Grateful for trusting friends
In prison "I told myself anxiety does not help with anything. I read classics like 'The Red and the Black,' 'Pride and Prejudice' and parts of the 'Records of the Grand Historian' to calm down."
When the procuratorate announced a lack of evidence, "I was finally no longer a suspect."
"But chances were slim that I could go back to my previous job in front of the camera. Nobody wants to hire someone who was a suspect."
Fang attempted to negotiate with a Fortune 500 company after he was bailed out. The counterpart was hospitable at first, but turned him down the second day after finding out Fang was involved in a legal problem.
After years of striving in management and business, Fang hoped "people could trust me less."
"Friends trusted me entirely without strictly examining my commercial pattern, which made me flattered and lose rational control over financial management."
His nationwide reputation was not built in one day and won't be torn down suddenly as well. It still serves useful asset. "But fame is not doing business itself. Professional skills aren not of much value in the commercial battlefield."
With no potential in the business world, he barely made a living by drawing proposals. "I bought cheap food, cooked for myself, and took the subway, by all means not to waste money."
"I managed to sustain myself with only 100 yuan for a month. Social activities also cost money, so I stayed home and read. I studied the generalized social exchange theory and traitor culture and am planning on publishing my work."
Most of the time throughout his adversity, it was his friends at his back. "I am still grateful. Those I owed money to and obtained investment funds from did not come after me during the hardship. When the Internet was flooded with questions and blames, they didn't even utter a word."
"I must do something to repay their tolerance, not only the owed money, but also with interest. Or, I would always feel guilty towards them."
Desire management
Fang established his glorious figure on TV, but on the other side of his brilliance, his failure in the business world is undeniable.
"For three years, I kept thinking about everything that has happened to me. It was a big lesson, from which I learned where my field is, and where it's not."
"A brand new business is not my thing. It requires too much patience."
"I live for a big platform. Like in Dragon TV, the producer-in-chief wasn't just a shining name. At the crucial moment when the station was just founded, my crew's trust was so precious that we fought for our survival strategy with full strength."
"Such an opportunity won't easily fall on me any longer, which I am fully aware of. Besides, my age probably won't permit a thorough restart of a business career."
"When my contract with Dragon TV was up, I was negotiating with another media outlet on my employment as their first chair."
"The prospective offer was indeed attractive to me, in a sense of not exactly the lust of power itself, but what you can do with it to execute your ideas, before the law vanquished this rosy dream."
"I know my current awkward situation. The same is evident in my professional capabilities."
"In Chinese traditional conceptions, I am still stained. It is absolutely understandable not to believe me. Leave me away from duties concerned with money, contracts, and decision-making, and confine me within institutions and rules."
"Desire is a double-edged sword. It could be ambitious, but never boundless. You can exploit one thing to the utmost. But don't ever covet everything. Outrageous expansion of desire is dangerous and tiresome."
"A fair God only lives in the mind, reminding one properly managed desire is also an essential ingredient in the recipe for success."
