Introduction: Young people dream of strategizing from the safety of their tents, but those who have truly lived through it understand — great achievements forged from seas of blood and fire are always accompanied by humiliation and pain, by collapse and hard-won clarity. So it is precisely those who have emerged from the darkest depths, or clawed their way down from the most desperate heights, who are most likely to create miracles.
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When you browse through history with idle time on your hands, you’ll notice that the strategists and counselors always seem to loom larger in the narrative than the emperors and generals they served. As if every dynasty’s rise and fall was ultimately guided by these “advisors” and their meticulous calculations — as if they should have been the protagonists. Whenever these figures appear on the page, the ink flows generously. And why not? The image is irresistible: a folding fan and silk headband, victory decided from a thousand miles away; a torrent of eloquent debate that silences a hall full of scholars. Effortlessly magnificent.
But why is it that those who actually seized power — who claimed the central stage of history — were never these brilliant men?
This mirrors something many people wonder today: why is it that those who speak brilliantly and endlessly, or who graduated from elite schools and top firms, so often lose out to someone who clawed their way up from nothing?
The answer is that they’re missing something absolutely essential. (And honestly, this is a flaw shared by most middle-class children who came up through the standard nine-year education system.)
It is something that the scholars and intellectuals have never dared to admit.
The answer: resilience.
Let’s bring this back to everyday life with a simple example.
Many people climbing the professional ladder genuinely struggle to understand why their boss promotes someone who appears, on the surface, less sharp, less capable, even less qualified than themselves. From their perspective, they are smarter, more skilled, more perceptive — and they’re not wrong. They are a valuable kind of talent.
But they’ve missed a critical point: almost every core position — every top leadership role — rarely depends on “intelligence” as its primary requirement.
Note carefully: Master Chi is not saying intelligence doesn’t matter. But intelligence alone is absolutely insufficient as the main pillar.
Throughout all of history, the defining quality of every core position — without exception — has been resilience first, with everything else coming after. Because before you can create results, your primary mission is simply to hold on.
Hold on against what?
Against the relentless chaos and complications below. Against daily unexpected challenges and crises. Against the sacrifices and painful trade-offs that can only be worked through at great personal cost and blame.
It means watching, day after day, an irreversible decline unfold — and still choosing to push forward, if only to slow the inevitable end.
Understand this: in real life, positions that carry genuine weight cannot be managed by cleverness alone. If they could, they wouldn’t need to exist. The reason these positions exist is precisely to face the eternal pressures and contradictions that never go away.
Put it even more plainly: every “important position” in the world is, at its core, a red-hot iron chair. The moment you sit down, you are destined to endure its searing heat every second of every day.
There has never been a comfortable top leader. Endurance and perseverance are your daily existence.
So those who are quick-witted, or who fancy themselves clever, typically can’t handle these positions. The moment they sit down, they think: “Wait — this seat is terrible. It’s scorching. I’d better find a different chair.”
The result: they arrive with fanfare, light their three fires, and then — out of “cleverness” and “shrewdness” — drop the burden and walk away.
From where I stand, these people are simply unfit for great use. No exaggeration. The slippery opportunist with petty schemes is precisely what serious leaders fear most — even as those lower down idolize them.
Take this thought higher and you’ll see the same pattern in every era: there’s never a shortage of people who love to make snap decisions or endlessly offer strategies and advice. In everyday life, these might be your meddlesome relatives. In the world of business or power, they’re the self-important, always-right, armchair analysts with perfect hindsight.
But these people rarely amount to much, because almost none of them will say: “Use my plan — and if it fails, I’ll own it.”
The key, of course, is the second half: “if it fails, I’ll own it.” That is resilience. That is accountability.
So even if you spend time at those supposedly elite platforms, you’ll find that nine out of ten of those people are simply riding the platform’s own prestige. Technical skill? Sure. But the kind who can truly carry an operation alone? Absolutely not.
You’ll understand this far more deeply once you’ve led a team or run your own business.
As the old saying goes: a thousand soldiers are easy to find — one general is hard. The most essential duty of a “general” is not masterful strategy or brilliant battle plans. It is to stand at the edge of a collapsing mountain without flinching, to face a crisis without retreating.
Of course it’s ideal to win decisively. But in real life, many battles are uncertain — or even destined to be lost. Someone still has to fight them. And once you step up, there will be no retreat signal before the final chapter closes. So — will you still go?
Most people would say no. But a rare few understand: if someone has to fight it, then let it be me.
