1. People Should Seek Wealth, Not Money or Status
People should not earn wealth through arduous labor. Working 80 hours a week in a restaurant will not make you richer. Hard work is unavoidable, but it should be done in the right way. People should seek wealth, not money or status. If you believe wealth is unimportant, wealth will move away from you. Wealth is assets that continue to make money even while you sleep. Without wealth assets, when you sleep, you have no income; when you retire, you cannot keep earning. In short, without wealth, you cannot achieve non-linear earning. Generally, wealth is created by starting your own company or by investing. Neither of these is achieved merely by putting in a large amount of time; the wealthy also only have 24 hours a day, just like you.
2. The Key to Gaining Wealth
To gain wealth, you can provide something valuable to the masses—especially something they don’t know how to obtain. And you must supply it on a large scale. The internet has greatly expanded career possibilities, yet most people still lack a clear understanding of this. Learn marketing, learn creation. If you master these two things, nothing can stop your success.
3. Arm Yourself with Special Knowledge
Special knowledge is knowledge that cannot be acquired through training. If it can be acquired through training, others can also acquire it and replace you. Special knowledge is usually highly technical and creative. It cannot be outsourced or automated. (For example, insight) It can be discovered when driven by genuine curiosity and passion. The process of creating special knowledge feels like playing to you, but like working to others. Usually, special knowledge lies at the boundary of knowledge—things that are either newly understood or genuinely difficult to grasp. If you do not commit 100%, someone who commits 100% will surpass you. And they won’t just be slightly better; they will be much better, because in the realm of ideas, compounding and leverage come into play. Special knowledge might be things like: sales skills. Having musical talent. Persistence: this means you can research things deeply. Loving science fiction: this means you can quickly absorb a lot of knowledge. Playing many games: this means you have a good understanding of game theory. Gossip: this might help you become a very interesting journalist. Special knowledge is a strange combination, derived from your DNA, your unique environment, and your response to that knowledge. These are almost integrated into your personality and identity, and then you can continuously refine them. Study microeconomics, game theory, psychology, hypnotism, ethics, mathematics, and computer science.
4. Arm Yourself with Leverage
The main types of business leverage are capital, human power, and products with extremely low replication costs (code and media). Capital refers to money. To raise funds, you need to use your special knowledge, combined with your sense of responsibility, to demonstrate your good judgment. Human power refers to the people who work for you. It is the oldest and most fiercely contested form of leverage. Human power leverage will make your parents proud, but don’t waste your life pursuing it. Capital and labor are forms of leverage that require permission to use. Everyone chases capital, but there must always be someone to provide the money. Everyone wants to lead others, but there must always be subordinates. Code and media are leverage that require no permission; they are the leverage behind the new rich. You can create software and media that work for you while you sleep. A large group of robots is available for free use—to save space and energy efficiency, they are packaged into data centers; go use them! By applying special knowledge combined with leverage, you will ultimately get what you deserve.
5. One Sentence: Productize Yourself
What does this mean? “Productize” and “yourself.” “Yourself” has uniqueness; “productizing” has leverage. “Am I productizing it? Can I scale it? Can I amplify it through human power, capital, code, or media?” So, this phrase is very easy to remember. If you want to be richer, you must figure out what you can offer society that society doesn’t know how to obtain, but that society wants, and for you, offering it is natural and within your skill set and capability. Next, you must figure out how to scale it, because producing just one is far from enough. You might need to produce thousands, or tens of thousands, or millions, or even billions, so that everyone can have one. Steve Jobs (and his team, of course) figured out that society needed a smartphone. This smartphone had all the functions of phones at the time, but also many other new features, and it was easier to use. Therefore, they figured out how to manufacture the smartphone, and then they figured out how to mass-produce it. You must become the person who can scale the provision of these products or services. This is the real challenge of how to make money.
6. Pay Attention to Your Character
In my life, I have known some extremely successful, very popular, and very smart people. However, I have seen them do one or two things that were not very good for others. I would say, “Hey, I think you shouldn’t do that to others. Because it will eventually hurt yourself.” Deep down, we all know who we are. You cannot hide anything from yourself. You are very clear whether what you do is right or wrong; if you have too many moral flaws, you will not respect yourself. The worst outcome in this world is a lack of self-respect. If you don’t love yourself, who will love you? If I see someone doing this, the first time I will remind them, but usually they won’t change, and then I will keep my distance from them. I cut them out of my life. If someone constantly claims to be honest, they are likely dishonest. These are just some effective indicators I have learned. When someone spends a lot of time talking about their values or talking about themselves, it means they are hiding something. I think to myself: “If you want to get close to me, your values must be better than mine.”
