What I’m Taking from Sunxue, Lean Muscle and “Huangmao”

Sat, 07 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Sunxue, lean muscle and huangmao. Quite a collection of things to put in the same sentence.

They come together in , which ranges from AI and making money to fitness, relationships and what to do with life once money stops being the main problem. The three names have stayed with me, partly because they touch on things I was already trying to work out.

Very loosely, Sunxue is Sun’s evolving set of ideas about understanding the world and finding opportunities. Lean muscle is the fitness ideal discussed in the conversation. Huangmao, literally ‘yellow hair’, borrows a brash, unconventional image to talk about acting without being paralysed by other people’s opinions. These are informal ideas with memorable names, and I’m interested in what I can actually make of them.

Sun is also a controversial person. I don’t think finding something useful in this conversation requires me to endorse him, or to treat his wealth as proof of everything he says. Whether someone follows their own advice matters when they offer their life as evidence. I’d still want to examine the advice itself. What follows is my current reading, with a few things I’m happy to borrow and others I’m less sure about.

Sunxue: what do I want to do with greater capability?

The part about changing how we think feels familiar. AI has already changed how I work. I use it to investigate problems, work through code and try approaches that would otherwise take me longer to explore.

In , I wrote that work had generally felt less intense than in previous years. I still find that individual tasks can be easier now. Yet I also feel tired, sometimes more tired than I expect given how much help I have. Finishing things faster hasn’t automatically given me more control over my day.

Part of the difficulty is what happens when another task is assigned. There are times when I want to push back but end up accepting it. Having a quicker way to do something makes it easier to imagine squeezing it in. My time and attention remain finite, however capable the tools become.

That is where I want better understanding to help me. I’d like to get better at deciding what deserves my effort, how much I can reasonably take on, and when something else has to wait. Knowing how to complete a task is useful. Knowing where it fits in the rest of my life is becoming just as important to me.

I’m therefore comfortable with the idea that learning can change the options I see. I’m much less comfortable explaining every outcome through someone’s ‘cognition’. Circumstances, resources and luck still matter. Looking backwards from a successful result can make the route seem much clearer than it was to the person taking it.

AI gives me more ways to explore those options, but I don’t want to hand it the job of deciding what matters to me. I can ask it to compare approaches or challenge an assumption. A persuasive answer still needs checking, especially when the question is personal and the information I provide is only part of the situation. Even in this post, an explanation can sound tidy while leaving something important out.

The idea of a small ego appeals to me here. I can be competent at my job and still have a lot to learn elsewhere. I’d like to get more comfortable saying that I don’t know, or that something has changed my mind, without feeling I have to defend what I thought before.

Keeping my options open needs the same kind of judgement. I don’t own a home, but I do own a car. It comes with costs and responsibilities; it also makes it easier to head out of Shanghai for a weekend somewhere I want to explore. Those trips matter to me when I think about what owning it costs.

So the question I keep coming back to is quite ordinary: if I become more capable, where do I want that extra capacity to go? I’d like to have a say before it all disappears into the next task.

Lean muscle: a body I want to live in

My interest in this part is straightforward. I want to lose fat, and I’d like some decent muscle definition afterwards. I’d be pleased to look a bit better in a T-shirt, and I’m happy to admit it. 😅

On workday evenings, I try to cycle or do some exercises indoors towards those goals. Sometimes work gets very busy and I genuinely haven’t got the energy. At weekends, I don’t follow a fixed routine. There might be a long walk, a hike, a bike ride or a game of badminton, perhaps alongside a drive somewhere out of the city.

That is the starting point I actually have. A more impressive routine would be easy enough to write down. Keeping it up after a busy day would be another matter.

What I like about the emphasis on the body is the reminder to give it sustained attention. I can spend a surprising amount of time choosing tools and improving a workflow. My own energy also deserves some consideration. I want to feel good in my clothes, but I also want to enjoy being out somewhere without spending the whole time wishing I were back at home resting.

