The 2,000-Year-Old Guide to Winning at Life Without All the Stress | (#009) Beyond Success: Psychology & Philosophy for Achievers, with David Tian, Ph.D.

Welcome to “Beyond Success,” the podcast for high-achievers seeking deeper meaning, fulfillment and purpose. Now, here’s your host, world-renowned leadership coach and therapist, David Tian.

In this episode, we’re diving into wisdom that could completely reshape your life, coming from a source that most achievers have never even heard of. 4It’s ancient, it’s profound, and it might just unlock what you’ve been searching for in love, career and your inner life.

Now, most people wouldn’t even consider looking back to a 2,000-year-old text to solve modern problems. They might say, “Ancient wisdom? What’s that got to do with my goals, my modern relationship issues, my quest for meaning?” But if a perspective has survived for centuries, millennia, across vastly different cultures and people, there’s probably something there. Why reinvent the wheel when there’s knowledge that stood the test of time? And while everyone’s busy chasing the latest life hack or a self-help book, they’re missing out on something timeless that actually works. [01:04.7]

The ancient text that I’m referring to for this episode is called the Zhuangzi, an ancient Daoist work that’s mostly been flying under the radar, and that’s a complete shame because it tackles exactly the issues that trip most of us up in the modern world. Pressure, expectations, stress over outcomes—these aren’t new challenges. They were around back then and they’re still here now, and maybe even worse than ever.

What if they were a source of wisdom that could help you break out of this, freeing you to live a life that actually feels like yours? We’re taught that progress is all about moving forward faster, more efficient, but sometimes to really advance, you’ve got to circle back, and the Zhuangzi breaks down barriers that hold us back, teaching us not to take life so seriously, not to get too locked into any one identity, and to find fulfillment in a way that’s both profound and incredibly simple. It challenges the assumption that everything meaningful has to be done with grit, with force and with overthinking and powering through, and instead, it brings a perspective that, frankly, is liberating. [02:11.4]

The big myth that stops people from seeing this is the idea that anything useful has to be brand new or cutting edge, or the latest trend. In fact, the most transformative ideas can be found right there in ancient texts waiting for us to take a second look.

When you hear people talk about Daoism or ancient philosophy, or Asian philosophy, they sometimes make it sound mystical or impractical, and that’s not what we’re doing here. We’re looking for tools that you can use today, and the insights from the Zhuangzi are shockingly relevant, direct and practical. You don’t have to be a sage on a mountaintop to understand them.

The wisdom of their Zhuangzi doesn’t just help you be more successful. It helps you live in a way that’s less forced, more aligned with who you really are, and, frankly, more enjoyable, more fun, more playful, and that’s something people from any century can, hopefully, understand and that they actually want. So, let’s dig deep into this treasure trove that’s been here for over 2,000 years. [03:12.6]

Welcome to the Beyond Success Podcast: Psychology & Philosophy for Achievers. I’m David Tian, your host. For almost the past two decades, I’ve been helping hundreds of thousands of people from more than 87 countries find fulfillment, love and meaning into personal and professional lives.

I’ve got three points here, but before we dive into the first point, let’s set the stage with some context. The Zhuangzi—and I’ll spell it out for you. Z-H-U-A-N-G-Z-I, or “zee” <phonetic> for those in America—the Zhuangzi is a cornerstone of ancient Chinese philosophy. It was written over 2,000 years ago and it’s as relevant today as it ever was. This is a text that, for millennia, helped people navigate life’s ups and downs, the constant pressures, the social expectations, and the search for personal peace. [03:57.7]

The ideas in the Zhuangzi don’t just serve as nice-to-have or nice-to-know philosophies. They actually offer a different way of being, a way that’s radically freeing. This is a way of life that isn’t about struggling or stressing, or endlessly proving yourself. The Zhuangzi presents a deeper picture of a much more profound type of freedom. While the text, the Zhuangzi, isn’t as famous in the West as Stoic texts or Buddhist teachings, it’s equally, if not more, transformative, and I argue it’s been overlooked to our own loss.

