This article was written on February 20, 2020.

I mention this date first because timing matters here. In February 2020, COVID-19 had already spread from Wuhan, but most countries globally were still in wait-and-see mode. Taiwan was beginning to heighten its vigilance, the mask rationing system had just launched, but people on the streets were still commuting as usual, working as usual, still thinking “it probably won’t be too serious.”

No one knew what would happen next.

But if you’re willing to step back and view the chaos before us within a larger framework, you’ll see something spine-chilling: we’re standing at a massive historical turning point, and most people haven’t realized it yet.

Let’s take inventory of the “firsts” our generation has experienced.

We personally lived through the rise of the internet, watching it transform the face of almost every industry within twenty years. From an era without mobile phones to an era where everyone carries a smartphone—this transformation’s intensity has no precedent in human history.

We personally felt the cruelty of climate change. The Australian bushfires that began in late 2019 burned for nearly six months, destroying over 18 million hectares—roughly half the size of Japan. This wasn’t distant news but real-time images you saw on social media: orange skies, animals fleeing for their lives.

We witnessed a city of ten million people being completely sealed off. On January 23, 2020, Wuhan was locked down, with about 11 million people forbidden to leave. Land, sea, and air access all completely controlled. This wasn’t a movie, not a drill.

We faced the possibility of the Olympics being canceled due to pandemic—looking back, the 2020 Tokyo Olympics were indeed postponed to 2021, becoming the first Olympics in modern history to be delayed due to a pandemic.

We saw global medical resources stretched to breaking point, massive business closures, schools transitioning entirely to online learning—each one “unprecedented.”

These aren’t movie plots. This is the reality we’re breathing.

Looking back from the future, history textbooks might mark this period as the “Great Rupture” or “Great Reorganization.” Just as later generations view the 1914-1945 period—two world wars, the Great Depression, complete collapse and rebuilding of order—what we’re experiencing might be another level of civilizational transformation.

But we’re inside it, unable to see the full picture. Like a fish in the ocean that can’t sense the “wave”—it only knows the water is moving, sometimes pushed forward, sometimes pulled down.

That’s how I felt in early 2020. Not panic, but a strange clarity—a sense that many things I’d assumed were solid were actually already loosening, and the pandemic had simply accelerated that loosening to a visible degree.

Our experience in the early pandemic gave me very concrete understanding of this “loosening.”

We’re not a large company. Small team, few clients, relatively tight operational cost control. But even so, when the pandemic hit, the impact was direct and swift. Face-to-face workshops couldn’t proceed, several confirmed projects were suspended, second-quarter revenue projections had to be rewritten.

But I observed something interesting: among our clients, the first to falter weren’t the smallest companies, but the largest.

Those organizations with massive physical structures, huge fixed assets, and rigid processes responded slowest when the giant wave hit. Because to change course, they first had to hold countless meetings; to hold meetings, they first had to find all stakeholders; to find stakeholders, they first had to confirm decision-making processes. By the time decisions emerged, the wave had already passed.

Conversely, lightweight, flexible small teams with elastic asset allocation could redeploy within days. That’s how we did it—shifting all services online within two weeks, not because we had foresight, but because we were small enough, light enough, that the cost of pivoting was low.

This isn’t boasting about small company advantages—it’s making a more fundamental observation: in environments of massive change, large physical structures aren’t assets, they’re liabilities.

I later used a metaphor to understand this: in calm waters, big ships are more stable than small boats. But when a tsunami comes, when a big ship capsizes, it’s truly capsized; small boats might actually ride the waves and survive.

This metaphor isn’t perfect, but it points to a core insight: in violently changing environments, the key to survival isn’t being “bigger,” but being “lighter.”

Asset lightweighting. This isn’t just financial strategy; it’s survival strategy.

It means: don’t lock all your resources into a single form, single location, single assumption. Maintain liquidity. Maintain your ability to reconfigure at any time.

For businesses, this means flexible team structures, remotely capable work modes, revenue sources not dependent on single clients or single markets.

For individuals, this means skill diversity, income diversity, mental flexibility. Don’t bind your identity to a single business card—because that card could disappear at any time.

I was writing this article in February 2020. At that time, I didn’t yet know how long the pandemic would last or how deep the impact would be. I only knew one thing: what we were experiencing wasn’t temporary disruption, but structural transformation.

Looking back six years later, that judgment wasn’t wrong.

The pandemic changed work patterns, consumption modes, educational methods, international relations frameworks. Some changes were reversed after the pandemic ended, but more changes were irreversible. Remote work won’t completely disappear, online education won’t return to zero, global supply chain reorganization continues.

The great wave has already crashed. But the sea surface won’t return to calm.

So the question isn’t “will the wave come”—waves will always come.

The question is: are you riding the wave, or are you drowning?

This depends on whether, before the wave arrives, you’ve made yourself light enough. Being light enough doesn’t mean “wanting nothing,” but rather “not being crushed by what you possess.” Your assets, your titles, your plans—when the giant wave hits, are these flotation devices that help you rise, or lead weights that drag you down?

This might be the most important survival question of our era.

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