“Who else but me?” — these four words are the nearly universal mark of anyone truly capable. They are rare in every corner of the world.
Why would someone make that choice? Perhaps it’s a deep sense of responsibility. Perhaps it’s ambition and hunger. Perhaps they’re willing to gamble, trusting that even in defeat, those above will recognize their resolve and call on them again. Or perhaps they simply see that no one else can hold things together — and so they step forward as the pillar.
It is precisely this courage and resilience that ensures such a person will never be buried in mediocrity.
When Master Chi helps friends select the head of a subsidiary, or identify a trustworthy business partner, the first instinct is always to filter out the “overly clever” candidates. Those who appear moderate, stable, and measured — those who think less and act more — tend to become the top choice. (In BaZi terms, Tanlang [the Greedy Wolf star] is rarely the best fit here — Qisha [Seven Killings] and Lianzhen [Chaste] tend to be far more suitable.)
Now you understand why those who are always bouncing around so energetically get beaten by someone who seems slow and plain, right?
Of course, sometimes your leadership is simply foolish — and that’s unpredictable.
What’s even more ironic is that many of life’s greatest opportunities — the ones that build real skill and bring real fortune — are the very ones people actively walk away from.
Because everyone wants the easy win. No one wants to bear immediate pain and responsibility.
The result? You spend your whole life pointing fingers and offering strategies. But you will never command the army. And you will never sit in the seat of honor at the end.
Pay attention: don’t believe people when they say, “I just never had any real opportunities in my life.” That is nonsense.
What they actually mean by “opportunity” is this: being effortlessly promoted, being recognized without struggle, and landing a comfortable, secure, well-paying role where they can coast for forty years and retire happy.
Think about it. Is that realistic? On what basis? Does the world owe you that?
The real truth is not that opportunity came and you missed it. The truth is that opportunity kept coming — and you never dared to reach out and take it.
Real opportunities are always burning hot. They are genuine gold buried inside a pile of scorching embers.
Here’s an interesting example from the world of capital markets.
Generally speaking, being a trader is something almost anyone can manage if they find the right circles — it’s not impossibly difficult. But whether you can rise to become a major market mover is a threshold that is nearly impossible to cross.
Because no matter how skilled a trader is, no matter how refined their technique, technical mastery doesn’t mean they can maintain composure when their own skin is in the game. Using someone else’s chips is an entirely different experience from wagering your own life’s fortune.
The game of capital is like two armies locked in fierce combat. Once the battle begins, it’s hand-to-hand fighting.
You have 2 billion, but you can only tolerate a 20% loss rate. I may have only 1 billion, but I’m willing to absorb over 60% losses. The latter will win every time — the smaller force defeats the larger.
But then again — how many people can watch 600 million disappear from their account and still hold on?
Do people like that exist? Yes. In the capital world, they are essentially one-in-a-thousand figures, and they are known throughout the industry. On sheer nerve alone, these people are virtually impossible to eliminate unless something major happens — which is why regulators have an unwritten rule to audit or issue warnings every decade or so. And naturally, they have their own countermeasures: they send their disciples to play in their stead. But that is a different story.
So you might ask: what about a trader who fights through the bloodbath and rises all the way to become a market mover?
Well, someone like Xu Xiang would be considered a lower-tier player in that world — eleven figures in net worth is just the entry point. There are probably no more than a hundred or so such individuals in all of China, and most are backed by powerful political networks or operated as white-glove intermediaries.
Why can they grow so large? Because with someone else’s money, you can’t apply extreme leverage to play a one-hundred-to-one game. But with your own money, you don’t dare. That’s the barrier. That’s the moat.
Still, many readers ask me: “Master Chi, what if — for whatever reason — I’ve always lacked this kind of courage? What can I do?”
After observing the character of so many people, the only answer I can give you is this:
Most fear comes from thinking too much.
If you sit quietly and reflect, you’ll find that most of your worries don’t actually add up to much. Your core fear boils down to one thing: the possibility of failure.
But the vast majority of hands you’re dealt in life — while not great — are not truly terrible either. And even truly terrible hands, if you grit your teeth and play them out, will gradually lead you through the difficulty. Because the situation may be fixed, but you are not. As you slowly adapt and grow, you’ll find that the world’s hardest problems aren’t really all that much.
When even the most daunting odds no longer intimidate you — when you look at what terrifies others and think, “Is that all?” — trust me: not becoming someone of standing and rank will itself become the hard part.