Nan Yang
Creative writing coach & educator — China & USA
85,000 RMB Client · 4-Day Workweek · Shanghai
Case Study 01
The Fraud Pattern
Giving the work away and calling it something else
Where he was
Eight years as an educator. A well-paid position with benefits. Parents who expected him to stay. And a calling he had been delivering every day inside a curriculum — without ever naming it as his own.
The obstruction
Nan believed that charging for what he gave freely inside an institution was a form of dishonesty. He called himself a teacher. What he was actually doing was running a self-discovery practice — helping students find themselves through the act of writing. The fraud was never what he feared he was. It was what he was calling the work.
"I wasn't teaching them to write personal statements. I was helping them find out who they were."
Where he is now
Nan left the institution. He now runs his creative writing coaching practice between China and the USA — including an 85,000 RMB client on a 4-day workweek, out of Shanghai — building the life he designed instead of the one he was waiting for permission to live.