| Foreword

First of all, I truly must give my heartfelt thanks to Teacher James! Over these years, I have been very fortunate to serve as the host of the CLEC investing and personal-finance channel, able to stand on the front line alongside the teacher I most respect and love, accompanying everyone. Thank you, Teacher, for your trust and care all along, for taking me, still with so many shortcomings, by the hand and growing alongside me through so much. I also thank Blaise for his trust, giving me, a fellow traveler, the chance to express my gratitude here.

In countless late-night conversations between teacher and student, what moved me most was never the cold numbers, but the teacher’s warm founding intention of “teaching without charge.” As for the CLEC investment philosophy the teacher so often speaks of, the one that gives people such a strong sense of security, I can say I know it by heart.

Everyone knows I am the student the teacher never scolded away, but there is one thing you do not know: the truth is, I am not someone who can just be scolded at will (laughs). If the other person had no real ability, then I am sorry, but I would surely keep my distance from them; so this is in fact my own willing choice to stay and be scolded, because I know that here I can learn the most precious wisdom. I believe everyone who has accompanied the channel along the way must feel exactly as I do.

Having spent nearly thirty years in the securities industry, I find that the customers and friends around me always assume I must understand the market incredibly well, that I know many secrets ordinary people do not, and that I can buy low and sell high. But honestly, having watched so many market ups and downs, I always feel that what I truly know is very limited; a great deal of the time, what one sees and hears is not necessarily true. In this great course that is investing and life, I still hold to a humble, learning heart, feeling my way forward while living my days.

It is a little embarrassing to admit, but I myself often used to wonder: how could I share the teacher’s brilliant ideas with friends who want to learn, in a simpler way? And in the end, Blaise really pulled it off for everyone!

Every idea in this book I have heard the teacher speak with my own ears, and I have practiced them alongside everyone. When I opened this book, The Wisdom of CLEC, on almost every page my mind could recall the very state the teacher was in when he said those words. Blaise organized that wisdom, once scattered across hundreds of videos, more completely and more understandably than I had imagined. This labor of love is truly worth treasuring for every friend earnestly walking this path. Especially for those who have already accumulated some assets yet still do not know how to hold on to those results with peace of mind, this book is an even rarer guide. That so many people are willing to serve the public wholeheartedly is the finest virtuous cycle of all.

I often say that the most captivating thing about CLEC is that it heals our anxiety. It lets us stop being held hostage by the trading screen in nervous tension every day; spending only a little time a year to tend to our assets, we can then gracefully return life to living. Spend time with family, drink a good cup of tea, take a spur-of-the-moment trip, and reserve our most precious time for what is truly wonderful.

Wealth really is only a tool; happiness is the pursuit of our whole lives. Whether you are now in the stage of striving hard, or, like me, beginning to plan for retirement and preparing to embrace a new landscape of life, the book’s exploration of freedom, work, and happiness will be the finest companion for the soul.

My words may not be able to fully capture all the good in this book, but I still want, with the warmest heart, to share it with every friend seeking peace of mind on the road of personal finance.

Finally, I also thank myself, for setting out back then on a road that was not easy, but that, looking back, was immeasurably right. May you too, through this book, take fewer detours and live out the life you want a little sooner.

The teacher will always be here, and so will Kate.

(Old friends should remember: passing by, whatever you do, do not miss it!)

Thank you, Teacher James, thank you, Blaise, and thank you to all the CLEC students, for helping me find the right investment direction out of the boundless sea of stocks. I had assumed this book would follow the usual thread, read from the first page to the last; but on closer reading, I found it is actually a personal-finance reference tool dedicated to CLEC, one you can pair with the different stages of your life’s assets to find the information you need at the moment, and it even thoughtfully includes links to Teacher James’s videos.

These years of learning must begin with the deeply ingrained old thinking of the previous generation: the sense that taking out a loan and borrowing money is a shameful thing, let alone borrowing money to invest. But in early 2020, encountering Teacher James’s videos for the first time profoundly overturned my investment thinking. From quietly learning investment concepts, to quietly borrowing money without daring to tell my family, my investment results over six years have exceeded my imagination; what changed was not only my material life. What truly taught me was an understanding of the meaning of life and a comprehension of what living is for, and so I too want to share my experience with those who genuinely want to learn.

I also thank Blaise for organizing the essence of CLEC and distilling it into this reference tool, so that this book may be passed down from generation to generation.

Ever since I started investing in 2004, I stumbled along, winning small and losing big all the way, until in 2021 I came across Teacher James’s YouTube channel online, settled on my own investment direction, and finally tasted the fruit of wealth beginning to accumulate in life. My investment journey is similar to most people’s: from being a small-budget investor with very little capital, to being a dividend-seeker hoping to draw passive income, to being one of the “stuck” investors unwilling to swap out the losing stocks in hand. I have bitterly tasted them all, so having climbed out of this financial quagmire, I now also study Teacher James’s philosophy and share my own investment experience, without charge, with the relatives and friends around me.

I believe there are surely many CLEC classmates who have been through the same experiences as I have. Thank you, Blaise, for compiling this book, which plays a very important role in advancing the spread of the CLEC vision. I hope classmates can, through this book, pass the CLEC investment philosophy along like a relay baton, carrying the inheritance forward.