You see, my father was a school teacher in rural Haikou, Foshan and my mother was a peasant. He was always known to be creative. I have two younger siblings and he called my little sister Lin B and my youngest brother Lin C. No kidding.

But for official papers, I write Lin Ei, which is the closest I can get.

You are a successful businessman. Why not focus on expanding your business?

I own a company in Shanghai with more than 2,000 employees but I employ a professional manager to manage it for me. To me, there are more important things in life than making money.

I came from a very poor family and started working when I was a teenager. I made my first million yuan (HK$1.14 million) from operating a roller-skating rink when I was 24. However, my businesses failed miserably when I was 26 and I ended up in jail. Failure is no stranger to me.

But that failure, and an opportunity which led me to thoroughly rethink my past, made me realise I was always failing because my heart was not big enough to accommodate anything but my own desires.

I failed also because I had just been too obsessed with making money.

How would you describe the spiritual and psychological health of the Chinese?

The way China trains its young people has been largely based on an exam-oriented system which stresses rote learning. Students who do well in exams might have a very high IQ. But to be successful, you need a high EQ [emotional quotient] and LQ [leadership quotient], too. In the last 30 years, China has been focusing on economic development. Living standards have been improving and there are more and more millionaires around. However, the wealth of the soul has not been able to catch up with economic progress, so many of us are now driven by money, vanity and profit-making. We need to balance development both spiritually and materially, but China has been focused on only one of those aspects for the last 30 years. There is no way to find real happiness if this continues.

How can one be truly happy?

We need to gain a wider perspective on money and we have to learn how to let go of it. But letting go doesn't mean giving it up. We also need to be thankful and be happy to give.

How well received is your message in China?

More than 150,000 people have attended my seminars and training sessions across the country. When most people first realise their hearts have been touched, at that moment, they usually end up in tears. But many people don't understand that this is a normal reaction to my seminars and think instead it's the work of a cult.

How does one qualify as a millionaire of the soul?

We are looking for people who are well respected and deemed to be role models in our society. We consider several factors based on their public contribution, how much respect and influence they yield, the impact of their thinking, if they have a happy family and so on. The idea to start ranking millionaires of the soul was first raised in early March. Not many people were familiar with the concept at the beginning. But our league table has received heavy media coverage and has generated over 1.5 million Google searches. It doesn't show how brilliant my idea is, but the desperate need for China to value something more and better than money.