother Na Wei hits a crisis, he doesn't offer comfort—instead, he condescendingly lectures and criticizes the man nearly a decade his senior. He's certain: as long as he keeps grinding like this, nothing can stop him from becoming a winner in both career and marriage.
I wonder how Na Jun will look back on his "achievements" from this period in 10 or 20 years.As someone who's been there, I too once galloped at full speed. After briefly tasting a mid-to-senior management role at a small company, I moved into the foreign enterprise world—taking a pay cut to join IBM, then doubling my salary at HP three years later, then doubling it again at Cisco three years after that. In under six years, my salary had tripled!How high was that income back then?When I was at HP, I applied to Tsinghua's MBA program and filled in my annual salary as required. The interviewer asked me:"Do people working at foreign companies all earn this much?"Suppressing my inner pride, I feigned humility and said:"I suppose I'm probably earning more than 90% of my peers."
Looking back 20 years later, I can only sigh: it wasn't that I was exceptionally capable—I simply happened to ride the synchronized wave of explosive growth in my technical field and the foreign enterprise sector! As for my peers on slower-growth tracks, they weren't less talented or less hardworking; their tracks just hadn't taken off yet. It's like China's GDP growth rate—averaging 12.2% in the 1950s versus under 5% today. It's not that things were better back then; it's that the starting point was so much lower! So, dear young people, even if you're rising fast at the highest-paying, most prestigious companies, understand this clearly: your meteoric rise is mostly because you're just getting started—as you age, climb the ladder, and the external environment turns turbulent, reality will soon teach you this lesson, hard.
The lifetime income curve of an average American: highest growth rate in the early yearsFor young people entering presales roles, presales is generally a solid career choice. If you're willing to work hard, stay diligent, and follow instructions, within a few years you can become a presales backbone who holds your own, winning project after project, maybe even getting promoted to lead a small team. Many people start to get smug, thinking it's proof of their exceptional ability—as if they've already mastered presales, sales, business, and the industry. They become arrogant, offering unsolicited opinions on everything, as if the pinnacle of their career is right around the corner. What I'm about to say will sting: most of what you're experiencing right now is simply because your starting point was low, your company is small, and talent is scarce. If you don't believe me, compare your resume and current salary against the top 20% in the industry (Check out the Presales Salary Report). Only by seeing the headroom above can you know which direction to push. Even at 30, you've only worked less than 10 years—you still have at least three more decades before retirement! Any slight tremor in your company or industry could wipe out everything you've built.If I could travel back in time and give my younger self some advice, it might look like this:1. Learn proper professional skills early.This includes finding a mentor at least 10 years your senior and getting formal professional training from reputable institutions. That's how you avoid unnecessary detours. It's like pomegranates: if you've never learned the proper technique, every attempt to peel one ends in a mess. But spend two minutes watching a tutorial video online, and you'll never struggle again—you'll have it peeled quickly and cleanly.2. Don't chase management promotions too early. Instead, settle into a long-term specialty and patiently accumulate deep expertise.Just like Na Jun keeps asking Na Wei: What's your core competitive advantage?At your young age, your core advantage is clearly not in managing teams! Trust me—I was student council president at a key school in middle school, led a 10+ person R&D team independently in grad school, became GM of a business unit right after graduation, and even nearly landed the VP role. I seemed like management material, but really, my environment just couldn't attract true management talent to compete with me! China has no shortage of people who want to be bosses and are skilled at scheming, and most Chinese corporate managers don't believe management requires any special core competency—anyone can do it, and it makes no difference who sits in the chair. But hardcore technical skills (including domain expertise) command genuine respect. Twenty years later, I'm deeply grateful I chose to be a domain expert—it's given me far more career options and room to maneuver throughout my professional life.
II. Career Stagnation and PainWhat helped you succeed before will now crush you</ 
