Quote of the Day by Jack Ma: “If there are nine rabbits on the ground and you want to catch one, focus on…” | Today’s news
“If there are nine rabbits on the ground and you want to catch one, target one.” — Jack Ma
At its core, Alibaba founder Jack Ma’s LiveMint Quote of the Day is a warning against multitasking, opportunistic pursuits, and a lack of strategic focus.
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What does the quote mean?
Jack Ma often associated this line with the key other half: “Don’t try to change the rabbit; change yourself until you catch it.”
The cost of divided attention: In business and personal goals, people often see multiple attractive opportunities at the same time. Chasing two or three at a time saps your energy, speed, and resources and almost guarantees you won’t catch anything. Success requires choosing a single objective and ignoring all competing distractions until that objective is locked.
Adaptability through target switching: When catching that “one rabbit” is difficult, a common instinct is to give up and chase the easier-looking one running around. Mom’s argument is that jumping from one shiny goal to another just wastes stamina. Instead of constantly changing your goal, improve your own skills, refine your strategy, and adapt your approach until the original goal is achieved.
The Power of Saying “No”: For entrepreneurs and professionals, discipline is defined by what you choose to reject. Having nine rabbits on the ground represents an abundance of potential ventures, but successful execution requires ruthless prioritization – mastering one key product, market or competency before trying to expand elsewhere.
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How is it applicable today?
Jack Ma’s rabbit analogy speaks directly to the primary structural challenges facing modern businesses, investors and professionals:
Tech Startups and the “AI Pivot” Trap.: With generative AI dominating the headlines, countless startups are abandoning their core value propositions and creating generic AI wrappers or slapping chatbots on unrelated software. Instead of solving one deep, unspoken problem for their customers (to catch their one rabbit), they chase the latest technology buzzword and exhaust their runway without ensuring product-market fit.
Corporate Effectiveness and the “Year of Focus”: The post-pandemic era of easy venture capital and rapid corporate expansion forced a sharp market correction. Companies that launched speculative metaverse divisions, instant-delivery wings, and large-scale side bets had to implement mass layoffs and divest non-core assets. Market leaders who have maintained profitability have done so by doubling their primary revenue and ruthless cost discipline.
Retail investors and “shiny object” fatigue.: In the area of personal finance, retail market participants often go through crypto tokens, speculative small caps, meme stocks and volatile thematic funds. Jumping from one trending asset to another usually results in buying near the top and selling at a loss. Sustainable wealth creation still belongs to investors who master a single, disciplined strategy—such as low-cost index investing or high-conviction fundamental research—and stick with it across market cycles.
Career Specialization in Attention Deficit Economics: In an information-rich professional environment, individuals often struggle with “skills overload,” jumping from one certification to another—learning basic coding, then moving to rapid engineering, then UX design. Real career moat and pricing power comes from achieving deep specialized competence in a focused domain before attempting to branch out into generalist territory.
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When was the quote first uttered?
Jack Ma often used this metaphor as a key leadership lesson about focus and saying no to distraction, which arose during Alibaba’s early turnaround in the early 2000s and was repeated in several keynote speeches.
The philosophy arose after the dot-com crash, when Alibaba had to limit itself to spin-offs and focus solely on making B2B e-commerce viable. Former Alibaba vice president Porter Erisman documented how Ma drilled this into employees: “If there are nine rabbits on earth and you want to catch one, focus on just one. Don’t change the rabbit, change yourself until you catch it.”
Ma explained that the biggest failure of an entrepreneur is chasing multiple opportunities at once – the real job of a CEO is not to find every opportunity, but to have the discipline to say no to most of them.
The quote gained widespread popularity across China and the global business community when Ma served as a judge and mentor on the nationwide business reality TV show Win in China. He repeatedly used the rabbit analogy to criticize competitors who, instead of mastering a single core product, proposed large business plans for multiple industries.
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Who is Jack Ma?
Jack Ma is a Chinese businessman, business magnate and philanthropist.
He co-founded Alibaba Group in 1999, building it from an apartment-based startup into one of the world’s largest e-commerce, cloud computing and technology conglomerates.
Ma also oversaw the creation of major platforms, including Taobao, Tmall and Alipay (which evolved into the Ant Group).
He served as CEO of Alibaba until 2013 and as Executive Chairman until his resignation in September 2019.
Jack Ma, a former English teacher from Hangzhou, China, established himself as a global advocate for small business, entrepreneurship and digital commerce before focusing largely on education and agricultural philanthropy.
