The Changing Life of Gu Mingyi: Learning to Dance with Change Amid Divorce and Career Transitions

The lively, elegant host on the screen is no longer there. Today, Gu Mingyi interprets the “change” of life in a different way — this time, she is not reporting news, but experiencing and sharing personally. From her 17-year career in journalism to her role as a business executive, from personal relationship twists to returning to school for a PhD, Gu Mingyi’s life seems to be a textbook on “change.” In her lecture titled “Changeball Life” at the Tainan entrepreneurial hub “Kexi Space,” she openly states: “Change is always happening, and we must constantly prepare for a life that can change.”

For many, Gu Mingyi’s life resume itself is a legend. She has served as a TVBS news anchor, host of “Night News Gala,” adjunct assistant professor at Soochow University, and later became chairman of China Lai Shi Da Home and Chief Information Officer of Laista International Enterprise Co., Ltd. She even once prepared to pursue a career as a lawyer. But behind this glamorous resume, Gu Mingyi experienced countless “changes” — some expected, some sudden; some from career shifts, others from emotional life changes. Divorce was one of the major life changes, not an end, but an opportunity for her to re-examine herself and start anew.

Seeing the Industry’s Ceiling

In 1998, after returning to Taiwan from Birmingham University in the UK with a degree in Cultural Studies, Gu Mingyi entered the journalism industry. It was a moment when she had “no journalism interview experience at all,” but with her strong learning ability and execution skills, she quickly adapted. During the year she covered the Legislative Yuan, she often had no time for lunch, chasing news and recording major national events at the fastest pace every day. “The greatest thrill back then was that the news I reported would be in the newspapers the next day,” she recalls her early days.

However, compared to senior reporters doing deeper, more exclusive reports, she felt pressure. Yet, this pressure became her growth engine. After a year and a half of honing her skills, she suddenly had a “breakthrough” feeling — she began to understand the context and inside stories of the news. Later, as a TVBS news anchor, she hosted political programs like “Weekend Talk at 2100” and “NEWS My Biggest,” accumulating 17 years of news experience in a high-intensity, fast-paced environment.

But around 2015, change quietly arrived. Gu Mingyi started to see — advertising budgets for traditional media continued to decline, while new media was eating into the market. Online media emerged, and business models were still being explored, but the space for TV stations had already shrunk significantly. “At that time, I saw the bottleneck in industry development and suddenly felt like I was seeing a ‘ceiling.’ In my long career in journalism, it was as if I saw a generational shift,” she describes this as an unavoidable reality.

Not Afraid of Change, Only of Insufficient Preparation

At this moment, Gu Mingyi made an unexpected decision: she chose to leave the media industry. In 2015, she returned to her alma mater, Soochow University, as Director of Social Resources, then shifted to the business world, serving as chairman of China Lai Shi Da Home and Laista (Shanghai).

Life’s changes are often accompanied by upheavals in personal life. Divorce, for anyone, is a profound turning point. For Gu Mingyi, it was also part of “change” — a shift that required courage to face and accept. But it was precisely these series of transitions that gave her the opportunity to redefine herself and re-examine her life.

“‘Slowing down’ is how I felt after leaving my identity as a journalist,” she says. In journalism, she was used to working in a “hurry,” with no time to spare. After entering the business world, with secretaries and assistants helping her, she realized she had been using “voice control” — just one sentence, and someone would handle everything for her. But when she decided to return to school, everything changed.

Last year, she was admitted as the top candidate to the PhD program in Asia-Pacific Studies at National Chengchi University, and she was the first to be accepted. On campus, no one arranged everything for her, and she began to notice details in life that had been overlooked — the campus scenery, stories of classmates, insights from classes. This was not just about pursuing a degree, but an experiment in “slowing down” and “mindful observation.” She studied Political Science at Soochow University, then went to the UK for Cultural Studies, and during her journalism career, she also pursued a law degree to fulfill her youthful lawyer dream. Now, the PhD program is another peak on her learning journey.

Finding Life’s Answers in Change

Gu Mingyi once joked that she “from childhood to adulthood always thought the future was to be a successful young person.” She served as a graduate representative in high school and college, and was even recognized by the president after graduating. But life is far more complex and rich than these labels.

Career shifts, emotional twists, identity changes, pursuit of degrees — these changes might seem chaotic or regrettable to many, but Gu Mingyi sees them as gifts. “Even if we’re very afraid inside, we can’t fear change. Because change is always happening; it’s just whether you feel it at the moment. So we must constantly prepare for a life that can change,” she shares in her lecture. This is not just theory, but wisdom gained from over 20 years of life experience.

Those seemingly chaotic changes — quitting jobs, divorcing, returning to school, turning around — all teach Gu Mingyi the same lesson: life itself is a continuous process of change. The key is not whether change will come, but whether we are prepared to embrace it and learn from it. Gu Mingyi proves through her actions that when you are not afraid of change and prepare with your heart, every turn can become a new beginning.