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recently, zhang yaqi, a guest of "the heart-stirring offer 5", recorded her "5 hours after overtime": eating and attending meetings at the same time after returning home, editing videos while video chatting with parents, stretching and learning cantonese, etc. some netizens commented, "after i finish all this, i will ask for a day off the next day" and "i have to do these jobs for a month." zhang yaqi told jiupai news that everything she does after get off work is based on interest.

after the show, although zhang yaqi did not get an offer from a law firm, she accidentally entered a hong kong listed company as a legal officer and worked part-time as a short video blogger. jiupai news found that zhang yaqi's account was updated once a day or once every two days.

when asked "why didn't i pass the bar exam when i'm so self-disciplined?", she said that she had failed the bar exam twice in 2019 and 2020, and now she has no plans to continue taking the bar exam. "compared to what everyone thinks i should do, i think it's more important to know what i want to do and move towards my goal."

zhang yaqi. photo provided by the interviewee

【1】do things based on your own ideas rather than your parents’ requests

jiupai news: what are your plans after get off work?

zhang yaqi:my daily schedule is not fixed. sometimes i go to the gym after get off work, meet up with friends and chat, read, watch online courses, shoot videos, edit videos, learn cantonese, etc. everything is based on my own interests, which makes it easier to concentrate.

for example, when it comes to online courses, i will choose to study areas that interest me and are related to career planning. i am currently reading more business online courses and books, and i prefer charlie munger. i don’t think i am a very self-disciplined person, i just do what i like.

the videos posted on my account do not show my entire life. i really hope to expand my social circle and have in-depth exchanges with people from different industries. reading can also help me understand different perspectives and know a more diverse world.

jiupai news: can you share some time management methods?

zhang yaqi:i was greatly inspired by the efficient work and rest method taught by a stanford professor. simply put, it is to record and score what you do at different time periods every day. the scoring standard is the happiness and benefit of doing this thing. after a period of time, review it and distinguish whether this thing is immediately happy or long-term happy.

for example, when i play with my phone or watch short videos, i am happy in the first 15 minutes, but after a while i feel like i am just watching videos mechanically and not really happy. then i can give the first 15 minutes 7 points and the last 15 minutes 3 points. when reviewing, tell yourself that you can only watch short videos for 15 minutes in the future.

but i never control the length of time i spend playing with my phone. most of the time, the phone is just a tool for me. when i watch short videos, i will think from the creator's perspective, thinking about what is good about the videos posted by others and how i can improve myself.

jiupai news: what things easily make you feel tired?

zhang yaqi:i like my current job, but writing contracts every day, being cautious, avoiding risks, and being highly focused can make me tired. but i have always been a person who can't sit still, and even if i am very tired, i will want to do other things after taking a break and keep trying new things.

jiupai news: what is your parents’ educational method and how does it affect you?

zhang yaqi:my parents are the type who let me do what i want. perhaps because they saw that i was studying too hard, my mother often told me not to put too much pressure on myself and that it was good enough to maintain an average grade. but most of what i do is based on my own ideas, not my parents' requirements. for these things i want to do, i will involuntarily put more energy into them.

【2】if i fail the bar exam, i will continue to work in my own media

jiupai news: why did you choose law as your major?

zhang yaqi:there are two reasons. one is that there are fewer types of majors to choose from in the humanities, while law is more specialized. the second reason is family reasons. my mother and grandfather both work in the court. when i was in elementary school, i would occasionally go to the court to pick up my mother after get off work. one time, i saw a small note on my mother's desk, which read: "judge, can you not separate my parents?" at that time, i felt that my mother's profession was sacred, and it also planted a seed for me to choose law.

jiupai news: what are the main contents of the work?

zhang yaqi:i am currently working as a legal counsel for a listed company in hong kong. i am also involved in the financial part. my work includes acquisitions and mergers. i need to learn how to understand the company's business system more quickly and think about problems from the company's perspective. i quite like this job because what i learn now can help me in the future, and i can also gain a sense of accomplishment from this career.

zhang yaqi in the office. photo/video screenshot

jiupai news: it is said on the internet that you failed the national unified legal profession qualification examination (hereinafter referred to as the “legal examination”). is it true?

zhang yaqi:i took the exam once in 2019 and once in 2020. the first time i didn't prepare much for the exam because i was preparing to go abroad. i took the exam again in 2020 when i had ligament surgery and was recovering. because of the injury, my mental state was not good at the time, so i didn't review much. after passing the first round of objective test, i missed the second round of subjective test by five or six points, and later i didn't have the opportunity to take it again because i went abroad.

if you want to become a lawyer in the mainland, you must take the bar exam. but i don’t have a career plan in this regard for now. even if i get the legal professional qualification certificate, it will hardly play a big role in my future career path. compared to what everyone thinks i should do, i think it is more important to know what i want to do and move towards my goal.

jiupai news: i understand that you have more than 20 hobbies. which hobbies are you still pursuing now?

zhang yaqi:my hobbies that i still stick to are shooting videos and doing self-media. after all, time is limited, so i will try to allocate my time to what i love and what i should do. doing self-media is what i love, and working hard is what i should do. as for other hobbies, i will only do them when i have free time.

