A reader once asked a remarkably sharp question: “Master, across the different levels of society, are there concepts that belong exclusively to the upper tiers — things the lower tiers have no awareness of at all?”
I thought about it, and answered with two words: Planning.
The word “planning” doesn’t tend to circulate among ordinary people, because it’s almost exclusively used by those in positions of power and decision-making — strategic planning, urban planning, industrial planning, platform planning. The word itself carries an inherent meaning: set a goal with an execution plan, then advance toward it systematically. It radiates sophistication the moment you hear it.
And for that very reason, ordinary people are largely born without any connection to this concept. Their lives and careers never encounter this unfamiliar idea.
So most ordinary people drift through life without structure. The sharper ones among them manage to pick up a few bits of folk wisdom, but have no systematic “planning logic” whatsoever. This produces a harsh result: they have no idea what to pursue during their teenage years that would give their young adult selves a better hand to play; they have no idea what to accumulate in their twenties and thirties that would give their middle-aged selves better capital to compound. The result is a life where every step looks clever in isolation, yet every step contradicts the last and builds toward nothing.
“Why have I worked so hard my entire life, yet still live in such hardship and obscurity, having accomplished nothing???”
I see comments like this in my inbox every few days. My consistent reply is always the same: because you lack planning. Your life is like a building without blueprints — you have the ambition to build high, but no ability to see it through to completion.
As you know, Master Chi’s work is rooted in Chinese metaphysics (玄学), and a destiny framework (格局) is fundamentally about planning a person’s entire life — systematically mapping out their foundational life pattern, career trajectory, marriage, wealth circumstances, and annual fortune cycles (流年) — and finding the optimal path within all of that.
So today, I want to use this article to address the topic of “life planning” clearly. I’ll keep it concise and structured rather than exhaustive, so it’s easier for me to convey and for you to absorb.
1 — Stay far away from “instant wealth, high returns, speculation.” Draw close to “accumulation, depth, and investment.”#
I won’t claim to have met an uncountable number of people, but I’ve had genuine, in-depth conversations with thousands of people across every level and field — and I’ve seen my share of remarkable and strange stories.
Yet there are exactly two things I have never once witnessed: windfall wealth and fortune landing at someone’s doorstep. They’re common in novels and television dramas, and you’ll hear about them constantly from people who don’t know the full story. But actual wealth and fortune truly arriving without any precedent? Not once.
Even in the cases that looked like sudden fortune — when I learned the full story afterward, I found that the person had done an enormous volume of groundwork. We only see the final decisive moment. We never see the years of grinding behind it.
So stop fantasizing that a noble benefactor (Gui Ren) will appear and resolve every concern of your entire life. Stop expecting a generous older brother to materialize out of nowhere with purely good intentions, determined to make you rich. These things simply do not happen.
And don’t think I’m stating the obvious. The poorer, lower, and more down-and-out a person is, the more they tend to believe in instant wealth, high-return schemes, and speculation. They’re the ones most likely to keep waiting for impossible things to happen to them — one lucky break to reverse everything overnight. Because people at the bottom generally lack the patience to sit down quietly and build something well, and the perseverance to accumulate steadily until it compounds. This is also why the lower tiers have never had a shortage of compulsive gamblers.
So when planning your destiny — even if you’re currently at rock bottom — please, from the ground up, stay away from “instant wealth, high returns, speculation.” No matter how airtight the logic sounds or how reasonable the pitch feels: stay away.
In contrast, genuinely sophisticated thinking — “planning,” and concepts like accumulation, depth, and investment — all require time to wait for the right moment while sharpening your mind and building your capabilities. In any field, a major harvest requires time to mature. No exceptions.
Only by investing genuine effort in building depth will your work reward you the way a fine aged wine does — slowly, with ever-richer and more lasting returns.
Take the clients who come to me specifically to examine their wealth fortune and major endeavors. Almost none of them look at their destiny chart today and seize some speculative opportunity tomorrow. Real, significant wealth is almost always the result of a strategy laid out today, advancing steadily — and then finally bearing fruit after at least one year, often two or three. And that kind of harvest — that level of result — is the only kind that can truly sustain you for a lifetime and bring blessings to your whole family.
2 — Recognize what kind of person you are, then find the position suited to you and play it fully.#
Some people are naturally gifted at using strategy to win others’ loyalty and get things done through people. Some are naturally wired to charge forward and break new ground with sheer drive. Some are naturally suited to patient, quiet groundwork — the kind that builds silently and ultimately turns the tables.
Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. Everyone has something that is distinctly theirs.
After reading countless destiny charts, I can genuinely say I have never encountered a truly “unremarkable” person with nothing of value. I would even go so far as to say that even a seemingly mediocre person has something useful about them.
The problem is that most ordinary people know very little about themselves. They know their height and weight, their credentials and résumé, their salary, and their rough preferences. But they’ve never truly examined themselves and asked a single direct question: In what areas am I genuinely better than average? What would actually stand out to others — enough for them to notice and want to use?
The first — and most critical — step in planning your life is to get absolutely clear on what kind of “character” you are. Only by understanding this clearly do you have any chance of fully showcasing your talents in the future.
Find a moment to look back and take stock of where you naturally excel in how you handle people and situations. Try to clarify where you should be putting your energy. Once you’ve identified it, commit to cultivating that area consistently and deeply.
3 — Understand how this era is evolving, and seek out the most fertile fields to develop yourself in.#
In 2021, if you still believed that pure persistence alone could build a business and generate original capital, you had been disconnected from the real world for quite some time.
