The “golden cicada shedding its shell” refers to its growth process, which sheds or molts its outer shell. It can be used metaphorically to describe how people can cleverly escape a situation by using deception. In times of crisis, employing the “golden cicada shedding its shell” strategy can often turn a dangerous situation into a ...
When Goujian, the ruler of the state of Yue in ancient China, received valuable counsel from his advisor Fan Li when he found himself trapped on Mount Kuaiji by King Fuchai of Wu. Fan Li advised Goujian on how to navigate this dire situation and emphasized that in times of crisis, one must prioritize preserving ...
Chinese copper coins have a long history. They contain the wisdom of the Chinese people and symbolize the way of doing business based on honesty and integrity. The meaning of copper coins Before the reign of Qin Shi Huang (259-210 B.C.), Chinese copper coins had many shapes due to the many warring states. After Qin ...
As a growing entrepreneur, you always focus on growing your business, looking for opportunities everywhere. However, as it grows, you must also accommodate the capacity to produce. Many people use “scalability” and “growth” interchangeably. These two concepts are undoubtedly related but don’t mean the same thing. For example, business growth means increased capacity, operations, and ...
As the global population continues to increase, the demand for resources and energy is also growing. This, in turn, has put a strain on the environment and has caused many of the world’s natural resources to become depleted. In response, companies and organizations have begun to shift their focus from traditional business models to ones ...
The rich and the poor were once at the same starting line, but the final result was quite different — what is the reason for this? This is a story about how three men’s futures were decided by what they did with some apples. Three men went out together to search for opportunities to make a ...
Traditional Confucian values — “benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and trust” — sound like rather staid notions, more suitable for a refined scholar of literature than a go-go entrepreneur. But cases abound through Chinese history of Confucian businessmen who built vast commercial empires relying on those ideas. Take the case of Hu Xueyan, a banker who went out ...
The Huizhou merchants, also known as Hui merchants, were one of the merchant societies in the six counties under the Huizhou Prefecture during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, also known as the “Hui Gang.” They were highly respected and known for their “Confucian way” of doing business. The Legend of the Huizhou merchants The Huizhou ...
There was once a little shop called the Conscience Pawnshop. When the business began to decline, the owner, Zhang Yipin, considered closing it down. Around the same time, the owner became seriously ill and lost his eyesight. Now blind and too ill to run the business, he let his son, Zhang Sanbao, manage the shop. ...
I learned a long time ago to listen to my inner voice. It is a warm summer day in Australia, during a pandemic, and an odd silence wraps up the city of Melbourne due to a new sudden and unexpected lockdown, the third. Once again, I find myself immersed in my thoughts and, while trying ...