Today, most people miss out on this type of wisdom, this ancient wisdom, because they’re caught up in a cycle of trying to work harder, pushing more, grinding through everything, the stressors of modern life. But what if you didn’t have to reinvent the wheel for yourself? What if you could pull from this ancient treasure to make your life not only more productive, but more meaningful, less stressful and a lot more enjoyable? [04:56.4]

OK, so we’ve got three key points from the Zhuangzi, and by the way, this is scratching the surface. I originally had many more points, several more points that I wanted to cover, but I had to pare it down to just these three to keep this episode to a manageable length, so just keep that in mind. I’ve just picked out three points and these three points, I believe, hit right at the heart of the modern-day struggles, starting with the first point, which is on effortless action, which is a translation for the Chinese, ancient Chinese term “wu wei.”

You might be wondering, effortless action, how does this even work? Let me illustrate by quoting directly from the Zhuangzi, and this is from the inner chapters, Chapter 3. OK, so I’m quoting from it.

Prince Wen-hui’s cook was cutting up an ox. Every touch of this cook’s hand, every heave of his shoulder, every move of his feet, every thrust of his knee, the sound of the slicing flesh of the ox and the singing rhythm of the blade, all were in perfect harmony, like the dance of the Mulberry Grove or a part in the Jingshou music. [05:56.7]

“Ah, this is marvelous,” said the Prince. “Imagine skill reaching such heights.” Cook Ding laid down his knife and replied, “What I care about is the way (dao), which goes beyond skill. When I first began cutting up oxen, all I could see was the ox itself. After three years, I no longer saw the whole ox. And now—now I go at it by spirit and do not even look with my eyes. Perception and understanding have come to a stop and spirit moves where at once I go along with the natural makeup of the ox, strike in the big hollows, guide the knife through the big openings and follow things as they are. So I never touch the smallest ligament or tendon, much less a bone.”

“A good cook changes his knife once a year—because he cuts. A mediocre cook changes his knife once a month—because he hacks. I’ve had this knife of mine for nineteen years, and though I’ve cut up thousands of ox, its blade is as fresh as if it had just come from the grindstone. There are spaces between the joints, and the blade of the knife has really no thickness. If you insert what has no thickness into such spaces, then there’s plenty of room—more than enough for the blade to play about it. That’s why after nineteen years, my blade is still as fresh as if it had just come from the grindstone.” [07:17.7]

“However, whenever I come to a complicated joint, I size up the difficulties, tell myself to watch out and be careful, keep my eyes on what I am doing, work very slowly, and move the knife with the greatest subtlety, until the whole thing comes apart like a clod of earth crumbling to the ground. I stand there holding the knife and look all around me, completely satisfied and reluctant to move on, and then I wipe off the knife and put it away.”

“Wonderful,” said Prince Wen-hui. “I have heard the words of Butcher Ding and I learned how to care for life.” [07:50.2]

OK, so this might sound like a completely strange passage. It’s actually one of the clearest. Keep in mind this is a translation in English, modern English, from an ancient Chinese text from over 2,000 years ago, and the translator—I’m quoting from the Burton Watson translation—is trying to stay relatively close and accurate to the text, trying to stay faithful to the original, and yet convey the meaning and the dynamic equivalent in modern English. So, it’s a sort of in-between kind of weird hybrid thing, but hopefully, you get an idea of the text.

I wanted to quote extensively from the text, but if you’re new to reading ancient texts, especially ancient texts in a very foreign context and language, it’ll take some getting used to, but that’s part of my role here as translator and interpreter of the text until you get a feel for it.

OK, so what can we take from this passage? In this passage, the cook, Cook Ding, describes his progression from using skill alone to following the natural dao, or the Way, allowing his movements to be guided by his spirit, or the spirit, and the natural structure of the ox’s physical structure, the meat and the bones, instead of relying on forcing or hacking his way through. [09:03.0]

This is one of the classic passages to illustrate the meaning of wu wei, or effortless action—and you can see this in how he harmonizes with the ox’s natural form, rather than imposing his own will upon it—and there are a lot more passages to illustrate the concept of wu wei, but hopefully, from that passage, you can get the general idea.

The term “wu wei” describes a state of acting without relying on force, without trying too hard. It doesn’t mean sitting back and doing nothing literally, but instead doing things in a way that feel natural and are unforced. This approach might sound like a luxury or privilege to some, but it’s actually surprisingly practical, and it’s a big step toward being more aware and comfortable in your own skin. [09:48.7]

In modern terms, you can think of wu wei as a close cousin to the concept of Flow, capital-F “Flow.” This is a concept pioneered and popularized by the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. When you’re in Flow, you’re fully immersed in the activity. Everything feels smooth, and you’re not fighting yourself or forcing anything. You lose track of time, and you have enough skill to do the activity, but the activity requires your full concentration, because it’s at the edge of your skill abilities. Your attention is sharp. You’re engaged, and again, time disappears.

