If you’re a working professional living off a salary, today’s message is one you absolutely need to read carefully.
Because these are words your boss would never say to you. Only your noble benefactor (Gui Ren) would be willing to offer you this kind of counsel — provided, of course, that you’re fortunate enough to encounter one at that level.
Let me start with this: over the years, my personal circle of friends has almost no one left who still works a regular job.
That’s not to say everyone has checked out, stopped producing, or stopped earning money. It’s that in a circle that has mostly reached middle age, there are genuinely very few people who still clock in, sit at a desk, take orders, and collect a paycheck.
The rare few who still need to show up at a company have essentially all become partners or core leadership — they left the category of “employee” long ago.
So does this mean that because Master Chi moves in elevated social circles, everyone around him is an extraordinary talent, wealthy or well-connected?
Not exactly. I have plenty of friends who aren’t particularly wealthy and are still on their way up — and we get along just fine. But under the influence and osmosis of this circle, at the very minimum, they’ve all clearly seen through to this harsh yet objective reality: there is no future in working for someone else your entire life.
So by now, they’ve either climbed through their own efforts to core management, started their own venture and carved out something for themselves, or settled into a modest small business of their own. But any of these paths, even roughly calculated, yields far more in total than staying employed.
Let’s talk about what employment actually is at its core. Working for someone means: you have a certain capability, and some company was fortunate enough to notice it. That company then offered you a salary within what it considered a reasonable range.
But over the long stretch of employment that follows, that company will do everything in its power to push your salary down — to cut costs — while extracting as much of your time and output as possible, to maximize profit.
That is the innermost essence of employment. Simple as that.
Then, on another front, the company will do its best to ensure that within the daily grind of repetitive labor, you only handle a small piece of a much larger process — making sure you never develop a big-picture view of the whole operation. It will also deliberately keep you away from its most important resources and connections.
What it wants is simple: keep your head down, do your small slice of repetitive work, don’t get ideas, and definitely don’t develop any ambitions.
You are only allowed — and only worthy of — a paper-thin sliver of the cake.
So in my view, employment is a life path that looks stable on the surface, but is actually purchased at the cost of development, growth, and opportunity.
Is this path wrong? No. Just don’t expect it to lead anywhere meaningful.
Cold words, but true. That’s reality.
Now, I know that many of you reading this will immediately push back — “But I’m doing just fine at my job! And haven’t plenty of entrepreneurs and investors crashed and burned quickly?”
Let me share my perspective from the vantage point of someone who has achieved financial freedom — or more plainly, from an employer’s perspective.
Here’s the thing: the reason so many people can’t find a way forward is that their information channels are extremely narrow and limited. In their world, the only alternatives to employment are to drain their hard-earned savings into a startup and burn through cash, or to use that money as chips in a high-stakes gamble.
Many impatient young people chasing quick riches do exactly this — and reality promptly gives them a bloody nose.
Take the white-collar workers who are drawn to opening cafes, flower shops, bookstores, craft studios, or tea houses — things that look refined and tasteful, but are in fact incredibly unforgiving industries with brutally high barriers. They lose everything, and somehow don’t even walk away with a single useful lesson.
(They assume they just didn’t know the industry well enough — but they can’t articulate specifically where things went wrong.)
Yet in real life, the people who have quietly and steadily achieved financial freedom almost never got there by burning cash to pave the way.
Because for an ordinary person, the very first step on the true path to financial freedom is — without exception — starting from a “zero-cost, small-scale venture.”
What does that mean?
It means: you don’t need to invest money, but you do need to invest effort and energy, using your own capabilities and expertise to solve real problems for people who are willing to pay you.
That simple. That pure.
For example: there was a graphic designer working in-house at a company who came to me through a mutual friend to book a session. When I analyzed her destiny chart (命盘) and read her life pattern (格局), I told her directly: even if you have to grit your teeth, you must sacrifice your weekends and free time, relentlessly study the visual tastes of major film, gaming, and cultural brands, and produce a large volume of original personal work — then proactively submit it or share it on your own accounts.
Don’t give up. Just grind. The baseline commitment is three to five years, constantly refining your commercial illustration work and building client relationships.
Don’t for a moment think this path is hard. In truth, the path of employment is the hardest of all — because the longer you stay, the harder it becomes to build your own name and reputation, leaving you with no choice but to live off a salary that’s already been cut down through layer after layer of extraction.
Today? That designer, with her distinctive and original artistic style, has become a long-term consultant to multiple concept art and design brands. Her commercial commissions come in faster than she can fulfill them.
When the thinking is clear, life really does become effortless.
Remember this: building something significant is often grueling — but it’s not difficult in the true sense of the word. Most people never learn the difference between bitter (苦) and difficult (难) in their entire lives.
“Bitter” means: something requires you to sacrifice your leisure and rest, to develop extreme self-discipline, to show up every single day without anyone pushing you, to pour yourself into the work, and to endure night after night of invisible toil.
“Difficult” means: something you simply don’t know how to do — problems you have no idea how to approach, or efforts that won’t pay you back no matter how hard you try.
And here’s the honest truth: for an ordinary person, if you can overcome the bitter, you will absolutely achieve conventional financial freedom. Whether you can overcome the difficult — that’s in heaven’s hands. Just do your best.
But in reality, 99% of people cannot endure the bitterness.
Because human instinct pulls us toward stability and comfort — a job where you just handle your repetitive tasks and collect your paycheck. Humans are hardwired to resist complexity, uncertainty, turbulence, and change.
So for many people, employment is something they deeply resent but simply cannot live without.
And that’s natural — any ecosystem needs its balance of predators, herbivores, and scavengers. Predators are always the absolute minority.
Most herbivores want to eat meat too. They just don’t dare, and aren’t willing to evolve in that direction.
But I believe that is not your nature.
After all, if you’ve read this far, you already know in your heart that you’ve always wanted more — and that you want to break free from your current circumstances.
Take my advice: don’t be afraid. Many paths that look hard — once you actually walk them — you’ll find yourself adapting quickly, growing step by step, and gradually developing the muscle, the bone, and the teeth you need.
That’s why, for almost every reader who comes to me for a destiny chart (命盘) reading and life pattern (格局) analysis, if there is even the slightest possibility, I will push you — insist that you absolutely must, no matter how exhausted or worn down by your job, carve out time to build your own business.
Even if the process subjects you to pressure and setbacks, even if the turbulence is far harder than the office grind — it is absolutely, unconditionally worth it.
Because you will grow. You are fighting for your own future.
And you’ll slowly come to realize: earning money for yourself isn’t complicated at all.
As long as you learn to habitually manage your time, give up meaningless entertainment, set your own business goals, keep pushing beyond your comfort zone, and sharpen your negotiation and technical skills —
You yourself are a lean, powerful company. You are a special operations unit — small in scale, but with combat strength that rivals an army.
Trust me: once you’ve tasted the grounded, honest feeling of fighting for something that’s truly yours, you will never again choose to grind away your life working for someone else.
And if these words still haven’t woken you up, then remember this:
Among all the sufferings in the world, not one is more terrifying than persistent, stable poverty.
If you’re going to endure hardship either way — why not choose the kind that, once endured, at least builds your inner strength and opens up new possibilities for you?
Think carefully about this. It deserves your serious reflection.