Action & Getting Things Done

The mature you

Has things to relinquish

Endless heavy drinking

Boring trivialities

Uninteresting work

An unloving partner

Has things to gain

Confidence on the face

A smile at the lips

Calm within

Ease in the stride

Spring warms, flowers bloom

Grow resiliently

In real life, the work we choose is sometimes beyond our control, but we are free to choose the mindset with which we approach it.

Values

Victory depends on intelligence, not physical strength

Success depends on effort, not miracles

Success is not about being dealt good cards; the key is whether you can play the bad cards in your hand well.

Forgo the easy, seek the difficult

Forgoing the easy and seeking the difficult is the shortcut to getting things done

Research that is not guided by customer demands is the way to create outstanding products

Persisting in doing the right thing, however difficult, is success

The team’s predicament

Great determination without clarity about the situation; many methods without a grasp of the facts

The inscription above: a headless fly

The results of action depend on whether the mindset is good or bad

A good mindset can make people diligent, hardworking, and attentive

A poor mindset makes people complain, resist, and become passive

So if you hope to do things well, first adjust the mindset

This means not only your own mindset, but even more the team’s mindset

As a manager, your management focus should be managing mindset

Adjusting mindset requires the manager’s own pure original intention

A pure original intention

Will let you express genuine feeling

Will move the team

The simplest criterion for judging this original intention is “benefiting others”

Plan quietly, unseen

Win consistently without contention or waste

Stand through the years

Still, yet never vulgar

Keep the delicacy of early spring

Do not ask where you are going

Do not be trapped by former years

Do not fear the days ahead

Brew a pot of moonlight

Pour it over a thorny road

Life turns in a thousand ways

If all is well

Sun or rain matters not

Do not magnify emotions

Do not nurture delusion

The wind is quiet

People should be full of morning vitality

Turn a wish into tasks, responsible people, deadlines, and feedback.

Complete the smallest feasible step first, then adjust the next step according to the result.

Never believe you have reached the ultimate summit. I am always a newcomer.

Consolidate until none can surpass you

Sprint until your opponents tremble

In this society, only effort in the right direction can bring you into the upper reaches of society. The harder you work, the further you move from worldly suffering. Otherwise, you will not even have an admission ticket, let alone perform onstage and influence an era.

Those who know themselves are outstanding; those who overcome themselves are mighty! To accomplish great things, first know yourself and others: whom to trust and whom not to trust. Only by knowing people can you employ them; otherwise they will harm you instead! To accomplish great undertakings, trust everyone who deserves trust and destroy everyone who does not!

Some say a man builds a powerful self by having a mistress.

Bullshit!

How could he have only one?

A man must have two: one called the gym, one called the training venue

Continually “charge,” “store energy,” and “discharge”!

Growth often happens at thresholds of unfamiliarity, discomfort, and necessary change.

Maturity is not losing enthusiasm, but knowing what deserves persistence and what should be relinquished.

One road to success, two to failure.

Who achieves more: someone who takes the successful road from the start, or someone who walks both roads of failure before taking the successful one?

Choosing entrepreneurship means choosing hardship, maturing, then finding a channel to soar in your career.

Find the one path, enter the present, and strive to experience the mortal world!

To succeed, you need friends;

To achieve tremendous success, you need enemies!

Everyone has potential, born in comfort and dying in adversity,

So when facing pressure, do not become agitated.

Perhaps this is merely a small test from life.

Believe in yourself; everything can be handled. Pressed hard enough, a hero can take to Mount Liang.

Circumstances alone create true great heroes.

Thus the poor seek change, and pressure gives people motivation!

What does pressure mean?

It means shouldering greater responsibility and continuing to shoulder it after failure,

Living with value.

When encountering failure and suffering, do not fill yourself with complaints or blame heaven and others. Endure the test, persist in effort, and accumulate small but definite successes little by little, ultimately turning adversity into favorable circumstances.

In success and good fortune, remain neither arrogant nor impatient. With sincere gratitude, continue working so success can last. Both suffering and success test us.

“I cannot take it anymore” comes not from weak endurance, but from not having prepared for the worst beforehand.

Moving forward needs only one reason; retreating offers a hundred reasons.

Too many people would rather find a hundred reasons to prove they are not cowards than use one reason to prove they are brave. Letting go needs only a moment’s thought; clinging offers a hundred excuses.

Too many would rather find a hundred excuses to deceive their own feelings than break through pain’s cage in a moment. Many things are not impossible; what is lacking is the determination to do them.

Someone doing business for a year or two falls and rises repeatedly, despairs and starts again repeatedly, fails and chooses anew repeatedly. Many say this person is indomitable and will surely accomplish great things.

I do not necessarily think so. These are appearances; the underlying core is “wanting overnight wealth, impatient for success.”

For great achievers, success or failure cannot be judged quickly. Within two years there is no collapse, despair, or failure. Autumn’s fallen leaves cannot be swept clean—why not wait until winter? The poor seek shortcuts; the rich sow seeds!

The poor use cliffs to kill themselves; the rich use cliffs for bungee jumping!

Everyone hopes to rise above others and find a shortcut. Sadly, we ultimately discover there are no shortcuts: without investing time and energy, we cannot gain anything. Comfortingly, once we understand this, we know the path toward success. A path without detours can already count as a shortcut.

Treat success as a stage’s result and failure as information and an opportunity to revise.

Beyond results, review methods, resources, pacing, and boundaries.