Wu wei taps into a similar vibe, but it actually runs even deeper, and it has moral connotations, too. It’s not just about work or productivity, or effectiveness or performance. It’s about moving through life in a way that feels aligned, fluid and meaningful.

Imagine if you brought the wu wei approach to your relationships. Most of us carry so much tension in our relationships, whether it’s with a partner, a friend or a colleague. We worry about how they see us, so we second-guess our words. We even try to control the relationship dynamic, who cares more, who has more power, all of that. But what if you were to let go of all of that? What if you stopped trying to manage every aspect of the connection and just allowed it to go naturally? [11:11.1]

The Zhuangzi suggests that when we take away our rigid expectations and just show up as we are, connection can deepen on its own in ways that feel effortless and more authentic. The same idea applies in our careers. How often do we find ourselves pushing for the next big win, putting pressure on ourselves to meet some super-high standard or far away target, and this constant striving feels endless, like a treadmill you can’t get off. But wu wei encourages us to engage with our work in a way that’s lighter, where we’re not shackled down by rigid goals or pressure to constantly have to prove ourselves. [11:51.8]

It doesn’t mean you won’t succeed. In fact, it might mean you’ll succeed even more, because you’re less bogged down and burdened by stress and more open to opportunities as they come, opportunities you might not have even noticed, but now that you’re in this more open mind, you start to spot and are able to take advantage of. You’re creating space to find your Flow, where you lose track of time because you’re fully engaged in the activity, in a meaningful activity, allowing work to feel fulfilling rather than having to force it, power through.

Now, let’s bring this back to our own self-awareness. Cultivating wu wei, this sense of effortless action, requires a deeper level of self-awareness, because it asks you to know yourself well enough to avoid the need to force things or to even notice when you are forcing things. You’ll know when to act, when to pull back, and you’re not attached to every outcome. You become outcome-independent. You can trust that your efforts will lead where they need to. This is the trusting vantage point that I have spoken about in other episodes before. [12:58.0]

Trust like that comes from self-understanding. You’re aware of what drives you, what energizes you, and you’re comfortable enough in yourself, with yourself that you don’t need to control everything else to feel secure, and when you let go of those rigid expectations, you free yourself to actually live life in its fullest.

For high-achievers, so much energy gets wasted on trying to make every little thing fit a specific plan, but with wu wei, you’re not gripping so tightly to your vision of how things should be. Instead, you’re able to let things unfold, and sometimes they turn out even better than you could have imagined. Often they do, the more you let go.

Our culture has built this myth that success can only come through constant grinding and effort, through intense pushing or forcing or fighting, but the Zhuangzi shows us that there’s another way, a way or dao that’s a lot less exhausting and a lot more in tune with who we really are. [14:00.0]

When you’re willing to release your neurotic control and trust in a more natural process and in yourself, you’re able to access a level of creativity, insight, resilience and courage that isn’t available when you’re just trying to muscle through. You access a higher level of yourself, a higher self within you.

Here’s a metaphor that might help. Imagine a river flowing down a mountain. The water moves powerfully, but it’s not forcing its way. It’s finding the path of least resistance, winding around obstacles, always flowing forward yet never rigid. That’s wu wei and that’s actually an ancient metaphor for wu wei, and when you live with that same ease and flexibility of water, you get stronger without forcing yourself. You can face challenges without being rigid.

In relationships, this makes you a lot more adaptable and open, and more genuine. In your career, it gives you the resilience and antifragility to face setbacks without losing momentum—in fact, with antifragility, using potential failures or mistakes or setbacks to become even stronger and to get even better, and to put yourself in an even better position. [15:14.2]

If there’s one thing to take away from wu wei, it’s that not every success in life has to be a result of intense, constant forward effort. Often, true power, real growth, comes from working in a way that’s aligned with who you really are, doing things that feel natural, allowing your natural talents to flow through you, instead of forcing yourself to fit some other mold. That kind of effortless action leads to a type of fulfillment that isn’t just about hitting targets, but it’s about being at peace with your life and your path, and living life to the fullest in a meaningful way. [15:55.0]

Hey, if you’re an achiever who’s been struggling when it comes to managing your emotions or navigating your relationships, I get it. So many high-performers hit a wall when it comes to emotional mastery. Maybe you’ve noticed that stress, frustration or anger is seeping into your personal or professional life, or you feel disconnected from those you care about.

