Six Insights from 'Company of One' and My April Reading List

This month I read “Company of One” and found it very inspiring. Here are a few reading takeaways.

One: Start First, Then Learn

“Start right away. Don’t wait until you feel ready. Start today. You shouldn’t learn first, then start. You should start first, then learn. Now, begin!” (Preface)

When we want to do something that diverges from our current path, we often stay stuck in the “imagining” or “learning” phase, until eventually this thing we wanted to do gets washed away by life’s trivialities and forgotten. Ray had been recommending that I learn sales, but I kept thinking there would be time later, I’d do it when I had free time. But never having free time is the norm: running, practicing martial arts, reading, memorizing vocabulary, studying coursework… there’s always endless things competing for my attention.

It wasn’t until I finished this book and my trip to Shanghai that I was awakened—I should try to establish my own business.

I discovered an advantage of my own—“tea.” My hometown Chaozhou has always been famous for tea, and Phoenix Dan Cong has a unique flavor compared to other teas. The pain point is that after COVID, people care more about their health, and tea can serve as a substitute for coffee, milk tea, etc. Moreover, “tea” isn’t just tea—there’s also the teaware, tea culture, and related products behind it. So “tea” as a general business direction is something I can look into after doing on-site research (if I really want to enter this industry, I think I should walk through the entire production line—as a local, I have language advantages and connections).

Note: The above is still “imagining” without action, haha, but at least there’s a version recorded.

Two: Show Your True Self in Community

“You don’t need to invest yourself fully in every community you join, but you must invest one aspect of yourself, and that aspect must be completely authentic. It’s the combination of time and vulnerability that builds and grows relationships.” (Community First)

I deeply relate to this: showing your authentic side. “The Seventh Sense” mentions that people naturally have different personas for different situations—we don’t need to demand a “universal adapter” identity for every scenario. But the persona you display when interacting with others should be a part of you, so that over the course of development, the you that’s seen has continuity.

“Honesty” isn’t just about others—it’s more about yourself: you don’t need to create countless lies to cover one lie, you won’t randomly occupy your cognitive load; you’ll attract people who truly resonate with you; you might seem vulnerable, but once you’ve experienced the feeling of “resonance,” social creatures like us won’t fear it anymore… Most importantly, you’ll sleep very well at night.

Three: Share the Process, Not Just Results

“They were both doing it, but Chris was sharing the process of doing, while Nathan wasn’t.” (Find Your People)

When I was organizing featured posts the other day, I found many of my own posts that now seem incredibly embarrassing, but that’s part of me, that’s my growth. I noticed that roughly every month or two I’d share my recent life in the sharing section—things I learned from podcasts, conflicts with family and analysis, trying to tutor someone, interesting books I read… sometimes in the chat section, sometimes in book club, sometimes in community sharing, sometimes in 5am club, leaving behind many traces.

Four: Use a Slow Cooker to Simmer Soup

“If you don’t succeed at first, just step back, reset, and start again. Nothing you do or learn is wasted. A business takes years to fully develop into a sustainable, growing operation, and since you’re developing alongside the business, you have time to adjust and learn the skills needed for each step of success. This is possible because you’re not doing it in what venture capitalist Marc Andreessen calls ‘baking a cake in three minutes’ unicorn style. You’re using a slow cooker to simmer soup, seeing everything clearly. Plus, if you’re not rushing, you’ll have time to talk with customers, time to iterate, time to validate your hypotheses.” (Create Last)

Although I haven’t tried creating my own business, I think of things I’ve done, and the principle is indeed true. As long as you invest time in doing something, you’ll slowly figure it out. Memorizing vocabulary doesn’t require learning linguistics first, practicing martial arts doesn’t require reading traditional Chinese medicine texts first, running doesn’t require reading several instruction books first, reading doesn’t require figuring out all the benefits of reading first, studying physics doesn’t require understanding every mathematical derivation first, sharing your views doesn’t require memorizing every word first, using AI to build applications doesn’t require completing an entire machine learning course first…

Although a person has only about four thousand weeks in a lifetime, by unhurriedly enjoying and utilizing this time, we have time to iterate toward the optimal solution for our current situation.

Five: Treat “No” as a Learning Opportunity

“‘The less shy you are, the better; the thicker your skin, the better,’ she said. ‘People won’t reply to your messages, people will say no, but from time to time someone will be interested and say yes. But if you haven’t experienced all those no’s first, you won’t have this opportunity.’ While you might not be pitching investors, you will repeatedly talk with people who might reject you. The sooner you get used to this, the sooner you realize it’s not personal, and treat these no’s as learning opportunities, the better.” (Cold Emails, Calls, and Texts)

Will had also shared a book before: “You Can’t Teach a Kid to Ride a Bike at a Seminar” [Note: The Chinese title referenced translates differently]. I think a book speaks louder than a thousand words, but I can summarize my view: You can be rejected countless times, but as long as you succeed once, that’s enough. If you observe and study the rejection process, you can enjoy the experience.

Six: Tell the World Who You Are

“That’s exactly right. Clearly define your cultural values so that most people say ‘this isn’t for me,’ but a small group says ‘this is exactly the job I want!’ Outstanding people only apply when they see an ideal job that meets (or exceeds) their expectations. If you can, recall those stressful and painful experiences when you were job hunting, and how many times after long interview processes, you discovered the company wasn’t right for you at all!” (Tell the World Who You Are)

This is practical guidance for “honesty” on a broader scale. According to Dunbar’s theory (because the human cerebral cortex is limited in size, providing cognitive capacity to maintain stable relationships with only about 150 people—note that stable relationships mean friends you contact at least once a year), we can’t randomly try to build stable relationships with everyone. So how do we choose our partners?

The answer is to continuously declare your values. This not only selects collaborators but also teammates who can walk a long stretch of the life journey with you. Defining values isn’t just about what you say or your verbal techniques—more importantly, it’s what you do. I help the teacher lead Baduanjin training for faculty almost every week, show up at lunch meetings, handle the fire and main grilling at BBQ gatherings, rush to help replace foam mats in the martial arts room right after a long bus ride barely having eaten, say “I’m available!” when the garden fair needs a booth, average about an hour of standing meditation daily… Although only you know every moment of your experience, someone who consistently conveys their values won’t be invisible—someone always notices.

Book Recommendations

• “Crow Lake” and “A Record of Mother”: I’ve posted about these before.

• “Blur”: Northwest Chinese flavor! A local saying: “The dust of the times falling on each person is a mountain.”

• “First Love”: A short story with lots of room for imagination, though even as a romance lover I found it dizzying 😵.

• “Life”: A novel written by a liver transplant patient, though in essay form—very pure and moving.

• “The Story of the Wolf”: Arabian flavor! Dogs fear making mistakes, but wolves don’t—they have the right to err. A children’s book suitable for kids.

• “Cancer Ward”: A classic Russian literary tome, good for reading from dawn to dusk over a few days, though this month being busy it took a week or two. Gained deeper understanding of this group of people.

• “Who Do You Want to Spend Your Life With?”: A picture book, good for glancing at when you can’t focus on reading.

• “Still Haven’t Become a Doll Today”: An interesting manga that displays human nature openly. (Reading manga is reading too, haha)

Bad Book Review

• “Blue Leaves”: Very poor children’s literature! Forces a moral onto every story—reading too much will make you dull! Compared to the ceiling of children’s literature “The Little Prince,” it’s like the deepest abyss.