When body, mind, and soul unite and enter the present, wisdom appears. Anyone entangled in the past or worried about the future will suffer. While suffering, one cannot enter the present; without entering the present, wisdom can never appear. I would rather everyone under heaven betray me than betray anyone under heaven. Those who accomplish great things must endure grievances ordinary people cannot endure and experience things ordinary people cannot experience. Without such a heart, do not set a great ambition.

Ordinary people find work and life in conflict; great achievers integrate work and life. Work is life, and life is work, so those seeking great achievements must make accomplishing their work life’s greatest joy.

What is the core of a person’s growth?

One word: “break”

Without breaking, nothing new can be established

When is training most painful?

The threshold of advancement is painful

Advancement is certainly painful, but its result is certainly joyful

Because you are changing from the old, shabby Huashan sword technique to the unsurpassed Nine Swords of Dugu, and because the Nine Swords of Dugu are less

familiar than the Huashan technique, your results may be worse than before. In the end, what we compete on is who dares face pain and holds

firm conviction.

Growth is the process of moving from awkwardness to ease.

When pressure is greatest, efficiency may be highest;

When busiest, you may learn the most;

When most comfortable, failure often begins;

When cold reaches its extreme, the sun is about to arrive.

Growth depends on diligence, not time;

Time is for use, not wasting;

Affection depends on cherishing, not fate;

Money depends on investment, not accumulation.

Preserve: hold on to the present

Break: innovate

Establish: a new foundation

Long-term results come from repeated small actions, not a one-off sprint.

Protect important but nonurgent things through a fixed rhythm, records, and review.

After ups and downs, I value “steadiness” more. Low points can slow us down and reveal what we missed before. But a long passage of time does not automatically mean someone has consolidated deeply enough.

Consolidation needs identifiable changes. Have abilities been added where we once relied on opportunity? Have constraints been established where control was easily lost? Have unclear directions received more concrete judgment? If we can explain these, waiting has substance.

When setting out again, allow smaller steps too. First settle life and necessary responsibilities, produce results in what can be done, then expand investment according to reality. Rushing to prove we are back can turn the next opportunity into a wager to compensate for past disappointment.

A low point promises no future peak. What we can seek is better preparation for the next action and a stronger ability to protect our foundations amid fluctuations. Such changes already have value, even if not yet conspicuous.

Having accomplished things is important experience. It shows that under particular circumstances and conditions, we did organize resources, bear risks, and achieve results. At low points, these memories can remind us that renewed action remains possible.

But past results contain many factors. Ability, timing, partners, and market changes may all have contributed. Attributing all success to ourselves easily overestimates the next chance; attributing all losses to circumstances misses what needs correction.

Starting again requires identifying what remains. Can abilities work elsewhere, are methods outdated, are relationships and resources still reliable, and have past results truly become today’s foundation? New action must answer these questions.

The past can give courage; today still needs concrete evidence. Begin with small results to reconfirm judgment and methods. Repeatedly accomplishing things gradually brings confidence steadier than a single success.

When results miss expectations, we readily ask why the implementer failed. Looking earlier, expectations may never have been jointly confirmed. One person means this version, another still works on the previous one; previously required content is removed after completion. Rework often begins before hands-on work.

Reducing rework requires retaining key decisions. What is being done, deferred, unsettled, and who can confirm should be visible to those involved. When discussion changes, specify where and how completed work will be handled. A verbal “change it” hardly reveals downstream effects.

Design and execution should listen to each other. A complete-seeming plan may still face difficulty in actual tools and processes. Letting implementers identify likely duplicated labor early helps adjust order. Preparation’s value is reducing roads that must be traveled again, not adding a stack of documents beforehand.

Projects naturally change; everything cannot be anticipated initially. Leave room for adjustable parts and stable grounds for confirmed ones. Update decisions with new facts while acknowledging adjustment needs time and cooperation. This clarifies rework’s origins and helps jointly reduce its recurrence.

Adding relevant people to a group merely lets them see messages. Who understands which part, who confirms decisions, and who implements still need clarification. Without knowing these roles, questions circulate around the group, receiving many answers without resolution.

When collaboration begins, I prefer first knowing the people and tasks: each person’s area, information, and handovers. Connect current tasks to actual owners and mark links between teams. Coordination depends on those links working; lively chat cannot do it for them.

When two parties work on a project, first identify unresolved issues and mark each party’s share. Confirm overlaps jointly and assign gaps explicitly. Reporting progress against the same basis reduces conflicting accounts and reveals unattended areas earlier.

Owners need not personally do everything. They need to know how their part advances and when others’ support is required. Update roles and handovers promptly when tasks change. Clear roles ease cooperation; problems still require actual causal examination, not replacing the entire investigation with a name.

After receiving a task, insufficient time or an impossible step can occur. What is easily overlooked is that I have stopped while others still think work follows the original plan. At the end, the omitted part becomes a surprise result others must face.

When obstacles arise, I think we should return the situation and required decisions. Clarify current progress, the blockage, what continuation needs, and visible effects. If canceling requirements, changing order, or skipping agreed review is proposed, the authorized confirmer must know, rather than discover it afterward.

Matters within explicit authority can be decided promptly within scope. For matters beyond it, offer suggestions and ask relevant people to choose. This preserves implementers’ initiative while letting those bearing consequences join judgment, rather than being summoned only after results go wrong.

Explain difficulties early and clearly. Whoever receives the report should respond and say what happens next, rather than leave the issue unresolved. Tell those involved when circumstances change so they can adjust the plan and continue.