That’s where my “Emotional Mastery” program comes in. It’s based on peer-reviewed, evidence-based therapeutic methods to help you find happiness, love and real fulfillment. Learn how to break free from the emotional roller-coaster and start thriving in every area of your life. You can find out more at DavidTianPhD.com/EmotionalMastery. That’s D-A-V-I-D-T-I-A-N-P-H-D [dot] com [slash] emotional mastery.

That was a lot of time spent on the first point. The next two points will be a little quicker hopefully. The second point now comes from one of the most famous and intriguing passages in all of Chinese philosophy, the Butterfly Dream in the Zhuangzi. [17:03.3]

If you’re not familiar with this, here’s the story in its essence. The purported author of the Zhuangzi is named Zhuang Zhou, and Zhuang Zhou once dreamt he was a butterfly flitting and fluttering around, completely free and unaware of his human life. Then he woke up and realized he was Zhuang Zhou, but here’s the twist: he couldn’t tell if he was a man who had just dreamt of being a butterfly or a butterfly now dreaming of being a man, and I’ll quote directly from the passage here:

Once, Zhuang Zhou dreamed he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and fluttering about, happy with himself and doing as he pleased. He didn’t know that he was Zhuang Zhou.

Suddenly he woke up and there he was, solid and unmistakable Zhuang Zhou. But he didn’t know if he was Zhuang Zhou who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming that he was Zhuang Zhou.

OK, so what’s the point here? This wasn’t just about some cool, trippy dream. It’s a doorway into seeing that our perspectives, our identity, even our sense of self, can be a lot more fluid than we might think. [18:08.0]

The Zhuangzi uses the dream as a way to shake us out of our normal way of viewing the world and ourselves, and when you start to see that your perspective can shift like this, just like that, like a butterfly flitting from one place to another, you realize that you’re not as rigidly fixed in one identity, one story or one way of being as you might feel where you might feel trapped in that rigid identity or story.

OK, to illustrate this, let me tell you about a client. Let’s call him Jason. Jason came to me with a strong sense of identity, built on his job title, his reputation and the way others saw him. He’d been a rising star in finance, pulling in high six figures as a base salary, and was known as the go-to guy. He’d made it clear that his career was everything. He had poured his time, energy and sense of self into it, but when things at his firm started shifting, and he was facing a potential restructuring, Jason got really anxious and then terrified. [19:05.8]

He felt that his identity was cracking, because he was so tightly wound up in that one version of himself. He didn’t know who he was beyond the role of the finance guy. All his self-worth and purpose were tied down to that identity and stuck in it, so I shared with him this butterfly dream story from the Zhuangzi helping him to see that there might be a different perspective he could take on this.

At first he resisted. To Jason, the idea of a fluid self sounded like a threat to him, as if letting go of his identity as the finance guy would mean he’d lose everything he’d ever worked for and everything that he was valued for. But as he began to reflect more, I asked him to consider his life as a series of different roles that he had played, not just the finance guy.

Then he remembered that he’d once been a star athlete, a musician, a student, and at different points in his life, each of those roles had felt like the real Jason. But none of those roles turned out to be permanent or lasting very long compared to the finance guy. They were like phases, shifting perspectives in the dream of his life. [20:17.7]

The butterfly dream shows us that our sense of self can be more like a shifting story with different chapters, a dream that changes from one chapter to the next. This isn’t about denying your past or losing your identity. It’s about expanding your sense of self.

When you can see yourself from different angles, like looking at a prism from various sides, you develop a fuller, more flexible understanding of who you really are. Jason began to see that he didn’t have to hold so tightly to the image he had created for himself in finance. He could let that be one part of him without being the whole story of him. [20:56.2]

When you allow your perspective to shift, like Zhuang Zhou waking up from his dream as a butterfly, your empathy can deepen. Then you’re not so rigidly bound to your old way or one way of seeing things so you can better understand other people and their way of seeing things. In relationships, this can make all of the difference. Jason found that once he softened his rigid self-view, he was a lot more easily able to notice his partner in a way he hadn’t before.