Whether in 2021 or the five years before and after it, pure persistence alone no longer carries much weight. What this era demands is sufficient expertise and perseverance — using the former to judge which fields still hold genuine opportunity, and using the latter to endure the hardship of breaking new ground.
Understand this: you cannot gain anything by going against the current of the times — except pain. The simplest way to align with the era is always to observe which industries and circles are generating the most value in any given period, and to participate in them.
For example, starting roughly two years ago, I explicitly recommended to those around me to move toward high-precision manufacturing and the semiconductor sector — for career purposes or even speculative investment. Not for any other reason than the fact that, against the macro backdrop, these two fields have a “win rate” that is tens to hundreds of times higher than other industries.
Even the entry-level salaries for fresh graduates in these sectors have been climbing year after year, threatening to surpass the internet industry. So you can imagine how much greater the advancement opportunities are compared to ordinary fields.
Think carefully about which fields will flourish in the next five to ten years. Where conditions allow, plant yourself in one of those fields and cultivate patiently for five or ten years — rather than going down with industries that have no future.
4 — Be clear about your “core competitive advantage,” and consolidate it while staying safe.#
We all respect and desire wealth — but not everyone’s achievements will manifest primarily as money. A position of real authority in a powerful institution, a well-regarded social standing, even a highly specialized and unique skill — these are all forms of enormously powerful capital.
Generally speaking, once a person recognizes themselves and understands what role they should play in society, they will quickly begin to form their “core competitive advantage.” Once it’s formed, you don’t need to worry about lacking the means to convert resources into returns.
Regarding your core competitive advantage: be both stingy and generous. Stingy with those who can never offer you any return — don’t waste time on them. Generous with those who can actually collaborate — maintain high-frequency exchanges, and build a reputation, even a form of prestige, within your circle.
Generally speaking, the earlier your core competitive advantage takes shape, the more easily a compounding effect develops — drawing more resources toward you through word of mouth, setting in motion a virtuous cycle of both reputation and material reward.
A lot of people can never figure out why they’re perpetually broke. Ask yourself one question: If a friend needed your help, what could you actually offer beyond brute physical labor?
5 — Regularly conduct self-maintenance, and develop the habit of “performing surgery on yourself.”#
Smart women rise remarkably fast — because at the same level, women tend to respond to self-examination far more quickly than men. This may be because women are used to putting on makeup, and therefore have a better intuitive grasp of the value of “updating your presentation.” After all, if you don’t update, you look outdated and out of touch.
A person’s life journey requires not only gaining and receiving, but also the ability to cut away what is no longer necessary — and to do so steadily, precisely, and without hesitation.
For example: habits formed in youth due to a lack of guidance should be corrected step by step as you mature. Mindsets calcified during times of poverty due to limited exposure should be updated step by step as you rise. Even the lower-tier connections formed out of necessity during the struggle should be gradually kept at a distance as you climb.
None of these are necessarily bad things or bad people — they simply fit the version of you that existed in that particular state and circumstance. If you want to move upward and build an increasingly better life, you must steel yourself and make the corresponding changes, step by step.
I’ve reflected on this more than once: people truly do undergo qualitative transformation in every cycle of life. No one can remain forever unchanged. Those who keep getting better are the ones with the courage to operate on themselves. Those who keep declining and falling further behind are essentially the ones being crushed by their own past bad habits, biases, and stubbornness.
To use an imperfect analogy: a smart traveler packs only what is necessary. Only a fool collects garbage along the road — and by the time they’ve collected enough, they find themselves unable to take another step forward.
6 — Seize every valuable opportunity and connection. Learn to strike while the iron is hot, and to cultivate things steadily over time.#
Pick the flower while it blooms — don’t wait until the branch stands bare.
The phrase “let nature take its course” has never struck me as a compliment. Unless your family has paved a genuinely excellent path for you and all you need to do is walk it faithfully — or unless you are simply blessed by heaven from birth and no matter what you do, good fortune follows — absent either of these, “letting things take their natural course” is essentially accepting the status quo and making no additional effort to seize opportunities. Just drifting along.
Understand this: life is full of opportunities, yet extraordinarily brief. Many opportunities truly are once-in-a-lifetime — a noble benefactor (Gui Ren) written into your destiny chart, a particular romantic connection, a formative experience, a window of wealth fortune. Once they pass, they don’t come back. So after reviewing the life trajectories of tens of thousands of people, I am firmly convinced that “letting nature take its course” will not carry you toward a better future. On the contrary, it will slowly make you more and more dull, sluggish, closed off, and disconnected from the times.
By the time you finally want to reach for something, you will find yourself in a very difficult, very passive position.
Take the many clients in their mid-forties who come to me confused — most of them have spent over a decade drifting comfortably within a fixed system, until the pressures of life mount high enough that they finally realize they can’t just wait any longer and need to take the initiative.
But who can guarantee that everyone in their mid-forties has equal opportunity to turn things around? Certainly some can — Master Chi has also worked hard to help many such readers reorganize their destiny framework and reclaim their wealth fortune. But ultimately, four or five out of ten have missed all of the “decisive” turning points that were built into their destiny chart, and end up locked in stagnation.
What can be done at that point? At best, anticipate some modest wealth fortune windows — help them earn decent but not life-changing amounts of money. Better than nothing, I suppose.
Closing thoughts: In the blink of an eye, another year draws to a close. This year, on the whole, was admittedly not a particularly flourishing one — but no matter. As we move into next year and the year after, we will gradually find our footing again and arrive at a better state.