【3】i have yet to create a video with a million likes

jiupai news: why did you start making short videos in the first place?

zhang yaqi:i started trying to post videos in 2019. i initially posted long horizontal videos. in 2020, because of a torn ligament, rehabilitation was too painful, so i started watching short videos. after watching content shot by others, i began to film my daily life with the mentality of recording my life. at that time, some family members did not quite understand my behavior.

jiupai news: when did you start to think about managing your account well and updating it regularly?

zhang yaqi:it should be when i was in the united states, i often had to cut a 2-hour video into only 1 minute. i didn’t know anything at the time, and it took a long time to cut a video, and no one watched it after i posted it. so at that time, i often cried and shouted that i would never shoot videos again, but i would continue to shoot the next day.

i think being a self-media person is very similar to starting a business. no one will ask you to do anything, what content to post on your account, what topics to choose, etc. you can only rely on your own initiative for everything. so far, i have not made a video with a million likes. this is my future goal. i am still constantly trying new video content and slowly figuring out how to manage my account.

jiupai news: your self-media account already has millions of followers. have you ever thought about becoming a full-time short video blogger?

zhang yaqi:i don’t have this idea yet, but i can’t say for sure what will happen in the future. self-media is very important to me, but at the same time i hope to have another career that i want to pursue. however, i admire those bloggers who are full-time self-media bloggers. after all, it is not easy to be a creator.

jiupai news: do you feel that you have run out of inspiration during the video creation process?

zhang yaqi:of course there will be. i am currently at a bottleneck, and the content i create is not unique enough. because i also have a main business, i have less time to do self-media, and i can't make videos that require a lot of production costs. if there is an opportunity in the future, i would like to try it.

jiupai news: have you heard any bad voices?

zhang yaqi:yes, as a self-media, you need to face the public. when there is more attention, you will definitely hear negative voices. this is normal and something i should face. when "the heart-stirring offer 5" was broadcast, all kinds of positive and negative voices came to me. my mentality was not very good during that time, and it took me a while to adjust.

【4】when you encounter something you are not good at, choose to try bravely

jiupai news: in your self-introduction in "the heart-stirring offer 5", you called yourself a "grassroots overseas student who is a social elite". you came from a small county, and started from the bottom of the class. you came to npu for undergraduate studies and received a national scholarship. you then went to boston university in the united states for graduate studies and obtained a certification in international trade law. can you talk about this experience?

zhang yaqi:i went to primary school in a county town in hunan. when i first entered junior high school in the city, i ranked last in the class in the first midterm exam. at that time, i was not very good at studying and didn’t know how to study. knowledge could not form a system in my mind, and i could only memorize knowledge points by rote. during the three years of junior high school, i went from more than 50th in the class to more than 40th, and stayed in the 30th for a long time before i got to the 20th. through a little bit of hard work, i finally got into a better class in high school.

but when i was in high school, i was ranked in the top 40 in my class again, and i started to work hard over and over again. in my second year of high school, my homeroom teacher asked me to be the monitor, which surprised me because in my impression, only students with good academic performance could be the monitor. i was afraid that i would be unworthy of this position, so i started to work harder. later i learned that the homeroom teacher chose me to be the monitor because he wanted me to motivate my classmates to study hard together.

jiupai news: do you feel very tired?

zhang yaqi:my senior year of high school was quite tiring. after becoming a dance specialty student, i would take the bus to learn dancing at 6pm almost every day. i would dance until 8:30pm and then rush back to school to attend evening self-study. eventually i got first place among the dance specialty students and was admitted to nanjing university of aeronautics and astronautics.

looking back, many things are very tiring before they succeed, and tiredness is often a feeling of upwardness. i also feel tired now, but i know that i am moving upward and forward, so i feel that everything is worth it.

jiupai news: what happens after going to college?

zhang yaqi:when i was in college, i received a national scholarship and was qualified for postgraduate study. i chose to go abroad mainly to see the outside world. before going abroad, i didn’t know what kind of environment i would face, but i always wanted to go out and see, get to know people from different places, and experience different cultures and lives.

when i first arrived in the united states, i was actually quite uncomfortable. i still remember the scene of meeting my classmates for the first time. we had dinner and chatted together. because my spoken english was not very good and everyone chatted very quickly, i was worried that i spoke too slowly when i spoke english, so i rarely spoke to my classmates, so that they thought i was "shy". but in fact, i really wanted to communicate with them and my personality was very outgoing. later, i began to take the initiative to invite teachers and classmates to drink coffee and chat together to improve my spoken english skills, and then i slowly opened up myself.

this experience has inspired me. now, if i encounter something i am not good at, i will choose to face it directly and try bravely, making things from unfamiliar to familiar, which has also been of great help to my current work.

jiupai news reporter fu bingjie

edited by wang jiaqing and xiao jie

【revelation】please contact the reporter on wechat: linghaojizhe

[source: jiupai news]