The Essence of the 35-Year-Old Crisis: Becoming Friends with Time

This year, I turned 35. Last month, I had a reunion with my college friends, and it was quite an eye-opener. Everyone talked about their business troubles, life struggles, and so on. Maybe this is what they call the 35-year-old crisis.

It made me think deeply about the nature of this crisis, about making quick money, and about how to achieve success.

We live in an era full of uncertainties. The global economy is constantly fluctuating, and new technologies like AI, new energy, and robotics are emerging rapidly. The world is becoming increasingly unfamiliar.

When faced with an unfamiliar world, our natural response is to return to a familiar one to seek safety. This is normal. We all want to "find certainty." But perhaps more importantly, we need to "become certainty" ourselves. I hope these thoughts can help you find your own certainty.

First

The 35-Year-Old Crisis: You Are Not Friends with Time

1. In recent years, many people feel that making money has become increasingly difficult. Why is that? Let me share a formula with you: Growth = Personal Ability + Track × Environment + Unexpected Events.
2. When "personal ability" is the main factor, we say, "You must work hard to improve yourself." When "track" is the main factor, we say, "Choice matters more than effort." When "environment" is the main factor, we say, "The times are an unbeatable opponent." When "unexpected events" are the main factor, we say, "Do your best and leave the rest to fate." Growth is uncertain because these four factors are uncertain.
3. If one person feels that making money is tough, it could be because they are not competent enough, they made poor choices, or it’s simply fate. But when many people feel the same, it likely indicates that the environment is becoming a significant challenge for many.
4. Data also shows this to be true. The environment has undergone significant changes. In the past, we were constantly catching up. When we were ranked globally in the tens, "catching up" had a late-mover advantage and was very fast. But when we caught up to the second place globally, the gap became smaller, but the efficiency of catching up inevitably decreased.
5. What should we do? At least, some variables are still within our control, such as the track. How to choose a track has many standards. One of them is a quote from Luo Zhenyu: "Be friends with time."
6. Being friends with time means that as time goes on, your value increases day by day. For example, entering the elderly care industry, the market will always get bigger. For doctors and lawyers, as time increases, their experience accumulates. For self-media, as time goes on, you will have more influence in a particular field.
7. Are there tracks that are not friends with time? Quite a few. For example, for workers, software programming is not a friend of time. Programming languages change rapidly, requiring frequent updates to knowledge, but human learning ability declines over time, so your value also decreases over time. Another example is idol actors; their value diminishes as they age.
8. If you find things that genuinely increase in value over time, then for you, there is no 35-year-old crisis. The essence of the 35-year-old crisis is that you entered a track that is not friends with time. So at 35, time chooses to part ways with you. By leveraging time and doing things that are genuinely valuable, you can gradually build your own moat. Yes, a moat. Only by building a moat can you ensure your long-term scarcity.

Second

Align with Trends, Root in Value

1. Many people think making money is about being more professional. But often, making money starts with scarcity, not professionalism. For example, scalpers can make a lot of money on the night of a concert because of scarcity.
2. However, after scarcity, you cannot guarantee continuous scarcity. When everyone realizes the supply-demand imbalance, numerous formal institutions and companies will rush in. As a small entrepreneur or a tree-hugging scalper, you have no chance if you rely solely on scarcity and no competition.
3. Not all businesses can become a career. How to turn a business into a career? Align with trends but root in value. Aligning with trends means finding the dividends and becoming the scarce party. Rooting in value means genuinely helping clients solve their problems.
4. For example, continuously finding leading companies in various industries, helping them shift from traditional marketing to video channels, doing content marketing, conversion, and customer acquisition. From strategic planning to execution, getting results. When the client’s scale is large enough, your help multiplied by their scale will yield greater results. From to C to to B, continually find more valuable people, solve more valuable problems, and keep finding more valuable problems.
5. Only by genuinely helping clients solve their problems can you avoid being eliminated when the dividends fade. This is what it means to root in value. Few people can start by doing scarce, valuable, and moat-building things. For many young people, to achieve great success, you usually have to start with dividends. But after leveraging dividends, whether you can quickly build your own moat and stay at the table is the difference between "business" and "career."

Third

Everyone Has a Chance to Succeed: It's Called Persistence

1. Many people want to succeed "immediately." Making a month's salary in three days or a lifetime's income in two years is not impossible, but it often requires a rare combination of personal ability, track, environment, and unexpected events.
2. In my view, there are roughly three types of people who can succeed: the smart ones, the lucky ones, and the persistent ones. If you are not the smartest or don't want to rely on luck, the only thing you can depend on is finding a broadly correct direction and sticking to it.
3. Broadly correct means it has value and can appreciate over time. Nothing can be judged absolutely correct beforehand. If the direction is broadly correct, stick to it and do it.
4. Many people want to analyze the pros and cons and make a plan before taking action. But often, stubborn persistence might make you more scarce. However, persistence in broadly correct things and making immediate money can sometimes be contradictory. What to do then?

Fourth

For Long-Term Broad Correctness, Don't Make Quick Money

1. Compared to long-term broad correctness, more people choose the immediate cash flow. This is normal because people need to eat, and teams need salaries to survive. But doing so might deviate from persistence, which is not good in the long run.
2. What to do? It requires you not to build excessive costs at each stage. If your costs are based on 5 million revenue, but your actual revenue is only 3 million, you will inevitably think about making another 2 million.
3. This state is called "granular storage." You are always thinking about picking up every grain of wheat on the ground to fill the granary. But to fill the granary, you probably need to cultivate new land. Only by sowing new seeds in spring can you harvest more wheat in autumn.
4. Therefore, for long-term broad correctness, sometimes you really can't make quick money. For example, doing consulting but not door-to-door selling. Accumulate momentum through articles, lectures, and spreading your influence rather than doing door-to-door selling. Although slow and clumsy, it will get better with time.

Fifth (Final Words)

Vision

1. What is vision? Vision is about how large a space and time frame you are willing to trade with the world. Are you only willing to trade with a couple of people or with the entire world? Are you willing to give value today and harvest today, or are you willing to wait a lifetime for the harvest?
2. If you are willing to trade with the entire world and wait a lifetime for the harvest, the world becomes a large bank for you. Even in adversity, you won't panic but consistently give value. Every time you give value, it's like depositing money in this large bank. Eventually, the world will be filled with your interest.
3. As Lu Renyu said in his livestream: "In adversity, deposit money; the interest is in the world." How true this is. Persist in giving value, persist in doing broadly correct things. One day, you will find that time has indeed become your friend. Every bit of value you give out will yield tenfold returns, with interest everywhere.
4. Just like Hu Shi wrote in his letter： "The money I lend out, I never expect to be repaid. Because the money I lend out always yields tenfold returns, with interest everywhere in the world."

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