He was no longer viewing her through the lens of how she would fit into his life as his sidekick, really, which was the word she used, or how she validated his status at the company parties. Instead, he could see her more fully as her own person with, obviously, but now experientially, he’s able to appreciate her own dreams and her own fears independent of his story. It’s the ability to see beyond yourself, to put yourself fully in another person’s shoes and to recognize that they too might be dreaming their own version of reality. [22:00.0]

When you let go of the need to be right in this way or to hold on to one fixed identity, then your relationships can completely transform very quickly. You don’t need to control or define everything. You’re a lot more adaptable, a lot more open, a lot more flexible, and surprisingly, a lot more fulfilled and happy.

In careers, the same flexibility can really make a huge difference. Jason, by loosening his grip on his identity as the finance guy, started seeing opportunities beyond that narrow role that he didn’t notice before. He began considering how his other skills, his other natural talents, went way beyond finance and could serve him in different fields, and this flexibility allowed him to pursue a new direction when the restructuring at his firm finally hit.

Rather than feeling like he was losing his one and only identity, he actually felt like he was gaining a new, exciting chapter of his life. He found fulfillment in a path that just a few months before he had been blind to because he’d been so fixated on a single identity. [23:02.0]

The butterfly dream teaches us that identity or self-identity isn’t fixed. Perspective isn’t fixed, and life isn’t about holding on to just one version of yourself. By learning to see yourself and others as fluid, as evolving in process, you gain a sense of freedom that’s really rare in the modern world. This doesn’t make you less grounded. It makes you more resilient, more adaptable, more antifragile, because now, instead of needing things to be a certain way, you can adapt and thrive, no matter what life brings.

Imagine how different your life could feel if you allowed yourself the freedom to be not just one thing, but many things over time. What if you could be secure enough in yourself to say this is who I am today, but I’m open to who I might be tomorrow? [23:50.3]

In my own life, I’ve gone from being a jazz saxophonist to a premed student to a PhD in Asian philosophy and cultures, into a professor of philosophy, into being a dating coach, and then moving into a life coach and a relationships coach, into being a therapist and being now a leadership coach, and integrating all of it, because in order for the work to be fulfilling for me as a totality, I would have to have the freedom to bring all of me to the work.

Hopefully, I can offer myself humbly as an example of how this might be applied in life, but hopefully, you can see for yourself the power of the butterfly dream in your life. It’s not just about denying who you are. It’s about opening up to the full evolving potential of who you could be, ways in which you would find so much more enjoyable and fulfilling, but you don’t even know yet, you can’t even imagine yet how great life could be five to 10 years from now, if you adopt this freedom, this fluidity of perspectives. [24:50.4]

The Zhuangzi invites us to see ourselves as part of an ever-unfolding story that has many chapters, one that doesn’t end with any single title, role or identity, or chapter or character. When you let yourself see the world and your place in it as fluid rather than fixed, you start living with a kind of flexibility that’s transformational.

You can meet challenges without feeling like your entire sense of self is on the line. You can connect with others without the need to control or validate your identity through them. You’ll be a lot less needy in all these areas of your life. In the end, this approach doesn’t just make life easier; it makes it richer, more interesting and full of meaning that goes far beyond any titles, labels or roles. Let this shift in perspective sink in and see how it might transform the way you show up in the world, in your relationships and in your own story of life.

Finally, third, let’s dive into one of the most refreshing and transformative teachings from the Zhuangzi, a technique that opens up a whole new way of seeing the world, the fasting of the mind, as it’s often translated. Zhuangzi invites us to empty our minds of rigid preconceptions, freeing us up to experience life with a kind of childlike playfulness, without heavy judgments or fixed ideas about how things should be. [26:09.4]

What’s brilliant here is how the Zhuangzi brings humor and spontaneity to this concept. He’s not just talking about meditation or stillness, or being calm. This is a whole mindset shift that frees you from overthinking and allows you to be flexible, responsive, and even playful and spontaneous. To give you a taste of what this feels like, let me quote from a passage directly from the Zhuangzi:

The fasting of the mind means that the mind should be empty and free of distractions and confusions. It means to act without desire, to be calm and indifferent, to be able to respond to events without being influenced by them. In other words, it is a mind that is not preoccupied with things and does not let things enter into it.

