Amazon failed. The Fire Phone, Pets.com, Wallet.

You get it, the list goes on.

Part of success is failure. You won’t try, you won’t win.

Jia Jiang did a 100 days of rejections.

How did you learn how to fail?

I realized the other day, as I get older, life gets more interesting and complicated. Many opportunities, projects and situations come knocking on my door. At some point, it got overwhelming.

This all started after making enough to save. I decided that my work has to be more than saving and making money. I had ideas, not enough time and I didn’t know how to choose.

In the summer of 2018, I took time out to make sense of things in Hualien. I wrote a list of what I had learned and cared about.

The Life and Lessons of Bryan

I live honestly without contradictions
To fool no one, and myself
To find the nuance, from an assumption, 
An aphorism, to a fact of life
To see reality as it is
And always be a fool to the truth.

I redefine possibilities.
First for myself, then for the world.
Because I’m a little crazy.
Because “good enough”, isn’t.
Because what I do says who I am.

I see the good.
From the person beside me,
to what has happened to me.
In changing my perspective,
I give others a new story.

I play long-term games,
Because the best returns in life,
Come from compounded interest.
In love, in relationships, in wealth, in health.

I find courage,
to admit my flaws,
to share my truth,
to act from love,
to let go,
to do the right things when no one is looking,
and to do it all over again tomorrow.

To live my life with fun, brilliance, responsibility, agency, spaciousness, and above all, integrity.

[Last updated on 2 April 2025]

What a privilege for each of us to think about what makes a life worth living.

Between a rock and a hard thing is you.

All moves seem like wrong moves.

It could be mixed messages from a parent, a lover, or a boss. And everything feels too important to priortise.

The hard part about being in a bind, is not knowing what’s causing it.

The second hardest part is asking for help.

You can’t read the label from inside the jar.