★ - If things have been going badly for you lately, I want you to know — this is not your fault.
I shared this at the start of the year: our extraordinary rise over the past forty-plus years has fundamentally transformed our role on the world stage. We evolved from a cheap manufacturing supplier into what we are today — a holder of mid-to-high-end technology, and undeniably one of the top powers in the world.
Times change, and the stars shift. The rules of our own game have undergone a qualitative transformation.
The exhaustion of rushing along a flat road will now be replaced by the hardship of climbing a mountain.
★ - For you personally, there is one core principle you must grasp: the foundational work of striving right now means you must think things all the way through before you can rise.
Don’t for a moment believe that this era still allows anyone to act on a moment of hot-headed impulse and actually succeed.
Every business and every opportunity you know of has at least two generations of elites and forty-plus years of hard-won, blood-and-tears wisdom behind it.
So stop ramming your head into walls. Instead, carefully seek out and study the experience of those who have already built real wealth.
★ - Let me remind you once more: the lower rungs of society are not a place to linger — especially under current trends, where hostility, envy, and malice are growing heavier by the day, and where deep negative resentment toward wealth is widespread.
Are these people bad? No. They simply lack judgment and the capacity for clear thinking. So when they feel something, they want to vent it. When they can’t get something, they resent it.
If you show up in front of them right now and come across as polite, courteous, and kind — you will quickly become their preferred target for emotional release.
There’s not much more to say about this. Keep quiet, build your wealth, do your work steadily, and keep a low profile.
Everything — all of it — is in service of getting out of the hole as soon as possible.
★ - When the environment is unfavorable, keep a firm grip on your own two hands. Don’t go making reckless moves.
Don’t convince yourself that hyping yourself up during this period is some great and righteous act. When it’s freezing outside, no matter how much sorghum liquor you drink to ward off the cold, you’ll still be broken by the wind and frost after just a few kilometers.
You must respect and hold the cycle in awe. This kind of time is actually the ideal period to hunker down, sit cross-legged, and cultivate your inner strength (内功).
I frequently scold the brothers and sisters close to me: stop spending your days dreaming of a dramatic reversal. Every upward step in life is forged from genuine inner cultivation — there is no such thing as muscling your way into an opportunity and having that be enough.
When your inner cultivation matures, opportunities will pour into your hands in floods.
★ - Do not let strange ideas go to your head. Do not fill your mind with boiling hot blood.
The people who fare worst in this world have always been those who are constantly excitable and agitated — people entirely led by the nose of emotion and feeling.
They love to talk loudly about grand moral principles and geopolitical affairs, yet they know absolutely nothing about how the real world actually works.
I, Master Chi, once arrived at a bone-deep conclusion: small people always love to discuss big matters — that way they can conceal their own smallness. Great people are willing to focus on small matters — that is precisely how they keep growing bigger.
★ - Having traveled through many of the world’s wealthy nations and having lived through all kinds of things on this land, I only hope you understand this: there is no single viewpoint or skill set that can guarantee you a smooth ride for the rest of your life.
The only thing that travels across time, geography, and circumstance is the relentless pursuit of learning and the continuous expansion of your overall capabilities — and the constant broadening of your knowledge and perspective.
As I said yesterday: you must develop the habit of regularly calling your yesterday-self an idiot.
Smart people never stop correcting their own foolishness. It’s only fools who linger nostalgically over the few times they happened to stumble onto the right answer.
To put it even more bluntly: I have never been optimistic about people who spend their days calling everyone else an idiot — but I have enormous respect for those who dare to call themselves the idiot.
★ - Once you reach my stage in life, you will no longer feel any desire to argue with people who see things differently.
Only those whose knowledge, net worth, and achievements exceed yours are worth the energy of genuinely listening to their views and opinions.
As for those operating far below your level — just smile, nod at their opinions, and let it go in one ear and out the other.
They have already spent their entire life proving that they are a collection of wrong answers. What energy do you have left to waste debating them?
I, Master Chi, have one standing habit: I never engage in verbal arguments with people whose careers are floundering and whose lives are unhappy. Give them a little gentle acknowledgment and move on. Life will deliver them the ending they have earned.
★ - Over these years, the people whose lives have collapsed have fallen into mainly three categories.
The first: those who struggle blindly, convinced they can smash through the wall by sheer force against the prevailing tide. The second: those with weak mental fortitude who, after a few words of temptation from people around them, pull out their chips and place their bets.
And then the third: ordinary middle-class people — both in their family of origin and in their own hands — who lack the means of production. Their lives are almost universally hand-to-mouth: the moment work stops, the flow of money stops immediately.
These people are especially vulnerable to making reckless, consequences-be-damned moves in today’s climate — driven by a moment of impulse or anxiety — and finding themselves sinking deeper and deeper with every move.
★ - Unless you yourself are doing exceptionally well in the world — with a net worth touching nine figures or above — then I, writing this article right now, am the highest ceiling you can access among living people you could actually reach.
This is not arrogance. I am stating objective fact. And I genuinely hope that one day you will encounter people operating at levels above mine, and that you yourself will eventually surpass where I am.
But for right now, at this stage of your life, my words are worth your careful thought and study.
So let me share this with you: life cannot be rushed.
Whether it is the favor of a noble benefactor (Gui Ren), the attention of wealth, or the closeness of romance fortune (桃花运) — all of these require long, patient accumulation before they can finally materialize.
So do not rush. Do not rush. Do not rush.
Rush to turn things around, and you will make one wrong move after another. Rush to get married, and you will end up with the wrong person. Rush after money, and you will be cut down for it.
Learn to settle your heart. Learn to grow still.
Learn to read the situation clearly, carefully assess your own capabilities, and then make your move — without regret.
That is how fortune improves. That is how things get done.