Recently, a TV drama called Song of the Ordinary Man (凡人歌) has been airing to great popularity on CCTV and major streaming platforms. With its meticulous and realistic storytelling, the series follows three couples (and partners) who moved from small towns to Beijing to build their lives and careers, chronicling their work and family struggles as their external circumstances take unexpected turns. It stands as one of the rare realist works of art in recent years. Audiences across the country are living through the wave of mass layoffs and unemployment that has defined China's macroeconomic landscape over the past few years. They are experiencing firsthand—or witnessing in those around them—the life confusion and career pain that the characters face, creating a powerful resonance with the show's narrative.Like the male protagonists in the drama, I—a presales coach—am also a "small-town striver" who made good. Now at age 50, I have experienced nearly all of the major challenges faced by the three male leads over the past 20-plus years (except divorce—yes, I've been fortunate there), and even some major life upheavals they never had to face. Against the backdrop of China's four decades of rapid economic growth, our world has been wonderful, but it has also shown its cold and even cruel side from time to time—just as the protagonists, and most people in the real world, have experienced or are currently experiencing."At first listen, you don't grasp the meaning; by the second listen, you are already the person in the song." For this song, for this drama, maybe right now you think you're just watching other people's drama unfold. But in the future, you will likely walk a similar path. Drawing on the storyline and my own experiences as a fellow ordinary person, I'd like to share some reflections. If any of this proves useful or inspiring to anyone, I'll be truly delighted.Your meteoric rise is mostly because you're just getting started"Riding high on spring breeze with swift horse hooves, seeing all of Chang'an's flowers in a single day." Small-town youth, fueled by relentless day-and-night effort and an intense craving for a better urban life, pushed past the disdain of city natives to not only get into top universities but also ride that momentum of hard work and impressive credentials straight into the professional world—becoming salaried workers with respectable jobs that peers envied. From your early twenties right out of school to around thirty (30–35), with at least one tailwind among the macro economy, your industry, or your employer, you charged through the workplace on the inertia of your habitual diligence (or even more desperate effort), savoring the joy of rapid growth and rising income. You believe it's all the result of your hard work. You feel confident about the future. Your career plans and life goals keep being exceeded and rewritten. Your goal: to become the "person above others" you were indoctrinated to crave since childhood, the envy of everyone around you.Na Jun, the character in the drama, is the "lucky" representative of the new Beijingers (new big-city residents). A graduate of Tsinghua and Peking University, he rode the massive wave of the information security industry, leveraging his technical skills and a workaholic lifestyle that involved sleeping at the office. He became a team lead earning a million yuan a year—brimming with ambition and self-satisfaction. When his older brother Na Wei "got into trouble," he didn't offer comfort; instead, he condescendingly lectured and criticized his brother, who was nearly a decade older. He was convinced: as long as he kept working this hard, nothing could 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 rode at full gallop. After briefly tasting a mid-to-senior management role at a small company, I moved into the foreign enterprise circle—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 at the time?When I was at HP, I applied for Tsinghua's MBA program and filled in my annual salary as required. The interviewer asked me: "Do people in foreign companies really earn this much?"Suppressing my inner pride, I feigned humility and said: "I guess I'm probably in the top 10% of my peers."
Looking back 20 years later, I can only sigh: it wasn't that I was exceptionally capable—it was that I happened to catch the simultaneous upswing of my technical field and the foreign enterprise market in China. As for my peers in slower-growing tracks, it wasn't that they weren't talented or hardworking—their tracks just hadn't taken off yet. It's like China's GDP growth rate: it averaged 12.2% in the 1950s, but now it's under 5%. Not because things were better back then, but because the starting point was so low! So, dear young people, even if you're growing 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, as your position rises, and as the external environment shifts, reality will soon teach you this lesson the hard way.
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 and follow instructions, within a few years you can become a presales backbone capable of handling things independently, winning project after project, and even getting promoted to lead a small team. Many people start to get smug, thinking it's a sign of their exceptional ability, as if they've already figured out everything about presales, sales, business, and the industry. They become arrogant, offering unsolicited opinions on everything, as if the peak of their career is just around the corner. What I'm about to say will sound harsh: most of what you're experiencing is simply because your starting point is low, your company is small, and talent is scarce. Not convinced? Compare your resume and current income against the top 20% in the industry (Check out the Presales Salary Report). Only by seeing the headroom above can you know the right direction for your efforts. Even at 30, you've only been working for less than a decade—you still have at least three more decades until retirement! Any slight tremor in your company or industry could wipe out everything you've achieved.If I could travel back in time to my younger self and offer some advice, it would be this:1. Learn proper professional skills as early as possible.This includes finding a mentor who is at least 10 years your senior in the same field and seeking professional training from reputable institutions. This will help you avoid unnecessary detours. It's like learning to peel a pomegranate properly—if you've never been taught, every attempt will end in a mess. But spend two minutes watching a tutorial video online, and you'll never struggle again—you'll peel it quickly and cleanly.2. Don't chase management promotions too early. Instead, calmly choose a long-term professional domain and devote yourself to deep learning and experience accumulation.Just like Na Jun keeps asking Na Wei in the drama: What is your core competitiveness?At your young age, your core competitiveness clearly won't be in managing teams! Trust me—I was the student council president at a key middle school, led a 10-person R&D team independently during my graduate studies, and immediately became the general manager of a business unit after graduation. I even nearly became a vice general manager of the company. It seemed like I was management material, but really it was just that my environment lacked talent appeal—there were no truly competitive management professionals around! China has no shortage of people who want to be bosses and are skilled at scheming. Most Chinese corporate managers don't believe management requires any special core competency—anyone can do it, and it doesn't matter who. But when it comes to hardcore technical skills (including domain expertise), everyone keeps their distance. Twenty years later, I'm especially grateful that I chose to remain a domain expert. It has given me far more career options and room to maneuver throughout my professional life.
II. Career Stagnation and PainWhat helped you succeed in the past will now crush you 
