Resources

Things worth sitting with

A guide, a collection of essays, and the books that have shaped this work. Take what is useful. Return when you need to.

Free Guide

The Transition Compass

转变指南针

The Transition Compass is for the moments when you sense something needs to change but do not yet know what. It will not give you answers. It will help you see where you are.

It offers orientation. Three terrains to locate yourself in. Four directions to calibrate by. Real stories of people who recognised something was shifting before they knew what.

Sometimes the most useful thing is simply knowing where you are.

Read more and get your copy

Free  ·  Bilingual

Writing

Essays on transition

Originally published on WeChat, for those leaning toward the questions, in search of a fuller life.

01
Pace
Aug 2025
Everyone is running. Few ask where.
所有人都在奔跑，却少有人问去向
On the hollowness of busyness, Covey's forgotten second quadrant, and what it means to live by compass rather than clock.
Read on WeChat →
02
Origin
Dec 2024
Where the heart is at peace, that is home.
此心安处是吾乡
The essay that started everything. On hollow success, sudden loss, and what happens when the life you built no longer holds you.
Read on WeChat →
03
Self-awareness
Jan 2025
Know yourself, and you will know the world.
认识自己，才会认识世界
On the Ladder of Inference: how we turn raw experience into fixed beliefs without noticing, and how to start climbing back down.
Read on WeChat →
04
Transition
Dec 2024
When effort stops working.
当努力不再有效：写给探索中的你
Why the strategies that got you here cannot get you through this. And the difference between horizontal change and vertical transformation.
Read on WeChat →
05
Identity
Oct 2025
When being useful stops being enough.
当"有用"不再有用
On the treadmill of productivity, what it costs to make busyness your proof of existence, and what it takes to step off.
Read on WeChat →
06
Relationships
Jul 2025
The quality of a relationship lives in how you listen.
关系的质量，藏在你"如何听见"一个人里
The character 聽 as a lesson in presence, and why we so often hear ourselves instead of the person in front of us.
Read on WeChat →
07
Rest
Jan 2026
When did you last truly rest?
永不下线的时代，你上一次真正休息是什么时候？
On the always-on culture, why self-care has become another item to optimise, and what rest actually requires of us.
Read on WeChat →
08
Transition
Dec 2024
Transition begins with an ending.
转变，从结束开始
William Bridges on why all real change starts with loss, and why grief is not a detour but the very first movement of becoming.
Read on WeChat →
Yellow wildflowers with harbour behind
Reading

Books that have shaped this work

Not a comprehensive list. These are the ones I return to, the ones I still find myself quoting in sessions.

Transitions: Making Sense of Life's Changes
William Bridges
The foundational text on transition as an inner process. Bridges is the reason I make the distinction between change and transition at all.
Surprised by Meaning
Nancy K. Schlossberg
Schlossberg's 4S model (situation, self, support, strategies) underpins how I think about resources and readiness in transition.
Man's Search for Meaning
Viktor Frankl
On finding purpose within conditions you did not choose. The most honest book I know about the relationship between suffering and becoming.
The Second Mountain
David Brooks
On the shift from achievement to commitment, from self-centred to other-centred. A useful frame for midlife transition.
何为良好生活
陈嘉映
A Chinese philosopher's inquiry into what it means to live well, not as an abstract ideal but as something worked out through the texture of actual life. One of the most honest books I know on the question this practice is built around.
尼各马可伦理学 · Nicomachean Ethics
亚里士多德 Aristotle
On eudaimonia: flourishing as a practice, not a destination. The philosophical root of what a good life actually requires of us.
金刚经 · The Diamond Sutra
Buddhist scripture
On non-attachment, the nature of self, and how clinging to fixed identity creates suffering. A text I return to whenever I notice myself grasping.
道德经 · Tao Te Ching
老子 Lao Tzu
Eighty-one short chapters on the wisdom of yielding, the power of stillness, and what it means to act from one's deepest nature. The book beneath all my work.
The Happiness Trap
Russ Harris
The clearest introduction to ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) I have found, on defusing from unhelpful thoughts and moving toward a values-driven life.
Working Identity
Herminia Ibarra
A counterintuitive argument: you cannot think your way into a new career identity, you have to act your way in. Essential reading for anyone navigating professional transition.