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, PhD.
David: Most people are trying way too hard in life. They're forcing things in work, in dating, in life, grinding, overthinking, hustling, controlling, trying to make things happen by sheer will—and on the surface that might look, like strength, like drive, like leadership, but underneath it, there's tension, fear, a kind of quiet desperation, and the harder they try, the worse it gets. Customers pull away. Romantic prospects lose interest. The body burns out. The mind spirals. It doesn't matter if you're a founder managing a team, a high-performer chasing a promotion, or someone just trying to finally feel like they're enough. You'll run into the same wall if you're forcing your way through life. [01:02.2]
But there's another way, and when you get it, it feels like flying, like moving through life with an ease that doesn't come from effort, but from alignment. Relationships click. Creativity flows. Leadership becomes magnetic. People start responding to something within you, something you're not even trying to show, because it's just who you are now, and that's the power of wu wei.
Wu wei is a concept from ancient Chinese philosophy, especially in the Dao De Jing and the Zhuangzi. This term is often translated as non-action or effortless action, and at first glance, it might sound like slacking off, like being passive or lazy, but that's not what it means. Wu wei isn't doing nothing. It's not apathy. It's not checking out. It's doing the right thing in the right way at the right time with no inner resistance. It's action that flows. It flows from being deeply attuned to yourself, to others and to what the present moment requires. [02:05.1]
Think of a great jazz musician in flow at the height of improvisation, or a martial artist who doesn't have to think, he just intuitively reacts with the movements, or someone in love fully present, not needing to plan the next move because the heart is guiding the moment. That's modern wu wei, and if you don't understand it, or worse, if you keep living against it, you'll end up pushing away the very things you want most, connection, peace, joy, love. That's the trap.
In this episode we're going to break down what wu wei really is, why most high achievers totally miss it, and how you can start aligning with it in your relationships, in your work, in how you lead others and your own life, because once you stop forcing, something else takes over something far better.
I'm David Tian, and for almost the past two decades, I've been helping hundreds of thousands of people from over 87 countries find fulfillment, to success and happiness in their personal and professional lives. In this episode, I've got three points and the first point is that wu wei is not laziness. It's effortless alignment. [03:11.0]
This is where most people mess it up. Like I said, they hear non-action and their mind jumps to lying around in bed all day, waiting for the universe to deliver their dream job or soulmate to their front door. That's not wu wei. That's Netflix and avoidance. Wu wei is action that flows forth without internal resistance. It's what happens when your outer movements are in sync with your inner state. You're not pushing. You're not pretending. You're just doing the thing and somehow the thing gets done, clean, precise, effective, not because you're over controlling it, but because you're not. [03:47.3]
In the Dao De Jing from the 5th century BC, Laozi puts it like this: “The Dao never acts, yet nothing is left undone,” and it's one of those lines that takes a minute to sink in. It's a paradox. How does nothing get done through no doing? But you've seen it before, maybe in sports, maybe in art, when Michael Jordan was on the court or Yo-Yo Ma was mid-performance. They weren't forcing it. They weren't micromanaging their every move. They were in the zone, flowing, effortless. You couldn't see the work behind it because the work had disappeared into being one with the present moment.
In the 4th century BC, Zhuangzi said it well when he wrote, “Ease is right. Begin right and you will feel ease. Continue with ease and you will be right.” When you're in wu wei, there's no inner friction. You're not second-guessing yourself, you're not scanning for approval. You're not trying to be anything you're not. You're just in Flow. [04:45.8]
I remember a client from a few years ago. Let's call him Jason, brilliant guy, stacked resume, even pretty good-looking, but he kept bombing his dates, not because he was awkward, but because he was trying too hard. He was strategizing everything, overthinking it all from his low self-esteem, running through mental scripts, watching her reactions like a hawk, trying to be charming or funny, whatever he thought she wanted, and of course, it didn't work. The energy was off. Women felt it, this subtle pressure, this undercurrent of “Please like me,” and it totally backfired for him.
Then there was this one time a few weeks after we started working together, when he showed up to a date just exhausted. He'd had a long week, barely prepped for the date, didn't care how it went, and that night was the best date of his life. Why? Because he dropped his act. He wasn't posturing. He wasn't trying to impress her. He was just being. He was non-needy, so his natural qualities could shine. That's wu wei. When you're so rooted in who you are, you don't need to control the outcome. [05:57.4]
It's the same in leadership. The best leaders I've worked with, CEOs, founders, even military officers, they don't feel the need to dominate a room. They don't need to prove themselves. Their authority doesn't come from barking orders or intimidating others. It comes from who they are, and their people follow them because it just feels right. There's no performance, just presence. That's what Laozi meant when he wrote in the Dao De Jing, “The master doesn't talk. He acts. When his work is done, the people say, ‘We did it ourselves.’” That's influence without force, power without control, wu wei in action.
