Young people and the naive ones always chase hollow titles and glowing reputations, driven by raw passion and unbridled enthusiasm. The title of “top dog” — that’s the achievement they crave most.
But once they’ve been out in the world long enough, they naturally come to understand: in the upper tiers of any field, the power and resources among key players tend to be roughly balanced.
Everyone has their own backing, their own people, their own networks and systems supporting them.
So unless something extreme happens, most players don’t fight over resources at the same level. They prefer mutual benefit and shared wins.
Of course, the bottomless pool of fresh blood below — the endless crop of newcomers that springs back no matter how many times it’s harvested — those will always be everyone’s favorite target.
This is why I keep repeating it, over and over, regardless of how the times change: getting into the right circle is your primary goal for getting ahead. Because only within the right circle can you gain access to the resources, leverage, and forces that will actually arm you.
As for judging whether a circle is worth your time — and whether these people are worth working with — the single biggest indicator is whether everyone in that group presents a unified front to the outside world.
A lot of people make this mistake: they seem to have built up a group of friends and contacts, drinking buddies and fair-weather companions who talk each other up endlessly, all mutual flattery. Then they look around and realize the whole crew loves nothing more than fighting each other internally. And spending your days among people like that is just as low-grade and pointless.
In a garbage circle like that, you have two options: either become the most ruthless one in the room and use every single one of them as a stepping stone — or get out early and find the real pack you’re meant to run with.
Don’t be resentful, and don’t assume that the wealthy and powerful are constantly scheming against each other. Understand this: the world is large, but the top tier is small. There are only so many people there.
Sometimes when I’m on vacation, or at other places where the seriously wealthy tend to stay, I genuinely run into familiar faces every few days. Many of these circles overlap. My group at the Four Seasons in Central — I would have assumed it had nothing to do with the market-maker circles in Canada, or the futures crowd in Singapore, or the forex world in London. But sometimes you realize: it’s literally the same people. And that’s before you even get to the red-circle families — a few hundred households, that’s it.
This is the exact opposite of what people imagine — that the ultra-wealthy are locked in endless feuds. At the top, things are actually harmonious. If you play dirty, the only possible outcome is that your reputation spreads throughout the entire circle and no one trusts you anymore. Because everyone there has real capability — no one needs to work with you specifically.
So reputation and character matter. A lot.
Look at lower-tier social circles and you’ll see constant infighting. The main reason is that these people lack the ability to organize and extract value from outsiders — so they naturally feed on each other’s trust and sympathy instead.
Some young person online once asked: how do you identify if someone is truly wealthy? The question itself was immature, and so were all the answers — because every answer was wrong. The only correct answer is: look at whether they associate with other wealthy people.
Keep in mind: someone worth hundreds of millions still has their own social life and daily routine, just like you. But the people who eventually end up on equal footing with them — that’s a specific group. Often, if you connect with one of them and hold on, you’ve unlocked the door to an entire nine-figure club. And you’ll then discover that the five-hundred-million club and the billion-plus club are each their own separate world.
Smart people — especially those who came from nothing — are the least likely to linger in low-level circles. The longer you stay, the harder it is to shed those habits.
They’ll do whatever it takes to become useful to every noble benefactor (Gui Ren) they encounter. You might call them calculating or cunning, but at least they understand: to reach the level they’re aiming for, the most important thing — as I’ve said before — is to know your place and become someone the circle actually needs.
A lot of people have fantasies about this. They think they can impress a big player through surface-level packaging — name-dropping connections, doing everything possible to inflate their status.
But think about it: we’re long past the era where anyone needs to posture. Whether you have real substance, whether you actually know your stuff — that comes through in three sentences. And your connections? If you’re nobody in the game, who exactly do you know? Go ahead, I’ll call them right now and ask if they happen to have a friend like you.
Be grounded. Know your objective. Don’t be greedy in your dealings, get things done efficiently, know your role — and breaking into a circle isn’t actually that hard.
To put it even more simply: if you’re lucky enough to get inside a circle, don’t be arrogant and scheme to exploit the others. The people there are on a higher level than you, which means they’re almost certainly smarter and more perceptive than you. What you should be doing — while protecting your own interests — is making yourself available to be utilized. Make yourself useful as a supporting force.
A lot of people bristle at this, but think about it in reverse: for many things, you have to start from the outside and work your way in — and only then do you earn the right and the experience to get deeper.
Think of what the big players are doing as a production. You need to get familiar first — then you might get a bigger role next time, and eventually grow into a peer-level figure. Who just meets someone and immediately gets cast as the lead? And yet plenty of people actually try this. That’s called being clueless, being brainless, and letting greed cloud your judgment. That’s what stupid looks like.