OK, so what does this mean? Let’s get into some interpretation. As you get better with reading ancient texts again, it will become a lot clearer. If it’s your first time hitting especially an ancient Chinese text, it might seem a bit too abstruse, so let me offer my interpretation to you. [27:07.8]

The Zhuangzi is describing a mind that is not influenced by distractions, expectations or emotional static. He’s talking about a mind so clear that it can respond to life as it happens without getting bogged down by attachment or neediness. This idea of fasting is about emptying out all the noise and clutter that tends to fill our minds, especially in the modern world, the doubts, the anxieties, the assumptions that we make about people in situations or how we think for them. Instead of entering every situation with preconceived ideas, a fasted mind is open and ready to receive what comes just as it is.

Let me illustrate this with a client. Let’s call her Sarah. Sarah came to me burned out, stressed and constantly feeling like she wasn’t measuring up. Sarah was a creative director, and by all external measures, she had been crushing it in her career, especially for her age, but behind the scenes, she was actually exhausted. [28:04.5]

Every project in her mind had to be perfect. Every presentation was a test of her worth. She had developed this habit of second-guessing every decision she made, feeling like she had to predict and control every detail, and the more she tried to stay on top of things, the more rigid and drained she felt.

Now, from the therapeutic work, we came to an understanding of how she got here in her family-of-origin background, and then we moved into the more active part of it. What do we do about it now in the present? I introduced to her like this concept from the Zhuangzi of fasting the mind, and of course, Sarah was initially skeptical, as most business people are, of anything having to do with feelings or philosophy. To her, success meant control and precision. But over time, she started experimenting. She experimented with letting go of her usual need for control and experimenting with embracing a more spontaneous, playful approach to life and work. [29:01.0]

She stopped going to meetings with an agenda fully mapped out to the minute, trying to anticipate every single person’s reaction, and instead, she just allowed herself to show up and let the meeting unfold, and allowed herself to improvise and be creative, and stay curious about what might happen, rather than forcing it to fit her predetermined plan.

At the beginning, this was terrifying for her. Sarah was used to feeling packed with strategies, plans and contingencies, but gradually she began to feel a lightness in her work, a sense of relief that she had known that she was craving. She found that by clearing her mind and just being present, she could actually adapt more fluidly to whatever her team brings to the table.

Her creativity started to spike because she was a lot less invested in sticking to her initial ideas out of anxiety, and more open to the creative flow that could emerge—and that’s a testament to the power of a fasted mind. It creates space for innovation for new ideas to show up, because there’s no predetermined, rigid agenda that you have to adhere to that would block that creative flow. [30:13.3]

The Zhuangzi doesn’t just suggest that we empty our minds just to sit in some meditative bliss. The text is encouraging us to embrace the unpredictability of life with a spirit of playfulness and humor. Imagine walking into your day with the curiosity of a child unburdened by the need for everything to go right or fit a particular outcome. How much more energy would you have? How much easier would it be to bounce back from setbacks, if you weren’t constantly holding everything so tightly?

By the way, approaching life and thinking from the perspective of a child, the playful childlike innocence, is a common device in the Zhuangzi and in ancient texts of all sorts, even in the Bible. Here’s another passage from the Zhuangzi that really brings in this idea of playfulness [31:01.8]:

To be empty means to be like the way (dao). To be at ease means to be like water, adapting to whatever vessel it enters, and in this there is no hindrance. Be empty. Be free from desires and you will be filled by the way (dao).

This is where you know Bruce Lee got it. The Zhuangzi’s idea of the way is all about going with the flow. He’s telling us that if we empty ourselves of all the rigid expectations and fixed judgments, we can adapt, just like water takes the shape of its container.

OK, so going back to Sarah, what about Sarah? She applied this beyond work for herself. In her relationships, she stopped trying to control every interaction with her friends and her family. She began to notice how much she had previously tried to fit conversations into her predetermined agenda, and she noticed that she had been looking for certain responses to validate her own self-worth. [31:57.0]

But once she began fasting her mind of these expectations, she found herself truly listening for the first time in years. She wasn’t preoccupied with whether her friends were impressed or if her family approved of her. She could just be with them, and these are healthy boundaries, right? She takes responsibility for herself, and she doesn’t take responsibility for them. Their reactions are their business, thus allowing her to be fully present and enjoy each interaction with that person without needing it to work out in some particular way or needing it to be something specific.