Even in mental health, the same idea is true. You can't brute-force your way into healing. I would know, I've tried. So have most of my clients when they first find me. You can journal every day, analyze your childhood, go to therapy five times a week, but if you're doing all of that from a place of panic, trying to fix yourself because you believe you're not enough as you are, then it won't work. You're trying to force your way into peace and peace doesn't respond to force. [07:11.3]
What works is something else entirely, a kind of letting go, a kind of softening, not giving up, just not clenching so hard. Wu wei is when you're no longer wrestling with your own mind. You're not trying to be healed. You're just being with what's here and somehow that creates space for the healing to happen.
I've had clients who spent years stuck in cycles of burnout, anxiety and feeling like nothing was ever enough. Their turning point, for a lot of them, wasn't some complicated technique. It was the moment they stopped running. They faced their fear, their shame, whatever part of them they didn't want to see, and they first just sat with it, no criticizing, no fixing, just presence, and when they stopped resisting it, it stopped running their life. [08:06.0]
That's at the heart of wu wei. It's not passivity. It's presence. Not avoiding effort, but effort that doesn't strain. Not controlling life, but flowing with it, cooperating with it. When you live that way, relationships work. Your own mind, all start moving differently, more ease, more clarity, less bullshit.
Okay, so the second point is, wu wei takes practice. Real spontaneity is something you grow into. It's not just something you stumble on while lying in bed, waiting for enlightenment to show up, like an Amazon package. It requires skill, and like any skill, like playing the violin or learning Brazilian jiu-jitsu or actually listening fully on a date, it starts awkward. It starts forced. You suck at first. You're a white belt, and that's not a bug, that's the process. [09:04.3]
Now, there's this fantasy a lot of people carry around, the idea that if something doesn't come easy, then it means you're not naturally good at it or that it isn't you and that you should stop, and that mindset kills more potential than almost anything else I've seen. It's actually rooted in toxic shame, but I won't get into that here.
If you're waiting to feel authentic before you act with integrity or confidence, or love or courage, you'll be waiting forever. In the 3rd century BC, the famous Chinese philosopher Mengzi or Mencius wrote:
All humans have hearts and minds that cannot bear to see the suffering of others. The mind and heart that feels compassion is the beginning of humaneness. The mind and heart that feels guilt and dislike is the beginning of righteousness. The mind and heart that feels respect and reverence is the beginning of propriety. The mind and heart that knows right and wrong is the beginning of wisdom. These four beginnings are in us all, but if we do not nurture them, they will not grow.
He uses this beautiful metaphor of moral potential as sprouts. They're already in you, but they don't just bloom on their own. You've got to cultivate them, care for them, protect them, water them. That's cultivation, and it's slow and gradual. [10:23.6]
Around the same time, another famous Chinese philosopher, Xunzi, pushes it even further. He believed we're not just sprouts that need watering. We're like crooked timber that needs to be warmed up and bent into shape. He writes”
A person is born with certain desires. If he follows these desires, he will struggle with others and fall into chaos. Therefore, the ancient kings created ritual and guidance to redirect human nature. The nature of wood is crooked. If you want it straight, you must carve and warm it. The nature of stone is hard. If you want it sharp, you must grind it. In the same way, human nature must be transformed through learning.
Now, on the surface, this might sound harsh, like people are broken and need to be fixed or something, but what he's really pointing to is training, repetition, effort. You don't become a master of yourself by accident. [11:20.8]
Yet it's not meant to feel like punishment. This isn't about obeying some moral checklist just to get a gold star from the universe. That's how people burn out. If you're doing all this inner work just because you think you should, then you're setting yourself up for resentment and failure.
That's what the renowned psychologist Karen Horney called “the tyranny of the shoulds.” You meditate because you think you should. You go on dates because you think you should. You read philosophy because you think you should, and it all becomes hollow, dead, mechanical, and then you burn out. But if you do it because you want to grow, because you find it meaningful, because something in you wants to become more alive, more open, more present, then the same exact effort becomes nourishing instead of exhausting, and that's the difference. [12:14.8]
Many high-achievers struggle when it comes to managing their emotions or navigating their relationships, and they 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 David Tian’s “Emotional Mastery” program comes in. It's based on peer-reviewed, evidence-backed 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.
