If someone is living a mediocre, colorless life in their twenties, it’s most likely because their family background wasn’t strong — their parents couldn’t provide solid financial support or reliable guidance in life.
But if someone is still achieving nothing in their thirties — no decent income, no respectable life to speak of — then you can no longer blame the heavens or the earth. You need to pump the brakes right now. Sit down, light a cigarette, and seriously ask yourself: how did you end up like this? What did you do wrong? What opportunities did you let slip by?
I — Master Chi — have never believed in meaningless coincidences. I only believe in the workings of karma (cause and effect). The fact that this article has appeared before your eyes today means that some invisible force has given you this opportunity to grow stronger. So cherish it. Don’t let it pass.
1 — Stop wasting your energy on ordinary people.
Don’t spend too much of yourself on the average people around you, and certainly don’t obsess over their moods and opinions of you.
The truth is, 99.9999% of ordinary people are just weeds that bend with the wind. Their attitude toward you is essentially built on your power and status. On top of that, they generally have no reliable resources or real capabilities. The best stance toward them is: friendly, polite, and distant.
Most importantly, don’t let their opinions sway you. Just focus on doing your own thing.
2 — A lesson from Chinese metaphysics (玄学) that I often share with my closest circle.
If you want to rise up and turn your life around — if you want to achieve something truly significant — you must disappear from the world for a long stretch of time. Go deep underground.
During that period, your one and only focus should be: figuring out how to make money, and how to build your core network. Everything else is a meaningless distraction.
From my own deep experience: the vast majority of people with decent destiny frameworks who are still floundering in their thirties and forties have something in their life constantly draining their mental energy — something that makes it impossible to focus on what actually matters.
What do you do? My approach is simple: block, delete, cut ties, go dark.
3 — I have zero patience for people who complain they “missed the good times.”
This kind of talk is absurd to me. In just the past year alone, I helped two friends put together a trade project in Singapore. It’s not making a fortune yet, but the monthly returns comfortably cover my luxury hotel stays abroad.
Opportunities exist every single second. If you can’t grab them, that’s a problem with your capabilities — not a shortage of opportunities.
Let me put it plainly: even if your destiny framework is terrible — truly rock-bottom terrible — you will still encounter at least three turning-point opportunities in your lifetime. That is certain. Absolute. Guaranteed.
But if you’ve already given up — if after work you just collapse on the couch, scroll your phone, and vent your frustrations — then I’m sorry. Master Chi has witnessed countless people break out of poverty and rise from nothing. I have never once seen someone in that state accomplish anything. Even if they won ¥50 million in the lottery, that mindset would burn through every last cent within a few years.
4 — A hard truth: most people in this world are simply drifting through life.
They have no craftsman’s heart. They completely lack the conviction that once you decide to do something, you do it to the absolute best, the highest level, the very top. That gap alone is already insurmountable.
Let me give you an example. I genuinely love doing destiny readings for women who come from humble origins but have a relentlessly focused, serious, and driven character.
These women tend to have extraordinary tenacity — they approach everything with total commitment to excellence. They may look physically slight, but once you lay out their life path, career, marriage, and other major matters clearly according to their BaZi destiny chart — trust me, they will throw themselves into it completely, execute every single suggestion to perfection, and the results they produce will be extraordinary.
On the other hand, nothing frustrates me more than a lazy, scattered character. This kind of person envies other people’s lives while resenting their own effort. Even if I pour everything into reading their destiny chart as clearly as possible, they’ll still approach it half-heartedly.
Think about that. If you knew the optimal answer for every step of your future — and you still didn’t care? The answer is right there in front of you and you won’t even bother to copy it. Truly absurd.
5 — At the end of the day, everything in this world comes down to dealing with people.
Don’t be naive enough to think that if you just do your work well, wealth and opportunity will come knocking on their own. Think carefully: who in this world actually decides how things unfold, how you are evaluated, how interests are distributed?
From the perspective of traditional Chinese wisdom, all things under heaven are set in motion through people — that is the unchanging core.
Do the right thing for the right person, and that person becomes your noble benefactor (贵人, Gui Ren). Align yourself with the wrong person in the wrong arrangement, and they become your nemesis.
On this soil, from the very beginning until right now, everything is people-centered.
Therefore, for anyone who can influence your future and your interests, you must proactively seek them out and offer value of every kind — emotional, financial, loyalty, and beyond.
Get close to the center of power, and you gradually acquire power. Get close to the center of wealth, and you gradually acquire wealth.
I often tell those who are in their “rising phase”: when striking a snake, hit it at the seven-inch point (the kill spot). When aligning with people, follow the dragon head.
6 — Don’t be ruled by your emotions. Either be strong enough, learn to manage them, or choose to step away.
There is a type of person who will never accomplish anything great in their lifetime.
They take every stress from work and life and magnify it endlessly. They wallow in other people’s negative assessments. At the slightest setback, their entire world feels like it’s collapsing — they explode in fury, demand that everyone account for themselves, and are especially fond of declaring: “That’s just how I am — I’m a straight talker.”
These people are dangerous to be around.
First, understand this: nobody in this world cares about your emotions. Even if someone politely pretends to sympathize with your difficulties, behind your back they’re rolling their eyes and saying: that person is emotionally unstable, a bit unhinged.
On this soil, if you want to climb, the first requirement is emotional stability. Understand that most conflicts aren’t aimed at you personally — they’re aimed at your position and the interests you hold.
Learn to endure. Learn to wait it out. Learn to carry the weight.
Never break down sobbing or explode in curses at the first sign of frustration. That is the mark of someone with no depth, no self-control — a person of broken and impoverished character.
7 — Let me ask you one small, specific question. How often do you actually give gifts to the important people in your life?
There is a type of person who is almost comical. Every holiday season, they tie themselves in knots wondering what message to send to the important people in their lives, or agonizing over what heartfelt little essay to write to express their gratitude.
Please. Stop being moved by your own sincerity. Just sending a message like that is enough to annoy people.
Feelings however true, spoken without a gift, land as nothing. A gift however modest, actually given, says everything.
This world is full of people crying about how their talents are unrecognized and how no noble benefactor has stepped up to help them. Ask them directly: “Before you look for a noble benefactor to help you, tell me first — what have you done for them? What value have you actually offered?”
Wealth flows from strategy, not from grinding yourself down. Advantage comes from positioning, not from brute force.
One kind of person that everyone genuinely can’t stand is the one who is stingy and small-minded in everything they offer — whose mental abacus is always clicking away for maximum personal gain, who wears that calculating, petty air openly on their face, and believes they’re being “smart with money.” That energy drives every worthwhile person away.
8 — Finally, the most essential question of all.
Come. Answer Master Chi this: what genuine capabilities do you actually have right now?
Note carefully: by “capabilities,” I mean the specific, concrete ability to solve clearly defined, real problems.
For example — maybe you have no resources of your own, but you deeply understand how interests are aligned in any given situation and how the game is played in a particular circle. You can serve as a trusted adviser to the right people. That is a capability.
Or — maybe you’re not the sharpest thinker, but you have a natural gift for social connection. Everyone likes you. You know how to read a room, and you can build real relationships with people of genuine substance. That is also a capability.
Or — maybe you have the kind of credibility where people trust you immediately. The moment you open your mouth, people are willing to put their resources and capital on the table, or offer their help within reason. That, even more so, is a capability.
If none of that applies, then at the very least: can you take the technical side of a given situation and execute it flawlessly, creating real value? That too is a capability.
The most dangerous person of all is someone with not a single genuine capability, who nevertheless believes that someday they’ll be rich and successful. That is nothing short of a waking daydream.