Last post I said I’d get into this more, so here we are. If you’re going to trust someone with your chart, or your kid’s chart, it’s fair to ask what actually makes them qualified to read it. So let’s actually break it down.

“I’ve been doing this for years” isn’t a credential.

You see this a lot. Someone’s been “practicing” for 5, 10, 15 years, and that’s meant to be the proof. But doing something for a long time doesn’t automatically mean you’re doing it right. You can repeat the same mistake for 15 years just as easily as you can get better at something for 15 years. Time alone doesn’t tell you which one it was.

A nice aesthetic isn’t a credential either.

I get it, a well-designed Instagram grid feels trustworthy. Soft colours, nice fonts, calming captions. But none of that tells you whether the person actually knows what they’re talking about. It just tells you they’re good at Canva.

What actually matters is real, structured training — something you can check.

Not “I read a lot of books.” Not “my grandmother taught me.” Those might be true, and they might even mean something. But they’re not checkable. You can’t verify them.

A real diploma is checkable. There’s a syllabus. There’s coursework. There’s an actual body that issued it, and you can look them up. In my case, that’s Joey Yap’s BaZi, Feng Shui, and Qi Men Dun Jia diplomas — real programs, real coursework, real case studies I had to actually submit and get marked on. Not a certificate you get for showing up.

So when you’re looking at anyone doing this kind of work, ask these questions:

Who trained them, specifically? Not “I studied under various masters” — an actual name, an actual program.

Can you look that program up? If it’s real, it exists somewhere outside their own Instagram bio.

Do they explain their reasoning, or just hand you a conclusion? Someone who actually knows their stuff can usually tell you why they’re saying what they’re saying, not just the headline.

Why does any of this actually matter to you?

Because this is your chart, or your kid’s chart. You’re making decisions off it, even small ones. Which colour to paint a room. How to think about a rough patch. Whether to trust that something’s a phase or something worth paying attention to. That deserves someone who actually knows what they’re doing, not just someone who sounds confident.

I’m not saying this to talk myself up over every other account out there. I’m saying it because you deserve to know what you’re actually paying for, whether it’s from me or from anyone else.

Curious what a properly trained reading actually looks like? Get Your Reading