My favorite philosopher, Wang Yangming from the 15th century, nailed it centuries ago. He said, “To know and not to act is not truly to know. The unity of knowledge and action means that as soon as one knows what is right, one immediately acts on it.” He believed that real virtue is spontaneous, but not spontaneous like randomness, but spontaneous like ready, like an archer who doesn't need to think about aiming anymore. His whole body is the aim. He intuitively feels it instead of having to think about it, and that's how wu wei works now. [13:44.2]
Philip J. Ivanhoe, my old mentor and the top scholar of Chinese philosophy writing in English, explains it in a more relatable way. He says, “Sagehood is like mastering a skill.” He compares it to music, like when you're learning to play the piano. You start stiff. You're focused on hitting every note correctly one at a time. It's clunky. You're learning one hand and then the other hand, and then trying to put them together. But over time, the practice sinks in and the music begins to flow, and then you're going by the feel of it and that's when it becomes beautiful. That's when the effort disappears into the action. [14:21.8]
I had a client a few years ago, and let's call him Nathan. He was super driven, a high-performer as a VP in his company, and on paper, he was killing it, but in his relationships, it was a disaster. He kept dating unavailable women, chasing validation, overanalyzing everything, trying to fix himself so a hot woman would finally love him.
He came to coaching like a project manager. He wanted a step-by-step system to become dateable. That mindset was the very thing holding him back. At first, everything he did felt mechanical. He judged himself harshly for not having breakthroughs fast enough. He wanted to be emotionally available yesterday. [15:02.8]
But something major shifted when he finally let go of the idea that this was some kind of performance, when he started actually seeing his emotions as a guide to think through his values, getting curious about his parts, connecting with what he truly wanted, not what he was told he should want.
Fast-forward about a year and he's not trying anymore in interactions. He's not chasing. He's just showing up real, grounded and present. He ended up in a relationship that's honest, deep, and what he says is joyful, but more importantly, he's proud of who he is now, not because he forced it, but because he trained for it. He grew into it.
Okay, so now the third and final point is that forcing always backfires in the long run. Real power doesn't come from control. It comes from letting go of needing control. This one is really hard to swallow for a lot of high-achievers, especially if you've spent your whole life getting ahead by pushing harder than everyone else, grinding through school, through work, through relationships, white-knuckling your way to results. [16:11.4]
But when it comes to the parts of life that really actually matter, love, meaning, connection, peace, that approach starts working against you. In the Dao De Jing, Laozi warned us, “He who clings loses. He who grasps with force will not endure.” When you force things, whether it's trying to get someone to love you or trying to make your team respect you, or trying to get rid of anxiety, you end up creating friction. You create resistance, and often without realizing it, you push the very thing that you want further away.
Perhaps the most famous story in the Zhuangzi is one that I've always loved. It's about a butcher or cook, but it's not just any butcher. This guy has been carving up oxen for 19 years and his blade has never needed sharpening. Why? Because he doesn't just hack at the meat. He doesn't force his way through. Instead, he depends on wu wei to allow his blade to flow through, following the natural grain of the animal. [17:14.8]
He's not even looking with his eyes anymore. He says he's feeling with His Spirit. Here's how the Zhuangzi puts it:
Perception and understanding have come to a stop, and spirit moves where it wants. I follow the natural lines, move through the great cavities in the meat, guide the blade through the openings. I never touch the smallest ligament or tendon, much less a major joint.
That's power without force, precision without strain, and when you look closely, that's actually the most sustainable kind of mastery. It's not loud. It's not dramatic, but it lasts.
Now compare that to how most people treat their own minds. Something feels off, some sadness, shame, fear, and the instinct is to immediately suppress it, get rid of it, or fix it or crush it with affirmations or positive thinking. But the psyche doesn't respond well to war or resistance. [18:15.2]
This is where Internal Family Systems therapy really makes such a huge difference. In IFS, when a part of you feels scared or ashamed or anxious, you don't try to beat it into submission. You don't lecture it. Instead, you turn toward it with openness and you listen to it. You get curious and you care, and in that space, the part can relax. It stops fighting you, because it finally feels seen and understood.
