On the last day of August, I’m writing this short piece especially for my male readers. I know I’ve been somewhat neglecting the men lately — a bit too focused on women’s topics — so I owe you brothers an apology. Consider this my penance: three cups, self-imposed.
The good news is, writing about men is far, far easier than writing about women. Women want details; men work with broad strokes. Even if you wrote out a man’s entire life, you could keep it concise and powerful.
Because a man’s whole life doesn’t really need to involve emotions, marriage, or all the other miscellaneous trivialities. There’s only one thing that needs to be addressed: career.
For a man, as long as his career is thriving and wealth flows freely, no other problem — no matter how large — is actually a problem.
I said that. Let me own it.
Let me explain the foundation behind this conclusion. After years of working in destiny reading (命理), I’ve assisted more wealthy businessmen and industry leaders than I can count — or more precisely, more people who’ve truly made something impressive of themselves. And the insight that has struck me most deeply is this: for a man, career is like the steel and concrete of a building. Only when the career stands firm does everything else have something to rest on.
Take marriage. I’ve been talking a lot lately about how women can marry up and how to choose a partner — so inevitably, some brothers ask me how men should approach marriage strategy.
Honestly? No strategy needed. Because when a man has nothing to his name — no money, no standing — looking for a wife is pure gambling.
You haven’t stood at a high enough place in your career to encounter enough high-quality women. So you fundamentally lack the ability to distinguish which women will support you for a lifetime from which ones can endure hardship but abandon you in prosperity — let alone which have the potential to be a genuine partner versus those who are lazy and destructive.
Without exposure to good examples, you have no basis for comparison. That’s just reality.
So when a reader asked me about choosing a partner the other day, I answered directly: when a man is at a low station, there’s a 70% probability he’ll find someone who’s just adequate — someone to get through life with, nothing more. There’s a 20% chance of finding a woman who genuinely understands and accommodates him. And maybe a 10% chance of finding someone who can truly walk beside him for life.
It’s not that good women don’t exist at that level. They do. But the odds are very low. If you find one, count yourself lucky.
So men — stop spending energy on who to marry. When you’ve built two or three income streams and your net worth pushes past thirty or forty million, you’ll find your entire world has “opened up.” The people and circles you access will leap in quality. At that point, just pay some attention to your partner’s character — because at that level, everyone treats marriage seriously. Everyone values and protects what they have.
That’s when your odds of finding a truly exceptional partner jump to 70% or better.
Simple and blunt enough, right?
I know some female readers are uncomfortable reading this — feeling that even an ordinary woman can be a good wife.
That’s a matter of perspective. Let me ask: between these two, who better deserves to be called a good wife?
Woman A: Can handle most household chores, has decent character, but modest financial means and parents of no particular social standing. When it comes to truly consequential family decisions — buying property, raising children, managing assets — she cannot provide strong financial or practical support.
Woman B: Not especially skilled at housework, character is fine, but has impressive personal income, an excellent family background, knows how to help the family build a long-term wealth growth path, has the discernment to identify good real estate, and the personal cultivation to raise well-rounded children.
Tell me — with no emotional history between them, which one does a capable man see as his true partner?
So a man’s life creed really does come down to this: simplify the complex, master through non-effort (大巧不工). Keep your eyes fixed on building your career. That’s all.
Once your career rises to the right level, all the small details get handled easily along the way — barely worth mentioning.
Truly, the climb itself — though it is a process — is already the answer.
Now, there’s something else I want to instill in you: erase the phrase “making money” (赚钱) from your mind entirely, and replace it with “accumulating wealth” (积财).
What is wealth accumulation?
Let me contrast the two.
Making money means being sharp enough to seize every income opportunity — moving faster than others, getting there first, striking hard. That’s earning money.
But people who only think in terms of “making money” rarely make truly big money.
When I say big money, I mean wealth in the tens of millions — bundles of it loaded into the trunk of your car, repeated every few years, or every year.
If “making money” is your entire operating logic, then barring some extraordinary life circumstances, you’ll cap out at a few hundred thousand. That is the ceiling.
But if you’ve witnessed — or lived through — certain things, you’ll understand: truly big money is always the natural companion of the wealth accumulation mindset.