The word ‘lean’ gives the goal a fairly specific appearance. That can be motivating, though I wouldn’t want to treat one body shape as a complete assessment of health. Nor do I need to turn cycling and strength work into rival camps. . There is room for different kinds of movement in the same week.

For me, the harder question is how to keep making room for them. I’d like a routine I can return to after a busy week. If I’m too exhausted to exercise, I need to take that seriously too. It may tell me something about the amount of work I’ve agreed to do.

I can see a place for keeping records and using AI, especially if they help me notice progress or make a useful adjustment. I’m less keen on making every meal and evening another report to complete. I already have plenty of things to check. Any system I use needs to earn the time it takes.

I can see the appeal of the ‘big water’ idea too: an ordinary habit, given a memorable name and a little encouragement.

I mostly drink water and white tea with aged tangerine peel. Coffee is occasional; when I feel I need it, it’s usually no more than one black coffee or latte. I’m already fairly happy with those habits. Plain tea and coffee can also fit into a healthy eating pattern, so I see no particular reason to give up my tea or the occasional coffee.

There is something appealing about taking care of an everyday need without making it expensive or complicated. I’d just like to keep that simplicity once the slogans have worn off.

Huangmao: having a preference and doing something about it

This is the name that needs the most distance from its literal image. I’m unlikely to become a particularly brash person, and I don’t think a new personality is what I’m looking for.

The useful part, as I understand it, is being willing to have a preference and act on it even when other people would choose differently. Thinking about it, I have made a fairly big decision that way before.

After completing my master’s degree at the University of Glasgow, I chose to return to China. Plenty of people encouraged me to stay in the UK, or consider Canada or the US. I could understand why. But my family’s health, where I wanted to live and my feelings about coming home all mattered to me. I returned and started work in July 2022.

I didn’t need to believe that returning was the best choice for everyone. It was the life I wanted to try building. Hearing other possibilities was useful, but I was the person who would have to live with the decision.

One of my reasons was less sensible. I hoped that a few years of work would leave me more established and give me a better chance with the woman I loved. I still love her, and perhaps I will for a long time to come.

But looking back, it was naive to pin so much hope on becoming more established. I don’t regret coming home, though disappointment sometimes makes me say otherwise. I still want to grow and become more confident; I’m learning to give that effort a purpose beyond whether she returns my feelings.

Reconsidering that part of my reasoning doesn’t mean I have to dismiss the whole decision. The family and personal reasons were real too. I can acknowledge that I expected too much from one possibility without wishing away the life I’ve built since.

Oddly, making a big choice for myself hasn’t made the smaller ones effortless. At work, I still sometimes accept tasks while privately wishing I could push back. I’d like to get more comfortable explaining what is already on my plate and asking which task should take priority. That would give the people I work with a more honest account of what I can manage, before I’m worn out.

I still want to hear criticism that helps me see something I’ve missed. Dismissing it all as jealousy would make it rather difficult to learn anything. This is where the small ego comes back in: I’d like to be able to explain why I made a choice, and still admit where my reasoning was poor.

I’d be pleased to become more direct while remaining considerate. Being gentle has never been the part I wanted to change. I’d just like to spend less time second-guessing whether I’m allowed to want something.

For now, that feels like enough of a change to practise.

Leaving some room

I haven’t come away from this conversation with a new plan for everything. I’m still working out what to take on, how to keep exercising when work gets busy, and how to be more open with people. The ideas have given me a few ways to think about those questions.

I can take something from the conversation without pretending those questions are settled. Some of what appeals to me now may look different after I’ve tried it, or after my circumstances change. I’d rather leave room for that than defend a label because I once wrote a post about it.

There are also things I enjoy that don’t need to become evidence of progress: music, a drive somewhere green, a conversation, an evening off. I want the effort I put into myself to make those things easier to enjoy.

I’d be happy with a bit more strength, a bit more confidence and a better sense of when to close the laptop. There is plenty to work on there already.

Fitness |

What I’m Taking from Sunxue, Lean Muscle and “Huangmao”

Sunxue: what do I want to do with greater capability?

Lean muscle: a body I want to live in

Huangmao: having a preference and doing something about it

Leaving some room