7. Smart People Truly Understand One Thing
If someone uses many complex words and many grand concepts, they are likely unaware of what they are actually talking about. I believe the smartest people can explain things to a child. If you cannot explain it to a child, then you don’t truly know it. Truly smart thinkers are clear-minded thinkers; they understand the very basic fundamentals.
8. Step Outside Yourself to See the Truth
Imagine one of my friends is going through some difficulties, such as a breakup, career issues, business failure, or health problems. When he needs my advice, it often takes me only a few minutes to accurately tell him, “Oh, that girl, forget her. Anyway, she’s not good for you. You will be happier. Trust me. You will find someone more suitable in the future.” But he himself finds it hard to see this. Because he is in pain and torment, his desires conflict with reality, preventing him from seeing the truth. The same thing happens when we make decisions. To see the truth, you must set aside the self, because the self does not want to face the truth.
9. What Truly Matters is Leisure Time
Great ideas only come when you feel bored. Good ideas never appear when you are under pressure, busy, rushing around, or in a hurry. If your schedule doesn’t have one or two days a week where you aren’t constantly in meetings or constantly busy, you cannot think. You won’t have good ideas related to your business. You also won’t make good judgments. I encourage you to set aside at least one day a week (better yet, two days, because if you prepare two days, you are sure to find one) so you have time to think. Cherish your time; it is everything. It is more important than your money. It is more important than your friends. It is more important than anything. Your time is everything. Don’t waste your time.
10. Reading Can Make You Successful
Spending one hour a day reading science, mathematics, and philosophy can likely put you on the high ladder of human success within seven years. I have spent a lot of time reading. My only true friend is books. Books are great friends because they tell you the wisdom of the best thinkers over the past thousands of years. Any book that has survived for two thousand years has been filtered by many people, and is more likely to be correct; I want to reread these books. The fact is, I read not for self-improvement. I read out of curiosity and interest. The best book is the one that captivates you.
11. Do Things for Your Own Goals
I truly want to do things for my own goals. Whether it’s business, fitness, romance, friendship, or anything else, I believe the meaning of life is to do things for your own goals. When you do things for yourself, you create your best work. Even if you do these things to make money, you will actually be the most successful. Follow your true curiosity, not the current hot trends. If your curiosity leads you to where society will eventually go, you will receive rich rewards. When you are dating, there is a moment you realize that relationship won’t lead to marriage, you should perhaps move on. When you are learning something, such as geography or history, and you realize you will never use that information, drop that course. That is wasting time. That is wasting brainpower.
12. Become a Better Decision-Maker Overall
Become a better decision-maker overall. Decision-making is everything. Yes. Decision-making is everything. In fact, someone who makes correct decisions 80% of the time instead of 70% will have value and compensation in the market hundreds of times higher. I think people find it difficult to grasp a basic fact of leverage. If I manage $1 billion, and I am often 10% more correct than others, my decisions can bring in $100 million in value in a single judgment. With modern technology, massive labor, and capital, the multiplier of our decisions is getting higher and higher. If I face a difficult choice, such as these questions: Should I marry this person? Should I take this job? Should I buy this house? Should I move to this city? Should I partner with this person in business? If you cannot decide, answer no. The reason is that modern society is full of choices. There are so many choices. We live on a planet with 7 billion people, and we can connect with everyone through the internet. There are hundreds of thousands of professions for you to choose from. There are so many choices. When you choose certain things, you are locked in for a very long time. Starting a business might take 10 years. Starting a relationship might take 5 years or more. Moving to a city might take 10 to 20 years. These are all decisions with very, very long-term impacts. We only say “yes” when we are very certain. You can never be absolutely certain, but you must be very confident. If you have two choices, and they are relatively equal, then choose the path that is more difficult and more painful in the short term. The reality is that one path requires short-term pain. The other path will feel pain further down the line. However, your brain tries to avoid conflict by trying to avoid short-term pain. By definition, if two choices are similar, and one has short-term pain, then this choice is related to long-term gain. According to the law of compounding, long-term gain is what you want. Your brain overvalues short-term happiness and tries to avoid short-term pain. Caffeine is another thing that trades long-term consequences for short-term benefits. Essentially, you must replace the bad habits you unconsciously cultivate with good habits throughout your life, committing to become a happier person.