This is what the Zhuangzi means by fasting the mind. It means clearing out the clutter so that you can show up fully and authentically, and being fully present in every moment. When Sarah let go of her attachments to how things should be or what she thought they should be, she didn’t lose control. She actually gained a deeper sense of ease, a greater freedom to engage with others without the stress burdening her. She found herself laughing more and letting small annoyances slide, and just being present in the moment, and she reported that this was the most powerful place for her to be, this mental state, mental and emotional state for her career, but also her personal life. [33:15.0]

Imagine if you brought this greater sense of lightness into your own life. If you could empty out the mind of its anxieties, its need for control, how much room, how much more room, how much more space would you have for spontaneity, for joy? In your career, this might mean you experiment with new ideas without fear of them flopping, and that meaning something about your worth. In relationships, it could mean being open to the unexpected, letting go of rigid roles or expectations. You stop taking everything so seriously, and that gives you space to actually enjoy the process and be fully present. [33:51.5]

This is one of the most liberating insights from the Zhuangzi, the idea that life doesn’t have to be a series of fixed plans and heavy judgments. Instead, it can be like a dance, dynamic, flowing, unpredictable, and when you approach it with a fasted mind, free from rigid ideas, you can engage with life more fully. You can adapt to whatever comes and find joy in places you might never have thought to look. 

So, take this idea of fasting the mind with you. Try it out in small ways. Try to let go of burdened, preconceived ideas. Release the need to know exactly what’s coming and open yourself up to whatever is going to happen and whatever is happening to you right now. You might just find that there’s a lot more freedom, a lot more humor and a lot more life waiting for you on the other side. [34:43.0]

Let’s take a quick look back at these three powerful ideas from the Zhuangzi, ones that can genuinely reshape how we go through life.

First, there’s wu wei, the art of effortless action. It’s all about moving in sync with the natural flow, instead of forcing things. Like Butcher Ding, who moves his knife through the ox without struggle, we can bring the spirit to our own lives, our work, our relationships, our own day-to-day rhythms. It’s not about doing nothing. It’s doing what feels natural and aligned, thereby experiencing a kind of effortlessness in life, finding that sweet spot where things come together with ease.

Then we have the butterfly dream, which opens up a whole new way of seeing yourself. It challenges the rigid fixed identity that we often hold on to, and it burdens us, holds us down—we hold onto it and it holds onto us—and helps us understand, instead, the perspective that can be fluid, even fragile in some ways. By loosening our attachment to one version of ourselves, we build empathy and resilience and anti-fragility, qualities that let us connect more genuinely with other people and adapt more freely to all areas of life. [35:50.0]

Finally, there’s the fasting of the mind, or another way of putting it is emptying out the noise. The Zhuangzi’s here isn’t just clearing your head. It’s letting go of the need to control, the need to anticipate, the need to cling to outcomes which are based in, rooted in fear and anxiety. When you let go of that and you practice emptying the mind, fasting the mind, this will lead to a lightness, a playfulness that keeps life enjoyable and keeps burnout at bay. A great way to practice these three is in my program Emotional Mastery, just another plug for that one.

OK, these three ideas are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the Zhuangzi, and really just the tippy-tip of the iceberg when it comes to ancient Asian philosophy. There were many more points I wanted to share here from the Zhuangzi, but in the interest of time, I narrowed it down to just these three.

If this taste of the Zhuangzi has sparked something in you and you’d like to hear more wisdom from the Zhuangzi or other ancient texts, let me know by email or drop a comment. I’d love to dig deeper with you into the Zhuangzi and any other Asian philosophies that you might be interested in, especially the ones that you might not have even heard of that I’d like to present to you. In a way, this episode is a kind of experiment, so let me know how it’s gone for you. [37:03.3]

Thank you so much for listening to the end. I appreciate it so much. I look forward to welcoming you to the next episode. If you like this, please hit a like or give it a good review on whatever platform you’re listening to this on. If this has helped you in any way, please share it with anyone else that you think could benefit from it. Thank you so much for listening. I look forward to welcoming you to the next episode. Again, I’m David Tian, signing out. [37:23.0]