Setting Up the Hexagram: Why Inner Truth Suddenly Mattered
You know how it is. You’re running a big project, everything is humming along, and then you hit that snag where your spreadsheet says ‘yes’ but your gut screams ‘no.’ That was me last month. I was staring down a decision about bringing on this new vendor—let’s call them “Sky High Solutions.” Their pitch deck was killer. Their numbers were perfect. But every time I talked to the CEO, I felt like I needed to check my wallet afterward. Something just felt thin, you know? Like their whole operation was built on paper mache.
I usually trust the data, but this time, the internal alarm was blaring. I needed clarity, but not the kind you get from a consultant report. I needed real, foundational truth. So I dusted off my old I Ching coins—the ones I usually only touch when I’m absolutely stuck in the mud—and decided to throw Hexagram 61. I’d read about it before, the famous ‘Zhong Fu,’ or Inner Truth. I knew the general idea: sincerity brings results, trust the genuine stuff. But I had never actively tried to apply it to a messy, dollar-sign-driven business problem.
Casting the Lines and Grasping the Initial Message
The process itself was simple enough. I sat down, cleared my head, and focused entirely on the vendor question: “Is Sky High Solutions trustworthy enough to bet the farm on?” I tossed the coins six times, meticulously recorded the lines, and bam—I landed on 61 changing to 42 (Increase). The combination was interesting. It wasn’t just ‘be sincere’; it was ‘be sincere, and then good things will multiply.’
My first move was to try and interpret the hexagram in the dumbest, most literal way possible. If it means ‘Inner Truth,’ I figured I needed to find their inner truth. So I started digging. I pulled up every obscure piece of public record I could find. I hunted down old employees on LinkedIn. I was looking for the smoking gun, the definitive proof that they were either solid gold or pure trash. I went deep into the financials, trying to find that one creative accounting trick. I spent three solid days chasing shadows, driving myself nuts trying to expose their hidden reality.
And what did I find? Nothing conclusive. Everything was clean. Everything looked great. I was left right where I started—the data said ‘yes,’ the gut said ‘run.’
The Realization: The Truth Starts with Me
I hit a wall. I had misread the whole assignment. Inner Truth isn’t just about exposing the hidden motives of the other guy. I sat back and re-read the commentary on Hexagram 61, specifically the imagery: Wind over the Lake. The wind influences the surface, but the lake is still and deep. The truth is reflected, not uncovered by aggressive digging.
This is where the real shift happened. I stopped focusing on their sincerity and started focusing on mine. What was my own inner truth in this situation? I realized I was scared of failure, and I was using the I Ching as a magical shield to outsource the decision. My inner truth was that I needed to be honest about the risk I was willing to take, regardless of the vendor.
So, I changed my approach completely. I decided to operate with absolute, painful transparency:
- I went back to the vendor and instead of asking standard questions, I laid out my exact, worst-case scenario fears—specific things I thought might break, things I suspected they couldn’t handle.
- I told my team the truth about my doubts, rather than just saying, “The data is shaky.” I articulated the lack of connection, the feeling of hollowness in their pitch.
- Most importantly, I imposed an inner rule: I will only proceed if I can look at myself in the mirror and genuinely feel 100% committed to mitigating the risks that I know are there.
Executing the Test of Sincerity
The practice shifted from investigation to application. I didn’t ditch the vendor immediately. Instead, I established a small, low-risk pilot project. But the key was the terms I set. I didn’t hide the low stakes. I told them straight up: “This is a trust exercise. We pay X for Y, and if Y isn’t delivered perfectly, there’s no follow-on contract. No excuses, no negotiations, just a clean, honest pass/fail.”
That honesty—my own Inner Truth being projected—changed the dynamic instantly. The CEO of Sky High Solutions, who had been all smiles and vague promises, suddenly got very serious. He started trying to argue for wiggle room, for clauses, for slightly lower standards. The moment he tried to muddy the water, the lack of genuine commitment to the simple terms became obvious.
My gut feeling, which I had tried to analyze and prove wrong for days, was confirmed not by an external audit, but by my own act of sincerity. Hexagram 61 wasn’t telling me, “They are liars.” It was telling me, “Be honest about your needs, and their true nature will reveal itself in the reflection.”
We walked away from Sky High Solutions. It felt messy because I had to override three separate departments who loved the presentation, but it felt right. Grasping the true message of Inner Truth means understanding that the integrity you are looking for in the world has to start with the integrity you bring to the decision table. Ditch the data analysis for a minute, be brutally honest about what you need, and watch how quickly the fake stuff retreats.