Because real wealth comes to you only after you’ve secured a central position in a network of people and value — and then it flows toward you slowly and inevitably, to the point where you can’t push it away even if you try.
That money is yours. You’ve earned it.
Of course — don’t read anything dark or conspiratorial into this. It’s not that complicated.
Let me share a few examples from my own life — all vivid, real, and involving ordinary people who started from nothing and used the wealth accumulation mindset to completely turn their lives around.
First: Cao — a man I’ve mentioned before. Thirty years ago, he pushed a three-wheeled cart through the streets delivering office supplies to newly opened businesses. He was meticulous, and always worked to secure extra benefits and deals for the purchasing managers and bosses he served. Today, more than a dozen mid-to-large enterprises designate him as their sole supplier. Net profit: roughly one million a year.
A farmer’s son. Arrived in Shanghai with nothing. He cultivated his noble benefactors (贵人, Gui Ren) one by one — seized every opportunity — showed up at every holiday with gifts of fruit and seafood. Impeccable in how he treated people.
Next: my long-time real estate agent, Jie — from a family in Guangxi where chili mixed with rice was the daily staple, and a bit of minced pork was a New Year’s luxury. And now? Calculate it yourself: he earns roughly 4% on every transaction — commissions on sales and loan brokerage combined — and he specializes in Shanghai’s premium residential and near-luxury market. The numbers get intimidating quickly.
How did he build his client base? He cultivated it himself as a junior agent, then recruited branch managers at a major real estate firm to feed him clients. Everyone shares the pie. He now owns two large-floor apartments in Shanghai’s Huangpu district with substantial annual cash income.
Then there’s Meng Meng — originally a destiny reading (命理) client of mine, now a good friend. He has a softer, more feminine personality, but when it comes to work he is ferociously disciplined. His specialty is so niche you’d barely believe it exists: high-end floral installations for five-star hotels and luxury event venues — those enormous, dramatic flower displays you see in the lobbies of top hotels. That’s what Meng Meng does.
Every piece is crafted with care and brought to perfection. He also runs annual student workshops. Annual income: over four million.
Oh — I should mention: Meng Meng grew up in a rural village in Yunnan. His parents are fruit farmers who don’t speak Mandarin. He is deeply filial, and he loves to travel. He works nine months a year, then spends the other three taking his parents around the world, burning through every hotel group perk he’s earned.
So when I see men in their thirties or forties leaving timid, uncertain comments asking about their futures — I genuinely want to ask them:
Have you ever truly reflected on where the problem lies?
Have you ever truly reflected on where the problem lies?
Have you ever truly reflected on where the problem lies?
Have. You. Ever. Truly. Reflected. On where. The problem. Lies?
I’ll guarantee it: 100% of them have never done any real self-examination. They have never spent a quiet late night going through their lives carefully — honestly acknowledging what they got wrong, what was foolish, what was immature — and then waking up the next day to change it, never repeating those mistakes.
One hundred percent have never reflected on how they treat people, how they handle situations, or what’s wrong with their thinking. Not once. That is precisely why they’ve been drifting in the wrong direction all along — arriving at nothing, grinding away at nothing.
And honestly, I find these people somewhat admirable in a strange way: they spend their entire lives complaining, their entire lives miserable, and their entire lives refusing to evolve, refusing to adjust. Genuinely hard to understand.
There was once a particularly strange reader. He never joined the community to learn from others. Never booked a destiny reading (命理) to get a clear map of his path.
But he’d leave comment after comment under every article with the most bewildering problems — one day he’d offended his boss, the next he’d upset a colleague, then he got scammed, then a business failed.
Finally one day, I happened to have a moment, so I replied: Young man — with all this turmoil and nothing to show for it, have you ever truly thought about where the problem lies?
Three minutes later, he replied: “I don’t have any problems. I just want to ask Master how to get rich. 😊”
That emoji. My entire will to help him vanished on the spot.
For someone like that — you cannot help them. Those who understand, understand why.
Another piece past three thousand words. No tight logical structure, perhaps — but if you have the intuition for it, you’ll know exactly what I was trying to say.
Finally, let me leave you with a question — an indulgent one from me — and I’d love to see your thoughts in the comments:
What does Master Chi’s long-held philosophy of “wolf nature, Buddha heart” actually mean?