Excellence is the means, trust the end.

An owner, yet your clients don’t trust you, your employees don’t trust you, and your investors don’t trust you. Without those three weighty layers of trust, can you really rely on excellence to keep your seat? Excellence is merely a tool; it is not the goal. Trust is. Only when your excellence ultimately translates into trust between people does it truly deserve the name “excellence.”

The first test: direction.

We are in the business of trading. Profit comes first—without profit, nothing else matters. But that’s only the starting point. One day you may find that your original trading system no longer works, that the market has undergone major changes, or that you’re facing difficulties. At that point, will you be able to uncover new trading approaches?

Knowing what to do is more important than knowing how to do it. Otherwise, your capital backers won’t trust you, and your subordinates certainly won’t.

The second test: reject deception.

There are countless e-commerce influencers across the land, each shouting “fam,” “darling”—and one after another, they all stumble into scandal.

Why doesn’t Pang Donglai stumble? Because they practice one principle: treat clients as human beings, and treat employees as human beings. You can lie to people, but have you ever asked yourself—why do people get fooled by you? Because they trust you.

If they trust you and you deceive them, will they still trust you later?

So are you really deceiving others? No. You’re merely fooling yourself. You’re selling the trust others place in you—and selling it ridiculously cheap.

This truth is so obvious, yet how many talented people fail to understand it. They always think they can deceive their clients, deceive their employees, take advantage of others. In the end, it’s nothing but self-deception.

The third test: trade-offs.

In the commercial world, every link ultimately comes down to one word: balance. Whoever can master balance for a hundred years becomes a century-old enterprise.

Balance, in essence, rests on three legs: guests, employees, and yourself.

I’d rather let employees be dissatisfied than leave guests unsatisfied; I’d rather let myself be dissatisfied than leave employees unsatisfied.

Only when you place yourself in the lowest position can this balance endure.

If you deceive your employees, they will inevitably deceive your guests—and that balance will shatter.

In every role, reflect on only one question: “Am I living up to the trust that others have placed in me?”