13. On Happiness
Confucius said that a person has two lives, and the second life begins when you realize that life is only one. So, when and how does your second life begin? (Confucius said: I never said that.) I read a quote by Blaise Pascal. It roughly means: “All of humanity’s unhappiness is because they cannot sit quietly in their rooms.” If you sit for 30 minutes and feel happy, you have succeeded. This is a very high state, but few people achieve it. The core skill you must learn is to be content and go with the flow in most situations. You can get almost anything you want from life, as long as it is what you want the most. The first rule of handling conflict is: don’t be with people who frequently cause conflict. I am not interested in things that are unsustainable or difficult to sustain, including relationships full of problems.
14. The Top Priority of Life
The top priority of my life, above my happiness, above my family, above my work, is my own health. First is my physical health. Second is my mental health. Third is my spiritual health. After that is my family’s health. After that is my family’s happiness. After that, I can do anything else in the world that I need to do. Basically, whenever you recommend a good habit to someone, they will find an excuse for themselves, and the most common excuse is usually, “I don’t have time.” When you hear this, you know they are saying, “This is not a high-priority item.” If something is your top priority, you will do it. That is how life works. If you have 10 to 15 vague and non-urgent items, you will ultimately not do any of them. What I do is decide that the top priority in my life, above my happiness, above my family, above my work, is my health. My physical health has become my top priority, so I can never say I don’t have time. In the morning, I exercise, no matter how long it takes, I insist on exercising. If I haven’t finished exercising, I won’t start the day’s work. I don’t care if the world is collapsing and melting; it can wait another 30 minutes until I finish exercising. Just like other things in life, if you are willing to make short-term sacrifices, you will have long-term benefits. “Easy choice, difficult life. Difficult choice, easy life.”
15. Don’t Fight Your Own Thoughts
Don’t over-identify with yourself. You are just a monkey with a plan. Don’t make any decisions, don’t make any judgments; just accept everything. If I walk and do this for ten to fifteen minutes, I enter a very calm, grateful state. Non-judgmental awareness is very useful to me. Another method I learned is to sit there, close my eyes, for at least an hour every day. You surrender to whatever happens—without effort. You don’t strive to do certain things, nor do you strive to oppose certain things. If thoughts flow through your mind, you flow with those thoughts. “If a thought comes, a thought comes. I don’t fight it. I don’t embrace it. I don’t think about it. I don’t reject it. I just sit there with my eyes closed for an hour, doing nothing.” This is a state of happiness, bliss, and tranquility. Once you have it, you don’t want to give it up. If you can gain an hour of happy freedom time just by sitting with your eyes closed every morning, that is priceless. It will change your life. All you have to do is sit there and do nothing. Just sit down. Close your eyes and say, “I just want to rest for an hour. This is an hour away from life, an hour where I do nothing.”
16. Let Consciousness and Mind Be in Harmony
Buddhists talk about consciousness and the self; they truly treat your brain as a multi-layered mechanism: a core-level operating system is running, and then there are some applications running on top of it. I am returning to the operating system of my consciousness layer, which is always calm, always peaceful, usually happy and satisfied. I try to maintain this state instead of activating the monkey mind (referring to the uncontrollable mind below the level of consciousness). The monkey mind is always worried, fearful, and anxious; it has incredible power, but I try not to activate it until I need it. If I run it non-stop for 24 hours, I will waste energy, and the monkey mind will become me; I am more important than my monkey mind. The mind itself is a muscle—it can be trained and regulated, but it has been haphazardly trained by society into a form that we cannot control. If you examine your mind with consciousness and intention, I think you can extract your thoughts, emotions, ideas, and reactions, and then you can start resetting them. You can rewrite this program according to your will.
17. How to Define Wisdom?
A person understands the long-term consequences of what they do.