Tonight’s piece is a lighter read — it doesn’t require complex, brain-burning analysis. Just sit with it quietly.
That said, if you don’t have any real ambition, you’ll find this hard to get through. Don’t force it. Close the tab, go to sleep. A quiet, ordinary life may suit you just fine.
But if you carry that restless feeling — the sense that you’re no less capable than anyone else, yet can’t figure out why your efforts keep coming up short — then what follows is worth your late-night attention.
1. The worst thing in life is a path that’s too smooth. You need to hit walls that frustrate and trouble you now and then — that’s actually the best foundation. Otherwise: what peaks at its height will only rot from there.
2. Don’t just grind blindly. And don’t pat yourself on the back because you’ve endured some physical hardship — thinking that’s what makes you hardworking. Sorry, but real, effective effort is all thought out with your brain. Pure brute labor is the least efficient path there is.
3. Being nothing but the obedient, well-read scholar gets you nowhere — too soft, too timid, too meek. Being nothing but the brash, arrogant hustler is equally dead-end — too wild, too reckless, too prone to disaster. The only real path is mastering both: knowing when to charge and when to yield. That’s the single trait shared by every power player in government and every titan in business.
4. Don’t complain. And don’t go around like a stray dog, weeping to everyone you meet about your petty hardships. Say nothing. Don’t become someone else’s punchline. Clench your jaw, and turn all that negative energy into fuel — let it dissolve into your blood.
5. There’s no such thing as fortune falling from the sky. At its core, every breakthrough is the eventual explosion of accumulated field experience, built capability, hard-earned reputation, and lessons paid for in blood and tears — once they’ve reached critical density. The biggest joke in the world is a young kid with an empty head and zero real experience, loudly declaring he’s going to conquer the world.
6. True insight is this: when others achieve a little success and immediately go showing off everywhere — you, after each step forward, still lie in bed at midnight, endlessly reflecting on where you could have done better. Even by a hair.
7. Life is really like a long war. You have to think clearly about your strategic objective at each stage, how to gather resources and allies, how to regroup and debrief after each battle. And most importantly: never surrender just because of one or two insignificant defeats.
8. Strategy matters more than direction. Direction matters more than effort. Effort matters more than brute toil.
9. There are two core reasons most people never get a chance. First: they have nothing worth using — no real value, no real ability — so no one is willing to give them even the most junior role. Second: they spend their days hanging around with people who’ve already been written off, never once thinking about what they could do to earn recognition from those who actually move the pieces.
10. How you finish something matters more than how high you peak. When you can take everything handed down to you and see it through to a flawless conclusion, you’ll find the peaks you’re capable of reaching keep getting higher — effortlessly. The danger is climbing a small peak and thinking you’ve arrived. That fall tends to be brutal.
11. I’ve run my own business for many years, and I’ve also served as a Chinese metaphysics (xuánxué) advisor to many senior figures — which means I’ve seen worlds most people never glimpse. The objective truth is this: 95% of society is made up of herbivores. No ambition. No real drive to climb. Not even the basic fighting spirit to reflect and push themselves consistently. These are your competitors. And you still can’t beat them?
12. True mental strength is being able to openly admit, when things go wrong, that you’ve been a foolish idiot. Then immediately and sincerely seeking advice and help from others to grow stronger — rather than stubbornly doubling down out of ego.
13. 99% of people in this world cannot articulate the core of a problem in a single precise sentence.
14. In the end, it all comes down to willpower and raw vitality. You may not be the smartest — but if you can endure more brutal beatings than anyone else, swallow humiliations others cannot stomach, and stand immovable while they crumble — then over time, you’ll be the last one standing. And the winner takes everything.
15. Staying relaxed is crucial. Always remind yourself: the bigger the goal, the lower the odds — sometimes approaching a fraction of a percent. That’s fine. Failure is the default. If it’s lost, that’s fate; if it’s won, that’s fortune. But I’ll still aim at the right target and keep pushing, no matter how slim the odds.
16. Want to feel how hard it actually is to build 30 million in net worth? Here’s a concrete way to grasp it: imagine mastering law, engineering, and medicine — all to a competent level — in three years, with zero guidance. That’s not easy. But if someone put a knife to your throat? Three years would absolutely be enough to unlock that potential and force yourself through it. So let me ask you now: do you have that kind of willpower?
That’s all. Think on it carefully.
Goodnight.