It’s the same with romantic anxiety. If you're on a date and, deep down, you “need” them to like you, if your sense of self-worth is hanging on their reaction, people will feel that and that pressure repels. It makes you less attractive, less trustworthy, less you, less natural. But if you're grounded in yourself, if you're not clinging to their approval, then there's room for actual connection. You're not performing. You're present, and ironically, that's when they're most likely to feel drawn to you. [19:19.5]
A while ago, I worked with a client. Call him Eric. He was a smart guy, former finance guy turned startup co-founder, a classic overachiever. He came to me because he'd burned out. He'd built this company, raised the money, hired the team, but he felt hollow, no joy. His marriage was falling apart, and despite his outward success, he still didn't feel like he was enough.
So, his natural response was to try harder. He doubled down on productivity. He built more routines. He did a lot more breath work, meditation. He drowned himself in green smoothies, the works, cold plunges, IV drips, all of the typical longevity stuff. He treated his emotions like tasks to complete. But the more he tried to fix himself, the worse he actually felt inside. [20:10.3]
Eventually, through our work together, he stopped trying to win at inner work like it was some business metric. He started letting go of the idea that he had to earn rest or love or peace. He began to slow down, to feel. He had this one moment where he told me, “I finally realized I was treating my inner world like a malfunctioning app, like it just needed a better operating system. But it's not a system. It's me. I'm not broken. I just never listened.”
From that point, he transformed. Not overnight, but gradually, things softened. His marriage got warmer. He laughed more. He was more spontaneous. He stopped feeling like life was a problem that he had to solve. [20:59.0]
What's wild is that as he let go of needing control, he actually became a better leader of people. His team started trusting him more. Investors responded better. He wasn't just performing confidence. He actually had it. He embodied it, because it wasn't tied to outcome anymore for him—and that's seemingly a huge paradox, right? The more you try to control, the less control you actually have. But when you let go of needing to control, things naturally start to move because you're no longer resisting them.
Chan Buddhism, the Chinese precursor to Zen, has the saying, “The harder you try to grasp it, the further away it slips. Stop chasing it, and it comes to you.” They're talking about enlightenment, of course, but it also applies to love, to leadership, to life. So, the next time you feel yourself trying to force something, whether it's a result or a person, or a part of yourself, first, pause and ask, “What would it feel like to soften right here?” and that is the beginning of real power for yourself. [22:11.8]
To wrap this up, let's go back to the three main points.
First, wu wei isn't passivity or doing nothing. It's acting without inner friction. It's alignment with the Dao where your actions flow naturally, because they come from a place of deep connection to what actually matters most.
Second, spontaneity doesn't just show up out of nowhere. You train for it. You cultivate it, like learning to play jazz or speaking a new language. It takes commitment at first, but not from a place of obligation, but from a place of meaning. You grow into wu wei.
Third, forcing things backfires in the long run. Whether it's in a relationship or leadership, or your own healing, the more you grasp, the more you push it away. The more you let go of needing control, the more space opens up for clarity, for connection, for power that doesn't have to shout. [23:08.2]
Now, the thing is, if you ignore all of this, if you keep trying to force your way through life, you'll keep hitting the same wall. You'll burn out or isolate, or find yourself constantly swinging between overwork and numbness. You'll chase validation only to feel emptier when you get it, and no matter how much you accomplish, it won't feel like enough. That's the trap most high achievers fall into. I know I've lived it. I've coached hundreds of people through it. It's real and it runs deep.
But there's another path, one where you stop white-knuckling everything, where your dating life starts feeling fun instead of just like a job interview, where your leadership becomes a natural extension of who you are, not a mask you wear, where you wake up and don't feel like you have something to prove, where peace and purpose don't feel like a moving target, they feel like home—and it starts with noticing. [24:00.0]
Start by looking at the places in your life where you're forcing, where there is pressure, where you're clinging to an outcome or trying to control someone or something. Then ask, “What would it look like to soften here, to trust a little more, to let go of this tight grip?”
So, here’s your homework. Journal on this one reflective question: “Where in my life am I forcing instead of flowing?” If you're serious about exploring this deeper, go back and sit with the quotes from this episode. Let them work on you, not as concepts to memorize, but as invitations to live differently.
Thank you so much for listening. If this has helped you in any way, please share it with anyone else you think could benefit from it. If you liked it, hit a like or give it a good rating on whatever platform you're listening to this on. If you have any feedback whatsoever, I'd love to hear it. Leave a comment or send me a message. I'd love to get your feedback.
I look forward to welcoming you to the next episode. Until then, David Tian, signing out. [24:56.3]
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