How to Maintain Financial Prosperity

People with flexible mindsets often jump into business, hoping to build capital quickly. While honesty and diligence can ultimately bring wealth, a friend of mine turned out to be a different case.

He dreamed of starting a business while still in school, and within three years of entering the market he was turning a decent profit. However, judging from his facial features—a flat forehead and hollow cheeks—it seemed unlikely he would hold on to wealth. He also lacked a pronounced philtrum, a sign of weak fortune. Taken together, it pointed to financial leakage and instability. I urged him more than once to prioritize stability, avoid risky moves, and focus on managing and accumulating his money, but he was riding high at the time and didn’t take my advice seriously.

Two years later, when I saw him again after a long gap, his cheeks were sunken and his jaw looked gaunt. He had recently suffered heavy losses, yet he still showed no restraint—he kept gambling and even raised his bets.

In effect, he had been depleting his fortune from the day he started his business. On the surface he made some money, but later he lost even more—turning his fortune into cash and then rapidly draining it through his own behavior. After ten years, what would he have left to build on?

At its core, business is about making sound calculations. The more wealth you acquire, the more you should use it to strengthen your foundations and resolve underlying issues. As long as fortune remains, money will follow. But once fortune is lost, it’s unrealistic to expect great wealth.