The Hexagram Hit Me Like a Truck
I gotta be real with you guys. This whole journey into I Ching 14, “Possession in Great Measure” or Da You, didn’t start with some spiritual awakening. It started because I was a jerk. A rich jerk, but a jerk nonetheless.
About 18 months ago, the business I started was absolutely crushing it. We were making cash hand over fist, more money than I ever thought I’d see. My bank account was a thing of beauty. But I was miserable. I was working 18-hour days, I hated my team—not because they were bad, but because I micromanaged every single decision. I was sitting on this huge pile, this “great possession,” and I was acting like a terrified dragon guarding a tiny gold coin.
My old buddy, Mike, he’s a deep-water guy, really into the classics. He looked at me one day, all stressed out, running ragged, and just said, “Man, you’re the definition of Da You, but you’re failing the mandate. You have the harvest, but you’re not sharing the warmth of the sun. You’re just hoarding the heat. Go read the commentary on the 14th Hexagram and fix your life.”
The Practice: Identifying the Hoard
That was the trigger. I literally pulled out my notebook and wrote down every single thing I was “possessing” and refusing to let flow. It wasn’t just the money. That was the easy part.
- I was hoarding Control: I approved every contract over $500. I wrote every marketing email.
- I was hoarding Knowledge: I kept all the key client relationships locked down to me, just me. My team couldn’t talk to them without me sitting right there.
- I was hoarding Time: I was so busy managing the great possession that I had zero time for anything else—my kids, my health, anything meaningful.
The core lesson of Hexagram 14 is that the abundance is a gift, and the only way to keep receiving it is to be generous and wise with what you have. I was doing the opposite. I was choking the engine. The actual meaning of the Hexagram is not about having a lot; it’s about what you do with it when you have it. That distinction slammed into my brain.
Step 1: The Great Handover (Letting the Cash Flow)
I knew I had to act, not just think. The first thing I slashed was control. It was terrifying, I’m telling you.
I walked into my operations manager’s office, a guy named Pete who is seriously smart but I’d always treated like a kid, and I told him he was now approving all contracts up to $50,000. He just stared at me like I was having a meltdown. I literally took my company credit card and handed it over to my finance lead. I said, “Use this to fund any five employee education courses you think are useful. No asking me. Just do it.”
Then came the money part. I decided I was going to give away 15% of the last quarter’s profit, no strings attached, to three non-profits that were locally focused. I didn’t even want a tax receipt. I just wired the money and shut my mouth about it. No press release, no pat on the back. Just a pure act of getting rid of the excess. I felt the tension physically drop the moment the confirmation email hit my inbox. It’s like the energy finally breathed.
Step 2: The Ego Reversal (The Humility Test)
Hexagram 14 talks about the person who possesses greatly being “easy to discern,” meaning they don’t act like they own the world. This meant I had to face my own arrogance.
Remember that huge client, Northgate, that we lost two years ago because I messed up the proposal? I had blamed the junior designer publicly. I had carried that guilt around, but my ego wouldn’t let me admit it. So, I reached out to Northgate’s CEO, the main guy, and I simply wrote an email that said, “I messed up the pitch two years ago. The fault was mine, and I apologize.” That’s it. One short paragraph.
I spent an hour sweating over the reply. He wrote back two days later. He just said, “That took guts. Thank you.” No more, no less. I felt lighter than air. That one small act of taking responsibility for the possession of my own failures was tougher than handing over the credit card. It was about cleaning the container so more good stuff could flow in without getting blocked by my own crap.
The Achievement: The True Harvest
So, did the business instantly double? No. That’s not what Da You means, at least not to me now. What happened was better.
Once I stopped suffocating the team, they rose up. Pete and the others started running the company smarter than I ever did. They introduced a new workflow that cut our delivery time in half. I was barely needed for the day-to-day work anymore. That time I was hoarding? It came back to me in buckets.
I took that freed-up time and started consulting for a couple of smaller, local businesses that I really admire, using the wisdom I gained running my big successful company. I was giving away my skill, not just my cash. The pay is good, but the best part is the feeling of utility. I’m doing things that matter, not just owning things that sit there.
The old company is stable, strong, and actually fun to be around now. My personal income dropped about 10% because I’m not drowning in operational profit, but the money coming in from the consulting and the sheer peace I feel is massive. The true meaning of I Ching 14 isn’t about the size of the possession; it’s about the Great Use you put it to. I used those steps to free myself from the burden of my own success, and that was the biggest good fortune I could ask for.