A circle is something you grow into — not something you extract from. One word: grow in. Another word: extract. Understand the gap between those two completely.
Why is Master Chi talking so much about circles today? Because even if you’re not after resources specifically, you need to be around these people to see how they carry themselves and how they think. They don’t necessarily represent absolute truth — but they do represent the general rules of the game in this era, including how value gets extracted.
This isn’t to say that people at the bottom have nothing real to offer. Some do. But their insight often carries a deep imprint of where they came from — and once that imprint is stamped on you, I’m sorry, but you’ll never make it into the inner rooms. Some people think that’s fine — it’s even a kind of authenticity, staying grounded.
But being grounded is just a lifestyle preference. The wealthy and powerful may well enjoy a simple breakfast, but that doesn’t mean they’ll do serious business with someone who thinks like someone from the bottom rung.
You might be a genuinely good person with a good heart — but if your level is low, no one with standing will play with you. Not to single anyone out, but even Master Chi sometimes catches himself looking down on people, and it’s genuinely embarrassing. And it’s not just Master Chi — you’ll do it too, sooner or later. So we all need to actively guard against this habit.
What? You don’t understand? Let me put you alongside manual laborers for a few days and see if you’re willing. No disrespect to them — they might be perfectly decent people. But ultimately, people on different paths don’t make good partners.
What Master Chi finds hard to summarize here is this: sometimes a person’s character and Chi field (personal aura) simply determine their ceiling and their achievements. It’s not about looking down on anyone — it’s that some people are simply never going to carry real authority or formidable presence. Go observe any company: the trading genius who closes massive deals, versus the person who will spend their whole life in small transactions — you can tell them apart at a glance, before they even speak.
The former radiates a Chi field and depth of foundation that cannot be learned. It can only be changed by long-term environment and the sustained influence of the right people around you.
That kind of person — born into privilege, they become a pillar. Born in poverty, they become the one who breaks through.
What? You think Master Chi is being too rigid? Looking down on people?
Do yourself a favor — around ten at night, go visit a real estate agency, or an insurance company, or any other sales-driven industry. Look at the thirty or forty young people there, all from similarly humble backgrounds. You can see at a glance which ones are going to become the center of gravity and the leaders in three years. Why? Because people, just like goods, reveal themselves in comparison. The expression “a crane among chickens” didn’t come from nowhere.
This brings us back to noble benefactors (Gui Ren): understand that a benefactor doesn’t necessarily have to lift you up. After all, you have no resources and no reputation — you have nothing. A benefactor can be someone you actively choose to follow. If you believe someone is the most capable and rising player in the current circle, then commit fully and stay close.
One more thing about connections — their other function. First, understand that resources — capital, connections, opportunities — may be concentrated at a certain level, but within that level they circulate freely. Calling it a constant flow of goods is not an exaggeration.
So when you’re out looking for benefactors and higher-level circles, they’re also looking for you. They’re looking for people who can do the work steadily — loyal, trustworthy, with no hidden agenda. Why? Because there will always be crumbs. Crumbs aren’t garbage — everyone wants them, but most people of standing won’t bother collecting them due to status or time constraints. Then you show up, and it’s perfect: you go collect the crumbs. Gradually, you gain the credentials, the connections, and the reputation that earn you a share of the larger loaves.
This brings me to something I want to make clear: the subtle beauty of this world is that groups and circles are always rising and expanding, one after another. If you want to break into elite networks, you first have to find the right circle — then everyone rises together. It’s not complicated: as long as everyone in a circle has decent character and some real capability, lifting each other up happens fast.
Finally — when I’m reading someone’s life pattern (格局), I always tell my clients: it doesn’t matter if your own life pattern is weak, or even lowly. That can actually be a good thing. Because it means you can slot yourself into almost any group or structure and borrow other people’s fortune and momentum.
You don’t have to be the main character. Sometimes the one in the spotlight gets taken down by a single storm — truly, those with grand life patterns experience grand rises and falls. But the golden supporting role, the eternal number two — that’s the safest position, the longest-lasting, and often the most profitable.
As the old saying goes: make your fortune quietly. That is, and will always remain, a timeless truth.
Next time, I’ll look for an opportunity to talk about what’s happening below the surface. It’s far more interesting than the celebrities, entertainers, and billionaires that ordinary people follow above the waterline.
After all, in a world where fame attracts danger and standing out invites trouble, those who rely purely on reputation as their primary resource are almost always running on borrowed time.