TITLE: Nine Truths You Can Only Learn the Hard Way
The scorching summer has passed — half the year is already gone. These past six months have surfaced far too many problems that had been lurking beneath the surface.
Some of what I’ve witnessed firsthand has reminded both you and me just how cold and warm this world can be.
Even if we don’t say it out loud, we all know it in our hearts: that era is gone, and it’s never coming back.
Right now, I’m sitting in the penthouse suite of a newly opened hotel along the Huangpu River, watching the water, and it feels like exactly the right moment to share what’s been on my mind.
Nine pieces of advice. For those who haven’t been knocked around by life yet, most of this will probably go right over your head.
1 — You must shed that simple, obedient, play-it-safe employee mindset. In the era ahead, that mentality has no future.
If you keep going down that road, you’ll collect a fixed paycheck until you die — and no matter how favorable your BaZi (Four Pillars of Destiny), your life will never produce a single miracle or surprising turn.
Because the moment you lose your ambition, you’ve already surrendered all control over your own destiny.
2 — You must make every effort to expand your social world. Spend time with businesspeople, with those who’ve navigated the rough edges of this world — especially those who’ve already built some wealth. Make it clear you want to follow their lead.
Don’t let shyness, awkwardness, or embarrassment hold you back — these are the emotions of the weak. Every good opportunity in this world requires you to pay a price. Nothing worthwhile ever just lands in your lap.
Learn to offer your help proactively. Use whatever skills you have to solve real problems for others. Slowly, naturally, your doors of opportunity will begin to open.
3 — You need a little outlaw spirit in you, and a little scholar’s integrity.
The outlaw spirit means that when it’s time to step up and handle something, you don’t back down or go soft. People will respect you for it, give you face, and want to stand in your corner.
The scholar’s integrity means you have your own moral lines and you hold them — you won’t do things that cause harm or cross into territory you shouldn’t touch. That’s what keeps you safe.
4 — You need to quiet your mind and start seriously studying the dynamics of self-interest in society — the kind you’ve always been too comfortable to examine.
Don’t be swayed by nonsense like “he got rich because he’s corrupt” or “every wealthy person is rotten.” Instead, train yourself to clearly and thoroughly understand how other people actually built their success.
The fatal mistake many people make is filling their heads with theory while remaining completely clueless about how the real world actually works.
5 — You must learn to be ruthless with yourself and tender toward others. Many people can’t even wrap their minds around this.
Being ruthless with yourself means maintaining strict standards over the long haul — giving yourself no room to coast or retreat, and always pressing forward whenever there’s any possibility of improvement.
Being tender toward others means giving people genuine emotional warmth and respect, while never placing your expectations on them. Instead, see the people around you as pieces on a board that you need to skillfully manage.
Of course, managing others this way is never about exploiting them — it means offering fair and appropriate returns for what they contribute.
6 — You must put yourself through hardship and difficult situations. Don’t be in your thirties or forties and still be as naive about real-world experience as a blank sheet of paper.
Many readers who come to me for destiny chart readings have exactly this problem — middle-aged people who’ve spent their whole lives hiding in office buildings, curled up inside their comfort zones.
Then the moment I suggest they go after an opportunity, they freeze completely. They can’t even take a step.
Social experience, real-world wisdom, and the pain of hard living are genuinely precious invisible assets. You should be accumulating all of that in your younger years.
Because only through failure do you learn to read people, and only through loss do you truly understand how the world actually operates.
7 — Stay humble and keep a low profile. Don’t let a small taste of success go to your head.
I’ve seen it often — readers who, after I read their destiny chart, quickly make their first significant sum of money.
That’s when I always give them a firm reminder: the state most likely to cause disaster is excessive arrogance and self-importance. In that state, you’ll offend people without realizing it, and you’ll make the kind of fatal mistakes that come from losing your head.
I know you’ve finally turned things around and you’re thrilled — but right now, you need to shut your mouth, protect what you’ve built, and put your head down to focus on the next, more important move.
That may sound harsh. But this is wisdom written in blood and tears.
8 — Cultivate the habit of being practical, clear-eyed, and relentlessly forward-moving. Never dress up your complacency as “stability” or “groundedness.”
These past few years, I’ve seen it clearly: the obsession with detachment and lying flat has quietly destroyed the destinies of too many people.
It’s very likely that opportunities your fortune (BaZi) had in store for you have already been completely wasted by your habit of delaying and waiting.
This is why, when I read people’s destiny charts, I often find something that genuinely surprises me: three to five years back, there were real, good opportunities in their chart.
And yet they let those chances slip by because the opportunity didn’t look impressive enough on the surface.
Some went even further — they abandoned opportunities outright simply because they required too much effort.
All I can say is: the lazy have never prospered. That has never changed.
9 — And finally, above all else: you must develop the instinct for decisive action.
You need to be able to quickly assess a situation based on what you know, make a clear judgment, and decide — are you in or out?
At the same time, without dragging your feet, observe the details carefully.
Hold your own rhythm. Don’t let others pull you off course or drag you into their mess. Protect your interests and your wellbeing.
Remember this: whenever you see an opportunity you can engage in purely through your own ability, and it’s legitimate — move forward without hesitation. Don’t flinch.
The fight will be hard. But the victories of life have always been forged in blood and fire.
Don’t worry. I’ll be with you every step of the way.