Let me share a realization that came to Master Chi in a flash of insight at 30,000 feet in the air:
If a person reaches their thirties or forties, and neither their family of origin nor themselves has ever truly known real wealth — and yet they still fantasize that someday luck will hand them easy windfalls, freedom, comfort, ease, and the luxury of doing nothing — then that person’s life is destined to get worse and worse, until it completely collapses.
I have personally witnessed too many people hit rock bottom and bounce back. I have supported too many brothers and sisters in turning their life pattern (格局) around. The most genuine truth I can offer is this: you need 90% self-discipline and hard work as your foundation before that 10% of lucky grace can deliver a real turnaround.
Heaven is ruthlessly pragmatic. It only grants more favor to those who refuse to quit — it will never turn a lump of mud that can’t hold its shape into gold.
The good news: if you are between 30 and 49, you still have many, many opportunities to turn things around, and you still have plenty of time.
I haven’t seen your destiny chart yet, so I can’t tell you exactly which year or which day your own turnaround will come. But if you follow the principles I’ve distilled below, even in the worst case, three years is enough to climb out of the valley:
Read the Landscape#
Many times, the problem isn’t the broader environment — it’s the circle you’re in. On the African savannah, herbivores are under constant pressure while carnivores carry on as usual.
Mindset matters enormously. If you’ve always believed you’re naturally meant to be an herbivore, and you lack even the nerve to taste meat, then you’ll naturally spend your whole life eating dry, bitter grass.
Don’t take this as an insult. You chose your own path — and you still have the possibility of choosing a different way to live. That is entirely up to you.
Most creatures on the savannah have no capacity for independent thought. Like those nature documentaries — when things are calm, they get lazy and slack off; the moment something stirs, they scatter in a panic like startled birds.
Don’t be too pessimistic, but don’t lose your head either. For most things, feel out the direction yourself first, test the depth a little. Spending all day chasing hearsay is fundamentally a sign of having no independent judgment and no willingness to think.
Understand the Dao#
Respect the tide of the times. Don’t make large investments that exceed your own understanding and capability. Don’t chase uncontrollable get-rich-quick schemes — pursue repeatable, modest gains instead.
Society has already stratified. Those with the real ability to become wealthy have already done so. If you’re still stubbornly refusing to accept that, there are definitely blind spots within yourself that you cannot see.
Stop wasting time with fair-weather companions who drag you down. Low-level thinking pollutes your mind in serious ways. The greatest tragedy in life is knowing you’re surrounded by foolishness and choosing to follow it anyway.
Talk less, argue less. The satisfaction of winning an argument is meaningless. No matter how sharp your words are, if your net worth is as thin as a sheet of paper, you only end up looking like a clown.
Even the most desperate situation will crumble in the face of absolute resilience and ferocity. If you can put your head down and grind for five years, even ghosts and gods will give you respect.
Under normal circumstances, bad fortune lasts three years at most. If after three years of bad luck your life is still rocky and tumultuous, you truly need to examine yourself carefully.
Build Legitimate Wealth#
Working a job for a salary will never get you ahead. If you have no business, no investments, no assets, no real capability as your foundation, then accept the reality of a lifetime of thin income and constant financial strain.
You must understand and live by this grand cycle: learn by doing, think while learning, strategize while thinking, act on your strategy. Do this, and poverty will leave you for good.
99.999% of people who destroy themselves in investing and business are running the same foolish script on repeat: they think they have a little cleverness, but in reality they can never point to any genuine achievement or track record worth mentioning. They don’t understand their industry well enough, have no network of experienced guides, and lack sufficient capital as backing. Then they spot what looks like an opportunity, assume they’ll seize the moment — and of course it ends in disaster.
Any legitimate path to wealth requires at least four or five years of genuine, ground-level struggle inside it. You need enough real experience and trial by fire. You must know every step of the process — top to bottom, large to small — with total fluency. Only then are you qualified, and only then do you hold an admission ticket to try your hand.
In today’s world, anyone who actually earns money has the corresponding real ability. There is no such thing as pure “dumb luck making a fool rich.” Anyone who believes otherwise simply cannot see the deeper logic at work.
The poorer a person is, the more arrogant, prejudiced, stubborn, and self-important they tend to be — clinging to their own worthless, unproven worldview in an attempt to earn the respect of others. If you have people like this around you, you’ll notice they consistently love to argue back, mock others, and tear people down — all to prove themselves right.
One of my deepest understandings about legitimate wealth: wealth and nobility are a breath of Chi (气) held inside you. The more you love to argue with others, the more that energy of wealth slips out through your mouth. Those who truly enjoy lasting prosperity are people of fierce, silent action — they do only what must be done, say only what must be said, and never waste their vital force on petty nonsense.
Great wealth fortune is cultivated slowly — through good books read one by one, good writing absorbed piece by piece, and long immersion in truly good circles of people.