What’s Daonong?
Dao breeds everything in the world, while things in turn carry Dao forward. "Dao" refers to natural laws, and "nong" refers to farmers and other workers. "Daonong" then, refers to farmers who observe the cosmos and do things according to the seasons' law so as to explore the nature of life.
"Daonong" originates from a similar phrase, also spelled "daonong" but with the "nong" referring to thickness, and the phrase meaning "the friendship between gentlemen should not only be pure as water but also thick as blood." However, the new concept of Daonong was conceived to fit a group of specific people.
Who are these people? According to the literal definition, they should be thinkers who discovered and studied laws, such as China's Laozi and Confucius, India's Siddhatta Gotama, and ancient Greece's Socrates and Aristotle. Being an objective reality, "Dao" also known as "Tao," can only be valuable and meaningful to mankind if discovered and understood. So these sages of the past took "Dao" as the land to plough, providing ideological nutrients to later generations. That's marvelous Daonong.
However, here Daonong mainly refers to the practitioners who "pursue Dao through farming." In the beginning, farmers used basic methods to cultivate land and harvest grain. Then, after countless lessons gained through experience, he found that weather could be forecasted through observing the sky, and procedures for planting seeds could be perfected according to the seasons. The more principles they understood, the easier it was to harvest. In this way, though they're still farmers, their attention shifted to studying and testing laws of nature.
Of course, successful entrepreneurs are the main targets we serve, so the exact connotation of Daonong refers neither to farmers who understand natural laws nor practitioners in the literal sense, but real business leaders in China as represented by the likes of Liu Chuanzhi and Zhang Ruimin. We use the concept Daonong ("nong" means farmer) rather than Daoshang ("shang" means business) because "nong" implies modesty, veracity, ease and proximity to nature, which coincides with the characteristics of those entrepreneurs who seek mental purity and eternal bliss after gaining great success in a real world full of twists and turns.
Small gain relies on tactics while big success relies on Dao. In reality, every entrepreneur will experience success and failure, but Daonong sees cause and effect rather than gain and loss, and concerns rules and laws rather than success and failure. It's a return to nature.
